Resolutions Checkpoint: Reevaluating the Year’s Goals

Time for yet another progress report on maintaining my new year's self-improvement goals, what I call Groundhog Day Resolutions (GHDRs) because I make them on February 2nd after I've recovered from the holiday season. I just realized that I like the name also because there is an theme of procrastination subtly underscoring my approach: Groundhogs like to sleep (as do I), I'm kind of a "low energy" person when it comes to starting projects, but I want everything I do to be awesome. Low energy and high standards usually results in procrastination instead of excellence, but GHDR has the potential to work with me rather than change me.

Motion Generates Energy

I'm really not a go-getter by nature, so the GHDR "system" is really designed to address that: it's a lazy approach, not a high-energy one. That's why a lot of New Year's Resolutions fail for people: the investment of initial energy is exciting and very high, but maintaining that sustained burn rate is all but impossible for all but the most energetic and focused of us. Those are the people who become natural coaches and productivity gurus, but sadly that is not me. I would go so far to say that the demographic I fall in is that of the low energy, passionate creative. I love the feeling of getting something done, but it's easy for me to get derailed by distractions. I am also very good at estimating the amount of work required to get anything done to completion, which tends to diminish my enthusiasm to start because I am also very impatient. It doesn't help that I'm good at seeing holes in tools, workflow, and knowledge; while this is a great skill to have when optimizing existing processes, it's a huge bummer when it's time to create a new system from scratch all by yourself. The massive weight of the endeavor is tangible, and my energy slumps in response. Result: nothing gets done.

My process for overcoming my low energy state pretty simple: I just try to start moving and not think too much about the consequences. I just did it with this blog post, which I've been putting off for a day because I wasn't sure what to write. I started by looking at what I wrote last time (always a useful crutch) and just started riffing off of that. Everything I've written so far has been pure "stream of consciousness", which I find pretty easy. Now that I'm moving, I have a sense of where this post is going and can start filling in the gaps. This is where that ability to see holes in various things becomes an appropriate supporting skill as opposed to using it as a creative one. Being creative is an entirely different skill altogether, and it has just hit me that creativity and productivity go hand-in-hand. Add motion to the mix, and you have a recipe for kicking ass. Then add focus or direction, and you have the means to really get things done.

But I am starting to digress. What I'm trying to say is that I'm passionate yet low-energy, and therefore need to focus just on motion. Any motion at all, like just spending 10 seconds writing a sentence. That's what the Groundhog Day Resolutions system, which was born out of the recognition that I'm just too damn tired on January 1st to make any goals, is more suitable to me. The GHDR System is designed to maintain momentum via natural levels of desire, whereas other systems seem to be designed to use either pressure (nagging) or structure (idealize process) to create the necessary motion. I happen to know that what works for me is just focusing on moving, and I will build structure as necessary, so it's no surprise that GHDR has evolved the way it has. I suspect what I'm describing is a subtle-enough difference that a lot of people might not "get it"; even I am wondering if I'm just imagining that it's there. However, this insight fits general principles I use when analyzing workflow:

• determine the valued result or benefit from each process...in this case, I want to be making progress toward some personal goals that will leave me more fulfilled as a person with more financial resources for minimum effort.
• determine what resources are used by each process...which for me is time, energy, and to some extent knowledge.
• determine sources of drag or suckiness...which not surprisingly is low-energy due to the procrastination factors I mentioned above.
• identify natural reservoirs of strength that can be repurposed...which for me is knowing that once I'm moving,
• make sure to optimize for root causal forces, not symptoms...and in this context the root causal force is just to maintain motion, which means to generate energy or make better use of what is available. Nagging and idealized processes are examples of treating symptoms, which brings limited or short-lived success.

