Friday Check-In

February 5, 2010

Winds are Strong, With Irregular Gusts

During last week’s check-in, I was totally focused on getting this website up.  And if that was the only important thing I was working on, my website might be up by now.  It’s not.

(Isn’t it bad when you change your mind like that?)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billward/ / CC BY 2.0

Working hard to move upwind.

In sailing, if you want to get to a place that is upwind, it is hard work.  You have to tack, that is, direct the boat at 45 degrees to the wind.  This means you zig-zag to your goal.  It also means that when you change your direction, you have to make an odd-looking right angle change.  That what I had to do last week.  A new opportunity for work came up for March, and I needed to heat up the downsizing-my-stuff/house-ready-for-sale project.  I have made a committment to put the house up for sale on Feb 18.  Eeeekkkkkkkkkk.  You have no idea how much there is to do.

Revised Plans

This coming week here’s the schedule.

  • Mornings – Write
  • Afternoons – House
  • Evenings – House, but self-care comes first if I need it.

That’s it.  That’s all that I can plan.  I don’t know what I can get done this week.  I don’t know what order it will get done in.

There is a long list of stuff to do, but it would drive me crazy to make a daily schedule that I was expected to keep.  My oh-so-very-familiar pattern is to have crazy high expectations, and try to reach them.  Then overwhelm, exhaustion. Final stage – failure, guilt and giving up.   I can’t afford the time.  And besides, all that stuff is bores me now.  There has to be another way.  I’m going to try something new.

And A New Process By Which We Get Things DONE

I want this project to be inner directed.  Each day, I will follow these steps.

  1. Show up (to the work to be done and to how I am feeling).
  2. Ask inside, “What do we do today?”
  3. Set time-containers – probably 50 minutes.  And then rest – maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
  4. Check in often with my body.  “Time for water?”  “Time to eat?”  “Time to stretch?”
  5. And when it’s time to start again, then ask, “What next?”
  6. At the end of every day, energy clear the house.  (I’ll talk about how I do that sometime.  If I forget, remind me, OK?)

I’ll let you know how it goes next week.  Let the experiment begin.

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The Post that Evaporated, and How I Found This One

February 4, 2010

Have you ever watched an really experienced Electrician troubleshoot?

As prep for selling my house, I called Mike to work on a long-standing electrical problem, and a few other small things. Downstairs, some amateur had screwed up. And Mike was The Guy.

As he came in, I explained the problems as I understood them, and he went to work. Later, I heard a really odd noise. When I went down, Mike had the two small things fixed, and was deep into investigation mode. It turns out there was something called an “open neutral”, a hidden place in the wiring where energy drains out, so that outlets and lights don’t work.

It turns out that an open neutral problem is a very hard thing to find.

The same damn thing was happening to my post. It started out with a lot of juice…

This morning I jumped out of bed, excited to get my post written. “It should only take an hour.” And I had a great title, “If You Do Only One Thing to make your projects go better, Do This”

But things weren’t flowing. And all I knew was it felt like this…

Me: I have to get this post out. Now what is the most important thing? It must be this. No, I sound like an idiot. Is it that? No that sounds vague.

Them: Boy, she’s sounding pretty dim. I’ll bet she doesn’t get this done today. She really isn’t good at getting things done, is she. Who does she think she is anyway? She doesn’t write very well. And her advice isn’t really very original either.

Me: (thoughts are pinging back and forth). Gotta breath. No. Go for a walk. No. Sit down and do this. No. Breath. No. Take a bath.

Them: See she can’t even decide how to get out of this mess.

I won’t bore you with any more of this. You might have had the same conversation. All I know is that it went on for a very long time. All that juice was NOT flowing to my post!!!!

So how did I find the juice and get my mojo back? It took a while, but finally…

Me: Wait. I’m in my head. What if I can’t fix this being in my head thing. What if it is ok to be here. (Pause. breathe.)

Hum. What if it is ok for me to be in my head? It has a specific feel – my head is tight, and my breath is really shallow. Hum..When I let it be ok to be stuck here, something feels different all of a sudden. And the mean voices get softer. I like that.

