Here’s another great title for a book I’ll never write: Getting The Logs Out Of Logjams.

What causes logjams? Let me answer that with a story . . .

Years ago, my neighbor, Ed, who was an air traffic controller and a pilot, told me that 99% of airplane crashes were caused by human error.

So back to logjams. A lot of traffic doesn’t cause a traffic jam – a few people driving erratically causes the flow to slow. It only takes one act of attention-less driving to jam things up.

But this isn’t about cars or trains and boats and planes. It’s about lack of ATTENTION.

Look at any logjam in your life and you can trace it back to lack of attention at some point. It’s easy to point to someone else’s lack of attention as the cause, but this is an exercise in self-inspection. What logjams have you caused or are causing due to a lack of attention?

It can be in your job, your personal life or in your relationships.

I have never knowingly interrupted a pharmacist when he/she’s filling a prescription. They are paying careful attention to make sure the customer’s life isn’t put in jeopardy due to their mistake.

Logjams occur when we are attempting to pay attention to many things vs. the one thing that needs our attention.

What one thing needs your attention? You are causing your own logjam by keeping it way down on your to-do list.

There is no mystery as to what needs our attention; it’s just our inattention to what needs to be done that causes our own personal pile-ups.

Here’s as close to the truth as I can get: Based on my experience, we all know what our problems are and we all know the solutions, but there is a logjam preventing a resolution. The fog causing the backup is the lack of focused attention.

Attention is a mighty tool that lies at the bottom of our tool box gathering dust and rust. Perhaps today is the day to spray some WD-40 on your attention and finally use the one tool that can get you out of a jam.

All the best

John