Tag: time

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How Bold Is It to be Yourself; Fighting Self Doubt By Running Towards It

A sign of being on the right track is a huge ping of self doubt.

I remember recently, sitting at the computer, literally cursing at myself with each email I wrote. But before we get to that, lets talk about the price of being yourself, and what that delivers to you as a human being.

How bold is it to be yourself?

That pang of self doubt

It’s a scary thing. The moment you decide to break away from the comfortable, the things as they are, is the moment that guy starts making trouble for you.

The reason it is so bothersome is because since our youngest years, we’ve learned to not stand out, but to conform. We’ve learned horrible things like “be realistic” instead of listening to that internal rhythm.  We follow the group, not because of what we want to do, but because it’s safe.

Make no mistake, it takes a lot of confidence to walk into a place as yourself.  It also takes a lot of energy to tell other people who you are. Not the representative (the person sterilized by society, the one that fits in) but you, the person you are.

Cursing over emails

I found myself internally struggling. I sent a bunch of emails out, and with each one, I cursed out of frustration.  What kind of email was I sending? One that said  “Happy New Year”.

That wasn’t the part of the email that scared me. The part that scared me were the links to this blog that I sent. The biggest one was the end of 2015 post, one of my most personal. I bared a lot with that post, and it wasn’t a lot of great news in there.

If you wanted to hate me, I gave up some ammo.

The benefit

By being vulnerable, I found a lot of people felt safe enough to do the same in return. I appreciate their boldness.  Through being myself, I gained more connection, which I am learning, along with time, are the greatest currencies we have.

Now that I don’t have a regular 9-5, I don’t have a boss. What I do have, is that pang of self-doubt. I know if I am running towards it, and conquering it, there is a chance that I build a connection.

That connection always beats the cost.

 

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Dedicating Some Time To Think

Dedicating time to think is critical

We live in a world where we are constantly connected.

There is no time where we don’t hear  the sound of a click, ding , or whistle. It feeds us a nice measure of dopamine. We keep it around.  It sounds good to always be there, to be connected. It keeps us “busy”.

But the thing that allows us to grow is a dedicated time to think, a time to sit back, unpack,  and understand. We can’t just keep making, it is necessary to sit and think.

Take some time when you can and get away. To capture this effectively, its imperative you sit down away from the action to reflect. Don’t be afraid to turn everything off.

So, just try it.

Turn off your phone, leave it in your dresser, and drive or walk to a local coffee shop or park.

Just bring a pen and a pad. Sit there, and just start writing down everything.

No, dedicate the time

 

Take the time to put this in your calendar, and make the effort to follow it. Everything in your being won’t like it. For people who make stuff happen, or just trying to mellow out, it won’t feel natural.

But take the time, and I know that all sorts of interesting experiments will come out the other end. We live in a world that is far to concerned with the idea of connecting and being in the know, when we have a great resource sitting between our heads.

The next great ideas are in you. Trust that they are and take the time to find them out. It isn’t going to turn over into a paycheck, and there is no ROI that is apparent, but getting closer to yourself by dedicating time to think is something that separates us from the drones.

I wrote about something like this over at LinkedIn, take a look

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Time and Enviorment Matter

You take it to the next level.

With that said, you have to get to an enviroment where you can grow.

Do an inventory, figure out where you are, and decide to move if it isn’t for you.

Time means everything. The only thing you can’t get back.

So protect your time, and make sure it counts.

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How Long Are Two Minutes?

Perfect is the enemy of good

High expectations are a killer. The worst part about them is that they are in our heads. When my mind decides on recklessness, there is nothing I love to do more than catastrophizing and making mountains out of molehills.

If I told you two minutes is long enough to get that thing you have waited to get off the ground off the ground, would you believe me?

How long are two minutes? They are long enough to get the habit you want to do out of your head and into life.

An example:

If you want to start cooking in the morning as a habit, don’t think of it as a chore. No three-course meal with eggs sausage and fresh chopped fruit. Making a bowl of cereal counts. It takes less than two minutes, and you have accomplished the mission.

 

Accept that perfection is a gateway to procrastination.

The only way to get things done is to do them. Two minutes are a gateway into getting something done without the pressure. It’s perfect because it is long enough to take a look, do a small amount of research, send an email, or do a very simple model of what you want to do.

This tool isn’t for a single purpose.

Forcing boundaries also help us want to improve.  When I set up the two-minute rule, I force it on myself for a time. Taking the above example, I will make cereal for a week. Mentally, I know I can’t stand the boredom of sticking to two minutes, and find myself doing more as time goes on once I open it up for another week.

The hardest gap isn’t between good to great, but between starting and not starting. I would bet that you could make a significant dent in the universe by simply getting over the fear of high expectations and just starting.

So what is something you aren’t starting now? Got two minutes?

(Pair with Task O’clock)

The other side of this is to make sure you don’t stick in the two minutes, so make a way to make yourself jump in more. But again, the enemy of good is perfection, and just getting started on something is good enough. 

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3 Tips For Dealing With Time for Events

Bad presentation is a widespread problem.

Guy Kawasaki said most people create bad presentations by having bad content and going long.  It happens all the time to very smart people. I spent a day at a phenomenal research lab yesterday that got hampered by horrific presentations by  a lack of skill.

