Get a Little Mad

I love how productive I can be after I've gotten a little mad in the morning.

Not the type of mad that's caused by bad things happening, per se.

But instead, just a little ticked off that I'm lacking focus and need to dial it in.

For example:

Earlier this week, I repeatedly let small tasks interfere with the deep work time that I allotted for an important project (Cal Newport pleads us to recognize that we are incapable of 'context switching' aka multi-tasking).

Then, the next morning, I was peeved that a fellow gym goer hadn't cleaned a bunch of equipment that he had just used.

Obviously, dirty equipment isn't that big of a deal, but since it's not something that normally annoys me, I had to think about what the issue was.

Well, it was my lack of focus the day prior!

What I'm driving towards is this idea that there's value in getting out into the world, latching onto something that irritates you, and then channeling that frustration into making progress in life.

Is that something that we all know? Pretty much.

But most of us let irritations repeat themselves, ignoring their root cause and certainly not using them to our advantage in a way that becomes habitual.

This week, via an annoyance of dirty equipment, my future self reminded me that our window to work on hard, new things every day is sacred and relatively brief.

Never be content with distractions, and try getting a little mad to see if it helps you make the adjustments that matter.