Alexandersmap

    Category: Productivity

    • Urgency Applies

      “The reason to finish is to start something new.” — Rick Rubin

      To finish what we started ought to be the goal for every project, but we know the truth isn’t so pretty. We bounce between projects, finishing some, but too often drag others along forever for want of attention. It’s all prioritization and focus, lest the forces conspiring against us wash over our lives and that project we were once so excited about gets flushed away like so many schemes and dreams. As with life itself, urgency applies to projects. Do it now.

      Starting something new is exciting. We dance with possibilities: discovering and enhancing and dancing with the light that shines through our eyes and lights up our work. Like a cold mountain stream, it’s invigorating and full of momentum. It’s only downstream, where things slow down and sometimes stagnate, where that project grows tedious. Momentum is everything, and we maintain it through focused attention. Deep channels flow relentlessly fast, shallow deltas slow and sometimes flow backwards with the whim of the tide.

      That new project ought to be a reward for having finished the previous project, not yet another distraction from it. Surely urgency applies to the things we wish to accomplish in this lifetime. We must finish what we’ve started, that we may begin again with the fresh perspective and skills developed from the last brought to the next.

    • Action is Identity

      “Creators create. Action is identity. You become what you do. You don’t need permission from anybody to call yourself a writer, entrepreneur, or musician. You just need to write, build a business, or make music. You’ve got to do the verb to be the noun.” ― Chase Jarvis, Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life

      If action is identity, so too is inaction. What we say yes to and what we say no to are each a part of who we are. It’s inherently obvious, yet so easy to forget in the day-to-day demand for our time played to the soundtrack of the well-meaning who only want the best for us (thanks a bunch for that). We must pause a beat and get our bearings, then get back to the climb to our potential.

      If I could offer a bit of unsolicited advice to myself, to my children and anyone else paying attention, it’s to simply follow the call for as long as we can get away with it until we meet that person we envisioned. The only way forward is to do that thing. To write, to build, to make: action is our identity. It’s that vote for the person we wish to become that James Clear reminded us of.

      And so a bias towards action is the not-so-secret way to reach the promised land. Hitting the lottery is a fool’s game, hitting our stride by doing the things we know we need to do is how we live fully. We’ve been gifted with being born at a time and place where possibility flows. The people telling us that this is a time of scarcity are getting wealthy with words. There’s an audience for everything, even that thing that we’re telling ourselves to go be. Decide what to be and go be it, as the song goes.

      We ought to give ourselves a gift these last few months of the year. Do the creative work and put it out there for the world to see. Make a bold statement in who we will be today, and build on it in our following days should we blessed with enough of them. Tempus fugit: time flies. Do it now before it all slips away. If action is identity, just what will we think of ourselves if we don’t act now?

    • Developing a Voice

      “The voice which a poet forms is not any more something that a poet creates than it is something, over the years, that creates the poet. Throughout my life, unquestionably, I have made decisions one way or the other based on the influence of this inner voice—this authority with which I most intensely and willingly live.” —Mary Oliver, The Poet’s Voice

      Writing a blog is not the same as writing a novel, but it’s writing just the same. And as such, it ought to get one’s best effort. For otherwise, why do it at all? Isn’t life already too full of half-hearted pursuits? We can’t quiet-quit on our personal pursuits too and hope to have any reason to carry on in this world. We must do our best with the time and talent we have in the moment and allow it to carry us to the divine.

      Whatever the world thinks about blogging doesn’t matter a lick to me. I write to develop my voice, and once developed, refine it over and over again until it flows out of me like a Boston accent in unguarded moments. When I ask myself why I begin each day this way instead of simply taking a walk with the dog like a normal person, it often comes down to knowing I have something to say and finding a way to express it consistently, if not always eloquently.

      But what do we then do with a voice, once developed? Write more blog posts? Make the shift to long form essays and Substack? Or something <gasp> more? We can’t very well stuff our voice into the back row of the choir with the mimers, can we? We must sing our verse with passion and the skill honed through those ten thousand hours of chipping away at the marble. What emerges may just be magical. But magic doesn’t just appear out of thin air, it only seems that way to the casual observer.

      An acquaintance of mine wrote a few novels and published them as e-books just to give his children an example of doing what he said he was going to do. He’s also an active and talented podcaster with a silky smooth voice and the insightful questions that betray active intelligence. His voice may have been there all along but the full package took time and effort to develop. Whatever his motive for writing the novels and doing the podcast, the point is that he’s doing it. And so are we, at least if we have the inclination to see what emerges from that once quiet voice whispering to us in the back row.

    • Crossing the Sea

      “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” — Rabindranath Tagore

      I was thinking about some friends I won’t see this week, as they’re at a conference that I’m not at. They’re almost certainly going about their days with productivity in mind. I may choose how I feel about the matter. We may choose misery or acceptance when we aren’t a part of something. I’m approaching it like I’m looking at my hotel points that haven’t accumulated this year at the rate they normally would: I have far more important ways to spend my time. The trick is to invest our time savings into something with a great return on investment.

      This ought to be our marching order as we stare across the water wondering how we’re going to get to the other side: Be productive with the right things. Whatever those things are. Everything else is stalling. We have no time to waste on trivialities and busywork. We must do the things that must be done at the expense of all the rest. Nothing clarifies our lives like seeing where we want to go and knowing the steps that will get us there. The rest is simply having the courage to begin.

    • A Star In Our Hand

      “Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.” — Francis Bacon

      September, the seventh month, happens in the ninth month of the year. Rather than simply adding two months to the end of the calendar those Romans just dumped January and February on us up front, and we humans have been two months behind ever since. As if we had all the time in the world to work with, we’re also forever playing catchup. No wonder we all feel like life is flashing by before our eyes.

      We all want to feel that we’re ahead of the game, or at least keeping pace. If productivity is the lead indicator of progress towards a goal, we ought to be very clear about what that goal that we’re being productive towards actually is. Otherwise, why are we going there in the first place? Productivity without purpose is nothing more than busywork. Busywork is a crime against nature, for we all know we aren’t dabbling in eternity. Wasted time robs us of more vital pursuits.

      It follows that if our time is melting away at alarming speed, we ought to be doing more of what we want to be doing now. I may have written a version of that a few hundred times in the course of this blog’s existence, but repetition penetrates the dullest of minds, and my own action demonstrates a good sharpening is in order. So I risk repeating myself if only to remind myself that today, like the stack of yesterdays before it, is fragile and in want of attention. Make it sparkle like the star is wants to be.

    • Exhausting Our Present Capacity

      “A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.” ― Susan Sontag

      As an active reader, I keep searching for the perfect book to read. Someone once said that the only perfect book for us is the one we write ourselves. I think the self-critic in me laughs at the very idea of creating perfection. Perfection is an excuse for not doing our best in the moment. It’s a way of saying we aren’t ready yet, before we even begin.

      There are always excuses. We must put them aside and follow the call. We may still tap into something unique within ourselves and draw it out for the world to see. But why put ourselves through the process of writing—the blank page mockery, the wrestling with the order of words, the feeling of not good enough rewrites—while precious moments of a brief life tick away? With so much to do in a lifetime, why write when there are so many unread books in the world already?

      I believe that the best writers are seeking enlightenment themselves, and the words written are merely the breadcrumbs of where they’ve been on the journey. Those breadcrumbs are a generous gift that show the way for those of us who would follow. Sometimes we find the path is not to our liking, sometimes we find it leads to a better climb altogether, but that path took us somewhere. Otherwise, we’re no better than those unread books, just gathering dust and waiting to be tossed aside in favor of the next generation.

      Perhaps even more than taking a path, each book read is filling up a void within us that we weren’t quite aware was there until we sensed fulfillment. The funny thing is, that substance isn’t subtracted in the process of sharing for the writer, it merely expands the capacity of the writer to share more. In this way it’s like exercise: the growth begins when we exhaust our present capacity. The more we do, the more we grow. And there lies our call to action, with no time to waste. Somewhere beyond our present capacity is possibility.

    • Fair Trades

      “Our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain in which we trade our genius and artistry for stability.” — Seth Godin

      All this time
      The river flowed
      Endlessly to the sea
      — Sting, All This Time

      I found myself at a bank yesterday reviewing a trust built to support the children of a friend who passed away eight years ago. That trust has gotten them through college, which was the desired intent and exactly what we’d promised our friend we’d do when he was confronted with an expiration date he couldn’t re-negotiate. We’ve kept our promise to him, and his kids will graduate with minimal college debt. Where the last eight years have gone is anyone’s guess, but the trade of time and effort for a solid foundation for his kids in his absence ended up being a good one.

      If I’ve learned anything from that friend of mine, it’s that stability is myth. Resiliency is what carries us through the storms life throws at us. Knowing there will be storms, knowing that the years will fly by with astonishing speed, just what are we doing with our genius and artistry? We must use this time in our lives purposefully, for it’s all that links our promises to ourselves with our desired outcome.

      The thing is, we remind ourselves of these things constantly. Words don’t carry us through, positive momentum does. Those small things that we do matter more than promises ever would. The only fair trade is to use the talent and skills we’ve accumulated to this moment to build a bridge to a better tomorrow. This is our verse, today, with tomorrow but a possible chance to reveal that promise kept.

    • The Lifetime Study

      “Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.” ― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

      When I was an undergrad I took a Philosophy class that turned me upside down. I promised myself at that time that I’d go back to school someday, maybe after retirement, to study it more completely. I was young then and it never occurred to me that philosophy is a lifetime study, not something you do in school.

      This weekend was productive. In fact, far more productive than my work week last week was. That says a lot about the state of mind I was in last week in my chosen career, as well as during the weekend when I channeled all that untapped productivity into getting things done. Reflecting on it now, it makes me reassess how I’m spending my Monday through Friday. We’ll see how this week goes. I’ve started it with two of the three things that kick off a great day: reading and writing. And a brisk walk with the pup is just around the corner for the trifecta.

      But what then? We must schedule our productivity, lest we slip into bad habits. There’s a whole list of things that must be done, but what’s the one thing that, having done it, would make this day as good as one of our best days? Focusing on productivity seems far more effective than dwelling on philosophy. But really, the two go hand-in-hand. We must know how to optimize our what, but surely we must begin with understanding our why.

      So it is that I dive deeply into philosophical works that challenge my casual why’s, and dare myself to write about them here on this blog. Travel and history and observations about my current fitness challenges will surely be a part of this blog for as long as I’m capable of writing it, but they’re all means to an end. We never stop being a student, we just pay more taxes as we grow. Understanding just why we’re here in the first place, and what to do with that realization when we reach it, was our thesis all along. It’s fair to ask ourselves regularly, how’s it coming along?

    • What Are We Ready For?

      “Conquer yourself rather than the world.” ― René Descartes

      Yesterday wasn’t particularly productive. I mean in some ways it was very productive, but in the trading work for money way it wasn’t a stellar day. Blame it on Wednesday, but really it was my own inclination to do other things that felt more essential in the hour at hand. We ought to follow our gut more than the demands of the world. We know what we must do.

      Looking at it a completely different way, yesterday was very productive. I knocked out a blog post before breakfast, brought my favorite pup to play with her friends, spent a few hours doing some research work that mattered a great deal to me and had a good conversation with my bride after cooking her dinner. I also bought groceries, but hey, I don’t like to brag.

      The thing is, each day we move in the direction we want to go in with our lives is a good day. The ebb and flow of productivity in any particular activity isn’t as essential to our value as simply moving the chains from one hash line to the next. Get through this day largely intact and with some semblance of forward momentum, and survive to fight another day tomorrow. Insane productivity will have its time, or it won’t, but either way it’s telling us something about the direction we’re going with our life.

      Descartes popped up in my media feed this morning, just when I was telling myself roughly the same thing. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, as the expression goes. We ought to ask ourselves each morning when we face this gift of being alive, what are we ready for?

    • Time Horizons

      “The longer you can extend your time horizon the less competitive the game becomes, because most of the world is engaged over a very short time frame.” — William Browne

      Time horizons are largely an investment concept. It’s the amount of time you leave your money in investments to reach your financial goal. I’m no financial wizard, but I’m smart enough to put my own investment money into places where it can work best for me and I leave it the hell alone for long periods of time. And to double down on that exponential growth, choosing the right life partner who compliments one’s own contribution offers the best long term investment potential I can imagine. The sum is clearly greater than the individual parts.

      In a world full of people looking for the quick win, the easy hack, the secret shortcut to success, those who instead choose consistent daily effort applied to habits and routines that will pay dividends over time often come out way ahead. Simply put, showing up every day and doing the things that must be done to stay on course towards our goals is the only true secret to success. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

      The thing is, when we set that point off on the horizon for which we’re putting a lifetime of consistent effort into reaching, we surprise ourselves when we actually get there one day. Time flies, and horizons are reached before we know it so long as we aren’t zig-zagging from one point to the next with no clear plan. Consistent daily action in the direction of our goals remains the fastest way between two points. We look around one day and think to ourselves, “How did we get here so quickly?” May that moment of realization be positive.

      We come to understand that one horizon leads to another, then another, until we reach that final destination one day. The journey is the thing. We ought to enjoy this ride from here to there, while ensuring that there is worth the work we put in to reaching that place. The game all along is to maximize our return on our very short time invested on this planet. To live a life full of great memories and enriching experiences from which we reach that final horizon with few regrets is the epitome of true success.