Tag: planning

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Procrastination and Preparation

Nothing scares me more than looking into my calendar and seeing nothing concrete.

Nothing concrete gives procrastination an in, and once its in it likes to stay around.

The worst part about my personal procrastination is that I know how it works. I start to fall into a feedback loop, a cycle that involves Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo News.  Once I get through the entire loop, enough time has passed for each source to load up with information.

I’ve stuck to that loop for hours, and at the end, I look around and notice I got nothing accomplished. It’s procrastination hell, and I hate it.

Procrastination is a tough nut to crack.

I’ve recognized fear as one of the components that keep my procrastination going. This month, I’ve also recognized how preparation, or lack thereof, contributes.

When I don’t prepare, I lose the accountability. There is something about putting a date or appointment in my calendar that starts me down the road of getting things done.  Adding a to-do list helps even more. Accountability partners are a reason.

Getting through my procrastination requires some planning and preparation. Until recently, I was unaware of how linked they are.

One thing is clear, making time to scope things out, helps deal with procrastination.

 

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Manage,Measure,Adapt – I Got Lucky With My Podcast

[bctt tweet=”Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that I made something.”]

I did it!

I recorded my first podcast last night. I don’t know it’s release date, but it is now in the hands of my producer.

But, I have to admit that I got lucky.

I started the podcast on a whim. Against some of the advice I write about I decided, randomly.  What got me going was a physical reminder and random luck. Here Is what I mean.

  1. I saw an email my producer sent me 2 weeks ago about doing this. (Random Luck)
  2. I had a number of podcast parts laying on the floor. (Physical Reminder)

These two things happened within 5 minutes of each other at a time where I found myself with a lot of free time. That combined into me creating.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that I made something.

What makes me feel off is that I got lucky. Not good lucky, but amateur lucky.

The main difference between amateurs and professionals is purposeful action. Things don’t come down from on high, they get managed, measured, and adapted.  Each of these things are important because they allow for growth.

  • Manage – The product is accurate and precise. I put my best foot forward. When something bad happens, I take a look and I don’t shy away from it, to properly manage I need to…
  • Measure – What are the numbers? Any time I talk to anyone, I ask for the numbers. If you don’t know the numbers, you don’t know the business. If you don’t know the business you can’t…
  • Adapt – Products work best when thought of as a living organism. Organisms evolve. As a shepherd of the product, whatever we ship, we have to adapt with that evolution, which allows us to manage.

It’s a cycle. That takes the luck to a higher level. But, the lovely thing about anything is that it can change. What started off as amateur changes to professional if you do the work.

So, I got lucky. Let’s make it good.

With all that said, the podcast will debut soon! I’m excited!

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3 Reflective Ideas I Got From Playing Starcraft 2

[bctt tweet=” If we focus,our failures turn into pressure, not pain. “]

Took a break from gaming for a few months, no particular reason, other than time got in the way.

Recently, I changed that.

I got inspired to try to reconnect to playing video games as a reward, instead of an escape. The results have been great so far – I spent the weekend playing Starcraft 2, and entered into a flow state, something I haven’t had outside of coffee shop in a long time.

One of the great things about Starcraft 2 is that it tracks EVERYTHING.

Resources, army growth, even actions per minute are given to you, objectively, after every game. The game collects your averages. It rates your AI opponent against your skill. Even your replays become available immediately after playing.

There is a lot of insight in the data, and it goes beyond the game.

Playing Starcraft enough (I played about 20 games this weekend) laid some of my weaknesses bare.

 

  • I let things lapse – During games, I let my resource collection lapse when I thought I did enough. This made me a one punch player. Meaning – if I didn’t land my first assault, I ended up in serious trouble. Little things matter here.
  • I leap before I look – I know planning isn’t the end all be all, but I didn’t use bright rules when engaging. This left me swinging wildly sometimes.
  • Gathering to gather –  Instead of seeing resources as means to an end, sometimes I found myself just gathering. Those resources mean nothing if they aren’t being used.

The great thing about having everything recorded is that I got to see this real-time. Then I got to investigate my replays.

[bctt tweet=”One of the great things about Starcraft 2 is that it tracks EVERYTHING. “]

Then I get the opportunity to fix. The fixes in my strategy go further, just like the flaws.

Life is like that, failure is feedback. We don’t have our complete lives recorded (yet) but if we focus,our failures turn into pressure, not pain. Pain clouds our judgement, pressure less so.

 

 

The stakes are low during a Starcraft game (just ego). Makes it a great training ground, especially since no one is chattering above you saying be better.

 

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Planning and Purpose

[bctt tweet=”Each appointment set on a contract represents a contract with yourself. “]

 

There are two parts to a successful calendar.

  • Planning – A calendar works when the when is correct. Each appointment set represents a contract with yourself.  It is easy to forgive one two or even ten mistakes, but each one represents an eroding of trust in the system. Eventually, this leads to the calendar just becoming noise, something our brains are good at filtering.  Some suggestions to help with planning.
    • Add buffer time – I live in New York City, and it pays not rush anywhere and with that said, people are often late. I am often late, and I build a form of ethics around it. One way to help stave off the tardiness is buffer time.  If you end up at your destination early, you look good. If you plan for it, you won’t stat panicking next time you hear “All train traffic is stopped due to a sick passenger” (or traffic accident, construction, or someone losing it because the Mets blew it).
    • Alarms – Don’t take the defaults. Use the alarms like football teams use the clock. Give yourself a two-minute warning, make it loud when you absolutely have to go, send an email at the beginning of the day. You get unlimited tries on this, so experiment until your heart’s content.
    • Accountability – Research your wins and losses here and adjust. Don’t beat yourself up, but also don’t let yourself off the hook.  Each time you are late, write a handwritten letter to the person. You don’t have to send it, but you will hate writing it, and you won’t forget.
  • Purpose – Each and everything has a purpose. connect yourself with it. What are the targets you want to hit going forward, how does this next thing move the needle? If you can’t think of it, it gets harder to deal with and your bed is going to look and feel a lot more comfortable
    • Write it out – Write out some of the why’s in your life. Put it in a place you will see often. Use your phone’s front screen, the background of your PC, or a white board. Take a few minutes to look at it and think about what you are doing and why its important to that.
    • Accountability – Talk about them to other people. Make sure people know what you are looking to do. Your mind is constantly playing tricks on you – but, someone else mind has no reason to do the same with your ideas.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, however, it serves as a great tripwire and a way to propel you through the day. Planning and purpose give you the chance to see and be honest on where you are in life, and what you want to do.

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Ownership Means Fear and Why A Plan Is A Tripwire

[bctt tweet=”Either you grab the oars, or you grab the waves. “]

As I train myself to look in, and not out,  I get more and more aware of my personal flaws. It starts to hurt. Self awareness is a painful process.

It feels like going through a jungle. I can’t see too much ahead. I feel sweaty and sticky, and with each step comes a personal challenge. Each challenge I take adds to my confidence, but with each step comes another challenge that can wipe all that confidence away and replace it with a lesson.

I forge ahead though, because with each challenge, good and bad, comes better skill. I get to “see” the world a little better. I get to hone a point of view. With each metaphysical cut and bruise I become a little more different from the rest.

I came across two ideas this week that dashed my confidence, but left me lessons that make me cherish the bruises they left on my ego.

Taking ownership is difficult, and I know when it’s happening when I get slapped with a fresh dose of fear.  I looked at ownership as taking responsibility of a process or thing. This is true, but the next step of ownership is taking responsibility for the fear that ownership can create. The fear is subtle, and effects the staff and people around you differently.

My reaction to fear is to put my head in the sand, look at my cell phone, and wonder where my support is.  I usually don’t recognize it as fear, until I look at the job ahead of me. Ownership is recognizing that fear and being proactive in developing strategies to mitigate it. Mitigate is important to me here, because I recognize that you cannot get rid of fear.

[bctt tweet=”Each challenge adds to my confidence, but another challenge can wipe all that confidence away and replace it with a lesson.”]

The army has a saying – that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Until recently, I used to take that to mean when things happen, be aware and create on the fly. This is true, adapt and evolve.  But what I am now seeing that to mean is that when you face something real, the real “enemy” your plans can fly out the window. Contact with the real issues in our lives leads us to change.  The routine has to adapt and evolve.

As a struggling perfectionist, recognizing this is scary, but as someone trying to get closer to self-awareness, this is invigorating.

Each day is a fresh day to develop  and learn.  When we get closer to the pain and our plans change, it changes into growth if we have the right attitude. Nothing that is worth gaining comes without some disruption to the system.

Either you grab the oars, or you grab the waves.

 

[bctt tweet=”With each challenge, good and bad, comes better skill. I get to “see” the world a little better.”]

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