Thoughts on my Imminent Vacation

What are the emotions at play that make us want to stay connected to work and our normal everyday routine when we're supposed to be on vacation? Why do we seem to be unable to separate ourselves from this often stress-inducing expectation to operate as we always do while on vacation? Why do we feel the urge to check in with email, Slack, Twitter, and the other tools of our normal day-to-day life when we've explicitly traveled to another location ostensibly to remove ourselves from our day-to-day reality?

Part of it is that we like this stuff. At least, I know I do. A notification represents a positive (even a microscopically positive) change in my equilibrium. Somebody likes a thing I did, somebody posted an article I'm interested in reading, there's a nice photo, here's a new opportunity, there's a positive update on a project. We are all buried under an avalanche of nearly imperceptibly positive inanity.

That's not to say there aren't overtly negative aspects to our biggest online time wasters, too. In my own life, though, these are far outweighed by the positive (and if they weren't then I probably wouldn't have as hard a time as I do shutting them off). Does this onslaught of mildly positive affect dilute us or maybe distract us from something worth experiencing?

I think so.

An unrelenting haze of micro-positive interruptions and outlets may take the place of boredom, curiosity, and the uninterrupted time they used to come out and play together – with potentially powerful results. I wonder if my vaguely positive but usually entirely dull digital life prevents me from having insights, ideas, and emotions that never get to see the light of day? What areas of my life requires a recipe more refined than unrelenting mild positivity, interruption, and constant stimulus? What might be hiding under the warm and admittedly comfortable blanket of my mundane usage of modern technology?

Self-awareness? Creativity? Deeper relationships? Mental clarity? A willingness to dive deeper into a single subject or experience?

I don't have any answers but I do often wonder I might be giving up to support my addiction to the steady stream of retweets, text messages, listicles, faves, likes, gifs, and faux antique digital photos I allow into nearly every moment of my waking life. Why not use this vacation to peel back that familiar layer of my life and poke around beneath it?

When I wake up Monday morning to get on the train that will take me to the bus that will take me to the plane that will take me to a beach across the country I will be trying to live by a couple rules:

• No email. I am not an important enough person doing important enough work for anything to break, blow up, or die if I don't respond to email for a week (most of us aren't -- we just like to think we are).

• No Slack. See above. The world will go on without me.

• No Twitter. Twitter is both a pleasant distraction and a useful work tool. I need neither of these during my vacation. Tweetbot (along with Mailbox and Slack) will be removed from my first page of apps and all notifications will be turned off.

• No Facebook. No Instagram. I will be in the midst of my own relaxing and rejuvenating experience. I don't need to see others' good times'. I will try to take some pictures but they will be for my own creative expression.

• No RSS feeds. RSS is a normal part of my work day routine. I have no interest in propagating my normal work day routine to my vacation location. All the interesting articles will be waiting for me when I return.

• No podcasts. While I have nothing against podcasts I view them almost as audio candy. They are nice to ingest during the busy times of a typical work week but I'm looking to make this vacation a rejuvenation experience. I have no room for candy in this rejuvenation attempt.

• The same logic applies to what I have saved in Instapaper. This vacation is a time for me to dive into something longer and meatier – not blast through a series of articles about tech, psychology, and everything else I read and write about everyday.

• Needless to say, no Mendeley or Evernote or Things or anything else that helps me run my hectic and productive life. Hectic and productive are not my buzzwords for this vacation.

That's a whole lot of things that I'm NOT going to do. Almost makes you wonder what I AM going to be doing, right?

• Reading on my Kindle. I'm not sure what, yet, but I will be reading copiously. I'll probably read some kind of fiction because that's what I'd be most likely not to do during my everyday life.

• Writing in Day One. Each day (or whenever the mood strikes me) I want to pull out my iPad and write in Day One. This won't be a log of what I'm doing but simply a place for me to do any stream of consciousness writing that seems appropriate.

• Listening to an audiobook.

• Nothing. About three days in to this weeklong vacation I will probably hit a point where the first twinges of boredom will arrive. My hope is that I'm successfully able to do nothing instead of looking for some mental stimulus in the form of one of my no-nos from above.

• Walking/wandering.

• Conversing with loved ones, strangers, sea gulls – who knows.

• Taking pictures.

• Writing in my analog notebook whenever writing in Day One doesn't seem appealing.

• Thinking.

• Simply being outside as much as possible.

• Meditating.

Hopefully I come back rejuvenated and ready to conquer another couple months of doing meaningful and challenging work. At the very least, I know I'll at least have a tan and an overflowing inbox. 

I'm okay with both.

The List #23

Welcome to the 23rd edition of The List featuring three articles and a relatively short video. As usual I hope you kick back with these on Saturday morning or on a lazy Sunday afternoon and enjoy.

Top MLB prospect lives by his own rules -- in a van -- ESPN

It unsettled him in those first months to see so many zeros on his bank account balance -- "Who am I to deserve that?" he wondered. "What have I really done?" -- so he hired financial advisers and asked them to stash the money in conservative investments where Norris wouldn't have to think about it. His advisers deposit $800 a month into his checking account -- or about half as much as he would earn working full time for minimum wage. It's enough to live in a van, but just barely. "I'm actually more comfortable being kind of poor," he says, because not having money maintains his lifestyle and limits the temptation to conform.

A Brewing Problem - The Atlantic

This is really interesting to me because we actually use Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (now Keurig Green Mountain) as a case study in one of the classes I help teach as an example of appreciative inquiry and corporate social responsibility. Maybe it's time to update the case study?

Meet the Makers: Ableton Developers at Work (14:04)

I love seeing videos of how companies go about getting their work done. The culture at Ableton seems like a great place for the creative and the curious. Anyone have more videos like this? Share them with me on Twitter, eh?

How Steinbeck Used the Diary as a Tool of Discipline, a Hedge Against Self-Doubt, and a Pacemaker for the Heartbeat of Creative Work - Brain Pickings

This is so, so great. I'd say the vast majority of my entries in Day One are things I've written while agonizing over the fact that I need to get to work or don't have any ideas for things to write about. Looks like Steinbeck did a similar thing with his diary while writing The Grapes of Wrath. The other thing that's kind of cool is to see that even an absolute titan of the literary world was plagued by self-doubt -- even while writing a book that ended up earning him a Pulitzer Prize. It's a nice reminder that you aren't doing anything wrong if work is hard.

The Emotions of Meaningful Productivity #1: "I'm Just Not That Type of Person"

I'm kicking off a new series I'm calling The Emotions of Meaningful Productivity. Much of the productivity writing I and others have done focuses on the implementation and tactical levels (easy to digest tools, tips, and "hacks") which means we often miss the mark of what's going on at a more foundational level. Anybody who has tried to "get organized" or "be more productive" is wrestling with more than a need for a hot new tool or a pithy line of advice (even if we think that's all we need). Usually we are wrestling with some pretty heavy emotional hangups and barriers that require more careful consideration. I want to explore these deeper emotional challenges that often get in the way of doing more meaningful work. This means we'll touch on aspects of productivity, personal organization, focus, and generally being effective and happy human beings in a world where work and human emotion come into contact on a regular basis.

