Here in Cambodia, things move slowly. Transportation is bumpy and hurts like hell. Buses, bamboo trains, boats, and bicycles…most never exceed 50km/hr, and if they did, they’d all explode into a million little pieces.

While travel takes a lot longer than in developed countries, moving slow has its benefits: a chance to see the details of the country, plenty of time to read in transit, and a general feeling that getting to a certain place by a certain time is entirely out of your hands. Buses break down. Roads become impassible.

Rather than try to hurry, it’s much easier to relax, give in, and just expect things will take (much) longer than they could.

This leads me to today’s post: 8 reasons to slow down. I believe travel is not unlike creativity. Both take effort and action. Both are different kinds of journeys. And both can benefit from from slowing down and taking more time to reach the desired end.

My view: creativity doesn’t like to be rushed. Creativity likes to have ample time to explore new angles, ferment new ideas and concepts, and allow the intuition and undermind to run amok.

Reasons to slow down include:

1. Making fewer mistakes. Rushing and hurrying cause us to overlook details major and minor. With plenty of time, we can afford to be meticulous.

2. Having less stress. I don’t know about you, but hurrying makes my heart race. The slightest problems cause disproportionate exasperation. Mistakes are made, which causes more stress. Going slow, you have a chance to breath and relax.

3. Having more time to enjoy the present. Hurrying is all about displacing now, putting it behind us, and being somewhere else in the future. But now is all we really have. Why not enjoy it?

4. Appreciating the detail. Angkor Wat is a massive temple; its scope and scale are breathtaking. But the best part is enjoying the bas-relief friezes. They stretch for hundreds of feet and feature scenes from ancient Indian epics. At a glance, they all look kind of similar, but once you slow down, you begin to see the details that piece the stories together.

5. Developing concepts fully. When you’re creating something, that first burst of energy is great, but the work doesn’t end there. More ideas lie under rocks, waiting for you to turn them over. Our brains work in strange ways, and sometimes a little time makes a big difference.

6. Slow time gives you time to think. Rushing from one thing to another, we think only of the next move, the next step. Moving slow gives your intuition a chance to work things out.

7. When you slow down, you’re always on time, with time. By going slow, you have to allocate extra time to compensate for your slowness. This allows you to arrive early or finish with plenty of time to spare.

8. Flow requires low stress. By rushing, we create stress that is counter-productive to a state of conscious competence. Professional athletes and musicians, when they’re doing their thing, they’re cool and composed, unhurried.

Over to You:

• Would you rather travel by boat or train?
• Do you like to hurry?
• Is it possible to move fast and still see everything?

Next time:

Just because it’s fun to play the devil’s advocate, I’m going to follow this post with some Reasons to Hurry Up.

Photo credit: gusjer

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Knowing when and how to quit is one of the most valuable skills out there. Why? By strategically quitting things that don’t work for you, you’re free to work on things that do.

Quitting has gotten bad rap over the years. When you say you’re quitting anything besides cigarette smoking, seal clubbing, or self-mutilation, people look at you like you’re some kind of failure (of course, we know there’s nothing wrong with failure).

Of all the vices out there, though, we can learn the most from gambling. What does gambling have to do with quitting?

The gamblers who make the most money are the ones who know when to quit.

Rather than reinvest their winnings in the hopes of an even bigger win (which they’re sure to lose), they choose a wise time to cash out, often with the help of a magic talisman.

We can learn from these canny folks, no talisman required.

Before I go further, I should add some caveats.

Perseverance is important, and finishing most of what you start is admirable and full of side benefits. The problem most people have is quitting too soon, rather than too late.

Developing professional-level skills and abilities can take years. According to Malcolm Gladwell, those at the top of their field put in 10,000 hours of focused practice. They never quit. ..but not everyone can be a Bill Gates, Jimi Hendrix, or Joyce Carol Oates.

Sometimes you have to focus on just one thing, let go of the others, and move on. All these people are (were) exceptional at their main skill. All the other stuff, they quit along the way.

In short, keep working on what works for you, but quit most everything else.

Why Quit?

Quitting is never an easy decision. After putting in months or years developing a skill or working on a project, letting go seems like such a huge waste of time and energy.

Reasons to quit include:

• Gaining freedom from something that’s changed from a cute, cuddly new thing to a snarling, snapping, biting pain in the ass.
• Having more time to focus on one or two more important things. Or…having more time to spend with your family.
• Reducing stress levels. When you really just don’t want to do something, doing it anyway (for a long period of time) will probably kill you.
• To move on to new projects; to change, grow, and learn.
• As a way to get out of a long-term rut.
• Regaining your soul, in the event some malevolent force of your own making is sucking it out through an ethereal straw.

When to Quit?

The time to quit is different for everybody. The gambler can tell with a stroke of the lucky rabbit’s foot. Without a talisman, your task is  harder. Sometimes the need to quit is obvious, sometimes not so.  Only you can be the judge.

Here are some warning signs:

• Feeling apathetic and disinterested over a long period of time, nothing a vacation or re-orientation will cure.
• When you’ve either achieved your goals, you realize that the goals are unachievable, or you simply don’t give a flying fudgebar about goals.
• When the thought of working on the project makes you want to gouge out your eyes with chopsticks.
• After having a moment of clarity and realizing you’ve been living out some kind of sad delusion.
• You get a little older and realize the things you wanted in the past aren’t what you want now.

How to Quit?

The clever gambler recognizes a losing streak and, instead of trying to play their way out of it, they cut their losses and develop an exit strategy. For you, when you quit something, it needn’t be a total loss either. With a little foresight and planning, you too can make a graceful exit.

• Sometimes you just need a readjustment in what you want. You might not become a megastar but it’s perfectly possible to carve out a living.
• If you have created something tangible (a business or a blog), you could sell it off, piece by piece.
• In some cases, you need to train a replacement. This can be fun but also disorienting.
• Whenever possible, have something else lined up. Quitting something that was an important part of your life can leave a big gap.
• Reflect back on your time and figure out what you’ve learned.
• Don’t burn any bridges. If you’re leaving some project that involved other people (and most do), let everyone know you appreciated doing whatever with them.

That’s it. Remember, the value lies in strategic quitting. Do what works for you. Say goodbye to everything else. Cut your losses. Finish what you can and forget about the rest. Good luck!

Over to You

• Any strategies for quitting?
• Do you think people should simply never give up?
• Is baby seal really as delicious as I’ve been told?

Photo credit: koiart66

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In the last post, I wrote about getting out of a rut. Today I’m looking at the benevolent first cousin of the rut: the routine and how a routine can act like a high-speed rail to creating amazing things. As always, this is one of those ‘it worked for me, it might work for you, too’ things. Assume I may be full of shit and that your mileage may vary.

When I was a younger man, I thought routines were for old people. The best way to spend my time, I believed, was in random, spontaneous ways. I would do things when I had the time, the inclination, or the motivation.

While I managed to read almost everything on the internet circa 2001, I didn’t create much; a few songs and some stories, but not much else.

Fast forward a few years. I was living in Korea, eating kimchi for breakfast and teaching English for my dinner.

Durng my year in Korea, I finished two novel drafts, wrote and submitted a five stories (still waiting on responses, fingers crossed), sold a couple articles, learned the fretless bass, wrote a notebook full of song ideas, and built the best damn blog in the world.

I’m not bragging (much), but I managed to do more writing in one year than I did in the past five years combined. Yes, my accomplishments are modest, even trite by some folks’ standards, but for me as a writer, last year rocked my argyle socks.

How did I do it?

The answer will amaze you. Drum roll…

I did the same damn thing… almost every single day. I developed a simple routine and followed it. That’s it.

Sometimes things came up, but most misty mornings I sat at my desk for a couple hours and worked on whatever happened to be on my project list.

No secrets. No tricks. No magic productivity formulas (though lists help). Okay, actually, this is a bit like the secret of creative inspiration…but only more so.

Why is a routine effective?

Routines are to creative output as rails are to train tracks. Routines allow you to move forward. When your routine becomes well defined, it’s almost like a maglev train. Less friction allowes you to maintain your creative inerta. Occasionally you’re have derails. Other times you’ll find yourself on a siding or even in a rut, but you can always rebuild your momentum.

Other reasons routines are effectve

• You never need to find time. Your time is already set aside. You know how you need to spend it.
• Doing the same thing at the same time allows you to get into the creative/working mindset that much faster.
• As long as your challenges increase with your skill, you’re creating conditions for more regular Flow experiences.
• For me, when I have a clearly defined routine, I know exactly when I should be working and when I can screw off.

How can you develop a routine?

• Identify the times you like to work/create and set a clealy defined boundry around that time. Guard it jealously.
• Stick to it. A routine becomes easier the longer you do it.
• Don’t procrastinate.

That’s it! Nothing difficult, just a little work applied over a long period of time to develop a routine.

Of course, ideas will come at odd times.You’ll have flashes of insight and inspiration, but I believe with a regular creative routine, you’ll have even more of these. Hopefully you’ll have a notebook to catch them.

If you still have doubts, try an experiment. For one month, stick to a routine. Nothing hard here. Do the same the at the same time most days of the week. Then, for the next monh, just do your creative work whenever you feel like it.

During both months, keep track of your output. At the end, compare them. If a routine doesn’t help you, send me an email and call me a fool. If your routine does work, then you may lavish praise upon me in the comment section.

Finally, I’d love to fill this post with examples of the routines of famous creators, just to add some credibility to this post. However, I’m at an internet cafe in Cambodia. Electricity is provided by a rickety generator out back, and I have no idea how long it’ll hold out.

Over to you

• Do you have a creative routine?
• Any before-and-after stories?
• Do you know your favorite [author, musician, painter]’s routine?
• Is a routine the antithesis of creativity?

Photo credit:  ansel_mcadams

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Definition:

Rut: 1. A fixed, usually boring routine.

Ruts are like leeches. One or two won’t hurt you, but given time and numbers, they’ll both suck you dry.

A rut is different for everybody. Sometimes you can recognize when you’re in a rut. Other times you can’t, and the latter is way more insidious. Some ruts, like thunderstorms, are short and wear themselves out after a couple of days. Others are like draughts and go on for months, years.

Only you can define what is and isn’t a rut. For me, I know I’m in a rut when I procrastinate on things I want to do. I feel apathetic, uninspired, and I tend to sleep (and on occasion drink) a lot more. I don’t want to write, listen to or create music, or get off the recliner. Everything seems trite, blase, and futile.

I’ve been in a few ruts and, like sitting on hot coals, they’re a pain in the ass. I’m not a smart man, but I know there’s one way to avoid getting burned, and that’s to get off your ass and do something.

If you’re in a rut, here are some things I’ve done to get out of them. Hopefully you’ll find them helpful. I could make this a wildly long list, but I’ve decided to stick to three main categories: adventure, learning, and miscellany, and a fourth category specifically for getting out of a creative rut.

Adventure

From travel to sport to wild nights on the town, I define anything that breaks up my regular routine and gets me out of the house as an adventure.  If being in a rut is like being a tire spinning in the snow, then taking an adventure is like putting cardboard and salt under that tire, getting some traction, and rolling on down the road.

Some of my favorite ideas include:

• Taking a weekend road trip. Find a cheap hostel in a nearby city. Even better if, once you get there, you can take the train or some other means of public transportation.
• Getting outside and going camping. Once you have the gear, your only expense is food and park fees. Nature does wonders for the psyche.
• Hiking. If you’re not into sleeping in the wild, just go for a walk in it. You don’t need any special gear, and there are plenty of fine trails near most metro areas.
• Taking up a sport. Nothing serious. Basketball, tennis, badminton, disc golf, whatever. Play on your own, with friends, or join a semi-formal league. Whatever sport you choose, you’ll get some exercise and feel better for it.
• Teaching English in a foreign country. Not for everybody, but it can be a hell of a way to spend a couple years. Don’t tell anybody, but there are more jobs for young westerners in Asia than in the West.

Learning

Learning new stuff, like adventure, does good things to the brain, especially when you’re interested in what you’re learning. In fact, the most important part of learning about anything is relevance; if you’re not interested in what you’re learning, you’re wasting your time.

That said, here are some ideas for filling your head with a bunch of new stuff:

• Start taking a lot of notes. When you’re reading something interesting or engaging, keep a little notebook handy. The act of doing so will make the information sink in more. Later, you can review it.
• Take a class. Some classes are expensive, but others can be cheap and rewarding.
• Learn a new skill, regardless of how useful it may be. Becoming a master isn’t the goal, the act of learning it is. Best are the skills that require both academic and kinesthetic work.
• Find new ‘teachers.’ These needn’t be real teachers, only people who are passionate about something you’re interested in. If they love what they do, they’ll be happy to help you learn about it. Some will require payment, others won’t.
• Take a reading vacation. Drop out of society for a month, turn off the digital crack, and just read a lot of books. Your local library can supply you will a lifetime’s worth of material.

Miscellany

Here are some things that didn’t quite fit into the previous two categories. This list could go on and on, but I’ll stick to the ones I’ve found most useful.

• Change jobs (or at least stop defining yourself through what you do to pay the bills). We’ve all got to make an income. Some ways are more rewarding than others.
• Try a different sleep schedule (but get enough sleep). If you get up early, sleep in a little.  If you go to bed early, stay up late, just for the sheer hell of it. Try it out for a couple weeks and give your body time to adjust.
• Go to watch some live music. We musicians need all the support and numbers we can get. You never know what might happen.
• Get that haircut you’ve been thinking about. If it doesn’t work out, it will always grow back. My wife tells me women might try a new hair color as well.
• Get your paycheck in cash and count the money. A recent study showed counting money makes people happy. Strange, but whatever.
• Build something. Model cars, puzzles, computers, whatever, these all work different parts of your brain and give you a nice sense of completion.
• Remember different experiences you’ve had an things you’ve done. Some researchers found this was an easy, effective way to bring variety into your life.

Getting out a Creative Rut

This is the big one. Earning an income from creative work is hard enough, we don’t time for ruts. Creative ruts are the worst, bordering on existential crisis. The best way is to respond like a fire department and get the trucks out as fast as possible, even if you’re not entirely sure where the fire is. Eventually you’ll see smoke.

