Have you ever come to the end of the year only to find that many of the things you intended to do somehow fell by the wayside and you're pretty much at the same point with them as you were at the end of the previous year? I have.
Then it's hard to get excited about setting new goals because in the back of our minds is the nagging suspicion that it'll just end the same way.
How about in joining me in getting a head start by setting one goal for yourself to work on in the remaining 18 days of this year?
Obviously, it's a busy time, and 18 days isn't very long, so I'm not suggesting setting some humungous task for ourselves--that would be a prescription for more disappointment. But getting a little head start on something you care about could help you feel better about it at the beginning of the year, and build some momentum going into January.
I'LL SHOW YOU MINE
I have one commissioned project to finish by the end of this month, a rewrite of a script that I originally wrote about fifteen years ago, but in addition to that my head-start goal is to finish the manuscript of a children's book I've been working on, on and off, for a while. Having a complete draft of that on January 1 would give me a good feeling.
WANT TO SHOW ME YOURS?
What would do the same for you? Why not add a bit of accountability by adding it in the comments section--I'll check back on January 1!
Well, they've ruined food for us, and drinking, and being in the sun, so I guess it was only a matter of time before scientists would get around to finding out that sitting is bad for us as well. This a topic of special interest to writers, since we spend most of our working time on our posteriors.
SITTERS, BEWARE!
We're talking about serious stuff here: "Studies and reviews have shown that higher levels of sitting are linked with cancer, diabetes, heart disease and even an early death, independently of whether a person takes regular exercise," says ScienceDaily. On the psychological level, sitting down is associated with an increased risk of anxiety.
What's a writer to do? Here's a round-up of the most recent research and some suggestions for minimizing the dangers.
STAND UP!
How can you reduce the amount of time you spend sitting down? Some people use sit-stand desks. Although the desks designed for this are expensive, there are inexpensive stands you can put on your normal desk.
You can also stand during your breaks. Linking it to something you like to do or do regularly, like making phone calls or checking your email or social media, makes it easier to remember. You could also set a repeating alarm on your phone or computer to remind you to stand at various points in your work day.
THE TEN MINUTE SOLUTION
A study at the University of Missouri-Columbia reports that when you sit for six straight hours it impairs your vascular function. The good news: walking for ten minutes after all that sitting restores your vascular health.
If you work in an office, there's a reasonable chance that at the end of the day you'll walk ten minutes to the bus stop or train station, but if you drive and it takes you only a couple of minutes to get to your car (or if, like me, you work at home), walk around for ten minutes at the end of the day.
THE TWO OR THREE MINUTE SOLUTION
A study at the University of Utah suggests that "spending two minutes of walking each hour is associated with a 33% lower chance of dying" --presumably they mean dying prematurely...
The study's authors suggest walking for two minutes an hour as well as getting the recommended 2.5 hours of moderate exercise per week.
For writers, pacing while trying to figure out the next scene or chapter sounds like a good strategy.
Another study, this one by the National Institutes for Health, says taking a three-minute break to walk in the middle of sedentary activity can improve children's blood sugar levels and reduce their risk of getting diabetes--so drag your kids away from the X-Box or Playstation and make them walk around with you.
THE FIDGETING SOLUTION
A study at the University of Leeds suggests that fidgeting may be enough to stop long bouts of sitting from shortening your life.
If you don't fidget, should you start? I suspect either you're a fidgeter or you're not and the downside of being one (like making people around you nervous or annoying them) probably outweighs the benefits, so I'd go for one of the other solutions above.
PASS IT ON
If you know somebody who spends a lot of time sitting, why not pass this along to them?
Want to increase your happiness? Are there any strategies that have been shown to work--not just anecdotally, but scientifically?
Yes, and I'm finding them in an excellent book, :59 seconds, written by Richard Wiseman. It's named that because at the end of each chapter he gives you tips for things you can accomplish in about a minute.
First, what doesn't work:
Attempting to think yourself happy by suppressing negative thoughts (it tends to make you think about them even more);
Winning the lottery (long-term, people return to about the same level as they had before they won);
Buying things (they give us a brief boost but then the thing loses its novelty and we go back to our earlier level--although I think there's an exception to this that I'll address in a future post);
If you've had a traumatic or extremely stressful experience, talking about it to a sympathetic but untrained person.
Your happiness level is determined by genetics (50%) and your general circumstances (10%). That leaves 40% we can influence because it comes from our behaviour, our thoughts, and our relationships.
In the next post, we'll look at the first of several almost-instant ways to boost your happiness.
Is there such a thing as getting out of writing shape? I read the other day that if you exercise regularly and then stop, it takes three to five weeks before you lose general strength but specialized (sport-specific) strength diminishes in as little as two weeks.
There's no doubt that taking a break from anything you do a lot can be beneficial, but if you stop writing for an extended period is there a danger that you'll lose "writing strength"? Well, I doubt that you will suddenly not be able to string words together, but I think there is a danger that you'll lose momentum and some of the passion you had for the project you were working on when you stopped.
After all, the writing habit is like any other, it gets stronger the more we do it, but weakens when we stop. Of course sometimes life gets in our way and we have to stop. In that case, a few strategies might help:
1. Schedule your re-start. Put it in your calendar and clear the time needed on that date and afterward. It may be that you'll have to change this date and that's fine, but at least this way you have a specific target.
2. When you stop, jot down the next few things you'll write when you resume. For instance, this could be a note about what happens next in your novel or screenplay.
3. Unless you want or need a total break (when you go on vacation, for example) take a few minutes each day to think about the project and note any new ideas. When you resume, these ideas will help you get started again.
We all know how it goes: resolutions are made on January 1st and generally they’re forgotten by February 1st. If we don’t take action, we’ll end 2015 making exactly the same resolutions again. That doesn’t mean you’re lazy or lack ambition, it means you’re human and nobody’s helped you do it right.
HERE’S WHAT NOT TO DO
Do not just try to do the same thing, only this time on February 1st! It didn’t work in January, it’s not going to work in February or March or April. There’s a better way.
FOUR SIMPLE STEPS? REALLY?
How come books on achieving your goals make it so complicated? Well, you wouldn’t pay for a book as short as this email, would you? People have to pad it out and give it some kind of fancy name so that you’ll hand over some money. I make my money doing other stuff, so I can be concise. I’m not selling anything. Weird, huh?
IMAGINE IT’S NEXT NEW YEAR’S EVE
Imagine it’s New Year’s Eve, 2015. What’s the ONE THING you want to have be different? What do you want to feel proud that you did? For instance:
* you got your weight and fitness levels where you want them
* you started your own business
* you wrote that book you’ve been thinking about
* you improved your relationship with your kids
* you learned a new language
* you got your finances in order
STEP ONE. Complete this sentence, in writing:
“By the end of this year, the one thing I definitely want to achieve is________________________.”
That doesn’t mean you can’t achieve other things as well, but this is going to be your highest priority, so pick something you’d really be proud to have done. If you achieve it in less than a year, great! You can move on to your next goal.
BIG RESULTS COME FROM SMALL STEPS
You’ve heard the saying, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Well, it continues with a single step, too. Lots of single steps.
One of the main reasons people fail to achieve their resolutions is they don’t chunk down their goal into small enough bits. They start out big--maybe taking an hour a day to exercise, for instance...but then life takes over. The stuff you used to do in the time you’re now spending on exercising still needs to be done, so you fall behind. And before you know it, it’s too hard to keep up the new effort and you stop.
STEP TWO. Fill in these two sentences once a week, in writing:
This week, here’s what I’m going to do to move toward my goal during just one session of 15 minutes a day:________________________________________. To make this possible here’s what i’m going to do 15 minutes a day less: __________________________________.
