There I was, end of the day, all care-giving and house duties completed. I pulled the Gibson Firebird out of the case, turned on the amp and plugged in. Scrolled down my playlist for a backing track and dug in. It was a slow blues and my fingers knew where to go. It was a nice quiet moment, before bedtime. The music sounded good. This is sometimes my nightly ritual. It sounded better tonight than usual.
It made me think of my journey. The difference time makes when you focus on one thing and practice. When it comes to productivity, I am the undisputed king of accomplishing low-hanging fruit. If there is a quick email to send, a minor typo to fix, or a superficial task that offers an instant hit of dopamine upon completion, I am all over it. While clearing out these easy, accessible wins keeps my momentum high and my to-do list shrinking, it is also a lighthearted confession. It means I excel at gathering the berries on the bottom branches, occasionally using those quick victories to delay the heavy lifting required for the bigger, more complex projects waiting at the top of the tree.
There is so much more to learn. Going to work on my Funk rhythm playing next. I have to get some chord knowledge under my belt first. According to Google:
To break the habit of chasing easy wins, I need to intentionally re-engineer my workday to prioritize high-impact projects. This starts with adopting the “Eat the Frog” rule—allocating the first 60 to 90 minutes of my morning exclusively to deep, complex work before opening my email or checking chat notifications. To prevent my brain from taking the path of least resistance, I will separate my daily schedule into two distinct lists: a Deep Work list containing a maximum of one or two major objectives, and a Batched Admin list reserved for low-hanging fruit. I will also lower the psychological barrier to starting large projects by breaking them down into micro-steps, turning overwhelming tasks into bite-sized milestones. Finally, I will treat my quick, administrative tasks as a reward, blocking out a strict 30-minute window at the very end of the afternoon to blast through them when my creative energy is spent.
I will let you know if that works for me. Here was last night’s blues session. https://youtube.com/shorts/nVAXfpuCA6Y?si=GDrMk-1uVck7Tl-R