Productive Flourishing

The Last 15%

Charlie Gilkey — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:55:31 +0000

The difference between good performance and excellent performance comes down to the last 15% of the activity. It doesn’t matter what domain of our lives we’re considering – the rule is still there.

It’s sending a thank you email and testimonial request to the conference organizer who invited you to talk.

It’s sending a gift to a client who referred you.

It’s sending flowers and a card to your Mom on Mother’s Day and calling her.

It’s that intangible but palpable difference between mechanistic creation and art.

It’s giving silence an additional second to do its magic in a conversation.

It’s finishing the sales proposal within 2 days after conceptual agreement rather than letting it linger for a week.

It’s that additional interview that allows the right candidate to reveal herself and lets the bullshitter hang himself.

It’s the last two lifts of a set that you push through that fatigues the muscle.

It’s that additional rehearsal of a performance that allows your genius to come out because your body and mind have become regimented.

It’s putting the number of the person you’re meeting in the calendar event in case one of you are running late or need to cancel last minute that prevents you from scrambling or wondering what’s going on.

It’s sending the research document to your boss or client that includes summaries of important information rather than telling them to look at a link or a book.

It’s that additional hour that makes your barbecue ribs fall off the bone.

It’s taking the additional 30 minutes to write the plan rather than talk the plan to your teammates and hope they catch it.

It’s that one additional bedtime story that puts your daughter sound asleep rather than half-asleep.

I could go on, but the art of the last 15% is knowing when you’ve nailed it and when you’ve over-killed it.

Here’s your mission, should you accept it: practice finishing the last 15% of your projects, tasks, and activities this week. Yes, you’ll have to slow down, but if it truly matters, it being done excellently matters also. You won’t have to be sold on it next week.

If you’d like to go 15% more for me, click here to share this with your friends. (Thank you!)

The Free Planners for May 2013 Are Available

Charlie Gilkey — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:45:39 +0000

May’s free planners are now available for download.

Summer is creeping up on us and the longer days mean less time after dinner for those spillover projects. As you plan ahead for May, be thinking about your industry’s market trends for the summer season – what can you do now to avoid a business slump in two months? Use this month’s planners to help you focus so you have more time to play outside in the sun.

Did you see the post on the updates to the 2013 planners? They’re fillable, more polished, renamed, and we added one to the bunch. Pick ‘em up if you’re tired of waiting on us to share the free ones every month.

Monthly Action Planner

Basic idea: Projecting effectiveness further into the future requires a more holistic view of your objectives.
Use when: You’re doing your month planning and review – this planner can be used with either the Productivity Planners or the Freelancer Workweek.
For more information: The Monthly Action Planner

Download: Monthly Action Planner - May 2013 (1268)

Productivity Heatmap:

Basic idea: You are more productive at some times rather than others.
Use when: You’re trying to figure out when you’re the most productive.
For more information: How Heatmapping Your Productivity Can Make You More Productive

Download: Blank Daily Productivity Heatmap (44622)

The Action Planner Series:

Basic Idea: Once you know when you work best, why not plan your weeks and days around that information? Do more work in less time by leveraging your natural rhythms.
Use when: You’re planning your day or week.
For more information: Read the Productivity Planners User Guide (16450)

Downloads:
Daily Action Planner - May 2013 (726)
Weekly Action Planner - May 2013 (699)

The Productivity Jumpstarter

Basic Idea: Sometimes we’re running around being busy but aren’t really being productive. This aid helps you stop running in circles and start making meaningful progress on your goals.
Use when: You have no idea what you should be doing and are tired of running in circles.

Download:Productivity Jumpstarter (v.2) (35135)

The Blog Post Planner and Calendar

Basic Idea: Brainstorming and planning your posts ahead of time may help you have a more streamlined, consistent, and insightful blog. Your mileage may vary, but it’s worth a shot!
Use when: You want to brainstorm and plan your blog posts.
For more information: The Blog Post Planner and Calendar – skip down to “How to Use These Planners” if you don’t need to be sold on why to use them.

