There’s an incredible book on productivity called The War of Art. It shares a concept that became so popular it became the title of Steven Pressfield’s next book: Turning Pro.
According to Pressfield, there is life before you turn pro and life after you turn pro – and they’re completely different.
You remember where you were when Princess Diana died, or when 9/11 happened? If you’ve turned pro, you’ll remember exactly where you were the day it happened.
He’s not wrong.
I remember where I was. I was in my three-bedroom apartment in Barcelona, in the room I had converted into a study. I was sitting at my laptop, writing the first blog posts that later became the basis of my book Inside the Soul of Islam. That was December 2011.
There were two or three days in particular, between the 24th and the 26th of December, where I realised how much joy it gave me to share these concepts in writing… and I how cool it would be if one day I would get paid to write blog posts (like this one!)
So what is turning pro?
It’s the moment you decide to stop messing around and stop letting resistance – fear, procrastination, drama, distraction – beat you down. It’s the moment you decide to do the most important work you were put on earth to do.
How it shows up in practice is simple: you start your day in a powerful way, and as soon as you’ve cleared the decks, you sit down and do the work.
Another one of Pressfield’s books is literally called “Do the Work”.
And he’s right. Beating resistance and sitting down to do the work is the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do.
Not only will you be rewarded by God for the next few hours of devoted work you do – whether it’s writing a book or showing up as your best self at your day job – you’ll also notice the subtle psychological reward of having your mind fully engaged, doing what Cal Newport calls “deep work” for several hours.
This is the essence of productivity. It’s got nothing to do with Slack, email, or instant messaging. These days, we over-communicate. Half of the communication we have is about all of the actual work nobody’s doing.
When you use the Productive From Fajr methodology, you’ll get yourself into the best mental, emotional, physical and spiritual place possible to sit down, turn pro, and do the actual work.
If you’re up for that challenge, let’s go:
