Welcome To My Blog

I’ve said it before but it bares repeating…If you want to get some quality work done, turn off your phone. Of course, this may not apply to some of you. If you work at a call bank, obviously, or if your job requires you are able to be contacted, then you have to keep it on. But if you do creative work, or if you are able to go two to three hours without a phone, I think you’ll find the time remarkably productive. Here’s how I structure my phone-free time: 1. I wake up early. I’m usually awake by 5 or 6AM. I respond to e-mails and text messages using my phone. I check the news on my phone too. Then, even before people can respond, I shut the phone off. This marks the beginning of my phone-free hours. Because the hours are so early, few people are trying to reach me anyway. Most people, even on the east coast, don’t start calling till 8AM or even 9AM, after which I’ve already gotten a couple hours work done. 2. I am very intentional about the phone-free hours. I go for a walk to start the morning, letting the dog [...]

A couple years ago I killed my Facebook account and haven’t looked back. I’ve greatly enjoyed having one less web page to check. These days I check comments on the blog, twitter feedback and my e-mail. That’s about it. This frees up space to work on other writing that isn’t instant but takes a year or more, and that’s the world I enjoy most. I learned a good lesson spring cleaning my house years ago, and I’ve continued to apply it. Whenever I go through the house on a deep clean mission, I place anything I haven’t used in a year in a pile on my bed. Clothes, shoes, electronics, cooking utensils, anything. The first time I did this, I had a valuable pile of perfectly good stuff on my bed. It was hard to do what came next: I gave them all to Goodwill. Yes, I could have sold the stuff in a garage sale, but honestly, the work days lost hosting a garage sale would have cost me, and a few other charities, more than the garage sale would have made. I got rid of all the stuff. I remember holding separate pieces wondering how I was going [...]

I got a little bit of work done on my book today, but not as much as I’d hoped. Yesterday I wrote five times as many words as I did today. And I’d even argue yesterdays words were better. I doubt anything I wrote today will be published. And yet I feel fine about it. It’s been a long time coming for me to view a relatively unsuccessful writing day as a victory, but I’m glad this is now my perspective. What I mean by this is writing is not an exact science. It’s not like screwing bottle caps on bottles, in which each day you can measure your accomplishments. There are too many mysterious forces in writing. It’s more like playing basketball, I’d say. Some days you’ve got a jump shot and other days you don’t. Who really knows why. But like in basketball, there are things you can do to increase the chances of a ball going in. You can practice, for example, and you can stay in shape. In writing, it’s all about routine. My job is not to get up every day and write two-thousand words. My job is to do this: 1. Go to bed [...]