Category: Work

Make Without a Map

Photo by Kerimli Temkin from Pexels

Saw this today from ‘That which is unique, breaks,’ via @hundredrabbits.

If you commoditize toys, you remove the toymaker. If you remove the toymaker, the toy is only an object of consumption. It ceases to be an object of wonder.

When tasked in 2009 to “fill up the search engines,” during my time at AOL Music, we published 20+ posts a day. Anything that people might search for, let’s have something written and published.

Here we had a stable of competent, knowledgeable writers – all uniquely qualified individuals – cranking out SEO-friendly “content” to be read and indexed by machines.

As an editor this pained me.

Throw away posts about band members getting arrested got more traffic than finely written interviews with notable artists.

Therefore, feed the machine. Find the drama. Find the bleeding story in the ocean of content, attract the swarm of sharks.

At this point, the inmates run the asylum. The child screams for a cookie, so feed them cookies.

“That which is unique, breaks.”

A unique offering, built with editorial discernment, breaks.

I do not need to spoil your view with visions of this architecture, I only wonder, what have their creators ever repaired?

Who has turned the ship around? Rebuilt the damaged hull? Fixed a site? Started from scratch?

As Seth Godin says, “If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map.”

Showing Up is the Secret

From one of my recent emails from The Soft Run:

As I approached this house a kid (maybe 10 or 11) came running around a corner today, and yelled, asking to use my phone.

Then as I got closer, I realized he wasn’t wearing socks or shoes!

Just another day, just another run, right? Nope. One run out of almost 300 this year, and never once did I see a jeep set-up like the one above, nor did I help a kid get back into his house after being locked out in the middle of winter with no shoes or socks. BRRR.

I keep getting lost in the binary thinking of success, of making it. Either you’re a popular YouTube star with a million subscribers, or you’ve only got 13 and it feels like a waste of time.

You want to be this “thing,” but you don’t have the “social evidence” that you are the thing.

Are you a musician if no one buys your music? Are you a writer if no one replies to your pitches? Are you a photographer if you’re images aren’t on magazine covers?

Again, permission. Waiting for permission is the killer.

I am 44 years old – what right do I have to wear gaudy purple sneakers and tights and a cool jacket and run around the backroads here?

I work in music – what right do I have to make “dark ambient” mixes? What, do I think I’m going to MAKE IT?!?!

Wait, I thought I made dark ambient mixes – why am I making smooth chill jams with funky stock video footage?

Because I choose to.

Am I now locked into that identity? Must I now maintain a weekly music mix? Set up a live stream? Do a daily tune and post on every social network?

Well, if I choose to, sure.

Just go be everything you want to be. Doesn’t matter if it looks right, sounds right, has the right presentation – just make a little bit of magic each day.

This post partially inspired by Seth Godin’s ‘The Practice: Ship creative work‘ book.

Things and Apps Change

In this post from 2019, I list a few things I use like Spark for email, Todoist, and Bear.

Now, in late 2020, there’s been some changes.

I ditched Spark and just use the web-interface for personal email in Fastmail. My Close Mondays work email is all handled via Front, which handles the group inbox thing really well.

I use Todoist mostly for reminders to post Instagram stories for clients, since it let’s me upload the image and URL really well, and that’s about it. All my work related stuff is now sitting in Basecamp and I love it so much.

And Bear? Eh, I do some journal stuff in there, but mostly whenever I open it back up I find something that I end up throwing in Basecamp.

Slow Down and Smell the Roses

Just like soft running, sometimes you need a soft ride. I’ve been going hard these last few months, trying to lose weight, get faster, and all that other pretty fucking typical stuff. Then came a 10 mile trail race and I realized I didn’t have that much fun. It’s time to recalibrate.

Left the house and it was around 70 degrees, but sort of cool on the bike. I actually rode slow enough to be chilly; like, just riding so easy that I wasn’t really warming myself. It was a nice feeling. I slowed, looked deep into the woods, scanned the creeks, stopped to smell some pine trees.

Just like we can’t focus on work for 8+ hours, at least not in a healthy way, we can’t always workout hardcore either. I mean, if you’re young, cool! Do you! But it’s also nice to just switch it up.

Stop and smell the roses is cliche for a reason.

And I’ve discovered in my journey with outsourcing, there’s been some quiet time. There’s been moments in the day where shit is actually done, caught up. Nothing to do. It’s glorious, but also terrifying. It’s just not something I’m familiar with, having gone pretty much full tilt since 2018 when my Close Mondays operation really took off.

Tonight it felt unsettling to just get away on the bike, but it was absolutely everything I needed. The best ideas come in the shower, or those quiet moments just staring at the mountains.

Avoiding those moments isn’t advisable for me. I need to keep searching them out.

Stress is Real

Close that laptop and go for a long walk, run, dance, whatever. Move your bones, emails can wait.

I went through some dark harrowing times in 2014, 2015; broke as fuck, closed bank account, no steady work. Long walks helped save my ass (along with wonderful friends). Note that I’m not saying JUST GET OUTSIDE! DEPRESSION ISN’T REAL. Fuck that noise.