Goals Reviewed

One difference between Groundhog Day Resolutions 2008 and the original trial run has been the addition of a summer break that runs from June 6 through July 7, when a goal reassessment is scheduled. I know I'm probably going to hit a slump around now due to the nice weather, and there's no sense in beating myself up about it. As important as these goals are to me, they are also longer-term goals that compete with important short-term ones. I can't make everything a high priority goal, so I focus on work, people, and health right now and assign whatever energy remains to GHDRs. Summer is that time here in New England where you get outside in what we call "sun" and play with other people. I'm taking that into account and reducing the pressure. After this mini break, it makes sense to look at one's goals and see if they still make sense. Time away brings new perspectives.

This is on my mind right now, actually, so I'm going to compare the goals from February 2nd...

• Commit to Deriving Income from Writing and Making Stuff
• Build Sustainable Social Networks
• Sell a Product

...to the goals of May 5th:

• Figuring out how to be a full-time writer and content creator, because I like it.
• Reduce my needs. If I can live cheaper, then I need less money, and can work less.
• Work based on my vocation, so it's work that sustains me in spirit, mind and body.

I also had scheduled two reflection days, to help maintain motion. Rather than assign a task, I thought it would be just as good to just think about what I'm doing and why it's important. It sounds like a cop-out, I know, but I ended up itemizing my priorities into several lists. Looking back at them now, I can see that I was just feeling a certain ennui with the way life was going. Getting some of those lingering burdens out of the way, one-by-one, seemed to unstick things. It didn't take as much dramatic action as I thought. I didn't even take the second reflection day, because I am actually feeling on-track.

As for actual review:

Figuring out a living as a full-time content creator is going to be on the backburner for the next several months as I finish some long-term projects, but in the meantime I am pondering what I can offer in terms of content creation. And I've come to realize that content creation can go beyond media and extend into consulting and relationship making. For example, part of my design process is to interview people for about an hour about their project context and motivations. I have heard over and over that this often a powerful experience, to sit with someone who listens well and can synthesize insight seemingly at will. If I frame this in the right context, it becomes an interesting service offering, one that I would actually really enjoy. This would then fulfill the work based on my vocation goal. As for reducing my needs, I at least have declared Wednesday from 10AM to 11AM as my Financial Review Hour. Knowing what I'm spending for what is the first step. A larger contextual goal is to get my shit together and clean up my house, put some more domestic processes in place, and make living pleasantly low-maintenance.

Looking back on the earlier goals:

I've actually reached a point where my local social networks are self-sustaining. Or rather I should say that I'm starting to know enough people with similar age and interest that I'm not feeling socially isolated anymore. Likewise selling a product is ongoing; I'm selling the remaining stock of pre-printed Emergent Task Planning Pads (still have quite a few to sell, so I'll probably post the direct store link soon). The intent behind selling a product is to support my real goal of making money by being a content creator.

I find it slightly surprising that progress was made without deliberately scheduled anything. You'd think that without planning and scheduling, nothing would have happened. Perhaps it works because I've aligned two forces together: my real desires and periodic reflection. This was enough to get me to do something when I had a moment or I when I was talking with friends. By knowing my real desires and reflecting on them, I may have structured my mental outlook in such a way that progress became more opportunistic and spontaneous. This is an interesting idea, more artistic than by design.

Wrapping Up

Thus begins the month-long holiday from goals. We'll resume our goal trekking on Tanabata, the Japanese "Star Festival" when you write down your wishes on streamers and hang them on trees so they might be granted by gods that live in the sky.

The Last 110 Pre-Printed Emergent Task Planner Pads

I'm finally getting off my butt and making the remaindered Pre-printed Emergent Task Planner Pads available. I had been putting off researching the fifteen-kabillion e-commerce solutions that are out there to find a replacement for PayPal's clumsy ordering system, but I realized yesterday that I should just move on and give Amazon's fulfillment service a try for Phase 2. But first...sell the inventory on hand.

I have 110 95 pads available as of May 23, 2:45PM.

First come first serve! Ordering instructions are at the very bottom of this post.

About The Pre-Printed Pads

The Emergent Task Planner (ETP) is a form that helps you focus on those things that you want to get done, while taking into account all the other stuff that just seems to happen. With task itemization, time tracking, time estimation, scheduling, and note taking combined in a single sheet of paper, you can see in a glance how the day is going, and what's left to get done. Most importantly, the design of the form acknowledges that getting anything done at all during the day is an accomplishment.

