The One Big Thing – The Climb #906

Monday 16th August 2021

Today was my first day back after a mini break. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that after all the hassle getting my Twitter back only to then have issues fixing the PC – and hence stopping me launching the new projects I want to do – I just burnt up whatever mental fortitude I had left in the tank.

On the plus side, I’ve got someone having a look at it while I’m away at Fightcamp.

I also got a ton of stuff done today. Not only was there some catching up on some of the admin that got left over the last couple of days, but I also got my normal Monday tasks done. I even found time to do a little writing, though the scene I wrote feels identical to one I wrote a few weeks ago. Still words is words and this can all be fixed in the edits.

I still have a mountain of tasks to do, some of them now old enough to start annoying me. As I worked today I listened to an interview on productivity and got a good piece of advice to take away. The idea is that each day there’s that ONE thing that needs to get done each day. Everything else can fail, but as long as that ONE thing gets done, the day can be considered a success.

I’m not sure that will work with me but I’m going to give it a go and see if it helps move big projects along. Certainly, asking myself what the minimum I can do to move something along has been very helpful with projects that have stalled, but this new productivity tool will be interesting to experiment with. If I complete it and nothing else, will I just stress about the regular daily tasks that didn’t get done? If I don’t complete it, will I feel shitty with myself?

The only way I’m going to know is to try it. For some time I’ve had it so that my weeks have a focus and that’s proved helpful in keeping me on target with a few things. Moving that to a daily focus will be interesting to say the least.

I have a few tasks I want to get done before I go to Fightcamp, so I’m going to use it on those and see how we go.

And, whilst it was only a small part of my day, because it’s really got me thinking and could have a real influence on The Accursed, I have to add that the scenes coming out of Afghanistan really impacted me today. Seeing people flee in panic, trying to board planes, made me really think how changes in my imagined world might be viewed. The plot doesn’t currently ask for anything quite as apocalyptic as the news today, but I do have institutions being changed in this latest scene and as a result, I am wondering if that would cause a panic. I love a good fictional disaster or the crumbling of empires. The news is a little more unsettling. Imagine being so desperate that you’d cling to the side of an aircraft as it took flight? Horrific.

But I mention it because I do think this will have an impact on later scenes. Whereas in the plot, changes in power were accepted, and status quos maintained… I like the idea of people fleeing, of mass panic, of the change having ramifications. I’m likely to incorporate this, even if it is a background detail.

But tomorrow, the focus is going to be finish off a piece of longstanding work. Will be interesting to see how well I do,