You can only answer so many emails, check off so many tasks. Eventually you’re making mistakes, resentment swells. Just get away. Law of diminishing returns. You’re not gonna remember those three things on your to-do list that you cleared on a Thursday night. Not compared to some walk where you might run into a great dog or two, or a gorgeous sun set.

Put on ‘Party Hard’ and groove.

Mid Day Shuffling

Work processes, funds, bills, invoices, filing receipts… generally the stuff to figure and manage on the weekends after working all week on work stuff.

Weekends have been good for this, though, as the flow of incoming requests goes to zero, and I can focus and get these important things done. If I don’t do them, they don’t get done.

A long walk helps. Heck, on Friday I ducked out for three short runs. I say “duck out” like I work full-time for some big company, but I’ve been a freelancer since 2006 and still feel like I’m getting away with something when I walk away from my computer for more than 30 minutes.

But I had my running shoes on, and when it was time to get the mail, I guess I just took the long way. Instead of refilling my coffee and nuking it for 45 seconds, in which I’d be able to walk to the mailbox and back just in time to hear the beeping microwave, I put on my sunglasses and cruised around the back road and alleys for a mile or so, just getting the heart going and the feet shuffling.

Fitting in these moments – just like the work stuff described above – just has to happen, as easily and as frictionless and scrolling through Instagram for 12 minutes.

Finally Working in Basecamp

I bit the bullet and signed up for Basecamp to better manage my work with Close Mondays. I didn’t even realize it, but I was sold on Jason Fried’s recent forward for a book:

People struggle to know where a project stands. People struggle to maintain accountability across teams. People struggle to know who’s working on what, and when those things will be done. People struggle with presenting a professional appearance with clients. People struggle to keep everything organized in one place so people know where things are. People struggle to communicate clearly so they don’t have to repeat themselves.

I didn’t need project management software, I needed all of the above.

I think the biggest thing is giving someone an assignment via the old way – emailing them, putting it in Slack, etc. That’s fine, but it’s hard to have a record of everything you asked. Or asked of one person. Or things you assigned that are due this week. Or next. And those things float in my head – is it done? Will it be done? Should I send an email about it to follow up? With Basecamp, I can answer all those questions with a few clicks.

I’ve used Todoist for years, but that was mostly just me. Now that things are getting busier, I needed to bring in some help, and managing all that was becoming stressful without a system in place. It took a few months, but I think I found a home with Basecamp.

Trust as an Asset

I love this, from Cindy Gallop, via James Clear:

You set out to find the very best talent in the marketplace, and then give them a compelling and inspirational vision of what you want them to achieve for you and the company. Then you empower them to achieve those goals using their own skills and talents in any way they choose. If, at the same time, you demonstrate how enormously you value them, not just through compensation, but also verbally, every single day, and if you enable that talent to share in the profit that they help create for you, you’ll be successful. 

My best work was when I was left alone to do my thing. Trusted to do the work I was hired to do. It’s fun being on the other side now, as I’m starting to slowly build a team at Close Mondays, but altogether trust is an amazing asset.

Done Tracking Work Time

For awhile I swore by using Toggl, a tool that let me keep track of all the time I was spending on client work. As I moved between tasks, I was moving between tabs, making sure I’d start the timer. If I went to make coffee, stop the timer!

Come back to work, wait, a new email to check, which leads me to jump into another project – change tabs, start the timer with this other client.

I’m not sure if it was the constant timer going in the tab that wiped me out, or the number of times I’d have to switch tabs to start, stop, and manage my timer, but I quit.

Yeah, Parkinson’s Law says that work expands to the amount of time we give it, but fuck it… I’m tired of trying to super efficient, shaving minutes from tasks, or feeling guilty for only being so far into a task at the 10 minute mark, or the 25 minute work.

Things that usually took 15 minutes were now taking 30 – what’s wrong with my work ethic?! My productivity is lacking!

And then, oh yeah – we’re living in the middle of a pandemic. I can’t go out for an afternoon coffee, go to a show at night to see one of the bands I work, meet a friend for a movie, go to the gym – no, my entire social life and down-time activities have been eliminated.

No wonder I have a problem focusing, and I know others are feeling it, too.

So don’t beat yourself up if you’re feeling this. There’s nothing normal about this moment in history that we’re living in. And believe me, 2020 will be talked about for decades, adding to the horrible history of America.

Money Is a Game

In an episode of Akimbo (“Money Moves“), Seth Godin equates money as a game, not as a personal indictment on your self worth or status. (Permalink here to the time stamp of the below text).

All of the things I’ve talked about are strategies around the game of money. That money is always moving, that money grows, that money costs, that cash flow matters. But it’s a game, it’s not personal. And what we need to do as productive artists and professionals who create things, is to say, when money is involved, we have to put our game hat on. That this isn’t a personal referendum on who I am, and what I am worth. It’s a game, and I can play it to make more money, or I can play it poorly. But as soon as we conflate it with who am I as a human, what do I count for, what am I worth? Then we’re going to lose that game.

I’ve been there, and I know friends there now, and friends that have gotten out. It’s up and down, goes in cycles. But we have to be careful to not equate the lack of work, of money, with our own self worth.