Mastodawn

David Smith Jan 10, 2025

The transition back into working life after a break I always find challenging, so over the years I've developed a handful of "tricks" to help me get moving again.

One of which is my "Accomplish *One* Thing" rule, which helps me to start building up my working inertia again.

I wrote up my approach here in the hopes that it might help anyone else staring into the wide-open expanse of work and feeling rather daunted by it.

https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2025/01/10/accomplish-one-thing/

Accomplish One Thing - David Smith, Independent iOS Developer

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Joseph Humfrey Jan 10, 2025

@_Davidsmith Love this! I’ll give it a try.

Sometimes when I have inertia issues, what’s often stopping me is that I’m simply not sure what to do next (or in this case first!), but I hadn’t yet consciously identified that as being a problem. I’m just procrastinating.

If I catch myself, and tell myself that “planning what to do next” is a useful and productive task in itself, then it feels easy, manageable, and can get me excited about task 2 😀

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David Smith

@joethephish Exactly, what I've really consistently found is that it really doesn't matter what the first task is, just that it is _something_ to get moving again. Early into a cycle it is the movement that has the utility rather than the actual outcome of the task.