Downloads:
Blog Post Planner - May 2013 (270)
Blog Post Calendar - May 2013 (180)
Blog Post Planner Set - May 2013 (242)

The Freelancer Workweek

Basic Idea: Some of us work better to task than to time, and we need a planner that addresses how we work rather than making us fit how we work into it. This is a great one for freelancers and entrepreneurs.
Use when: You’re tired of time-based planners and want to get clarity to what needs to be done.
For more information: The Freelancer Workweek – skip down to “How to Use This Planner” if you don’t care about the design methodology.

Download:
Weekly Project Planner - May 2013 (475)
Individual Project Planner (3224)

Lead the Dance with the Universe

Charlie Gilkey — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 02:55:30 +0000

I was talking to a client the other day who kept making references to the Big Project that came her way that would radically change her trajectory. All she needed was just that one Big Project and then she would start doing some of the things that was closer to her genius zone.

I listened and heard her – I’ve been there before myself. In some ways, I’ve spent the last few years there when it comes to the book project that I’ve now put on hold while I focus on the book that’s out there.

It’s easy to wait for the Universe to initiate things. The Big Project that comes our way, the publisher who might pick us, the influential benefactor that sends attention our way, the promotion, the unexpected lottery or windfall – all of those things that if we just had it would make things so much better for us.

Here’s what I’ve learned about dancing with the Universe: very rarely does she initiate the dance. She’s a wonderful partner, but only when you lead. And then all of a sudden it seems like those things happen.

What she does do is present a lot of opportunities for you to dance. Sometimes these opportunities are the hit-you-over-the-head kind; other times they are the whispers that you have to pull out of her. But every day, they are there – you just have to pay attention and lead the dance when you hear the music start.

As I’ve written before, luck is one of the three fundamental elements of our lives, along with history and intention. If an opportunity to dance is in front of us and we choose not to do so, we cannot claim to be unlucky. If we decide that out history defines us when an opportunity to dance is in front of us – this normally manifests in “I can’t because I have to” language – then we cannot claim to be unlucky.

And if we withhold our weirdo selves from the world and wait for some fortuitous event to share what we’re waiting to share, we’re not leading the dance with the Universe.

Show up in a different way. You are not your past. Get up and take care of your people.

To alter Virgin’s statement that “Fortune favors the bold,” the Universe favors those who lead the dance with her. (Click here to share this via Twitter. Thank you!)

Lead the dance with the Universe. Listen with the ears of your soul to hear the music playing.

Today. Where you are. With what you have.

Go.

How to Upgrade Your Productivity Before Starting Your Own Business

Ashley Herzberger — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:11:13 +0000

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Francis Wade of 2TimeLabs.

If you are an employee in a steady job with dreams of starting your own business one day, be warned: your time management skills probably need an upgrade.

Ask people who have make the transition from being lifelong employees to intrepid entrepreneurs. Once the commitment becomes a serious one, their time becomes scarce. They find themselves working harder than ever before as the demands on their time grow exponentially. If they do leave to pursue the venture full-time they are often shocked to discover that they have much less free time than ever before.

To compensate, they steal time away from other commitments. Loved ones are often the first to notice: their time with the entrepreneur is among the first to be cut. Pings from an iPhone regularly interrupt family time. Exercise routines become relics of past times and meals turn into inconveniences slipped in between more important tasks. The former employee is now the CEO, Chairman, President, Janitor and every role in between.

Slowly but steadily, their lives swing out of balance.

The irony is that while they are working harder, and longer, they are actually stuck. Their time management skills haven’t improved a bit, and now they must manage a vast increase in time demands with the same system as before.

It’s a little like being in the gym, when all of a sudden there’s a need to lift twice as much weight in the same amount of time. You could manage it for a short while, perhaps, before failing.

The frantic pace that new entrepreneurs adopt in the early phases also fails – it’s not sustainable – as the negative consequences of an imbalanced life accumulate.

From personal experience I can confidently share that it’s easy to under-estimate the gap when you’re still an employee. When I worked at AT&T Bell Labs I thought I worked hard, but the truth was that once the weekend came my time was my own. It was inconceivable that I could think about work almost all the time, in every spare moment – a reality I discovered in the early phases of my own startup.

