Doing that one critical thing

Tuesday morning, sitting at my desk.

“Morning,” my desk neighbor sits down in his chair.

Sighs.

“How are you?” I ask him.

“Good. You?”

“Good.”

I plug in my earphones again and look back at my screen. The Mamas and The Papas. The crawling feeling in my stomach comes back, and my eyelids are heavy from a rough night’s sleep. This is gonna be one hell of a week.

“Good morning!” my boss walks into the room. He ran to work.

“Do you have a minute?”

I pull out my earphones, “huh?”

He repeats, “do you have a minute?”

I take my pen and paper and we walk into the conference room. We sit down diagonally from each other, creating the furthest distance possible between us.

Like every time.

“I need your help,” he says.

“Ok-ay.”

My mind wanders back to my screen. I rearrange my to-do list in my mind. He talks and I nod. He talks and I take notes of everything he says since I know it will help me later on trying to figure out what he wants me to do.

This is gonna be one hell of a week.

“Can you do that?” he asks.

“Uh..” I think back to my screen, “I think so.”

“Great.” We walk back towards our desks. “How are you today?” he asks.

“I’m great.”

Instead of walking back to my desk, I take a right turn heading for one of the bathrooms.

I stare in the mirror, breathing, rearranging my to-do list in my mind.

This is gonna be one hell of a week.

To do good work, you need to focus. The fewer things you do, the further you can get on the thing that really matters.

That one critical thing.

Everyone knows this.

But then reality comes in the way. Someone needs your help.

“It’ll be quick,” they say.

But time goes and you’re staring down your to-do list.

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