The Doubters in your Midst
Whoa-HEY! Haha.... ok I'm back. Sorry about that!
Things got very hairy there for awhile... nothing bad, work just exploded with some surprise short-term deadlines and I was also working on a major deadline for art stuff. Something had to drop. All deadlines were met and things have settled into a good pace at work now, it's good news - busy is good 
Let's Talk About Hate
Awhile ago, I put up a post about Haters which got some interesting comments:
"But what if they're people I trust? What if they're right?"
I feel the need to clarify: Haters are people who DO NOT KNOW YOU, but will attack you on the internet under the shroud of anonymity. Sometimes they do have cause to do so, but often they are just people who honestly enjoy spouting bile and you happen to be the target of the day (or week. or month in some bad cases.)
If the criticism is coming instead from people who actually DO know you - people in your own family and friend circles - I prefer to call them 'doubters'. Trying to achieve when surrounded by doubters can be painful.
This is a two part series on doubters. In part 1, I will define the enemy, in part 2 I'll give you some coping tactics.
IS YOUR FAMILY INFLATING OR DEFLATING YOUR EGO?
In my experience, family members tend to fall into three categories: Overestimaters, Underestimaters and Pragmatists. One may lament, "why can't they just be EXACTIestimaters! I just want the straight story!"
Unfortunately, the closer this person is to you, the more likely their perception of you will be distorted (for better or worse). Also, the more likely that their opinion will affect you emotionally. Unlike an unbiased observer, when your close family and friends look at your project, they are not only seeing you and your work, they are seeing your whole history of success and failure in all things, and extrapolating how your past experience will apply to this endeavor.
How do you know who you are dealing with?
Overestimaters
Everyone seems to enjoy watching the auditions of reality talent shows. When a terrible dancer auditions for So You Think You Can Dance, or a terrible singer for American Idol, sometimes it's easy to wince and say "ouf! Why didn't someone TELL them they were so bad?!" Sometimes these ear-piercing dreamers have parents who are clearly their biggest fans in the whole wide world.
Overestimaters tend to attribute success to natural inclination and failure to others 'not recognizing' your talents and abilities. They don't accurately perceive the barriers or the amount of work required for you to achieve success.
Overestimaters tend to speak in platitudes
- -"Your art should be in the Louvre by now!"
- "Look at that movie star. YOU could be a movie star, you know! You're TWICE as beautiful as she is! Why don't you go audition?"
- "They are just prejudiced against you because you are ___! They don't see your BRILLIANCE"
This might sound like heaven to someone with an underestimater parent, but the children of overestimaters start to believe the hype, and that's where they falter. They can't understand why they haven't succeeded yet, because they don't have an accurate assessment of their own level of skill. They don't see the real obstacles in their path, they expect success to be handed right to them because they are just so great.
Underestimaters
Often, I encounter people who are brilliantly talented and successful in their particular sphere or niche, but their family refuses to believe it. The family minimizes their successes and no matter how well they're doing they always encourage them to quit and go into something more "practical" or "safe".
Underestimaters tend to attribute any success to dumb luck, and failure to a simple lack of ability. Underestimaters will overestimate the barriers and don't believe that any amount of hard work will result in success. Those that are successful are either crazy or just plain 'born to do it'.
Severe Underestimaters will speak in brutal absolutes:
- "Nobody is really interested in that."
- "Your ideas are stupid." "That's just crazy. Get real."
- "Are you still working on this silly hobby? It's time to grow up."
Less severe underestimaters will often try to sway you with (often sound) reasoning
- "There are thousands of people who are more talented than you at this."
- "You have a family to consider."
The successful people that I meet have the stubbornness and tenacity to overcome underestimater parents, but for every one that succeeds there are dozens that fail - they never even gave it a shot because they didn't have the self-confidence to try. They believed that they were sure to fail.
In between overestimaters and underestimaters is a rare breed: I like to call them Pragmatists.
Pragmatists
Pragmatists will support and nurture talents and interests, but also present a realistic view of the world.
Pragmatists can recognize talent, but know that the road to success is long and difficult. They don't want to quash your dreams, but they also don't want to over-inflate your ego and shelter you from the realities of what will probably be a major challenge.
Pragmatists will never outright call you a genius or an idiot. Their opinions are more in-between. They will admit that something you made is good (even "very good"), but will never tell you to "go for it" 100%. It can often sound like they're being negative, but if you listen, most of what they say are warnings:
- "Even if you succeed, life will be hard."
