Motivation Monday

It's About Priorities

Spending some time listening to motivation programs again while I work, and there is one bit of advice that motivation speakers give over and over in books from a wide range of gurus, from the ubiquitous Tony Robbins' Personal Power to Cal Newport's Deep Work.

That advice is Get Leverage.

Get Leverage is a way of forcing yourself to push forward toward a goal by loading it with high cost strategies that force you to move or face a huge penalty for failure. 

The thinking is that by putting the reward really high and lighting a punishing fire under yourself with a high failure cost, you will be forced to move to do whatever you have to do to meet your goals.

I have utilized this strategy for years and years. Often, it worked. That push to a deadline, the drama, the late nights, the risk to reach for that reward - I have done it oh, so often, and more often than not, it really paid off.

It also really paid off in terms of the emotional rush that came from an exhilarating finish. "Boy, that was a truly rough project, now let me brag to all my friends about how I climbed that mountain backward, nearly fell off 47 times, but totally brought it home and won the golden cup. Yay!"

But that was then.

I can't pull off this trick anymore because the risks that go along with chronic illness usually mean that I induce a flare up and pay a very high price for the stress that hammers me for months on end. I spent six months recovering from a year of 300+ hour work months.

Moreover, I make promises I simply cannot keep. Between my ears, I still haven't quite adjusted to the reality that I can't do everything I set my mind to anymore. So I set ridiculously difficult goals, take on too much, then crash and burn. I upset clients and fans.

While working on Snow, Glass, Apples I completely deluded myself that I could fit in work on Matt Hawkins's The Clock as well. I repeatedly made delusional promises for delivery. Surely I can squeeze in an extra hour or two per day on another job!

Heck no. Not only could I not do it, I disappointed the hell out of Matt, and it's only because he's a very forgiving dude that we moved forward on the project.

Getting leverage is for people who can take high cost risks. Since my risks can land me in the hospital, getting leverage is a strategy I have to wean myself off of.

I'm not really sure it was ever a good strategy for me in the first place. I'm pretty sure many years of stress have landed me in the health situation I am in today.

Moving forward, I think slow and steady is the way to go.

YMMV.

Second thought for the day:

Time management isn't about time at all. It's about priorities.

Every day has the same number of hours and minutes. I know how much time I have to do everything because every day has 24 hours.

In almost every case when I get overloaded, overwhelmed, or screw the pooch on a project, it's because I have not managed my priorities effectively. THE TIME WAS ALWAYS THERE. It takes THIS many hours to do a page and THIS many hours to write a blog post.

But THIS many hours went into websurfing, and THIS many hours went here, and THIS many hours went there.

In the past I always referred to this as poor TIME management, but it isn't. It's poor PRIORITIES management. 

When I think of it that way, it reminds me that the clock isn't an enemy that flies away from me and is outside my control. 

What I do is under my control. So be more mindful of what I do.

This tweak in thinking works for me in a way that thinking about it all as a TIME problem doesn't.

Using apps like Rescue Time has helped me to see that better than I could before.

Third thought for today: with chronic illness, I now learn to think of Time Management as a form of ENERGY management as well. 

I only have so much energy to devote to anything.

Any task, no matter what it is, web surfing included, not only eats away at time and priorities, it eats away my energy. 

I don't always have control of my energy. Unlike most people, my batteries don't replenish the way they should. I am running on AAA batteries instead of a Tesla.

If I want to get things done, I must PRIORITIZE ENERGY. Energy must go where it returns the most value, or I may not have the energy I need as the day wears on.

If I spend time reading the newspaper and I feel drained or upset by the latest headline, or I get caught in a drama on twitter, then that is less energy I have to devote to my writing or drawing. I feel completely wiped after 15 minutes on social media. Yet because I feel weary, I wander about on twitter, because the real work of art making is too hard. Or I delude myself that reading an article on The New York Times will give me good story ideas.

But it usually doesn't. It wipes me out.

I used to think of setting priorities as something that meant THIS is important and THAT is less important. But it's also about how THIS activity costs me in THIS PHYSICAL way in a manner that will affect the energy I need for THIS activity. The energy drain can be as simple as perusing social media, or as necessary as going to the grocery or the post office. 

Every action has an energy cost. Some actions, even actions others consider normal, I simply can't afford or I need to put off to get art done when art needs to be done.

Sometimes my energy seems perfectly normal and I am asymptomatic. So, anything outside of art making needs to be reserved for those periods, even if it means putting off essentials for awhile. Art making is the priority every day. 

I can't afford any other priority.

Time management isn't about time at all.

It's about priorities and energy.

Have a great week.