It can’t be rushed. Or perhaps I should say, it shouldn’t be rushed. You know what happens when we do. We make mistakes. We overlook important details and we put the finish ahead of the process. Let us (please allow myself) to use our accumulated acumen, all that we have have caught, sometimes at great expense, into the process, our practice. Rendered down to the bare essentials of this concept we find that this gem: Do what you do, has some fine print attachments that indicate the inclusion of how we do it. That how suggests that it be done with all our attention, awareness and joyous exertion. I cannot give one hundred percent of my focus on writing a blog post, editing video, washing my car, lifting weights or playing my guitar if I am concerned about anything other than the activity with which I am currently engaged. If I need to get this post done and dusted in time to hack a set-list together for this mornings spin class, as I consider a tricky editing correction and toy with the laundry issue of a ten day bike trip, I will quickly overload the circuitry and trip a fuse.
Some people can multi-task all day without loss of quality. I am not one of them. To illustrate this point I stopped wearing a watch almost six months ago. Do I miss the habitual glance? No. Am I alarmed that it is almost August and we will soon be back to the gray drabness of Northwest winters? No. Do I rush through chores for no other reason than to check them off the to-do list? Yes. Guilty as charged.
Begging the question, does this habitual tendency impact my performance of the chore or its residual quality upon completion? Sometimes. Does it warrant a closer inspection? Absolutely.
This gets everything. Clear the desktop, move the clutter to a file, take care of the responsibilities even if you feel some need to be contested, and commit to the task at hand. Write, compose, create, practice.
The example du jour is the video project I finished two days ago. I stepped way outside normal formatting and created a new hour-long template for use with my spin classes. This created the challenge of adding almost fifteen minutes of content to the piece, which was to document our around the Olympic Peninsula cycling trip of a month ago. I had a completion target date and set out to Kung-Fu the piece together as any decent martial artist editor would, with power and precision. And fast. Bruce Lee fast. Fire breathing Dragon fast.
Last night I offered a sneak peak of the ending sequence to my neighbor, a wonderful gal whose opinions I highly regard. Remembering that I had deleted the huge project files to clear space for the current project (one that needs completion by Friday) I opened the master file and went to the start of the close. She immediately pointed out the fact that I had misspelled the name of one of the three people whom I wanted to give video credit and thank on screen.
The fire breathing Dragon torched my mojo with amazing speed. I had rushed the ending, missing the opportunity to satisfy with humility, gratitude and precision, and to end this chapter of the story in a graceful, artistic manner. Now I have to do it over. Edit. Fix. Repair.
Rush and you ruin.
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