First Post! (Finally!)

Last week I told a friend that if I spent half as much time completing tasks as I do researching new ways to manage my task list, I would be unstoppable. We’re all guilty of procrastinating occasionally - perhaps even often - but lately, it feels like I have taken my procrastinating to a higher, almost professional level. Procrastinating in this way requires a level of skill, focus, and determination normally only displayed by elite athletes, scientists, and cultural leaders.

I am an influencer for procrastination.

I have been putting off writing the first edition of this newsletter for at least two months, and perhaps for as many as six. This morning I awoke with a vigor and determination to get it done…and then spent the first hour at my office cleaning the coffee pot, hanging pictures, and honest-to-god shuffling papers on my desk from one pile to another without any specific goal.

Somehow, despite my nagging proclivity toward procrastination, I usually manage to get quite a lot accomplished. When I pause to examine why I am putting off doing the tasks on my to-do list, it’s always the same reason: avoiding failure. I undermine my own success by falsely believing that if I don’t start a task, then I can’t fail at it.

When I told folks about the Keep Going newsletter, I gushed that I’d built out a content calendar for the entire first year, complete with topics and sub-topics and graphics, curated a long list of truly useful gear, fashionable clothing, and helpful online tools. In fact, I’ve already drafted nearly six months’ worth of posts…but not the first one. (If you don’t start, you can’t fail, remember?)

Life will never be free of distractions, of course. We are perpetually inundated with situations and information and people who demand our attention. Your employee who has a question about paid leave, your child who wants to talk about Minecraft, the email app buzzing in your pocket, your own inner wonderings about what the weather is supposed to be like for your work trip in three weeks, the mental awareness that you haven’t exercised in more than a month. Distraction. is. relentless.

Procrastinate - but keep going.

And so, we now arrive at the inspiration for launching the Keep Going newsletter: the recognition that success is not defined by how little we procrastinate, but by how far we manage to go despite it. Life is messy and clumsy and annoying and harrowing and exhausting and and and…and we must keep going.

Keep Going is a weekly newsletter about life and how to get through it. Today it’s about procrastination, but we’ll explore all kinds of topics together. I’ll share thoughts, research, and recommendations from my own life and from the world, and my sincere hope is that this little note in your inbox encourages you, inspires you, makes you laugh, and honestly just makes both of our lives a tiny bit better.

Cheers,

Andy

Recommendations: Productivity Gear

• I’ve been using Ugmonk’s Analog productivity system for about a year, and it’s excellent…except for the price ($95). Fortunately, Mind Design has a similar system available for just $36.

• I pair that paper to-do list with a digital one. For that, I use Asana…sort of. I find that I spend too much time organizing my Asana boards at the expense of completing anything. Which is why I like to make a long, handwritten to-do list on paper and then choose a select few to put on the Analog card.

• I recently watched Maurice Moves’ video about how he uses the Traveler’s Company Travel Notebook and decided to plunge via this highly-rated (and less expensive) travel notebook. I’ll share updates here and on my YouTube channel soon.