Adding to your calendar
Adding to your calendar
The one thing that's missing … Issue 1,166
Oh, hi friends!
You need time to think.
Specific, set-aside time.
I realized this after a few big things weren’t happening.
(I need to reignite my podcast, consider a few book ideas, and iron out another specific goal.)
These big things weren’t happening because they aren’t attached to tangible, deadline-oriented tasks.
They involve thinking.
I need to think about my podcast approach and think about the role of publishing in my life and think about one goal versus another, and so on.
Thinking rarely gets put on the calendar.
But it should.
Because that’s the way the big things become real things.
“These days, when I’m tempted to reach for a drink, I pause and ask myself, ‘Is this what I really want? Is this what I actually need? Will having a drink right now enhance this moment, or dull it?’ Sometimes the answer is enhance, and I’m happy to imbibe. When it’s not, I’m just as happy to opt for a non-alcoholic beverage instead.”
I always find a lot of value in Chrissy Hennessey’s newsletter So Relatable, but this question struck me particularly hard, and not even in regards to alcohol: Will having a drink right now enhance this moment, or dull it?
The enhance vs. dull framing! You can apply this to drinking or other activities.
Will listening to a podcast enhance or dull this 10-minute walk?
Will investing in this course enhance or dull my business?
Will waking up at 6 a.m. enhance or dull my day?
Where Is Your Vital Information?
Every Tuesday afternoon for the past year, I’ve visited this page to look at the week’s Broadway box office grosses.
You can see how much each show is making, average ticket price, audience capacity, and trends compared to last week.
This is free public information. And the data is searchable, going back many years.
Why do I do this? Because it’s useful information to understand if I want to create work that lives onstage.
This should have been obvious to me, but it wasn’t always! I had no idea how much it cost for a show to run, or the margins between a success and a show that’s about to close. Knowing the numbers helps me understand an industry, and understanding an industry helps me move my own work forward. (You should also take a class from my friends over at Business of Broadway!)
This makes me wonder: Where is the information that is vital to you, your project, your future?
What should you know that you don’t know right now?
And will you start digging into it today?