You know that To Do list that keeps getting longer?
The “someday maybe”s you mull over at the end of the day?
I’ve got my own. Always wanted to write a novel, for example. Writing stories is a love I’ve neglected in the way of seemingly more pressing concerns: paying the bills, keeping colleagues and clients happy, building the “brand,” etc.
“When I get some free time I’d love to [insert dream here].”
“Free time” is a fairy tale if you keep your eyes and ears open to the flood.
There’s always another YouTube video that’ll make you laugh. Another blog post packed with tips you might leverage to make more money this year. Another grain in the rumor mill spinning around the latest pre-launch tech product.
Keeping up with the latest is a solid way to sideline your creativity.
Stop consuming content. Stop letting others build your To Do list. Escape your email inbox.
Find a nook, shut down your wi-fi, turn off the mobile phone and don’t come out until you’ve done something worth doing.
And the only way to judge what is worth doing is against your own sense of bliss.
Ignore us for a while. We’ll forgive you.
As bad as I am at following that advice, I completely agree with it. On the one hand, as web professionals, learning and social media are essential to our businesses. Past a point, though, it just starts to be noise, and we have to learn when (and how) to shut it off. It’s too easy to spend an 8-hour day full of activity where you realize you accomplished absolutely nothing.
We’re all terrible at following that advice. I’m the worst.
But I guess the point is to recognize how bad we are at it…you know, so we can be down on ourselves.
We should go talk about how bad we are about it on Twitter. Then, I’ll go write a LiveJournal entries about all my resolutions. After that, I’ll re-load my Amazon affiliate account every hour to see if this conversation made me any money.
You, sir, are a man of vision.