While the ETP is still available as a free PDF download, the sweet pre-printed version offer several advantages:

• They come in pads of 75 sheets each. The pads are glued at the top for easy tearoff, cardboard backed for extra sturdiness. Each pad is also individually shrinkwrapped to protect them during shipping and storage.
• They're professionally offset printed on premium Cougar Opaque 80LB Text White Smooth paper. This is nicer, thicker and more durable then your typical inkjet paper, so it will better stand up to daily use.
• New design features: cleaner layout, space for hole punching on the left, and write-in year so you don't have to throw these pads away when next year rolls around.
• Cost per page is comparable to high-quality inkjet printing, in a form factor that is easy to keep handy.
• US 8.5" x 11" Letter

Sheet Design

LEFT The Emergent Task Planner sheet . There are 75 sheets in a single pad. Click the thumbnail to see it larger.

RIGHT The instruction sheet is a quick introduction to the use of the sheet. There is one instruction sheet included per order.

Ordering Information

The unit cost per pad is US$12.50, shipped in quantities of 1, 3, 5 or 10. I'm shipping within the domestic United States only at this time using USPS Priority Flat Rate Envelope and Box. The following table will help you estimate approximately how many pads you need. There is a separate order page which I will send you once I receive your email via my contact form. First come, first serve, until all pads are gone.

Instructions

So if you're interested in picking up a few of these pads to try, and you live in the United States:

• Use the contact form and say how many you'd like to order. If the contact form isn't working, email me at [dscontact]-@-[davidseah.com].
• I will then email you the real product order page URL.
• You can choose you quantities there and pay through PayPal.

You do not need to have a PayPal account...you just need a credit card.

The reason I'm not posting the actual order form is because PayPal has no notion of inventory management, and I can not specify how many units I have available to sell. So to avoid overselling and having to refund money and incur transaction fees, I am asking for people to email me their orders first. Sigh. You can see why I want to get away from PayPal.

Reflecting on Goals, Part I

In the last Ground Hog Day Resolution Review, I realized that one of the best things about having them was the reflection that went into them. I did my reflection a few days later than planned, sitting outside this past Saturday at Starbucks with my reporter-style Moleskine for about 45 minutes. I let whatever tickled my mind drive the creation of lists, ultimately filling six pages.

List 1. Random Reflection

Foremost on my mind was a recent post I caught on Senia's Blog, the biggest lesson she's learned at a career coach struck home. In part1, she writes about two archtypical creative doers: one who does things because it's the right thing to do, and another who does things because it's what he feels like doing. In part 2, Senia writes how she's struck that there are so many people not doing what they want to do, and how sad this makes her feel. Senia is a very good friend of mine, so I could easily imagine her face falling just a little bit, savoring the sad feeling to get a good grip on it, then exploding into a flurry of energy-creating exercises and actions to chase those blues away from people that she knows can be happier and more fulfilled in life. She's very good at this, and reflecting upon her approach to life I realized that I'd swung waaaay too far toward the "doing things because I feel like it" approach. I don't think that this was a mistake, mind you---it was a necessary step to take to really get in touch with what is important to me---but now that I have more answers it's time to do things because they are the right thing to do. This trumps the forces that have been working against me:

• laziness, blahness...
• lack of motivation; a strong feeling of ennui...
• feelings of personal suckiness...
• feeling disconnected from the world and people...

What I like about "doing something because it is the right thing to do" is that it's a moral principle, not an process optimization. Before, I had given myself too many choices, and picking the best path seemed impossible even when I knew that any of them would do. I lacked conviction because the choices lay in the domain of process and self-interest. For me, those are not very strong motivators; while I like process, I need the context of real live people to make it interesting and relevant. Also, Wally Krapf once told me that the secret to having a good life was to get outside of yourself. I have been trying to figure out what he meant for the past two years, and I'm thinking that if one does something "because it's the right thing to do" has something to do with it. It subtly shifts attention away from "what I want, what I feel" toward something larger. And maybe this is the sense of mission I need to self-motivate. To summarize, there are many paths, but perhaps the trick is not to obsess about which path to take. The clarity of purpose comes from taking a path, and by doing so for the "right" moral reason will ensure that the results will be shaped accordingly. This may seem very obvious to anyone with children, but it is rather new to me.

