Manage Your Day-to-Day was a book I had heard about, forgotten about, and heard about again. I downloaded the Kindle book and highlighted as I went along. It was a great short book for travel, comprised of short essays by some great minds—including my man Leo Babauta of mnmlist and Zen Habits—and interspersed throughout with quotable quotes. Basically this book is page after page of terrific advice for creative minds from creative minds. I challenge you to give it a try.
Goodreads does this really cool thing where it links to your Kindle and gives you the option to upload and share your highlights, so here are mine:
- If you want to create something worthwhile with your life, you need to draw a line between the world’s demands and your own ambitions.
- It’s better to disappoint a few people over small things, than to surrender your dreams for an empty inbox.
- Usually I write for many hours during a day, though sometimes it might be a stint as short as fifteen minutes—and I never skip a day.
- Frequency makes starting easier.
- By working every day, you keep your momentum going.
- She hadn’t done much work, so what she did accomplish had to be extraordinarily good. Because I write every day, no one day’s work seems particularly important.
- I have good days and I have bad days. Some days, I don’t get much done at all. But that’s okay, because I know I’m working steadily.
- Creativity arises from a constant churn of ideas, and one of the easiest ways to encourage that fertile froth is to keep your mind engaged with your project. When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.
- Nothing is more satisfying than seeing yourself move steadily toward a big goal.
- You see yourself do the work, which shows you that you can do the work.
- You make yourself make time, every day.
- “It’s the task that’s never started that’s more tiresome.”
- “What I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.”
- Tactics are idiosyncratic. But strategies are universal.
- There are many ways you can signify to yourself that you are doing your practice. For example, some people wear a white lab coat or a particular pair of glasses, or always work in a specific place—in doing these things, they are professionalizing their art.
- The notion that I do my work here, now, like this, even when I do not feel like it, and especially when I do not feel like it, is very important. Because lots and lots of people are creative when they feel like it, but you are only going to become a professional if you do it when you don’t feel like it.
- We’re designed to move rhythmically between spending and renewing our energy.
- Sleep is more important than food.
- How do you meditate? Find a quiet space and sit. Stay upright, keep your eyes open but not focused on anything in particular, and breathe through your nose. Start by noticing your posture, your body. Then focus your attention on your breath, as it comes in and out of your body. Notice your thoughts coming up, acknowledge them, but don’t engage with them. Always return your attention to your breath. Keep doing this for at least a few minutes, and you’re done.
- At first meditation will be uncomfortable, but you’ll get better at it. You’ll learn a lot about yourself, and you’ll get better at being mindful, and being comfortable in solitude. You’ll also learn to watch your thoughts and not be controlled by them. As you do, you’ll have learned a key skill for focus: how to notice the urge to switch tasks and not act on that urge, but just return your attention to the task at hand. This is what you learn in solitude, and it is everything.
- In a world filled with distraction, attention is our competitive advantage. Look at each day as a challenge—and an opportunity—to keep your eye on the prize.
- The amount of value lost to unchecked use of convenient but distracting work habits is staggering.
Reading Challenges
Here we go for reading challenge updates:
- PopSugar 2017 reading challenge No. 20, a book with career advice.
- Book Dragon’s Lair Audiobook challenge Nope.
- Book Dragon’s Lair Pages Read challenge This 253 pgs brings me to 12,546 pgs.
- Read It Again, Sam Nope.
- My Reader’s Block Mount To Be Read (TBR) and Rock My TBR challenge Not counting this one since I completely forgot about it.
- Diverse Reads challenge (here and here). No, but stay tuned.
- The Book Date Full House challenge Nope.
- The Book Date Read the Books You Buy challenge Yes! Currently at 13 of 42.
- The Worm Hole’s What’s In A Name challenge Nope.
- Anne Read Along Nope.
Hashtags for the challenges that had them:
#popsugarreadingchallenge
#rockmytbr
#diversereads2017
#whatsinaname2017
#AnneReadAlong2017
Do things feel really busy and overwhelming just now, or is that just me?
Much Love,
Jobe
J. Jobe 