Beware Quicksand!
When I was a kid, I thought there was an extremely good chance I would find myself in quicksand at some point. I made sure I knew what to do on such an occasion and was always very careful not to step into boggy/swampy places unless I saw a branch nearby or some other means of pulling myself out. I’m not sure why the whole “beware Quicksand!’ thing was so prominent in my mind, but it probably had to do with TV and movies.
Modern Quicksand
While I didn’t ever find myself sinking into actual quicksand, I have begun to notice that there are quite a few modern quicksands, metaphorically speaking. What I mean by that is those things that suddenly suck up your time and bog you down. Often, this kind of “quicksand” isn’t nearly as easy to identify nor extricate yourself from. And really, the hardest part about them is that they are unique to the individual. For example, when I am on a mission to focus on a task, I suddenly notice some clutter, or something that needs to be cleaned up. Pretty soon, I’m moving from one cleaning sidequest to another. By the time I look up – I’ve been putzing away hours doing things during my peak focus time and now I’m too tired mentally to work on the thing I was supposed to. Modern quicksand.
The Terrible Time Suck
Modern quicksand is anything that is a terrible time suck. It could be checking my email and then migrating for a “second” onto social media. It could even be researching  – not researching something for my project, but another sidequest rabbit hole I find myself tumbling down. Sometimes it’s others-centered. I’m confronted with a problem that needs to be solved and I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to solve it all while putting my own project on the back burner. Sometimes, I wasn’t even asked to solve it – my brain just jumps right into that modern quicksand I’m suddenly up to my neck in something I could have walked right by!
Mental Quicksand
The worst by far is mental quicksand. At least with the puttering or researching or side questing there are some obvious signs of completed work. Mental quicksand provides no such semblance of productivity. My mind has just wandered, churned, and twisted so often that I come to having completed nothing of substance at all. Obviously, this doesn’t happen all the time but it happens enough for me to have named it. The end result is that I make a mad dash looking for tasks to complete quickly so that I can not feel like I did nothing at all during my allotted time.
But the upshot of all of these modern quicksands is that they have kept me from my purpose.
How I Avoid Modern Quicksand
- Alarms  – Perhaps it’s because so much of my formative years were ruled by bells, phone alarms often alert me to having gone off track. In fact, my family gets annoyed with all my phone alarms.
- Eliminate distractions – Â Since so many of my modern quicksand encounters center around things I notice or that vie for my attention, I’ve realized that sometimes it’s better to avoid them altogether. If it’s heavy thinking or writing work – I go to the library or public space where I can work without the home stuff being in my face.
- Know my peak times – I know what time of day I do my best work and blocking distractions during that time helps me to get a lot done in a very short time.
- To Do List or Schedule – I always have a To Do List and often a schedule also. They help me stay on track… as long as I follow them! If I’m behind because I got distracted, I confess I will add the things I did instead of what I was supposed to do to the bottom of my list and then cross them out just to give me a bit of motivation to complete the rest of the list.
What kinds of things keep you from your purpose? How do you combat them?
“To everything there is a season…” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