The great thing about stand up comedy is that it forces you to adhere to some rules, especially with time. Here are three tips I learned from both speaking and comedy that help a ton for both the speaker and the coördinator.

1) Keep a clock on the wall: This is a simple fix. If you don’t have a physical box in front of the speaker, you can use an analog clock. For me, seeing the hands move allows me to get a quick idea of where I am without too much effort. If you are coordinating the event, make sure the speaker sees the clock! It’s obvious to you but that means nothing.

2) Create a signal system: Maybe you need them to go long, maybe you need them to wrap it up, or maybe you need to create an intermission. You never know what may happen during the course of an event, but having those three things ready makes everything easier. It is also easier than barging on stage or stopping an entire event.  Again, make sure you let the speaker know if you are coordinating, or if you are a speaker make sure that the coordinator has a system.

3) Research for Programming – Event coordinators should know how long the speaker speaks for before bringing them there. If no one does the first two things on this list, the speaker will talk for as long or as short as comfortable. If they have a lot of interesting things give them an hour and a place during the event that makes sense – very early (kickoff) or late(keynote). Don’t put anything after lunch that isn’t a Q&A or something light that people can pick up (they tend to linger around so it just does everyone a favor).

Time can be fixed and when fixed allow your event to look much more coordinated and professional. It is something that both the event organizers and the speaker can work on with a little research and being proactive. The best part of those three things is that the audience isn’t aware and will appreciate the work.

 

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Be Specific

Specificity beats generality every time.

Every time I get specific, I get the answers to the most important questions about a project.  Much of the ambiguity falls away because I have to make important decisions immediately. The goals of the project become clear.  The to-do list starts to form. The vision starts to become a reality. Your focus gets sharper because you are adding restraint. Restraint gives us focus.

It isn’t easy.It requires patience. It requires fighting through the urge to do something. Most of all, it requires you being open to accepting that you may not want to do what you started doing. You may go down the rabbit hole. You may decide that it just isn’t worth the time,money, or blood sweat and tears it will take to make this a reality. It is a hard pill to swallow, because you begin to deal with sunk cost. The work has already begun through planning. You start to see what it is, but – it may not work. That may not work sucks but it’s a reality, but it sucks.

Asking enough questions, specific questions, makes life more uncomfortable. The reality that something might not work is uncomfortable. It hurts to give things away. At the core of it, we are selfish beings.”I am right all the time.” It is alright, no need to worry about that. We are human and dealing with that is harsh.

There is an upside to all of this though.  Those specific questions give us freedom. That freedom leads to us getting rid of wasted time. You can always find ways to make yourself feel better about “the suck” but you can never regain time. Being focused is critical to carry out the real work that drives us, and through specificity we can get to a better level of focus.

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Beauty and Art with life

It’s amazing when you can see the art of it all. That is all I could think sitting inside of my acting class last night.   We were doing an exercise that involved concentration, and it drove people to tears, anger, and frustration. Through that process, everyone’s humanity was on display. There was art in front of us, and it all made sense.

There is magic to it.  Life is beautiful through that lens. The beauty requires a lot of cutting. The beauty of that exercise is it happens in a sparse room. There is nothing around that makes you think. The best work seems to happen that way.  The best art doesn’t happen with clutter, it only happens when you create signal, and it is strong enough to get to where it has to go. When you have nothing around you, it helps with that.

It made me think of what I was doing in my life. Where can I cut the noise? How I spend my time stood out to me.

While reading the Effective Executive – I realized how much time I waste doing things that don’t matter. “An effective executive knows where his time goes”. One of the first things I know I can do is to take a time audit. I’m scared at what I may find out, but if I just strip down to the essential,  I open more room for my art to creep in. I am allowing the beautiful in my life.

For me, there is nothing better than watching something happen, created from nothing concrete, turn into something beautiful. Sometimes it is angry, sad, happy, or joyful but it is all beautiful. The great thing is it is all within us. We all have that power to display that in whatever we choose. To get there we have to use discretion.Our time is important and through that, we can get better with our art, whatever it is. Why else live life if you aren’t making beauty? It is this work – and it is a lot of work – that makes us stand out and be signals to others. That is when the fun begins.

 

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Catastrophizing

Is there anything worse than having an e-mail or phone call sit over a weekend, allowing you to manifest any issue in your head. The worst thing about it is 99% of the time, it is something that wasn’t ever that serious to begin with.

It seems one of the top things my brain can do is imagine the worst that can happen, and then top that. Time is its greatest ally, assisting by letting the thoughts linger.

There is a certain art to catastrophizing.

The one thing that bothers me is that we all know how horrible it feels when it happens to us, yet we don’t have the collective consciousness to not do it to someone else.

Language matters, so I hope that anyone that reads and leads thinks twice before they send that Friday afternoon email, and those who have to respond have the courage to ask the behavior to stop.

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About Time

Why do we give everything attention except for time?

Money pays bills, attention makes us feel alive, and love gives us strength. All these things we go out and chase on a daily basis, and many days seem lost unless we succeed in making one of those things.

Time, however, is the one thing we can’t recover, can’t create, and can’t win.

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Time Moves On

Time is not the issue – Jason Womack.

We often blame the time – but time is the equalizer.

Each week – I am going to try to do something that brings back the time I “discard” during the week.

This week – I am going to get rid of social media on my phone. I’ll see how it works.

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