Hi friends!
If you read my newsletter you’ve heard about this, but if not, here’s the short story: I created a Life Evaluation worksheet because (shocker) I wanted to evaluate my life in a purposeful, systematic way.
And here’s the good news–if you sign up for my Monday Motivation newsletter I’ll send you a free copy of the worksheet!
Headline seem like a bit much? What does the internet have to do with dreams (besides all the nightmares you have freshman year because you stayed up too late reading about serial killers…please tell me I’m not alone in this)?
I think addiction has everything to do with mediocrity. And one of the things I’m addicted to knowledge. In some ways, this can be good. I’m informed about world events, I’m full of fun facts about serial killers (see above) and women in ancient Rome. The problem is I spend way more time consuming useless information than I do making the things I want to make.
So I decided to Rumplestiltskin* myself for the month of October.
Some of you have been asking about my Information Diet and since I’m drowning in extra time now that I’m no longer perusing the internet (oh, the horror!) I figured I’d share more details with you.
Someone asked me what the point was in giving up information. They phrased it in a nicer way, but that was the gist. It’s such a valid question.
When I gave up other substances for a month, it was not with the goal of cutting them out of my life completely. I had no plans to become sugar or coffee free (I’m not INSANE).
This challenge is different because my goal is to permanently reduce the amount of time I spend mindlessly consuming information.
I’m starting with a month of cold turkey informationless-ness** so I can determine what resources I miss and how much time I should devote to information consumption.
Cutting out information is far harder for me than cutting out alcohol or coffee. I didn’t even let myself think about it until October 1 because I didn’t want to face the reality of what my world would look like without news. That’s exactly why I knew it needed to be done. If I’m afraid to go without something, it probably means I’m addicted to it.
A few others have asked me what I’m actually doing and if I have any tips for doing your own Information Diet. I’ve written before about how I use tricks and manipulation to force myself to grow. Here a few tricks I’m using I’m using to make myself mindful of the information I consume.
I am firm believer that knowledge is power. One of the most powerful tools we can give ourselves is knowing how and where we spend our time.
At various phases in life I’ve used apps, physical worksheets, and calendars to keep track of how I spent every hour of every day. This is a bit extreme for most people, but if you suspect you have a problem with the amount of time you spend online (or watching TV, staring blankly into space, whatever floats your boat) forcing yourself to account for it is a great way to motivate yourself to make a change.
You can use sheets with slots for every hour (like so) or use good old fashioned pen and paper. This is a super useful exercise for life in general, even if you’re not particularly interested in how much information you consume.
Deciding not to do something is easy. Setting yourself up to succeed in ditching your bad habit for a better one is the difficult part.
Humans are creatures of routine and habit. External triggers cue these habits. For example, my mind is trained to automatically open my email account when I get to work and to scroll through Instagram every night before bed. Even though I’ve decided not to do those things this month my brain is still going to want to do them automatically. To succeed I have to take action to replace these triggers.
Here’s a few practical ways I’m doing that:
Maybe a complete Information Fast is not your thing, but you want to be more mindful about how you consume information. Set a timer for 10-15 minutes of browsing time and when it dings, go back to work.
Second shout out to Adrian for sending me this awesome PDF from Lifehacker. I live and die by To Do Lists. Seriously I have lists for everything (I think I’ve mentioned about five in this post alone). Probably the one thing in my life I don’t have a list for is taking breaks.
Resting is difficult. Resting well is nearly impossible–if you’re not prepared. If you know you want to unwind by watching the newest SNL Digital Short, reading that New Yorker article, or scrolling through Instagram, plan for it! This makes taking the break purposeful instead of mindless. Also, you will get the unparalleled joy of checking something off of a list. You’re welcome.
The point of consuming less is to create more. I’m challenging myself to fill the time I used to spend surfing the web with creative output—outlining a story, editing pages, or doing story research. Keeping in mind the big picture why of my Information Diet helps me focus on what I’m gaining instead of what I’m giving up.
What about you? Do you have any hacks you use to trick yourself into spending less time online? I need all the help I can get!
If you want more made up words and tips for tricking yourself into doing anything, sign up for my weekly newsletter where I offer plenty of both.
*Is this a verb? No. Do I care? Also no.
