Writing-wise, I’m stuck. I’ve been stuck. Hot, nasty summer day and the nearly-expired flies caught in dangling sticky paper are like, “at least we’re not as fucked as that poor sod.”

I mentioned the gist...oh, six months ago. That's a solid turnover rate for sub-1000-word blog posts, right? Right!?

There’s only been one strategy that has helped me keep making progress, which I’ll circle back to momentarily.

For those of you that don’t know me personally, I’m a creature of intense focus; made fun of and called “horse blinders” kind of intense.

Steve the monkey from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs yelling “FOCUSED!” focus.

Lying back in bed bobblehead-following a single ceiling fan focus.

You get me.

The problem with this seeming humble brag, is that if I’m not *ON*, then I’m basically a snail’s fart from useless.

And. It gets worse the closer I am to burnout. And! Because supermaxfocus uses more energy than sensiblefocus, I burn out faster than your average bear.

It’s awesome.

But, to carry on with the bit a little longer, and to shamelessly flatter myself with the comparison, imagine a jungle leopard trying to snag a monkey for lunch. There’s about fifteen of the buggers cavorting amongst the branches, doing their monkey stuff. Hollering, picking grubs off each other, eating gummy bears.

Does this hungry leopard try and catch all of them? Does he even notice all of them? No, he’s zeroed in on just one. He slinks about in the bushes, whiskers all twitchy. Probably even wiggles his butt a bit before going in for the pounce and chomp. Cat factory settings.

If the leopard tried to focus on all of the monkeys, leaving his options open 'til the last second, he’d starve. This is something mother cats of all stripes and spots teach their cubs: home in on one target and ignore all others. Cats are rarely successful on their first go as it is. More symbolism, t’would seem.

So...that one bit of usefulness for me?

Leopards don’t multi-task.^[1]

That’s the only thing that’s helped. Basically, I’m the leopard and I’ve got too much on my “tree plate” and I can’t focus on anything. Plus, the monkeys are all shouting and obnoxious, cause I tried to eat them or something. Pansies.

Anywho, it’s been paralyzing, but that little reminder has helped. I wish, irony hilariously noted, I had a monkey brain. I wish I was better at juggling multiple things at once, but I don’t and I’m not.

So, I pause, and breathe, and ask what the next tiny action I can take is. I remind myself my “leopard chances” are slim. I’m probably going to miss, and I’m probably going to have a grumbling stomach for a while longer.

But that’s what I can do in spite of the diminished burnout capacity.

"Breathe, what’s next?"

I wanted to write something else. I wanted to write a complex piece on branding and identity and the shift to chriswestover.com (that’s me, heyo!) and why I was wrong about yourname.com and all the nuances therein. I'll write it, and it’ll be great...some other time.

That post is a fast and agile monkey with adamantium claws. And I’m a sad sap of a leopard right now.

I could write this piece though. It’s not great or terribly insightful. It’s definitely got way too many monkey jokes. And it's months late. But I could write it.

So I did, and here we are.

And so it goes for everything lately. Breathe, take a moment, figure out what monkey is next, and try to catch it.

At the very least, I feel like this scratches an itch many of us are familiar with right now. Living through history and all that jazz.

So, Godspeed on mangling whatever hobbled monkey is next in your sights.