The Only Way To Develop Expert Habits Is To Fail At Developing Them

Just This Once You Should Look To Fail

If you want to make a change in your life, there's only one way to do so.

If you were to go for a hike on the local trails, how'd you get started?

How about losing some weight, get in better shape and become healthier?

What's the first thing you'd do?

How about wanting to make more money?

Would you get a new job, pick up additional shifts at your existing one, or start a business?

In every example you're making a trade-off.

You're making a trade-off of something, it may be time, or money, for the idea that there's a payoff at the end. You're giving up something in order to receive some type of reward.

If you were to make a lifestyle change, such as living healthier or making more money, how would you get started?

What's the first thing you'd do?

No matter what expert habit you hope to develop, no matter what new skill you want to master, and what change you wish to see in your life, there's no fool-proof method.

Regardless of what you want to accomplish, or wish to change, there's only one way to get it accomplished.

Get started.

There's only one way to be successful.

To get started.

Will you fail?
Possibly.

Will you learn?
Absolutely.


What you do with your experience(s) after you learn is up to you.

When asked how he persevered to develop the light bulb after almost 10,000 different versions failed, Edison is quoted as saying

"I didn't fail. I just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

If you want to make an effective change in your life, you need to act.

It's only through action that we learn, and through the trials and errors that we experience, is how we succeed or fail.

Another American innovator Henry Ford is quoted as saying, "whether you think you can, or cannot, you're right."

It won't be easy. It probably won't happen when you need it to, but if you try, fail and learn, you're further along than if you didn't get started in the first place.

In other words, the only way you can develop expert habits in your life is to fail at developing them.

But it's by failing that you learn what doesn't work and puts you one step closer to finding what does.

7 Simple Ways To Maximize Your Productivity

The Seven Simple Tips That You Can Start To Use Right Now To Maximize Your Productivity 

1)  Distraction Free Zones 

Create a distraction "free" zone.  Find a space you can work, uninterrupted for a decent amount of time. Turn off your phone and email notifications, close all unnecessary windows, tabs and don't check Facebook and other social media.

If you're at home, turn off the TV.  Even though you like the "white noise" that the TV provides in the background, turn it off.  It serves as a distraction to your focus.

Let your coworkers, friends and family that there is a period of time that you need to work without disruption.

Then close the door to your office, find a quiet place to work.

2)   Separate Life From Work And Work From Life

Create a workspace separate from everything else.  This is especially important if you have to, or choose to, work from home.

It's like having a dog.

If all your dog ever does is runs around the house and yard, he's not getting the exercise needed.  But as soon as you set off and take him for a walk, to the park, or beach, and he sniffs around, he's going to be happier and more satisfied.

Why?

Because a change of venue sparks something in him, and it works the same for us.  Getting up and moving to a new workplace, some new site, makes a part of our brain activate in a way that's different.  It's the stimulus of a new environment that helps spark a drive and energy toward our production.

3)  Measure Once, Cut Twice 

Now that you have a work space and people understand the importance of your work, cut it down to size.  Take the large projects you have and break them down into smaller, more manageable pieces.

In carpentry, there's an adage to "measure twice, cut once." In this instance, you should invert those two concepts.  Measure once, see the size and scope of the project and cut it down to as small a portion as possible.  Another tip is to make a list of what you need to do, how many steps you predict it will take and set about one step at a time.

For example, let's say you're a weightlifter, and you want to try to lift 1 ton.  While that's humanly impossible, the idea is by breaking your target weight down into smaller amounts; it may take more repetitions to accomplish, but you'll be able to get to a ton in due time.

4) Time To Get To Work  

Dedicate your time.  

Commit to working in dedicated, highly focused periods of time.  This concept is called the Pomodoro Technique and is one that instructs us to work in small batches of time, with an immediate break from all related activities.

In other words, set limits on the length of time you plan on working and make sure you have very clear boundaries that include breaks in the intervals.

5) Fight The Battles To Win The War

In my recent past, I spent a long time coaching sports.  Team sports, individual sports and focused on individual development within the concept of teamwork and cohesion - one of the tenants was to make your teammates better, and one of the tools of the trade I used was to curate ideas.  In other words, I'd take what I observed, heard, saw, and researched to funnel that information down to a granular level in order to help solve whatever issue was on the team, or individual's, way.

How this applies to you, is that you should think about your work as little minor tasks to accomplish and that over time these micro-accomplishments will add up to something greater. Indeed, the sum is greater than the parts - but focus on the parts that matter.

Now, here's a horrid analogy that summarizes these concepts.  I hate the conflation of sports and war, but they are prevalent in society so here goes - Think about your tasks as minor battles in a larger war.

By focusing all your energy and troops on the small battles one at a time, you have a better chance of winning the war as it were.

6) Just Say No! 

Learn to say NO.

There's always more to get done and more than you can ever hope to accomplish.  So learn to say no.

Obviously we all have a finite amount of time in a day and a finite quantity of energy to get the tasks accomplished.

It may take awhile for clients, family and friends to learn, but eventually, they'll learn that by you saying no to their every demand and whim, you'll be happier and more productive over the long-term.

It's not easy to do but critical for success.

Be willing to say no will free you up with extra time and energy to focus on the tasks most critical and important to you.

7) Yield When You Come To A Stop Sign

As we discussed earlier, learn to set limits.  

It's a tactic that will help you break down your tasks into simpler, manageable ways.

Your tasks are the vehicle, the engine of your success.

But like an engine, it requires maintenance, upkeep and can't be run forever without breaking down.

Don't just work for the sake of work.  Make it a priority to stop when you should and rest when it's time.

Most importantly - DO NOT VEER OFF YOUR PATH - No U-Turns.

Taking decisive action in granular ways will lead you toward the goals you want.

Life's funny, we don't get to choose our birth, few decide their demise, but to quote Pearl Jam, 

"I know that I'm born and I know that I'll die, 

  the in-between is mine" 

Take advantage of the opportunity we have. We don't get to decide the boundaries of our lives too often, so make the most of what you know that you have. It's easy to want to do something, or want to be somewhere, but what's holding you back?

Regardless of your goals, these 7 tips you can use right now will maximize your productivity for all the time you have left.

6 Hacks To Improve Your Productivity That You Can Start Right Now

6 Simple Ways To Get More Done In Less Time

There always seems to be more tasks and demands than we have time for. So how do you get everything you need to be done completed?

Understand that there are 24 hours in a day.  How you prioritize how you use those hours can dictate your productivity and output.  So how do we improve our productivity and decrease the amount of time we need to do the task?

Specifically to writing, there are 6 tips that will help you become more efficient, getting more writing and in less time.

The 6 Tips To Writing More, Faster

1. Set a Deadline:  Nobody likes deadlines, but the make us get to work.  Think about school.  You had a paper to write for a month, but you waited until the night before.  Your procrastination game was strong. And it probably still is, so setting a deadline is critical to actually getting your work done.

2. Outline: Having an idea and the flow of how you plan to explain your thoughts is crucial.  It will help keep you on track, and will give you ways out of stumbling down the wrong avenues.

Know the Who, What, Why and How for your reader and most important, know your subject.

3. Write In The Flow: Think stream of consciousness here.  You decided on an outline, but get lost in the process.  A meandering brook will run to the sea eventually.  The trick is using your outline to guide your writing more efficiently, but you still should get lost and wander when you have the room.
It makes your writing more interesting and with a momentum than just sticking to your script. It makes your writing more human and natural sounding to the ear.

4. Edit:  This is the most time demanding of all.  As the carpentry maxim says: "Measure twice, cut once," editing is more of a 1 to 2 ratio.  In other words, write with the flow, but spend at least twice the amount of time in the editing phase.

Good writing is the process of great editing.  Great writing is learning from amazing editing.

5. Set a Timer:

Other wise known as the Pomodoro Method, what you need to do is set a timer for a limited amount of time, say 20 minutes, to write in a highly intense segment. Once the timer is over, take a short break of 5 minutes (80% work, 20% recovery). But the break needs to be adhered to for your next segment to be as functional!  

By focusing ton he processes discussed above, you'll find you'll be able to write better prose and at a faster pace.

It takes dedicated practice over sustained time to make a new habit, and learning to write faster is no different than any other skill acquisition.

Foundations Of A Great Blog Post

How To Cure A Writing Hangover

In this post, we'll discuss how writing without a plan can be a lot like a long night out drinking. And we'll examine the benefits of building a solid foundation for your blog article by identifying the WHO, WHAT, WHY, and HOW to prevent the hangovers.

At the beginning of March, I set out to post a new blog post every day until the end of the month.  That would equal 31 posts for the month.  3-1 posts.  That's a lot of original content to come up, write about, set images to and promote.

And as I got into the project, I found it harder and harder to meet my deadlines.

It was thrilling to attempt that much content - I even planned (and had) extra posts written, just sitting around as drafts as just-in-case scenarios that may have come up.

And I still failed. 

Still, when thinking about it, I wrote a ton of words, but the failure to miss a publishing day felt much like a hangover.

I wrote about how to set and achieve goals, time management tips and how to improve your productivity by defining your passion, commitment and establishing discipline.

There were posts about how planning is a central cinderblock to success.

Again, I still failed.

It was an ambitious goal of mine, especially knowing my personal weakness. It was a fun ride while it lasted, a little too fun.  And by failing - even by a couple of minutes as I did on Saturday (posting at 12:03 am Sunday) - I didn't write yesterday because of a writing "hangover."

Confidence Is Experiential: How Doing Builds Our Ability To Do It Again

When this project started, I wasn't sure I would be able to pull it off.  So I announced the plan publicly even though research suggests that by announcing my goals, I had less of a chance to pull it off.

But there were a number of things I learned along the way that will help me continue the challenge, or in my next one.

For example, in trying to be something, I'm not - a more prolific writer - I learned the power of planning, outlining, and still fell short.

Yup, I'm a slow writer - slow in the sense that I like to churn ideas around in my head for a while, making it condense and solidify for great effect and flavor - it's a lot like making ice cream.  If you go to fast, the ice cream doesn't freeze, too slow and the ice cream becomes too frozen, like ICED cream.

For me, my style is that I like to gestate an idea for days before committing it to paper.  Thinking about the factors that will allow the story to have a solid foundation, timeline, and a complete arc to the concept takes me a while.  Like a great pot roast is best at low temperatures and over time, my writing is like slow cooking.

Think about the foundations of your posts as needing to include:

Foundations of A Great Blog Post:

• WHO: Who is going to read this post?

• WHAT: What is the idea you're trying to convey? 

• WHY: Why should they care about your post?

• HOW: How is the post going to help your reader?

Once these foundations are established, you can then go about shaping your article.

Thinking about your reader and what idea you have to share with them, as well as why they should care and how the idea/topic/concept will help them, will go a long way to helping you, the writer, stay on task and create something worthwhile.

Finally, it's awesome you want to share with the world.

Trying to make sense of those people and events around us, about our existence and what it means, are the motivations behind many artists and why they get into the arts in general.

But understand, the reader can be selfish.  So tell them what they can benefit from and why they should care. It's by showing them your work, your process and that you're interested in helping them that will make the biggest difference in your writing.

Remember, enjoy yourself, but don't overindulge.  It's not about you. If you make it about yourself, you may end up with a hangover of sorts.

#showyourwork

Find The Solutions In Your Failure

Failure

We've all dealt with failure of some sort in our lives.

Defined simply as:

"lack of success."

