I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I should link to another podcast episode.
Well, today’s your day. Because Katie Floyd and David Sparks were kind enough to invite me back on to their incredible podcast, Mac Power Users.
In the show we talked about all sorts of life-centric stuff related to living a focused life. And, of course, it wouldn’t be an episode of MPU if we didn’t also talk about nerdy topics such as workflows, favorite software, and more.
Speaking of podcasts that are speaking of success, there’s an episode of the EntreLeadership podcast with Shawn Achor that’s quite excellent.
Shawn Achor’s studies and teachings on what he calls the Happiness Advantage are fantastic. If you haven’t read his book or watched his TED talk, you should definitely check them out. I used a lot of his research and findings within The Focus Course.
So, a few weeks ago, Shawn was a guest on the EntreLeadership podcast. He basically gave a crash course overview on what fuels happiness in our lives and how critical that is to actually attaining success.
If you’re an entrepreneur (just starting out or seasoned), you’ll love The Fizzle Show podcast.
I’ve long been a fan of the Fizzle Show (they even had me on the show once).
When I was creating The Focus Course earlier this year, I went through a ton of the Fizzle podcasts related creating an online course, building an audience, selling a product. Those shows were instrumental in helping me to build something that was both awesome and profitable. Lately (as in the past few dozen episodes) they’ve just been on fire.
This latest episode of the Fizzle Show is absolutely fantastic. The discussion and advice given by the Fizzle team can literally change your life.
Though the Fizzle Show is usually aimed at the Indie Entrepreneur, this episode on defining success is required listening for just about anybody and everybody.
In the show, Corbett Barr says this:
The more I work on closing that gap between who I am and who I want to be, the more important I realize systems are.
I couldn’t agree more.
If you’ve watched the trailer video I made for The Power of a Focused Life, then you know my stance on the difference between passive living and intentional living. In short, the dreams of our heart (a.k.a. our definition of success) won’t come about by just wishing and wanting. They’re built from the ground up, one day at a time.
And, the best way to make sure you’re making progress, day by day, on the things that are most important to you, is to know what your vision and values are and then keep short accounts with how you’re spending your time and energy.
As you may already know, I’m doing a free class. It’s called The Elements of Focus and it starts now.
There are 16 videos I recorded just for this. Each one is fun and personal. We’ll be covering a handful of topics that I believe are most important to meaningful productivity and doing our best creative work.
Moreover, something we’ll be diving into is how to gain traction in your business or side project. As people have been signing up for the class, I’ve heard from hundreds of registrants saying that one of their biggest challenges right now is something related to their career: either trying to build up their new gig, build up a side-project, or considering a career move.
So there are definitely going to be days where I discuss how to gain traction and momentum on your business or side project.
I realize it’s right over the holiday, which is why each day’s video is less than 5 minutes. Plus, if you’re like me, you enjoy taking some of your time off as an opportunity to learn something new and work on a side-project.
Also, while the class is happening, I’ll be working on putting together a significant update to The Focus Course. Registration for the Focus Course itself will re-open on December 29 when all the updates go live!
All that said, check out the free class and sign up. It begins on today (though you can jump in anytime). It’s going to be superfun! I hope you join me.
What is Uuni?
Uuni is super fast to assemble — less than ten minutes. It’s easy to adjust the temperature with its clever hopper system. Uuni is made of beautiful brushed stainless steel so it can take any weather you throw at it (we’re based in Scotland so we know!). Check it out, and make sure to read some of the reviews our customers have left — we’re very proud of them.
Food. Fire. Uuni.
$20 off your Uuni 2? Please use the code toolsandtoys
* * *
A huge thanks to Uuni for again sponsoring the site this week. I’ve got an Uuni here at my place and I can tell you that it is awesome.
A quick note: This is the second of a 2-part series on Margin. You can read Part 1 here.
In January, we’ll be going much more in-depth on this topic. There will be podcast interviews, resource recommendations, articles, and more.
That said, let’s talk about Margin…
* * *
Though they are related, Margin and Stress are not the same thing. A lack of margin can (and usually will) cause stress. Being overloaded and overwhelmed is usually what can lead to the pain of stress.
For example, when our schedule is filled beyond capacity, we feel the pain of our overloaded responsibilities, and we get stressed out trying to manage everything. When we are living beyond our financial means, we feel the pain of an unhealthy financial state, and we get stressed about money.
As I wrote in Part One of this introduction to Margin, when you’re feeling the pain of overwhelm, listen to it.
There can be two reasons for the stress you feel:
When it’s the former, you need to dial down and create some margin. So often, when we are in desperate need of margin in our lives, it has to be explained to us or by us. It’s not instinctual. So, if you’re feeling the pain of a margin-less life, make sure you’ve got some things in place so you can stay sane and healthy.
If, however, it’s the latter — if you’re on your way toward a breakthrough in your skills — you need help and the perseverance to press through.
Today, let’s talk about these two things. How to dial down when you’re overloaded, as well as how to persevere when you’re on the cusp of a breakthrough.
In his book, Margin, Richard Swenson writes that “to be healthy, we require margin in at least four areas: emotional energy, physical energy, time, and finances.”
If you’re feeling overloaded, I bet you could get one or two “quick wins” for your emotional energy, physical energy, time, or finances — little ways to give yourself some breathing room.
Start by taking inventory of where you’re spending the bulk of your time, money, and energy. (Not where you wish you were spending it, but where you’re actually spending it.)
What can be subtracted?
What can you do to give your schedule, your emotions, your mind, your body, and/or your finances some breathing room?
Here are some suggestions for quick wins for you. These can help stop the bleeding. And, with a small victory, you can begin to get some momentum going in the direction you need.
There are some very simple ways to help get your body active if you’re feeling underachieved and not physically strong. Get enough sleep at night (which probably means going to bed on time). Take a 30-minute walk most days. Eat less sugar.
Not to sound like your mother, but these things are easy to give up when life gets crazy. I know that for me, my daily workout is usually the first thing to go when I’m feeling overloaded. So I certainly need the reminder about just how important physical health is to doing my best creative work.
You need social support (community). And you probably could do with less Screen Time.
For the former, ask a friend or family member for support. Even if it’s just to let them know you’re feeling overloaded and you need to talk about it. Also, take a moment to give to someone by encouraging, helping, or supporting them.
For the latter, next time you feel the urge to check your Social Network of Choice when you have a down moment, consider opening up your journal or notes app instead and writing down something you’re thankful for.
See also this recent Tim Ferris podcast episode, The Magic of Mindfulness, the EntreLeadership podcast episode with Shawn Achor, and this article I put together on dialing down.
You’re smart enough to know that you’ll never “find” time. You have to make it. If your schedule is full, the only option is to begin saying no to things. I’d start with television if you haven’t already. Then I’d start with taking an hour or two at the beginning of your week to plan how you’ll be spending your time over the next 7 days.
Cut something small and simple out of your budget. Start making coffee at home; stop ordering drinks and dessert at restaurants; sell your car to get rid of the payments and buy something less fancy for cash. These types of changes aren’t easy to make, but they’re a way of taking charge of your finances and learning to live within your means.
I’d also highly recommend you set up a rainy day fund if you don’t have one already. Save $1,000 as fast as you can. Figure out how to get an extra $34/day and you’ll have that $1,000 in less than a month.
See also this article I wrote last summer about working from home and running a business. In it I talk some more about financial health, physical health, and relational health for the creative entrepreneur.
If you’re in a particularly busy or challenging season of life, what you need is the ability to press through. If you’re on the edge of a breakthrough, keep going and get yourself to the other side of the complexity.
What do I mean by “on the edge of a breakthrough?”
When you’re learning something new or transitioning to a different season of life, you have to “break through” from where you were to get to where you’re going.
Perhaps it’s that you’re starting a new business. Or you’re learning PHP. Or you want to get better at budgeting. Or you’re writing a book. When you’re first starting out and you’re at the very outside of that new skill set, it doesn’t seem quite so scary. But then, once you begin making a little bit of progress, you realize just how much you don’t know, and that state can be overwhelming.
It feels overwhelming because you suddenly begin to see so many open ideas, moving parts, and hazy concepts. You can see everything moving around, but it’s all in a fog and doesn’t make sense yet. You have a ton of unanswered questions, and you don’t even know who to go to for help or what you would even ask them.
Basically, you’re in the midst of a heightened season of “deep work,” and it’s not easy.
Instead of quitting, keep on learning. Keep pushing through. Eventually, the fog will lift, the dots will connect, and you’ll get that breakthrough.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on how I stay sane when life is extra busy.
You want to make sure that as you’re persevering in your busy or challenging season, it’s not to the detriment your health and relationships.
Why take out all the fun of learning a new skill or starting a new business? It’s hard enough as it is without letting yourself become habitually sleep deprived and neglecting your closest relationships.
By all means, keep your sanity and your health! This will actually help you. It will give you more energy and strength to learn, and it will expedite the crazy season, and even make it more enjoyable.
Ensure that you are actually making progress every day and not just suffering under the weight of being busy. This will also help ensure that when the busy season is over, you don’t hit a wall and get sick or depressed.
When life is at its busiest, it’s all the more important to be overly diligent and intentional with how you spend your time.
Here are the ways I stay focused during especially busy or challenging seasons of life (such as the one I’m in right now, as a matter of fact):
If I’m mostly in a reactive state — giving my attention primarily to the incoming inboxes of email and Twitter — then chances are I’m wasting time. This is why I’ve been spending even less time than usual on email and Twitter…
My “Now” Page. This is something I picked up from Derek Sivers, who created a page on his website, simply titled “Now”. On there he listed out the few things he is most focused on. Not just work things, but life, hobbies, etc. It serves as a personal reminder to him about where he wants to be focusing his time as well as a public statement to others about what he’s doing (and what he’s not doing).
I love this idea. I’m a big proponent of what I call meaningful productivity, which just means you’re actually spending your time doing the things that you want to do. The problem is that most of us spend our time doing what we don’t want to do — usually just by default. We forget, we’re tired, or whatever, and so we just default into something (such as mindless email checking) that is not on our “now” list. The Now page can serve as a plumb line for you.
And the other cool thing about having a publicly available “Now” page is that it gives a sense of accountability. You’ve told the world what’s important to you and how you’re spending your time, and now you need to keep that commitment.
Health. This is the one that goes out the window the fastest for me, which is unfortunate because it’s also the one that matters the most. A good night’s sleep, a diet that gives you energy, and some regular out-and-about exercise is so good for you.
Date night, family time, and lunches with friends: Social support is one of the main ways to keep a healthy emotional state. It’s also one of the best ways to increase your baseline level of happiness and to help ensure a successful and satisfying career.
For me, when things get extra busy, the thing that next goes out the window is my time with friends. I’ll find myself wanting to cancel my standing lunches with friends, work late and infringe on family time, and even skip date night with my wife. All so I can work more hours.
While there are occasions here and there when I truly do need to work extra, they need to be the exception to the rule and not the default.
All these things come together to help give space to think, to breath, and to focus on doing what’s most important.
* * *
Thanks for reading! As I said, we’ll be diving more into this topic in January. In the mean time, I hope you’ll sign up for the free class I’m teaching. It starts in just a few days, and it’s going to be awesome!
And, in closing, here’s one more quote from Dr. Swenson:
Let’s stay busy to be sure. But together let’s also develop the necessary theological underpinnings for margin that will allow us to accept its importance without guilt. For just as we need to eat and sleep, so we also need to breathe.
In a word or two, how would you describe your average day?
Busy?
Overwhelming?
Relaxing?
Pointless?
Productive?
Boring?
Stressful?
Fulfilling?
For me, in this season of life, I’d say that my average day is a mixed bag. While most days are productive on paper, they feel a little bit too busy and a little bit too stressed.1
As a small-business owner, sometimes my responsibilities have me pulled in a half-dozen directions. Between Tools & Toys, The Sweet Setup, The Focus Course, shawnblanc.net, my Shawn Today podcast, and The Fight Spot newsletter… well, life can feel frazzled at times.
But I’m not alone here, am I? You’re busy, too. We all are.
From the rising of the sun until long after it sets, how quickly our days get filled with things to do. Important responsibilities. Urgent issues. Helping and serving the people who depend on us.
While my current, average day sometimes feels too busy and too stressed, what would my ideal day look like?
My ideal day would be fulfilling, with times that are both relaxing and productive.
I’m about as “Type A” as they come. I’ve always got more ideas than time and I feel most energized when I’m working on a project. The downside is that means it can be hard for me to stop working and even to stop thinking about work.
* * *
In his book, Margin, Richard Swenson, M.D., starts out with this statement:
The conditions of modern-day living devour margin. If you are homeless, we send you to a shelter. If you are penniless, we offer you food stamps. If you are breathless, we connect you to oxygen. But if you are marginless, we give you yet one more thing to do.
Not only are we given one more thing to do, many of us are even seeking out more to do — perhaps intentionally, but most likely unintentionally — simply because we struggle to say ‘no’ to requests of our time and attention and thus are busy beyond capacity. When we do have a spare moment, we fill it quickly without thinking by checking the news, social media, and email, almost as if by habit.
“No matter how busy life gets,” writes Jessica Turner in her book The Fringe Hours, “I’m here to tell you that you not only can but must make time to do things that matter to you.”
When you think of margin in your life, think of health. Physical health, emotional health, mental health, relational health, financial health, creative health.
All of these areas overlap with one another — they’re not isolated. Which is why, when a household lacks margin in its finances it can erode at margin in the marriage. Or when we lack margin in our schedule, it can erode the margin in our emotions.
We need margin. You need it. And so do I.
Without margin in our finances, we fall deeper in debt every time the car breaks down. Without margin in our schedule, we have no time to rest, recharge, or serve others. And without margin for our thoughts, we lack creative energy to make progress on our most important work.
Though, not always, oftentimes our lack of margin is self-inflicted.
We would love to have a rainy day fund, but when we see a bigger television for a cheaper price, we buy the TV instead of setting that money aside. We would love to have time at the end of the day to read a good book, but when we come home from work we instinctively turn on said television. We would love to make progress on our side-project, but when we have a break, we spend it check our social media timelines.
It’s like Paul wrote in the Bible: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”
Again, Swenson writes:
No one likes pain. We all want to get rid of it as soon as possible. But physical pains are usually there for a reason, to tell us something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Emotional, relational, and societal pains, too, are often indicators that all is not well. As such, they serve a valuable purpose — they help us focus.
Modern-day living, however, opposes focusing. Surrounded by frenzy and interruptions, we have no time for anything…
When you’re feeling the pain of overwhelm, listen to it.
There can be two reasons for the stress you feel:
When it’s the former, you need to dial down and create some margin. Make sure you’ve got some things in place so you can stay sane and healthy.
However, when it’s the latter — when you’re on your way toward a breakthrough in your skills — you need help and the perseverance to press through.
In a couple days, we’ll hit on some of the simple ways you can quickly restore margin in your life.
Also, we’ll be hitting on this topic (and more) in the free Elements of Focus class that begins in less than a week! If you haven’t yet signed up, you definitely should.
Update: Part two has been published. You can read it here.
Last Christmas I was given a Col. Littleton No. 1 Grip weekender bag. It was an epic gift. It’s beautiful.
Then, last week I came across this episode of the EntreLeadership podcast where they interviewed Col. Littleton himself, and he is the man.
I love the part when he goes off on how all the people who copy his bags make things that are cheaper and of less quality — nobody is copying Col. Littleton bag and making it better and more expensive (reminds me of this awesome video by Saddleback Leather on how to knock off their most popular bag).
He also has some awesome thoughts on how to treat your customers / audience, and how to always do more work than what you’re paid for.
There are so many great nuggets in this conversation, you’ve got to give it a listen.
A couple of weeks ago I recorded 60 videos over the span of 5 days.
(It was much less crazy and much more fun than it sounds.)
41 of the videos are for a major update to The Focus Course that will be going live at the end of this month. And 19 of the videos are for this free class I’m doing, starting on December 13.
Here’s a picture of me looking serious, when what I’m actually doing is wrangling the world’s most annoying teleprompter app.
I just got back all the videos for the upcoming free class, The Elements of Focus. And, one of them got cut from the final class schedule.
So… I thought it’d be fun to share it with you. Because, why not?
The idea behind this video is based on the quote from Dave Ramsey where the says, “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”
Living like nobody else is a curious and difficult metric.
It’s pointless (not to mention rude) to look around at folks and assume they are or are not on track to attain their goals. However, statistically speaking, the majority of people will not actually reach their goals.
We know this because one of the most common regrets of the dying is that they worked too hard and neglected their relationships, values, and even their own happiness. And yet, despite all that hard work, the average retiree at age 65 has only enough in savings to pay for less than 2 years worth of living expenses.
Add on top the fact that we live in an unprecedented “Age of Distraction” where we never have to be bored. In our pocket we carry around instant access to an incessant stream of real-time news and entertainment.
In short, if we want to have any hope of accomplishing our goals and living out our life vision, we need to be intentional and proactive.
But sometimes we don’t know where to start.
So, I humbly suggest that perhaps we should simply start by living differently than most people…
All that said, check out the video. And then, don’t forget to sign up for the free class (if you haven’t already).
Lecharl is a watchmaker brand from Sweden. Our vision is to create beautiful, timeless and elegant timepieces, where classic and modern design seamlessly merges. When it comes to design and quality, we at Lecharl follow our own mind and vision, regardless of trends. And this is something we are truly proud of.
Our first model, Born 1929, is available in three different and distinct styles: Black, Gold or Rose gold. And your new Lecharl watch will be delivered in an elegantly designed box.
As a reader of shawnblanc.net, you get a 10% discount on your purchase from Lecharl. Use the code shawn10 when you checkout — and remember that we always offer free, worldwide shipping.
We invite you to visit us at www.lecharl.com. We would also be glad if you want to connect with us on Instagram under @lecharlwatches.
* * *
My thanks to Lecharl Watches for sponsoring the site this week. Don’t forget to use the code shawn10 at checkout to save 10-percent.
It’s the end of the day.
I work downstairs, so for me, closing up the office is as simple as stepping away from my desk and walking up the half-flight of stairs.
I’ve had this 30-second commute since 2011, which is when I quit my job to focus full-time on writing here at shawnblanc.net.
Despite the complete autonomy for how I spend my time, doing my best creative work is still a daily practice.
There have been seasons in my life when, at the end of my day, I walk up that half-flight of steps with a feeling that my day was a waste. I just spent hours at work, yet feel completely unsatisfied.
Usually this it’s because I got caught up in the seemingly urgent and pressing issues of the day. Things didn’t go as well as I’d hoped they would. I tried to make progress on a meaningful task but just kept hitting a wall.
It’s now been nearly five years since I began working for myself and working from home. And over the years, it has become ever more important to me that spend my time well. I’ve learned a bit about how I work (and how I should best be spending my time) so I have fewer “wasted days”.
For me, spending my time well means spending my time creating.
But that’s easier said than done.
Since I work for myself, I’m also in charge of all the budgeting and bookkeeping, server admin, customer support, marketing, income projections, content strategy, and more. Not to mention, you know, actually doing the work of writing and publishing.
I could spend hours and hours every day on email and other admin tasks. Or, I could spend hours every day making something.
This is not news, of course. You’re in the same position.
It’s the age-old conundrum of “urgent versus important”, right? We want to spend our time on work that’s important, not just work that’s all shiny right now but won’t matter one lick tomorrow.
Where everything changed for me was the day I realized that I alone was in charge of how I spent my time.
It’s I who has to choose how to spend my time. I can spend it on silly things or I can spend it on awesome things.
Sometimes, silly and awesome intersect (such as here).
But usually, when doing my most important work, it’s, well, it’s work.
Which is why it can be so easy to become desensitized to shallow work. All the email and admin tasks are easy to do, and I fool myself into thinking that checking email throughout the day is a totally fine thing to do — I’m being “productive”.
Below are some thoughts on what I call “Meaningful Productivity” — what it is, what it isn’t, and why it matters.
Is the stay-at-home dad who spends most of his day changing diapers and cleaning up messes any less productive than his wife who is the CEO of a charity organization?
Of course not. Each is productive in his or her area of responsibility.
Productivity tends to be defined by how well we use our task management systems, how organized our calendar app is, how fast we can blaze through a pile of emails, and how fluidly we flow from one meeting to the next.
But those metrics skew toward rewarding effective busywork while giving little dignity to meaningful work.
Which is why I want to define productivity differently. With less of a focus on our party trick of balancing many plates at once, and more of a focus on our ability to consistently give our time and attention to the things which are most important.
Productivity, in and of itself, is just a metric for efficiency.
Yes, efficiency is awesome. But what’s more awesome is spending your time on the right things. Things of substance and value.
Besides. Even though productivity measures efficiency, it’s a sliding scale.
How fast you can get something done is not always the proper metric. Sometimes I spend 30 minutes or more on a single email. Because it needs to be worded just right. Sometimes I can fire off a reply in less than a minute.
Speed alone doesn’t matter. What matters was if I communicated the best I could.
While there is obviously no point in spending 30 minutes on a single email that could just as easily be written in 1. It’s equally poor form to spend just 1 minute on an email that requires more time and thought than that.
My point being: rather than concerning ourselves mostly with tips and tricks, we should make sure we’re actually spending our time well in the first place. Tips and tricks can help (and they’re fun), but they aren’t the main topic.
More often than not, our best work is accomplished during times when we are in the zone. Or as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says, when we are in a state of flow.
Focused Work, looks like an hour or more of single tasking. Practicing a musical instrument. Practicing a physical activity. Writing. Painting. Planning and architecting. Coding. Designing. Etc.
Shallow work, looks like “multitasking”. Email correspondence. Checking our social network timelines. Browsing the news. Etc.
We can’t pit deep work and shallow work against one another. Because they’re both important in their own right.
However, neither should we replace the former with the latter.
Sure, there are some people whose most important work is to live in their email inbox — communicating with others. For most of us, if all we did was check email we’d be out of a job.
And yet, when most of us sit down to “work” the first thing we do is open our email program.
Why do we open up our email? Because we don’t know what else to do.
It’s one thing to show up and set aside a few hours for focused work. It’s another thing to know what to work on during that time.
