or should be.
Yep, nothing like a little on-site inspiration.
Your audience awaits.
Category Archives: productivity
Writers Horoscope for October 13: Today, ponder ‘sonder’.
Yes, the word is ‘sonder’.
From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. To help you visualize, short video here.
Let it feed today’s writing.
**
Note: Thanks to Seth Godin for introducing the Writers Horoscope to this concept.
Writers Horoscope for October 12: Today, new frontiers await.
Columbus isn’t the only one to be honored today.
Give a nod to yourself.
But only after you try your hand at say, a how-to article on unexpected uses of hair conditioner [yes, there are], or Astrology and the Home Cook [You’re on your own with that one.] or an impromptu photo story,
Happy Thanksgiving to Canadians, by the way.
Writers Horoscope for October 11: Today, you need to fast.
No, don’t go tossing your vat of candy corn.
You’ve engulfed your brain with too much media.
Time for a news fast.
It does nothing but bring you down and, even worse, keep you from your real work.
Image courtesy of gratisography.com
Writers Horoscope for October 10: Others seek you out.
Of course others seek you out!
After all, you put words together in clear, concise fashion.
You’re brimming with creative and unique avenues of expression.
Wellllll, there’s a problem.
You’re being sought out today for another of your attractive traits: perceived free time.
“Oh, it’s just a little yard work,” they say.
It’s never just ‘a little’.
You could go with yesterday’s suggestion: turn and run.
Or you could throw a fit…
Or you could show a creepingly inordinate amount of enthusiasm for the work.
That oughta cut back on the calls for help.
Writers Horoscope for October 9: Perfectionism’s creeping in.
You could turn and run.
Or meet it head-on…with a new sentence, then a paragraph, a page, a chapter, a book.
Seth Godin keeps his view of perfection pretty darned simple.
Here’s another take:
One thing is certain: perfection is not a blank page.
Writers Horoscope for October 8: Today, you can learn your ‘why’.
Writers Horoscope for October 7: A New Voice Emerges.
Uninvited, by the way.
Yep, just when you thought you had nailed the logical soft-spoken maybe a bit uptight mid-40s professional, out comes an irascible sarcastic dope who spews about everything he knows nothing about.
Give him a day. Have a chat with him. You might even try to scare him away.
If the creep is still around, make room for him in one of your stories.
Writers Horoscope for October 6: Still unmotivated? Look inside you.
Following yesterday’s suggestions, you cleaned up your physical workspace.
It only helped a little.
Time to clean up your inner workspace.
Here’s a great start, thanks to Todd Brison’s 195 Words to Keep You Going If You Feel Down.
Highlights:
- He takes aim at ‘Comfort’ and ‘Safety’.
- He tells us to listen to our inner ‘don’t give up’ messages.
Give it a shot.
Writers Horoscope for October 5: Feeling unmotivated? Look around you.
Turns out you shouldn’t knock yourself for feeling listless…apathetic…phlegmatic. Well, you get the idea.
James Clear claims that, in many cases, our work environment influences our productivity more than our motivation.
Suggestions:
- Automate your working space to steer yourself toward good decisions. Example: Use software to block access to social media sites.
- Place meaningful, productive tools [non-wifi connected laptop] within easy reach. He calls it ‘getting in the flow’.
- Negate your unproductive influences. In other words, hide the bad food. Don’t work near the TV. Clear out the clutter, which consistently drains our focus.
Now, if you lack motivation to sharpen up your work environment, well, that’s a topic for another day. Sympathy will not be forthcoming, however.
Word Inventions 