Failure is simply anything other than a desired or expected outcome.

Perhaps you played a sport and lost a game that you coulda, shoulda, woulda won.

You tried out for a play but couldn't remember the lines.

In high school, you sat in class dreaming of asking Sam to a dance.  One day you finally get up the courage to ask.  So you approach with caution in the hall way, approach them at the locker and ask.  They laugh in your face.

Or you set out to accomplish a goal of publishing 31 posts in 31 days, only to fall short of the deadline one Saturday night by 3 minutes.  That means I didn't complete the task I wanted to achieve.

At the family birthday party you show up late and no matter how you slice the cake, there's not enough to go around.  So you don't get a piece.

Failure is only the end if we don't take what we learn and apply it to a new avenue, a new endeavor, a reset of the same goal.

Failure then, is when you quit.

The trick is to continue to find solutions where none appear to exist.

When discussing his problem with the electric lighbulb Thomas Edison is quoted as saying;

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work." 

The Research Behind Why You Fail Your At Your Goals

How We Benefit From Incremental Gains

We set goals in order to accomplish them.  Or at least that's how the thinking goes.

We create plans on how we're going to get to the finish line.  We repeat these behaviors everyday hoping to see some improvement.

But more often than not, we fail.

Why is it that once we set a goal, we're more likely than not to fail?

Some goals we set may be too improbable, or impossible even.

It could be a lack of time, energy or resources.

Perhaps it was too unclear. The path to achievement too unsure.

Most likely we didn't focus on the right things.

If we focus our attention on micro-accomplishments, we have a much greater opportunity at succeeding on the goals we set.

When I started this blog, it was to document my process of using kindle publishing as a platform for my short stories.

Along the way I learned that short stories are a hard, difficult trek.

But I kept on writing.

I may not have published more stories lately, but I've published a number of blog posts covering a wide swath of topics (some may say too many topics): posts on how to improve productivity, goal setting, time management, and confidence building through experience.

But the point of this post is to focus on the power of micro-accomplishments as fuel toward achieving your goals.

The Power Of Micro-Gains

In a post on James Clear's blog, about the aggregation of marginal gains he tells the story of a coach for the British cycling team.  The focused on making just 1% improvements on the small details, from the obvious like nutrition for an athlete, all the way down to what type of pillow would allow each cyclist to get the optimal level of rest and recovery.

With proper execution, the goal was to finish as champions of the Tour de France in 5 years.

The coach was wrong.  It only took 3 years to be named champions.

The idea was that the aggregate amount of each of this small improvements were easier to accomplish, simpler to maintain and would result in a much greater output in results.

It was the ultimate implementation of the concept: "The sum of the parts is greater than the whole."

Seeing your goals through to the end is an important first step.  But knowing what steps to take in order to achieve your objective is even more important.

Plan The 20% Of Your Efforts That Yields the Best Results

What's Your Process

Productivity is a by product of efficient process.

Procrastination is another.

In a previous post we discussed how defining your passion would improve your productivity.

In another recent post we discussed the myth of hyper-productivity.

There've been articles and posts about how to improve your productivity, better time management tips and ideas for self-improvement.

All of these concepts are by-products of another concept put to action, and that is "process."

Process is defined as "a serious of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end."

 It is, in other words, what you do in a sequence of steps to achieve a desired outcome.

If you want to train for a marathon, there are a series of training methods and ideas to help.  Of course you need to train the requisite number of times - i.e. be "in shape" to best run a marathon, but a process of training would help you maximize your ability.

If you want to learn a foreign language, there are ways to learn quickly, but for most people and most learners, there's a process of language acquisition that takes a dedicated amount of repetition over extended time.

One of the more important concepts in the school of productivity and process is the Pareto Principle.

Otherwise known as the 80/20 rule, the Pareto Principle is the idea that you get 80% of your results from 20% of your actions.

Understanding this dynamic between effort and outcome is crucial to your overall success. By focusing on the 20% that yields the best 80% of your results, you'll accomplish more with less effort.

The trick then, is to develop a process that builds on the 20% that yields the highest gains.

 

How To Squeeze The Most Out Of Your Day

How To Find The Energy To Pursue Your Goals Even When You're Exhausted

There are days when life seems to conspire against you.

For me, today is one of those days.

It's 11:30 pm, the end of the day for most of us, me included.

The dog and cat are sleeping, as is my girlfriend.

All my friends are either asleep or out doing something fun - but if they are, eff'em for not inviting me.

I haven't gotten around to writing today's post. I didn't have time.

There were phone calls to make, meetings to schedule, plans to make, take care of the dog and on top of that, there was work to be done.

I could complain, but everyone has things that are going to be obstacles in their way. It wouldn't mean much to any of you if I did.

The point is, once you set a goal, the best way to achieve it is in pieces.

Look, everyone has the same amount of minutes and hours in a day.  Nobody gets extra credit for their day.

The thing to understand then, is that there will always be obstacles. There will always be challenges that you need to find a way to overcome.  

What defines your opportunity at success then, is how you handle the obstacles, the challenges, the limitations that will undoubtedly be placed in front of you.

The key to success then is that unless you have unlimited amount of time for a particular project, you need to set aside time in small blocks.  Use the concept of prioritization to set the most important tasks you need to accomplish in front of the ones that are of lessor importance.

Once you've prioritized the order at which you need to work on them, break each task into even smaller portions and work on those, one at a time.

Even with a demanding day, if you prioritize your tasks into order of importance, then break them down into small porting that can easily be finished, you'll get more done in less time.

Finally, if something is on deadline but not the most important task, find small minutes you can steal throughout the day to devote time and mental energy toward.

Like this post, I spent the day working on things that I needed to do before getting around to writing it.  But I was thinking about the topic, how to approach it, and what tone and POV to write it in. And that was so that once I could type it out, I had a general idea of what to say.