Let's step to it, eh?

"I'm just not an organized/productive/diligent person."

On more than one occasion I've spoken to someone who notices I have a strange (to them) approach toward being productive. After briefly explaining the main points of my system more often than not I hear something like, "Oh, that must be great. I'm just not that type of person."

Hogwash! Poppycock! Hammermittens! (I think I made that last one up).

Antiquated exclamations aside, I do understand the feeling. I'm sure there must be some genetic variation in terms of whether or not you're attracted to the process of organizing things or thinking systematically about being more productive. God knows not every little kid thought organizing and re-organizing his hockey cards for hours on end or playing with calendars and planners was a fun time (hi Mom!). Looking around at people who seem to have their lives in order often uncovers other feelings that spread beyond a desire for a little more organization and productivity. It can make you think something is wrong with you. It feels crappy when someone else makes something you want and find difficult look so incredibly easy. Not only do you start to feel frustrated with your own lack of being on top of things, you may even start hating the raw material that's creating all this discord in your life -- i.e. the decisions, responsibilities, and components of your career and life. That's heavy stuff.

Putting our natural inclinations to be interested in organization and productivity aside, does that mean "meaningful productivity" is something for only a select few? You either get it or you don't? And if you don't, you're doomed to an existence of stress and chaos?

I don't think it's much of a surprise that I argue it's not.

"Getting organized" or "being productive" are a series of behaviors that when enacted result in a more controlled and orderly work (or personal) life. These are behaviors that are concrete, discrete, and extremely learnable. Like learning to ride a bike or drive a car or even tie your shoes -- they consist of steps that build upon one another and can be practiced discretely. Eventually you're able to start stringing together these steps together and before you know it you're riding a bike, driving a car, tying your shoes, or doing more meaningful work with less stress.

The problem arises when we see the distance between where we are right now (some combination of a disorganized, harried, busy, and overwhelmed mess) and where we want to be (a Zen-like master of everything) as a huge gulf instead of a series of steps. Would you rather try to scale a sheer cliff or walk up a staircase? I don't blame anybody for walking away from even trying to climb a cliff with no apparent handholds. But, there's a stairway just over here. I'm not saying it'll be quick but anybody can walk up some stairs, right?

Instead of trying to adopt some kind of wholesale, wide-ranging, and all-inclusive organizational system (like GTD), try a series of smaller changes first. These could be almost anything, but I would err on the side of simplicity and ease. By building some success with smaller steps that momentum can be banked and utilized for larger changes later.

1. If you currently write ideas in more than one place try consolidating down to one notebook or location (or at least fewer than you're currently using). Behavior being learned: Ubiquitous capture and trust in your inbox(es).

2. Spend 5 minutes at the beginning/end of each day thinking about what you intend to do today/tomorrow. Behavior being learned: Front-end decision making and planning.

3. Go through your email inbox and unsubscribe from everything that isn't giving you value. Behavior being learned: Attention management.

4. Install Rescue Time and let it run for a week or two. Figure out where you're currently using your time. Behavior being learned: Attention and time management.

5. Go through your desk (or just one drawer if it's a true disaster zone) and get ride of unneeded stuff. Old pens, broken electronics, pieces of useless paper, etc. Behavior being learned: Respect for your workspace and creation of space for doing better work.

These steps may seem silly easy but when you're dealing with a deep seated belief that you're just not the type of person to get organized and be productive then you need to do things to prove yourself wrong. Instead of conceptualizing this ability to be organized and get work done as a personality trait that you sadly don't have you can begin building the very real skills and behaviors that every "productive person" uses on a daily basis. Like anything else that's tricky it will take time to practice the requisite steps but that isn't evidence that you're incapable of doing it -- it's simply evidence that you're learning a new way to interact with the world.

Next time we'll dive into another emotional roadblock to developing meaningful productivity -- fear.

How to Build More Flow Into Your Work Day

As I mentioned a few weeks ago with my How to Take Control of Your Indie Work Career article and video, I was asked to record some material for the now defunct en*theos Academy. The second lecture I recorded is called How To Build More Flow Into Your Work Day. You can see my 10 main ideas below and I expand upon those ideas in the video which you can watch here if it's not showing up for you.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT5lfaKUuJM&w=854&h=480]

Introduction

Think about the last time you were doing something that was incredibly engrossing, utterly immersive, and at the complete peak of your abilities. This state is something that psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.” Flow is awesome. When you’re in flow you’re highly focused, highly productive, and completely engaged with the task at hand. Time seems to fly and you look back on the experience as positive and worth doing again.

Obviously, it can be pretty easy to find flow during leisure activities like mountain climbing or playing a video game. Luckily, flow is not reserved just for “fun” activities like that. Work is a great environment to find flow and with a little bit of effort you can find more flow in everything you do.

I’m going to share ten basic ideas that will help you find more flow in your work on a daily basis. The Top 10 Big Ideas

1. Set Clear Goals

A key component to finding flow in anything you’re doing is having a clear goal you’re working toward. If you can make the goal personally meaningful then you’re in an even better position. Without a goal the task will lack structure and direction.

Action tip: Set a daily goal before you start work in the morning and keep it in your field of vision throughout the day (I like putting mine on an index card that I keep clipped to a notebook).

2. Combat Boredom

Csikszentmihalyi argues that flow emerges when we do a task that is challenging and we have the required skills to successfully complete the task. If the challenge of the task is too low and your skills far outpace it then you’re likely to become bored. If you find yourself in that situation, one way you can be more likely to find flow is to figure out a way to make the task more challenging, thus requiring more of your skills to finish it.

Action tip: Try turning a boring part of your job into a game. Give yourself some kind of restriction or challenge that makes it more difficult. I like to check my email using only keyboard shortcuts and seeing how quickly I can get in and out of my inbox.

3. Eliminate Distractions

One nice component of being in flow is that some low level distractions will never even reach your consciousness. People in flow sometimes forget to eat or don’t realize they’re sitting in an uncomfortable position until they leave the flow state and realize their foot is asleep and they’re super hungry. Where you need to be aware of distractions is when you’re first trying to get into flow. A continuous stream of notifications will make it difficult to get deep enough into any task to find flow.

Action tip: Eliminate the vast majority of notifications on your phone and computer. Even better, when sitting down to work on something try turning your phone off or leaving it in another room.

4. Develop Your Ability to Concentrate

At its core, being in flow is a matter of regulating your attention. When you’re in flow you’re using your full attention on the task at hand without letting it spill into other concerns or activities (which is why a lack of distraction is so important). Since flow is so reliant on your ability to concentrate, doing anything to strengthen that ability is a great idea. In my own experience, my meditation practice has helped develop my mind to the point where I can more easily become engaged with the task at hand and find flow in what I’m doing.

Action tip: Try starting a meditation practice. Start with just a few minutes a day and work your way up. A great guide is Mindfulness in Plain English (plus, it’s free!).

5. Build in More Opportunities to Do What You’re Good At

Remember, finding flow requires a balance of challenge and skill. Take stock of what you’re already good at and see if you can get involved with projects that let you use those skills. While flow can be found doing nearly anything, it’s easier when you’re doing something you’re already good at and enjoy doing.

Action tip: Take stock of your strengths with the Gallup StrengthsFinder 2.0 or the VIA Institute on Character Survey. Once you know your strengths, brainstorm ways to use them in your work more often.

6. Seek Challenging Projects

Csikszentmihalyi makes the point that flow requires higher than average skill and ability. You might think that having low skill and low challenge in an activity would also result in flow since the ratio is 1:1. However, Csikszentmihalyi calls this zone “apathy” and it won’t be nearly as engaging as flow. Similarly, doing something in which you have high skill but are presented with low challenge results in “relaxation,” not flow. For flow you need high skill and high challenge.

Action tip: Volunteer for a project that seems just slightly outside your comfort zone. You’ll be forced to develop your skill to keep up and you’ll be much more likely to find flow.

7. Find a Supportive Group

Being in a group of other people can sometimes help you enter the flow state more easily. In my personal experience, this is why I love sharing workspaces with other people who are working intently on things they care about. When I’m around other people there seems to be a sense of “positive peer pressure” that pushes me toward working more diligently and deeply.

Action tip: If you normally work alone, try going to a local coworking space or finding likeminded people to share a workspace with.

8. Be on the Lookout for Anxiety

If you’re feeling anxious about something you’re working on it means the level of challenge is exceeding your level of skill in that domain. In order to move from anxiety into flow you’ll either have to lower the challenge or raise your skill (or a combination of both).

Action tip: Try lowering the challenge by getting additional help from a knowledgeable coworker or relieving external pressures when possible (by getting an extension on a looming deadline, for example). To increase your skill, utilize the vast world of great learning resources on the Internet like iTunesU, Lynda, or en*theos!

9. Have a Plan

A key component of finding flow in anything you do is having a sense of where you’re going and whether you’re headed in the right direction. That’s not to say you need to plot out every single point along the journey, but it does help to have an overall plan. A mountain climber doesn’t pre-plan every single movement while he’s on the mountain, but he also doesn’t just “wing it” with no preparation at all.

Action tip: Spend some time at the beginning of a project thinking about the end goal and figuring out what success might look like. I even like to do this on a daily basis by spending a few minutes planning my day in the morning and thinking about the criteria I’ll use to decide whether or not I’ve had a successful day.

10. Seek Feedback from the Work Itself

To know whether you’re making progress you need to get feedback on what you’re doing. Feedback can take the form of information you get from the task itself. For example, when practicing a musical instrument you can tell if you’re doing well by noticing if you’re hitting the right notes. A mountain climber receives feedback in the form of “not falling off the mountain.” At work it’s probably not quite as obvious as hitting a wrong note or falling off a mountain but you can still get feedback from the task at hand. Is the work flowing smoothly? Excellent! If it’s not, ask yourself what seems to be causing the blockage and figure out ways to work around or eliminate whatever is clogging things up.

Action tip: Check in with yourself every couple of hours and take note of what’s going well and what isn’t going well. Perhaps you keep thinking about something else you should be working on. Take steps to get that anxiety out of your head before going back to work on the original task to make flow more likely in the future.

Call to Action

I think learning about flow and striving to find it in our work is one of the best uses of our time as human beings. When we look back at the end of our lives what we’ll be looking at is the sum total of how we used our limited attention throughout the years. Seeking flow in your work (and beyond) is a commitment to use your attention as wisely as possible.

The List #22

Welcome to the 22nd edition of The List, a roundup of the most interesting bits of the Internet to catch my attention over the past couple weeks. Kick back with a hot beverage, load up these links, and enjoy.

If you like these articles and topics I recommend following me on Twitter as I've been known to share the best stuff I find there, too.

The Shape of Things to Come - The New Yorker

This article is long, so get nice and comfy before you dig into it. If you're interested in behind the scenes coverage of how the most successful company in the world works -- and the man behind the design of the products that have propelled it to that rank -- then this is worth it. Ive is an interesting guy with an eye for detail that is equal parts impressive and exhausting.

How Medium is Building a New Type of Company with No Managers - First Round

I know this isn't a new article but I thought it was one of the best I've seen that really shows what working in a holacratic organization is like. It's one thing to read the manifesto or look at the diagrams it's based on and something totally different to hear from someone working in it every day.

The other thing I'm left with after reading this article is that all these headers about how holacratic organizations don't have managers seem more attention-grabby than truthful. Granted, I haven't worked in a holacratic organization but from what I can tell (and I want to develop this idea further) I think it would be more accurate to say everyone is a manager. Everyone seems to phase in and out of managerial roles as the situation dictates it which is not the same thing as having no managers. Perhaps a quibble on my part but something I'll be thinking and writing about more in the future.

Mike Babcock: The Perfectionist - Sportsnet

Looking at the pen in my hand, he tries to put his outlook into a perspective he believes I’ll understand. “I don’t think there’s a secret to success,” he says. “It’s lifelong learning. What you did last year and how you wrote last year, if you’re writing the same next year someone else is going to have your job. You have to evolve because everyone else evolves.”

I don't imagine there are too many hockey fans out there but this is a fascinating look into my favorite team's head coach. Babcock is widely acknowledged as the best NHL head coach and reading a little bit about his approach to work shows why that is the case. life and work.

Thoreau on Hard Work, the Myth of Productivity, and the True Measure of Meaningful Labor - Brain Pickings

The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk. Why should the hen set all day? She can lay but one egg, and besides she will not have picked up materials for a new one. Those who work much do not work hard.

Makes me think of this article I wrote a few months ago. I'm still working at developing this but it's a practice that seems worth the effort (which is about as paradoxical sentence you can write when talking about relaxation, right?).

A Relentless Drive Toward Completion

I want to be someone who gets impressive things done quickly. I see classmates who finish their theses and dissertations early. People draft a new book over a month and a half of focused writing sessions. Someone sits down and creates a new product or website or article in less time than anyone expects. These people fascinate me and I want to be one of them. Obviously, these people have developed the ability to focus. But I think there's another force beyond the ability to focus that's at play here. I think people who get things done in a timely manner have cultivated what I've been calling a "relentless drive toward completion".

A relentless drive toward completion means that you sit down for a work session and ask yourself, "What can I finish?" and not, "What will I work on?" By breaking a project into finishable sections and then driving themselves toward the completion of those sections the highly productive person builds momentum in a way that just "working on" a project never can.

