GSD Field Note 2 – The Lie of “When Things Settle Down”
I’ve noticed how often I would say it… “Once things settle down, I’ll get to that.”
It sounds reasonable. Like I’m being patient. Like I’ve thought it through and I’m just waiting for the right window.
But the more I pay attention, the more I realize… things don’t really settle down.
They just change.
Work shifts. New priorities show up. Something unexpected always finds its way onto the list. Life doesn’t pause and create a clean, quiet space for you to finally start the thing you’ve been putting off.
It just keeps moving.
And if I’m waiting for calm, I might be waiting forever.
That’s the part that’s a bit uncomfortable to admit. But it’s also where things start to open up.
Because if life isn’t going to slow down for me… then maybe I don’t need it to.
Maybe I just need to learn how to start in the middle of it.
Not with a perfect plan. Not with a full day blocked off. Just with what’s actually available.
A short window. A bit of energy. A small step.
I’ve started to notice that most progress doesn’t come from big, uninterrupted stretches of time. It comes from using the time that’s already there – the in-between moments that are easy to overlook.
That idea connects closely to something I wrote about in Everything You Need Is Already Around You – that we’re often not under-equipped, just under-aware.
We tend to underestimate what we already have because it doesn’t feel like enough.
But it is.
It just doesn’t look like what we expected.
So instead of waiting for things to settle down, I’m starting to think the better move is to begin right in the middle of how life actually is.
Messy. Full. A bit unpredictable.
Because that part isn’t going anywhere.
If this hit, there’s more like it in Time to GSD (Get Sht Done)* — built for moments exactly like this.