It's now 11:48 and I have 12 minutes to spare to get this published to accomplish my goal of 31 posts in 31 days without interruption.

Sometimes goal setting is just as tough as everything else.

The follow through is even harder if you don't learn how to manage the obstacles along the way.

(published at 11:53pm)

How To Transform Your Thinking And Get Everything You Want

The Value Of Experience And Confidence 

Something's been on my mind all day.

Confidence.

What is it?

Why do we struggle with it at times, especially when we've done something over and over and over again?

Is there something innate in us that makes us doubt ourselves, or some other outside force?

I read an interesting post today on Mary Jaksch blog, Write To Done.  If you're unfamiliar with Mary or her blog, you're missing out.  It's a wonderful blog about all things writing, from freelance to topics on writing and everything in between.

Today's blog post discussed a common fear we all share.

The Fear Of Being Discovered

Discovered as the fraud we writers imagine ourselves to be and ways to work through it.

The post was written by Sonia Thompson who is founder of Try Biz School, a great resource for helping others build their dream business.

The post titled "How To Keep Writing Even When You Feel Like A Fraud" lays out common struggles that we writers all share (and I'm sure other creative types, as well as any one who shares anything worthwhile).

For example, one of the common issues we deal with is that we are a by-product of our environment growing up (Nature vs. Nurture anyone?).  Think about it a little.  We are raised by our parents, attend schools that help reinforce certain behaviors and expectations, and we strive to fulfill them.

It's when we feel we fall short of these expectations and roles that are rooted in our psyche that we develop a sense of being an imposter.

The Myth Of Overnight Success

Another cause of the feeling like a fraud is if we do something that appears to come easy.

Take the example of Elizabeth Gilbert, writer of Eat, Pray, Love.  She dealt with "instant" success that garnered a lot of attention, made into a movie and a book deal.  She struggled with the idea that she wrote something amazing, easily, and the expectations were to replicate it.

She struggled to write her next book and guess what?  It didn't do very well.  But she was fine with it, because she knew the value of her experience working on her craft.

Keep in mind that as the person who sweated, toiled and worked for years to perfect our craft, we know it wasn't easy but a rather long, hard road. And the knowledge you learned is priceless and the experience gained, invaluable.

  Pablo Picasso is rumored to have best illustrated this in a story about being approached by an admirer while sitting in a cafe in Paris.  The admirer asked Picasso for a quick sketch, and Picasso agreed.

Using a napkin, Picasso sketched out his "Dove of Peace" and handed it toward the admirer but not before asking for a rather large sum of money in return.  The admirer, stunned, said "how could you ask for so much?  It took you a minute to draw this!" To which, Picasso replied succinctly, "No, it took me 40 years."


(Thanks to Brian Braun's excellent short post on the Napkin Wisdom on Experience and Pricing)

Since we, as people, are social creatures by nature, it only makes sense that we struggle with being discovered as less than we project.

But understand, you are an expert at what you do.

You've studied the craft and honed the skills for years and the idea that you can just whip out something in mere minutes that appears to be easy, was actually paid for in years of hard work.


If you're interested about more articles on Mary Jaksch blog Write To Done, just click Mary's name.

You can get more information about Sonia Thompson's Try Biz School by clicking her name.

Read Brian Braun's excellent post Picasso's Napkin Wisdom on Experience and Pricing.

One Hack To Skyrocket Your Writing Productivity

The Efficiency Hack To Make Your Content Easier To Blog

This post is about one simple hack that you will skyrocket your productivity and will make it incredibly easier to write and publish on a regular basis.

Here's why:

Today is about the simple things.

It's a Sunday evening, all across America people are stretching out preparing for the week ahead.  Daily Savings Time (DST) was last night, so many are probably a little groggy and tired from losing an hour of sleep.

But that fatigue won't change for the week ahead.  See, not only do we "gain more sunlight" with DST, we also get sleep deprived.  Losing an hour of sleep, and disrupting your circadian rhythm can take a week or more to adjust.

Ask any traveler who travels through multiple time-zones.  Internationally it would take you a few days just to even get into a rhythm sleeping.  A week and you're just starting to regain your sense of self and sleep.

With that in mind, this article is about one simple hack you can make that will help ease any content creation demands.

On a blog called VideoFruit, I stumbled on a post that talked about a hack the author uses to write incredibly lengthy posts in less time.

His secret?

Dictation.

The author discusses how he uses a simple process to make lengthy content in quick fashion.

I've shortened the steps by 1, and you can source the information in the original article by clicking THIS LINK.

1. Outline and Plan your content
2. Use a voice recorder and discuss your outline in detail
3. Transcribe your content as a post
4. Doctor it up a little, or as the author says, pretty it up  

Pretty simple and useful I think.

Whelp, that's about it. Until next time.

Defining Your Passion Will Take Your Productivity From Good To Great

What's Your Passion? 

There are countless charlatans, Internet Marketers, and 'Self-Help Guru's' that claim they can help you find your passion.

Find it they say, and everything else will fall into place.

The claims they make about productivity, self-improvement, entrepreneurship and goal setting all comes down to the idea of passion.

Passion.  That's the subject of discussion today.

Everyone knows what passion feels like, but how do you define it?

Let's play a little simple game.

Imagine:

It's late at night, you're alone, not quite asleep but not awake either.

It's dark and quiet.

Until the knock on your door.

You check your phone, it's late, you don't have any text messages or missed calls.

It's not cold outside but it's not warm either, so you slowly sit up in bed before turning on the lamp from off your nightstand; in no-time you've wrapped a robe around you, and switch don the sequence of lights to the bedroom, into the hall, toward the living room and front porch.

The whole of your house is now glowing with LED light as you unbolt the door.

You crack it open and POOF, nobody's there.

You start to close the door and it's jarred open.  Not by a hand, not a foot or tool, but by something. 

Where it's head should be is a long snout with a tail switching around like a cat tail.  Long and slender the proportions seem almost human, but not quite. Panicked you push harder, only to have the door fling open and as this thing stands in the foyer.  You stare right into its milky, opaque eyes. It looks like a blind man, no, not a man, but a man-thing.

It opens it's mouth, it's lips pull back to reveal teeth like long, razor-sharp stalagmites before it makes a noise that is simultaneously a squeak-click before a calming, soothing baritone says to you:

"I'm ZCHvKcl - or in your tongue, Greg.  Where I'm from is insignificant, but I have a number of questions.  If I may, I have a short amount of time before your atmosphere eats away at my lungs, may I ask you three questions about humanity, and in return I'll tell you about the future of your species?"

 What would you answer?

Would you want to know what is in the future?

Would you humor a seemingly non-threatening creature?

Would you take the time to answer him, knowing that the answer to the future of humanity is the reward?

What Would You Do?

He wants to understand why we fight, we we wage war on one another when it's entirely obvious we are the same species.  So why are we inclined toward violence to resolve our issues?

The second question is about why we treat the only hospitable place we know of so poorly?  We pollute our water, belch gas into the air we breath, and depose of our refuse in the ground we need to grow our food.

Finally the third question.  He (assuming it's a "he") wants to know about passion.  What is it, why do we all claim it and act upon it?

How would you respond?

Passion is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as:

"1)  a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something 

2)  a strong feeling (such as anger) that causes you to act in a dangerous way 

3)  a strong sexual or romantic feeling for someone"

In this case, let's focus on the first definition.

Let's break down the definition of passion into it's clauses.

• A strong feeling - we all have those, but how does that help us?  - 
• of enthusiasm or excitement - this is a little better, it allows us to understand what we should be feeling - 
• for something or about doing something - Ah ha!  It's about getting something done in a strongly emotional way. 

So how do you answer you're visitor?  What does passion mean to you?

If you tell him that it's about a strong excitement to do something, you've defined passion better than most.

When you hear, "what's your passion" or "find your passion, find your path," know that it's about finding that one thing that you can do with ebullience and joy.

It's the thing you want to do rather than sleeping or eating, or in some instances even sex.

For some, it's music, with others it's writing.

For painters it's about the colors and brushstrokes. There are people who absolutely love cooking and can spend a whole day in the kitchen without knowing if a nuclear weapon went off outside.

Your passion is the thing you can do and lose all track of time, all sense of the outside world.

7 Quick Hacks To Improve Your Productivity

7 Simple Hacks To Better Your Productivity

How do you become more productive?  Is it something that is undefinable or is there a way to improve your productivity?

There are all types of definitions on productivity and various metrics on determining what makes someone more productivity. For example, in Chron magazine, they define the concept of productivity through the metrics of employee output divided by the hours taken to accomplish that specific metric.

1 - Do What You Can Complete The Fastest: 

A task like taking the trash out should only take a couple minutes.  Get it done as early as possible.  The point is to get it done so that it doesn't interfere with your workflow later. Additionally, as discussed on the Simple Programmer blog, doing the easiest tasks first gets small, incremental gains accomplished and gives you momentum toward accomplishing more difficult tasks.

2 - Stop Multi-Tasking:

Concentration and focus are twin engines toward accomplishment.  The idea that we are more productive juggling different tasks is just plain wrong.  Try reading a book while talking about a topic completely disconnected from the material you're reading.  It's an impossible task.  Our brains can't handle that type of input/output effectively, it takes an extra-level of concentration and while you may be able to masterfully handle one of these tasks, you can't master both.

3 - Tackle The Most Difficult First:

There's an article on Lifehacker that details the importance of tackling the most difficult tasks first. In it, the discussion is about knowledge acquisition and how when we first set out to learn something, we read about the details until we grasp them.  Slowly mastery of the subject grows, but the emphasis is on the idea that to learn the concepts on a meta-level, you first need to take on more challenging tasks to learn.  Second, with a finite amount of will power and energy to devote to any particular task, doing the most difficult tasks first will allow you to complete more tasks overall.  Why? Because getting the difficult ones out of the way first, we devote large amounts of energy to them, so that when we get to simpler tasks, we are utilizing an appropriate amounts of will power to those tasks.

4 - Break Large Important Tasks Into Small Ones:

Every marathoner knows that in order to train for a marathon, you have to segment your training into smaller, more manageable distances.  The reasons for this are two-fold: First, it's extremely taxing to run the distances, and Second, the amount of time needed to recover is built-in to this training concepts. You need to think big, act small to better your productivity output.

5 - Use The Pomodoro Technique:

The Pomodoro Technique is a tactic that the person utilizing it sets a timer for a short amount of time, typically 20 minutes.  During the length of time allowed, the person works as intensely as they can and at the conclusion of the timer, they take a short break, typically 5 minutes, from the tasks. This is the 80/20 rule broken into time.

6 - Pace Yourself - Set A Time Limit And Take A Break:

Even as you implement a technique like the Pomodoro one discussed above, research is proving that more productive work is done after an immediate break or vacation. The reason for this is the recovery time allows you to regain energy stores much like an athlete or author.  For the athlete, they know that they have to break down their training into cycles and phase those with proper recovery time.  Ideally recovery needs to be 6x the work load, i.e. 2 hours of work, 12 hours of recovery. Every author knows that while they don't want to break the momentum of their writing, they also need time to think and relax from what the work they were doing previously.

A recent article in Entrepreneur magazine discusses the importance of breaks influencing productivity. The New York Times emphasized the point even more in their article titled "Relax, You'll Be More Productive!"