Focusing the mind on what can be finished in the short term ensures that progress is being made in a quantitative and qualitative way. Not only are words appearing on the page or pages accumulating or paintings starting to pile up or whatever your primary output is -- but there is a feeling of progress when you can check actual items off your list instead of looking at the never-changing and ambiguous "Finish thesis," or, "Finish book."

I'm still working to develop this relentless drive toward completion myself so here are some things I've tried and are currently trying in my own work:

Ignore how long things are "supposed" to take

Accepted wisdom is usually an average of how long things have taken people in the past and actually has very little to do with what you're setting out to do. Just because I have a year and a half to complete my thesis doesn't mean I have to take a year and a half.

Make sure each work session has a goal

Never sit down to just "work on" something. Create a finish line for yourself to cross. If you're writing a book perhaps the goal of the session is to finish outlining the chapter, or drafting a page, or simply revising the next paragraph. Give yourself something to accomplish and as you start to accumulate those wins you'll be developing a momentum that can push you to the ultimate finish line quicker than you'd ever expect.

Eliminate or defer as much as possible so you can dive deep on one thing

I'm learning that I can't have a relentless drive toward completion on every single thing I'm working on at all times. I have to pick and choose my spots. Pushing myself to finish something faster than anyone expects means I need to create the space in my life that allows me to focus deeply on it. I have to defer everything I can, do the minimum required in other places, or, ideally, completely remove something from my plate. Whatever route I end up taking the end result is the same -- I need to do less in order to do better.

I'm convinced developing this mindset, this craving for completion, is what sets apart people who seem to get more done than seems physically possible and everyone else. I've been in the "everyone else" category for long enough. It's time to get things done.

How to Take Control of Your Indie Work Career

A while back I was asked to record some lectures for the en*theos Academy. A few weeks ago I found out they were closing that aspect of their business and that I would be allowed to use the material I created for them anywhere I like.

The format en*theos liked to use was 10 main ideas that we would write up in a short article and then expand upon in the video (which is why this article is in a little different format that I normally write).

I don't think I've ever shared a long-form video like this before so I'd be interested to hear what you think.

If you can't see the video below click here to watch it.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6wgQdNU49k&w=640&h=480]

Introduction

Being an independent worker can be hard. It’s not all pajamas, slippers, and taking phone calls on the beach. You may not have a boss or work in a cubicle like the typical knowledge worker but you also don’t have access to a lot of what can make work enjoyable; clear feedback, enjoyable colleagues, helpful structure, organizational resources, and everything else you forfeit working for and by yourself.

Here are ten ideas from my own experience as an indie worker and psychology researcher that might make your work life more successful and enjoyable.

1. Create Flow in Your Work

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a founding father of positive psychology and one of my advisors, is known for his work on the idea of “flow,” otherwise known as the psychology of optimal experience. If you’ve ever felt “in the zone” or completely engrossed in an activity then you know what flow feels like and why it’s an awesome thing to strive for in our work.

There are three things that need to happen in order for you to find flow in whatever you’re doing. First, you need to find a balance between the challenge of the task at hand and your skill in that activity. Second, you need clear feedback as to whether you’re moving in the right direction. Last, you need clear goals. When these three requirements are met you’re much more likely to find yourself getting immersed in the task at hand.

2. Use Your Strengths

Your strengths refer to the natural ways you prefer to think and act. You have a unique mix of strengths that inform the types of work you prefer to do, how you approach that work, and what you find enjoyable in life. Identifying your strengths and then figuring out ways to build more opportunities to use those strengths in how you work has been empirically shown to increase job satisfaction and job performance.

The Gallup organization has an assessment tool called StrengthsFinder 2.0 that helps you identify you strengths. Additionally, positive psychology researchers Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman developed a list of 24 character strengths and a survey to help you figure out what your top strengths are. Try taking one, or both, of these assessments and then spend some time figuring out how to utilize your unique strengths more often in your work.

3. Adopt a Growth Mindset

Psychologists have identified two different “mindsets” that most people fall into. You can have what they call a “fixed mindset” in which you believe your abilities and intelligence are fixed quantities and there isn’t much you can do to increase what you currently have. The other type is called a “growth mindset” and these people tend to think of their abilities and intelligence as similar to muscles that can be developed through training. If you have a fixed mindset you tend to avoid difficult situations (because what if you don’t have enough ability to handle it?!) whereas those with a growth mindset tend to thrive in and seek out difficult situations.

Succeeding as an indie worker almost requires a growth mindset. Unless you’re happy with not raising your rates or working on more interesting projects, you must develop a growth mindset. Luckily, according to research the first step in developing a growth mindset is simply learning about the difference between the two!

4. Use Self-Leadership Strategies

Self-leadership simply refers to your ability to get yourself to do the things you need to do. You can think of these strategies as falling under three types: cognitive thought strategies, natural reward strategies, and behavioral-focused strategies.

Cognitive thought strategies refer to how you think about your work, especially in terms of self-talk and framing. How do you think about your work in relation to everything else going on in your life? Natural reward strategies refer to finding positive feedback in the actual task at hand. Maybe you turn on some tunes while you’re scanning paperwork or have a specific podcast you listen to only when doing a certain tedious task? Finally, behavioral strategies refer to raising self-awareness and using environmental cues to get stuff done.

5. Develop Your Psychological Capital

Business writers like to write about human capital, social capital, and economic capital. As an indie worker you don’t really have a ton of those, though. Instead, what really matters is your own individual abilities and psychological well-being – your psychological capital. In the psychology literature psychological capital (PsyCap) is comprised of four constructs: self-efficacy, resilience, hope, and optimism. When these four constructs come together they make up your overall propensity to accomplish what you set out to accomplish.

Which of these four is currently lacking in the way you think about yourself and your work?

6. Evolve Your Habits

Everything we do is built upon the foundation of our habits. Without habits you would be cognitively overwhelmed trying to remember what to do every day. Some habits come easy to us (I’m guessing you brush your teeth before bed every night without thinking about it too much) whereas others are much more difficult to cultivate (going for a run every day or writing 1,000 words or nearly anything else connected to running a successful business).

When thinking about your habits try to identify something you already do every day you can use as a trigger for a habit you want to develop. If you can identify a trigger and then connect the intended habit to that trigger you have a much better chance of successfully making it happen.

7. Become a Craftsman (or Craftswoman!)

When you think of somebody working on their craft chances are you’re thinking about someone working with their hands. Craftsmanship usually refers to the highest level of attention to detail, care, and skill placed in the creation of a product. While the typical craftsman may be working with wood or other physical material, there’s no reason the same mentality can’t apply to knowledge work.

One thing you’ll notice when watching a craftsman at work is how seamlessly he or she uses tools. The tools are like a natural extension of their body. How true is this for the tools you use in your work? Do you know every keyboard shortcut for all the software you use on a regular basis? The difference between being able to leave your hands on the keyboard to complete common tasks and having to constantly use your mouse can be surprisingly large. A true indie work craftsman is a wizard with his tools – are you?

8. Focus on Process Over Product

Think about the two types of goals you could set in any situation. One goal refers to the end result such as, “I want to write a book.” The other type of goal refers to a behavior in which you partake, “I will write 1,000 words every day.” I think the latter, or what I call a “process goal” is much more useful for indie workers.

The problem with the first kind of goal is that you can’t truly do it. You can’t just sit down and write a book and therefore it can be hard to know if you’re making progress. On the other hand, setting a process goal is much more attainable and actually helps you develop a habit in the process. If there’s a goal you’ve been struggling with for awhile try changing your perspective and setting a process goal instead.

9. Build Reflection into Your Routine

Sometimes I call reflection the “alpha habit.” Everything has to start with regular reflection first. Without regularly reflecting on what you’ve done in the past you’re doomed to repeat mistakes and miss opportunities for development.

In order to make sure I’m making the time to step back and reflect on my work I’ve scheduled a series of reminders into my task management software. For example, I have a Weekly Review which is very task-focused, a Monthly Review which takes a closer look at my ongoing projects, a 3-Month Review where I look at my areas of responsibility, and a Yearly Review where I look at my overall vision and long-term goals. These pop up automatically in my task management software and it forces me to take a step back from the nitty gritty to make sure I’m on the right path.

10. Self-Experiment

There are literally hundreds of ways you can change your daily routines, approaches to work, strategies for productivity, and techniques for improving your life. The only way to know if something is going to work for you is to try it. Not everything that works for me will work for you and many things that didn’t work for me may end up being exactly what you need. Try brainstorming a list of things you want to try and then systematically try them out over a period of time. I like to do weekly trial runs of small changes/experiments as well as monthly experiments for larger ideas.

If you can collect data on yourself using some kind of tool, that’s awesome. At the very least, take time to reflect during the trial period to see what effect the change is having on you. At the end of the experiment, decide if the change is worth keeping part of your life full-time and then try something new!

Conclusion

The beautiful thing about being an indie worker is that you have the freedom to work any way you want and the frustrating thing about being an indie worker is that you have the freedom to work any way you want. With the right strategies in your toolbox and the willingness to try some new things you can craft a way of working that lets you do your best work while also retaining your sanity. Which of the concepts I introduced above do you think may have the biggest impact on how you think about your work?

Enjoy these ideas? Connect with me on Twitter or Facebook if you want to chat about them or anything else.

The List #21

Time for the first the first The List of 2015. As usual, here are a handful of links from across the internet that caught my eye over the past week (or in this case, the past several weeks). If you ever come across something you think I'd like, feel free to send me an email or connect with me on Twitter (@samspurlin).

Re: New Wired Offices - The Awl

This memo shows what leaders putting aesthetic personal preference ahead of employee needs for doing great work looks like. My already low expectations for Wired are dropping lower.

Something Slightly Less Terrible - objc.io

Interviewer: Do you mostly focus on one project at a time, or are you a multitasker?

Loren Brichter: I’d describe my work schedule as cooperatively single-threaded with a heavy context switch cost, so I try to keep time slices on the order of about a week. So I have lots of projects going at once that usually relate to each other in some way, but I only consciously work on one at a time.

I can’t consciously multitask at all, but I think my brain works a bit like libdispatch. The subconscious can chew on a lot of stuff in parallel. So when my conscious mind switches back to some other work it put aside earlier, there are usually a couple good ideas waiting for it.

The Pleasure of Practicing: A Musician's Assuring Account of Creative Homecoming and Overcoming Impostor Syndrome - Brain Pickings

Together this pleasure in music and the discipline of practice engage in an endless tussle, a kind of romance. The sense of joy justifies the labor; the labor, I hope, leads to joy. This, at least, is the bargain I quietly make with myself each morning as I sit down. If I just do my work, then pleasure, mastery will follow. Even the greatest artists must make the same bargain.

Your Best Work - Rands in Repose

In the past five years, the teams I’ve seen work at impressive speed are the ones who self-organized themselves elsewhere. They found a dark corner of the building, they cleared out a large conference room, or they found an unused floor of a building and made it their own. While this might strike you as a case for shared common open space, it’s not. It’s an argument for common space that is not shared because these teams have work to do and don’t want a constant set of irrelevant interruptions. This is why I’m in favor of pod-like set-ups where teams working on similar technology and projects have their own enclosed space. I believe this is the type of set-up that encourages the most efficient forms of collaboration.

The Ultimate Construction of Conversation & How Do You Know When That Itch Has Been Scratched? - The File Drawer

Eric and I are starting to get much more comfortable with who we are and what we're creating with our podcast. These are two of our latest episodes and I'd love if you checked them out (and subscribed to the podcast if you enjoy what you hear).

Less, Better, Consistent

Today I want to share three words that I’m trying to use as guideposts in 2015. As you’re reading, think about what words you would use to encapsulate what it means to have a productive and meaningful year.

Less.

I always take on too much. I’m admittedly good at getting things done but it often results in me burying myself under opportunities that quickly become obligations. I want to do a better job identifying the aspects of my life that are suffering from too much “more” and apply a liberal dose of “less” instead. In the past few weeks I’ve closed one of my companies, did a planning process that resulted in me ending, or at least delaying until April, a bunch of projects, and did a major purging of my digital and physical possessions. ’Tis a good start.

Better.

Better follows Less because until Less happens there is no time or energy for Better. The projects I take on should be astounding in their creativity, effectiveness, and impact. I want articles to be better, interactions with my team members to be better, research projects to be executed better, and collaborators to be blown away by how much “better” I bring to everything I touch.

Consistent.

Motivation isn’t special. Anyone can get a burst of motivation and clean the garage over the weekend, or workout really hard for a few days, or come up with a title and a domain name for a new book. Bursts of motivation have done very little to change the world in meaningful ways. I want motivation to become a relic of the past for me. Sure, I’ll take it when I can get it but the things I decide are important to me shouldn’t be dictated by whether or not I feel motivated in the moment. Instead, they should be driven by small, consistent, and meaningful decisions that are made day after day even when progress feels slow or even non-existent to an outside observer.

When I do Less I can do Better. When I do Better and Less Consistently I know I feel better about my own life and in the way I interact with the larger world. What words can guide you to a meaningful, productive, and successful year?

Rethinking Normal in the New Year

I like the feeling of a fresh start. It’s why I never restore computers or phones from backups. It’s why I periodically go through nearly all my possessions and give away or throw away as much as possible. It’s why I love Mondays, daily checklists, and weekly reviews. As you can imagine, then, I’m a big fan of New Years as a holiday and as a concept. I used to set audacious resolutions along with everyone else (with just about the same success rate as everyone else, too).

I’m not going to rail against resolutions or give you 13 hot tips about how you can keep your resolutions this year. What I would like to do, however, is share what I’ve been using the New Year for the past couple of years — a time to systematically rethink normal.