First, what can you achieve in only 15 minutes? If you’re learning a language, you can learn a new word or two. If you want to write a book, you can jot down notes about the plot, the characters, the theme. If you want to improve your relationship with somebody, you can spend 15 minutes a day listening--not talking or judging or giving advice, just listening--to them. If you want to get your finances in order, you can set up a filing system and use it on all the receipts and other documents that are in a big jumble at the moment.
The reason you fill in these sentences once a week is that what you will be doing will change as you make progress. Once you’ve spent a few weeks jotting down general ideas about your book, you may decide to spend that 15 minutesa day working on the main plot points. Once you’ve learned a bunch of new words in another language you may decide to spend 15 minutes a day listening to audio lessons on how to form simple sentences, Most of the time you’ll find it easy to figure out the next logical thing to do.
Second, what can you do less of? If you’re getting more than 7 or 8 hours a night of sleep, you can sleep 15 minutes less. Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier, or go to bed 15 minutes later. Or you may choose to eliminate 15 minutes a day of TV, Facebook or Twitter time, or something else. There isn’t anybody who can’t find a spare fifteen minutes a day.
YOUR MEMORY SUCKS (AT LEAST MINE DOES)
You may think there’s no danger that you’ll forget to do your 15 minutes a day, but there is. Trust me, I’ve done it myself.
We need to remind ourselves to do it. One way is to link it to something we do already--something we like or need to do, so we never forget to do it. For instance, you might decide:
* I will not have breakfast until I’ve done the 15 minutes. Put a note on your box of cereal or on your fridge to remind you.
* I will not watch any TV until I’ve done the 15 minutes. Put the note on your remote control.
* I will not look at Facebook/ Twitter/ Pinterest / Whatever until I’ve done the 15 minutes Put the note on your computer screen or your tablet or phone.
* I will not put on my shoes until I’ve done the 15 minutes. Put the note on your shoes.
You can also set an alarm, or authorize somebody in your household to remind you every day, or make a pact with a buddy to phone or email each other every day, or email yourself at the end of every day. It’s a good idea to use two or three methods at first, to make sure that you’re remembering to do the fifteen minutes. Eventually it will become a habit, but that may take six weeks or more.
Also set up a way to remind yourself to review your progress once a week and set out the plan for the next week. Put it into your calendar, add an alarm to that day, schedule a call with a buddy so you can compare progress and support each other in setting up the following week, or whatever works best for you. It may take a few tries until you find the method that works every time.
STEP THREE. Fill in the following:
To remind myself to do this every day, I will: _________________________________. If that doesn’t work, I will:________________________________________. To remind myself to review the week and set out the plan for the next week, I will:___________________________________________.
If you ever lapse, take that as a signal to try something else, not to give up doing the 15 minutes!
STEP FOUR. Do it now.
I lied. There are really only three steps, but I’m making the fourth one do it today. Ideally, NOW. Skip reading the rest of your emails for the next fifteen minutes. If you haven’t filled in the sentences above, that can be your fifteen minute task for the day. That, plus setting up whatever kind of reminders you’re going to use. If you’d like to have a goals buddy, forward this email to them and invite them to join you.
Did you notice that I asked you to fill in the sentences “in writing”? You need to write or print out those completed sentences and keep them where you can see them every day. That’s an important part of the method, please don’t skip it.
WHAT ABOUT STUFF THAT CAN’T BE DONE IN 15 MINUTES A DAY?
By putting in lots of daily short sessions, you will gain momentum. You will see your goal starting to become real. You will feel proud of yourself. You will have greater motivation to keep going.
You may reach a point where 15 minutes a day isn’t the ideal way to spend time on your project. That’s fine, then you can get creative about how to find bigger chunks of time. Maybe you will decide to spend 30 minutes every other day. Or maybe you will be excited enough by your progress to give up an hour a night of TV in favor of working on your project. Or maybe your project now seems more desirable than however you used to spend your Saturdays, and you give it a full day every week.
The process will be basically the same, though. For every new chunk of time, you decide on something to give up, you work out each week what you’re going to do, you set up reminders for yourself, and you keep going. The closer you get to your goal, the more exciting and easier this gets.
ANY QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions about how you can apply this to your own situation, feel free to email me:[email protected]. If I can help, I will.
This is the time of year when resolutions are wearing off and your Inner Critic may be waking up...
If you're getting negative messages from your Inner Critic about whatever goal you'd like to achieve, talk back to it. Challenge it by standing up in a strong stance (your physiology has a lot to do with your mood) and remember:
* If you don't try, you can't succeed
* You've taken on challenges before and succeeded
* Others have done what you hope to do, why shouldn't you?
Then immediately get to work.
If you nip it in the bud, your Inner Critic will slink back into its lair.
(You'll find more tips and strategies in my book, Your Writing Coach, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)
As somebody who suffers at times from insomnia, I've always been on the lookout for solutions.
Taking melatonin at bedtime makes little, if any, difference. I still take it because a doctor I trust told me it may help stave off dementia and Alzheimer's.
I've tried herbal supplements, too. No effect.
I've stayed away from prescription sleep aids because they are habit-forming, can have side effects, and tend to be less effective the longer you take them.
That's why I was happy to find a non-drug approach (and, no, I'm not selling anything). It's an app that uses brain entrainment to guide your brainwaves down to the levels associated with sleep. I've found that it helps me to get to sleep in the first place, and also to get back to sleep if I wake up in the middle of the night.
You can play this on a smartphone or tablet (I use an iPad) that you tuck under your pillow. Keep the volume just high enough to be able to hear the tones--it won't be loud enough to disturb anybody with whom you share a bed. If you have wireless earbuds that are comfortable enough, you can use those to get the stereo effect that is supposed to be what makes the process effective. But whether or not it's the placebo effect, the under-the-pillow placement works for me!
The app I use is called Binaural Beats Master Collection. It has tracks for general sleep induction, power nap, and from high stress to deep sleep. It lets you adjust the amount of time you want the selected track to play. You can click off the screen display to save battery power.
It also has settings for energy boosts, meditation, increased creativity, and ridding yourself of a headache. I haven't tried any of these yet, but I'll report back when I have.
The basic version just for sleep, Binaural Sleep Beats, is free and you can upgrade to the additional tracks if you like (at least that's true at the time of this writing).
This particular app combines the binaural tones with other sounds--not quite music but not annoying, either, at least to me. Some of the others available don't have music or additional sounds at all, while some use classical music (for instance, binaural Beethoven). It's a matter of finding which works best for you.
There are apps that claim to use the same principle to improve your IQ, prompt lucid dreams, increase your motivation, and lose weight. I'm more skeptical about those, but probably I'll try a few just out of curiosity.
There are similar apps available for Android and the other operating systems.
Some of you may remember that some time ago I wrote about using a brain machine. Those work in the same way, but add blinking lights to the sounds. I'm finding using the audio app much more convenient.
If you give one of these a try, please let me know whether it helps, either in the comments section or via email to [email protected].
Do you find that sometimes you're working on a project and it seems to proceed by fits and starts rather than flowing smoothly?
I know I do.
One strategy that helps is at the end of every work session jotting down what is the next logical step, the thing you'll do first when you resume.
It's a good idea to do this even when the next step is obvious. I believe your brain keeps working on a project when you think you've stopped. By pointing it in the direction of your next move you'll find when you resume you feel less resistance.
Try this for a week and notice to what extend you're getting more into the flow--to share your experience, please use the comments section.
(You'll find a wealth of useful and innovative approaches to getting more done in my book, Focus: Use the Power of Targeted Thinking to Get More Done, available via any bookseller.)
The need for authors to have courage came up at the summer conference of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
Author-illustrator Tomie dePaola said, "“Sometimes I still get up in the morning, I face the blank piece of paper and my brushes are clean and ready to go, and I panic. I know I’m going to make a mistake. So I get that over with, rip it up, and then get on with it.”
There's tip number one: Start by writing an intentionally bad sentence. Make it the worst sentence you can think of to express the thought. Then throw that one away and get to work.
World-famous author Judy Blume said, "“Tomie talked about courage. I was far from a courageous or brave child. I was timid, shy, quiet – except inside my head. Inside my head I was this other person. I was Madeline! I was brave! When it came to my writing, I never thought twice about it: I was brave in my writing in a way that I wasn’t in my life.”
She added tip number two: “Do not let anyone discourage you. If they try, get angry, not depressed.” (To which I would add, be sure you get angry at them, not at yourself.)
The charming short (2 minute) video below uses kids to demonstrate the difference between going with your first idea and giving yourself enough time to come up with something more creative:
A series on how to improve your life, 5 minutes at a time.
Today: Stop and ask yourself one question
This is the single best simple time management strategy I've come across:
Several times a day, stop what you're doing and ask yourself: "Is this the best use of my time right now?"
If it is, congratulations!
If not, figure out what IS the best use of your time at that moment and do it instead.
This is important because it's so easy to get distracted or to pay attention to the urgent rather than the important. Of course the urgent must be done, but is this the best moment to do it? It's not that we don't know what we should be doing, but that it's so easy to forget.
Of course it's also easy to forget to ask yourself this question, so I recommend setting an alarm on your phone or tablet or watch for three times during your work day. When the alarm rings, ask yourself the question and, if necessary, adjust what you're doing. If the alarm would annoy others, set it to vibrate.
Probably you already know the times of the day you tend to get distracted, so schedule the alarms accordingly.
TIP: If what you're doing is enjoyable but not the right thing at that moment, schedule it as a reward for finishing the thing that IS the best use of your time.
(If you're looking for additional innovative ways to be more productive, get a copy of my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." It's published by Pearson and available from your favorite bookseller.)
In the Early to Rise newsletter, Stephen Guise, author of MiniHabits, suggested a different way of looking at risk and rewards in order to change your habits or overcome avoiding things you'd like to do.
TWO KINDS OF RISK
One kind of risk involves the possiblity that something everybody would agree is bad could happen.
It would be fun to jump into that lake but you don't know how deep the water is. The risk is that you could break your neck or at least your leg. Clearly the reward is not worth the risk.
Or you can go to a casino and bet a year's wages on black or red. The odds are almost 50-50 (you get nothing if the ball stops on the 0 or 00). If you win, you can take a year off. If you lose, you might have to work two jobs for a year. Whether or not it's worth taking that risk is up to you but again there's a clear downside.
However there are also many things we avoid because they carry the risk that we will feel embarrassed or rejected if we fail. For these, Guise suggests attaching a reward to trying, not to whether or not you gain what you wanted.
WHAT REWARDS ARE EFFECTIVE?
He gives the example of asking someone out. He writes, "Immediately after I was rejected, I rewarded myself with a smoothie."
The reward can be whatever you enjoy, ideally something you don't do or get all the time anyway. If Guise was drinking three smoothies a day already, having another one wouldn't have been a very effective reward. I don't recommend using food as a reward anyway, it's likely to lead to gaining weight and to forming assocIations that ultimately are not helpful.
I do find it difficult to think of non-food rewards; maybe I don't deny myself enough normally. So far the ones that come to mind are:
* 30 minutes at a cofee shop or in the park, reading for pleasure
* On DVD, watching an episode of a television show that I like (I'm a few seasons behind on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and two or so behind on 30 Rock)
* 15 or 30 minutes of checking out new music on Spotify
* A blended juice drink from Planet Organic (it's just down the street)
If you have any favorite rewards to suggest, please leave a comment.
ADD THE "TINY STEPS" APPROACH
You can combine this approach with dividing a daunting task into small steps. Figure out some small rewards and attach one to each step of the process. This way you reinforce making at least some progress every day rather than making the reward contingent on achieving the overall big goal.
This also fits in with the fact that research has shown that in training animals (and let's face it, that what we are, too) a reward works best when it follows the desired behaviour immediately.
HOW TO USE THIS FOR NEW HABITS
If you're cultivating a new habit it can make sense to break it down into component parts as well.
Let's say you would like to get up at 6am every day and go for a run. The first week you can reward yourself for getting up at 6am, whether or not you follow through with the run.
The second week you don't get a reward until you've not only gotten up but also have put on your running clothes.
The next week the reward comes only when you've at least left the house.
The next week only when you've run (or at least walked) a quarter of a mile, and so on.
Normally if we got up, put on running clothes, but then didn't run, we'd think of that as a failure. From this new perspective we see it as a step on the road to success and as such reward it.
How could you employ this method to your advantage? Is there something you avoid that you might reward?
The hot topic these days is quantifying aspects of your life: how far you walk, how long and well you sleep, how many calories you consume, your weight, your heart rate, and on and on. You now can record absolutely everything that happens to you with a camera you wear that takes a snapshot every time you move or somebody or something in front of you moves.
It's getting harder to separate the useful information from the narcissistic navel-gazing.
I confess to having a Fitbit that measures how far I walk but so far that's the extent of my participation in this trend.
I'm sure that some of the indicators of fitness and health will be very useful but in terms of being more productive and creative, what are the key things you might want to measure?
* Your output. For a writer that might be the number of words written per day or week. Obviously the ultimate question is whether what you write (or draw or create in some way) is any good, but often before it's good it's not so good. That's what rewriting is for. But even before it's not so good, it just has to exist, and that's where keeping track of quantity of words is helpful.
I do suggest using that rather than the number of hours as a measure; I know from personal experience that it's all too easy to justify a few hours of skimming articles as research that relates to writing...kind of.
* How much time you spend thinking, daydreaming, and reflecting. This kind of uniterrupted time is essential and harder and harder to achieve. Even ten or fifteen minutes a day can make a difference.
* How much time you spend stepping back from the everyday busyness to consider whether you're on the right track in the different facets of your life, whether some adjustments are needed, and whether you're taking care of yourself as well as others. An hour or so every month should suffice.
I reckon if we give enough time to these, we'll do pretty well!
The Zen Habits blog listed ten questions that can help you take action. In this series of posts I suggest how to apply those specifically to writing more. You can easily adapt them to drawing or whatever other creative activity you'd like to increase.
3. If you do this every day, what change will result?
If you write every day, what will happen?
Eventually you'll have a complete novel or screenplay or whatever you're writing, but beyond that, do you think the process will have taught you anything?
Will it give you more confidence to tackle your next project and maybe more confidence in yourself in general?
Will it show others that you're serious about your writing? (Maybe we shouldn't care what they think, but we do, don't we?)
Considering the cumulative results of small actions can help keep you going.
Do you feel that your creativity is being held hostage by the 24/7 demands affecting many people these days?
Here's a no-cost remedy: take a nap.
We know it's good for kids. One study found increased levels of anxiety and decreased problem-solving ability in kids who miss their afternoon nap. I don't know whether they measured crankiness but I bet that went up, too.
Minds.com has a helpful infographic about how long you should nap depending on the result you want. Here's a summary:
For increased alertness and energy: 10 to 20 minutes.
For improving memory: 60 minutes (but you may be a bit groggy about waking)
For increased creativity and all-around benefits: 90 minutes, a full sleep cycle that includes different levels of sleep including rapid-eye-movement sleep which usually is associated with dreaming.
I'm partial to the 20 minute naps myself. They don't take too big a chunk out of the day but they really help me to revive when I'm flagging.
(For a creative, right-brain approach to managing your time and life, get Focus: Use the Power of Targeted Thinking to Get More Done, published by Pearson and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)