The good news is that a would-be entrepreneur can do more than just dream… they can prepare. Entrepreneurs can adopt the same techniques as marathon runners who must prepare themselves over long periods of time for the stresses of race day. While they are employees, they can ready themselves for a time when they’ll be forced to deal with many more time demands than they have ever dealt with.

If you want to upgrade your skills as a current or future entrepreneur, here are three steps you can take:

1. Diagnose Your Skills

In my book, Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure, the protagonist is startled to discover that each and every working professional already has a self-created, productivity system they use each day: a collection of habits, practices and rituals assembled in their late teens or early twenties.

In the past, most professionals created their system only once for their entire careers. However, as employee in the modern workplace the fact is that you are likely to have as many as 5-10 jobs in 20 years.

Also, you see more information in a day than your grandparents saw in a month. The explosion in information means that at present time human knowledge is doubling every 5 years. Starting your own company places you on the forefront of these changes.

The result? Unlike professionals in prior generations, you are forced to upgrade your system several times in the course of your career just to keep up.

The best place to start is not by chasing tips, tricks and shortcuts but by gaining a useful understanding of the invisible time management system that you have been using. What are its strengths? Its weaknesses? What’s missing? How does it compare against best-in-class performance? Where could you make simple improvements?

There are a number of methods you can use to start to gain this kind of in-depth understanding. On my website, I have a free diagnosis of a single skill (Capturing) that’s mentioned in Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure. This self-test leaves you with an idea of your skill level versus best practices. You can set up your own curriculum using the advice of the best productivity sages, create your own ladder of skills, and honestly score your own abilities.

2. Use Small Steps

After completing an honest assessment, most professionals are able to identify some very clear gaps. Oftentimes, there’s no need for a new gadget or a fancy shortcut: common-sense is enough. The danger comes from a belief that change should be easy, quick and painless.

Unfortunately, this often isn’t the case. Habits, practices and rituals that have been repeated for several years won’t be replaced overnight. After being burned into our neuro-muscular memory they are difficult to dislodge, according to the most recent research on changing habits.

Instead of attempting a miraculous, all-at-once transformation, it’s better to plan for a series of baby steps. Focusing on a few small changes at a time is far more likely to succeed while building the confidence that so many lack when it comes to changing their habits.

3. Get Support

For a few days after we put together a plan to upgrade our systems, we’ll be at our motivational peak. We mistakenly believe that this peak will last forever, when in fact our willpower decays rapidly. When we hit our first bump in the road and revert to our old behaviors we become discouraged. For many, their plan is abandoned within the first 30 days.

The remedy is simple: assume the worst. Put in place supports that will keep you on track even though you may think you won’t need them. Hire a coach. Join a Master Mind. Take an online training program. These are just examples of the methods you’ll need to keep the momentum high as you go through the arduous task of changing habits.

The bottom line – prepare yourself for testing times ahead by building up a greater time management capacity than you need in the moment. Whether you are a would-be entrepreneur or already in your own business, your time is precious, and every minute carries with it a cost. Using time skillfully will not only give you a balanced life, but also move you forward to accomplishing your goals with far greater speed.

About Francis: Francis Wade is the author of Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure and the founder of 2Time Labs.

The Small Business Lifecycle is #1 on Amazon In Its Categories

Charlie Gilkey — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 19:45:22 +0000

This week has been a great celebration. As I mentioned earlier this week, my new book, The Small Business Lifecycle, hit the shelves and took off, largely before I was ready for it to. Surprise success … I’ll take it.

It held #1 in its categories on Amazon for most of the week, and, when it wasn’t there, it was in the Top 5. I checked in this morning to see that it was still holding its two main categories and #1 in the “Book” category. I’ll take it!

I was talking to my massage therapist and mentioned that it’s been an intense week. She asked if I was ready for it to calm down and my fast reply was “No.” It’s been intense, but it’s been a joyous celebration and I’ve spent too much of my life deflecting positive attention from myself and my accomplishments. And, fundamentally, you’re powering this success. Being on this side of the publishing fence, I see even more how much the successful spreading of your great work is out of your hands.

So, we’re winning, y’all. Everything that you’re doing is working, and I’m humbled, grateful, and amazed by the support you’ve shown. Thank you.

Want to share this celebration? Use the share buttons at the bottom of this post to share it with your friends. (Thank you.)

Aside: I thought about not sharing this post because I’ve said a lot about it on Facebook and Twitter. And then I decided to practice what I preach and not assume that a reader on one channel is reading other channels.

p.s. We’re still on track to have the physical copies available soon, too. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.

My New Book, The Small Business Lifecycle, is Available

Charlie Gilkey — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:29:28 +0000

As many of you know, I’ve been working on a book for a while now. My new book on Amazon is not that book.

There’s obviously a backstory here but I’m not going to share that today. I have a lot to say about writing, publishing, and entrepreneurship that’ll take a while to parse and this new book has been a phenomenal catalyst for me.

The book, The Small Business Lifecycle: A Guide for Taking the Right Steps at the Right Time to Grow Your Small Business, is an extension and curation of the material I’ve been sharing about the small business lifecycle over the last few years. It’s main point – which you’ve probably heard me talk about – is that bootstrapped small businesses grow differently than other kinds of businesses and growing a small business requires focusing on the right steps at the right time. Too many small business owners are either trying to do things too early or are still doing things the same way as they started, which either leads to gaining no traction or not addressing what has their business stuck. It shows what steps to take at what stage of business.

So, that’s what the book is about. If you’re in a small or micro business, it’s for you, no matter which stage of business you’re in.

And by it’s for you, I really mean it’s for you. I shipped this one now and this way because I was getting 2-5 emails a week from people asking if I’d consider turning it into a book. My clients, students, and workshop participants were also wanting it in book form.

I decided to stop hearing and instead really listened and reflected on it. For me not to do it was about me and my own Stuff, which, if you’re curious, I’ll talk about more in the aforementioned post. And for me not to do it was to be out of alignment with what I’ve been teaching about entrepreneurship and small business as a vehicle for service.

On the other side, it’s been incredibly fun to do. Not at all like the other book being done the other way. One of the epiphanies about doing this has been that it’s been so much more fun and Flow-ful to do because I’m talking to you and nobody else – there aren’t those Other People (the well-meaning editors, marketers, distribution people, agents, and so on) that show up in the traditional publishing process that I was allowing to let my fingers falter at the keys. And, to be 100% clear, their momentum-blocking manipulations were entirely of my own making.

Imagine the pro/con table with no cons except those built upon limiting beliefs, shadow stuff, and the uncertainties inherit in walking on the thin ice of this digital disruption we’re all going through. The more power we give those, the more power they have over us, so it was clear it was time to ship.

There was a surprise inside this box of CrackerJacks: people were buying it and sharing it before I was ready to announce it. I was going to get everything staged and ready to go so I could start talking about it this week, but the joys of selling on one of the worlds’s largest platforms is that people can find and buy it as soon as it’s available, which may be before you’re ready. I’ve been chasing the ball down the hill since Friday.

I wasn’t ready for the selling and sharing, but that’s all bits of code and waiting. What I was most unprepared for and am still adjusting to is how excited people are about it. It’s been a tidal wave of support, celebration, and joy that I’ve been riding since Friday night. Thank you all.

The digital version of the The Small Business Lifecycle will be available at its discounted intro price all week. The print version will be out in a couple of weeks. If it’s a fit, I’d appreciate it if you’d buy it and share or review it. If it’s not, celebrations and well-wishes are nice, too.

Again, thank you all.

The Free Planners for April 2013 Are Available

Charlie Gilkey — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:55:42 +0000

April’s free planners are now available for download.

April is one of the most exciting months of the year. A new season is springing upon us at the same time that a full quarter of the year is gone. It’s a great month for planning and momentum-building. What would you like to accomplish before summer? Plan the work, work the plan.

