Seven obstacles to be mindful of, from Nicholas Bate:
(1) Worrying about what other people might think
(2) The distraction of trivia and melodrama
(5) Not having pen nor paper at all times
(6) Believing things should be fair
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Michael Wade calls for a revival of proper correspondence…
Those odd things that you might spend a chunk of time writing and then you’d mail them and not expect an answer that afternoon. It might be a week or so before you’d seriously expect a reply. And when you received a letter, you might study the letterhead and the quality of the paper and, of course, the person’s signature.
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I have new tools to play with.
I’m a writer and I work, almost exclusively, on a value basis: we agree a price and I deliver.
Charging by the hour/day or, worse, per word is a killer for both quality and trust.
However, I’ve always kept timesheets for my own analysis, so that I can see how much those value-based projects actually cost me in bloody, sweaty, teary hours. They used to be simple Excel spreadsheets, one for every project, so I could work out the actual cost per hour arising from either my poor estimating or delightful rat-holing. But, I always knew that created hidden gaps.
Continue reading “New tools for timesheets and blogs – @TimeCamp and @NewsBlur”
Harried by the relentless, depthless demands of email, social media, Zoom, phone and Slack?
Here’s a great idea from author Daniel Pink, originating with statesman George Schultz – the Schultz Hour.
Pinkcast 4.07. This is how to carve out an hour a week to think big. | Daniel H. Pink
Image: Claudine Gossett Photography (via UChicago News)
Kurt at Cultural Offering helps us understand why we need a home office…
Don’t you pay bills? Do you budget? Plan things to do around the house? Do you have papers scattered in drawers and cabinets?
You know you need one. The next questions are music and desk.
Photo by Steven Neumann on Unsplash.
Ground down by lockdown? You could look at this as the ultimate Stoic test and attempt to live by the maxim:
“It isn’t the things themselves that disturb people, but the judgements that they form about them.”
In other words, like it or not, how we respond to things we can’t control is a choice. Nicholas Bate, as ever, has wise and pithy words, here and here and here…
Covid Career Goals, 7
1. To be measured by the value you create not just the time you put in.
…
5. To be constantly learning. Especially through mistakes.
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…you are your contribution.
Sage advice on redundancy from Nicholas Bate.
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The success of any year will be determined in large part by what you choose to ignore.
Wise words from Execupundit’s Michael Wade, one of the handful of pithy, insightful bloggers who start my day.
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We way we process thoughts is reflected in our body language.
Here’s something I first learned about on a Nicholas Bate course, maybe 15 years ago. A useful (and visual) reminder…
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Actor Daniel Craig, interviewed in the Sunday Times and asked: When did people start to care what others thought?
It’s social media. There is a constant looking, in life, for approval, and it really jars with me. But I’m a 51-year-old man. Nobody listens to me. Or they will stop listening to me sooner rather than later, so it doesn’t really matter what I think. But I grew up when punk rock was on the scene. You want approval? That’s anathema to me. It doesn’t make any sense to me — in art. It’s anti-art. It’s anti-creativity.
Read the full interview, here.
Image: UNITED ARTISTS/COLUMBIA PICTURES