- "You have a long way to go."
- "The competition is fierce, you'll need to improve to have a chance."
- "You should definitely enter this contest! But, don't get your hopes up, okay?"
- "You might fail. But there will always be another chance."
If your dear ones are pragmatsits, you should count your lucky stars. They are the best ally you could possibly have in your fight to chase your dreams.
BUT Which is Which? How can you be sure when to listen and when to ignore?
Ask yourself -
WHO is giving the advice
- What is their experience? Have they tried and failed in the same field?
- Have they been very successful in one thing, but know very little about the field you're trying to enter?
WHY are they doing this? - what is their motivation?
- Do they want you to be happy, successful, and protected?
- Do they want you to meet THEIR definition of success and happiness?
- Do they see their failures reflected in your successes?
- Have they experienced failure and don't want you to repeat their mistakes?
- Have resigned themselves to a life where they don't chase their dreams, and your perseverance is a painful reminder?
When you're getting criticized, it's easy to shut down and go into defense mode, but try to think about the issue from their point of view. They haven't seen what you've seen, read what they've read. They are a product of their own time and experiences. What have they lived through?
Hopefully the type will jump out at you. In part 2 I'll give you some coping tactics - they're different for each type!
See you next week
Keep Dreamin’
"Someday, I'll be able to make a living at this. Someday, I might finish that book. Someday, I'll get hired at there. Someday..."
"Yeah, right! Keep Dreamin'!"
It's often said sarcastically, but you should keep dreaming.
Without the dreams, we have nothing to strive for, nothing to pull us forward. Nothing to push us out of our comfort zone, or to act as our light when times are dark.
Why shouldn't we dream? Why should we be satisfied with the way things are? Dreams are free, dreams are easy. Obviously there's a whole lotta reality between you and that goal. It's cold, and it's hard and it's spiky.
But why stop dreaming? The dream is what will lift you up, will keep you trudging up the path, over obstacles and past nay-sayers. The dream is what enables you to achieve what most see as impossible.
If you keep dreaming, and the dream is strong enough to get you to keep moving, is it possible that one day you'll turn around and find it's a reality?
...keep dreamin'!
How to Cope with Boring Work
The problem with a lot of jobs is that they are boring. It's okay, say it with me: the job is boring. Admit it. As they say: "that's why they pay you to do it."
Ideally we'd all have stimulating work that just pushes our specific joy buttons all day long, and that's what you should be striving TOWARDS, but today you gotta just fill out that expense report.
Boooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiing
You gotta get it done, somehow, and get yourself through the day or you won't have ANY job, boring or otherwise. How can you get yourself through this?
Reframe it: "Boring" = "Easy"
I'm not going to tell you to "trick yourself into thinking it's FUN 
" because I've tried that and it doesn't usually work. What does work, sometimes, is reframing the situation. The work isn't boring, it's easy (and often this is true). You procrastinate because you know that finishing the work holds little intrinsic satisfaction.
If you're lucky enough to be able to enjoy music at work, tell yourself that you're NOT filing out this boring expense report, you're ENJOYING MUSIC. The expense report is just there to keep your fingers busy. It's easy.
Fill out this form? EASY.
Call Accounting? EASY.
Force yourself to smile and enjoy other things about your day, and your mood will lift. The work will sink to the background.
Set up a Carrot
Boring work is usually easy and it's also, usually, kind of pointless. You're just doing it because it's a thing that people at your company do. It's not really accomplishing anything.
You need to set up an external carrot, such as ten guilt-free minutes of web time. Time spent talking with your coworkers. A snack break.
Set the bar a bit lower than your normally would. If you can't focus for your regular hour, focus for 20 mintues. 5 minutes. Just this one thing. Whatever it takes to keep you moving forward.
Make it a contest
Set up a count-up timer and see how FAST you can do it - the faster you can not-have-to-do-it-anymore!
Who are you helping?
Ask yourself: who am I helping by doing this boring work?
Whose life am I making easier? Is your boss going to be able to do a better job if the reports are properly filed? Will the admin have an easier time meeting her deadlines if she has the proper form filled out in time? Will these letters get to their destinations faster and more efficiently once they are sorted - connecting a happy sender to a happy recipient?
Try to imagine the exact person you are helping. If you don't know them, just invent them in your mind. Imagine their smiling face when they see the results of your completed task.
Even if they don't usually recognize or appreciate it, imagine that they will and focus as that as you chunk away at the task.
Okay, good luck and have a happy rainy Friday 
How To Optimize your Home
If a quick look at the homewares store is any indication, it would seem that "decluttering" is a New Year's resolution for a LOT of people. Even though I quit resolutions, I've definitely got decluttering on the brain!
WHY BOTHER?
Feng Shui is the Chinese art of organizing the objects and furniture in your physical surroundings to optimize the flow of chi. It seems like superstition, or hocus pocus, but if you study it you'll see it's really mostly psychology. (It's "bad fung shui" to have broken mirros, dead flowers, piles of clutter and furniture in your way!)
Think about this:
When you walk in the door, it makes an annoying screeching noise because it's not oiled properly. You trip over the scrunched-up carpet and then bang your knee on the table, because it's at an odd angle. Because your couch is the first thing in your path as you enter the space, you inevitably flop down on it after work and get sucked into a few hours of television. You can never find what you're looking for, which leads you to give up on whatever it is you were doing. Then, after a long and trying night, that leaky faucet can make you really go ballistic.
The point is: clutter, disrepair, and a poorly laid out living or working space DOES affect our mental state. It affects our motivation and our speed of productivity... and isn't that what mind management is all about?
I don't hold delusions of a minimalist existence, but I came back from Thailand with the very sober realization that I. have. too. much. God. Damned. Stuff!!! Since I've moved so many times, it's not a complete disaster, but things aren't as organized as they could be.
The PROJECT
I'm tackling rooms one at a time, start to finish. I'm focusing ALL my effort on one room until it's done, and then the lovely rooms will motivate me to keep going fixing the ugly ones. (Like a visible progress bar!) For this project, I'm starting with the EASIEST rooms first - in my case these are the bathrooms, because they're teeny tiny and almost done anyway. (Quick wins!)
Each room will go through the following actions:
FIX - If it's broken... FIX IT or REPLACE IT! Fixed objects don't make us happy, necessarily, but broken ones make us SO ANNOYED! Replace burnt out lightbulbs, repair busted appliances, or improve a layout that's always pissed you off.
DECLUTTER - my "stretch goal" in this regard is to downsize by 50%. Tackle each cupboard, each shelf, each little collection of stuff one group at a time. Just one drawer per night if that's what it takes. Take everything out of that small section, and try to get rid of HALF of it.
Pick up items one by one and ask yourself: "When is the last time I used this? Do I really need this? Does this even work (or has it expired, in the case of medication or makeup)?" Then decide: Keep it, trash it, donate it.
ORGANIZE
If you have lots of useful small things - like hair elastics - that are constantly being found all over the house - build a PLACE for them and collect them all together. You know you'll use it if only you could FIND it when you need it!
Buy storage boxes and group things together by purpose - for example I used to keep my swim suit in with my socks, but instead I made a box that collects everything for "swimming" together - my different swimsuits, my goggles and other specialty "beach" things like snorkels. Same for camping and other specialty gear for sports! That way when I decide to "go swimming" everything's already collected.
UPGRADE
Last on the list is figuring out which things are overdue for an upgrade. I just upgraded the hideous shower curtain we inherited in the move and bought a few towels that match the decor. Be careful - nice homewares are ridiculously exensive and it's easy to go overboard. It's a total drag spending your pocket money on something lame like a shower curtain (seriously, I spent all my pocket money for THE MONTH on these few bathroom things!!) but if you HAVE the money right now it's better spent on nice things you will use every day, rather than MORE CLUTTER STUFF!!
I'm compiling a list of things I want to upgrade (sorted by the type of store I would buy it at) and going after them only when I have the pockey money to do so. If what you have now works, there's no rush to fix it. The upgrading process will probably take the longest of everything - hopefully long after everything is organized and decluttered! - but if I get it all over with I won't have to worry anymore. (For awhile, at least)
At the end of everything I'm going to have a place where everything is fixed! The drawers aren't overflowing with stuff! And I can actually use some of the wonderful things that I shelled out to own! Here's hoping!
I hope you'll excuse this horribly domestic post
Book Response: The Kaizen Way
I was recently forced to read "the Kaizen Way" as part of a change management program at work.
As far as books that I'm forced to read go, I rather liked it. It made sense, I got something out of it, and most importantly: it was pretty short. If you can get it out of the library, I would recommend it. I got it on the company's dime, but had I shelled out cash for it I would have felt a bit jipped. If you took all the content it was little more than a series of blog posts... with big font, huge margins and a thick cover.
