Something’s happening at 10:11
Oh, hi friends!
When I was working at Money magazine, there was a daily 9:15 a.m. meeting. The day started; ideas were shared; off you went.
In January and February, while I was working on my creative projects, I tried to stick to a similar schedule, holding a “morning meeting” with myself every day, where I showed up with my smoothie and working clothes (sweatshirt and too-big jeans, which might as well be leggings) and set my priorities. It felt like a launchpad. It worked.
Over the last month, though…yeesh. I started showing up later and later, setting priorities but rarely sticking to them. There was no “start time,” and days were demarcated not by working hours but by breakfast, post-breakfast, pre-lunch, lunch…you get the idea.
Finally, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to take back my mornings.
This weekend I texted my brother Eric and asked if he wanted to start his day at the same time. Accountability and all that. And that’s how the 10:11 Club was born.
It’s not exclusive. It’s not even really a club. It’s basically just us saying, every morning, Hey, I’m showing up at 10:11 a.m., and I’m going to do at least one important thing today. Resolve unemployment stuff, organize a bookshelf, write three pages of a new play, pitch an idea, whatever. The idea is to work work work ’til, say, noon, or whenever you want to stop.
But starting is the key.
It’s about feeling a little bit better and making a little bit of progress — taking yourself from a 10 to 11.
It’s less about what you’re doing than about knowing you’re not doing it alone.
Join us? If you’d like, hit reply and tell me what you’ll be working on at 10:11, and/or go forth and make it happen on your own.
We’ll be here, every weekday, cheering for you.
“Playing at the intersection of areas where you’re not an expert can together build a new set of skills as a building block.”
That’s just one bit of advice from venture investor Natalie Fratto, in my latest story about how to notice and increase your adaptability.
In her TED Talk, she defines adaptability as “how well a person reacts to the inevitability of change.” I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it necessary to be adaptable every single day…
So how can adaptability help right now? I’m thinking about people who find themselves without jobs or underemployed. Fratto advises to find places where your skills might overlap with another industry or current need.
Let’s say you’re a PR expert who’s excellent at messaging, interacting with clients, and attracting and assessing social media engagement. Maybe one kind of client has disappeared this month. What can do you?
Look at the skills you already have.
Who else has messages they need heard? Who is doubling down on their social media? And what small kernel of a skill can you cultivate and grow into something new?
Right now we need to look beyond our job titles and focus on our skills instead — those we can adapt and will better serve us in the end.
Of course I loved (if loved is the right word) this photo series of the darkened theater houses on Broadway. Text by Michael Paulson, photographs (including the one above) by David S. Allee.
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara