Capitalizing
on opportunities is very important for writers.
But many of them, being writers, miss out on the opportunities before them. I recently was reminded of this when I went
to clean up piles of papers I’d saved for years.
I’m
fairly organized but I do let one bad habit to creep in – collecting
information but then not following up on it.
I’ll get a good idea and note it on a scrap of paper. I’ll find a list of people that I want to
connect with and file it away. I’ll read
an interesting book or article, highlight something to follow-up on, and then push
it to the side.
As
I went sifting through hundreds of sheets of paper, some filled with
hand-scribbled notes and others neatly typed, I couldn’t help but wonder how I
let this happen.
Why
do I hoard so much information, ideas, and contacts, but then fail to take the
final step that brings a pay-off? It’s
as if I’m my own worst enemy, keeping myself from fully succeeding the way I
know I’m capable of.
Maybe
I simply demand too much of myself.
In
other words, I fall short because I try to do too much. I take on more than I can really
execute. My ideas will always outnumber
my hands and the clock. I can’t
out-think or out-do that reality.
So
now I’m thinking of keeping things simpler.
If I think something’s important enough to clip or note, then within a
reasonable amount of time, I need to act on it – or else dismiss it and toss
it.
Additionally,
instead of always considering all possibilities about all things, I need to
narrow my focus down to just a handful of key things, such as “blog”, “book”,
“chores”, etc. Up until now, I had
focused not on a handful of important areas, but dozens of them. It’s as if I took an ADHD approach to things,
not because I couldn’t concentrate, but because I could. My strength became my weakness. I can do a
lot of things, but I have my limits. I can do only a few things real well, not
everything.
So
it comes down to priorities, I need to assign a value to a bit of information
that comes my way and filter it to see if it relates to my main
priorities. If it doesn’t, it needs to
go away. I have to develop tunnel vision
and just simply zero in on the things that are most important to me.
I’ll
have to develop new habits and a sense of self-discipline that’s been absent my
whole life. But it felt so good to
review my collection of stuff and to reduce it by 75%. The remaining amount is now being acted upon
and hopefully utilized in a useful way.
I
know I’m not alone on this. Many people,
especially writers, don’t want to let go of an idea, a list, a resource, a
stat, or a factoid. Writers think about
so much, in so many different ways, weighing probabilities and possibilities
constantly. We seek to balance fiction
with reality, with the past and the future, and with all of the alternate paths
our actions and thoughts take.
It
starts with the baggage we collect. We
are packrats when it comes to our own thoughts and notes. But we need to get out of our own way. By pairing down our notes and focusing our
energy, effots, and ideas on the few things that are truly valuable and important, we sacrifice a lot of things to get where we really want and need to be.
Don’t
make a note of what I said. I don’t want
to burden you. Just absorb it and then live
it. Take action on things. Stop storing your life in piles of paper. Just go out and live and move on the things
most important to you.
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