Here’s what I mean.

Our lives are made up of a thousand different actions, habits, routines, and ways of doing/being that have become normal. We don’t think about them because it’s just what we do. They are the ambient backdrop of being a functional person. For example, I have certain ways of tracking my finances, certain tools I use to write and to do research. I have certain ways I tend to use my tablet, my phone, and my computer. I have certain job commitments that have become normal and certain workflows, processes, habits, and routines that make up who I am and are all part of this constellation of normality.

As December starts to draw to a close I like to identify a handful of these things that have become normal and evaluate them with a critical eye. Is this still the best app to use for this task? What if I tried something else? Where am I experiencing friction in how I work every day? Why am I duplicating the same type of work here and here and here? How can I streamline? Where do I need to un-streamline? You get the point.

For example, here are a couple of results from this year's systematic rethinking of normal:

• My co-founder and I are closing our consulting company, Outlier Consulting Group. Neither of us has the available time needed to dedicate to starting and running a company like this. We’re grateful for the experience and projects we were able to complete but we’re both ready to focus on other areas. For me, that’s The Workologist (coaching, consulting, writing, and hopefully, speaking/presenting), my PhD work and…

• … the willingness to look for a “jobby job.” I’ve been 100% entrepreneurially focused since I quit my teaching job in 2010 and came to graduate school. I still operate a profitable business as an independent professional. However, I’ve cut myself off from even exploring the option of joining an existing team until this point. There are organizations like Undercurrent and NOBL and I’m sure countless others that are doing interesting things in the world of consulting, the future of work, and everything else I care about. My old normal was to ignore these and focus solely on my own businesses. My new normal is to accept that there may be good opportunities to join an existing team (email me if you're aware of one, eh?)

• Rethinking the software and services I use on a regular basis. I’m currently engaged in a personal experiment to use only first party software for awhile (Mail.app, official Twitter app, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, etc.). I’ve never used any of these to any extent where I know what their strengths and limitations are and I’m inherently drawn to the idea of being able to use stock software whenever possible. I’m completely willing to accept that my normal of using very nice third party apps is the best normal for me, but right now I’m experimenting with something else.

Anyway — you get the picture. 

If resolutions haven’t worked for you in the past than maybe using this sense of freshness, this sense of starting anew, is best utilized by rethinking your normal and making some big and/or small changes.

Closing companies and looking for a job are big steps away from normal whereas changing the software you use is a much tinier alteration. Regardless, both of these changes have come out of the systematic challenging of what has become comfortable and normal. It’s a nice feeling to know the way you spend the majority of your time has been consciously deliberated and chosen at some point instead of just being foisted upon you unwillingly or unwittingly. When I settle into my new normal I can feel good about it... at least until next year.

Workologism #9: Batch

If you're not batching together simple, quick, and/or boring tasks then you're likely fracturing your attention and ruining the level of attention and care you can bring to your work that actually matters -- and that sucks.

Batching is simply saving a bunch of small things to do all at once instead of doing them as they show up. Here are a few of the things I regularly batch:

1. Responding to emails (usually once daily).

2. Checking email (a handful of times daily).

3. Processing my snail mail (weekly).

4. Paying bills (once every couple weeks).

5. Processing notes out of my notebook and into Things or Evernote (once every couple days).

What could you start batching today?

Workologism #8: Use Your Workspace as a Tool

When you look around your workspace what do you see? I think our workspaces should not simply be a space where we get our work done, but a tool to help support us in actually doing our work. Everyone's space is a unique extension of themselves and I would never argue that we should all have the same type of space. I do think, however, that there are a few things that should characterize every knowledge worker's workspace.

If you're a knowledge worker I think you should be able to look around your space and easily see:

1. The plan for what you're going to do this week.

2. The plan for what you're going to do today.

3. Your "hard landscape"

4. Some projects that aren't active but you want to "percolate."

5. And at least one thing that inspires or motivates you.

For me, this looks like:

• A whiteboard that has a list of the projects I'm working on this week, any upcoming due dates, all my "hard landscape" items for this week, and a short list of "percolating" projects I want my subconscious to work on even though I'm not going to actively work on them this week.

• An index card that has my daily plan written on it and it is clipped to the front of the notebook that sits on my desk.

• A picture of my four younger brothers, which motivates me to work hard and be a good role model.

• A meaningful quote either written on the whiteboard or written on an index card and stuck to the wall.

On Building Positive Structure and Getting Better Every Day

I'm a huge proponent of helping independent workers build what I've started calling "positive structure" into their work life. In all the interviews and research I've done on independent work one conversation keeps happening:

Me: "What didn't you like about your 9-to-5 job? Why did you start this independent job?" Them: "I hated the structure! I hated having to always do things the way someone else told me!" Me: "What's tough about working on your own now? Is there anything difficult about being an independent worker?" Them: "I have no structure!" Me: "Hm."

The independent workers I've talked to who seem the most satisfied in their work are the ones who have thought about the type and extent of structure they want to exist in their working life. The ones who struggle have never sat down and asked themselves how they actually want to work.

What follows is a list of questions that might help you build some more positive structure into your day. I'm not saying you need to go through all of these and have an in-depth response for each. I'm saying that if you feel like your day-to-day is lacking some structure these are the questions I think you should start answering.

And really, the vast majority of these are relevant to everyone, not just independent workers.

• When do you wake up? How do you wake up? Why?

• What is the first thing you do when you wake up? Why?

• How do you spend the first fifteen minutes of your work day? Why?

• How often do you take breaks? Why?

• When do you do the different types of work that make up your job? Do you tend to do certain types of work on certain days or during certain times? Why?

• When do you feel like you're "at your best" during the day?

• When do you take a lunch? What do you do during lunch? What do you tend to eat? Where do you go? Why?

• Do you take naps? When?

• What do you do when you come back from lunch? Why?

• What do you do when you're feeling drained in the afternoon? Why?

• When do you stop working for the day? How do you know when you're done for the day?

• What is your end of day routine?

• Do you allow yourself to do "work stuff" after the end of the day? Why or why not?

• What do you do before bed?

• What is your sleeping routine like?

• What do you wear when you work? Why?

• How do you plan out your weeks?

• Do you work anywhere else other than your house? Where? Why?

• How do you connect to other people in your field?

• When do you step back from the day-to-day and make big, strategic plans?

• Do you like the tools you use on a daily basis? Do you understand how to use your tools to their fullest extent?

• Is your desk set up to be optimally ergonomic and comfortable?

• Is your working environment enjoyable? Do you listen to music while you work? Do you have natural sunlight? Do those things matter to you?

• When do you take vacations? What are they like? Do you work during them?

• Do you do all your work at your desk? Are there certain things you do that could be done more optimally somewhere else? Even somewhere else in your house?

• How do you make sure your skills are kept up to date? What do you do for professional development? When do you do it?

• Do you have a routine for getting yourself "in the zone"?

