{"id":4089,"date":"2010-08-08T11:50:17","date_gmt":"2010-08-08T15:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/?p=4089"},"modified":"2010-08-08T11:52:24","modified_gmt":"2010-08-08T15:52:24","slug":"the-little-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/?p=4089","title":{"rendered":"The Little Guide …"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Little Guide To Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism and Blocks<\/strong><\/p>\n

While I know many people are very successful using a productivity coach, I am not one of them.\u00a0 Rather, I’m a list maker, journal keeper, and goal setter.\u00a0 Except sometimes, like lately, I find myself unable to focus on my personal artwork.\u00a0 I get behind.\u00a0 I’m in a slump.\u00a0 I am trying to find the gas pedal yet stuck in neutral.\u00a0 Generally when this happens, I start trolling the web hoping to stumble on something that might help me to regain my focus and kick myself into gear.<\/p>\n

You know how it goes – you get to one site, that site has a link that you go off to, then another and another.\u00a0 It’s a fine line between me wasting too much time bouncing from one site to another and finding just what I’m looking for. And find it I did.<\/p>\n

A few days ago I made my way to a site by Hillary Rettig, a productivity coach.\u00a0 Normally I’d immediately click right off such a site; however one of her free ebooks caught my eye:\u00a0 “The Little Guide to Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Blocks.” <\/a>While I half expected it to be of little use (oh ye of little faith), I downloaded the 87-page ebook anyway.\u00a0 I started buzzing down the pages, one after the next of examples of various things that knock one of their path. Immediately I thought, boring. Not for me. Then a line caught my attention: “The\u00a0Opposite\u00a0of\u00a0Negativity\u00a0is\u00a0NOT\u00a0Delusional\u00a0Positiveness.” I slowed down. Maybe there could be something useful.<\/p>\n

As I went through the pages, another thing caught my eye.\u00a0 Something I absolutely believed in ever since I watched my business partner when we first started out business some 9 years ago — that is, showing up and doing the work.\u00a0 Even though we had only a couple clients, he’d show up early morning to the small office he had and sit there working until the end of the day. He would work on writing a new program or script, read something related to work, or come up with ways to attract business.\u00a0 He did it every day (still does), and it was what convinced me that our little venture may actually work.<\/p>\n

So there it was, that very ethic in the ebook, the habits of productive work …<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Showing\u00a0up\u00a0to\u00a0work\u00a0exactly\u00a0when\u00a0you\u00a0are\u00a0supposed\u00a0to.
\n2.\u00a0Instantly\u00a0starting\u00a0the\u00a0work\u00a0you\u00a0are\u00a0supposed\u00a0to\u00a0be\u00a0doing.
\n3.\u00a0Staying\u00a0focused\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0work\u00a0for\u00a0twenty\u00a0minutes\u00a0or\u00a0more.<\/p>\n

Then I read, “Most\u00a0people … can\u00a0train\u00a0themselves\u00a0to work\u00a0in\u00a0a\u00a0focused\u00a0manner\u00a0for\u00a0at\u00a0least\u00a0twenty\u00a0minutes\u00a0before\u00a0having\u00a0to\u00a0get\u00a0up\u00a0and\u00a0take\u00a0a
\nbreak.”\u00a0 Another reminder.<\/p>\n

In 2008 (time flies) I wrote about using an egg timer to start work that I was very reluctant to do.\u00a0 You can find that post here<\/a>.\u00a0 I now use the timer on my iphone rather than the widgets I wrote\u00a0 about and instead of 45 minutes I often set it to 20.\u00a0 Twenty allows me to set two small goals in one hour and use the other 20 minutes for making tea, stretching, letting Buddy in and out, and not making myself too crazy. Yet lately I find myself getting away from that habit and making excuses as to why I don’t have much time for my personal artwork (although to anyone saying that to me I’d reply, “That’s crap, make the time.”)<\/p>\n

So there it was in black and white, the splash of cold water reminder:\u00a0 show up, set the timer, focus, work.<\/p>\n

While I’m still not into the idea of a productivity coach, I certainly appreciated this one. If you find yourself needing a bit of a kick, give it a read; and if you are a person who is interested in a productivity coach, I suspect she may be a good one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Little Guide To Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism and Blocks While I know many people are very successful using a productivity coach, I am not one of them.\u00a0 Rather, I’m a list maker, journal keeper, and goal setter.\u00a0 Except sometimes, like lately, I find myself unable to focus on my personal artwork.\u00a0 I get behind.\u00a0 I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4089"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4104,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089\/revisions\/4104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriahansen.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}