But it was an easy, quick read with good tips and a solid message.
Really the only thing I didn't like about this book was the name. ("Kaizen" is kind of a dorky name that never really made sense to me. It's over-fluffy.)
Here is the gist of the book:
Big things freak us out. They trigger our lizard brain, and make us want to run screaming in the opposite direction.
Instead of trying to take drastic, massive steps, try to take the SMALLEST step possible towards your goal. Steps that take thirty seconds, one minute. Steps that are SO easy you can't possibly make an excuse not to do it.
Honestly, some of the steps that it suggested were so minuscule that they seemed kind of pointless and ridiculous, but the book itself was conscious of this fact. They said that the process was actually about building a pain-threshold for things that you fear, getting yourself in the habit, and chipping the mountain away pebble by pebble.
I've started incorporating a little bit of this into my personal life. If I'm confronted with something I'm really not into doing (usually: cleaning or some other chore), I "Kaizen it to death". There's a cluttered table, but I'm not super into clearing it off right now, so I'm just going to take ONE thing off every time I pass by.
Also I've started this approach to my passion projects.
I'm exhausted by the time I get home. Sometimes the prospect of setting up to work on a huge scary project is just too much. Before I drift into a time trap (TV or internet eye-candy) and lose the whole night as a result, I resolve do to at least ONE small thing towards my goals.
Ask yourself: "What is one tiny thing I can do TODAY to make life better?" Even if it's as simple as adding just the profile photo to my Linked In profile, or deleting one file I don't need. Sending ONE email.
Start with small steps, but take them every day.
Kaizen it to death.
Year End Goal Review – 2010
This blog passed its one year anniversary last August (!), so this is my first annual review with history!
In December 2009, I recommended brainstorming goals, ranking them, and then getting specific (or SMART). I was very prescriptive and detailed about how and when I would work towards these goals.
This year, I'm approaching Jan 1 with a very different mindset.
What's Changed?
I don't think I was wrong in 2009. Really thinking hard about what you want to do (and what you won't do instead), and how you're going to achieve your goals is an important skill. Only after a few years of practice did I learn how to spot conflicting and reinforcing goals, and how to really stick on a goal and track it until it was achieved. Only by thinking hard about the reasons I was failing to meet these goals and deadlines did I learn how to finally succeed. I think the process might still be valuable if you need to build discipline, or if you're new to this type of thinking.
But I'm starting to come around to Leo's way of thinking. It's time to try a year with no goals.
I accomplished a lot in 2009, but it's getting to the point where the process is getting in the way of progress. I have too many goals to track, too many times when not being there "yet" caused me stress and anxiety. A lot of the sub-goals really should have been tracked as projects and habits , and tackled one at a time in a more focused manner.
The Year End Goal Review Process, 2010 vintage
1. Review the previous year
It is still good to review your previous year's ambitions, and to make note of your successes and failures.
It's easy to keep marching towards a goal - adding "lose weight" to the list year after year after year, but unless you take the time to figure out what is going wrong, you're never going to make it stick. It's also important to celebrate successes, to add up what you've done in a small chunk of time and say "wow". You might not be at the top of the mountain yet, but you're a long way from where you've started!
2. Write "A Picture of Where I am TODAY"
From my goals, I can get a sense of what I had and had not accomplished by the end of last year, but it's really hard for me to remember how I was then. What was weighing most on my mind? What was I feeling good about? What was I excited to tackle? That's why I'm starting this year with a paragraph describing my life as I see it today. How do I feel about my current situation? What's going well? What needs to change?
3. THREE MISSIONS
This is how I am replacing goals. I chose one major thing that I really want to fix, and it's what I'm going to pour most of my energy into in the beginning of the year. It's made up of hundreds of tiny projects, but it's all in the name of one vision. Every day, I'm going to act towards this one objective. The deadline is "TODAY. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE." It will take as long as it takes, as long as I'm working on it and it gets done.
I chose two other missions as well, but I'm not going to act on them until the first main objective is achieved. The third one is something that I don't even expect to think about until it's fall or winter. It's a "stretch goal" if you want to think about it that way
This year, instead of trying to act on a bunch of different goals at the same time, I'm going to pour all of my energy into ONE THING until it is DONE. I'll still have other things that will come up (I'll have to do the dishes, and taxes are due in April no matter what goals you've committed to), but all of my time management skills and focus are going to be on this ONE THING.
