by Naomi | Jan 5, 2016 | Creative Life
Do stories matter? When I come up against this question, I feel like I’m trying to defend an immutable law of nature, such as, say … gravity. I do that defensive thing and throw out a bunch of words about connection and empathy and imagination, my voice rising with passion. All the while, the person across from me nods and then says something along the lines of, “Yes, but in practical terms …” or “What will get her into college …” or “Where we need to spend our time is …”
What breaks my heart is the reply I hear most often: That’s great for you, but I’m not a writer.
The more I think about this commonly held belief, the more it bothers me.
Being able to shape a story is like having a superpower. Unlike most superpowers, this power is completely accessible to anyone willing to learn. How can so many people–the majority of people–believe that writing is for other (more creative) people?
Here’s what story-telling gives you the power to do:
- Make someone laugh
- Enchant someone, or a group of someones
- Cause someone to feel what you feel
- Change someone’s mind, belief system, or actions
- Find a pattern of meaning in your own experiences
- Change your own actions so you can live a more meaningful story
The list could go on and on. The trouble is, this powerful tool dresses itself in whimsy. Stories are so … fun. We consume them for entertainment. It’s so very easy to become convinced that nearly everything else is more important.
Is everything else more important?
Stories connect us, one heart to another. Whether we’re telling real-life narratives or shaping fiction, stories come from our lived experience. When we tell stories, we slow down long enough to pay attention. We find words to express what we see, what we feel, what we believe. We see where change may be needed, and what we can do to effect that change. Rather than an endless stream of experiences, we see that our lives have meaning.
Your life has meaning.
Don’t miss that crucial, beautiful discovery, just because someone told you that you didn’t have writing “skill.” We’re all story-tellers … we live in the midst of a cacophony of stories. Ours and those of everyone around us.
I’m on a mission, friends. I don’t want anyone to get lost in the foggy mess of life. I want to shout this truth from the rooftops: We all live stories–stories full of potential and challenges and victories. Just like any character in a story, our decisions matter. Every single one matters. What decisions will you make?
Some of you already do a lot of writing, but some of you do not. If you’re one of those who does not, would you do one thing for me? Think about a recent life experience. Break it into simple parts: beginning, middle and end. Was there a problem in it, or a challenge? Was any lesson learned? If you had to put the meaning of that experience into a sentence or two, what would it be? Now, set a timer for just five minutes and write that story.
If you are so inclined, share with me how the writing went. I’d love to help and support you on your creative journey.
P.S. I love this video on why stories matter.
by Naomi | Dec 7, 2015 | Creative Life
A round peg shoving myself into a square hole. Often, I feel that way. How about you?
So much helpful advice is flying around out there. Everyone, from your plumber to your online business coach, agrees that to be relevant, you need to provide strategies and resources. We tune in, and if you’re like me, you start hopping from one thing to the next. Ooh, you think, this blog post will help me solve my organization problem … oh, and ooh! This podcast will teach me to be fun and catch followers on Instagram … oh, and wow! This online course will teach me to slow down and pay attention to what’s important … and on and on it goes.
I wonder: When was the last time you listened to your OWN advice?
I’ve been struggling with a paradox for the last year or so. I long to help people tap into their creativity by encouraging them to play more, to strive less. And yet, I dread becoming another noisy distraction. I want to amplify YOUR voice, not drown it out with mine. These clashing desires have caused me to fuss about behind the scenes, trying to figure out what to say, what not to say, when to share and when to stay silent.
Recently, I pulled together a group of writer and illustrator friends for a test-run of a marketing mastermind. We called it “marketing” but honestly, I was focused on a deeper issue that I’ve wrangled mentally for as long as I can remember. Let’s call it “life strategy for creatives.” Or, as I think about it: living as an artist.
TIME OUT for a moment. When I use the word “creative” or “artist,” I don’t mean only those people who have paint under their fingernails. I mean anyone who allows creativity to take the lead in their lives, be they stay-at-home parents, entrepreneurs, coffee roasters, chefs, musicians, master gardeners, strategists … you get the idea. If your primary role takes creative thinking and a commitment to your passion, in my book, you’re living as an artist.
TIME IN. Maybe you heard the well-meaning advice sometime along the way too: You can’t make a living doing that! My response was: I’ll have to, because that’s what I’m made to do. Faced with two options–finding a way to live as an artist or starving–I decided to tackle the life strategy issue. Growth happened in small increments, and I still faced huge bumps in the road. I had no idea that I had actually developed an expertise.
So, at our test-run meeting, I looked around the table at my friends, all of who have their own unique processes and none of whom would fit into a square hole. All of them are on their journeys, and none need “fixing,” yet they all desire solutions, too. Like me, they want to live as artists. And that’s when I realized … All that fussing about keeping out of the way was also keeping me from helping. I had a treasure hoard of gifts that I wasn’t sharing.
Hoarding is definitely not my style. So, here’s what I’ve decided.
- I’m going to stop fussing and start sharing.
- I’m going to trust you to make your own choices about when my voice is helpful and when you need to tune me out to make room for your own voice.
- I’m going to allow myself room to be on the journey, too. Sometimes I’ll have practical advice and other times, I may only have a question I’m starting to explore.
- I’m going to believe that showing up authentically, wherever that happens to be, is enough.
If it’s true for me, I bet it’s true for a lot of you, too. What are you fussing over or hoarding? You don’t have to package it up perfectly. Find a way to share, and trust us to approach your ideas with our own creativity.
by Naomi | Oct 5, 2015 | Tools & Apps
Naomi’s Playlist is an eclectic collection of tools that help me approach my work as play. My hope is that they’ll do the same for you!
Object: Taming the mental, digital and physical clutter of information overload so I have what I need, when I need it, clearing space for imagining and creating.
What Didn’t Work: File folders, piles of paper on my desk, random post-it notes, mental notes, asking friends to “remind me,” loading up my desktop, archiving important project notes in email, allowing “to consider” items to clog up my to-do list, bookmarking web research, and more.
My Aha! Moment: I discovered Michael Hyatt’s post about using tags rather than using notebooks to organize Evernote, and suddenly, I understood why Evernote hadn’t yet worked for me. My system was overly complicated. Also, I wasn’t thinking strategically enough.
How I Play:
- Like Michael Hyatt, I use tags as my major organization system. My default notebook is called “inbox,” which I use as a collection bin for incoming files.
- Once I tag files, I move them into the larger notebook called “cabinet.”
- I also have a couple notebooks where I keep items to share with others, such as “NK content,” where I keep all my blogging materials to share with my team.
- Symbols are my secret weapon! For instance, I use a * in front of all tags that have to do with projects. That way, when I’m tagging a file, I can type a *WP: and pull up all the project tags for Writerly Play. I use a ~ for all tags that are active such as ~to consider and ~to study.
- Shortcuts are also powerful. By adding my ~ tags as shortcuts, I can easily access these categories which need my attention on an ongoing basis.
- Organize your tags in the Tag view. You can stack tags which are related to one another so you can better see your system. Create a stack for “shared” to keep any tags created by others who share notebooks with you from tangling up your own system.
Player’s Notes:
- Keep your system loose and organic. It’s easy to create new tags and move notes as a batch from one tag to another. Rather than trying to set up your entire system perfectly, just begin, and refine as you go.
- Use your tags as bins. If you were lucky enough to have a parent or teacher who gave you color-coded buckets or drawers to hold your toys or craft supplies, you already understand how to make Evernote work for you. When one bin starts to overflow, or becomes too much of a mishmash, set up a new bin.
- Think strategically. First, identify the problem. “I’m getting all of this inbound content from pros about how to set up my blog or how to master social media, and I can’t review it as fast as it comes in. I file it and then I lose it.” Then, come up with a tag-based solution. “I can add a ~to study tag to keep all of those incoming files, and make that tag a shortcut. Then, when I’m in the study mood, I can scan all of the options and choose the content that’s most important to consume first.
Take it to the Next Level:
- Try out note links. Every note has it’s own URL, which means you can link your notes to one another. I use a master note for what I call {ccentral}, which shows my my entire project list at a glance, including all of my areas of responsibility, and some key notes to reference. In combination with my to-do app, Nozbe, this has become a powerful way for me to keep tabs weekly on how projects are progressing.
- Use links to give you easy access to outside files. Navigating to google sheets files, for instance, can be a multi-step chore. By linking to those files in a note, you can streamline the process, and keep that file with other project related files.
- Use reminders. Instead of trying to remember to consider signing up for that conference, to check out that gift idea, or buy those theatre tickets later, use Evernote as a tickler file, sending you a reminder to consider the idea just when the time is right.
by Naomi | Jun 26, 2015 | Tools & Apps
Object: Reminding myself to play a little in the middle of a busy work-day.
What Didn’t Work: Telling myself to lighten up. Brow-beating myself when I got to the end of the day and realized I hadn’t even taken even two minutes to have fun… major fail on the play front. Was I a hypocrite, preaching play yet never doing it myself?
My Aha! Moment: My mom gave me a set of Smencils for Christmas. There’s something about smell that touches your heart and transports you someplace different. Just try to write with a root-beer scented pencil and stay in a no-nonsense mood.
- I keep my smencils on my desk and pull one out every now and again when I need to brainstorm and would like to add a little play to the process.
- Keep your smencils in their containers, so they maintain their scents as long as possible.
Take it to the Next Level:
- Bring out your smencils for your next team meeting or one-on-one session. Let your colleagues or students in on the fun, and add some whimsy to your time together.
by Naomi | Jun 19, 2015 | Tools & Apps
Object: Understanding how my time is spent, to gain a big picture view (and if needed, adjust) my work-habits.
What Didn’t Work: Trying to put things on the calendar and stick to strict pre-determined time slots. Hopping from one project to another in response to whatever pinged at the moment. Simply hoping I was getting to all of my projects. Only vaguely being able to answer the question: so how long did it take to… (fill in the blank)?
My Aha! Moment: I was listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast (
Episode 47). In this interesting interview about mindset she interviewed Todd Herman. Todd suggested keeping a chart of $10 work, $100 work, and $1000 work for a week. The challenge was to notice each task you did and record it into one of those columns. I loved the idea of the activity, but wasn’t yet in the place where I could afford to outsource anything. Outsourcing is the ultimate goal of the activity— acknowledging that when you’re the content-maker, creating your content is your greatest contribution, and that perhaps you oughtn’t to be coding HTML so your website works.
I remember thinking, “But I don’t even know which projects I’m spending my time on, let alone the amount of money I’d someday be able to pay someone to do the tasks!” For me, the first problem to tackle was “which project does this task fit into?” I needed to better understand where my hours were going before I could determine where any time-leaks might be. Maybe I was spending 20 hours a week on a project, but on all of the wrong parts of the project. Or maybe I was ignoring certain projects for too long, only returning to them after they had turned into raging problem-fires. I needed a way to track my time.
Enter the
Timely app, a very nice-to-look-at visual time-tracking tool.
- I’ve connected the Timely app with my main calendar, so the app knows what I’m supposed to spend my time on.
- I can create a new task with just a couple easy clicks on my phone or desktop, and start a timer or enter time spent manually.
- I use big categories, such as “admin” or “planning,” and sometimes add a few notes. The main thing for me is to see what I’m doing in broad strokes.
Player’s Notes:
- If my day gets busy and I forget to record some time spent, I record estimates at the end of the day, when I still remember.
- Timely has saved me so much time going back and trying to remember, particularly with invoices. Often, scheduling and hourly billing shifts due to various factors, so having a day-by-day record what actually happened is very helpful.
Take it to the Next Level:
- Review how your time was spent every couple weeks with the Timely reports. Are there trends that point to problems? If so, how can you turn that problem into a question, for which you can then seek a solution?
