Knowing that I have a tendency to hoard information, what can I do to help myself? This post will talk about some big-picture mindsets that may help me to reframe the problem so that, looked at from this new perspective, it isn’t a problem any longer (or it’s a smaller problem that causes less pain). The next post in this series will get down to translating these mindsets into specific behaviors and tactics. Continue reading “On being an information packrat – Part II”
Many of you are doing a splendid job getting clear on what you wish to create. You are stepping into your role of co-creator with mindfulness and excitement. This is, of course, wonderful, but what many of you are not realizing is that you are still supporting obstacles for yourself with the negative speech habits you developed long ago. Why not take a day to be very aware of your self talk? Are you always “sick and tired”? Your I AM statements define you and carry far more power than you realize. Remember the universe will always answer yes to what you proclaim about yourselves! How about self talk that says, “I am magnificent!” “I am shifting with grace and ease.” “I am lovingly supported and honoured in all of my endeavours.” “I accept!” “I am whole and happy and healthy.” “I am shining brilliantly with beauty and love.” Again, this is not about puffing oneself up with ego. This is merely changing your I AM statements to truly reflect who you really are. ~Archangel Gabriel
I see the truth of that whenever I scan my bookshelves, my stacks of CDs, my files of photocopied chapters or articles ripped from magazines — and especially the piles of information tucked into folders on my hard drive. Past legal disputes, letters of complaint, all of my master’s and PhD papers and projects, old checklists, old resumes, old PDFs etc. Except that I don’t leave ’em behind — I hang on to ’em. Continue reading “On being an information packrat”
Steve Donoghue wrote what I thought was the best tribute to Vidal; it was graceful, heartfelt, lyrical. And absolutely the most gorgeous photo of the young Vidal I’ve ever seen. Though I will take him to task on Gore’s “abandoning his country”; Vidal always maintained US residence and lived in the US for the last decade or so. And America was a huge theme of his life and much of his work. Continue reading “Gore Vidal (1925-2012)”
Mr. Vidal himself never had much use for religion, Christianity especially, which he once called “intrinsically funny.”
When I first got the idea to restart the blogging, my first thought was: “No, don’t start this Monday, start next Monday.” It felt like the safe option: give myself time to scope out other blogging tools, come up with a list of topics,develop a workflow, etc.
And then the second, more challenging voice of The Coach came in: “Why wait? Start tomorrow. Just get started. If you wait till you’re ready, you’ll never be ready.” And I knew that starting before I felt I was ready was the wiser course. Continue reading “On starting before you’re ready”
Do not mold yourself to fit any idea I put forward. Mold the idea to fit you.
This is a blog, not a religion. A personality cult with fascist leanings, yes, but not a religion.
Many people would like to change their lives and begin living more authentically but they don’t know where to start. All that is required is heartfelt gratitude for what you would like more of in your life, and heartfelt surrender of the rest. This is the formula to shift any situation into forward movement and empowered change. ~Archangel Gabriel
Mark Forster recommended the use of timers in his book Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play. It sort of starts with the idea of timeboxing, a demarcated bit of time within which you choose to work on a specific task. A teacher may set aside 45 minutes to grade papers, say, and then take a 15-minute break. The teacher has timeboxed that task for 45 minutes and included a break, since if she simply sat and plowed through all of the papers in a single setting her brain would curdle and the last papers in the pile would have less of her focus and attention than did the first papers.
Forster recommended various ways to attack high-resistance tasks using a timer and timeboxing. One that I remember was to set a timer for 5 minutes with a one-minute break, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, etc. Focusing on the high-resistance task (or even a list of tasks) is easier when you agree with yourself to focus for only five minutes. Oftentimes that can be enough to get the ball rolling, and I find myself wanting to continue past the appointed time. It’s important, though, to STOP what you’re doing when the timer goes off. Your agreement with your mind is that you’ll only work when the timer is active and then you’ll take a break; your mind needs to know it can trust you. It’s how you can get it on your side.
Forster had several other patterns in his book (one of them was a 5-10-15-20-25-30-25-20-15-10-5 sequence), all with the intention to help you get through the initial chaos of a high-resistance project or task and to ease you into doing the work you need to get done. Also, in these seemingly small margins of time, you will actually accumulate several hours worth of work. Oftentimes, just getting started is the hardest thing, and little tricks like this can be tremendously useful for just that purpose.
In recent years, the Pomodoro Technique has held sway and it’s the one I tend to use the most often at home and at the office. It’s kind of boggling to imagine that the simple idea of a 25-minute timebox has spawned web sites, apps, blog posts, ebooks, etc. In the old days, that probably would have been 2 pages in a chapter of any decent time management book.
An interesting twist on the timebox is the decremental timebox system (hat tip to a poster at Mark Forster’s FV forum for the link). I’ve not used it much yet, but it’s a rather fascinating idea.
I use two timers. At the office, I use the Time Timer, which is nicely visual and utters a little beep at the end of a session. (If I’m away from my desk when the timer goes off, I prefer the timer not drone on loudly for several seconds, thereby annoying my cubemates.) At home, I use the Datexx Miracle Time Cube (which is a winner simply for the name alone). It only offers 5-15-30-60 minute intervals, but it’s dead easy to use and fun, which otherwise, why bother?
I have been inspired to restart blogging by, as usual, several seemingly random prompts that combusted in that imaginative furnace I am pleased to call my mind.
The first was Shannon Wilkinson’s recent completion of 13 weeks of straight Monday-Friday blog posts. The challenge, of course, is in coming up with enough ideas to fill up that many posts. But I firmly believe that the more you write, the more you can write.
Another prompt was reading Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein, particularly the chapter on becoming an expert by working past the “OK plateau.” The OK plateau is that level of skill whereby you get good enough results without improving your execution.
Foer’s example is that of typewriting. Most people’s typing speeds improve to a certain speed and then stay there. The patterns and movements are well-burned into the neurons so that they hardly have to “think” about typing anymore.
So, to type faster, the key is to move those unconscious skills up to the conscious level where they have to be examined, honed, improved, etc. This is exactly how my banjo teacher has instructed me to practice — set the metronome faster than I can play comfortably. The point is to get uncomfortable and stretch and confront your weak spots, which the faster speed highlights.
As far as blog posting — well, I’m not out to set any records. But I would like to challenge myself, particularly on producing a lot of writing. I always have a ton of little ideas, and one way to break the blog barrier is to write faster, shorter posts. Since I typically take a long time to write a post, this will be good exercise for me.
My plan is to write 50 Monday-Friday blog posts over the next 10 weeks (thanks for the M-F idea, Shannon!). This gives me the weekend to rest up, maybe write some posts in advance, and hone my writing and posting process. One reason I stopped blogging is because I couldn’t figure out a great workflow. I hope this exercise will help me use my software tools better.
And I have a few other reasons for wanting to write regularly. I will talk about them in later posts.
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