Few marketing questions. Who’s it for? What’s it for? What change do you seek to make? What promise are you making? Why would they trust you? Why would they talk about you? HT to Seth Godin for bringing these questions to focus. — If you liked reading this, consider subscribing. If you
Deserving rest. As a salaried professional, we get scheduled breaks: evenings, weekends and vacations. The salaried professional can turn off their work mode and enjoy these breaks. There is very little guilt linked to them. As an independent creative, it is very likely that we don’t have any scheduled breaks. And
Start with one. And then add another one. That’s how you get started. At some point, you have to let go of the planning and preparation and focus on getting done with one thing. When we take the first step, we change the status quo, we move forward. Whatever it is that
Getting done for the day. When we are working on our own, there are two ways we can get closure over the day. Both are complementary and can be used in tandem. The two ways are: 3-hours a day and The one most important thing for the day. Many days, we do not have clarity
Start the work at the same time every day. For independent creatives, there is no rule more important than this. The creative work is ambiguous and unpredictable. In order to sustain it, we need to create predictability and consistency. Starting every day at the same time, helps us gain that surety. Moreover, when we do it over and over
Well before the deadline. The good thing about deadlines is that they ensure that the work gets done, especially when another person is involved. The bad thing is that we get used to doing the work only in time to meet the deadline. We become habitual of starting the work only when the deadline
Not making exceptions. Once you have decided on something, there should be no reconsidering until we are done. These reconsiderations and exceptions harm our journey more than anything else. The professional creative lives to his word, even if, or rather especially if, no one’s watching.
The right time and place. Creativity and inspiration happen at unexpected times and in unexpected places. We get ideas while in shower, while on a walk, while driving, while cooking and many such places. Most of these ideas are unexpected and we are surprised how things come together on their own. Many a times, a
Embracing infinity. The universe is infinite. Human connection is infinite. When we embrace infinity, we start seeing possibility. With a possibility mindset, we evolve beyond where we are. We need to let go in order to transition from a finite mindset to an infinite one. — If you liked reading this, consider subscribing.
Making things imminent. When things are imminent, we know exactly what needs to be done and by when. The thing with creative projects is that, in most cases, there is no externally set timeline and no one on your head to keep you on the hook. The responsibility, then, comes on the creative
The weights we carry. We get used to the weights we carry. Many times we find it difficult to remember how we ended up carrying them or to realise exactly how much we are carrying. It’s only when we let go, when we release these weights, that we realise why we weren’t
The metrics that matter. It’s easy to get distracted by numbers or maybe even drown in the complexity that they can create. When we invest our focus in determining the key metrics, ensure that we can track them without much effort and represent them in a way that’s useful, then numbers become
Making it irreversible. While we might seek change, we might not be willing to commit to it. The status quo is too comforting by its nature and it’s difficult to break it. The only way to break it is to take action which make going back impossible. When the situation is irreversible,
When you break the streak… It’s very important to continue as if nothing has happened. To consider this an exception and leave it at that. When we try to make up for the exception or do something exceptional because we broke the streak, it is more likely that it will remain broken. The mere
One thing at a time. “How do you eat an elephant?” goes a childhood joke. “One bite at a time.” There is a lot of wisdom in this. Any project, any goal, any ambition can be broken down into specific steps which lead us towards its completion. How did Bob Dylan win the Nobel Prize?
Rewiring your brain. The plasticity of the human brain is a scientific fact. In simpler words, this means that we can change our brain through our actions, not just psychologically but physically as well. So, not only does our brain affect our actions, our actions affect our brain too. When we inculcate a
Taking a decision vs deciding. Thinking about a decision and actually deciding are two very different actions. The former does not necessarily lead to the latter. We can, indeed, perennially think about a decision without ever moving forward. Especially when the decision is of consequence for us, especially when it might lead to a better
The hardest part. The hardest part of doing our work is sitting down. It doesn’t seem like the hardest. On the face of it, it’s quite simple actually. “Put your ass where your heart wants to be” as Steven Pressfield puts it. But, for sure, it ain’t easy. We keep
Time is a tricky asset. Like all the other assets, money, attention, energy, time is also tricky in its nature. Left on its own accord, time can spend itself without generating anything in return. Moreover, it can accelerate that process when the shallow mind and the shallow habits take over. On the other hand, when
Bird by bird. This seminal book by Anne Lamott subtitled “Some instructions on Writing and Life” has been recommended repeatedly by authors and business persons alike. Among the many lessons that Lamott teaches, one stands out for me. No matter how difficult or challenging the task in front of us is, breaking it
Possibility mindset. When we proactively work on building an abundant mindset, we enable ourselves to take action that lead to supernormal returns. Many times, we feel that accepting our fixed mindset as reality is us being practical and rational. However, if we stay in the fixed mindset, we tend to manifest subnormal
Slow down a bit. Anxiety breeds urgency and vice versa. Urgency leads to anxiety because the brain perceives it as a threat. Our nervous system was not designed to handle urgency on an ongoing basis. For the brain, the only reason that something can be urgent would be that it is a life or
A bad blog entry. This is what we are afraid of, isn’t it? That our blog isn’t good enough. And that stops us from writing it, from shipping it. We say we will do it later. But how would later be better if we miss our practice today? Better publish a bad
Intent vs accident. A lot of inventions and discoveries that are commonly talked about in popular culture did happen as an accident. Post-it notes, penicillin, microwave oven, x-ray and the the discovery of the American continents to name a few. The curious thing, though, is that these accidents happen only when the person
Write it out. There is no point carrying disturbing thoughts inside your head and going through them again and again. It’s very difficult to resolve these things inside your own head. One of the ways to resolve things is to write them out in an unfiltered manner. Go into the details and
