Don't tough it out; judo it

It’s easy to get caught up in a mindset of “this project absolutely needs to be done by the end of the month, so we’ll just tough it out.” Unfortunately, it’s a really bad idea.

If it doesn’t feel good to do the work, chances are you’re doing shitty work.

Great work takes passion, love, and creativity. And these go into hiding when negative emotions are running the show.

Trust that there is a way to do everything that you truly need to do that also feels good. Or at least not bad.

There’s three productive ways to relate to work: Acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm.

You can accept things like taking out the trash. It’s rarely passionate or even joyful, but it has to be done, and you can at least fully accept that.

Enthusiasm is when you’re on a larger-than-life roll, like when David created and evangelized Rails.

Enjoyment are for all the things in-between.

If you can’t accept, enjoy, or be enthusiastic about the things you need to do, don’t do them.

Instead, take a step back, and find another way to accomplish the same with acceptance, enjoyment, or even enthusiasm. That’s judoing it.