4. THREE HABITS
Start with the habit that is going to make the biggest difference in your life. The difference between a habit and a
mission is that the mission does have a point where you can say "mission accomplished". A new habit is something that you do regularly, and once it's built you should never stop. Focus on building just the first one, and when it becomes automatic, move to the next.
5. THREE REMINDERS
You can think of these as a cross between a resolution and a mantra. Missions and Habits define WHAT you're going to do next year, but reminders are how you're going to do it. Here are mine:
- What can I do to help someone?
- Stop overthinking everything.
- Enjoy Today.
There's no task, habit or project that I can tie to "enjoy today". It's just something I want to remind myself to do. Three might be too many, but I've written them on a card pinned it near my monitor. We'll see how it goes.
6. Write "A Picture of Where I will be in one year"
Just like the picture of where I am today, I wrote this short paragraph in first person present. When next December rolls around, what will have changed?
What will I have accomplished? How will I spend my days? How will I feel? Think of it like a short-term version of the "ideal day" exercise.
"It would be amazing if..." This is your stretch goal. What would you be amazed by, if your future self came back from one year in the future and told you they'd done it? Words are the first step to action.
Will I have a completely different opinion and process at the end of 2011? Maybe. As long as I'm working and learning, I'm okay with that.
By the way, since December 2009 I:
- Launched a new WastedTalent.ca in Februrary that fixed a lot of major problems
- Had the Winter Olympics come through my town
- Took some big steps to further my career
- Was featured in Reader's Digest and the Toronto Star for my comic work
- Kayaked the Broken Islands (3 days of kayaking from island to island in the Pacific)
- Finished a major apartment reno, and really improved my space
- Went to 5 comic conventions, one which was curated, and one I was an invited guest at
- Got Married
- Finished and printed my first book
- Went on a huge adventure in Thailand - my first time in Asia!
I don't expect as impressive a checklist at the end of next year, but the goal is to evolve. Every dawn brings new opportunity. Go kick some ass!
6 weeks off. 2 hours to inbox zero.
I'm back from my honeymoon! I'm sure most of you are out enjoying holiday festivities and stat days off, but I wanted to share a quick email tip.
Even though I was away from the office for almost six weeks straight, when I got back I was able to get caught up on email in less than two hours. How did I do it?
1. Manage expectations
The first - and probably most important - thing that I did to combat being overwhelmed by email was that I actively told people that I was going away for a significant amount of time. I made sure that everyone who regularly emails me knew I would be away. I set up delegates for different components of my work (if you need help with x, contact y...) and made it clear that the blackberry was off: I wasn't going to be checking email while I was away. If they want my attention, they will be able to save the question for when I get back.
2. Prevention
When I set up my out-of-office alert in Outlook, I also set up a rule to filter out global emails. I set up a new folder called "Auto Archive", and using outlook I set up a rule that went like this: when my name is not in the To: box, move it to the Auto Archive folder and mark it as read. Messages where I'm not in the to: box could include company wide distribution lists, announcements from the front desk about people who were parked in the wrong place, or messages that I'm just cc'd on. Either way - if I'm not in the To: box, nobody has an expectation that I will reply.
Some people would automatically delete these messages, but I didn't want to in case the email filter caught something I actually DID need to see. It's also nice to go through the corporate messages quickly to catch up on big organizational changes you might have missed, or any other interesting news.
Marking it as read prevents "sticker shock" when you come back from holiday. Even if these are the emails that aren't urgent, seeing "(1000+)" in a folder NEVER gives you a good feeling.
3. Block out the time
The third and final most important thing that I did to combat being overwhelmed with vacation email is yet another thing that you can do before you even turn out the lights and board that plane.
My first day back at work was blocked off completely with a "fake*" meeting. Things DO come up while you're gone, and when people need to talk to you, they'll look for the first available timeslot in your calendar. It's not their fault, it's just the automatic thing to do.
Unfortunately, this can mean that the first day you're back, you're scheduled into back-to-back 9-5 meetings, including breakfast and lunch, and with a few conflicts at 3pm! Tuesday won't be much better, and as people realize your back, your email will be flooded with REGULAR messages that need your attention TODAY! You'll either ruin all your vacation destressing by working through nights and weekends to get back on top, or you'll miss something important and never get back to inbox zero again.