One way to recuperate and speed up your recovery time is simple: Get More SLEEP

7 - Don't Believe The Myth Of Hyper-Productivity:

We all have limitations. Limitations can exist in our physical endurance, mental willpower, finances, genetics, even sociability. We also only have the same amount of hours as everyone else.  24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That doesn't mean that you can be productive the entire time.  It's a falsehood, one that is perpetuated by the stereotype of the "Puritan Work Ethic."

Get Along Little Doggies! The Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup 

On Tuesday March 1st I set out to challenge myself to write 31 posts in 31 days.

The point of the exercise was to see if I could maximize my output with the tips I preach within the blog.

So far, the most difficult aspect has been deciding on the type of content to write and in what order.

With that in mind, Monday's will emphasize what has already been written. It's a roundup of all my articles the previous week here at http://david.writerlife.me

So, without further ado - here's the roundup for March 1-7.

Tuesday March 1 - How To Get S#!T Done!

It's all about the process and this post discusses my individual challenges about trying to write, and publish, multiple articles in a week.

In this post, I discuss the value of showing your work, as discussed by Austin Kleon in his book "Show Your Work"- a short, quick read that I have gotten into lately.

I used the image of a sausage maker for you, the reader, to grasp the analogy that it's all about the process and me showing you how I go about blogging.

Wednesday March 2 - How To Invert Your Publishing Calendar And Engage More Readers

This is the actual announcement that I'm on a 31 day publishing challenge.  I discuss why publishing the first two articles actually makes more sense.

By being out of sequence the idea was to generate some interest in the challenge by showing my process before announcing my publishing ambitions.

One caveat here: That announcing my goals is proven to actually limit the chances of success.  In the post I discuss (and link) an article that discusses the research behind it.  You can click (and link) to see the article, or click HERE.

Thursday March 3 - How To Make Your Success EPIC

Rarely do you hear someone say; "Man I enjoy being mediocre."  For those that do aspire for the average, this post isn't for them.

In it, the emphasis is by getting off your "duff" and do something.  Fear is for the timid.  Doing is for the brave.

Make It Epic

The point is, we learn more by doing than sitting on the sidelines and if you have something you want to accomplish, the only way to see it happen is to MAKE it happen.

Friday March 4 - The Myth Of Hyper-Productivity

Having just preached that you need to get off your butt and do something, along comes a contradictory warning about the dangers, and lies, of doing too much.

Everywhere we turn these days, we're inundated with the concept that success is by hustling more than others.

It's a myth that we developed as a society, one that is as antiquated as it is based on falsehoods.

There's plenty of research you can find that proves we need to rest as much as we are active, and productivity research shows that without periods of reset, we actually reach a point of diminishing returns much faster.

Good luck with running that marathon after going on a 100 mile bike-ride...

Saturday March 5 - The Executioner's Revenge (Part One)

In Part One of this two-part article, I lay out 4 necessary steps that will guarantee success for any goal, or objective, you set out to accomplish.

As we've discussed earlier, it's about the process that gives you the highest chance for success.

Phase 1 is to plan.  Plan as if you know every minor detail, every major hurdle that will come your way.  But know that there are going to be circumstances beyond your control.

Phase 2 is to take action.  You can kill yourself in the details, if you allow it.  But by taking action, often before you feel ready, you're going to learn what is, and is not, going to work for you.

Knowledge is experiential, and you can only learn by doing.

So sit down and make a plan.  Then get off the couch and get running, or jumping, or whatever.

But just get started on something.

Because it's all about phase 3 that is the most important factor to your success.

Why?




Sunday March 6 - The Executioner's Revenge PART TWO

In Part One of this two-part article, I lay out the need for planning and action as two of the four most important factors influencing whether you're successful or not.

In Part Two,  I discuss the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR toward your chance at success.

That deciding factor is: Recalibrate your self.

First, you planned. Next you acted.  But now you need to take stock of where you are, how far you've gone and what changes you need to make in order to create the clearest path to your goals.  If you're able to be flexible and reset your trajectory, you have the best chance for success.


So that's the week 1 round-up.  As Lloyd Christmas says in the movie Dumb and Dumber:

How To Make Your Success EPIC

There's One Simple Thing You're Not Doing That's Limiting You From Achieving Your Goals

Become By Doing

Every musician knows that you don't get better at playing an instrument by just reading music.

Similarly, every basketball player knows that you can't improve your shooting in a game any better without getting off the bench.

Accomplishing a goal is no different.

The first thing you need to do is decide what you want to try to accomplish.

That's the dreamer part.

It's easy.

Everyone has dreams, ideas and "goals."

The hard part is setting in motion the things you need to do for the proper sequence to happen that will make you successful at your goal.

Especially if you don't know what to do in the first place.

Let's say you want to learn how to cook.  I mean really cook, like the chefs you see on TV.

When you think about what it takes to get there, what's the first thing you think you need?

An education?

That may help but doesn't guarantee that Rhubarb (gross and tart) and Strawberries (sweet and yum!) go together.

But they do.

Only by tasting the pairing of Rhubarb and Strawberries can you find out they actually complement each other.

You can study all you want, but without tasting the flavors together, you may try to add some citrus, or pepper, or something that may not work.

But how would you know if you didn't taste it?

Doing is how we learn.

You Want To Get Something Done?  Get Off Your Ass

As an athlete, nobody ever says, "Boy I hope I get some serious bench time in the game tonight."

The point of playing the game is to earn a chance to play.  It doesn't matter how often you've watched a drill or skill at practice until you've tried to master the task, you have no idea how to replicate it.

That's why many coaching and teaching methods emphasize a process of modeling.

First you explain an aspect of the overall task and challenge.

Next you demonstrate the skill.

Then you have the players/students work together on acquiring the technical components of the skill.

Finally, you examine the attempts, refine as necessary and re-demonstrate the skill before trying to work on it again.

The objective is to learn mastery of the skill before the competition and the only way you learn the steps necessary for mastery is by doing.