What else. I feel confused. As if there is a fog all around me and I can’t see very far.

What if is is ok for me to feel confused and in the fog? Hum. I can’t make it change, but somehow something else shifts. My body feels different again.

Them: Damn, we’re losing control. She’s off the hook. She doesn’t believe us any moreeee….

Are you saying that you have to connect the body and the brain to write?

The one line answer is “yes”.

See, when you are in your head, and you are doing something that your Lizard Brain has tagged as dangerous, your head plays tricks. It cuts off the feeling bits, it cuts off the body. Not physically of course (that would be weird). But the access is cut off – like an open neutral. So all that amazing feeling, and passion, and juice – it gets held up. Oops, boring posts. The neutral ground for your writing sucks the energy flow off somewhere else.

There are bunches of ways to connect your body and mind.

Anybody can do this, connecting with the body.

  • Practice awareness by following the breath.
  • Practice the noticing of exactly how you feel, and you are thinking.
  • Be curious.
  • Walk, run, dance – be grateful for all that movement.
  • Have a conversation with your body. Keep your curiosity. Keep noticing. It’s all good.

So — go practice.

PS: Oh yes, the solution to my first post idea: If you do only one thing to make your busines projects go better, practice connecting your body and your mind.

PPS: Oh, yes, Mike found the “open neutral” and fixed it. After all, he is The Guy. And my lights work again. It’s awesome.

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When Your Lizard Brain Appears

February 3, 2010

“Why did I start this?”

“I’ll never get this done.”

“They are going to laugh at me.”

Doom. Double-doom. Stop already. Don’t go any further. There’s danger around here somewhere, I’m sure. Really, stop.  You have to stop. You’ll die if you go any further.

Is any of that familiar?  Seth Godin has a new phrase for it.  He calls that your lizard brain. It doesn’t always come in words. Yesterday mine came to visit with a wave of tiredness and no interest whatsoever in doing anything. It took me out of the game for nearly a day.

So today, I am offering my favorite things to do with my Lizard Brain when it appears.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lipkee/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Camo Lizard

  1. Notice it. My Lizard is a wizard with the camo.  I’m just a little tired and so I stop, but I just never get back. It took a while to notice, but Lizard Brain. (My Lizard hates it when I’m finally onto it.)
  2. Invite it to tea, and compliment it. Sometimes my Lizard only wants attention.
  3. Have it pose, and draw it. Oddly enough it loves to pose. Perhaps because when I’m drawing, I’m not doing the thing. But this backfires – cause the drawing is noticing, in spades. (see 1)
  4. Have a chat, and come to an agreement. Sometimes it is as simple as putting a time container around the thing it doesn’t want me to do.  I can sneek a lot of work into 20-minutes.
  5. Take a bath. This is my personal favorite when the Lizard appears as the grumpy body aches.
  6. Dance, walk and/or sing. The Lizard has been particularly sneaky about getting me to forget this particular method, but man, shaking up my body almost always shakes that Lizard loose from its perch.
  7. Laugh. My Lizard hates it when I laugh at it.  It is spikey prideful.  But laughing just for fun – that works.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/randysonofrobert/ / CC BY 2.0

Get friendly with your lizard.

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Growing Stages for (an itty biz) Project – Part II

February 2, 2010

http://www.flickr.com/photos/runran/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

I screwed up. Sorry.

Wow – I really went overboard yesterday didn’t I. Well, today I am reforming. The purpose of these two posts are just to introduce you to the six stages of a effective project, and there are three to go. I’ll do them quick. (Besides, I have plans and more plans to talk to you about these stages, and about how using them will help your biz projects to get easier, and more effective.)

Here we go.

The Work

Now that we have a plan, it is time to do the work, to actually take out those tasks and things that you put in the bucket(s). So, go ahead, what’s stopping you. Go learn what you need to learn, gather the materials, write the thing, rewrite the thing, whatever.

I have to say, that most projects don’t quite go as planned. Stuff happens. Dogs and kids get sick. You get sick. The computer gets sick. The dog eats the hard-drive. Nobody signs up for the free tele-class. You get the heebee-jeebie self-doubting hives. Yup – those things happen. So, do add a few “chaos is happening” chucks into your bucket. And we can talk about how to deal with Stuff in more detail later.

No matter what stuff happens, we finally get to the end of our project. And it is time for the next step.

It’s Time to Let Your Baby Go

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_everett82/ / CC BY 2.0crea

Getting Ready to Let Go

It is time to ship, to deliver your precious creation to the world. For me, this is as traumatic as the first day of school. Enough said.

There is another peice to this. Another peice to this step is gathering info about how your right people are recieving the new thing. How is the Delivery going. Are all your questions and issues being answered. Depending on your thing, this part can need some pre-planning (sorry, the p-word again) and some processes (yup, the other p-word) put in place.

When all the Ship Day furor is over and whatever support stuff is running smoothly, take the time to celebrate. Like I said – this is amazing creation stuff. It’s awesome that you did this. So congratulate yourself.

That was Fun. Can It Be Easier Next Time?

Now a little later, a day or a week after the party, you can have a little meeting, with a brand-new, clean bucket, and ask the question, “What can we do to make this a little easier, better, more effective next time?”

Take this time. Time to reflect. Time to close down this project. This is a little time and space to put this project to bed.

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Growing Stages for (an itty biz) Project – Part I

February 1, 2010

In The Beginning

To start with, you have a problem, an itch, a longing. Something you want to do something about. Perhaps something that will make a difference, as well as support your business.

"You Started Here" stickynote

Remember: You Started Here

You may have started your own itty biz so that you could home-school your kids. But next month you want to take your kids on vacation and you need need extra $2000.

Stating the problem clearly even to the extreme extent of writing it down, is (in every case that I can think of right now) an advantage later on.  Believe me.

Because, as simple as the problem seems know, after you do tons of stuff, burn oil till midnight for days and days, and toss and turn with those hampster wheel thoughts, it is comforting at the end to have a green sticky-note that says, “You started here.”

The Idea

Now, you know the problem.  “How can I get $2K? What do my right people need? What have they been asking about?” And while you are lying in the bathtub, it comes to you in a great white lightening flash. The rush is so amazing that you almost leap out of the bathtub to get started. When a problem and its solution comes together without effort it is like extra-ordinary sex. It seems like the world is fundamentally different already – that all things are possible.
“But”, you say, “wait a second. It doesn’t happen like that for me. At least not the idea thing.”

Whatever your personal experience (with great ideas or great sex) can we all agree that great sex doesn’t necessarily lead to great partnership or even great parenting. Likewise, the sexy idea is not necessarily the one that fits your business the best.
At this stage the best idea a) solves the problem, b) is do-able with your current resources and c) adds value to your right people.

The pull of the amazingly sexy idea – well, let’s just say it can get us into situations that we would rather not admit to and leave it at that.

The Descent to Earth

However you got there, you have your idea.  Now it is time to take your idea from pie-in-the-sky to a product or service that your people can buy.  And, oh yes, that you know how to do or get done, and that you have the time and money to do.
Yes – it is time to face up to your time, money and skill level resource limits.
Stop. Take a breath. This is just part of being an ittybiz owner.
Now be warned – I am about to use the P-word. A lot of people shy away from the P-word. They think it is harsh and judgemental and unforgiving. But for me, a plan (yup, that’s the p-word) is just a series of buckets.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinkerroll21/ / CC BY 2.0

Bucket for Carrying Stuff

Buckets are great to carry things. You can put stuff into the buckets, you can add buckets, and let go of buckets, and change the amount of stuff that is in any bucket. And how scared can you be of a bunch of buckets?

Personally, I don’t write out a formal businessy-looking plan. Oh – I can, and have written those dry, formal things that go on forever, and that nobody reads. But these days I prefer colored pens on colorful stickynotes that hold lists of the critical stuff I need to get done this week.

Here’s what goes into my buckets.

