Yesterday, a day “off,” I elected to reorganize my office. REALLY reorganize it. I should be able to reach out and have precisely the right tool to do whatever I want with zero friction.

So I emptied every drawer and shelf.

I am in the in-between now: The Lonesome Valley.

This is the problem with changes/improvements to calcified layers of standard operating procedure: Even if what you’re currently doing is really not working, once you enter The Lonesome Valley, everything you know is thrown out and you’re overwhelmed.

In The Lonesome Valley, you don’t know where anything goes. Every item you come across raises a hundred questions you aren’t prepared to answer yet. Everything is out of context, familiar but starting from scratch.

It doesn’t help that every single step I get stuck on one thing that I just know I have but seem to be missing. This could be an attention deficit thing but more likely it’s just a way of clinging to something/anything solid, known, decided upon.

The way I’m dealing with this reorganization right now is by writing down what I intend to do on paper. This drawer is for this kind of item. This area is for this kind of activity.

Really hoping I can feel some progress in the next couple of hours.

While others can be supportive, The Lonesome Valley is something you will need to walk alone.

No one can tell you how much you’ll need to give up in order for your current patterns to achieve escape velocity and be free to reorient themselves to a new gravitational alignment.

Related: No one can tell you just how much you’ll need to slow down the guitar notes to where YOU can’t even recognize them as part of that song you play (with bad habits) anymore.

I leave you with some of the only known footage of a true legend: