And how I maintain that is a simple practice, one that doesn’t demand too much but allows me to explore.
Here are the rules – every post must:
That is it.
This blog exists as a scratch pad, a way to test out ideas. No matter the medium (image or video as well as writing), as long as I am trying out a “point” or exercising a point a view, I’ve done what I needed to do for the day and I built the way forward for tomorrow.
Let the muse take over, please.
For that to happen, you have to let go of the need to “do it right” or to “have a purpose.”
The truth is, most of those things come after the work is done, it’s a way to rationalize creation. There is a purpose to this behavior, but the trick is not to let it hold you from work by trying to justify too early.
So, consider this post an invitation to make something. Take a picture, write a blog, sing a song, or whatever you want. You’ll be better for it, if for no other reason than your soul will appreciate it.
So do it.
The beautiful thing about focus is that is fuels decisions.
One of those decisions that focus fuels is between iteration or polish.
Both are important. Iteration helps someone discover the next step in development. Polish helps you story tell.
Often, people make the mistake of polishing a project iteration. It is a waste of time to make something, whose final destination is the trash bin, beautiful.
Other times the mistake is iterating on a polished project. That is when a team is more susceptible to feature creep. When it’s done, lock it and work on making it beautiful.
A love letter is “sendable.” We take our time to understand how the other person enjoys our communication and strive to match it. We leave ourselves open by admitting our want for someone else.They are honest and vulnerable.
If your kid picked up those letters, they would smile, knowing that their parents loved each other. That effort and vulnerability show up in work. As a result, it reads well.
Therefore, treat your work like that.
Consider the audience, be honest, and make sure that if someone who you were close to read it, they would appreciate it because our work is our connection to the world.
When you short change the work, you only play yourself. Make it count.
Energy, along with time, is a principal actor that decides how we “show up.”
It is an incredibly hard thing to balance.
Our days and nights continually fill with distractions, some designed with energy draining in mind.
On the other hand, energy is frightening to store. It feels good to release our energy into something. It allows us to point to that “something” to prove we are somebody.
In is in the spirit of this that we create “vents” for our energy to spill out.
They show the world we are up to something and allow us not to deal with the fear of storing energy.
These vents take many forms, from unnecessary side projects, to “communities” we join at work, and even to relationships we create and support.
Be bold.
Take time to recognize these vents, and shut them down when you can. The result resembles a ventilation system. Every one one you close makes the rest of the system stronger.
Don’t create any “new holes.” Make sure you dig your current holes deeper.
Helicopters are a unique tool for the military. They create quick access and pickup in war zones. The downside is, they are vulnerable.
To account for that vulnerability, before the helicopter lands, it needs a landing zone (LZ).
Landing zones are the primary reason helicopters survive.
Success means extra resources(more troops, supplies or tools) or an emergency evac (a clean escape).
In combat, to survive is to succeed.
Failure could mean the loss of resources and the death of everyone inside. That is a massive blow to morale.
I think people who delegate tasks need to treat the starting point like a LZ before the helicopter lands.
Create an environment, before you assign the work, where the person you give it to have a point of departure.
Failure may not mean the end of life. It does, however, create distrust and defensiveness in the organization. These [distrust and morale] erode morale
Before you delegate out the task, give someone a place to start. Create the LZ.
“Genius myth?”
Here’s the idea: “real genius” is alone in a room. Once inspiration “hits,” the artist works on a problem until completion.
The “genius” doesn’t take the time to think about anything, she just walks in and gets to work.
After completion, the world has a beautiful piece of art, and she can relax, knowing she made something awesome.
It was an inspiration!
It’s also nonsense.
This framework sounds fantastic, but in life, it is dangerous.
That feeling leads us to rely on “inspiration” to get something done.
“Inspiration” is fleeting, and runs the moment fear pops up. That keeps us from the work we want to do that creates and leads us to the work that sustains.
It’s ironic that inspiration leads us to a life of subsistence, and nothing about subsistence is inspiring.
Always remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was it built all at once.
100 years ago you had access to only one way of thinking*. The internet has changed that.
“Diversity of thought” is the concept that there are people who know a lot, have some authority, and end up in a different intellectual place than others.
If you have access to this blog, chances are you have access to YouTube,Codecademy,Udemy, One Month, etc. All these places have courses (and in YouTube’s case, a lot more).
You can spend the day learning about Alan Watts, Seth Godin, and Martin Luther King Jr through a course, a lecture, or biography for free or slight cost.
These are free platforms where one can express her views, combine them, deconstruct them as often as you want, all for no cost.
When this is clear to those who want to pick up the tools, magic happens.
The best part? No Ph.D , magic wand, or gatekeeper required.
* Unless you traveled, which was a rarity before the airplane. Most people didn’t go further than 10 miles from home their entire life.
Monday Morning.
Everyone needs a little push to get out of bed. The weekend is over, and you got to bring yourself to that cubicle, the one place you don’t want to be.
I have two things this morning to help you out.
One, the above link.
You have to keep trying. There is no way to continue on a path of success without failure.
Its so easy to stop when you feel like you hit a wall. The most important thing is to push against it. It becomes exercise, and you will eventually have the strength to break though, as well as any other the smaller hurdles in front of it.
Not just that, here is a quote from Ira Glass to add on to the point. Keep Moving.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 