While listening to self-help audiobooks, I discovered the importance of focusing on the next actionable step to alleviate mental clutter and enhance productivity.

At first, I was always a lackey at the jobs I worked at. I didn’t seek to rise in the ranks of the fast food or chain retail stores that I always saw as temporary employment. Mostly because, though the positions were offered, I had no patience for interacting with “higher-ups.” The District Managers were always just the worst people you’d meet. Something happens in your 30s and suddenly you look in the mirror and see management potential. Or you’re just sick of being at the whim of morons who were already doing the job and thought you could do it a hell of a lot better than them.

That’s what I did, and in some ways I’m sure I did it a bit better than the other morons. But once I too became a moron, I lost one of the most precious possessions a low wage worker can have: the ability to not care. I saw my name next to sales reports and suddenly I was privy to things like how many pens were being sold at the cash register and how other stores sold way more than we did. Things like, I really – on a personal level – like the cashier today, he’s a good guy and is always kind to his fellow employees, but he sells the lowest number of pens. And as a manager, that was something that you had to think about. The trouble was, I wasn’t just thinking about it while I was at work, it began to consume me. I’d be sitting at a bar reading a book and drinking and be just worrying to death about what not selling enough stupid pens at the stupid cash register meant to my future.

After I cracked and left that job, I retreated all the way back to waiting tables. It gave me the relief I was looking for, but that takes a lot of you when you’re not young and you have a life outside of the walls of the restaurant where you work. But there was a pure bliss that came from that moment at the end of the night when you’d walk over to the big door, with its big lock and you’d turn that sucker and flip over the open sign.

It was even better if you saw someone – or better yet a group of people – come walking up just before you start to turn the lock. As they approach, they’re joyful with the belief that they have this power that they can’t wait to hold over you when you take their order and bring them their food. Then your fingers reach for the lock. Their eyes look at you, accusing you almost of starving them to death on the cold empty streets. You look them in the eye, and you say the most beautiful sentence of the English language “Sorry, we’re closed.”

There is a limit to their power and when they see those words moving on your lips, they begin to question time itself. First, they’ll look at their watch or phone, hoping that it says 9:59 and not 10:00, because if it says 9:59 they will exercise their expiring right to demand service. But when they see it is clearly 10:00, there is a twisting to their face, like they’ve been cheated by the universe. It is glorious to behold. Sure, some of them will just shrug their shoulders, but only so very few of them will do this. Why? Because if you are walking up to a place that you know is about to close, you are not a good person. You likely don’t return the shopping cart to the shopping cart corral, and you are most likely a person who should not be trusted with the emotions of other human beings.

Then there are the ones who will fight you for it. They’ll walk up and try the door you just locked, as if ignoring the reality of the situation will mean that they will still be able to walk in and get served. These are the same ones who will walk up to a place five minutes before it opens and be absolutely bewildered by the fact that you can’t just open early.

Because if you are walking up to a place that you know is about to close, you are not a good person.

After the waiting gig, I went on and got an office job that turned into a (semi) steady job, but a salary position that meant I was “on-call.” Never to turn that lock again, I began to feel like I was going to crack again. Something in my brain had to change.

While listening to a bunch of self-help audiobooks, I came across David Allen’s Getting Things Done. I couldn’t tell you much about this book other than it felt like the sort of thing a tech guru would nod his head approvingly at for the hours upon hours that it goes on, but there was one thing that stood out to me. I can’t remember which step or what part of the multifaceted process it was, but he mentions things that get in your head that you’re concerned about. It goes like this: when there is something on your mind, focus on the next actionable step is. Plan for the next step and then be done with it. It is the one thing that stuck out to me in that book. Next read-through I’m sure I’ll find some other things, and this being filed under something related to books or reading might imply that this essay should revolve more around this book, but really there’s so much to it, and this was the one thing for me.

I’ve always wanted a mantra. I look at people with religions who have mantras, and I do get a bit jealous. Reading stories where scared heroes recite “Hail Marys” and other litanies always seems like it is cool. So for me, I thought about this “next actionable step” thing. And for work and stuff, it really did help. If there was a problem or something I was just stuck on, I’d come up with the next thing I could do and then be done with it.

But for my brain, these days it isn’t just work problems that get clogged in the plumbing of my mind. For the last five or six years (take a wild guess) I’ve been just caught up on the events of the country and the world and sometimes will fixate on them. For the past five weeks, I’ve taken a step back and worked to address not just my addiction to news, but being stuck in the mindset that “if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” I am – or I was. But what am I supposed to do about it? What is the next actionable step that I can take that will lessen the suffering of the victims of war or the marginalized people in my community.

Trying to come up with that made a big difference in how I view people and situations. Yes, I’m upset about the plights of the disadvantaged, and at the same time well aware of my privilege as a white straight male. But what action can I take that will make any difference? The words coming out of my mouth will always be said from that point of privilege and people in my position acting like they have the answers is what got us all in a lot of these messes. I’m sure to speak up when I’m in a group that might mistake me for a fellow abuser, and I adhere to my convictions. All of those things do not make me a good person. They’re more like the bare-minimal for just being a peaceful person. Beyond that, what else can I do? Do I stand in a crowd and hold a sign to protest? Do I pack in to the group that is blocking the highway in order to draw attention to social injustice? I’ve tried all of that and it has done nothing. All the while, it makes me feel hypocritical that I’m out here saying what others should think or do.

The next actionable step I can take is to vote. And I do. I can be a good person and treat people with kindness. And I try to do that. Other than that, being angry and caught up in all of the various outrages of the day is not worth my time. If I focus on helping others directly by either monetary or volunteer work, I am making a small and maybe unnoticeable difference, but it is an actionable step.

So, what is my mantra when I start to get caught up in the horrors of humankind and the lack of goodwill in our country and abroad? What do I say when I want to be present in this moment with the people around me? I put it out of my mind. I turn the key and say, “‘Sorry, we’re closed.”