Entries from September 2008 ↓

“I’m not creative.”
“I wish I could be more creative, but I don’t have it in me.”
“Why are some people creative and others aren’t?”

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard those statements or questions…

The truth is almost everyone has creative potential. What separates good creatives (or dormant creatives that get lucky) is that they’ve learned how to walk through the creative process. The irony is that most of them don’t know that there is a documented process, yet they’ve developed habits and processes that allow them to walk through the process. On some brute level, they understand the process, though they don’t know how the process works.

A large part of the problem is that there is an air of mystery and mysticism around the creative process. Because people assume and reinforce the idea that some have creative potential and others don’t, those that do harness their potential and work through the process become all the more “different.” And because so few of us see that leveraging our creativity is inextricably linked to how we make money, we let our creative process devolve into a daily crap shoot.

So, let’s take a few minutes and demystify the creative process. Continue reading →

It’s the 29th, so it’s time to pick up the next month’s planners. Pick them up here:

Productivity Planner Series

Daily Productivity Planner (October) (432)
Weekly Productivity Planner (October) (393)

Blog Post Planners and Calendars

Blog Post Planner (October) (179)
Blog Post Calendar (October) (135)
Blog Post Planner-Calendar Combo Pack (October) (184)

(If you’re new here (welcome!) and wonder how to use these planners, jump to the Free Planners page for a few posts that help out in that area. Hopefully I’ll have a How-to guide to include in next month’s update.)

October is the last full work month for many of us, as the holiday season has a tendency to create a bunch of other stuff we have to do. Do a good monthly review to see what you can actually get done before the yuletide fever hits everyone!

If you’d like to stay current with your planners or learn how to effectively manage your days, get FREE updates by RSS or by Email.

Warning: This post mixes autobiographical stories with a general account of the human condition. If you’re not up for that right now, bookmark it and come back when you’d like to think about it. It’s one of those Friday posts.

Our lives are the product of history, luck, and intention. These three factors interplay so much that it can be impossible sometimes to tell which one is the force at play.

The movie “Recount” was actually the catalyst for this post. The film recounts the debacle of democracy that happened in the presidential election of 2000, and I was livid at the end of it. I was angry that so many lives, mine included, were changed by the appointment of W to the American presidency. How different would the world look had things gone differently? How different would my life be?

Continue reading →

There’s a serious downside to flourishing: you become a target to be dumped on. People sense your strength of character and burgeoning wisdom and find you a source of comfort and calmness - then very quickly unload their problems on you.

What they (usually) don’t realize is how much this affects you, because you’re not used to the emotional chaos and issues your heart and mind are now trying to wrap themselves around. It’s all the worse because the people that are most effective at unraveling you (family and friends) are also the people who are the most likely to dump on you.

The hard truth, though, is that you get dumped on because you allow yourself to be dumped on. To be fair, you allow yourself to be dumped on because the dumper gets through to the best part of you - the part that wants to help and knows how to solve problems. In most cases, you allow yourself to be dumped on because you think you can influence them when in fact you can’t. I’ll explain… Continue reading →

Last week was a good week on the productivity front for me. You saw this as an increase in posts, but it was also manifested in my offline work. I’ve had a few people ask me what changed last week so I’ll answer for everyone.

Although this is a walk-through of what I as one person did, keep in mind that a lot of what I did can be translated into your workflow. Also remember that I was also as productive at my offline jobs as I was at my online ones, so whereas 5 posts in a six day period may not seem that big of a deal for a lot of bloggers, another 30-40% productivity in all domains of my work is a huge deal. Continue reading →

Odds are, if you are reading this, you make money by leveraging your creativity. You write, design, create, or do something such that your ability to make money depends largely on your ability to be creative.

I’ll pause and let that sink in for a minute.

I said in passing last week that your productive peaks are the essence of how you make money. Understanding this has some important implications, but I need to walk through some discussion points first.

The Means to Production

Imagine that you were a delivery person who owned your own delivery truck. Obviously, if your truck broke down, you’d be in a bad situation, for you couldn’t complete your job.

Or imagine that you were a blacksmith who ran out of coal. Again, while you were out of coal, you wouldn’t be able to perform your trade.

Good delivery people and blacksmiths spend an appropriate part of their time maintaining and securing their equipment, for their vehicle to production is tangible. Creatives, on the other hand, are far more likely to squander their vehicles, mostly because they don’t understand and respect that they make money by leveraging their creativity.
Continue reading →

Or: Why You’re Probably Not Using the Productivity Planners

(This post is a case study in how to stifle a good idea, using my own products as an example. It ends with a general take-away, so feel free just to skip to that.)

Laurie, my good friend and neighbor, provided some of the best feedback for this blog and my planners that I’ve yet to receive. The thrust of the feedback goes like this:

I really like your blog, but I downloaded some of your planners…and they’re really intimidating. My mind just doesn’t work that way.

The planners actually started from very simple concepts about productivity:

There are times in which we have more productive energy than others. Use those times to do your productive heavy lifting, and schedule other stuff around those periods. Lastly, try to figure out why you’re in those periods and see what you can do to extend or amplify them.

That idea is simple. It has that “this is so stinking obvious - why didn’t I think of that” quality about it that makes it very easy to apply in the actual contexts in which we live, work, and play. It’s no wonder that it went viral and that post continues to be my most read post.

And Then I Stifled It! Continue reading →

If you’ve been following this series, you’ve no doubt noticed that I view organizations more like teams than mere collections of people. There’s both a positive reason for this and and a realistic one.

The positive reason is that people like being part of successful groups and being praised for what they do. People are much more satisfied and motivated when they view organizational successes as personal success rather than just organizational victories. “Team” captures that feeling more than company or group or any other word I know of.
Continue reading →

This post is only tangentially about productivity. It’s completely about giving credit where credit is due and supporting the reemergence of someone whom I admire. I also said that I’d be profiling people who inspire us to get back to creating, so this is part of that.

Some of you are new here, so you may not be privy to the fact that this blog and a lot of its successes are the result of inspiration from two people: Dave Seah and Merlin Mann.

Continue reading →

Update (September 17th): This class is still open and will remain open for the next five weeks. I’m SO glad I’m in it - I’ve met a lot of great people.)

Yesterday I talked about the choice you have to make between being excellent and being comfortable. I gave a lot of general stuff to think about, but I didn’t do much to help actually help you make that leap.

You may be stuck at this point. You may want to start excelling, but have no idea where to start.

This blog is one resource for that. You may even consider hiring me. But I think a far better idea, for now, is to sign up for Self Promotion for Wimps. Continue reading →