OK, on to my second post of today, this one actually for today. It boggles the mind, how many things there are to do. I keep circling around, revisiting all the time management theories and techniques I've been learning about, slowly integrating them more and more.
Some of them have to do with habits. What I mentioned in my previous post, about 'keeping up the streak' is something mentioned often in productivity books. the story goes that someone asked Jerry Seinfeld how he got so good, and he said he just got a calendar, and every day he wrote a joke, he drew a big red X on that day, with the intention of writing at least one joke every day. After a week, he had a whole line of red X's, and was feeling pretty good. After another week, it started becoming a bigger deal for him, he really enjoyed seeing all those X's in a row, and after a few months it had become like a religion. He got a lot of satisfaction from his unbroken streak, and it became inordinately important for him to keep it up. It was a small enough thing that it was possible to do it, no matter what else was on his plate, and it was fundamental to him becoming what he wanted: a great comedian. He didn't have to write a good joke, he just had to keep writing jokes.
There's another story in the same vein: an art professor, working with a scientist, tried two different approaches with his pottery students: with one group he said they'd be judged on just the two best pots that they made, from the whole semester. They were encouraged to work long and hard on just a few pieces, trying to perfect them. The other group, he said they'd get an A if they made 50 pounds of pots. When comparing the quality of the two groups, the 50 lb. group consistently scored better in quality. That is, thought they were just focused on churning out a lot of pots, they ended up making better pots overall. The lesson the books highlight from this study and others that do similar things, is that it's not important that you do something brilliant, it's more important that you do something every day. Just showing up consistently beats waiting for 'inspiration.' 'Inspiration' comes more often to those who are working their skills regularly, taking risks, experimenting, etc. They made more failures, but they made more successful pots, and they learned more about pot making, in the end. Same with Jerry. Most of the jokes he wrote got thrown out, but some got kept, and he mastered his craft, by practicing consistently.
There is much more to mastery than that. I don't think my once a week blog post is contributing much to my mastery of the form. For that I would need deliberate practice, where I am focusing on the elements of the skill that need improvement, and drilling them specifically, and it requires almost immediate feedback on my output, so I can correct and try again with that feedback.
In any case, I think the main point I was making is that the very slow incremental progress isn't discouraging. It's encouraging. It may be slow, but it's fairly steady, so eventually I will reach my goal, as I have with previous goals in the past. Though I do hope it happens more quickly than it has in the past or I'll be an old man before all my ducks are in a row. Thankfully, past experiences seem to indicate that in general I'm getting progressively faster at achieving my goals (though the size of them also seems to be scaling up.)
OK, that's unfortunately it for the week, I gotta go and get back to the rest of my list. My dear friends and family, I think of you with love and gratitude, especially at these times when I am also grateful for... I'm not sure what to call it, whatever grace has allowed me to become self-conscious and determined and focused enough to act with force and persistence and efficiency on my goals.
Love,
I
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