I’m doing something a little different with my Wednesday blog posts in April. Together, this four-part series is a deeply personal investigation of the career I’ve created so far. First I wrote about why I do this, and then about what I do. This week we’ll build on that. Enjoy!
An Honest Audit, Part Three: How?
- Extreme, in fact almost obsessive, dedication to goal setting & to-do lists
- Constantly seeking to grow and improve
- Taking things way too seriously.
That’s it. That’s today’s post! 😀
Alright, clearly a little explanation is needed. 🙂 In my list above, I’m hard on myself in numbers 1 and 2 precisely because I recently remembered number 3–that is, that no matter how much my career matters to me, I still can (and probably should) have a sense of humor about it.
Let me start by explaining steps 1 and 2 first. I have a quarterly kanban board–you may have seen it on social media. I have weekly tasks and I do my best to block out time in my schedule. I categorize and ‘snooze’ emails, and I monitor writers’ message boards, and I have reminders in my phone to make posts. (This is all a little better than it used to be, believe it or not.) I have a business plan, even, although it’s just something I wrote for myself in Google Docs. And there’s always a dozen new marketing methods or publishing tricks or writing skills on the backburner that I know I could be learning about. I like learning, so that’s not such a bad thing; and to be honest, I really enjoy checking tasks off and knowing that little steps now are directed toward a larger goal.
Did you see the movie Klaus? Remember the montage of collecting letters to reach the postmaster’s goal? That’s where I live right now. 😉
So, as an indie author–and a fairly productive (as in, number of words produced!) one at that–I often get comments like: “but how do you do it all?” and “boy, if it was me, I just wouldn’t have the gumption/discipline/motivation/all-work-no-play attitude necessary.” . . . Okay, I made that last one up. But sometimes, I can feel that tone in the other person’s words. Like they’re half impressed but half thinking Jeez, doesn’t she ever stop?
Um, no.
But again, I’m kidding a little bit. The truth is, I do stop. Or–I do try to. I know just as well as the next Instagram user that self-care is essential (and, preferably, photogenic). The trouble is that–as I touched on briefly in last week’s post–my work is self-directed, and I’m never away from my self. When your self-care is another item on your to-do list and you’re relying on it to “work” so that you can have the energy to hit the next few milestones you set for yourself, you have a problem.
That’s where step 3 comes in.
I won’t lie–the picture above is a little bleak. It’s also something I know that other writers and authors can relate to. I’m not saying you must be a ruthless perfectionist completionist in order to make it as an indie author–I sincerely hope you don’t! But because of the way we tend to think about “passion projects” and “starving artists” and even “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” it’s easy to fall into this trap. It’s like, in order to mitigate or justify the fact that you want to make a living through subjective art, you wind up making it as objective and planned as possible.
Which is, actually, a little funny.
I’m not a ruthless person, and I’m definitely not perfect. But I do get caught up in the impossible-ness of it all, and that makes me hold on too tightly to my schedule, my goals, and even my “should-do” self-care activities. That’s when I need a sense of perspective to come along and shake me out of the seriousness.
So, how do I do this? Not always well. But organization (the positive aspect of step 1!) is a very helpful baseline. And flexibility (the bright side of being open to change, step 2!) is key as well. And above all, a sense of humor is necessary–because with humor comes perspective, and with perspective comes a chance to be kind to yourself, to let some things go. To loosen up and even, sometimes, to see that you’ve done things “wrong.” To try again, with a new state of mind.
Because honestly, the only real concrete answer to how do you do this is you just keep doing.
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P.S. Erich was right. <3