So what is the right thing to do for me? As I was saying to my friend Erin this morning as we talked of the upcoming X-Files movie, what I really believe in is that everyone has magical abilities waiting to be unlocked, and that I love discovering what they could be. This childlike glee is what underlies just about everything I do, and I have an insane desire to see it happen. It's the basis for my interest in design, process, productivity, empowerment, and inspiration.

List 2. Project 2010

For the past year I've been plotting to figure out how to escape my dreary existence and become more of a citizen of the world. This is quite a jump for me because I am inherently a homebody, but interesting and unique stories are out there and I want to find them first-hand. The arbitrary goal I've set for myself is by the year 2010, I want to be able to have the means to GO. I jotted down a prep list to keep the outstanding issues fresh in my mind. The highlights:

• Debt elimination / household stabilization, so I can live leaner and require less money.
• Updating my Couchsurfing account, so I can meet more people between now and 2010 and therefore be part of a more international community.
• Looking into TEFL certification
• Getting the design and product businesses in shape so they can travel with me to any country.
• Figuring out whether this is an escapist fantasy or not. Maybe I won't actually like it.
• Gaining more solo travel experience.

List 3. The Social Scene

Also on my mind is maintaining a connection with my local community. The situation is vastly better than it was last year thanks to establishing myself as a "regular" at the coffee shop, and finding the right local Meetup groups. And then there are the friends I have nearby who are popping out new babies and forming new relationships; they're farther away, but it's good to know that things are going well. I wrote down a few things that were important to me:

• Meetup activities.
• Visits from people I've met through SXSW and this blog.
• Family visits.
• Personal health: Dental, Exercise in particular.
• WebNOB, the Web Developers North of Boston group that formed recently.
• Getting more creative retreats going this year.
• Setting up a Quake 4 dedicated server

List 4. Process Challenges

I mentioned earlier that I have been stuck in a "doing things because I feel like it" mode, and the companion mindset has been to not follow a process-oriented methodology. It has been a good vacation, more artistic than engineering, but I have gotten soft and need to get back into some good habits if Project 2010 is going to go anywhere. Here's what I jotted down:

• Maintaining the strategic picture, so day-to-day tactical operations are effective and accumulate results over the long term.
• Not being overwhelmed.
• Not overlooking details.
• Not overscheduling or overworking.
• Making predictable progress.
• Blueprinting my time use to find the "natural" amount of time it takes to do something.
• Developing a regimen that works.
• Developing new process methodologies and documenting them for public use.
• Working through process discomfort, accepting that it takes a while to develop those mental muscles.

List 5. Next Steps

I needed a big push to get things rolling, so I wrote down a few things that I wanted to focus on to kickstart the week:

• Clean the house. I threw out 15 years worth of once-sexy computer equipment that I was never going to use again. It felt awful, and it felt good.
• Sort the house. I am going through each room and figuring out what "piles" exist. As the piles accumulate, I am figuring out where "their place" will be. I'm also borrowing a technique of tagging piles for "transfer" from the world of airline luggage handling, creating piles with a "purpose destination". I don't know where that is going to be yet, but all I need to know is that it's NOT THIS ROOM.
• Trust my instincts and don't overthink the consequences. I tend to worry about whether I'm missing something or am about to screw something up, but experience has shown that "things just tend to work out anyway."
• Start writing PCEO descriptions and assemble the book. It is going to be long and arduous, but ultimately it probably won't be as bad as I think.
• Sell out the remaining ETP pads and don't worry about the awful e-commerce system I'm using. Just get it done. Then I can move on to stage 2.
• Visualize, then Do to gain practical experience. It's very easy for me to visualize how much a pain in the ass a task will be, but it never is as bad as I think it will be.