Acquiring better habits, learning new skills to accomplish your goals are all the same aspects of skill mastery.

It takes one direct action to learn a skill and build a better habit.  Repetition of those newly acquired tasks are the necessary building blocks of mastery.

If you want to master a new task, build better habits, or improve on something you already know, the only proven path is through action.

So get off the bench, get on your feet and get going.

How To Process The Stupid Out Of Your Project

How To Overcome Any Obstacle In Your Way

There are many reasons to get serious about anything you care about, your passion projects, from creative writing, to painting, business and entrepreneurship.

But first ask yourself, what is it about theses things that you actually enjoy?



We often get in our own way.

We focus on the outcomes, forgetting about the steps necessary for our own success.

Do you get lost in the moment?

Is it something you can do in your own time, if left to your own devices?

Musicians are a great example of this.

They can practice for hours on songs and scales, perform for a couple hours in front of an audience that ranges from zero to huge, and afterward, sit down and play some more for the sheer joy of music.

How do you think about your passion?

Is it something that like David Foster Wallace wrote in his metaphor about two fish swimming by each other, one fish asks, "How's the water" and the other fish replies "what's water?"

In other words, is it something that you can just do, or do you have a self-limiting belief holding you back?

If you struggle with starting and maintaining your passion projects, you may be putting too much emphasis on the outcome rather than the necessary steps to get there.

Writing is not simple, and every writer - which due to schooling, the Internet and email, we are all writers - has to find a way to overcome the obstacles of momentum, motivation and inertia.

Think Of The Process Like Sailing

You pull out of your slip, cruise through the harbor and set out on the water.

If you constantly stare at the port, it's going to seem like you're never getting anywhere.

The gradual distance between you and the dock seem like it's taking forever to create any real distance.

But, if you look forward, focus on all the little things like wind, setting the jib and steering; enjoy the scenery in front and next to you, once you look back, you'll be amazed how far you've travelled.

Or imagine a cross-country flight.

You walk down the tunnel, board, stow you carry-on luggage, sit down and buckle in.  Luckily you have a window seat and can look out while you're on your way.

Do you spend the entire flight staring at the clouds and watching the square lots on the ground, wondering if there are people down there?  If so, where are they going? What are they doing? Are they looking at you as you fly at cruising altitude, bouncing around in your seat from a little light turbulence?

It'll seem like the flight lasts a life time if you try to count each lot as you fly overhead.

But if you strap down, watch a movie, read a book, or take a nap and only look out the window after you get up to use the bathroom when you need to, the flight will seem like it's passing in no-time at all.

It's All About The Process Not The Product

3 Authors That Will Help You Overcome Your Adversity To Writing

1) In his book on writing, The Lie That Tells a Truth, John Dufresne opines that when we focus on the end product, it's difficult to see it through. He encourages us in his preface that;

"Remember when you were a child, and you were stuck in the house on a rainy day, and Mom sat you at the kitchen table, gave you a pencil, a sharpener, a box of crayons, and a ream of paper, and you went at it? You drew all day long and never got blocked..."

The idea here is that as kids, we never thought about the outcome of our passion.  We used it to lose ourselves in the moment.  To act as a pastime when we could.  It was about the enjoyment of the process not the end result.

2) Similarly Austin Kleon writes in his books, Steal Like An Artist and Show Your Work, that it's the process that people don't see when they think about creative work.

People enjoy the finished product, but as creatives we should focus on enjoying the process.

He suggests getting out in the world, carrying a notebook and making notes of the sights, sounds, smells, that you experience. You can use them at a later date.

I wrote a post about this process of stealing and borrowing for ideas on a blog post that you can read here: My Kindle Publishing Lesson: Beg, Borrow and Steal Your Way To Becoming A Better Writer.

The point is, you can borrow from people around you and utilize it to make your projects better.

3) Finally author Johnny B. Truant of The Smarter Artist Podcast (as well as the Self-Publishing Podcast and Write, Publish, Repeat) claims in his episode titled "Talking About Writing Is Not Writing" - he mentions the work that a carpenter does.

A carpenter doesn't spend their time talking about carpentry, they're actively working on the craft.

So find a way with your passion project to get deep into the trenches of doing the actual work.

The band Pearl Jam says that when they started, they're rehearsal space was in the basement of a warehouse that other creatives used during the day.

They'd walk past the artists, climbing down the stairs smelling the paint and tincture, and feel inspired to match what was going on around them.

In all of these examples, there is the reinforcement to focus on the process, the daily act of sitting down and writing.

No one is saying that following your passion project is going to be easy.  Or simple, or fun all the time.

There's no guarantee you won't fall on your face, lose your shirt, or fail.

Get Lost To Find Yourself

Set a goal.

Perhaps it's finding a new client.

Or writing 500 words a day.

Perhaps it's running 3 miles at the end of a long work day.

Set a goal that you can realistic do everyday.  Don't worry about the outcome of those goals.

For this exercise focus on small, micro-accomplishments that you can do and maintain daily.

The point is, create the process of doing little things that moves you , step by step, toward your goals.

The act of getting down in the trenches, of digging into the words and what you're trying to say, is one you need to be willing to do.

Teach yourself how to be preoccupied with the act of doing, how to get lost in the moment, knowing that you'll get there some day and some how.

Just don't worry about the outcome. How it'll be received, or whether it'll be any "good."

That's a burden that's too great to carry.

And one that, often, you don't have any control over.

So focus on the necessary steps, and diligently get lost in the process (an oxymoron for sure!).

3 Keys To Maximize Productivity And Improve Your Unintended Consequences

How To Be More Productive Without Meaning To Be

The Cause And Effect Of Unintended Consequences Toward Our Productivity 

Funny thing about a blog. 

