It might seem as though I’m a little bit absent at the moment – on here, on Instagram, on Youtube, on Twitter, if anyone actually still uses Twitter – and that’s not because I’ve been out in the garden, basking in the sun. It’s because I have my head down trying to follow my own advice and just do one thing.
Full disclosure: it isn’t actually my own advice, it’s the advice of Gary Keller in his book The One Thing, but it’s a rule that I’ve tried to live by since skim-reading the first few chapters and then getting a bit bored. The gist of the book is that by deciding on one thing to focus on for a set amount of time and ignoring all other distractions, you’ll get more done. And with your One Thing you can be really specific; write a letter to the council about the new bins, clean the downstairs loo, finish the final eight chapters of a novel, work out the end four bars of the piano concerto you’ve composed, make the week’s meal plans, find the missing handle from the kitchen drawers. Any of the above, but not all of them. That is the point. Pick one and do nothing else. Do not deviate from plan, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pounds and then log into ASOS to see whether that floral shirt dress you like has gone into the sale. (Cue five hours building yourself a new fantasy capsule wardrobe.) Reading back through my own blog posts I see that I’ve written about The One Thing be...