A couple of weeks ago, I heard a Blinkist from productivity expert Rowenna Tsai that was called "save your sanity with slow productivity."
I won't go into details (just look her up or Cal Newport on YouTube to get the full explanation), but the idea can be distilled down to "measure your goals in months and years, not hours and days."
If you've been reading the blog a bit, you'll remember that last summer I wrote about how I felt I had lost my "mission" and my "why" for writing. This resulted in me attempting to, once again, figure out how to multiply my output, make my life more efficient, become a one-person media machine. And it went okay.
For a bit.
But you'll also see me struggle with the phases of rest and recovery, and struggle with the fact that I constantly start up books and shut them down, a habit I've had forever. I've always thought this as a weakness - that I was too fickle, too picky, or just lacked will power. That somehow to finish one, it had to be "special."
So when this concept of slow productivity came up, I started to really think about if I measured myself in months and years rather than days and hours, what would I be measuring? What was it that I ACTUALLY WANTED to accomplish?
Fame?
Money?
For the last couple of years, I think it was money. There's a portion of the self-publishing world that focuses on maximum output for maximum cash, creating what they call a "lowest viable product" - basically a book that's "good enough" for voracious readers to read, not hate, and come back for more later. After all, it can take a mega-author a year to write a book and then their super-fan will read it in an a day. Those readers need more things to read, and you can fill in those gaps.
But I have to be realistic. While I do daydream about a life where I walk the dog, drop off the kids, and then sit around and write all day...that's not going to happen soon. Even if I hit some level of commercial success, my family needs medical insurance, and school districts are still one of the best places to get high-quality insurance in America. So I'll be dong the day job thing for a long while yet.
If that's the case, then what's my rush? Why would I train myself to churn out mediocre literary junk food?
Why not reach for something bigger?
Why not shoot for greatness?
This is the Declaration of Intent for Greatness. I no longer am content to coast where I am. I will now be actively working to push myself to the next level, to see if I can go toe-to-toe with the best writers out here.
It's been a long time since I've pushed myself. The last time I did major training was from 2007-2011, and I grew explosively in that time. Now it's time to see if I can do it again.
Maybe it'll take years.
Maybe I'll never get there.
But I have to try.
I'll be blogging about my process so you can follow along.
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. When was the last time you pushed yourself? How did it go?
2. What do you think prevents people from pushing themselves? Are some people simply happier and more content with their lives than others?