The fake meeting reminds people that you need some time to get back up to speed on things (and you do), and allows them to decide whether the meeting really IS urgent enough to take up your first day back from vacation. If all goes well (and it did for me), you'll have at least a few hours of peace and quiet reserved to focus.
It doesn't hurt to come in an hour early, either
(*By "fake" meeting, I mean I set a meeting with nobody (but myself) and I titled it "hold". If you opened the event, it read "I just need some time to get through my email." I wasn't trying to pull a fast one on the boss or anything, I just wanted to make people stop and think twice before booking into Monday)
4. Inbox zero
We're finally into post-vacation tips! This one is just a link to my inbox zero strategies: sort by to:, delete what you don't need, reply quickly and then flag what needs your action.'
5. Remember that extra folder!
When all was said and done, I had about 200 or so emails unread in my inbox. There were over 500 in the auto-archive folder!
As predicted, 80-90% of the emails in AutoArchive were completely ignorable... I really didn't need to know about that bake sale 3 weeks ago. Being able to focus on the inbox first meant that I wasn't being distracted by these less urgent matters, but there were one or two chains that I did need to rescue, and a couple of interesting organizational announcements that I was glad weren't deleted.
[Before we get into competitions here, 700 is really not that much email, I know. I'm not a big player in the company, and I do a lot on a regular basis to mitigate the email I receive.]
For Email: An Ounce of Prevention Truly Is Worth a Pound of Cure
I know that not every company is as understanding as mine (not remotely!) and this much time off usually isn't possible for people. But illness and emergencies do come up, and for some people a week away is enough to get their inbox completely flooded. No matter how much email flows in, these steps will help you quickly sort out what needs your attention and gets you back to work faster.
Climbing a Mountain of Work – part 2/2
This is the second half of a series of tips for making headway on a BIG HUGE SCARY PROJECT. Check out part 1 for more great tips and a rundown of what the heck BIG HUGE PROJECT is anyway!
Take all your problems and break them apart
Be like the squirrel, girl, be like the squirrel
If you're climbing a mountain of constant, similar tasks, find a way to divide it into chunks. If it's a novel, break it into sections, chapters, or 500-word chunks. Write it all out in one big list:
Chatper 1
- 500-word chunk #1
- 500-word chunk #2
- 500-word chunk #3 ... etc. You might mis-estimate. no big deal.
Chapter 2
...
CROSS IT OFF WITH SATISFACTION WHENEVER YOU FINISH A NEW CHUNK.
The key is having a VISIBLE way to see your progress. It motivates you. BIG HUGE PROJECTS are often so big they fall out of our field of vision. That makes the goal always feel soooo farrr offff.
When I had to draw in 200 artist editions of my book, I divided it all into 15 book chunks (10 was too easy, 20 too scary). I set up the little piles on my table, and brought them 15 at a time to my nest. When I finished 15 books, I wrapped them up for shipping then got the next batch. What was an invisible, impossibly massive task before now had a visible progress bar and that was enough to keep me motivated. I met what seemed like an impossible goal!
Make it Public
The great thing about having a blog or a webcomic is- compared to a book that you write by yourself in isolation-you can publicly show when you've finished a chunk and get feedback. It's AMAZINGLY motivating!! Once you've chunked your work out, find a group that cares, and a way to announce it.
Even if you don't want to show the world your rough drafts, sometimes it helps just to update your status: "finished 3 500-word chunks today! Onward to chapter 4! ". A few "likes" reinforce that good feeling make it easier to repeat the feat tomorrow.
Dance Break
Sitting and concentrating for hours can get exhausting. I like to find a really upbeat song, play it really loud and DANCE VIGOROUSLY. It's a good way to break up the day.
Silence
Most people like to work with some kind of noise: a movie, a podcast, some music. If you're finding the music still too stimulating, try working in complete silence for awhile.
Make it a Party
Working on BIG HUGE PROJECT can be quite lonely. Especially if you're doing it day in and day out. Even introverts get lonely sometimes! It's nice to have a group of friends to call who ALSO have BIG HUGE PROJECTS of their own.
Of course there's a balance to be struck here. Make sure you all understand that you want to have a WORK party, where primarily you will be sitting in silence and working. You're basically just there to have the presence of another human and to keep each other from losing the day to time traps. Different people have different thresholds, sometimes one person will be too chatty, another will have too low a tolerance for any kind of talking at all! Experiment: if it makes you MORE productive with a partner, keep it. If not, ditch it.