  • The things that need to be done, sorted into some kind of buckets – I like the weekly bucket. But sometimes, when I’m grumpy I go for the 20-minute bucket.
  • An estimate of the time it will take to do either the tasks or the stuff in a bucket.
  • (if appropriate) An estimate of how much money some of the tasks could take. Just so I won’t be so suprised.

The important thing to remember about the plan is that even after you spend a lot of time thinking about it and polishing it, a plan is just a plan.

It’s like a map. Most of the time, a map is really hepful to get you from where you are to where you want to go, but the map is never the actually territory that you have to cross. And (somebody important must have said this) Shit happens. So the plan is an important map, but it isn’t ever perfect. don’t spend too much time on it.

So, stay tuned.

We aren’t done creating yet.   Come back tomorrow for the finish.

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It’s Friday,Talk-to-the-Project Day

January 30, 2010

(now what’s going on?)

It’s the end of the work week here at The Project Nanny, and I usually have a conversation with my current projects to wrap up the week.

Yup, I talk to my projects. And, at the risk of sounding wacko, they do talk back to me, and help me sort through what’s important to focus on next. I thought it would be interesting for you to listen in on the conversation.

Yes, I do edit for brevity – I don’t want it to go on for a thousand words -  but I’ll stick to the heart of the conversation as it happens. Just to let you know, my Project’s comments are in square brackets [like this].

Talkin’ Talkin’ (ok – she’s totally whacky, but let’s go with it)

(after dialing up my Project Nanny website project ‘helpers’)
Hey there, just want to take some time to report in at the end of the week.

  • I love Thesis. It only took me a day to get to the point where I liked my website again. Thanks for the suggestion that I let that old website go – too many things were making me crazy.
  • My new system for writing and posting blogs seems to be working. First thing in the morning, no browser, no email. Straight to freewrite. Then the final edit for today’s post.
  • Seth’s Video on Shipping. That was the turning point.
  • I’ve made a commitment to post daily for the next 100 work days. OMG – that’s 20 weeks – till June. [This is good for you. It will help your writing.]

Here are some things I’d like to improve over the next several weeks.

  • Shorten blog post time. Be done with posting by 9am each morning.
  • Make Friday a special check-in day. What about publicly checking in with you guys? [Great idea! Friday can be intuitive skills camp.]
  • Create a backlog of posts, that just need to be reviewed – so that there’s not so much pressure to publish when I’m fried.

Now – here’s the hard stuff. The stuff I don’t know what do to about. The stuff that worries me. Please, guys, feel free to help me out here.

  • I’ve got lots of tickey little crap to fix up on the site. And I’d like to do it myself for a while. It is ok to be in construction mode for February? [Yes. You've got that Special you want to put on, and you are focusing on your foundation content on the blog. This is enough, and you can 'in construction mode' for the first month. It is a good example of how you do projects that is different from others.]
  • I’m really stuck about getting some income during February. Even though I’m really excited about getting started with the writing, I need to GET TO WORK. [That Kitchen Table Special Offer you were working on - get that up and running during construction. That will get you started. ] OK. I’ll put that on next week’s List.
  • So, exactly what do I need at a minimum to open “under construction”.
    • [About me page]
    • [Kitchen Table Special Landing page]
    • [Connect the RSS feed link]
    • [Do something about those pictures - they need to be relevant to the site.]
    • [Just for your own sake, add a print.css file]
    • [Keep adding the good content]
    • [Start a Twitter account, too.]
    • [Shoot for opening "under construction" by Feb 8. You need a Ship deadline to work towards. Otherwise you'll just dither.]
  • And I have to mention how really, really hard pressing the Publish button on this post is. I seem to be having trouble talking about my intuition saying I’m a psychic telling people that I talk to things going public with this conversation.  I really feel sick to my stomach. [We need to talk with you at greater length about this off line.  This is just some very old stuff; we can help you clear it out. ] OK, I’ll set up a session. Hope it works, guys. This is really uncomfortable.  Thanks for the compassion.

In Closing

So that’s the end of the conversion.  Really, it is just like dropping in on a team meeting in the middle of a project.  Not very exciting, but thanks for listening.