**Another word I made up. Really rolls right off the tongue doesn’t it?
***I won’t be
“You don’t have to believe in yourself, you just have to do the thing.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZOgr6Nhp2M/?taken-by=alikaywould
Author Holly Black said this at the Brooklyn Book Festival this weekend (more on the Festival in my weekly newsletter, which you can get by signing up here) and it’s been haunting me all week.
I am lazy. My natural inclination is to do nothing, all the time. If no one interrupted me, I could probably read for at least seven years before noticing any time had passed.
I’ve spent years searching for the magical cure to my laziness. I’ve tried using SMART goals, building habits and creating detailed Calendars for Change. Nothing stuck. I’d be hyper productive for a few weeks and then drift back into my natural state of being.
I suspect I’m not alone in this.
There are tons of blogs, books, and speeches floating around in the world about how to do things. How to write a book, finish a screenplay, paint a painting. For those privileged enough to have a dream beyond mere survival, one of the great struggles of life is getting yourself to do the things you actually want to do.
This struggle is nothing new. Paul wrote about it in a letter to the Christian church in Rome in the first century.
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
(Romans 7:15 ESV)
This is the story of my life. I hate passivity and laziness, yet I often live in those states. I know what I want to do, but the gap between it and what I actually do is vast. It is exhausting, to fail at something so simple.
Ben Hardy has written, “it’s actually far more exhausting to not work than it is to work.”
This is so true. Pursuing goals take energy, yes. But not pursuing thing them takes even more.
Most of the advice I’ve seen about how to make yourself do the thing you want to do essentially boils down to: if you really want to, you will do it.
This is not true. Plenty of people want to start companies, travel the world, or direct movies. Most of them take no action toward doing these things.
I’ve always found this advice useless. I want to do so many things and I do so few.
This year, though, I’ve discovered the secret to making myself productive and achieving my goals. It’s simple: trick myself.
That’s right. The easiest way to start is to trick yourself into doing it. Once I threw away all that hogwash about chasing dreams and artistic passion and focused on what actually motivated me, I discovered that playing mind games was the best way to get myself to do the things I wanted to be doing.
Here’s a few tips for tricking yourself into doing something:
First, it’s important to identify what motivates you. I am motivated by external expectations.
I don’t bail on plans with friends and I always turn projects in on time at work. It’s meeting internal expectations that I struggle with.
You might be the opposite. Maybe it’s easy for you to finish something when it’s a personal project, but you bristle at the thought of an employer deadline or outer expectations.
Gretchen Rubin has written an entire book about the four ways people respond to expectations called The Four Tendencies. You can take the quiz to found out how you respond to expectations here.
Once you’ve identified what motivates you it’s time to figure out how work within that framework.
This is tricky for internal goals—it can feel hopeless. How on earth can I motivate myself to do something if I only do things for other people?
Simple. I turned my internal goals into external deadlines. I will not work out unless I have to. This year I started signing up for races and telling people I was running them. Now I have to train because I’ve spent money on a race. I love deadlines and so this system works really well for me.
Don’t expect yourself to magically wake up one morning feeling motivated to make all the changes you want to in your life. Identify the things that have actually motivated you in the past, and figure out a way to create a similar set of circumstances in your present.
Shame is usually a negative thing, but I’m not opposed to using it to motivate myself. When I tell my roommate I’m waking up early to go on a run, I’m more likely to do it because I don’t want her to wake up before me and notice I’m still in bed.
Put your pride on the line for your work. Post publicly about what you are doing. Tell a few friends. Tattoo a deadline on your body. Whatever works for you. Higher stakes will lead to better results.
Different goal setting systems recommend different goal sizes. The SMART system suggests setting achievable goals. Others recommend wildly unachievable goals. I’ve found the best way to meet goals is to find a sweetspot between what you can realistically achieve and what you would achieve in your wildest dreams. If you start out too small, you may forget why you needed a goal in the first place. If you start out too big, you’ll grow discouraged and give up.
The trick, as always, is to find balance. If you want to run a 5k, starting with a goal of walking fifty feet a day will probably not help you. It will be so easy to achieve, you’ll wonder why you need to train for the race at all. On the other hand, if you start with a goal of running three miles on your first try, you will likely be discouraged by how hard it is. (Unless you are one of those people who can just run forever without ever trying, in which case, I hate you.)
The key word here is momentum.