Batch Processes
Say you need to sew 20 toy rabbits. They all have the same steps: first you sew the body, then you sew the ears on, then you sew the eyes, then the details... Instead of working on them one at a time, start-to-finish, try working on two or three at a time. First you sew 3 bodies, then you sew the 3 pairs of ears on... Batching processes like these can help prevent the "between chunk" downtime. We finish one chunk and then AUGFghgg... we go get a cup of tea. And then hey, I wonder what's on facebook...
"Rule your board" as soon as you finish
Similar to batch processing, I found this helped me a lot to reduce between-chunk downtime: once you finish a chunk, instead of IMMEDIATELY going on your break, FIRST do the VERY FIRST STEP of the next chunk. In the case of comics, my first step was "ruling the board". This is where you measure out and draw all your guidelines. It's very simple, and takes no creativity, but even the simplest first step helped to prevent the 'empty page fear' and it was easier to get back into my groove after the break.
Channeling Inspiration Away
Inspiration ALWAYS seems to strike when you sit down to do BIG HUGE PROJECT doesn't it? I mean... inspiration for anything BUT your BIG HUGE PROJECT! It's distracting, and infuriating. The first line of defense is to write it down. OH! I have a great idea for a new story! WRITE IT DOWN. As fast as you can, just enough so that you can remember what you meant later, and GET BACK TO WORK. If it's still bugging you an hour after that and it's DRIVING YOU CRAZY, take an "inspiration break".
SET YOUR TIMER for one hour. (Again, you don't want to lose TOO much time to this - inspiration distraction is a CLASSIC lizard brain tactic.) Use the hour to burn yourself out on the inspiration. Whatever it is you were desperate to do. Wanted to paint? Cool. Paint something. For an hour--- then get back to work.
BIG HUGE PROJECT is usually the project that is closest to your heart, which is why it's the scariest to work on. Your lizard brain desperately wants to do ANYTHING IT CAN to keep you from working on it because it's afraid of failure. Or success. Know thy enemy, and use these tips to get back on track.
Hope it helps!
Climbing a Mountain of Work PART 1/2
Many of the tips that I've described so far (action lists, perfect project planning, prioritizing) work great when you have a large variety of different tasks to do.
But what about when your primary project -your next most important task- is a single, monumental task. There really aren't many little tasks to climb over to motivate yourself, you're just getting them out of the way to carve out times of day for you to work on BIG HUGE PROJECT.
What's a BIG HUGE PROJECT?
- It's long: something that will take weeks and months of solid constant work to achieve
- The work is always the same, with little variation.
- examples:
- Writing a book, or drawing a graphic novel.
- Reading a textbook, or studying for a final.
- Knitting 20 scarves as Christmas Presents for relatives
- It's either really boring or really scary to you
- It's generally something you need to sit alone and CONCENTRATE on
Quite often, you can get quite good at carving time out for the BIG HUGE PROJECT, but when it comes time to just sit down DO IT it's so hard to motivate yourself.
You stare at the blank page and can't seem to make the pencil move.
All those amazing thoughts you had running through your head have conveniently run off to find something better to do. (Yeah, thanks guys, while you were totally keeping me distracted when I had that expense report to do! JERKS)
If you can just GET INTO THE DAMN GROOVE of it you know you can do a good job and you can make yourself happier for having made progress, but right now you just want to... make another cup of tea. Check facebook. Get zoned into just one more episode of Dr. Who. Clean the stove.
ANYTHING BUT THIS!
What do you do!? How do you keep yourself on track!?
Of course if I had the secret to this I'd be a brazillionaire by now. Below are a bunch of things that I've tried that sometimes help to get myself un-stuck. Try them in isolation or in combination, see what works for you!
Build a Nest
You sit down to write and.... oh, damn - you should have your phone in here. Just in case. Oh! you forgot to get some tea. Oh!and you need your reference book. Augh! Why is this chair so uncomfortable... Where are my notes?
When I'm working on BIG HUGE PROJECT, I try to always go to the same place, physically. Setting this place up for the task at hand is a bit of a ritual. A way to tell my brain "okay, we've arrived at the place. Now we are setting it up so everything is ready. Now we are working."
Your nest needs to be:
- comfortable: but not so comfortable that you drift off to sleep!! Comfort means not too hot or too cold, and ergonomically set up.
- set up with everything that you need within reach: with practice, you'll build the habit of collecting everything you need to work so you're not constantly getting up to fetch something.
