An essay on the motivational forces that pull us from and push us toward doing our best work, and how I deal with them
I have struggled with procrastination for as long as I can remember. As a kid, being asked to clean my minimally messy room turned into a day long project. I would go through many iterations and variations of avoiding the simple task that I was given. At 9 AM, my mother would ask me to pick things up. When she returned at noon, almost 0 progress would have been made. It was agonizing to both of us.
Fast forward to my time in college, and the situation was much the same. I was aware of deadlines for papers, but paid…
No matter our job or circumstances, we all have customers, and serving them is our most important and beneficial work
My first job was as a bagger at a grocery store about a mile from my house. Every day, after clocking in, I had to check in at the front desk to receive my day’s assignment. Once I got there, a manager on duty would look at the schedule, see what needed to be done, and assign me my work for the shift.
But that big front desk was also the customer service desk. It was where customers would bring returns, haggle about wrong prices, and generally look for help. …
A run-down of the most impactful books I’ve read so far this year, and what I took away from them
At the beginning of the year, I hopped on the 12-week year wagon. That is, I began setting goals and measuring my activity based on 12-week intervals that I treat like a year. If you’re curious about how this works, check out the book. I highly recommend it.
Right now, I’m in the period where my “year” has ended. I’m reviewing, renewing, and setting the goals and plan for the coming 12-week year.
While doing that, I took a look at the books I read during that period that are worth sharing. Most of them, I’ve shared already in some…
When life as we knew it turned upside-down, I was fortunate enough to pick up a few helpful pieces of insight along the way
As for most people in the U.S., my life was turned upside-down around March 15th, 2020. We had been hearing about COVID-19 for a few months, and the chatter became progressively louder, but we didn’t expect that it would turn into a lockdown that would keep most of the world away from each other for over a year.
But here we are — a year since being told to stay in our homes and away from each other — and it’s hard to underestimate just how much has changed during that time. When I say “changed,” I’m not talking about…
Morihei Ueshiba and some overlooked truths about personal growth and happiness
In the first pages of The Art of Peace, Morihei Ueshiba lays down a lesson that has stuck with me for the decade or so since I first read it:
One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
The message is as simple as it is powerful. But it’s easy to miss, if you don’t give it much thought. …
Adapting a simple practice from world-class cyclists can help you achieve more with less effort
What can cycling and aerodynamics teach us about building habits and achieving goals more easily?
One word: drag. It’s a well-known term in aerodynamics, but one we also encounter when we try to build habits or overcome procrastination and get things done.
The faster an object tries to move, the more it encounters drag — the resistance of the air around it. If you’re trying to get somewhere quickly while expending the least amount of energy, drag becomes increasingly important to think about. Drag needs to be overcome and minimized.
But overcoming drag is not just a physical undertaking. We…
The nature of our work has changed dramatically in the past few decades, but these 4 ideas remain evergreen
Whether you’re a founder, a maker, or both, the work you do doesn’t much resemble the kind of work most people did at the beginning of the 20th century. Since about the 1960s, the term knowledge work has been used to describe what most of us — from the C-suite on down — have to do.
The problem with knowledge work is that it folds in on itself. It’s the kind of work where 50% of the work is figuring out what you need to do, 30% is figuring out how you’re going to manage to get it done given…
My experience with not charging for things in the creative landscape
What do you give away for free, and what do you charge for?
As a creator, and as someone with both sales and marketing experience, this question continues to plague me. After all, if I’ve sunk my time and effort into something, shouldn’t I get compensated for that? Why should I throw it all out there for people to take for free?
Making a Thing
Just over three years ago, I built a pretty in-depth spreadsheet for running the GTD productivity system without having to use any apps. I built it to solve a problem I was having, to fill a burning desire…
Why I’ve done away with GTD “contexts” for next actions, and adopted a simple scheduling system instead
The genius of a productivity system like David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) consist of two key habits:
- get everything out of your head and onto a list
- think in terms of next actions
Both of these habits are beneficial. But they have their downsides — especially when you adopt them together. A major downside is that you end up with a giant list of next actions — one that overwhelms you as you glance at it. …
A brief manifesto on being an effective teacher, coach, or consultant
Why do you do what you do? More specifically, why do you do the work that you do? Is it money? Do you do it for praise? Do you want to be known and respected? Or is it something else?
I was talking once with a woman who did a lot of consulting work for manufacturers. She would come into their plants, review how they moved around materials, where people assembled things, and how they did it.
She would do time studies, take detailed notes, and provide presentations to executives. Ultimately, she would be able to provide them with impressive…
Mike Sturm
Author of “The Wabi-Sabi Way” and “Be, Think, Do”. Subscribe to my newsletter “Woolgathering”: https://goo.gl/UhzUYL.
