Are you rushing to the end?
Oh, hi friends!
How many different directions are you pulled in? Not even physically (although if you are, that sounds taxing! Do your stretches!!!), but I’m talking about the paths your mind wants to go down…
I think a lot about how to be more productive. But I also think about how to be more creative and push your ideas into the world. Sometimes those two endeavors fight with each other.
But here’s the thing…can you get more productive at being creative? That is, when you have the time to create—can you make sure you are using it wisely?
On the flip side, can you get more creative at ways to be productive? So when you have to do “life stuff” — running errands, administrative tasks, blah blah — can you use smarter tools and tricks to make them run more smoothly? So you feel better and more capable and clear-headed when it’s time to get back to creating?
Huh. In the words of Oprah: What a lightbulb moment!
Maybe that’s what these last 480+ newsletters have been about. How to focus, eliminate the things that don’t matter, rest when you need to, hustle when you need to (I know that’s a dirty word now, but oh, it captures so much!). How to balance your productivity and creativity.
It’s so funny. Someone asked me the other day how I write these every day. Half the answer is that it’s become routine, but the other half is that I’m always trying to figure out why, exactly, I am writing them. I’m figuring it out as I go along.
But that’s what happens with projects, right? As much as you want to rush to the completed, perfect goal, you still have to start before you find the end.
Alright. Here’s to starting.
Think on this Tuesday, my little monkey, think.
“I definitely had the thing that I think we all, but especially women, have: an imposter complex. I felt I didn’t deserve any of the opportunities I was given. I thought didn’t know what I was talking about, and that had no skill.
I understand now that everyone’s faking it. None of us knows what we’re doing; that is the human condition. We’re just making it all up, and that’s fine. But not having a feeling of mastery, walking through the world every day — that’s not failure; that’s life.”
***
AHHH. Such good words of wisdom from Serial host Sarah Koenig (from her “How I Get It Done” column). Everyone’s faking it. Some are better at it than others.
Do you use resentment as fuel?
John Green talks in this video about having a job reading books and writing about them for Booklist—and coming home to write every night until 11pm. During that time, he saw himself as the plucky underdog who was the victim of various injustices. “The human capacity of self-pity is endless.” (Ha!)
He wanted to show people how clever he could be, the wonderful metaphors he could write. But the problem was the story he was writing had no guts. “Its griefs grieved on no universal bones,” to steal a Faulkner quote, and the story felt distant and cold. To quote Shakespeare: “Resentment is a fire that burns with more light than heat.”
So he had to use this effective but toxic fire of resentment in order to get out his first book. But to get further, he needed to find a fuel that burned warmer, if perhaps less light. Being resentful made him productive, yet didn’t help him produce much he was proud of. Maybe that’s something that holds true for you, too? It certainly does for me. Something to think about.
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara