Hey  <<First Name>>, 
 

Yesterday I looked at my project list, taking care to make sure I met my hour goals for each project I am working on. I turned on my computer, started my favorite video game music playlist on Youtube (still the best thing I’ve found to help me focus), and tried to ignore the aching feeling creeping across my forehead. 

I answered emails and rubbed my temples. I must need tea, I thought. I made myself a cup of green tea and took it to the back porch. I took several deep breaths and went back to the computer. 

The aching spread down to my sinuses and the back of my neck. By the time I shot off my last email for the day, I had curled up on my bed and turned out the lights. An hour later, the aching became a full-blown migraine, and a lost day of work. 

When I wrote this piece about how creatives should multitask, it was a bit of a misnomer. It was really about how to juggle multiple projects, and how to make time to give each one a singular focus. I mentioned that if you are working full-time or already highly committed in some other way, you should focus on one highly-challenging project, a Career Breakthrough Project. What I didn’t include was how to do this. Or, what to do when your body has trained itself to skip the emotional and mental signs of stress and goes straight to the physical. Like a blinding migraine that makes you stop. One that reminds you that you can’t truly multitask, even if it is single-tasking multiple projects. 

How I’m Changing Course: 

• Taking an idea from this 99u piece about the 90-90-1 Principle of Creative Prioritizing. For 90 days, commit the first 90 minutes of your day to one project. If you want to keep going after 90 days, you can. If not, 90 days is plenty of time to make progress on one goal, even if you want to move on to another one. 
• Learning more about  “deep work” and flow. These are not new ideas, but it bears repeating that anything worth consuming comes from focused, uninterrupted work.
• Acknowledge the temptation to work on multiple projects, and the fear of forgetting about a great idea. Keeping a list of potential projects in Evernote has given me some comfort. It’s encouraging to note that projects I put on this list over a year ago are starting to materialize now. 
• Responding to the project that is calling to me the most. When I take a step towards the work and it seems like the work is taking one step towards me, I am paying attention to that. 
• Guilt-free connection time. Friends. Family. Former professors. Pets. I am making time for the things that make me feel like a human being.

Luckily it was just a bad headache. When life and spirit talk to me, it’s always loud and obvious. Take some time this week and allow life and spirit to talk to you.

Your Partner in Potentiality,
Chakka