WhAT Scrabble TAUGHT ME THAT I SHOULDN’t HAVE FORGOTTEN
When I’m playing Scrabble with my son, I’m not multitasking. I’m not checking my phone. I’m not thinking about what’s for dinner or what’s trending on Netflix.
I’m here. Racking my brain to come up with a word that scores high so he doesn’t beat me. We are debating words that are or are not really “words“. We are engaged, interacting, simultaneously helping and challenging each other.
And that’s the point.
Procrastination doesn’t work: in Scrabble or life
The Scrabble board doesn’t reward you for future intentions. It rewards the move you make right now. The best word isn’t the one you might play later if the board changes. It’s the one you place in this moment, with the tiles you actually have.
Life works the same way.
Leadership, procrastination, and quiet avoidance
In leadership—and in life—we often confuse procrastination with patience, and delay with strategy.
However, many things don’t improve with time. They get heavier, messier.
Unmade decisions.
Unspoken truths.
Unprioritized relationships.
Unstarted work that matters.
Focusing on what’s important doesn’t mean doing everything. It means choosing a few things that truly matter—and doing them now, while you still can, while they still count, while you’re still fully present for them.
The discipline of presence
Living in the moment isn’t about abandoning plans or long-term thinking. It’s about refusing to outsource meaning to some future version of yourself who may never arrive.
It’s about asking, more often than we do:
What actually matters today?
What am I postponing that doesn’t need postponing?
Who deserves my attention now, not eventually?
What would I regret not doing if this moment were rarer than I assume?
Because it is. Right now. This moment is rare. It only comes once and will never come again. Time and attention are a human being’s rarest commodities. Yet we all take them for granted. Fight that habit. Change it.
A quiet reminder
This isn’t a manifesto. It’s a note to myself. A reminder that urgency isn’t the same as importance. That presence beats perfection. That love, leadership, and meaning don’t happen someday. They happen now.
Three letters: N O W
A spelling game you can play with a child reminded me of a lesson worth remembering. Or more precisely, a lesson we should all put into practice every day. Do it now. If not now, when?
