Category / Motivation

Ticking the Box

Keeping the streak going is one thing. But don’t do it just to tick the box. That’s not a reason for anything.

If you’re just ticking the box, stop, step back, and decide if it’s worth doing at all. You have to rediscover why you’re doing it. The excitement you had for the task when you started won’t always be there and you’ll need to put in the time when you won’t want to. But not just to tick the box. There has to be another reason. If not there’s no point.

Tick the box by all means, but for a reason. Not “just”.

by Colin Brosnan

Gear Drop

You can’t keep working at the same pace day in, day out. But you don’t have to stop either. You can just drop a gear.

Maybe you’re feeling unwell. Maybe you’re stuck. Maybe you don’t have the time.

Drop a gear, or two, and you still make progress. You’re pace will drop but you haven’t stopped, you’re still moving forward.

Don’t let the day defeat you. Drop a gear and get over that hill.

by Colin Brosnan

Proportional Time

Our time is important. It’s a scarce resource. One we often spend haphazardly.
Yes, we’re allowed time off. Yes, we’re allowed breaks. I’m not suggesting that every second of our time must be spent on something deemed productive. Too much time in productivity mode and not enough in rest mode will see us run down and unable to continue.
No, I’m talking about something else. Proportional time. The time we spend on a task should be more or less depending on how important it is to us. Or the impact it has on our lives.
If we spend a lot of time on something we are saying it’s important to us. If we don’t spend a lot of time on something we are saying we don’t care about it.
It is easy to get confused and spend the wrong amount of time on something. Sometimes we become trapped spending time on something we don’t care about. More often we spend too little time on the things we say are important to us.
It’s important to take a moment every now and again to realign how we spend our time.
The proportion is important.
by Colin Brosnan

Well of Ideas

Our ideas spring up from the depths of our mind and pool together in a well. We can dip into that well when we need an idea.

Sometimes though we fear the well will dry up so we hoard what we have. We ration it. We save it for another time.

We believe a time will come when we need that idea more. We tell ourselves we’ll use the idea then. We dare not use it before then. That time never comes. Or it did and we didn’t recognise it so caught up are we in saving it for our day of need.

The idea goes unused.

Instead of running dry from overuse the well stagnates from lack of use. The ideas we hoard go stale. Thick weeds grow up around the well, hiding it, making it difficult to get to, impossible to dip into.

Don’t let this happen to you. Keep the well fresh, use it.

by Colin Brosnan

Great, But…

Friday was the 40th anniversary of Apple’s founding. A milestone. A time for reflection on the road that led to now. An opportunity to look at the possibilities of the future.

The news report I watched did look at the achievements of the past. But there was also something else. A look at the future, yes, but a particular sort of look to the future that dismisses what has already been achieved. The sort of thing that’s done with a shake of the head and a sigh that implies the person is saying, “Yeah, that’s all well and good but can you do it again?”

What the report actually said was that Apple must now prove it can keep innovating in order to continue growing for the next 40 years. It’s not that the question is invalid or can’t be asked. It’s the context of the question. Throwing it in at the end of the report, as a throw away statement, implies that Apple are screwed. It’s the same as congratulating a married couple on their first wedding anniversary and implying, without evidence, that they’ll be divorced by their second anniversary. “Congratulations to them, but will they be married this time next year?”

To me that’s a real indictment of our way of thinking as a society. We no longer take a moment to enjoy what’s been achieved. Instead we look back and say “Great, but it’s not really good enough is it? What you’ve done in the past doesn’t matter. It’s only what you do next that matters”. Except when it comes to that next thing it’s not good enough either. So that in the end nothing is ever good enough. It’s the kind of outlook that denies us satisfaction with our lives and achievements. As a society or as individuals.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look to the future, or that we can’t set goals. Not at all. It simply means that as individuals we need to learn to take the time to enjoy a milestone before moving onto planning for the next one. Hopefully society will follow.

by Colin Brosnan

Change Comes from Planning and Following Through

You’re not happy with the status quo. Things are not how you want them to be. You want change.

But the change you want won’t happen unless you do something about it. You need to plan it and then act on the plan.

On a very simple level if you normally wake up at 8am you can’t expect to magically wake up at 5am just because you want to. No, you have to plan the actions you will take. Actions such as setting your alarm for 5am. Put if you don’t follow through and actually get out of bed when the alarm sounds nothing changes.

The same goes for every other change you want. You have to plan it and follow through.

The good change comes from you.

by Colin Brosnan

Break the Chain

You’ve probably heard of the productivity method used by comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Brad Issac wrote an article about it back in 2007. The method is known as “Don’t break the chain.”

In the article Issac describes how he was hanging around comedy clubs, doing open mic nights and trying to get better at being a comic. One night he was in the same club as Jerry Seinfeld and took the opportunity to ask him if he had any tips for a young comic. Seinfeld’s reply was that to be a better comic you had to create better jokes and to create better jokes you have to write every day. Every day, even when you don’t feel like it.

But writing every day was just the goal. It’s how Seinfeld suggested Isaac force himself to write every day that’s important.

Seinfeld told Issac to get a big wall calendar with a whole year on one page and hang it where he could see it. For every day that Isaac completed his task of writing he could put a big X over that day. After a few days he’d have a chain. With each day he wrote the chain would grow longer. Isaac’s only job once he got going was “Don’t break the chain”.

It’s a useful method. Simple and helpful.

But there’s a flip side, and it’s just as important.

It’s the bad chain that you need to break. The chain that’s not doing you any good. The chain that you’re allowing to grow longer every day out of habit. Knowingly or unknowingly your’re allowing the wrong chain to grow. Instead of “don’t break the chain” you need to “break the chain”.

Sitting watching TV every night? Break the chain.

Spending hours on social media every day? Break the chain.

Eating unhealthy food for every meal? Break the chain.

What chain are you keeping that isn’t doing you any good? Break it.

by Colin Brosnan

The Process is Important

The process is important.

But to know if the process is working you have to follow it. Otherwise it’s just arbitrary. You can’t complain about the cake unless you follow the recipe unless exactly.

Then if you don’t like how it turned out you can tweak the recipe and try again.

If a process isn’t working you have to change it. If you’re not succeeding you have to break it and remake it. Trim it or add in extra steps.

by Colin Brosnan

Heed It or You Don’t Need It

Heed It or You Don’t Need It

Articles, tutorials, videos, podcasts – if you want to learn something new the internet has you covered. But that great content is only any good if you follow through on it. It’s only any good if you DO.

If all you do is read that great tutorial you haven’t learned anything. You must put it into practice. That video won’t do anything for you unless you’re building off it. You’re fooling yourself into thinking you’re helping yourself. You’re procrastinating. You’re putting off the doing.

So stop. Close that article. Close that video. Start doing.

Start writing, or taking photos, or building websites, or building apps, or making furniture, or whatever it is you aspire to do.

Stop thinking you need to know more than you do now before you start. When you start you will be terrible. That’s okay. Be terrible. Revel in how bad you are. Celebrate it. This is the worst you’ll ever be.

Without starting you can’t improve. Reading about it is no substitute for doing. You still have to start. You can’t read about being a photographer and get to say you’re a photographer. You have to take photos. You can’t read about building websites and say you’re a web developer. You have build a website.

Start with the basics. Yes, you can use a tutorial as a guide. Just don’t use it to avoid the doing.

Once you’ve started, once you’ve actually done something, keep going. Now you know where you’re weak. Now you can find a tutorial about that. How can you improve? Try again. Do again. Read again.

You haven’t started at all if all you do is read tutorials, watch videos, listen to how-tos. Heed it or you don’t need it.

Enough reading. Enough watching. Enough listening. Start doing.

by Colin Brosnan