I've always had romantic ideas about my own future. Something tell me you do too. These ideas involve finding success, fulfillment and not owning up to the life I actually have. At least not entirely. Every year, I'm asking myself where have all my hours gone? Of all the project I had, the stories I wanted to tell, only one or two actually became real stories, published in magazines. I've been cursed blessed with a certain level of self-awareness that allows me to look at myself in the mirror from time to time. It's not that difficult to take control of your day and make it what you want. Here are a few guideline that helped me with my devouring self-awareness, creativity and productivity. Hopefully, they can help you too.
Forget what you've been told about networking and getting your name out there. A second spent on social media is a second spent not doing what you should be doing. It's a platform where everything is fragmented and bite-sized, so it'll run your capacity to focus into the ground. If you want validation for existing, Facebook is your friend. If you want validation for you work, do the work and sell it to someone who will promote it on Facebook *.
The most successful authors I know are barely on social media because they are busy working on what matters.
30-10
Daily milestone work for certain people (i.e 1,500 words a day for a writer), but they've always been a terrible burden to me. On some days, they seem like a mountain and on some others, I'll race through my story and churn a mediocre, unsalvageable piece of crap for an end product. Instead, I use a timer to structure my work sessions. 30 minutes of uninterrupted work for 10 minutes of break. Since I've been doing
this, I've been writing more and ramped up the quality of my material. I've also been popping in my work office 3 or 4 times a day, to write. Been finishing more projects, so I've been tackling more projects too.
It's important to have a timer next to you when using this technique though. It's about time management and never feeling stuck. You don't react to challenges the same way. You don't lose yourself in leisure the same way either, knowing the timer is winding down. It might not work for everybody, but it works for me. It's not my idea, by the way. It's a spin off an old productivity technique that helps me in more ways than one. 30 minutes of uninterrupted work, 10 minutes of complete leisure, again and again. Try it **.
Discipline
Do what you have to do first. Do what you feel like doing later. Seems like the easiest principle, but it's actually the most difficult. If you've had an exhausting day at work, it's normal to feel like doing nothing. My Playstation console is singing its siren song to me just about every night *** and let me keep it real with you: it wins sometimes. The discipline battle boils down to self-awareness. Can you put the work ahead of your own needs? Can you shush the voice in your head telling you that you're meant for something beautiful and actually work towards it?
Remember this: your romantic ideas about your own future are just ideas. Reality is not as seducing, but it's what's yours to shape.
* I've been a social media professional for 10 months now, I still know very little about it, but I know enough to know you have no idea about how to promote anything. Hire somebody to do it.
** Kudos to my boy Arcadio for showing me that wonderful productivity hack.
*** My point guard is actually leading the Phoenix Suns to the playoffs in NBA 2K14. Take that, Eric Bledsoe.