Good morning, evening, or time of day my email finds you.
Today is a mini-lesson, so I’ll keep it brief.
Today, I have a request—a plea, even.
stop swinging
(without clear direction)
I’m just trying to keep ya safe ♥
You can golf tho; that’s not even what this lesson is about.
Stay with me—
The Problem: pendulums
You ever been to one of those museums where there’s a huge pendulum hanging from the ceiling and every few (bajillion or so) days it knocks over a peg?
FOR THOSE WHO I’VE CONFUSED:
It looks like this.
The thing about that pendulum?
It’s constantly in motion, yet produces very rare results.
Predictable? Yes. That’s a plus ✅
Optimal? Not in the least ☠
The r/oddlysatisfying thread I got that image from was literally titled “the pendulum finally knocks over the next peg” which illustrates my whole point.
It’s constantly moving, but you grow bored waiting for that to matter.
It’s so slow—
despite consistent movement—
that we jokingly celebrate when it produces a result.
We had one of these pendulums at the planetarium in my hometown.
It crossed my mind today, and gave me the visual aid I needed to explain this lesson.
A realization: you’re swinging.
you’re not as cute as that bear tho
Just like the pendulum, many of us don’t produce results you would expect from near-constant effort.
We’re swinging back and forth, but that’s about it.
According to people much better with science than myself:
A pendulum would swing indefinitely in a frictionless vacuum.
Friction (like challenges, new information, exhaustion, you name it) causes us to slow down and eventually return to our starting point.
The pendulum in the museum eventually stops swinging.
(thanks to gravity and other forces I should really take a Physics 101 refresher to understand.)
You eventually get off the swing.
No matter how much fun we have, when we’re done, we end up in the same place as we hop off that swing.
A realization (part 2): you lack direction
I said what I said.
My beef with pendulums—and the idea of swinging—today is that they lack direction.
It’s like trying to ride your bike to a friend’s house, only to realize you’ve put in 10 miles of effort…but you were on a stationary exercise bike the whole time.
In life, we often move towards goals like we’re swinging.
DISCLAIMER: WE DON’T SWING LIKE SPIDERMAN, EFFICIENT AND TARGETED
(if only)
Our swinging is more like:
“Okay, today I’m going all in on my health and meal prepping for the whole week.”
“Ooooop, in all that haste to cook, I forgot to wash my work uniform.”
*pivots to slide over to laundry room
Context switching is not the enemy, but it is arduous.
We sit down to do a task with no firm direction.
We start.
Then we swing to something else.
Then back to the task.
By lunch, we’re 5 hours tired, but 2 hours accomplished in real, tangible results.
Like the pendulum, we’ve been mobile for hours, yet all we have to show for it is 1 peg.
Swinging like a pendulum is fine if you’re knocking down the pegs, BUT—
if your goals involve other people, it leads to a lot of unnecessary headache.
Remember how I told you friction is what causes pendulums to slow down and stop swinging?
People are your friction when you are collaborating on work.
Example: you have 300 days to complete a project
Option 1: you swing back and forth between steps
you make small steps, spread across each part of the goal
very 5-6 days, your fellow project members are asking for an update
“I’m working on it,” you say, and that’s true…but they get doubtful
you reach tangible progress (your “pegs”) every ~50 days or so
people continue to grow their concern about hitting the deadline
you’re taking time every week to craft updates to assure them the project is on track
you reach the goal in 300 days
Option 2: you set clear direction with assigned milestones
you break goals into smaller accomplishments
every 5-6 days, you have a little “peg” to celebrate
you communicated these goals at the beginning of your work
you track this consistent, frequent progress on a shared visual dashboard
everyone is confident about hitting the deadline
you save time explaining yourself and replace those meetings with getting more tasks done
you reach the goal in 278 days, and nobody lost sleep over it along the way
Both outcomes are “successful” in reaching their goal.
One is clearly better than the other.
The Solution: “add a stop”
on the proverbial project GPS
🙋: “Uhhh, business Mom, you’re confusing me with these different metaphors. Golf, playgrounds, ??Spider-Man??, pendulums, GPS…”
💁🏻♀️: “Swinging back and forth with no clear direction really is exhausting, huh?”
AHEM 😮💨
Before we reach 1000 words and my mini-lesson claim becomes false, let me just share this solution quickly, with clear direction.
The solution to aimless “swinging” in all forms is simple.
Set defined, measurable goals.
Create multiple milestones that prove progress towards completion.
AKA your “pegs” in the pendulum metaphor
these milestones communicate progress— less meetings/explanation
Do all of this 👆 ahead of time, before starting.
Communicate (and review the plan) with anyone invested in those goals.
When you sit down to work towards each milestone, really focus
avoid random desires to start other milestones
remember to keep proactively communicating along the way
CELEBRATE, because you did it… and like Daniel said, you Did It Well.
🗣 “HEY SIRI, play ‘Do It Well’ by DVSN on full volume.”
until next week ✌
release something you’ve been too hard on yourself about
call 1 person you’re overdue to catch up with
& consider the source before you let someone’s comment ruin your day 💁🏻♀️
fin 🤌✨
Let it (your tasks) go
Click here to see how I helped ABx2’s magical client Elsa support her youth center with a team of Super AI Agents.