• Take a break. Step away. Give yourself a specific, guilt-free length of time to not even think about the things you’re working on. Focus on other projects or interests. When you’re beating your head against a wall, you get great clarity when you stop.
• Try a different medium. Writers, paint or draw. Musicians, write. Designers, learn to sing. Ideally, this will engage different parts of your brain or work like machine oil, getting those gears turning again.
• Define your outcomes and work with the end in mind. If you’re not sure why (or what) you’re creating, it’s hard to keep at it. Imagine what an excellent final product will look like,
• Define your audience. If you know your audience, it’s easier to focus on what they might want. At the same time, you don’t want to pander too much.
• Give yourself the authority to create whatever you damn well please. Yes, something of a contradiction from the last point, but there’s probably an audience for what you’re making.
• Try a media fast (ala Tim Ferriss) for a week or a month. Turn off the internet and television, don’t read anything, and just get outside and enjoy yourself.
• On the other hand, try a media binge for a week or a month. Focus on your medium (or not) and devour everything you can. Go back to your influence’s influences. Seek out obscure or outdated works.
• Visit an art museum for inspiration. Take your notebook and write impressions.
• Collaborate on a project with a friend (or stranger). New people can give you new ideas.
• Keep a journal. I’ve already written about journals here and here.
• Make an effort to remember your dreams. Maybe write them in your journal. The more you do this, the easier it gets. Personally, I can’t take my dreams too seriously, but the absurdity and surreality is usually good for a laugh.
• Read about people who inspire you and do what they do. For example, when Joyce Carol Oates gets stuck on one manuscript, she simply turns to another computer and starts working on another one. I found something similar works well for me.
• Write a post about how to get out of a rut. Just kidding, but only a little.

Over to You:

• What strategies do you use for getting out of a rut?
• When you want to get out of a rut, which is more important: variety or distance?

XXX

Site note: I’m currently traveling in SE Asia. Because I’m spending little time reading blogs, I’ve temporarily suspended the weekly roundups. I will resume them as soon as I get settled in March.

Again, thanks for reading!

XXX

Photo credit: N02

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A couple days ago, I went snorkeling for the first time in my life. There, in the turquoise waters of Thailand’s Andaman Sea, I realized the age of the mega star was over. What brought on this realization? The serene beauty of the coral reefs? A lack of oxygen to the brain? An anemone sting to the heart?

No, it was the fish.

But first, who were the mega stars? People like Michael Jackson, Stephen King, the Backstreet Boys… people known and loved (or loathed) by millions. Call them the mass-culture equivalents of Old Faithful. Every time they signed multi-whatever deals, people lined up to buy whatever they put out.

I’m not saying Jackson and King aren’t talented individuals. They are. But, like the Dodo, slap bracelets, and tribal tattoos, their time is coming to an end. Just take a look at record sales numbers.

In the 80’s, Jackson sold hundreds of millions of records.

Even in the 90’s, no one even came close. And, since the end of the ’90s, overall album sales have steadily declined. In 1999, the Backstreet Boys sold over 9.4 million records. In 2009, Taylor Swift, best-selling artist of the year sold over 3.2 million records. While 3.2 million is a lot of records, it’s nowhere near the pre-internet numbers.

While P2P piracy is partially to blame for this decrease, in my armchair opinion, I think many people just don’t want to buy what the culture companies are selling.

Yes, all these artists have put in a lot of work. They have some talent and appeal to mainstream tastes. However, the remaining big media can only support a few of them.

Let’s go back to the fish.

Most of the fish I saw were small, no bigger than my hand, and wildly colorful. Some looked like psychedelic zebras, others like they’d been attacked by a fluorescent-paint-wielding Jackson Pollack. I lost count of the types and varieties of small fish I encountered.

On the other hand, I saw only a couple big fish. They were a little smaller than house cats and either rainbow-colored or white. Kind of pretty, yes, but not nearly as interesting as the rainbow of small fish.

If Michael Jackson and Susan Boyle are the big fish, then people like Ani Difranco and Will Oldham are the little fish. Young writers selling self-published novels from their websites or the trunks of their cars are also little fish. Bloggers selling whatever, they’re small fish too.

Small fish have one thing in common: they have found a place in the reef, and they don’t need to get bigger to survive. They have a spunky, DIY-ethic and don’t need or expect a huge company to sweep them up and propel them to the heights of whatever.

To support a mega star in the culture industry, you need two things: centralized, corporate-controlled media and narrow channels of distribution. Since the birth of television and the nationwide conglomeration of newspapers and radio, you’ve had both. Susan Boyle (over 3 million albums sold in 2009) is a great example of a mass-media-created celebrity.

When most people get their information from only a couple of sources, it’s most profitable to create only a handful of mega stars.

Today, though, you have decentralized (and often consumer-created) reviews, a million distribution channels (many free or very affordable), and terabytes of ways for artists to communicate directly with people who want to experience their work.

With thousands of arts & entertainment blogs out there, tastes are fragmenting and specializing.

Thousands of arts & entertainment blogs are catering to fragmented, specialized, uber-niche-icized tastes. Quality but lesser-known artists have almost as much opportunity as the Kings of Leon to get a review on a site like Pitchfork. With a few ironic Amazon reviews, a small company can sell tens of thousands of freaky shirts originally intended for marginal rednecks (see Three Wolf Moon).

The major media companies and gatekeepers are becoming irrelevant. Like a wizard without his staff, they have lost their power. People now have the ability to seek out what they want.

Curse you, interwebs! (say the CEOs of many major media companies)

What does this mean for small fish?

Marketing

No longer can artists and creators rely on multi-million dollar ad campaigns, payola schemes, and bookstore/record store placement. Instead, each artist has to find ways to connect with fans. Word of mouth is still the best form of advertising, and the internet makes those words travel that much faster.

If creators can reach the Sneezers (people who tell their friends about amazing work), they have just done what a thousand dollars worth of advertising most likely cannot: connect with people who care.

People love to share good work, and that’s the best part of the new culture marketing paradigm: the creator wins because they get ‘free’ advertising, and the sneezers win because they have a chance to share the good things they’ve found.

Distribution

Let’s jump over to book distribution for a few minutes. Music distribution is way too easy and obvious: make mp3s and share them with your friends. Books still are a physical, tangible good, so they’re a little trickier (let’s exclude ebooks for a moment).

In the past, a few companies (Ingram, Baker & Taylor) controlled the book trade. If you wanted to get your book into a bookstore, you had to go through them. This came at a price: wholesale discounts, uncompensated returns (of often damaged goods), warehousing fees.

Today, you have at least a hundred companies that offer print-on-demand services. Some will even offer dropshipping (or print-and-ship) via Amazon.

If you have a quality product and you’ve got the time and skills to hustle your book, if you can build a platform and do the marketing, you’re better off without a traditional publisher. If sales take off, you might get a good book deal, but that’s only an option, not a necessity.

Even before the internet, people were having great success self-publishing. Books like A Time to Kill and The Celestine Prophecy sold hundreds of thousands of companies. Later, they were picked up by the big boys.

Other considerations

• Geography is becoming irrelevant. NY, LA, and London are still important places, but as long as creators are able to connect with people interested in their work, they’ll have plenty of markets. Another benefit: a lower cost of living means people will have more time to do what they do best.
• Creators will have to wear more hats. The artist must take care of marketing, distribution, PR, bookings, etc. While this means more work for the individual, they will at least have more control over how their work is presented.
• When word of mouth becomes more important, marketing costs decrease. Not only that, but when people are sharing good stuff, a greater diversity of voices will be heard.
• Overall, as the age of the mega star winds down, more opportunities will arise for more individuals. Why? People will always crave, seek out, and share quality work.

All this isn’t to say the big media companies have no place in the new, post-mega star culture economy. They do, so long as they do three things: adapt to the way things are, accept the things they can’t change, and stop suing their customers. The last is ugly and will probably kill them in the long run.

For everyone else, there’s never been a better time than now to be a small fish. Anyone can reach a million people. The gate keepers are no longer the unassailable arbiters of culture they once were.

The reef is large enough for a couple big fish…but its the little ones who make it interesting.

Photo credit: nrbelex

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Imagine a club bouncer, a big guy with a neck like a tire. He has tattoos and can lift a car with one hand. If someone at the club starts acting like a fool, this guy acts with authority: he picks them up with one hand and tosses out onto the street without batting breaking a sweat on his scarred, untroubled brow.

Yet, our bouncer’s real dream is to be a freelance designer. Being a bouncer is just a job well-suited to his herculean physique. In his spare time, he creates anime characters in Illustrator and draws logos for imaginary companies. But if you ask him about it, he’ll say “it’s just a thing I do, you know, I mean, it’s fun. I don’t think it’s very good.”

When he’s in his element, nobody questions his authority. But in this new territory, poor guy, he’s unsure of himself. While being humble is great and nobody likes a braggart, his answers and demeanor lack conviction and authority.

His work is actually pretty good, somewhere between conscious incompetence and conscious competence (see the four stages of competence).  He’s no Picasso, but he’s no stumblebum, either.

But because he’s working for himself and still new to design, he doesn’t feel confident about his work. No boss or organization is around to tell him whether or not his work is worth charging for.

It’s a kind of catch-22: you need authority to gain experience, but you need experience to gain authority.

What can he (and we) do?

We all need to be lions for our own work. If we aren’t the final authority on what we create, then who is? When people meet you and examine your work, most likely they’re asking themselves a few questions: ‘is this the real deal? I’m not sure. What about the person who created it? Are they serious?

People can smell self-doubt from a mile away. In the case of the bouncer, he reeks of it (worse than the bar smell that sticks to his clothes), and as a result people pass him over. If only he felt the same authority about his design work that he feels about his bouncing.

From authority flows confidence, and a confident creator will create better work. Why? Excessive self-doubt is crippling. The unsure musician usually stumbles.

Back to our bouncer. Why is he so confident while working for someone else’s interest but not his own?

As a representative for an organization larger than himself, he is shielded by policies and the larger group. If he says ‘no!’ to someone, he’s not saying ‘no’ as an individual but as a representative of that organization or group. If a person has a problem with the bouncer’s actions, the bouncer can always say he was just doing what he was told. He has a job to do and he has the full force of the company backing him up.

In short, it’s often easier to act in someone else’s interests. Why? Because responsibility lies not with the individual but with the organization. How can we give ourselves authority to act our own interests (and that of our work)?

• Recognize that you have a responsibility to be the final authority on your own work. Be prepared to define it and defed it.
• Know your stuff inside and out. Whatever your discipline or skill, put in the time, the effort, and be prepared to die on the treadmill.
• Reject the notion that a company’s interests are more valid than your own. When you create work, you’re a one-person company.
• Cultivate quiet confidence and humble mastery. If you think your work really isn’t good enough, then keep working until it is.
• Never apologize for anything you make (unless it physically harms someone). That’s like apologizing for your own existence.
• Imagine the people who support your work are your organization. Pretend you are accountable to them and working in their interests.

Over to you

• Why do you think it’s easier to act in the interests of others?
• What kind of mind tricks do you have for giving yourself authority?

Photo credit: eschipul

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Goodbye Korea!

This is my last roundup from Korea. In four days I’ll be on a plane bound for Bangkok. Right now, my apartment looks like it has been ransacked by a drunken monkey; clothes strewn about, half-stuffed suitcases, piles of papers, and anti-malaria tablets arranged in a winking smiley face on the kitchen table.

We’re simultaneously closing down our responsible life here and getting ready to hit the Banana Pancake trail for a few months. Lots of little stuff to do, but nothing unmanageable. My compulsive list-making has justified its existence once again

Spent my last weekend in Seoul playing music and spending time with good friends. I couldn’t ask for a better send-off.

But you’re not here to read about me! Blah. Sorry for the self-indulgence. Here are some articles I enjoyed this week:

• If you’ve been thinking about taking a long trip, check out Corbett Barr’s article The Pros and Cons of Long Term Travel. While I agree the positives outweigh the negatives, being away from home for a long time can be tough at times. Maybe the worst is the distance and gradual disconnection from friends and family.
• In Unrealized Projects, Seth Godin talks about an artist you who spends most of his time working on failed projects. He writes “One key element of a successful artist: ship [your product]. Get it out the door. Make things happen.” If I’ve advocated nothing else here at Happenchance, it’s a combination of making things happen and not worrying about failure. By the way, that artist’s name is Tim Burton.
• If you’re feeling stagnant or just want some new ideas, check out 100 Ways to Develop Your Mind. This ridiculously long list is full of good ideas. Among my favorites: stop talking, risk embarrassment, share your skills, take micro naps. I think he forgot something, or maybe I missed it: stop watching television.
• I really liked this article: Stuck in a Rut? Run from Experts. According to the author, experts tend to have narrow view of things. Why? Because they know (and probably like) the rules and conventions. In lieu of experts, you should seek out different kinds people, especially idea-oriented people, and play the fool and assume everyone is a genius. This last one comes pretty easy for me.
• My article 5 things I’ve learned in Korea was recently featured in the Travels of the Itineranti monthly travel roundup. I wrote that piece  after 6 months in Korea. Now that I’ve almost finished a year here, I still think all these points are valid, especially number five. Plenty of other good articles over there. Be sure to check them out.

Have a great week!.

Photo credit: albertopveiga

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My apologies in advance if this feels like an anti-television screed littered with broad generalizations.  -Seth

Leisure : freedom provided by the cessation of activities; especially : time free from work or duties Merriam-Webster

“The finest amusements are the most pointless ones.” -Jacques Chardonne

“Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never” -Benjamin Franklin

Imagine you just received several million dollars. Your first thought is ‘I’m going to relax and do nothing. Maybe you buy a bungalow and hire a small staff to cater to your whims.  You can sit on the beach, drink cocktails, and watch the tide to your heart’s content. After a week, though, something doesn’t feel right. You know it’s not bad fish. You can easily afford the best fish.

All those hours of relaxation and doing nothing…at first it seemed like a dream come true. Now, though, you’re ready to throw your beach chair into the sea, just to see something different.

What’s the problem? What happened? Your mind wants some action. Sitting on your ass just isn’t natural.

After last week’s article on Flow, I began thinking about the times and places where people find Flow. Besides work, people were most likely to report experiencing Flow while doing activities they enjoy. If Flow is one key to happiness, why are so many people unhappy and dissatisfied?

I think many underestimate just how important their leisure time time is. As hard-working people,  it might seem strange and self-indulgent to take play time so seriously.

Remember that leisure is not laziness! We all need time to unwind, but that time needs to be well-spent on engaging yet ‘pointless’ activities and useless skills.

Why is Active Leisure Important?

In my unscientific, biased, and totally subjective opinion, well-spent leisure time makes life more fun. It may even prevent freak outs, burn outs, and homicidal rampages.

Active Leisure also helps people:

• Find Flow in activities they love
• Have more energy and enthusiasm for their work
• Give their mind a chance to wander and recharge
• Have something fun to look forward to
• Live richer lives
• Discover new  interests
• Meet new people
• Increase divergent thinking

What’s the Problem?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most Americans have about 5 hours of leisure time per day. The world is an interesting place with activities and hobbies for every taste. The problem is many people have trouble finding interesting ways to fill their time.

The most common leisure activity is watching television. That same BLS study also reports that Americans spend half their leisure  time watching television. Rather than being a harmless, relaxing activity, television watching can actually lead to heart disease. The same applies for any activity that involves sitting for long periods of time (bloggers beware).

If heart disease weren’t bad enough, researchers at the University of Maryland found that unhappy people watch more television, while happy people spend more time reading and socializing. This doesn’t necessarily mean tv causes people to become unhappy; rather, maybe happier people are motivated to do things besides watch television.

For others, when they find themselves with free time they could use to pursue  leisure activity, they instead choose to work more.  The thinking is something like this: ‘if I sacrifice other areas of life for a little while, I’ll build my business to the point where I’ll eventually have free time.’

Planning for an ill-defined ‘easy period’ is a particularly subversive kind of masochism, because a person may never even reach this point. Why? They either burn out or keep coming up with tasks they ‘must’ do.

This kind of work and thinking creates a grey area for your brain, like you’re not working but you sort of are. In this state, you’re more likely to be treading water than having great ideas. You’re always on.

Hard work is important and obsession can be a wonderful thing, but like a convict, sometimes you just have to escape.

What’s the Solution?

• Schedule time to for serious leisure activity. The time needn’t be great, a couple hours a few times a week is a good start
• Value your leisure time and relinquish it only with great care. Remember the definition of leisure includes freedom from work and duty.
• Find something that really grabs your attention and do it. It needn’t be important, productive, or useful. Useless skills are fun to develop.
• Some recommend fixed-schedule productivity, but this doesn’t work so well for me.
• Seek out people with similar interests. Or, to learn something new, seek out people you have nothing in common with.
• Reduce time spent watching television . This should be obvious by now.
• Remember that active leisure needn’t be expensive. You don’t always need new gear to get into something.

One more thing: Leisure time vs. Spare time

Leisure time or free time, active or otherwise, is the time where you’re not working…at all. In fact, you are vigorously avoiding all forms of ‘work’ or other industrious activity, unless you are working on some project as a leisure activity. Nothing wrong with that; some days I can’t tell whether writing is work or leisure. Plenty of activities fall into this blended category.

Spare time, however, means short breaks in your work or during your working day. These are times when you’re shifting between tasks,  waiting for a phone call, whatever. If you can make the make the most of your spare time, you can maximize your leisure time. This means not checking your email ten times a day or getting sucked into a couple hours of web surfing. I mention these only because they are my leisure-time vampires.

Over to You:

• How do you spend your leisure time?
• For you self-employed people, do you find it hard to allow yourself leisure time?
• Do you have categories that blend work and leisure?

Photo Credit: swanksalot

You may also enjoy:

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With hundreds of thousands of people dead and millions left homeless, this week ends on a somber note. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here are 48 Photos from the Earthquake in Haiti. Look at them. I have nothing to add except that we all have a responsibility to do what we can to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake. Please donate to the American Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders.

With that said, I’d like to share some articles I enjoyed reading this week:

How Dirty Is Your Mind? compares writing skills to house cleaning. ”When we neglect the attic of our mind, all our creativity goes to waste.” In short, it’s easier to keep a clean attic and solid writing chops when you attend to these things on a regular basis.

5 Ways to Conquer Self Doubt could be a continuation on an article I wrote about managing your inner critic. My favorite tip is to go back in time and ask yourself when and why you first starting worrying about a certain type of situation. The author also mentions looking for the successes you have had. For example: if I can [climb a mountain, pass calculus, raise a child], then I can surely [write a book, get out of debt, master falconry].

While some of the points are just common sense, 50 Ways to Get Your Life in Order is worth reading. I would add one more point: don’t try all of this at once. If only I could finish the Herculean task of organizing my photo collection (#33).

XXX

This list of articles is pretty thin as I haven’t been reading many blogs this week. I’m up to my elbows in leaving-Korea preparations.

Three things I’ve learned from these preparations:

1)You can sell anything on craigslist. Houseplants, humidifiers, salvaged furniture. Selling on CL is like having people pay you to dispose of your stuff.

2) Whenever possible, get a backup debit card. Check your accounts monthly, more frequently when traveling. Keep your bank informed of travel plans  and big purchases.

3) Whenever you deal with a bureaucracy, gather up as many official documents as you can. Once you have them all, gather even more, things like utility bills and passport photos. Sometimes bribe money helps

XXX

Have a wonderful week, but remember those who have lost everything.

Photo credit: pinksherbet

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Have you ever become completely lost in your favorite activity? Lost track of time? Felt focused, energized, and completely unselfconscious? As  if your body and mind were working in perfect harmony?

If so, you may have experienced something by described by the Hungarian professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as the Flow state. In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimum Experience, CM explains what Flow is, when people experience it,  and why it’s so important.

Athletes call this ‘being in the zone.’ Buddhists might call this simply mindfulness or low-level nirvana. The Greeks would describe this as being taken over by the muse.

Whenever you see an amazing performance or creation, it’s a safe bet to assume the performer or creator was experiencing flow.

Why is Flow Important?

According to Csikszentmihalyi, once a person achieves a certain level of income (maybe $35,000 US/year), their happiness levels are about the same as people who make $300,000/year. What does this mean?

Making more money doesn’t make people happier. Owning more  stuff doesn’t make people happier.

Experiencing Flow makes people happier.

Experiencing flow will not only make you happier, but it will improve the quality of your work. Writers say the work they produce while in the Flow state is some of their best. People who perform together like athletes and musicians spend a lot of time talking about chemistry. Why? Because good chemistry leads to more frequent Flow in groups. This leads to better overall performance.

What is Flow?

Flow is attention. Total and complete attention. Or, in Csikszentmihalyi’s words, Flow is:

“being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

Other characteristics of flow include:

• Feeling energized, focused, engrossed, and unselfconscious
• Experiencing great clarity, engagement, and total immersion
• Being blissfully ignorant of things like hunger and fatigue

When do People Experience Flow?

Everything I’ve read suggests that most people find flow while doing one of two things: hobbies they love or working at their job. The latter is a little surprising, as a lot of people will tell you they don’t like their job. Jobs, though, have all several of the components required for flow: a rule-based system, feedback, clear and definable goals.

A person is most likely to find flow while engaged in an activity where the challenges match the skill level. During low-challenge activities, people become bored. If an activity is too challenging, they experience worry and anxiety. The chart below describes when people are most likely to experience flow.

Besides doing hobbies and activities, many people find Flow in social situations. Why? Conversation and social interactions have definite rules, they provide immediate feedback, and they’re rewarding for their own sake.

Other flow-inducing activities include creating music and art, writing, writing code and building websites, playing sports, learning and studying, reading, watching good movies, playing chess and other board games, building things, traveling, climbing and abseiling/rapelling,  skiing, surfing…this list could keep going.

Video games seem to be designed with flow in mind. People have written papers on such things. Jenove Chen, for example. Why are games so likely to help people find flow? They have all the attributes required for finding flow: a  system with clear rules, immediate feedback (scores), goal-based challenges. They also require full concentration, engagement, and a certain amount of skill.

Finally, people rarely experience flow during passive recreation. Csikszentmihalyi cites a German study that found people who read more books reported more frequent flow experiences. On the other hand, the more television a person watched, the less likely they were to experience flow. Why? Television is a passive medium. Watching requires little skill and provides no challenge. Plus, commercials destroy concentration.

Tips for Finding Flow

Finding flow can take some work. I wish there were a magic button you could push. But, as they say, wish in one hand… Regardless, here are a few tips from my own experience that you might find useful.

• Ensure that an activity challenges you and engages your interests.
• Have clear goals. If you know exactly what you want, your mind will help you get it.
• Engage all your senses. One painter (I’ve lost the source) said sniffing a painting helped.
• Create a comfortable environment.
• Forgot about other people. Forget about other activities. Forget about failure.
• Use background music. For me, lyrics are distracting, so I stick with jazz, classical, and some jam bands.
• Eliminate all distractions. This could be other people, cell phones, email, whatever.
• Look and listen for feedback.
• Put in adequate time to learn the required skills. Most challenging activities have a learning curve.

Further Reading

• The book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
• Wikipedia entry on Flow. Plenty of good resources at the end of this entry.
• Article from Psychology Today called Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
• Solving Procrastination Using Flow by Kevin Chiu.

Over to You:

• Where do you find Flow?
• Do you have any tips for finding flow? Are there meta-skills for entering flow?
• Any meditation or Zen practitioner out there? What’s your take on this concept?

Flow diagram credit: Dr.  Enh
Photo credit: morphomir

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