Work like you are being watched

“I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.”
Paulo Coelho

Today I’ve done my fourth live stream session, and I must say I love it. Being able to sit for a couple of hours working on my side projects and sharing it with everyone is a lot of fun.

But most importantly, I’ve realized a few things that I wanted to share with you: since I’m aware that I’m either being watched at the moment or that somebody might see the video later, I’m much more focused. But not focused as in “not watching YouTube videos while I should be working”: I’m more focused in the sense of sitting with discomfort for longer.

Have you ever noticed how you reach for your phone, or any other source of distraction, as soon as you face some difficulty at the work that’s in front of you? Feeling the pressure of being live, and not wanting to stall things for the watcher, you just keep on pushing through that discomfort.

I feel like I’m able to get into that “deep work” flow much quickly when streaming: two hours just fly by super quick, even if I’m always aiming to do a shorter session (around one hour) time just flows differently.

How would it feel if you did your work every day like you were streaming it in front of an audience? Don’t get me wrong, not in a big brother kind of way: you still can hide your screen from time to time, and take as many breaks as you need. But when you’re present, you are fully there: you are not ignoring your audience.

Is it possible that we are ignoring the most important member of our audience every day? We are ignoring a part of ourselves: the part that sits there with us and supports us while we do the work. The part that celebrates with pride when we’ve accomplished something. The part that tells you to try again tomorrow when you’ve done your best, and you haven’t yet accomplished whatever goal you’ve set for yourself.

Work like you’re being watched, because you are watching yourself. You are the protagonist, the director, and the audience. Create the story you deserve experiencing.

Make it happen today.

Thanks for reading 🙏