Being Creative

Being creative is hard. It’s a lot like frequently going to the gym. When your consistently going, it’s easier to keep going. But when you fall out of it, it’s like climbing a mountain uphill to get back in your creative flow. 

I read this quote from Seth Godin recently and thought it captured this perfect:

“Habits are much easier to maintain than commitments.

I’m pretty sure that the blog would still have an impact if I missed a day here or there, but once a commitment is made to a streak, the question shifts from, “should I blog tomorrow,” to, “what will tomorrow’s blog say?”

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Instead of a few long form posts (which was a goal of mine, back in January), I am going to start doing short quick posts. Which is more how I used to write when I started this blog anyway. 

Everyone has a different creative process. For me personally I think I have learned it is more important to exercise my “creative muscle” consistently, in order to keep the creative ideas flowing mentally. As opposed to spending weeks perfecting a long form post which in my eyes will never actually be perfect enough to press publish. You live and you learn.

Happy 2019!

Happy New Year!

I usually write a short blog post for the New Year. Even something as simple as Happy Holidays (2015) or Happy New Year (2016); and this year I wanted to write a little as well! I shared in my last post how everyone can create a personal plan for 2019. Today I wanted to also share a few of the areas I will be focusing on improving in the new year.

One area of improvement for me in 2019 is this blog. I truly enjoy sharing my thoughts with you. The process of sitting down and working through my ideas is immensely rewarding and clarifying. It can be really hard to be creative at times though. What I have learned through almost fifty episodes of podcasting and over five years of blogging is that true creativity requires space and time to work itself out. One of my favorite discussions on this topic is between Howard Stern and Paul McCartney and was put on my radar by Fred Wilson. Howard and Paul are discussing the creative process Paul used to write many of the songs for The Beatles and throughout his career. The main point Paul makes is to make sure you afford yourself the time to create. And how sometimes that can mean stepping out of your comfort zone.

This past year my goal was to write one blog post per week and every 7 days I would watch myself fail to publish on time. Watching yourself fail week after week doesn’t feel great and can be demoralizing the overall goal. I try to be self aware enough to swallow my pride and recognize when I am failing at something, and then adapt when it’s time for a necessary change. So my new goal for 2019 is to write one longer form blog post per month. The first of which, I published last week for December! I am excited to share deeper and more thoughtful posts going forward.

Another personal goal for this year is better sleep. Thanks to a recent family member, I have started tracking my sleep with my Apple Watch using the AutoSleep App. It’s a great app and through the first week of tracking I was surprised to see just how little deep quality sleep I have been getting. So in 2019 I am going to focus on improving the quality of my sleep instead of just adding to the quantity of hours slept. If you own an Apple Watch I highly recommend giving AutoSleep a try.

Those are just two of the many improvements I hope to make in the coming months! I wish you the best of luck with your goals and plans in 2019! I hope you had a Happy Holidays and I wish you a Happy New Year! 🎉

Protecting Your Time

Both for better and for worse, the way we work in the new digital age is changing fast. The freedom to work anywhere is causing us to work everywhere. The result is that too often we find ourselves being pulled from email to meeting, to text message, to social media notification, to lunch meeting, to viral meme of the day, to phone calls, and so on. In what feels like the blink of an eye 8:00 am becomes 8:00 pm. We end the day having been incredibly busy. But are we really being productive (getting shit done) or creative (having original ideas), both of which are essential to building a strong business. 

Time is the scarcest personal resource in existence. Unlike money, which every year the government prints more of, your time is finite. You can never get more time than the amount you were born with and therefore it is priceless. It is your duty to protect it.

Protecting your time so your mind has time to actually think and your body has time to actually get shit done is something which can be a bit tricky. I recently blew up my calendar to make some lifestyle changes in the pursuit of being more efficient, better focused, and having a greater clarity in the way I work. I have been finding these new changes very effective, so I thought I would share them with you. 

Monday:

After the weekend it is important to start the week organized. Aside from one global call with the Founder Institute Directors from all over the world, Monday is reserved for E-mail and getting organized. Reaching inbox zero each Monday allows the peace of mind later in the week to know I am not missing anything urgent that may have come up this week. While answering and archiving e-mail, the action items from them get moved onto my to-do list for the week. 

Tuesday:

Starting Tuesday with the peace of mind that my inbox is in great shape is incredibly refreshing. Especially because there will not be much time for e-mail today. Tuesdays are for meetings! I try to schedule all my meetings and coffees exclusively on Tuesdays. Back to back meetings can make for an exhausting day, but I have found I am able to give much more attention to being present & attentive during meetings, as I am not thinking about e-mail throughout the day. Again, the action items from my meetings get moved onto my to-do list for the week.  

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday: 

With the bulk of e-mail and meetings behind me for the week, it is now time to get shit done. It's time to throw on my headphones, a great playlist, and to start crossing tasks off of my to-do list. I use Todoist, which provides karma insights into how productive I am being week to week. I have seen a big uptick in the amount of actual productive work I have been getting done. 

This time is also for getting your creative brain power flowing again. I have been finding that around Thursday afternoon I have usually accomplished enough tasks that the original ideas start to come flowing naturally again. These moments are essential if you want to actually innovate on your business in unique ways, as opposed to just doing what everyone else is.

Weekend: 

Spend time with family and friends. Taking the time to maintain your personal relationships is vital to playing the long game of life. It will be a lonely and difficult journey without them. Many an entrepreneur have missed the mark here and you need to make sure you're not one of them.

Be bored! I mean it. To clarify though, watching Netflix is not being bored. That's just called relaxing. I am talking about actually letting your mind wander. This is when the best original ideas come to you. For you, this might be while in the shower. For me, this is at the gym, while I am driving, or while I am walking around New York City. You need to give creativity the room to strike you. 

More: 

• Over-ear headphones make a difference. I love my Apple Airpods while walking around the city, but they do a lousy job preventing you from hearing distractions like side conversations while you're working. Getting even a cheap $20 pair of over-ear headphones will help you focus. 
• Work to accomplish tasks within specific blocks of time. We have a shot clock style timer in the office we set when doing work. You may not always get your tasks done within the set amount of time, but regardless it will give you self-awareness into how long tasks are taking and how much you are actually getting done. 
• Tracking your progress is the only way to know how you're getting better. You can use services such as Escape or RescueTime to track how often you're getting distracted. And a to-do list app such as Todoist to track how many tasks you're accomplishing. 
• Set up something to block websites you traditionally find distracting. There are many to choose from but I have recently been using one called "Go F**cking Work" because I liked its motivational tone. 
• If you really need help pulling away from the addiction of technology then be sure to use Onward. A new app which helps you change your overuse behavior in 1 minute per day to achieve tech-life balance!

Obviously, this is a pretty rigid schedule that can be hard to maintain. And yes, there are weeks where meetings happen on a Monday, work happens on the weekends, or e-mails get answered on a Thursday, but think of this more as a goal. When you find what works best for you and you start to constantly follow it effectively, I promise you will start to get some of your brain power back for yourself. Allowing you to dictate your future as opposed to everyone else dictating it for you.