In Conclusion

Not bad for 45 minutes of thinking. It actually took twice as long to write it all down in this post, but this was (I think) a good way to consolidate the notes into a stream of consciousness. My day of reflection ended up providing me with some useful working principles. My next reflection day is May 27th, so we'll see by then what aspects of my notes I end up taking to heart.

The Art of Not Finishing

I've been preoccupied with how unproductive I've been lately...until recently, when I realized that the road to productivity isn't the same road that I'm on. The road to productivity is paved with clear steps leading to an act of completion; essentialy, it's finish what you start. However, as I sit here contemplating the rather large list of difficult-to-break-down tasks I've given myself, I'm thinking that there might be another approach. That is to relax and not worry about finishing. Or, perhaps, restart constantly. This is a way of not worrying about the result you want, and focusing on what you are doing right now. When practiced with honest intent, it's possible that this approach will lead to the same destination: a sense of accomplishment. It may not be so important that it is a specific accomplishment that I intended. I'm reminded of what I've read about agile software development, and more personally it reminds me of mastering my fighting style against best friend / arch nemesis Alen in the martial arts fighting game Tekken.

That Feeling of Accomplishment

The model of productivity I have for myself is not unlike the software development process I'm familiar with. The particular hacks I've applied to it are designed to ameliorate my particular foibles when it comes to motivation, definition, maintaining momentum, and reaping that feeling of fulfillment.

• Motivation: A lot of my Printable CEO forms are designed around the idea creating tangible progress when it is otherwise intangible. For example, a lot of the forms count chunks of time, equating chunks accrued with actual accomplishment. The reason I did this is because long projects defer the sense of reward, and without some kind of sign that we're actually making progress, our efforts will falter unless there is an overriding principle (e.g. duty, honor, love). Personally, I like to get feedback pretty instantly, because I'm an impatient person. Since I also work at home, I don't get the low-level but constant stream of feedback that a team environment provides. People without managers (or with out-of-touch managers) are also in the same boat.

• Definition: There are two kinds of projects that I have: projects with well-defined deliverables and expectations and those that, well, require definition. Project that require definition are almost always trouble, so when one of these bombs lands in your lap you actually need to spend a lot of time establishing assumptions and creating definitions that serve as the foundation of the project's ultimate deliverable. If you know the deliverable and the desired result, so the reasoning goes, you can work backwards and figure out what to do to get there. This is a whole series of posts in itself because it's not as straightforward as it sounds, but I think it's safe to say that we never question the main supposition: there is a deliverable and an expected result. Otherwise, you're just screwing around.

• Momentum: In other words, getting it done. I was just scanning the Wikipedia entry on Agile Development and saw reference to the so-called Waterfall Model of software development, which on the surface is exactly what Management asked for: a sequential design-deploy-deliver process that is nice and tidy. I'm experienced enough to know that it's difficult to predict exactly how it will come out or how long it will take. I make the best estimates I can, and discipline myself to push through the milestones so steady progress is made. If I'm smart, I also break down the steps into small-enough chunks so that a few can be done to completion every day, so theoretically I also have some way of measuring the rate of progress.

• Fulfillment: This is what comes at the end of the process. You're done! All that planning, working, slogging away every day to get to this point pays off. Or if it doesn't, at least you're no longer stuck doing it. You can count your chickens, collect your remaining marbles, and head home feeling like you've done something.

My education and work training has pretty much imprinted this approach on my brain, and it is second nature to me. However, I also have to admit that I really hate working this way. As I've mentioned, I'm a pretty impatient person, and for many years I suppressed this because the process works. Until I started blogging, I didn't know that there was really another way of doing it.

I enjoy free creation, which is probably why I like blogging and the ad-hoc projects that I come up with so much. It's productive, but only in hindsight. Until now, this seemed acceptable to me only because I wasn't doing "real work"; when the stakes are higher, productivity is supposed to produce results in the future. Actions are taken step-by-step, their results measured, assessed, and iterated through. While iteration is a built-in to the process, I think that there is still the stench of Waterfall embedded into it: we seek to optimize for minimum production time for maximum quality. This is a challenge, a burden, and a source of stress.

What really matters to me is having that sense of fulfillment; in practical terms, it doesn't matter how I get there. That's what's on my mind right now.

Walking The Path To an Unspecified Somewhere

Now, I'm not suggesting that we abandon professional conduct, especially while working within the bounds of established business expectations. Nevertheless, it's occurring to me that for my personal business goals, I don't need to adhere to the same standards. This is particularly true for me now, because I am open to all possibilities and am purposefully being vague about committing to any given path. Yes, I could very easily define a number of arbitrary business goals that would make perfect business sense given my demonstrated strengths and areas of expertise, but this is a trick that I don't think will work without some kind of external moral commitment. In the absence of this, my natural values shape my activities:

• I'm not driven by money, scale, or status.
• I do, however, want respect, trust, a place in the community, and to be a contributor.

How to do this while retaining my independence (very important) and having enough money to create that situation is the challenge, and here's where I get impatient again. The deliverable in this case is a state of being, not something tangible, concrete, or measurable. That's because I'm measuring human values, and it's hard to predict humans. Therefore, it's difficult to optimize. Having said this, I've argued myself back into the corner: to achieve what I want, I do need to put in the effort to acquire money, scale, and status. Otherwise, it's difficult to attract and to fund the situations where you can spend all your time meeting the right sort of people. The trick is to do it in a way that does not, as Tim Ferriss might say, make me a "life deferrer", putting off the reward of being alive by trying to optimize for the future.

Is there a way out?

Restart. A Lot. Maybe.

I am feeling a lot of internal resistance to this idea: don't plan, do. I know I've seen this before. A lot. It bothers me. A lot. I don't like not knowing what I'm going to do, but I have to admit that I don't really know what I'm doing or exactly where I'm going. Therefore, there probably is no wrong way to do it. In a sense, my random path is already optimal :-)

When Alen and I used to play Tekken back in the 90s, we noted that we had different approaches to learning the game. Tekken is a martial arts fighting game for the Playstation that has a lot of different attacks, defenses, and throws for each of 8 or more characters. There were over 50 distinct moves per character, and each character had strengths and weaknesses relative to each other, which means that mastering the game required a lot of practice. There are hundreds, of not thousands, of gameplay variables that could potentially affect the victory of one player over another.

The main attraction of playing a game like Tekken is to beat your opponents like a drum so you can have bragging rights. It's even better when you're playing against your friend...unless you're me. I tend not to play to "win" games. I'd rather understand them first. Alen had the opposite approach: he was in it to win. The way that this manifested in our playing styles was that Alen would find some button he could press over and over again as fast as possible--usually, this was the shin kick move--and he'd win the first 20 or 30 rounds. He would win because I would walk right into that shin kick, trying to find the counter to it, or find the hole in the timing of the move. It would take about 20-30 losses until I found it, and then the situation would reverse because by then I'd have formed a partial understanding of my character's dynamics. Then I would win a bunch of games, until Alen adapted and found the next quick move. By then I'd have learned that there is a time for understanding how a game works, and then there's a time when you just want to wipe the smug expression off Alen's face, and then it was on. By the end of it all, hundreds of hours of play later, we'd both have arrived at something of the same level of play, having absorbed the lessons of the other's playing styles by incorporating them into our own.

The moral of this story is that there is the fast way and the slow way to learning, and that ultimately they may lead to the same level of mastery. However, if all you are counting are the first 20 rounds of play, then the lesson is play fast and cheap to kick the other guy down. Have no shame! It will get the job done. If you have time and can afford to lose a lot at first, then you can build toward a complete style of play by mastering the nuances of all game mechanics; indeed, this is the only way to reach the greatest heights of achievement. However, you're going to get your ass beat a lot at first. Do you have the time?

Applying These Lessons

Let me paraphrase myself.

• I want to wander into an interesting life where I achieve in hindsight. I think this might suit my impatient, spur-of-the-moment creative nature.
• However, I'm worried that I'm being dumb, because I know that there's a "right way" to start and finish a project. I also know that progress is made only by completing what you've started, and doing that over again.
• So how can I complete things, but not on purpose?

Let me also consider those things that I'd like to create, which I think will help bring about the means by which I can create an interesting life:

• Create the e-commerce side of the website, selling fancy productivity stationery.
• Redesign the website to provide focused yet diverse categories of interest.
• Create software products for time tracking.
• Write some stories and some books.

Each one of those lines looks like a lot of work. There are dozens and dozens of smaller steps to plan, and it makes me sleepy just thinking about it. But that's me thinking in terms of the distant future, when the work has been completed. I need to start enjoying the process now, shin-kicking my way to cheap victories while buying myself some time to learn what does and does not work. I think that the processes behind e-commerce, design, and creating software are deep enough that I should just focus on those quick moves; I will forced to learn how to counter the challenges I encounter by the nature of the challenge. I can structure my productive approach to ensure variety in the interaction, and perhaps that will make it more varied and therefore fun. It has just struck me that if Alen and I hadn't had such different approaches to mastering Tekken, it would not have been nearly as interesting. If we had both played as shin-kickers, we'd have ended up being button-mashers and would not have mastered the game at all. If we had both been equally analytical, the game would have turned into work and would have ceased to be fun. That suggests that a good strategy for approaching one of those "big tasks" that you've just kept putting off is to take the opposite approach:

• A big serious task, with lots of complexity, is going to make you want to curl up and take a nap. You'll procrastinate. Instead, run up to the thing and give it a swift kick in the shin and run away. Then run back, and do it again for as long as you can get away with it. Who knows, you might just start to win.

• A very simple task may become interesting if you put a lot of energy into making it complex. Or maybe the better way to think of this is by being mindful of what you're doing, drawing that moment of simplicity out as long as possible. Through this, hidden meanings may be revealed. The example that comes to mind is the act of shooting a target with a handgun. Theoretically you just point the gun at the target and pull the trigger, but in reality there are dozens of interrelated micro-movements across the body that affect the accuracy of the shot. That moment of pulling the trigger can be an instant, which means you'll shoot terribly. Or it will be a kind of timeless moment that fully occupies your mind and your body until the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun and marks that bull's eye.

My next step is to incorporate more shin-kicking into my to-do list, and not think about the finished projects down the road. That will take care of itself as they come together. What I would like to focus on now is winning and being short-sighted about it. I'm pretty sure this is not the best way for every project, but it might be what I need right now to just get moving.

Splitting up the Blog by Topic?

I've been contemplating one of my Groundhog Day Resolutions today: "figuring out how to be a full-time writer and content creator". I like the idea more and more. I'll still get to make things so what I've learned up to now will not go to waste. However, it means establishing myself in a new niche. I could just jump on in and flounder around for a while, but I have a preexisting commitment to a personally important project. Therefore, it makes sense that I establish the new niche while maintaining my old one.

Serving the Audience

There have been a few new topics that I've been interested in writing about: motivation, relationships, and real-life stories. Motivation probably can fit in with the Productivity writing, as it is one of the assumed prerequisites for wanting to be productive in the first place. I already blog about this topic indirectly under Introspection too. The two new topics, relationships and real-life stories, are a little different because they are not about me or my direct experiences, but are about other people. Much of what I write about now uses myself as the reference point for discussion, because the only person who might get embarrassed is me; no one else is likely to get hurt or feel under the spotlight. I also can safely use my experiences as the basis for drawing whatever conclusions I have, so long as I am clear that this is where they're coming from.

There's a voice in my head that is telling me that when I start to write about other people, I need to keep this content separate from what you're reading right now here in the main site and feed. There are several assumptions that I'm making:

• Assumption 1: People are subscribed because of the productivity and process investigation, and skim through the occasional article on whatever crazy thing is on my mind.

