Mind the Beginner

This blogpost is a follow-up on my last blogpost on which Alan Perlman from over at the 9 to 5 alternative commented:

Many people–myself included–understand that there’s a third pillar, but may not know how to attack it. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.
Like, once you recognize the third pillar, once you know you need to act in the present and to change certain things, how do you do it? What’s optimal? – Alan

A quick refresh: There are three pillars in personal development, three choices you have right now:

1. Flee the present
   
2. Passively accept the present
   
3. Act in the present

Now we have those clear again  (if you want to read more: the three pillars of personal development) lets dive right in.

Optimal ways to act right now

The very first thing that comes to mind is something Carl (R Nelson, over at Drop of Change) tought me a long time ago. He called it the 3-2-1 Method and it’s actually as effective as it is simple:

When confronted with an issue which will only take a moment to resolve yet which you are reluctant to do get in your head for a few seconds.

Count down.

3…

2..

1.

Then do it. Say it. Write it down. Type it. Send it.

This is by far the simplest tactic around and works wonders. Coupled with a tactic taken from “getting things done” which is to do something immediately if it takes two minutes or less will get you through all those little things throughout the day that need to be done.

In that we have another clue how to tackle acting in the present.

Take the smallest possible steps

A topic I’ve written about a lot, like presenting you with 8 steps to reclaiming responsibility. I’m a huge fan of keeping things simple, always looking for ways to make a step even smaller. So small in fact that you can take those steps within two minutes. And you immediately do those things that take two minutes or less.

The problem with being reluctant to act is have steps that are to big to take. If I ask you to write a book in a year, would you?

Or would you postpone the task because writing a book is just to much.

Now what if I asked you to write a short story of say, 1000 words. That’s not to hard now is it? Write a short story every day and let each story continue where the last one ended and you have a book in a year.

Small steps, they might be boring. You’re just writing a short story, not a book. You’re just writing a few lines of code, not a complete program and you’re not making an online income, you’re just making a single sell. Totally boring but take enough steps… Do I have to spell it out? Every single step is getting you closer. You know that feeling when you tick something off your to-do list? Maybe a quick picture will help you recall that feeling:

Do you remember the feeling?

Feels good doesn’t it, checking a box, finishing a task. Some people even write down extra tasks on their to-do-list just so they can experience the feeling of checking the box. With huge steps, you get to check a box once in a while. That is, if you ever finish it. With small steps, you get a lot of boxes to check and chances are you will.

So what is optimal?

Once you recognize that you have to act in the now:

• Identify the act to be done now
• Cut that act up in the smallest possible steps
• Stop procrastinating and do those small steps. (It takes you just a few minutes after all!)
• If you have a hard time getting over procrastination, apply the 3-2-1 Method

And if you doubt this approach, remember that My way is the Best Way

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Yesterday was another one of those days, having great plans for the day and all kinds of things to do. In short, a productive day.

And then the day actually is there, getting up late, procrastinating through lunchtime. Surfing a bit, managing to do one of the many things on my list (formatting and reinstalling my laptop) and eventually going for a long session of in-line skating (20 km or so).  A productive day you might think, but nowhere near the amount of productivity I had planned.

The biggest problem was I had all sorts of things I had on my list that I told myself I “must” do. The only two things not on that list were reinstalling my laptop (I wanted to, it wasn’t a must) and going in-line skating (again, I wanted to do that).  This blogpost got form in my head during those kilometers.

The common factor between the things I wanted to do was that I wanted to do them and it wasn’t a must. The common factor between all those other things were the label “must do this”. Reinstalling the laptop took the better part of an hour, in line skating roughly an hour and a half. So that leaves a lot of time in the day. What happened?! Where the *bleep* did all my time go…. what are the timesucks?

ToDo vs. Contentment

Timesucking is a major issue with everyone trying to be productive. However, before we explore those there are two camps in productivity:

In the blue corner we have those who want to do as much as possible in a day, keeping to-do lists and trying all kinds of lifehacks to squeeze more productivity out of everything.

In the red corner we have those who tell us that we must select that one thing that will make us feel content “if this is the only thing we do today” and tell us to drop the to-do lists.

I’ll leave it to you who you put your money on. However, both camps have the same problem: Tempus Fugit

Timesucks are all around us, to you, my appreciated reader, even this blog is one. To me, checking this blogs statistics is one. If this blog wasn’t useful to me in some way this blog would be a total timesuck as well.

But of course there are more out there

• TV Did watching TV ever get you to make some progress in life? In areas that really matter?

• Plugged Gaming Your fragging skills might get better, but did playing games teach you a valuable life lesson, get something done? If all you could do today was play a game on your PC or console, would you be happy with your accomplishment?

• Unplugged gaming I’ve spent a lot of my time in highschool playing “Magic, the Gathering” and I still have thousands of cads (and 11 decks I play with every now and then) A total timesuck. It didn’t get me a lasting social network, it costs loads of money and if I spent all that time practicing guitar I’d be the next Steve Vai, that’s how much time got sucked. Gaming isn’t good for much other than useless skills. The only exception is that I learned to barter and haggle which might be useful in traveling to countries where these skills are part of daily life.

• TV It’s a huge timesuck. As a random statistic: it turns out that the average kid nowadays spends at least 3 hours a day in front of the cathode ray gun getting zapped.

• Internet You’re reading this blog, shouldn’t you be doing something else? They don’t tell you that online do they?

• Social media It’s been said before, how much time do you spend on twitter/facebook/myspace and whatnot. Is it all useful? Or are you just doing pointless things. Did you know you can schedule your twitters? This means you can scheduled notifications about your blogposts so you no longer have to log in to twitter to tel everyone and running the risk of getting timesucked.

• TV I’m sure I mentioned this one before but it’s huge.

• Cleaning This is my personal favorite when it comes to procrastination. My room is at it’s cleanest during exam weeks. I end up cleaning the inside of my pc and sorting the magic cards I mentioned earlier before I commit to doing what I need to be doing. Ow… my bookcase is a mess, I’ll be right back…

…I think you get the idea by now.

I’m going to give you two homework assignments. You can do them if you want, it’s not a must. Afer all, making something a must will most certainly put it on the bottom of your list.

1. Unplug your TV for a week.
2. Identify the timesucks in your life and bust them!

I’d love to hear about the timesucks you identified and how you busted them. Please do tell us all about it. Thanks

Once more I look at my mountains and realize that they are tall. I can imagine myself standing on top and being on top of the world. I can dream about it and most of all I can be positive about it.

But let’s be honest, does being positive get you up there? Absolutely not! Being positive is just dreaming, you dream being up there while you lay in bed or on the couch watching some mindless TV show. “One day I’ll be up there you’ll see!”

Yes, one day… with that attitude that day will be when your body has disintegrated to dust and a speck of that dust carried on the wind might land on top of that mountain just by sheer luck. Stop lying to yourself! The only way someone gets up there is by working very hard, making long days, investing their time and doing the very best they can. You won’t get up there if you work four hours a week, you won’t get there by doing less, there is no magic trick. You’re not even assured of getting there by doing exactly the same thing as you idol.

If a best-selling author tells you you should read certain books, Amazon will be very happy with that writes because we all immediately start reading those books. If your idol wears certain shoes, how many of you will buy those shoes just so you can imitate him? Dress like the one who made it and maybe, just maybe, that success will be yours as well? Play on the signature guitar of your hero and you’ll soon be playing just as good? Dream on!

There is a reason some people are at the top of their niche or the best of their field. They got there first. No other blog will ever be able to challenge icanhascheeseburger. The owners of that blog make thousands of dollars a day just because they had the brilliant idea and monetized it. No other blog can do that anymore because it has been done and it will be seen as an imitation.

So why do we want to imitate others? The chance to be successful that way are slim at best. The way to get to the top of a mountain is to find one that hasn’t been climbed yet, one that is yours for the climbing without the crowds. The problem with our dreaming is that most of the time we dream of being someone else. That’s the easy dream we don’t need to be creative. We just think to ourselves “I want to be like that person, I want to live his life”. It will not get us there however. This is a fault in our thinking that helps sell all those signature guitars, replica racing helmets and any brand of clothing that “they” wear. There is a phenomenon called social proof. It’s the idea that if everyone is doing something it must be right. I wonder how many people actually buy something because their friends have bought it.

So what do we do about this problem? We dream our own dreams, create our own mountain to climb and be positive about that. Be realistic and dream about that goal in our life, not the goal someone else reached and who we envy.

Don’t wish you were this or that person you idolize. Be yourself and follow your own path to your own top.

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People have the great possibility of thought, thought about the past and the future and in this they can predict outcomes of certain undertakings. But thinking about the future has a great downside to it. We overthink, and panic.

Soon after the first thoughts on beginning a new business or planning a world trip the “but what if” ’s make their appearance on centre stage in our mind. Our mind is capable of churning out  thoughts at an astounding rate and there are always a few negative thoughts in there. The longer we think about something the more chance there is for negative thoughts to get the better of us. 

Eventually we end up with a very sorry state of mind I would like to call paralysis by negativity. We get completely consumed with finding the negative side to anything that is said, any ideas that come up and most of all any dreams we have. Once in this cycle it’s very hard to stop it. Once this paralysis by negativity truly sets in we don’t see a bright future anymore, we don’t believe in change and we certainly don’t feel great about ourselves or our lives. 

There are fine lines between states of mind. Unrealistic fantasizing, dreaming and life goals, realism and life goals, pessimism and abandoning goals and eventually paralysis. So, how about you and your dreams? Do you really see yourself living your dreams? Or is your mind pulling you down into pessimism about life and trying to get you to forget about it all because you can’t live your dream. 

Creativity is letting yourself make mistakes, art (and living) is knowing which ones to keep.

I dare you, make a mistake, learn from it and live. Stop the downward spiral of negativity and get out there. Visualize your dreams and get to work on them. Now, without thinking, turn off your pc (yes it’s scary, I know) and do something right now to set another step in the direction of your dreams.

Yes you can!

As part of probloggers 31 days to a better blog I’m giving the “list post” a go. Ten ways to get the all rolling or in other words, how to beat procrastination and start doing what you want to do. Some of these tips are in themselves great for procrastinating though as I’ll comment in the tips.

• Look at what you are doing right now (reading this blog most likely) Is this what you want to be doing? Think about what you should be doing right now, and not only think it, now go do it.

• Seeing as most of us have some sort of Internet addiction, disconnect your Internet and see how much time you can save. Tis means however that you can’t read any more blogs. It might seem a bit strange for a blogger to advise you to stop reading but it’s exactly what I should do if I were honest about this. is reading a blog going to get you where you want to be? It might contain a few pointers yes, but in the end it all comes down to yourself.

• Install a program like “Rescuetime” to keep track of the time you spend on your pc. If you’re anything like me you’ll be spending the better half o each day looking at the screen. It’s only logical that keeping track of your computer-time is the best way to find those time drainers and kick the habit.

• A tip I gladly borrow from “Getting things done” but that works brilliantly. Is there a small task you keep pushing forward but that can be done within two minutes? Perhaps answer a certain mail, place a quick phone call or pay a bill. If you can do something in two minutes or less, do it immediately.

• A less logical way to help overcome procrastination and start fresh is clean up. Declutter your workspace, get rid of anything that is not essential to the task at hand. This in itself can be procrastination though. Any time I don’t feel like doing something I’ll start cleaning. The closer a deadline gets, the cleaner my home is. If you keep things clean however, cleaning up won’t take more than a few minutes (perhaps even just two?) so it defeats itself as a means of procrastinating.

• Organize your deadlines and tasks. Only a clear system to know when you should do what can do this for you. Get a whiteboard on your door, make constant use of a notebook or even a PDA. Just make sure you always know when your next deadline is and be realistic about them. Concerning deadlines I recommend reading about “Parkinson’s law” and rethinking your deadlines.

• Set goals or as I’ve described them before, get your  own mountains. Be sure that they are yours though. If you don’t know where you are going any road will get you there, but you’ll never know when you’ve arrived. Set small goals for the day, some for the week, a few monthly goals. Always have something you’re heading towards. If you don’t have goals you have a serious problem, your life won’t wait for you to set your goals, every day you don’t spend working on a goal is a day lost. Watch out for procrastination here, making goal lists ust for the sake of it isn’t true goal setting.

• Minimalize everything. As Leo talks about in his brilliant little book “the power of less” it’s all about limiting yourself to the essentials. Think about it for a second, what are the things in your life that really matter? How many things in your head are there because others put them there? 

• Be ruthlessly honest about yourself and your intentions. This will certainly help clear your head and your actions. Why do you do what you do? Why do you put things off or react a certain way? More on ruthless honesty can be found in the books of Peter Ralston, especially his book Ancient wisdom, new spirit. Although this book is out of print, if you can get it I highly recommend it!

• The biggest tip of them all: Slow down and take small steps. We’ve all heard about “even the longest journey begins with the first step” but almost no-one actually takes this to heart. We all want our mountaintop but don’t want to hear there is no fast way to get there. Either we are dishonest and lie to ourselves that there is a surefire way to get there instantly (why do you think those self-help books are so popular?) or we are honest and acknowledge that getting to the top will take a lot of steps, one after the other. 

Don’t loose your dreams, but be honest about them an honest about yourself. In the end, no-one can get you up that mountain, you’ll have to walk up there yourself. All other people can do is point the way. You’re responsible for your own life.

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The rat race is all around us. Running around, always looking at the horizon or the top of the mountain. It’s totally useless you know? We set goals in our lives, wonderful things we would like to do one day. We read about 4 hour workweeks and think that would be just great. We keep dreaming about where we want to be, and in doing so we never have time to enjoy where we actually are. 

At this very moment you are reading a blog on beginnings. Now I ask you, what do you want from this blog? Is reading this post what you want to be doing right now? Are you procrastinating perhaps? Don’t panic, we all procrastinate and we all have dreams about our future that keeps us away from the now. Yes, even “great” people like Timothy Ferris and Leo Babauta have moments every day that they dream off into some kind of fantasy about the future. It’s human you know..

In being human it’s perfectly okay to dream about the future and look at the top of the mountain. But in doing so we forget to enjoy where we are right now. In favour of a bright future we forget to actually live in the now and appreciate where we are and who we are this moment. 

Drifting off into a fantasy about the future is a sure sign you aren’t completely happy with where you are right now or who you are. You’d rather be somewhere else in stead of having to live in this boring moment you are in right now. Perhaps you’re supposed to be working on a homework assignment right now you’re putting off in favour of this blog post. Well, one the one hand I’m happy you’re reading this post, on the other hand this post is a way for you to get distracted from what you are supposed to be doing right now isn’t it? 

Stop for a second, breathe deeply and open your eyes, where are you right now? What are you supposd to be doing right now? 

Take another breath….

….and now go do what you are supposed to be doing and stop fantasizing about the future, it will still be there tomorrow!

An odd title for a post perhaps, but how many of us look at mountains every day? The mountains of “should”, “could” and all the other mountains we build when thinking of beginning something. You see a great guitarist play and you think “this is for me, I want to be able to do this too!” so you buy a guitar and take lessons. But no matter how hard you try, after two years of practice you’re still a beginner and can’t jam or are stuck in playing the same songs all  the time, trying to fool people into thinking you actually are a guitar player. You’ve got the guitar after all and you’ve got the tuning down to an art. 

This bit actually is autobiographical, I own two nice guitars, a dozen books on playing and the best of these is the tomb that is used at Berklee for music-sightreading. If only I could gt through it’s pages I would be a great guitar player. Ive been looking at the first 16 pages for years now. From time to time I take my guitar from it’s wallstand and tune it again, play the same (parts of) songs and stick it back on the wall. That’s your great guitar player for you, smoke and mirrors, an illusion. 

We all have things we want to be able to do, but we want them instantly, without all the work to get there. We want to climb the highest mountain but it shouldn’t be to much work.

• Starting a blog and expecting loads of traffic and within a month your blog should make money
• Build a new business and expecting financial freedom instantly. 
• We want to slow down, and be quick about it!

The few people who actually get to the top of that mountain write books about it and tell others what it’s like to b up there, fewer write about what the journey was like getting to the top and fewer still tell you only one in so many really do get up there and join the successful. 

We all love the success stories and listen eagerly to people who travel the world or successfully start a business or top-50 blog.  In listening to these stories we actually do the same thing as watching TV or playing on our game console. We numb our own senses and fantasize about living the life of someone else and flee reality.  But that’s cheating ourselves. Be honest to yourself over who you are and where you are, that’s the first step into getting to the top.

Mountains are popular, mountains called “rich”, “famous”, “successful”, “entrepreneur”, “bestseller”. Two questions:

1. Are your mountains really yours or do you want to conform to expectations or popular ideas?
2. What are you going to do right now to take the next step to the top? 

Now stop looking up at the top and look down at your feet to see where you need to take the next step.

This is only my second post and already I’m having trouble to write. It’s not that there isn’t enough to write on, it’s that there is so much. Where to begin. (pun intended) This is a problem most bloggers run in to according to several writes (Darren Rowse and Leo Babauta). You need to find  niche that fits you and isn’t so big that you don’t know where to go. My first thoughts were that “beginning” would be a nice niche, but it seems to get bigger every time I look. 

So, we have a challenge. Getting this blog to work for me and knowing what to write about. Unlike what I stated in my last post I think I should explore this a bit further first before making all sorts of commitments to other beginnings. How can I write about beginning when I don’t know where to start. 

I think the best way to start is to make small steps. You should know where you want to go, but seeing as some goals take a long time to reach you should be able to cut the path int ever smaller bits until you have manageable bit. Actually, this is the way to attack procrastination. Start small and work a maximum of five minutes on a given task,no more, no less. After the five minutes you take a break before you make another small burst at the task if you feel like it. 

Time and time again I’ve blown up tasks to such a proportion that I couldn’t see past them. It go depressing at times because I just didn’t know how to handle it. No-one told me! It might be common knowledge today but I was ignorant. I didn’t investigate things the way I do now. 

Things truly are harder than they seem. But on the other hand, if you manage to make the steps small enough any hurdle can be taken. Break any given task down to tasks you can do in bursts of five minutes or less and get going. 

Good luck on beginning, one step at a time.