Monthly Action Planner

Download: Monthly Action Planner - April 2013 (2020)

Productivity Heatmap:

Join Me in Playing With Confidence

Angela — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:00:28 +0000

I’m thrilled to announce the Playing With Confidence workshop! Playing with Confidence is an all-day workshop for women who are looking to reconnect with themselves to gain a better understanding of how to move forward in achieving their dreams, be it business, family, spirituality, health, hobbies, passions, or a combination of all of it.

The video above is from the workshop’s page, but I’d like to share a story with you about the creation of this workshop.

Have you ever not known you were creating something? Then, one day, it all comes together in the most beautiful way…and there’s an “A-HA” moment where you realize, “Wait, I’ve actually been working towards this for a very long time. I just didn’t realize it.”

I had one of those moments a couple of months ago.

In case you aren’t already familiar with my journey over the last three years I’ll give you the short(ish) story. This is a difficult story, so bear with me for just a minute, and we will get back to the fun stuff! I think it’s important that you know where the workshop Playing With Confidence came from.

I left my position as a professor of sociology three years ago this May and had no idea what was next for me. What I did know was that the diagnosis of my second autoimmune disease (first, endometriosis and then, ulcerative colitis) was a wake up call and I could no longer ignore what my body was telling me.

After leaving academia I moved across the country with Charlie to our new home in Portland. It was the best move we’ve ever made AND it was very scary. I didn’t know who I was; I was lost and I struggled with not being able to put a label on myself anymore. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t answer that one awful question most new people ask you…”And, what do you do?” Cringe.

I had no idea three years ago when I left academia that the most difficult part was still ahead of me. I continued to struggle with my health, spending time in the hospital and many doctor’s offices over the next few years. I continued to struggle with questions of worth and shame about not having it figured out. The Type A, perfectionist, overachiever in me just couldn’t let go of not knowing. On top of all of this I lost two very important people in my life, less than six months apart.

In the summer of 2011 (a little over a year after moving to Portland) I almost died due to complications from ulcerative colitis. I spent the next nine months wrestling with even scarier issues…Would I make it to see 2012? My mind finally did what my body had done nearly two years before…it gave me a wake up call I could no longer ignore. I was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, and depression. I had to get help.

I’m proud to say that it has been a year now since I said “Hello” to life again. I came through the darkest time of my life and on the other side I am so grateful for what I learned about myself and my relationships during my trial by fire. I still struggle. I doubt myself. I get frustrated about all the stuff that seems to keep me chasing my tail at times. I worry that people won’t like me or that the work I do won’t matter. I think these are things we all struggle with, so it’s important that we face it head on, name it, and learn how we can still show up the way we want in the world.

This is where Playing With Confidence makes an appearance, even if I didn’t know it quite yet. I’ve spent the last year getting closer to that thing that I can’t not talk about. That thing that makes you get out of bed in the morning (even during dark, rainy Portland days). That thing that makes you say, “Of course I want to tell everyone about this and share the magic!”

When I was in academia my areas of specialization were in women’s wellness, mental health, and family. It all came full circle for me when I discovered that I had a way that I could share this knowledge with a wider audience, infused with the things that we deal with in day-to-day life. Through speaking and media appearances over the past year, conversations over the last ten years with women struggling for balance, writing within this area for years, and facilitating workshops I’ve discovered that helping women find alignment, balance, and confidence through play is my joy work and what I want to share with the world.

Who says adults can’t play?! Pure play, unadulterated fun gets you out of your head and into your heart. It gets you out of your own way so that you can move on and live the life you’ve always dreamed of. That’s what we’re going to be doing in this workshop. To find out more and register for the Playing With Confidence workshop come on over to our PWC page.

I hope you will invest in yourself by joining me and share this with anyone else you think would like to Play With Confidence.

5 Ways to Get Through the Creative Red Zone

Charlie Gilkey — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:50:35 +0000

Goal Line on BigStock

Have you ever been near the end of a project and it just seems to languish indefinitely? And no matter how much you work on it, you feel as if you had just as much to do as you did before you started the last push?

If so, you’ve been in the red zone of a project. I call it the red zone because it’s similar to the phenomenon we see in (American) football where the offense gets to the last 20 yards before they score a touchdown only to lose the ball or, at best, have to go for a field goal rather than a touchdown.