The law of unintended consequences states that our actions create effects that were not what we had in mind.  It could be that you choose to sit down and watch an "innocent" film with the family, only to find out that there's a love-making scene in it. 

Hard to explain what's happening to a six year-old.

This law applies to writing as well. 

So you wrote another blog post or story.  

You write something, publish it and promote it everywhere and then wait.  Sometimes you wait and you wait and wait some more. 

Constantly refreshing your browser to see your audience and traffic results, you wait for someone to read it, you wait for someone to comment on it, and you wait for someone to promote it for you.

And while you're waiting, another funny thing happens. 

The unintended happens.

In this post, we'll discuss the law of unintended consequences as an effect of our actions.  By knowing your target goals, making small incremental gains that happen in the correct order, you'll prevent negative results and making it ten times easier to stay productive. 

The Law Of Unintended Consequences

Your blog post has stirred an emotion, a thought, an idea in someone else.  An idea that wasn't part of your intention when writing. Duh, that's why it's called unintentional.

Since beginning this kindle publishing journey and, more importantly, began to document it on this blog, I've stumbled upon a few interesting conversations.

Just recently a friend and I had an intriguing conversation about how she could get started writing.  
She asked how she could find the courage to get going, as if I had some secret confidence or potion to making it work.

As she spoke, I felt more and more like a fraud. 

I knew that it didn't take much courage to write.  

All it takes is just making the time a priority.  

Sit your ass down and write.    

What the conversation reminded me of was that we have to make it important.  Make it so important it's a habit. Like breathing. 

Then and only then would the words get put down on paper.  

Our conversation reminded me of the critical nature of staying focused on the goal. Also it was a reminder to think about the mini-steps needed to be taken, the lines that needed to be written in order to finish the novel, blog or story, that was started.

Another thing the talk reminded me of was the discipline needed, even if it meant taking a few minutes here and there between other tasks in the day, of stealing a couple minutes to get the writing down.

Life will get in the way.  That's one of the truisms, that what ever we want to do will be interrupted by things beyond your control.

There're always bills to pay, phone and text messages to reply, and emails to answer. 

Hello? Is Anybody There?

You published it, promoted it on all the Social Media platforms.  

Tried to connect with others in your area of interest and you wait.  

Again you refresh your browser and wait for the traffic. 

But still crickets. 

Anybody who writes knows the anxiety of first sharing your content and second waiting for a response from an audience. 

Another conversation I've had is with a friend who likes to tell me that they enjoy reading the posts, but never go into detail about what the theme or point of the post may be.  

While I enjoy the compliments, I get an uneasy tension as we talk.  

It's uneasy because the conversations amount to nothing more than platitudes, empty calories that are neither sustaining or nutritious. They're like a snickers bar when I'm starving.  But hey, I'm not really me when I'm hungry. At least they're reading, which I do enjoy hearing about.

In yet another recent conversation with another friend, she was telling me that she felt that she wanted to read a book.  

That's not surprising considering that in 2002, a survey as reported by the New York Times claimed that 81% of Americans claimed to have a book they wanted to write.  

The dicks at the editorial board of the New York Times and the writer Joseph Epstein epistemologically dictates that you shouldn't waste the energy, time or paper it would take to create a book.

But that's a sidebar for the point of my conversation with the friend.  

She was claiming how difficult it would be to write a book, how precious little time she had, yet how important it would be to write her book.

My advice to her was simple. 

1. Focus But Don't Obsess On Your Target: Decide on the outcome you want but don't start out trying to handle the full load, rather, find a way to work backward. This reverse planning will help you anticipate some missteps to avoid along the way that you may otherwise stay blind to with an outcome based perspective.  

Think of it like a marathon - Ugh, the thought of running makes my stomach churn and shins hurt - but if you know your distance to the finish line, and work on the steps leading up to it, the marathon is much, much easier - so I'm told. 

2. Succeed Greatly By Taking Small Steps:  You can't stand at the base of Mount Fuji and expect to get to the top in one super stride.  It takes the collective number of many, many small steps to cover the height and distance. 

Take the task at hand of writing a book, divide it up into micro-phases such as chapters.  It'll help you organize your thoughts, and organize the direction of your thoughts. 

 Think of it like eating a pizza. 

 It comes out of the oven, the cheese is boiling hot, the vegetables gleaming, and the pie is uncut.  

Looking at the size of the pizza may be overwhelming and you're unsure how you're going to eat it, much like starting out on a novel.  But just like the pizza, the cook cuts the pizza into slices, 8 pieces most likely, and now you're salivating for one.  

It's the little things that add up.

3. Pants First, Shoes Second: If you plan on going for a run, you need to put on your pants or shorts before you put on your shoes.  Know the proper sequence of events before taking on the tasks. I've written about how to put things in proper order in a previous post that you can read by clicking here: 3 Tips To Conquer Your Fears And Become The Person You Deserve

In effect, target those micro-phases, and divide them into even smaller phases.

Just like the pizza above, you can't eat a whole pie in one bite, and you can't pelican a slice in one bite either.  You're going to fold it and take one bite at a time, or if you're "cultured," you'll cut a piece off the slice and swallow it, after chewing of course. 

And my point to my friend was the same.

Take the idea of a book and divide it into small slices, then take those slices and make them into smaller pieces still.  It'll be more digestible and easier to find the time to get those mini-projects done.

Her response was that, "Wow, that doesn't seem as tough."

It's not.

The mountains we perceive are really just a molehill.  But the more we stare at the task, the more we obsess over the outcome, the greater we make the challenge for ourselves.  

By writing about my Kindle Publishing journey, it's led to conversations about time management, productivity, habit formation, and the importance of knowing your ONE thing to focus upon. 

Those are the unintended consequences of putting myself out there. 

If you're struggling with a task or goal, focus on the steps you want to take, put them in proper order and get started.  

To quote Joe Strummer of the band The Clash: