Alexandersmap

    Category: Productivity

    • Intentions vs. Routines

      “You don’t make art out of good intentions.” ― Gustave Flaubert

      Our routines and systems determine what we produce. I write every day to see what will come of it. Sometimes I use a writing prompt, other times I write of experiences I’ve had, and still other times I start typing until something tangible ends up on the page (deleting the nonsense that led me to it). Nothing great comes to us until we meet it at least halfway. Sometimes a lot more than halfway. And sure; we don’t always reach great…. But we do reach.

      Some days we are able to stick rigidly to our routine, some days we stray or are pulled from it. The trick is to get back on track as soon as the opportunity presents itself. This applies equally well to exercise, flossing, daily chores and yes, blogging. Do the things that must be done in the time you create for it. If we don’t create the time, then it isn’t the priority we say it is.

      Life is more complicated than that, of course. It’s not always about the stray—sometimes it’s the pull as other things take priority. But one day we’ll be pulled from it all like every artist, writer and poet who’s come before us. Knowing this, we ought to keep at it while we can. Stick with the routine and do the work that matters most now.

    • The Better For It

      “Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.” — Jon Stewart

      “The artist uses the talent he has, wishing he had more talent. The talent uses the artist it has, wishing it had more artist.” ― Robert Brault

      Over time we become proficient at some things at the expense of other things we might have done instead. We simply can’t do everything in this world, and when we try we dilute our potential to master anything. Focus matters a great deal in becoming competent at anything, let alone to master that thing.

      Lately when I click publish there’s a wave of purposelessness that washes over me for just a moment. The dialog goes something like this: “I’ve completed the blog for the day, the one nagging thing that drives me out of bed that must be done is done… so what now?” And that’s usually when the noise of the world fills the void and my purpose becomes clear once again. Do the things that must be done that have been ignored that you might do this other thing. The fog lifts and I get to it.

      Sometimes the noise of the world keeps me from writing the blog until later in the day. Those are days of great discontent, as if I’m being held back from something essential. Now don’t get me wrong—what is essential to me is mostly noise to the rest of the world, if heard at all, but it’s another rung on the ladder towards better that I must climb. The talent uses the artist it has, and I hate disappointing it with lackluster effort.

      When we love what we do, we keep doing it with an earnest focus on something beyond competence. We owe it to ourselves to reach for excellence in whatever we’re doing in this moment. We can always be better, until one day we can’t be. The race for mastery has an expiration date that we’re charging towards faster than we might believe. Shouldn’t we love the work enough to put our best out there right now? If we’re blessed with tomorrow we’ll be the better for it.

    • In Service of Better

      Many months ago I dropped what used to be Twitter from my life. I missed it immediately, not for the political extremism but for the carefully cultivated feed I’d developed over the years I had it. Sometimes I still miss that, because the alternatives aren’t all that great yet. But I keep pressing on with Mastodon and Threads and added an annoying email subscription notification that will go away soon I promise, and keep putting content out there for incremental growth numbers. The question I keep asking myself is why? Why have any social media link at all? Why gather email subscriptions at all? To increase followers seems a bit of an ego stroke. But engagement fuels consistency. We just can’t confuse the subscribers for the work.

      “A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.”― Seth Godin, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit

      The question is, which tree are we tapping on? Is the end result going to be fulfilling or will it just be an empty hole that we honed from time we’ll never get back? Why keep publishing every day when I could use that time for other creative work? Unless you’re an author putting your name and work out there for the masses to find, or selling something else you’ve built, then the end game of a blog shouldn’t be about accumulating a massive following. The end game is the development of the person creating and publishing it every single day.

      “There’s a practice available to each of us—the practice of embracing the process of creation in service of better. The practice is not the means to the output, the practice is the output.”
      ― Seth Godin, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

      The thing is, the writing has always been about cracking the shell of complacency off and having a go at a soufflé. Inevitably we get it wrong now and then. Inevitably we wonder why we’re doing it at all. But within us there’s someone who wants to reach mastery at something in this brief go-around. We know when we’ve done well, and we know when we’ve checked the box to live to fight another day. Both matter a great deal. The trick is the consistent push towards better.

      When I start thinking about the effectiveness of platforms and email subscriptions, I know I’m straying into a minefield. When I question why I post a blog every day instead of simply writing, I know I’m tapping on the wrong tree. It’s always been about mastery, and the long and often frustrating road to getting there. Discipline, focus and time applied to honing a craft you have the audacity to believe you ought to be honing. Don’t stop me now, for I have a ways to go. Still, it’s a hell of a journey.

    • Connection in Solitude

      “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can “see the folks,” and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself for his day’s solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and “the blues”; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Another example of a Thoreau word-explosion-as-paragraph, and one I wanted to compress into a smaller bite, mind you, but didn’t have the heart to. Henry was never lonely because he surrounded himself with an ample supply of words. His work resonates because he combined so many of them into insightful and timeless nuggets that we still find nutritious today. For a guy who spent so much time alone, he still manages to connect with so many.

      The difference between solitude and loneliness is very much aligned with what we perceive ourselves to be doing with the time. Active engagement in meaningful work, expressed creativity, meditation, exercise and prayer are each forms of reaching outside of ourselves for connection to the greater energy force that hums all around us. I write this knowing the words will come, and I’m but an editor for the muse. How can you feel alone in such moments?

      Many people encountered solitude during the pandemic and were forced to reconcile what it meant for them. I found it to be a time of connection with family, who otherwise would have been off doing their own thing as I did mine. It made no difference whether I was alone in a home office or in a hotel room, for solitude is solitude anywhere—but it doesn’t have to be loneliness. Feeling alone is to look for connection with the universe and finding no answer.

      There’s no doubt that surrounding ourselves with the right people leads to a happier, more fulfilling and longer life. With any strong group dynamic we rise to meet others, even as they rise to meet us, providing a lift to the entire group. Community gives us momentum and mutual support, solitude gives us the elbow room to mine the best out of ourselves. Don’t we each need both to live a full life?

    • Another Foray With Writing

      “Mr. Alcott seems to be reading well this winter: Plato, Montaigne, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sir Thomas Browne, etc., etc. ‘I believe I have read them all now, or nearly all,’ — those English authors. He is rallying for another foray with his pen, in his latter years, not discouraged by the past, into that crowd of unexpressed ideas of his, that undisciplined Parthian army, which, as soon as a Roman soldier would face, retreats on all hands, occasionally firing backwards; easily routed, not easily subdued, hovering on the skirts of society.” — Henry David Thoreau, Emerson – Thoreau Letters (VI-X) 1848

      Lately I seem to have drifted away from Thoreau. It’s not a deliberate act, mind you, but a full life. Like close friends, sometimes you drift apart, sometimes closer together. Everything has its time. Like those old friends, when you meet up with Henry again you pick up right where you left off.

      It seems my own creative writing is a lot like Alcott’s was in his day. I revisited some old characters yesterday, rallying for another foray with my own pen. Thoreau’s observation is keen, and as with my rowing friend who inspected my hand to see how much rowing I’d really been doing, the results show far more than a few casual statements about production ever will. We are what we repeatedly do, aren’t we?

      With that in mind, I began again. I’ve always been a streak hitter, and do my best when I have a simple goal of doing something every day without stopping. This blog is as good of an example of that as any, approaching five years of posting every day. It’s a lot like flossing before you brush your teeth—once firmly established as part of your identity you don’t easily let it go. Writing a blog is now easy for me, in a way, in that I simply do it straight away or it nags at me all day until I carve out the time to get it done. You have the right to judge the contribution each day, but not the will to get it out there in the world.

      The thing is, that clever observation Henry made to “Waldo” in that letter stings a bit when you don’t follow through. We’ve got to follow through on the things that are most important to us, or forever be judged undisciplined by that voice in the back of our head. Do the work, every day, until the work is done. The rest is just talk.

    • The Vanishing Act

      “All morning I lay down sentences, erase them, and try new ones. Soon enough when things go well, the world around me dwindles: the sky out the window, the furious calm of the big umbrella pine ten feet away, the smell of dust falling onto the hot bulb of the lamp. That’s the miracle of writing—when the room, your body, and even time itself cooperate in a vanishing act. Gone are the trucks rumbling outside, the sharp edge of the desk beneath my wrists, the unpaid electric bill back in Idaho. It might seem lonesome but it’s not: soon enough characters drift out of the walls, quiet and watchful, some more distinct than others, waiting to see what will happen to them. And writers come, too. Sometimes every fiction writer I’ve ever admired is there, from Flaubert to Melville to Wharton, all the books I’ve loved, all the novels I’ve wished I were talented enough to write.” — Anthony Doerr, Four Seasons in Rome

      Doerr wrote this while helping to raise toddler twins in a vibrant and new place completely unlike the place where he normally wrote—Rome as you may infer from the title. I can relate to this, as a restless pup bounces about behind me, chewing on seemingly everything I once held dear. Puppies are a wonder, and fill the room with joyous energy. That doesn’t make them helpful for concentration and immersion into a place where I might meet the work at hand.

      There is a time and a place for everything. A good part of Doerr’s lovely book is about the experience of being lost in an impossible, chaotic world of new parenthood and a new city. A new puppy may feel both impossible and chaotic, but really it’s simply managing our own time in lieu of the commitments made to that outside of ourselves. I simply give the pup an ice cube to work on and meet my writing somewhere closer to where I was before. Temporary relief, to be sure, but relief nonetheless.

      The thing is, the writing is flowing well, despite any distractions I bring in to my world. So well that I feel compelled to open up the spigot and let it flow more freely. The darkness of late October mornings releases this compulsion. Perhaps it’s an underlying fear of missing out when the skies lighten up, but pre-dawn seems to be magic time for the muse in my mad world.

      There are times when the work seems to flow, as every productive person has experienced in their work, and times when I know the muse has thrown up her hands and abandoned me for more dedicated writers. Until we commit to something fully, we’re just skating the line between attention and distraction. The vanishing act is elusive, wished-for but often not earned. It’s on the other side of comfort and distraction, awaiting only the fully-committed. I’ve learned to say a silent plea to myself each morning: may it be me this day.

    • Be the Lion

      “Let nothing bind you. Transcend right and wrong, good and bad. Move on like a solitary lion. Make heaven and earth your dwelling. Renew! Renew!” — Awa Kenzo, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow

      I say I don’t pay attention to news, but I’m nonetheless very aware of what’s happening in the world. These things tend to bog us down in anger and grief, frustration and dismay at the folly of others. Sometimes, the world is upside down and it feels like we can’t possibly control anything. When life is throwing hand grenades in one party after the other, we may feel this impossible weight. We must get up anyway. Remembering that darkness is always followed by light.

      When we don’t feel like doing much of anything, the best thing we can do is to just begin. The cobwebs eventually slip away and we find ourselves free again. This is how workout routines begin again, and it serves us equally well in creative work like writing. This is how the world keeps turning despite our best attempts to blow it up. Keep moving. Persevere. Don’t let the bastards drag you down.

      Be the lion.

    • Ten Thousand Things Are One

      “Be in the dojo wherever you are. It is your choice—live like a sage or exist like a fool. — Awa Kenzo, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow

      “Do your best at each and everything. That is the key to success. Learn one thing well and you will learn how to understand ten thousand things. Ten thousand things are one; this is the secret place of understanding you must find. Then everything is mysterious and wonderful.” — Awa Kenzo, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow

      We ought to try to master at least one thing in our lives. Most everything in the world is out of our control, beyond our capability, more than we can grasp. These things may weigh on us heavily, constricting our belief in what is possible. We forget sometimes that what is possible is simply one thing. With focus and effort we may just yet master this one thing, or perhaps we just get good enough at it to learn something about ourselves.

      I dabble in a lot of things, but really try to master very little. I’m a fair gardener, but no farmer. I’m a pretty good manager of people but I’m not exactly giving Ted talks on the role. I can hold my own in chess against most humans but have never beaten a computer set to destroy the ego. I can turn a phrase now and then but read a sentence from Hemingway or Didion and see the journey to better must continue. I can do my best at each of these things and still never be the best at any of them. And that’s okay.

      We all want to be good at whatever it is that we are doing at the time—who wants to fail? But mastery isn’t a game for dabblers and motion going-throughers. Mastery is about paying our penance and focusing on one thing above all other things to reach a level far beyond mere competency. It’s okay to aspire to mastery, but we ought to see that the journal to mastery is a cul du sac on top of a lonely hill. The view may be grand, but we don’t know the neighbors. Knowing our end game is an essential element of the game.

      The thing is, the game isn’t mastery so much as constant improvement and awareness of who we are choosing to become. It’s always been about the journey, not the score. The mile markers on our journey are the level of awareness and understanding we reach at each phase of our life. We know when we’re in the right place, and when we’ve fallen behind. The opportunity in our lifetime is to find the pace that works best for us.

    • Paying Our Dues

      At a reunion recently an old friend I hadn’t seen in years was talking about the level of rowing she’s been doing. She turned her hands palms up and showed me the evidence in the form of blisters. Elite rowers are a tough lot, and this otherwise sweet and warm person is as mentally tough as they come.

      She asked me if I’d been rowing at all, and of course I mentioned some rowing on the ergometer and some such nonsense. She smiled, turned my palm up to the sky and called BS on me, and we both laughed. You can’t fool an elite athlete, they know when someone is paying their dues. A few turns on the rowing ergometer is not properly paying one’s dues. It’s merely a step in the right direction.

      This is true in all of our work, isn’t it? We do or we do not, as Yoda might say it. The trying is nice but we must ship our work daily for it to matter a lick. Everything else is just talk. So my elite rowing friend reminded me that there’s work to do both on the erg and in other areas of my life. When done earnestly and honestly for the time it takes, the results will show. Until then, we must stop talking and keep paying our dues.

    • The Magic of Following Through

      “I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through – then follow through.”— Eddie Rickenbacker

      The more time I spend on this planet, the more I feel the fulfillment of deliberate action. You build momentum in your life when you do what you say you’re going to do with enough people. There’s a tipping point where everyone in your life simply identifies you as someone they can count on. Following through is a beacon of hope and light in a world where so many quietly quit on others, and in doing so, on themselves as well.

      It wasn’t always so. I once mastered the art of excuses. Lazy and unfocused as a teenager, I would tell myself that it didn’t matter whether I did what I said I was going to do. It didn’t take long to realize the error of my ways. You hear a enough feedback from people in your life who you let down and you begin to feel the urgency to close the gap between who that person was and the person you aspire to be. Following through is the act of growing up and choosing to be the adult in the room.

      Much later in this lifetime, I tend to take on more than I ought to. Saying no becomes the challenge, not saying yes. But no is part of the commitment to yes. To follow through on anything meaningful, we have to subtract something else that might have been a yes. That might be people, or putting in extra time at work instead of being home with the family, or maybe it’s saying no to that donut with our morning coffee. We are what we repeatedly do, and we are also what we repeatedly choose not to do. Over time, many of us learn to choose wisely. Choice is a commitment to that one really essential thing over all other things.

      The unspoken rule here is that we must follow through on our promises to ourself as well. We must be the person we want to be. We must ship the work, as Seth Godin would say, when we say we’re going to ship it. Putting a blog post out in the world every day is just one of many small commitments I make to myself. Like those other small commitments, it pays dividends in profound and magical ways. For in following through over and over, you begin to believe in possibilities you might not have believed in otherwise. And others begin to believe in you for the consistency you’ve shown. We live the story we tell ourselves: this is evidence of who I am.

      There’s magic in following through on commitments we’ve made. We rise to a place of honor by doing what we said we’d do. This is our uncompromising vow to others, and to ourselves. We are showing respect for those whom we follow through with, and surely for ourselves. This leads directly to a better world for those we interact with, and a better night’s sleep for us. Who said we can’t be magicians? Follow through.