In football, it’s fairly obvious why there are so many red zone turnovers. For one thing, the defense locks down and has less field to cover, so the offense has fewer options for how to push the ball forward. Then there’s the fact that offensive players do one of three things: 1) they take it for granted that they’re done and don’t give it 100%, 2) they succumb to the fatigue of having driven the ball 60 yards, or 3) they get over-excited and make mistakes because they’re thinking about it too much.

Creative projects have very similar patterns. The defense is the Resistance, your shadow stuff, or your operating assumptions about what’s going to happen if you finish the project. Whereas the demons that keep you from creating normally have plenty of avenues to keep you from shipping, they now can concentrate their powers in the same way that the defense in football can. And we’re often tired or exasperated towards the end of a project, so we fall into over-thinking or succumb to the creative fatigue that’s a natural byproduct of expending so much of the mental, emotional, and physical energy to carry the creative ball that far. (Ironically, decision fatigue makes it more likely that we’ll over-think things precisely because we don’t have the inner resources to make decisions in the face of uncertainty.)

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the Tao Te Ching:

People, in handling affairs
Often come close to completion and fail
If they are as careful in the end as the beginning
Then they would have no failure

Getting through the red zone is tough. While there are a few outliers who get more positively excited towards the end of the project as they are when they start it, most of us aren’t. That’s why we hold onto things and stop finishing.

5 Ways To Get Through the Creative Red Zone

But you don’t have to lose the ball in the red zone. Here are some things you can do to get your projects wrapped up when Resistance is holding those last few yards:

1. Double-down by returning to the why of the project.

When we shift to the Hows and Whens of a project, it’s easy to lose sight of why we started in the first place. If it’s a project worth doing – and it almost always is – there are people who will be better off when you get it out there in the world. You’ll either have solved a standing problem or delighted them; either case means the world is even just a little better because of what you’ve been doing.

And then there’s the reality that you’ll be better off in the long run. You’ll have one more thing that matters done and can be proud of what you’ve created. Finishing our great work is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves.

2. Focus on getting it to good enough.

As Voltaire said, “Perfection is the enemy of good,” for no other reason that perfection is unattainable, which means you’ll never be done if it’s your goal. The key to useful prolificness is understanding that getting something to good enough is the best we can do – we need other people to make our work excellent.

3. Know that the more it matters, the more it’s only a start anyway.

The more the project matters to you or the people who benefit from it, the more it’s only a start.

Something I’ve heard Todd Sattersten say is that a book is only a conversation starter.

A beta application starts a relationship of delight and utility with its users.

A smaller, simpler workshop begins delivering experiences that you can build on later in your career.

A leadership initiative is just the start of greater things to come for your team.

We often falsely assume that the more it matters, the better the start of it should be. The reality is much humbler and accessible: the more something matters, the better it is that we start finishing sooner. (Click here to tweet this; thank you for sharing!)

4. Understand that you’re usually working on your own mindset towards the end

We often think that we’re making the project better, yet we often have no yardstick for how it’s better. An essential characteristic of the red zone is that we’re continuing to work but we’re not really getting anywhere; working on it more, then, is not going to get you any further. It’s just going to mean that you’ve logged more hours.

What you’re really working on is your own mindset. You’re telling yourself that if you put more work into it, Those People won’t be able to complain about the value of your work because you gave it everything. You’re telling yourself that the next addition is going to pull things together and complete the set. Or that this word, line of code, additional white space or flair, or piece of supporting research will make it that much better.

If this is what you truly believe, I’ve got two questions for you: 1) how’s that working for you and 2) how is your perfectionism feeding you?

5) Do your work, then step away.

I’m one of the worst people about stacking the deck in my favor and ensuring that I get the outcomes I want. The problem, of course, is that there’s only so much you can do with creative work to ensure that it’s successful. If it’s overproduced, it fails worse than if it’s incomplete but true to the spirit of the project.

As Krishna told Arjuna, “we have a right to our labor, but not to the fruits of our labor.” (Hat tip: Steven Pressfield) When you make art – broadly speaking – you give up predictability for remarkability.

Of course, you might fail, but the silver lining is that you’ll no longer be perennially stuck in the red zone. You’ll get to try something with the knowledge that the last thing didn’t work, so you can invest more of your energy into alternative options. Or perhaps returning to the heart of the matter will reveal that it wasn’t something you should’ve been doing in the first place.

Better to know that today than three weeks, months, or years from now.

Again referencing Lao Tzu: “Do your work, then step away.”

You’ll Always Have A Red Zone

I’m writing about this today, of all days, because I’ve been in the red zone with several projects for the last few months. Each week for the last five weeks or so, we’ve pushed a project through it. We’ve put the final touches on products and got them on the shelf, launched workshops, finished a manuscript, put together presentations, and so on; one week, one possession, one touchdown.

As much as we can celebrate all of that, the truth is that one project has been in the red zone for nigh a year, longer if you count other manifestations of it. I’ll be working on it this week and next, which means it’ll be working on me.

The red zone never goes away if you’re really showing up. While I don’t want to give the impression that your great work has to be hard, it’s still nonetheless true that if putting something out there in the world doesn’t scare you, you’re probably phoning it in. You can do better AND there’s a place for easy swings; just get real about what type of project this is for you. (Hint: if it’s “an easy swing”, it’s all the more reason to not hang onto it. Do it well, but get it done.)

For this piece, though, my work is done. It’s time to step away.

How do you work through the red zone when you know you’re in it?

Are You Giving Yourself the Gift of Play?

Angela — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 01:30:32 +0000

When was the last time you played? I’m talking about the letting your hair down, singing at the top of your lungs, dancing like a maniac kind of play. Making mud pies, dancing in the rain, rolling around in paint kind of play. Nothing held back; just because it feels good.

Throughout most of my adult years I forgot how to play. I didn’t think play counted for much of anything. Sure, I played nice. I played safe. I played pretend. I’m not talking about the fun kind of play pretend; where you lay on your back and stare up at the skies to see what magic beings appear in the clouds. Or, you put on a cape and pretend to be a super hero/ine just because it feels right in the moment. I’m talking about the kind of playing pretend that gets a lock on your creativity, your heart, your soul and has you playing along in roles that your six year old self would find down right sad.

Your six year old self had a hold on a life lesson of the utmost importance and of the utmost silliness. You will never be too old to play or to have fun.

Playing keeps you healthy. It keeps you connected to the real you. (Click here to tweet this. Thanks for sharing!)

Playing is some of the best medicine I’ve experienced. Warning though, there are side effects…connection to yourself, connection to others, laugh lines, belly aches from too much laughter, tears due to excessive amounts of giggling, and a renewed sense of balance.

So, what does play look like for you? If you were able to play, goof off, be silly, act a little nutty…what would that be for you? Maybe you play tag with a group of your 40-50 year old guy friends. Perhaps you dress up in tiaras, tutus, capes, and fairy wings with your girlfriends. It might be getting a bucket of side walk chalk just for yourself and coloring up your sidewalk. Maybe you have an impromptu dance party with your kids or partner or by yourself.

If you’re anything like I was just a few months ago, the idea of playing may sound silly, or a waste of time, or very overwhelming. Asking yourself questions like, “Gah, what do I find fun?” If you don’t know what play looks like for you, I encourage you to try a bunch of different things (see above; they are all things I have done recently). The awesome thing about play is that there is no right way to do it!

As well, a list I’ve made for myself recently includes: dancing, playing in the rain, making mud pies, finger painting, camping, singing at the top of my lungs while twirling in circles, taking a trapeze class, having a sleepover, pulling out that old game of Twister you used to play, making animals with pipe cleaners or playdoh.

Think back to what you liked to do as a kid. If you’re not sure, take a look at some kids for inspiration. They are our best teachers when it comes to play. My Rx for you: play everyday, no exceptions.

So, what do you do to play?

How do you schedule play?

Will you make a promise to yourself to play at least once today? I sure hope so. Let us know how it goes.