One Done Thing: How Leaders Regain Momentum
October 1, 2025 Author: Ann Ralston
Look at your desk.
Seriously—look at it.
Projects stacked, notes layered, deadlines hiding beneath receipts.
And rising from it, a glowing obelisk, 1000 voices all flagged: URGENT.
It’s an archaeological dig.
Yesterday buried under today.
Tomorrow pressing in from the margins.
My latest move to Northern Michigan taught me this:
New house, new clients, new skills, everything inconvenient.
My personal drive said, “Do everything, all at once.”
My neurology responded, “Wait—one second. One breath. Too much!”
Babs in ‘Chicken-Run’ panic mode: frantic, flapping, unproductive.
Here’s what works for leaders (here’s what works for me):
Stop. Name the Spinning.
Reset your physiology. Move. Breathe.
Take a ten-minute walk in Nature (or as close as you can get).
Step away from screens. To get strategic, get physical.
Use a flipchart or whiteboard, brain-dump all the problems.
Step back from the chart. One step. Two.
Spot the pattern.
Choose one project—not the loudest, maybe not the most urgent.
Just the one you can finish.
Because in leadership, momentum doesn’t start with “All at once.”
It starts with one done thing.
Ten-minute walk.
Three breaths.
Finish something.
Archaeology waits.
Your sanity can’t.