A Mason's Work

This episode builds on our conversation about creating space by shifting from mindset to the physical and ritualistic preparation required for deep work. We explore the concept of a "threshold experience"—a dedicated process that helps you shed the distractions of the outside world and transition into a state of focus.

Drawing inspiration from the "Preparing Room" in Masonic tradition, we discuss why preparation isn't just a waiting period, but a vital step in the work itself. Whether it’s sharpening a literal axe or simply cleaning your desk, the act of preparing sets the stage for the work to emerge.

Key Takeaways
  • The "Lincoln" Wisdom: While Abraham Lincoln likely never said the famous quote about spending four hours sharpening an axe, the principle remains true: preparation is the most critical part of the task.
  • The Threshold Experience: In the lodge, the "preparing room" is where a candidate is stripped of outside distractions. In your life, you need a similar "threshold" to transition between different roles and tasks.
  • Productively Unproductive: Beware of tasks that feel like work but are actually forms of avoidance. Cleaning your desk can be a great preparation ritual, but if it takes all day, it has become a barrier to the work itself.
  • Personalized Rituals: Preparation is not one-size-fits-all. You must identify the specific actions—cleaning, organizing, or reflecting—that actually help you settle into the right headspace.
Episode Timestamps
  • [00:00] The myth and truth of "sharpening the axe".
  • [01:13] Moving from mental space to physical preparation.
  • [01:32] Defining the "Preparing Room": It’s a process, not a lobby.
  • [02:07] Examples of preparation rituals: Cleaning the desk to clear "head trash".
  • [02:49] The trap of being "productively unproductive".
  • [03:45] Why your preparation ritual must be unique to you.
  • [04:15] Evaluating your rituals: Are they helping or hindering?.
  • [05:02] Using rituals to manage "context switching" between tasks.
Resources & Links
Reflection Challenge: This week, pay attention to your "context switches" between tasks. Are you spending too much time in preparation, or are you hacking away with a dull blade?

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  • Tim Dedman
  • Jorge

Creators and Guests

Host
Brian Mattocks
Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

TRANSCRIPT: 2026-03-01 21-31-31.wav
DATE: 2026-03-02
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[00:00] So there's this saying, and you've probably heard it attributed to like Abraham Lincoln,
[00:06] that when he said, if I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening
[00:12] the ax.
[00:13] Here's the thing.
[00:14] Lincoln probably never said it.
[00:17] People that have investigated that quote have traced back to 1944, a speech by a reverend
[00:23] who before that, it came from some unnamed lumberjack.
[00:28] I picked up Lincoln's name somewhere along the way, because the things that we do, we
[00:33] like our wisdom to come from these, you know, impressive sources.
[00:38] But the fact that Lincoln didn't say it doesn't make it wrong.
[00:40] And I think there's something really instructive in maybe that misattribution itself.
[00:46] We repeat this idea because it resonates because most of us had this experience of kind of hacking
[00:52] away at something with a dull blade and wondering why it's not moving.
[00:54] The wisdom is real, even though the source is maybe dubious.
[01:00] So when we talk about preparation, talk about the preparing room.
[01:06] And yesterday we had led into the little conversation about creating space and the mindset as being
[01:12] a part of that.
[01:13] Now let's talk about the physical space.
[01:15] In the lodge, the preparing room is a literal space.
[01:18] It's a place that exists before entering the lodge where the candidate is divested of all
[01:25] of the sort of trappings of the outside world, stripped of the things that would prevent him
[01:28] from being fully engaged in the moment.
[01:32] It's not a waiting room.
[01:33] It's not a lobby.
[01:34] It's not this place like a holding area, right?
[01:39] It's a process.
[01:41] It's a step in a process.
[01:43] It's preparation.
[01:44] It's the preparing room.
[01:46] You need one in your life.
[01:49] It may not necessarily be a room, mind you, but a practice, a part of that process.
[01:54] When we talk about that, again, that process focus over outcomes, you need a preparing process,
[01:59] something that functions as a threshold between your different sort of functions and the world
[02:05] outside.
[02:07] For me, it's cleaning my desk.
[02:09] My desk.
[02:11] When I clean my desk, it gets a bunch of kind of headspace, head trash out of the way.
[02:17] The objects that take up the literal space kind of move out of my way.
[02:21] It frees up my mind and my headspace for just doing the work.
[02:26] For that cleaning the desk, it takes a lot of the kind of annoying things that my mind
[02:34] would tend to fix it on when I'm looking around the room, takes away some of the stuff that
[02:39] just chews up my extra cycles.
[02:41] But here's where something like that gets challenging, right?
[02:46] Cleaning my desk, for example.
[02:49] It gets complicated when you start doing things that are productively unproductive.
[02:54] And that's a kind of a phrase that maybe you've not heard before, but it's doing good
[02:59] things, but for the wrong reasons, for lack of a better way to say it.
[03:05] It's doing this stuff that's going to actually keep you from getting the work done.
[03:10] I can clean the desk for a whole day when, in fact, the work that I might be trying to
[03:15] do would take much, much shorter period of time.
[03:18] And I'm avoiding that work.
[03:20] So be mindful as you develop and cultivate your own process, what that really looks like
[03:25] for you and keep an eye out for that productively unproductive stuff that you might get stuck
[03:30] doing.
[03:32] The other thing that you want to do as you start creating your own process of preparing,
[03:36] creating that threshold experience is understand that those, that preparing process is something
[03:43] that can only be done by you.
[03:45] You have to do it in a way that is right for you.
[03:49] It has to be your process.
[03:51] So you may not find that cleaning your desk solves your kind of, uh, sets your, your,
[03:56] your mind at ease or your, your heart in the right space to do the work for you.
[04:00] Cleaning your desk might be a non-issue may always keep it clean.
[04:03] And that's okay to work on identifying what those threshold experiences that you can create
[04:08] are to help you prepare to go to do the work, to create that space, to get the work done.
[04:15] Uh, and if you find it yourself, you're paying more time and effort and energy to the work
[04:23] of preparing than to doing the work itself, then maybe it's time to change your preparation
[04:28] ritual as it were.
[04:30] You're not here to necessarily judge these things.
[04:32] You just want to evaluate whether or not they're helping you achieve your objectives or not.
[04:36] Um, today's challenge for you, as you go back, uh, as you're done with this podcast is to,
[04:42] to note the times that you have, uh, spent in preparation and see how that is impacted the
[04:49] work itself.
[04:50] Uh, try and pay attention to it.
[04:52] You might find that you're sometimes being productively unproductive, like I tend to be,
[04:56] uh, or you may find that the transitionary periods that you go from place to place, those
[05:02] context, which is those, those opportunities where you change from one task to the next
[05:07] take much longer than they should.
[05:09] And a preparation ritual might help you create the head space and the heart space and the
[05:14] physical space to actually get the work done.