Emotional labour.

You show up at your desk. What do you do?

One option is to see what's on your plate. Clear your inbox. Do the things that are pending. Ensure nothing is left undone.

Great. What's next? What's tomorrow?

New things show up in the inbox. New asks from other people.

Most of us spend our days like this. Over and over again.

What's missing?

Forward Motion: What are you doing today that no one is waiting for? What ideas, projects, decisions are you taking that change the game? What are you doing that's early?

Examples of forward motion:

1. Seth Godin decided to write a book, let's say, This is Strategy. No one asked him to. No one was waiting for it. He decided. That's DECISION MAKING.
2. This then became a project to ship. This included research, writing, editing, hiring others, etc. That's PROJECT WORK.
3. This also included overcoming resistance - self-doubt, perfectionism, procrastination - "who am I to write this?", "What if it doesn't work?", etc. That's EMOTIONAL LABOUR.

We can keep procrastinating emotional labour and forward motion because we always have tasks and chores to do.

But then, nothing changes.