Run-up time

You know exactly what I’m talking about / Issue 1,197

Oh, hi friends!

How do you feel about run-up time?

Weirdly, it’s when a lot of my low-stakes work gets done.

Run-up time is that little gap right before you have to be somewhere or do something else.

You’re running right up to the next thing.

Say there’s eight minutes before your Zoom. Suddenly, you’re flicking through your inbox, sorting, archiving, responding. 

You do this because spending eight minutes on a task feels more doable than if you had an open-ended afternoon. 

Yesterday, a friend was stopping by and I knew I had probably 12 minutes of run-up time. So I started addressing manila envelopes to folks who I’m sending copies of Do It Today. I meant to do this weeks ago, so why now? Why these 12 minutes?!

Run-up time is sooo attractive. Short, sweet, and weirdly painless because you rarely get into the dregs of a task. 

But you do chip away.

And it all counts.

Pay attention to your run-up time today — those moments before you’re leaving, arriving, beginning, or committed to something else. 

Wedge a little nubby task in there, especially if it’s one you don’t want to do.

Why not? Run right up to the end.

“I’m a big believer that you can do almost anything if there’s a clear goal and end date.”

My friend Julie Bestry, who I met via this newsletter and is an amazing professional organizer, interviewed me and I was really moved by her insightful questions, which made me realize that following my own flickers of interest has always led me down the best paths. And also that I need to take my own advice re: clear goals and end dates.

We talk about college internships, getting published, how much I hate outlines, launching projects, thanking our failures, and much more. Hope you might enjoy.

Cezanne, The Basket of Apples via Art Institute of Chicago

A few things I'm taking in this week…

This Is Marketing by Seth Godin, a revolutionary way of thinking about what you’re making (or selling) and how to get it in front of the people who will be changed by it. (Listening to the audiobook version.)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, discussed at my reading group meeting on Sunday! This year we're doing Nobel Prize winners plucked from the last 20-or-so years. 

WeCrashed on Apple TV+. Obsessed. (I wrote for WeWork’s “digital magazine” a few months before the company imploded — they paid $1 a word — oh, those were the days.) 

Wikirhymer. Hi, old friend, we meet again. Clean and simple resource for finding rhymes to nestle inside your creative projects.

I would love to hear what you’re gathering this week, too!