• What are the most frequent distractions or interruptions you face on a daily basis? Can you do anything to eliminate or reduce them?

• Do the things you do for leisure actually rejuvenate you?

• Do you try to hold yourself to a normal working schedule or are you more flexible about when you work? Or does it change on a daily basis? How do you decide this?

• How do you schedule meetings? Does that process work well for you?

• When do you like to have meetings? When do you like to do your "hard" work?

• What do you hate to do? What can you do to make it a little less distasteful?

• Do you ever reward yourself? How? When?

I don't think any of these questions have an obvious or even "right" answer. I think the unique way each of us answers these is what's beautiful about work. We each have the space and the ability to bring our own preferences and proclivities to the way we carry ourselves through our days.

The one bit of advice I would give, however, is that each of the answers to these questions should be played and experimented with. If you found yourself answering, "I don't know" to any of these then you should try something. It really doesn't matter what. Do whatever sounds good, do what a friend does, do what you think you "should" do, or do the opposite of what you think you "should" do. Like I said, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you start playing with decisions and the reality that end up comprising your life. Learn what works for you. Learn what doesn't work for you. Get in there, make a mess, learn something about yourself, and maybe bring a little more of your best work into the world.

We all benefit from each of us getting better.

The List #20

This week's The List is all about making things. For some reason I stumbled across several great videos over the past week that feature people in the act of creation. I'm always fascinated by watching people in their element and each of these videos do a great job of scratching that itch.

Omega Speedmaster Watchmaking Demonstration

Ok, actually, this video is more about someone taking something apart. But still, it's worth checking out. The amount of practice and memorization it must take to deconstruct and construct something this complicated is absolutely mind-blowing.

8 Videos About the Making of Monument Valley

Monument Valley is one of the best iOS games I've played in a long time. It's like an interactive piece of art. A new expansion pack just came out and these are some videos from various members of the team talking about different aspects of creating the game. This behind the scenes video is nice and short and fascinating.

The Birth of a Tool. Part III. Damascus steel knife making

Beautiful video. Fascinating process. I want to make a knife.

Aaron Draplin Takes on a Logo Design Challenge

This is what knowing your tools looks like. Mr. Draplin cranks out some pretty awesome logo ideas over the course of 16 minutes and talks about his mental process the entire time. So, so interesting.

What's the best stuff you read or saw this week? Shoot me a link on Twitter (@samspurlin) or leave a comment below!

Workologism #7: Get Serious About Ubiquitous Capture

That awesome idea you just had? You aren't going to remember it in 10 minutes. I promise you. Get it out of your head and onto something a little more stable than the jelly-like organ that's working hard to keep you alive and not just remember your seemingly incredible ideas.

1. Your smartphone has a reminders or notes function. Use it. Bonus points for learning how to voice activate it. I can say "Remind me to do X," to my phone and it will automatically add it to my Things inbox.

2. Small notebook, back pocket. Small pen, front left pocket. This may only work for the fellas but it's relatively easy to carry a small notebook (Field Notes or Moleskine are good) in your back pocket and a small pen (like a Space pen) clipped to the inside of a front pocket.

3. Use some kind of software on your computer that makes it easy to quickly record an idea. I use Things which allows me to hit CTRL + OPT + SPACEBAR to bring up a quick entry box that will immediately put whatever I type into it in my Things inbox. This plus muscle memory will allow you to record every good idea without overly distracting you from the task at hand.

The Recipe for the Perfect Weekly Plan

For whatever reason a week seems to be the perfect amount of time when thinking about planning your upcoming work. Planning once a week gives you enough time to actually get work done but going much longer than a week makes it hard to forecast what exactly you need to do and your plans are likely to devolve to the point of being useless. I've written about how to do Weekly Reviews before, but this time around I wanted to focus specifically on how to figure out what you're going to work on over the next seven days.

Making a Weekly Plan helps you achieve a sense of completion and progress in the work you're doing. Without it you don't really have much criteria as to whether or not you had a successful week. By having a plan you can measure what you actually accomplished against what you planned to finish and you can either pat yourself on the back for fulfilling the plan or figure out why it didn't work out quite the way you hoped. It also adds useful structure to your days so you can focus on actually finishing the work instead of figuring it out each and every day (or multiple times every day). Finally, it helps you break away from the tyranny of the "latest and loudest." Without a plan it's easy to get sucked into your email inbox or just generally working in a reactive instead of proactive state which is a recipe for not getting your most meaningful work done.

For all these reasons you need a Weekly Plan. The plan simply consists of:

• A complete picture of where you need to be at specific times this week

• A complete picture of what you intend to work on each day this week

• A complete picture of what you're choosing NOT to do this week

By this point hopefully you're on board with the idea that systematically creating a Weekly Plan is a good idea. Let's get into the nitty gritty of how to make one and like any good recipe you can take it and make it your own once you understand the basics.

Required Materials

• A full list of your Hard Landscape (appointments, meetings, places to be at specific times, etc.) for the week

• A complete Project List (things to do that will take more than one Next Action to complete)

• A complete Next Action List (the next step you need to take on all of your projects)

• A clear list of upcoming deadlines

• A clear sense of your medium & long term goals.

Instructions

Put all the Hard Landscape activities on your calendar and make sure the start and end times are accurate (if you have to guess, err on the side of blocking out too much time on your calendar for an activity). Remember, these are not aspirational in any way. These are phone calls that have to be made at a certain time, meetings that need to be attended, appointments, and other time and location specific activities.

Now that you know what has to happen this week you can spend some time figuring out how you're going to use the rest of the time available to you. This is where you look at your complete Project List and set some intentions about what you're going to work on each day.

Relevant Criteria For Deciding What Makes the Cut

Once you have your Hard Landscape figured out how do you decide what to include in the Weekly Plan? Try using some of the following criteria and limitations when thinking about what you want to try to get done.

Upcoming Deadlines

If there's an imminent deadline then obviously you need to work on a project to finish it on time. It helps to look a couple weeks in advance to make sure nothing sneaks up on you. I like to keep a list of upcoming due dates on my whiteboard up to a couple months out so I make sure that doesn't happen. Remember, sometimes Hard Landscape activities have actions that need to be taken before they happen (e.g. prep for a meeting, print out a ticket, review some information, etc.). Other examples from my own life include; weekly articles for my website, monthly newsletters, submission deadlines on papers, weekly consulting gig requirements and prepping for meetings I lead. All of these have deadlines attached to them so if one of them is coming up (or is a recurring deadline like writing a weekly article for my site) I need to make sure there's room in my Weekly Plan to get that done.

Importance to Goals

It's important not to let the "latest and loudest" guide your decisions about what you're going to accomplish in any given week. Once you've figured out the work you need to get finished to meet any upcoming deadlines you need to look at the most meaningful work relevant to your medium and long term goals. Some of your meaningful work has deadlines and is therefore considered in the previous step, but some of it likely has only self-imposed deadlines, if any at all. That type of work is easy to let slide if you don't deliberately set some time aside throughout the week to work on it. In my life, this work often includes working on a book proposal, doing business development activities, working on courses, and doing my PhD work.

