I have a home-printed sign on the wall above my computer monitor. It says: Sine Qua Non, which translates from Latin as “without this . . . nothing.” In other words, if something in your life is sine qua non, it means it is essential, vital, required, necessary. You have to have that before you can get whatever is next.
I recently discovered a surprising sine qua non in my life. It’s doing the writing job ahead of me. I spent much of last week unfocused. Yes, I compiled my daily "to do" list, prioritized it and started working through. But each day produced less than the one before.
That’s when it hit me.
I was supposed to be rewriting the musical The Dancing Princess after a first rewrite followed our table read last spring. I even had a new deadline for an exciting submission possibility that I will write about when I can. But I put it off. (See last week's post “Thanks for Nothing Saul Bellow.”)
Then one day I didn’t put it off. I dove in. It went . . . hard at first then great. A couple of rough spots—that had kept me away—got resolved. I finished the rewrite in a few days.
But what I discovered is that by doing the thing I was putting off, I also returned to productivity in almost every other thing I was doing and that includes creative projects, paid writing, personal matters . . . everything.
Is there a sine qua non that’s keeping you from being as productive as you want to be? (And I know you want to be.) Just look at your “to do” list. If there's something you’ve been putting off it’s likely gumming up all your works.
OK. That’s it, and that’s enough.
I recently discovered a surprising sine qua non in my life. It’s doing the writing job ahead of me. I spent much of last week unfocused. Yes, I compiled my daily "to do" list, prioritized it and started working through. But each day produced less than the one before.
That’s when it hit me.
I was supposed to be rewriting the musical The Dancing Princess after a first rewrite followed our table read last spring. I even had a new deadline for an exciting submission possibility that I will write about when I can. But I put it off. (See last week's post “Thanks for Nothing Saul Bellow.”)
Then one day I didn’t put it off. I dove in. It went . . . hard at first then great. A couple of rough spots—that had kept me away—got resolved. I finished the rewrite in a few days.
But what I discovered is that by doing the thing I was putting off, I also returned to productivity in almost every other thing I was doing and that includes creative projects, paid writing, personal matters . . . everything.
Is there a sine qua non that’s keeping you from being as productive as you want to be? (And I know you want to be.) Just look at your “to do” list. If there's something you’ve been putting off it’s likely gumming up all your works.
OK. That’s it, and that’s enough.
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