Momentum is the word my friends and I use to make ourselves go out in the city. Nightlife in New York doesn’t really get started until midnight or later, which, for someone like me who is socially akin to a grandmother, is asking a lot. We use the word momentum to get us pumped.
When we leave the apartment at 10, cold and tired and thinking all our plans of dancing and “having the best night ever” were foolish, we start yelling “momentum!” It’s weird, but it works.
The real trick to doing the thing you want to do is building momentum. You don’t wake up one morning with the strength to finish something. You take one step, then another, and build a consistent work ethic.
Once you’ve figured out how to motivate yourself and have started building momentum, the trick is to keep moving. Operate by Newton’s first law of motion: objects in motion stay in motion.
Just because you’ve started doing the thing you want to be doing doesn’t mean you’ve earned a break. Keep working. It is much easier to keep moving than it is to start moving. You’re in motion, congratulations. Don’t stop.
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Four Gems From This Week
It’s no secret that I harbor a deep dislike of J.K. Rowling. However, this week I did re-watch Order of the Phoenix with some friends (who are more fun than me and going to Harry Potter World this weekend as I cry alone in my closet of an NYC apartment) and I have to hand it to her, J.K. knows story. She may be a franchise monster who will eat the dreams of children (including her own characters!) for money, but her imagination is brilliant. Sinking back into the world of HP reminded me how important atmosphere is to the creation of any world. It’s the number one reason I enjoy most movies, restaurants and books. I added that to my scene revision checklist to make sure I’m thinking about the mood of my work and not just the action.
I revised 24,000 words this week. And that was outside of my day job, which is…to revise words. Specifically, I focused on breaking up chapters that felt like they were dragging. I’ve also
I’ve also started a list of “weave-ins”—themes, ideas and characterizations I want to make sure are woven throughout the manuscript. Before each revision session I review the weave-ins and see if any of them need to be worked in to the chapter at hand.
I’m planning on finishing the rest of my revisions next week and sending it out for critique. Speaking of critique, if you know of anyone who likes destroying dreams for fun (besides J.K. Rowling, I already contacted her and she’s “not available”), I am in desperate need of some more critique partners.
At this point, I’m not even scared about other people reading and potentially hating my work. I imagine this is how parents feel when they send their children to college: they birthed this human being and are very invested in its success, but by that point, they don’t really what happens to it, they just want it out of the house.
The other day I was talking to a friend about work, and how I don’t feel like I’ve ever had to give 100% of myself to something. I’ve done hard things before—I wrote a 100 page thesis in college, I talked my way into jobs way above my skill level—but nothing that required all of me.
It’s easy to accept this because it makes things, well, easy. I can get through life by giving average effort. Things can be stress-free and without pressure. Only, as I was telling my friend this, I thought of a quote that I tacked to my wall in high school:
Why did I post this on the mirror of my vanity so I would see it every day when I got ready? Well because I was an extremely angsty teenager (duh). But also because when I was younger, I was brave enough to want things and to bear the burden of wanting them.
That quote has been echoing around my head ever since that conversation. I keep thinking about stature, and how I can’t know how tall I am unless I stand up straight. So I’m challenging myself to straighten my spine, extend my grasp, to give 100% to what I’m doing now and pursue the things that require the most of me instead of the least. I am trying to be brave enough to want things.
I have never called myself a writer. Even when I entered a profession where my job is writing, I still don’t use the word in relation to myself. And I definitely didn’t tell many people I was working on a book. I didn’t want to be the person at the party who tells you they’re a writer and then when you ask them what they’ve written has nothing to say.
Once I finished the book-like thing, though, I started sharing. I think I was so exhausted and the carpal tunnel from typing so much had set in and I just didn’t have the energy to project my force field of non-writerliness.
Because most people are annoyingly kind, whenever I mention I wrote a book, they ask me what it’s about. My only response so far has been, “I really need to work on my elevator pitch.”
An elevator pitch is the brief summary of your work that you’d pitch if you happened to run into your dream agent in—wait for it—an elevator.* I’m reading Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, which is supposedly a book about screenwriting, but is actually about how to tell good stories, and Snyder calls this the log line.
My project for next week is to come up with this line. So next time someone politely asks me what my book is about I can sound like someone who actual has a basic grasp of the English language instead of vomiting something up about high school girls in a persistent vegetative state.
Alikay Wood