Other Considerations

Deadlines and Importance to Goals are the primary criteria you should consider when deciding what to work on, but there are other things such as, how much time is your Hard Landscape going to take up this week?, how much energy are you likely to have this week?, what is weighing on your mind the most this week? All of these questions have an impact on what you'll schedule for yourself in terms of work.

If your Hard Landscape is going to take up a huge percentage of your week then being super ambitious with scheduling other work is probably a bad idea. If last week was insane then you should try to schedule yourself some easier tasks. If there's a particular project or Area of Responsibility that's weighing on you for some reason then I'll try to schedule some time during the week to make some meaningful progress on that.

For example, in some ways I feel like I've been letting my PhD advisor down over the past few weeks so I scheduled lots of time to work on my lab duties and other PhD work this week because I knew making progress there would do the most for alleviating my own anxiety.

Finally, even though I mentioned taking into consideration how much time your Hard Landscape is going to take up it's important to keep in mind not over scheduling yourself in general. You need to leave space for the unexpected and for taking care of administrative details. On a normal Hard Landscape day for me (1-3 appointments/meetings taking up about 2-3 hours) I will schedule 2-3 things to work on for the rest of the day. A handy rule of thumb is that if you can't fit the entirety of your daily plan on a single index card you've probably over scheduled yourself.

With these raw ingredients and the simple criteria I listed above you can make sit down and make a logical and realistic plan for your upcoming week.

Workologism #6: Keep a Shipped List

Cultivating a sense of progress is important when you work in a highly autonomous job. Without progress you don't know if you're heading in the right direction and feeling directionless is a one way ticket to frustration and burnout. Help create a sense of progress by keeping a "shipped list." As you finish medium to large projects add them to the list and keep the list somewhere relatively visible. It's nice to have an artifact that shows you are indeed doing something (and if you notice you haven't added anything to it in awhile then you have some useful data about whether you're spending your time as well as you could be).

Ego, Personal Development, and Being a Beginner

Once upon a time I was a relatively elite hockey player. Some of those guys who play in the NHL? They were teammates and opponents. I was also 13 years old when this was true.

Once upon a time I ran a half marathon. 13.1 miles through the streets of Detroit, into Canada, and back into Detroit on a frosty November morning. This happened over four years ago.

Once upon a time I lifted weights very consistently and put on 15 pounds of muscle while elevating all of my lifts to fairly respectable levels. That was nearly two years ago.

Since that time, I've adjusted my priorities to focus on school and my business while letting my physical fitness slide. For the past several years I've somehow convinced myself that I'm still a high level athlete although the only athletic thing I've done with any regularity is play a weekly recreational hockey game.

All of this is to say that I had a realization last week as I once again committed myself to taking my physical health seriously -- I'm not an advanced athlete who just needs a couple weeks to get back in shape. I'm not the elite youth hockey player. I'm not the guy who ran a half marathon any more. And I can't continue creating fitness plans that make that assumption. I'm not a guy who just needs to shake off the rust and unleash the high-level athlete he used to be. I'm a beginner.

And that's okay.

I've been not okay with being a beginner for a long time and it has doomed every effort I've made to build my level of physical fitness back up to a respectable level. I would create running plans or lifting plans that would only be reasonable for someone who was in much better shape than I was. I couldn't admit to myself that I really needed to start back with the basics if I was going to make any kind of actual lasting change.

"The basics? Are you kidding me? I played AAA hockey! I played club hockey in college! I ran a half marathon! I lifted weights! I don't need no basics! I'm in good shape -- I just need to get back in the habit!" These are the thoughts of a delusional man who consistently failed to rebuild a fitness routine time and time again over the past two years.

This got me thinking more generally about the role of the ego in attempted behavior change. How often are we shooting ourselves in the foot before we even get started because we're too proud to admit that we should start at an extreme beginner level? How many novels have burned out after a week of unsustainable writing? How many marathon training plans have been abandoned after an overuse injury in the first couple of days? How many efforts to eat better have been left by the wayside after a week of hyper clean eating?

Failed habit change is not driven by a lack of knowledge, a lack of information, or a lack of will. I'm becoming more and more convinced that failed habit change falls at the feet of our own unwillingness to recognize a.) how much of a beginner we actually are and b.) how patient we will have to be to create actual sustainable change. When either of these are forgotten or ignored and we let our ego influence our decisions I think the chances of success plummet.

For that reason I recently started the C25K (Couch to 5K) program. Sure, I was a decent athlete in the past but I can't let that version of myself influence what the current version of myself needs. This version has spent the last two years on the proverbial couch (more like the desk chair, actually) and needs to do much more than shake off the rust. He needs to shake off the rust and then build up the structural components that have withered away.

I'm becoming more and more okay with that every time I finish a run and feel myself getting a little bit stronger and a little bit faster. Habit change is a marathon, not a sprint -- even if, scratch that, especially, since I'm nowhere close to being able to run an actual marathon.

The List #19

I hope all the American readers out there had a great Thanksgiving and all the non-American readers out there had a great end of November. I come to you bearing a gift for your weekend relaxation -- The List #19!

I Was Looking Forward to Gummy Bears - The File Drawer

Shameless self-promotion. Episode three of my podcast with classmate/BFF Eric Middleton is out. Pretty good episode minus our newb status with getting our microphones setup correctly. We just recorded episode four today and I think we've finally ironed out all our mic issues. Now you can say you listened to us back when we were clueless, or something.

The Habits of Highly Productive Writers - The Chronicle of Higher Education

I aspire to be a highly productive writer and this article is better than many I've read recently offering advice for being just that. It's tailored toward academics but I think mostly applies to anyone trying to do something with the written word.

This 15 Minute-Activity Will Make You More Successful at Work - Business Insider

I'll save you the suspense and tell you the 15 minute activity is writing at the end of the workday. I'm working on a chapter along with some classmates about metacognition (thinking about thinking) and leadership development. As part of my research for the chapter I came across a study that showed students who kept a learning journal over the course of a semester learned more than their classmates who did not. I think this is probably a similar thing that's going on here.

Zen and the Art of Cubicle Living - The Atlantic

Interesting to see what organizations are doing to push forward the art and science of workspace design. I think it's fairly obvious there is no best design and the best workplaces of the future will have a variety of different types of spaces available for the various types of work to be done and then personalities of the people doing that work.

Workologism #5: Make a Daily Index Card

Start your day by writing down the things you're already committed to doing such as meetings, time sensitive phone calls, appointments, etc. (the stuff David Allen calls the hard landscape) on an index card. Now, add 1-3 other things you want to get accomplished today. If you can't fit what you need/want to do on one side of an index card you're probably biting off more than you can chew.*

* A normal sized index card -- not one of those 5x7 monstrosities.