Sunday Caffeine - The Arc is Long

Today I’m doing my Sunday Digital Hygiene Routine. It’s marked off on my calendar. I clean my “rooms” and do maintenance on anything that needs to be fixed up or organized. I place my things neatly into folders, clear out my mailbox and spend a bit of time learning new micro-skills that assist in my daily digital life.

These are our new chores.

Our online world is entropy. Our spaces look entirely different. Our systems will be uniquely our own. But the problem is the same.

Code rusts over time, apps fall out of favor (but we stay subscribed or keep them in our toolbars).

So the task is to stay up to date as much as possible, to simplify continually, to pick up new skills to keep things neat and tidy. Curating your digital mind with the right influences.

Then when it’s done we can sit there with the window open so as to allow the breeze to come in…

Staying in the Room.

This is the mantra this week.

You sit down at the blank page and you struggle to stay in your seat. You're there to write or record or make something new.

At the beginning, your mind is telling you that there’s nothing here for you and you should probably just go back to doing something else! You pick up anything you can to distract yourself; I go to the kitchen and open the cupboard and give it a blank stare.

But if you stick with it past the awkwardness, if you stay there with the A.D.D. and the second thoughts... 15 minutes… 30 minutes…

Suddenly you’ve forgotten about all of the struggles and you’re not thinking about what’s coming out of your mouth or your fingertips, it’s just coming out. It's sort of a blur. Things are flowing and time goes away.

And then you look up you’re done and you feel like you’ve added something to the world. Voiced what you've needed to.

Then you hit publish… and it’s up to the market.

You know more than anyone when it’s good or not.And chances are, the more you were feeling it in the moment the more the audience will, too. But that's not always the point, sometimes it's just getting something on the page. That's the step you needed. To build momentum and get something out is gratifying.

There’s no formula, it’s a feeling. A state change.

And so the days are optimized to allow for that feeling to take hold. Last week I talked about productivity being tracking a metric, not tracking your time.It’s what I track. How many times I’ve got that feeling that this is showing up through me and I’m not in control but there’s something there. I want to feel it all of the time.

This only works if I stay put with it. If you stay in the chair. If you allow things to show up,

like a breeze...

-- David