- AWAY FROM THE INTERNET
- If this is a problem for you (and it is for most of us) find a way to unplug. For me, working in a different room from my beloved internets is enough. Of I course drift over to twitter when I need a stretch, but I am (usually) disciplined enough to wrench myself away. When I have to do computer work, on the other hand... that's a totally different story.
- If you know your personal time trap websites, add them to a blocker using this tip: http://lifehacker.com/146448/geek-to-live--ban-time+wasting-web-sites
- Or you can use this Chrome extension http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/stayfocusd-block-time-wasting-websites/
Of course, there are ways for your lizard brain to get around anything. You can turn off your computer, but you still have your phone. You can block facebook, but oh! Didn't block wikipedia... eventually you're just going to rely on motivation. Remember why you're doing BIG HUGE PROJECT. Remember that you really WANT to do this, and it's worth more to you than random wikipedia article #35.
The key is to STAY AWAY FROM TIME TRAPS. If it's too hard for you, you may need to build an ISOLATION ZONE. For me, the cafe made a great isolation zone. Being in public means I can't just flop over when I want to. Surfing the internet is *just* inconvenient enough. Libraries and friend's houses also make great isolation zones.
Warm Up
If you can't quite break the silence of the page and just GET MOVING, treat yourself to a warmup period.
SET A TIMER (you don't want the entire precious block of time you saved for yourself to get wasted on something random!) 20 minutes usually works well.
Use this time to be ridiculous.
If your BIG HUGE PROJECT involves drawing, use the time to draw crazy looking monsters. Sexy ladies. Weird cartoons. Whatever you want, who cares if it's good or not.
If your BIG HUGE PROJECT is writing, use it to write stream of consciousness, or try to write the opposite of what you NEED to write. If you are trying to write an amazing drama, write THE WORST melodrama. Write as BAD as you possibly can.
Be LOOSE and FAST.
I like to write outlines, point form thoughts, random threads at the top and bottom of the document to warm up and then stitch the piece together slowly.
This list of tips ended up getting too long, so check back next week for part two!
Manufacture a moment of peace
This post assumes the following: that you are having a really really hard finding a simple moment of peace. Obviously it would be ideal if you could just shut everything down and run into a forest, but not all of us have that kind of freedom.
ALL YOU NEED IS FIVE MINUTES
1) Go outside. ALONE
Actually outside, not just out of your office. Get some sky overhead.
I don't care what the weather is.
2) Shut down all tech.
Put away your phone.
Step away from computer.
Don't accept calls (or read texts) for FIVE MINUTES. Just five minutes!
Shut off your music.
Un P L U G.
3) Relax your body.
Sit on a bench- or, if it's not gross, lie down on the grass
Let go of everything you are clutching - just put it down beside you on the bench. Free your fingers.
Let your hands fall empty by your side.
Relax your shoulders.
Unclench your teeth.
Put your hand on your heart, you want to slow down your heart rate and this helps you concentrate on that.
Close your eyes and slow down your breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
4) Slowly open your eyes and gaze straight ahead.
DO NOT FOCUS on anything. Let things enter and exit your field of vision.
Do NOT turn your eyes or neck to follow anything. It's tempting to (it's automatic!) but when you catch yourself doing it, just conciously bring yourself back to center.
Envision the world as flowing around you- you are not a part of it. You are just an observer.
Do the same with noises and scents. They enter your conciousness and you let them flow around you.
Same with thoughts. Let thoughts flow into your head, acknowledge them and let them go.
Nothing is good or bad. Nothing matters but this moment.
A noise may be annoying, but don't let it rile you up. That chick might look ridiculous with her arms full of tiny yappy dogs, but don't let your mind or eyes follow her down the street. She looks ridiculous. Thought in, thought acknowledged, thought out, and she exits your field of vision as you stare straight ahead.
If it's too much, close your eyes again.
5) Enjoy the moment
If it's warm, enjoy the warmth
If it's cold, enjoy the biting cold on your face
If it's raining, let the rain fall down your skin, feel the droplets on your face
Enjoy the prickly grass under your fingers
Enjoy the solidness of the concrete bench you're leaning on
Enjoy the peace, or enjoy the bustle.
Find joy wherever you are RIGHT NOW.
6) Return.
Once you feel you have achieved some state of calm that is acceptable, calmly return to your life. Try to maintain this calm for as long as you can. Work calmly. Speak calmly.
Good luck.