When you realize that you’re in control of your time and attention, you’ll see that you have two roles: boss and worker.
You are both the planner and the executer. The thinker and the doer.
Don’t try to do both of these jobs at the same time. Have planning, thinking, strategizing time. And then, later, have working and doing time.
For example, if you’re going to write something, don’t sit down when it’s time to write and ask yourself, “what shall I write about now?”
Know ahead of time what your writing topic will be. This way, when you sit down to write you have just one task: to write.
You can’t spend your time doing work that matters if you don’t know what matters in the first place.
Productivity hacks, daily routines, automation tools, and the like are all great. But they are a means for optimizing how you’re already spending your time. They’re just faster horses.
And what good is a faster horse if you’re on the wrong road, headed to the wrong place?
We need clarity about who we are, what our values are, our vision for life, what’s important, and what we can do every day to stay steady in our aim of doing our best creative work.
If true (Meaningful) Productivity is doing that which is most important, then it means that productivity is not ultimately based on efficiency, but rather vision and values.
This is why having a life vision and life goals is so powerful. With them, you can define what it looks like to actually be productive (not just busy).
It is in the area of work that this fight to be meaningfully productive is perhaps the most difficult. Our offices, workflows, managers, reports, and meetings all center around the act of being busy with little in place to recognize or reward meaningful productivity.
Productivity “hacks” and “tricks” that promise real and lasting change apart from a foundation of personal values, vision, and integrity are merely skin deep.
The foundation of meaningful productivity is having values (or purpose), vision (or priorities), and the personal integrity to walk them out.
Ask yourself this:
Answer those questions and you’ve got a strong foundation to direct how you spend your time and energy. Because now you can measure your tasks against your vision and values and use them to define meaningful productivity for your life.
* * *
Speaking of… If this topic interests you, then you should sign up for the free class I’m hosting in a few weeks. You can find out more here.
This seems like a no-brainer, right? But it’s not. At least, not for me.
When you’ve got time off from work, your family is in town, and you’re in a good mood, it can be easy to feel thankful. Which is awesome. So why not express that? Say it out loud.
Tell your family how awesome they are. Tell your spouse and kids how thankful you are for your family and this season of life.
I think we all know that a few days with a ton of food and a ton of family isn’t always a recipe for joy. Sometimes the holiday vacation is actually more work than regular life.
So, try this before you and your family head in to an action-packed holiday. Ask your spouse what it is that’s important for them this week. Then, no matter how busy or crazy the holiday may be, you and your spouse can fight for each other to make sure you each get to experience something that’s most important to you.
And, don’t tell anyone, but if you don’t want to use actual pumpkin glop from the pumpkin, canned pumpkin will usually do just fine.
Want to make the most incredible turkey you’ve ever made? Just to go amazingribs.com and do what Meathead says.
You know what else makes for a good holiday? A good book. Most days I’m reading non-fiction, but when I’m on vacation I read fiction.
I’m totally a fan of Tom Clancy and other good spy-thriller types of novels. (What?) Over the weekend I began reading Transfer of Power, by Vince Flynn.
I’m not yet sure if I like it. The book’s opening paragraph felt a bit overwritten to me (a fine line to walk with books like this where details and nuance not only set the scene but can play a huge role in plot development.) However, by the end of the first chapter I already felt connected with two of the main characters.
A few other favorite reads:
If you think it’s too early for christmas music, you’re weird.
For the best stream of Christmas music that doesn’t suck, start a new Pandora radio station built on the classic 1965 album, A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Where Vince Guaraldi and his trio do some great Christmas songs. From there Pandora does the rest, and you get hours and hours of instrumental, jazzy Christmas tunes.
* * *
As I look ahead to the remaining weeks of 2015 and on in to the next year, I feel extremely excited. For one, the free class we’re doing next month is going to be fantastic, and my gut tells me that 2016 is going to be a lot of fun.
I’ve been at this full-time blogging racket for almost five years now. And that is thanks entirely to you, dear reader.
So, please allow me to take my own advice (see #1 above), and say out loud what it is that I’m thankful for: You.
And I mean it!
I am incredibly thankful that you would show up and read my dorky articles and my half-formed ideas. Some of you have been reading this site for years. Amazing! And not only that, you are generous enough to support my work so I can keep on writing dorky articles — something I do not take lightly.
Have a very happy Thanksgiving!
— Shawn
I’m doing something crazy. And it’s going to be a lot of fun…
With the new year just around the corner, you’re thinking about what you want to do better in 2016. As you should. You have incredible things to create. You have something valuable to share with the world. You have friends and family.