Have a good weekend.

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Vision on a Budget

January 29, 2010

(What is she talking about? Do you have any idea?)

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘project’?  That never-ending Interstate construction project that screwed up the commuters for five years?  Or the time you ‘updated’ your kitchen and ate out of pizza boxes and microwaved pap for three months?  And what about that science project that you had to do in 9th grade.

Oh, You Mean a Project (why is she going on about ‘projects’? do you know?)

Yes, a project.  You hear that word ‘project’ and your mind goes ‘boring,boring’.  I hear you.  Projects are thrust upon us, and they usually are inconvenient.  They are almost always messy. And when they are done, the vision hasn’t turned out quite right, or it cost too much or it took too long.

I hear you.  I used to think the same things.  Until I started to think about what projects really are, at their heart.

And this is what I learned.  All projects are amazing and exciting, cutting-edge, mystery-of-the-universe stuff.

(drumroll, please) Projects are about creation itself.

Even the dictionary definition gives us a hint of that.   ‘Project’ is from the Latin for “throw forward”.   A project throws an idea (that you have right now) into a future where that idea is a real thing.

I told you projects were about creation!

Think about it for a second.  A project takes an flimsy idea, with no real connection with the world yet, and takes it through a series of tasks until that idea comes into form. This flimsy, ephemeral, intangible idea becomes a work of art, a new road, a new sleek kitchen, an updated, enhanced piece of software.

All Projects Go Through the Same Stages

And here’s the thing – it turns out that a bridge building project and a science project and a writing project and launching a new ebook project – all these different projects go through the same stages. Because at their most fundamental, they are all creating something from nothing.

In my next few posts, we will talk more about these stages that all projects move through.  So, stay tuned.  There is edge-of-your-seat, heart-thumping stuff to come!

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Today is Ship Day

January 23, 2010

The first post is always the hardest.

Earlier this week I made a commitment to ship my first post today.  And wouldn’t you know it, things got in the way.  Like Sean d’Sousa says, “Chaos will never go away.”   And he goes on to suggest that you plan your days and weeks to allow for chaos.  And so I find that I have an extra hour here at the end of my work day to get this first post on paper and out the door.  Shipped.  Yes.

Tactics of the 1-hour Post

To get this done, I am playing with a time container to focus my attention.    I started with a 20 minute container to mind map some of the ideas that rattle around in my head.  And right now I have a cute electronic eggtimer counting down while I write – twenty minutes of words.  That means I don’t stop; I just keep writing.  Then I plan on 20 minutes of editing and adding some links of interest.

Watching out for the Lizard

It isn’t like I don’t have anything to say. On the contrary, I have too much.  Too many connections, too many thoughts and ideas.  It is a challenge to put it into a short 200-300 word blip.   My mind wants to keep my options open; my lizard wants to keep me from publishing at all – ever.

What’s this lizard, you ask?  Well, Seth Godin, in his new book, Linchpin, are you indispensible?, talks about the resistance we all have to shipping, to delivering, to letting our thing out the door.

The resistance is our ancient lizard brain that stops us from exposing ourselves in scarey situation, that freezes us in place if it gets a hint that we might be risking failure.  To the lizard, if we fail, we die.  It’s a survival thing.  We all have it.

No Harm Has Been Done to the Lizard during this Post

Seth’s point is this.  We always have resistance when we come up to Ship Day.

He also, rightly, points out that no matter how amazing the idea, if you don’t ship, nothing happens.

This is the hour for shipping, and, following Sean’s 70% principle, I declare this post is good enough.

A Plan for Me and a Recommendation for You

Don’t know if you caught it already, but the link to Seth’s new book, Linchpin, are you indispensible? has a whole list of freebies – a free download, some videos, links to some blog posts.  I recommend you check them out.

And for me, I want to focus on my relationship with my lizard.  I really need to practice the art of the Ship.  To that end, I am committing to 100 (week) days of blog posts.

(I just counted that up – that’s through June – oh, my …  What have I done? dismay, dismay)

Happy reading and link following.

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