First, for simple tasks—things that have less than five steps to them—I just make a decision and do them the same way every time. My keys go in the same spot every single day. Even if I forget to put them in and find them in my pocket upstairs, I go back downstairs and put them in the silver dish. The simple task system extends to everything with

I have since come to believe that the true definition of “procrastination” is “assuming I will be less stupid and lazy tomorrow than I am today.”

I STARTED TO UNDERSTAND THAT ALL OF THE SUCCESS I SAW AROUND ME WAS THE EDITED VERSION OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.

So taking the experimental mindset, I decided to test out a new theory. First, I would start assuming I was good and had my heart in the right place, instead of a rickety monster that had to be held in check and put on a tight leash. Second, anything I did that was bad or wrong or unhealthy, I would just tell myself it was a layer of plaster on

What if I started letting go a little bit and trusting what was inside of me without expecting a slap on the back or a check?

The truth is, we don’t care about the ten thousand failures. We need a light bulb and need the one thing that worked. A book filled with twenty tips that don’t work would not sell very well. We want the twenty tips that do work. You can keep the thousand that don’t.

I started thinking back through the previous months to the phone calls I did actually make. What were different about those calls? Was there some kind of element at play for those phone calls that got me to actually pick up the phone? I realized that anytime I had scheduled a phone call at a certain day and time, I would make the call. My shame of

Always find the direct route. Look for the shortest path between A—where you are—and B—where you want to be. I tend to fill my problems with unneeded complexity and junk that just takes up space. Most problems don’t need an elaborate solution. Most problems are simple.

You see how Steven Pressfield’s conception of Resistance is starting to build a wall around this “book” idea? Something very pure and good (helping other people) starts to get loaded with a whole bunch of stuff that’s really all about “me.” And that’s good too, don’t get me wrong. Because writing a book is very much about “me” too. If it weren’t,