Making more room for yourself
Volume 4, Number 1 | January 2010
While you were busy being industrious, closing out your 2009 and planning your 2010, I was busy giving up.
That's right: this overachieving, can-do/overdo, content-creation machine that consistently urges you to do do DO finally came to a grinding halt about halfway through December.
The meltdown came just in advance of a pre-planned two-week "Happy Holiday Break" where I was going to rest up and review what I'd done in 2009. I'd been happily (if nervously) keeping track of certain goals, and nervously (if happily) ignoring others, in eager anticipation of Reckoning Day. 259 posts on the blog, just one shy of the goal of 260 I'd set for myself! 12 marketing-for-actors columns! 12 newsletters! Such a glorious pile of stuff I'd made!
Unfortunately, the week before Break Week just about broke me. At the end of an exhausting work year, I found myself with two big consulting sessions and a speech to give, and not enough "me" left to handle them with the aplomb a more rested, more centered, more focused me would have managed.
Today, a month after what was a disastrous personal failure, I am slowly gaining insight into how I wound up in this predicament, and equally slowly implementing certain changes to ensure against it happening (yet) again.
The shape "room" takes
There are all kinds of room you can give yourself, from the "no duh" variety to the less immediately obvious. (I've been trying them all, so I know!)
Obvious. A carefully plotted-out schedule leading up to a deadline is an obvious choice--preferably one with an extra buffer of time and some contingency plans.
Obvious. For some people, literal room is important. I've always worked better in a quiet, distraction-free zone; when I haven't been able to have my own, physical room, I've learned to create a virtual one: with headphones and white noise, or in a quiet carrel of a quiet library, by hashing out a schedule of when I might have sole use of shared space.
Obvious. Everyone needs some time in the day to rest and most of us are well-served by an additional chunk of time to exercise (and that can be as small as allowing yourself time for a pee break and as big as a trip to the gym).
Less obvious. "Nut-squirreling" is something I've been playing with. This can encompass everything from having spare posts ready to roll for your blog to keeping the gas tank half-full to buying paper products in bulk. To me, it's a way of creating a slightly bigger buffer zone between me and catastrophe: a roomier feeling (less anxiety) and more time won back (by a little advance planning and a few lifehacks.)
Less obvious. A progress incubator can take many forms. I've currently got an interesting one brewing with my friend Dave Seah on Google Wave (he talks about it a little here); I've got another in my weekly "Success Team" meeting (a kind of mastermind group). You can choose the amount of people involved, the medium in which you communicate and everything else: the "incubator" aspect of it comes from keeping wobbly, baby ideas safe and warm while you tend to them. In other words, keep it out of your status updates until you're pretty sure that thing can walk on its own legs.
Less obvious. I was freaking out about (not) getting my plan for 2010 mapped out in time, until I realized that I could shift my personal fiscal year from Jan - Dec to Feb - Jan. Eureka! While it's not always feasible, moving an arbitrary deadline is sometimes the simplest means to your true desired end.
Less obvious. Spreading your commitments out before you in physical space can be terrifying but freeing, not to mention enlightening. Rather than writing out my goals in text files, I've been writing each one on an index card and laying it on the dining room table. It's much easier for me to get an idea of how much is possible this way, plus where there are redundancies. I've been using this for speech writing for awhile--it just never occurred to me to try it for other kinds of idea generation. (There's a whole philosophy of time and workflow management using this technique called Kanban. It's like the productivity version of extreme honesty.)
Of course, if you're an overcommitted, overcrowded type like me, you will find delicious irony in this room-creating device filling up your table or floor or other horizontal surface immediately. But a little mess in the beginning can make for a lot more clarity down the road.
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(323) 622-8829
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P.R. RESOURCE
OF THE MONTH
If you're reading this, there's a good chance you read other newsletters, too—too many newsletters sometimes, to keep track of. I heartily encourage prudent unsubscribing (even to my own awesome newsletter, if it ceases to serve your needs); I also heartily encourage indulging in the occasional "best of" when offered. Joan Stewart packs a lot of good info on how to promote yourself well in her bi-weekly newsletter, but once yearly, she puts out a PDF with the very best of the very best. There are tips about using social media, selling your book (if you're like everyone else and currently writing one) and of course, tons of ideas on how to approach the press to pitch a story. It's not the prettiest PDF around, but looks ain't everything.) You can download Joan Stewart's "Best of" ebook here.
TV-ON-DVD SERIES OF THE MONTH
One of the best ways to start understanding something is to find some way of looking at it from a different, equally well-informed angle. That's the genius behind the HBO drama series In Treatment, which tells the stories of four different patients who see the same therapist, then shows you their stories from another lens entirely: that of the therapist going to see his shrink. It's a fascinating peek under the hood at the process of talk therapy, and some damned fine drama, to boot. (Doesn't hurt that two of my favorite actors ever, Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Wiest, play the two shrinks.) Based on the Israeli TV show Be Tipul, which I have on good authority is even better than the U.S. version. So, you know, if you speak Hebrew and can get your hands on a copy, knock yourself out.
While it made for a (briefly) popular song, it is an outright fallacy that no one walks in L.A. And if I didn't have myself and my friend, Alissa "Yes-really-that's-my-name" Walker as proof, I now have WalkScore, a wonderful little website that shows you where your place--or any place in the U.S.--ranks in terms of walkability. For me, there was the sheer pleasure of seeing just how high my neighborhood scores: 82 out of 100, which is not as good as pockets of Manhattan, but rather incredible for car-centric Los Angeles. You might prefer the list of most walkable neighborhoods (for planning an upcoming holiday) or just sussing out the next great place to live, given the rising price of fuel and the mounting health benefits of walking. Either way, it's a fun link to keep in your browser bookmarks. (via Very Short List)
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