Your best work, your best ideas, and your best relationships are all still ahead of you.
And that’s where The Elements of Focus comes in.
It will be fun, personal, and to the point. No hype and no tricks. Just a handful of topics (16 to be exact) that I believe are most important to meaningful productivity and doing our best creative work.
You should absolutely sign up for the class. And tell your friends to sign up too!
Check out the website for the class and sign up for free, right here:
Overcome Resistance and Do Your Best Creative Work
This is my talk from the 2015 Circles Conference in Dallas, Texas.
The talk is titled “The Fight to Stay Creative”, and during the presentation I talk about:
This talk is, in a way, a summation of my “message” — the convergence of diligence and focus with creativity and fun.
It’s all about doing our best creative work. And, as you learn in the video, doing our best creative work is a fight.
* * *
Having fun is an excellent way to do our best creative work.
But as anyone who writes or draws or takes pictures for a living will tell you, thinking and creating something awesome every day can be excruciatingly painful. Doing our best creative work day in and day out is difficult. Creative work wears on your mind and your emotions instead of on your joints and muscles. Not to mention the sheer horror involved in the act of taking something you’ve created and putting it out there in public in the hopes of making a dollar so you can make something else and put it out there again.
* * *
On Episode 5 of The Weekly Briefly, Patrick Rhone was my guest and we were sharing some bits of writing advice for people wanting to build a website audience. One of the foundational principals we both agreed on was the immeasurable importance of having fun, which is not as easy as it sounds. As I mentioned above, publishing your creative work to the internet for all the world to see is often a very not-fun thing to do.
Patrick said something that is an excellent guiding principal to help you keep your writing fun: write the internet that you want to read.
There is something freeing about creating for yourself. When we take hold of that baton and create for that second version of ourselves, it’s like having a permission slip to do awesome work. And what better way to have fun than to do awesome work? There’s an inverse truth here as well: most of our best work comes from the place of delight. When we are excited about a project, that creative momentum propels us to think outside the box and to dream new ideas as the project takes residence as the top idea in our mind.
Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, would agree. Here’s an excerpt from a speech he gave in 1990 at the Kenyon College commencement ceremony:
If I’ve learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it’s how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year.
If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I’ve found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I’ve had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.
And here’s James Altucher in a Facebook status update about how to write for a living:
The most important thing for me: writing without fear. Writing without judgment. Writing without anger. Making writing fun. Writing right now. Writing is about freedom and not money.
Now, as you probably know all too well, in practice it’s not that easy. But you and I are not alone in our fight to stay creative. We can (and we should!) set ourselves up for success. By identifying the things that suffocate fun and creativity, as well as knowing the things that encourage creativity, we can wage war against the former and cultivate the latter.
Let’s start with the bad news first.
Below, I’ve listed the things that will cut off our ability and/or desire to do our best creative work. These are things that will whisper in our ear that our idea is pathetic and our implementation of it even worse. They urge us to give up, to move on, to quit, and to pacify our minds. They tell us that we have nothing unique to offer, that we have no value, and that everything will come crashing down any minute, so why even bother.
Ambiguity: Having unknown goals and trying to complete them in an undefined manner with a hazy schedule. Without clear goals, an action plan to accomplish them, and a schedule for when we are going to work, then we just meander around not actually doing anything.
Fear & anxiety: This includes fear of failure, fear of rejection. It can paralyze us from even getting started on our ideas because we fear it will come to nothing in the end anyway. Or we fear that when we are finished, people will reject our work and reject us as the author behind it. The problem here is that it puts all the value on the end result only, and places no value at all in the journey of the creative process itself. There is nothing wrong with failure and rejection — we can learn so much from those things! And there is no shortcut for experience. We mustn’t be afraid of failing nor of being rejected, and we must place more value on the act of creating so we can find joy in the journey and develop a lifetime of experience in making things.
Shame: Feeling inadequate as an artist at all, embarrassed about the work we’ve done, even embarrassed about the future work we haven’t even done yet. When we feel shame, we shy away from our big bold ideas and the result is a self-fulfilling prophecy and we make something completely devoid of life and opinion.
Doubt: Doubting that we have the skills to make anything at all; doubting our value as a creative person.
Comparison: There is a difference between learning and gleaning from others and comparing our work to theirs. Where there is comparison there is often envy as well. And this deadly pair will choke out any originality we have. Ray Bradbury, from his Martian Chronicles introduction, wrote: “I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eyes.”
Disillusionment: This is “a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.” We can get disillusioned in a million ways, and often the result is a loss of vision for doing our creative work. I avoid disillusionment by steering clear of the things and the people that represent what I consider the “worst” things of my areas of interest and work.
When we live with these stiflers of creativity as a permanent ailment for too long, it can lead to burn out. The solution isn’t to quit our creative endeavors altogether, but rather to get rid of the ailment. I will say, however, that quitting (or taking a sabbatical) works sometimes because when you fully remove yourself from the situation you have a chance to deal with the ailment in a new environment.
Identify these enemies in your creative life and wage war against them. Give yourself permission to do what it takes to set yourself up to do the best creative work you can do. Quit Twitter. Move to Atlanta. Only write and publish after 9pm at night. Whatever.
These are the things we want to cultivate as much as possible. Build these into your life and guard them with tenacity. These are not replacements for talent, knowledge, and perseverance — rather they are the things that serve as both the seedbed and the greenhouse in which creativity grows and flourishes.
Clear goals: Having a defined goal can help us to focus on actually accomplishing our idea and making it happen. Looming, unanswered questions often lead to inaction and procrastination. Overcoming that is often as simple as defining an end goal. Of course, it’s worth noting that sometimes you just want to go out and take photographs and who cares what you shoot. Nothing wrong with that either, of course.
Trust: You have to trust your skills, trust your gut, and trust your value as a contributor. You’re not an impostor. And the more you learn and the more experience you gain, the more your skills will grow. But if you wait until you’ve “arrived” to begin your journey, it’s a logical impossibility that you will ever actually arrive. You have to step out the front door and start walking.
Experience: The more times we’ve gone down the same path, the more familiar with it we become. Experience breeds confidence. And confidence is the opposite of doubt. Thus, the more we do the work, the better we get at it. In part, we are getting better because that’s what happens when you practice. But also, we get better because the confidence which experience breeds helps us to loosen up, relax, and take new risks.
Rest: A surprisingly critical part of maintaining a consistently creative lifestyle is stepping away from the creative work at hand in order to recharge. The mind is like a battery, however — it recharges by running. Don’t default to TV and video games as your forms of rest. Get plenty of sleep. Take walks or drives. If you work with your mind, try resting with your hands and build something out of wood or plant a garden. Read. Etc.
Diligence: This includes spending our time wisely, having a routine, focus, and automation. Diligence isn’t a personality type, it’s a skill we learn. Some of us had a good work ethic instilled in us by our parents, some of us have had to cultivate it on our own later in life. It is silly to think a creative person should live without routine, discipline, or accountability. Sure, inspiration often comes to us when we least expect it, and so by all means, let us allow exceptions to our schedules. But sitting around being idle while we wait for inspiration is a good way to get nothing done. And worse, it is also a way to let the creative juices get stagnant.
There are some response-based factors that don’t make or break an artist in and of themselves, but, depending on what they are (and our response to them), they can empower or handicap us.
Constraint: Constraint often breeds creativity because it forces us to think outside of the box, but too much constraint can actually stifle a project’s full potential.
Praise & criticism: The positive and negative feedback of people can be dangerous. If we take it to heart too much, it can easily lead to pride or depression. We should glean from the feedback we get, but not let it steer us in our goals and direction. One of the most dangerous questions a creative person can ask themselves is: “What if the critics are right?” If they’re right, you’ll already have known it. Let the council of your peers lead you, not the one-off praise or rejection of strangers.
Success & failure: Similar to praise and criticism, success and failure can be dangerous. Our successes and failures should be things we learn from and use as stepping stones in our ever-continuing journey to make awesome things. Successes and failures should be celebrated and learned from, but don’t treat them as stopping points.
Environment: A positive work environment can do wonders for your daily creative productivity. A distracting environment can stifle things. Do what you can to set up and maintain an awesome environment that fosters inspiration, creativity, focus, and fun.
* * *
As Hemingway said: “Write drunk; edit sober.” Alcohol aside, the point is that creating without inhibition results in better work in the end. Have fun when making, and go back later to fix those typos and bunny trails.
But, that’s not to say fun is the premier goal that in the fight to stay creative. The goal — the hope — is that we can do our best creative work, day in and day out, for years and years.
What’s so great about having fun in our creative work is that it stands as a signal, telling us we are “in the zone”. When we’re having fun in our creative work it usually means we feel safe to dream big and to take new risks. Not to mention, when we’re having fun, it gives us a natural energy that helps us persevere and bring our ideas to life.
* * *
P.S. This topic of staying creative has a significant presence in my book, Delight is in the Details. It’s such a critical discussion that I also made a video about it. You can watch the video here and buy the book here.