• Assumption 2: Adding content outside of this is somehow not desirable, because it further clouds the nature of the content on the website.

These assumptions have constrained my writing in the past several months, as I've struggled both with my own identity as a creator and freelancer. I also know that I get a lot of traffic from productivity-oriented websites. More recently, however, I've come to the conclusion that I should just write about whatever happens to be on my mind, just like the old days, and just try to entertain and inform as I indulge my whims. The reason behind this conclusion is pretty simple: writing something is better than writing nothing. But even that statement requires contextualization; my value system tends to emphasize the production of anything interesting over the production of the right things. And from a marketing and branding perspective, writing about a multitude of topics just clouds "my online identity", which is bad when it comes to helping consumers make the decision whether they are interested in reading or not. Ideally, my writing would convey a clear message with an identified need, focus, dream, and vision of the future. Therefore, it makes some sense to metaphorically create a new product line for stories and reporting, a spin-off if you will, to neatly contain my journalistic intentions. This keeps the main niche "safe" by not muddling with it, allowing the new niche to develop its own following while drawing on the existing associations of the parent brand.

Serving Myself

The other approach is to not worry about "packaging content for the efficient consumption by market segments" and just assume one thing: continuity trumps categorization. That continuity is me, my voice, and my perspective. This presumes--and I feel kind of embarrassed to even suggest this--that the reason people are here is because they just like reading about what's on my mind, and that is enough. If that's the case, I could write about anything I want, so long as I maintain the continuity in whatever way makes sense. For me, I think that comes down to the core beliefs that I have: sharing inspiration where I find it, documenting what I've learned, and being supportive of anyone who is trying to make a go of it. I really don't write about productivity at all: I write about people who happen to be trying to be productive. What's interesting to me is the motivation behind the productive urge, which is one reason why I want to start collecting more stories. Creating the tools that allow people to be more productive, myself included, is really an exercise in creating our own life stories.

However, not all stories have any relevance to anything. For example, today I heard a good one while hanging out at Starbucks, where someone was complaining about how she hates it when someone doesn't leave the towel in the bathroom after taking a shower. I nodded in agreement, but then I realized that there was an variation in domestic household operations at work here: some families share one towel. You're clean coming out of the shower after all. This was news to me, as my family has always had separate towels for each individual in the house. We took an impromptu poll, and apparently the "One Household, One Towel" rule was not uncommon in the very small set that we were able to sample. The very idea of a single-towel bathroom seems incredible to me, as I personally like my towel to be my own. My sister would probably agree, because she goes to great lengths to ensure her own towel is fluffy and maximally dry; she would become very upset if someone else used it "by accident". But I digress...the point I'm trying to make is that this little side trip into communal toweling has nothing to do with what I topically write about. It's just interesting to me. The "gracious host" in me imagines people who are patiently waiting for that software update to the Emergent Task Timer Online going out of their gourd every time they read a detailed article about how sharing towels is OK, but sharing facecloths is not (FYI: I am just taking a stand here on that issue). If he's got the time to write about stupid towels, he certainly could be updating something USEFUL instead...

Taking a Poll

So I'm torn. I'm leaning toward NOT worrying about branding as the motivating force for a redesign, but nevertheless creating a separate content blog (accessible through this site, of course) for story collecting, random encounters, road food, and visits to new places. Some existing categories would also move, such as the Encounters category. If anyone has any strong opinions or insights into what the best approach would be, I'm all ears. The issues boil down to this:

• Will moving non-productivity, non-design, and non-business content out of the main blog create a more optimal experience for both readers and myself?
• Is "managing my personal brand" really so important that it dictates how I organize the content on this site?
• Is it more important to write for myself or write for the audience?
• What is the more worthy goal: creating a focused blog experience which can serve as a content platform for more commercial activities, or just creating what's on my mind? This issue is really which is more important to me: success/commercialization (freedom) or writing for the sake of creating "good" content (recognition). Both are important, so maybe I am actually looking for a means to do both.