Today, I’m recovering. I’m still achy and tired, but I’m on the mend, so I know it’s important for me to show up and do something with my Product Time. So far, I tried reading Writer’s Digest, discovered I just can’t focus and I don’t think it’s the fault of the articles. I thought about reading fiction as a writer, but the thought of that level of concentration exhausts me. So I’m doing a combo of freewriting and working on this draft for my blog. I’m not certain yet what level of sharing yesterday’s and today’s struggles will be inspiring to other writers and what would cross into TMI. (I think I edited all the TMI bits out.)

Today’s Product Time won’t be my best. I don’t think I’m going to have great new ideas today. If there is something to be gleaned from yesterday’s misery, it may occur to me tomorrow or the next day. Today, I’m repeating and reiterating an old message (to myself and to you) that the important thing is not what clever things we come up with during our Product Time, the important thing is that we show up.

Over time, as we consistently and repeatedly show up for Product Time, we will be excited about the cool new ideas our unconscious gives us or the intriguing research we’re exploring. Over time, we will write material that engages us and our readers.

But on any given day, there is no guarantee that that is what today’s Product Time will be. Some days, the Product Time is glorious. Some days, it’s just putting in your time, proving to your unconscious that you are willing and trustworthy, and keeping your habit strong.

For me today, Product Time is about coming back, putting in my 15 minutes and trusting that tomorrow’s 15 minutes will be easier and more productive.

Just. Show. Up.

Just. Write. (Or read, research, brainstorm, freewrite, doodle, or do anything else that counts for Product Time.) Something. Today.

At first, we get irritated, “Why is he always late?” Then we get nervous, “What if something happened to her?” Then we go back to being mad, “This is so rude and inconsiderate.” We ratchet the anger up every couple of minutes and fantasize the scolding and withering comments we’ll deliver when the other person finally shows up. Underneath the anger, we’re scared, sad and afraid we’ve been rejected and that other people will see us waiting and think we’re pathetic losers.

As rotten as it feels to be stood up, just imagine how bad it is to stand yourself up. On the surface, that might not make sense; you can’t stand yourself up. When you change your plans, you know it. You don’t have to explain it to yourself. Even if you forget an appointment with yourself, it’s not as if there’s some part of you sitting in a restaurant somewhere waiting for you to show up.

Except there is.

Standing Yourself Up Causes Writer’s Block

When you promise yourself you’ll show up for your Product Time, Process or Self-Care and then blow off that appointment to do something else, there is a part of you that feels disappointed and let down. And it’s the part of you that’s essential for writing.

So you shouldn’t be surprised if you don’t where to start the next time you actually do show up for writing. A lot of blank mind syndrome and I-don’t-know-what-to-write angst is self-generated.

As Normal Mailer points out in The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing, “If you tell yourself you are going to be at your desk tomorrow, you are by that declaration asking your unconscious to prepare the material. You are, in effect, contracting to pick up such valuables at a given time. ‘Count on me,’ you are saying to a few forces below: ‘I will be there to write.’ The point is that you have to maintain trustworthy relations. If you wake up in the morning with a hangover and cannot get to literary work, your unconscious, after a few such failures to appear, will withdraw.”

Note that your unconscious, the source of all your imagination and innovation, withdraws. And no wonder. Wouldn’t you stop believing in you after all the promises you’ve broken?

Mailer warns, “If you fail to show up in the morning after you vowed that you would be at your desk as you went to sleep last night, then you will walk around with ants in your brain. Rule of thumb: Restlessness of mind can be measured by the number of promises that remain unkept.”

Mailer offers hope, but you have to earn it.

“But if you subject yourself to this impost [sic] upon yourself, this diktat [sic] to be dependable, then after a period of time – it can take weeks, or more – the unconscious, nursing its disappointment, may begin to trust you again.”

You must re-earn trust in yourself and from your unconscious. To do so, you must honor your commitments to yourself. You must show up when you say you will No Matter What! Mailer advises that it may take weeks. Why should your unconscious quickly give up its treasures to you when you’ve been so ungrateful and inconsistent?

You have to be willing to show up even when you feel like you have nothing to write. You show up and wait. You refrain from ditching out early. If you promised yourself 15 minutes, you remain available to your writing for the full 15 minutes; you don’t wander off to see who’s sent you an email or text message.

What makes the 15 Magic Minutes work is that you commit to showing up for those small, regular sessions No Matter What! You show up every time you say you will no matter what else is going on that day. This consistency builds a habit, or in brain science terms, a new neural pathway for writing.

But more importantly, showing up when you say you will allows you to forgive yourself for all the promises you made in the past to write but didn’t keep. You learn to trust yourself again.

When you finally show your unconscious you are sincere and trustworthy, you will find your unconscious is generous in its forgiveness. Your mind will sparkle with exciting images and intriguing ideas and you’ll have plenty to work with in your Product Time.

Another way to do Christmas cards: Playing pinochle with my mom Lois and my sister Glendeen

Play invites us to pause the constant flurry of doing, which is so often a desperate search for meaning — and in that pausing, we remember our Being that is the true source of meaning.

Play opens the door to beauty, joy, imagination and gratitude because it opens our hearts and our minds.

Today is the day to play. Don’t wait until you finish some “important” task. Play now and you’ll discover that play is the important non-task that illuminates your life and your writing/art.

Start with what you enjoy and people you love.

Or start by playing this – trust me, this TED Talk with Louie Schwartzberg is worth your time and attention.

Back when I first started this series on Self-Care, you might wondered why “creative play” was in the list of things writers need to do for Self-Care when I’ve always promoted play as Process.

The great thing about Play is that it can be Process or Self-Care or even Product Time. When play is primarily imaginative and creative, I call it Process. When it’s playing around with words, ideas or characters, I call it Product Time. When play is primarily physical (running agility with Blue or geocaching and hiking for example) or friendly competition that’s really about relationships and connecting with friends and family, I call it Self-Care.

Writers need all three kinds of play, so when in doubt about what direction to take next or when you’re feeling resistant or blocked, play with something. You’ve got a 3 in 3 chance the play will do something good for you.

To remind you why play is so important, here’s a Top Ten list I posted awhile back.

1.  Play is fun! We are designed to play; that’s why it’s fun, so we naturally want to engage in it. This should be reason enough. But a lot of us have been scarred (and scared) by the Puritan stigma against play and the false belief that real adults don’t do such frivolous things. So here are nine more reasons to play.

2. Play is creative. We make new associations and connections, we imagine alternatives, we play with novelty, we see metaphors and solutions.

3. Play is essential for brain development and appears to be essential to maintaining a healthy brain.

4. Play keeps you young. A variety of different forms of both physical and mental play keep the brain and the rest of the body flexible and strong. People who play are not only less likely to develop dementia; they’re less likely to have heart disease.

5. Play prepares us to adapt to “a world continuously presenting unique challenges and ambiguity,” according to biologist and expert on animal play Bob Fagen (quoted in Play by Stuart Brown). Play is our opportunity to rehearse new behaviors in low-risk situations.

6. Play gives our big brains something to do. In fact, play gives us a big brain. Species with larger brains relative to their body size are more playful than species with smaller brains relative to their body size.

7. Play makes you smarter. Play, especially active play, stimulates BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor), which supports the growth of new neurons, encourages existing neurons to make new connections, and fights the effects of stress.

8. Play helps us figure out how to navigate our bodies through the physical world and how to navigate our psyches through the emotional and social world. We learn all kinds of important social skills in play: how to negotiate, argue constructively, act collaboratively, challenge ourselves to excel without trampling others and how to lose gracefully and persevere.

9, Play is a sign that we are okay. Stuart Brown writes “When we are in peril, play will disappear. But studies show that if they are well fed, safe and rested, all mammals will play spontaneously.”

10. Play keeps entropy at bay. As long as we play, we receive all the benefits of play. But when we stop playing, we stop developing, stop healing and recreating our bodies and brains, stop engaging with others, stop truly enjoying life.

So what are you waiting for? Go out and play.

Multitasking: the Cause of Mass Goldfish Murder

Save a goldfish – stop trying to multitask! You’ll preserve your creativity, too.

Multitasking is the antithesis of focus. I’ve listed my previous posts on multitasking below in case you haven’t read them all or want a refresher.

If you are tempted to try to multitask just this once or get so busy you accidentally slide into shifting your attention among multiple tasks, I recommend you pause to read one or two of these posts. (They all are entertaining and educational if I do say so myself, but I have to confess that my personal favorite is “Squirrel!” Let me know which one you like best. )

If you’re part of an organization (as an employee, volunteer or member) that still thinks multitasking is a virtue, let me first extend my sympathy and encouragement to buck the trend as much as you can.

Second, I offer you this ray of hope: I’ll be available in 2012 to deliver “The Myth of Multitasking.” This engaging, humorous and life-changing presentation will help your organization stop wasting time, burning people out and jeopardizing safety. Just email me (Rosanne@RosanneBane.com) if you’re interested.

And now without further ado, here’s the list of multitasking posts. Enjoy!

• What More Time to Write? Stop Multitasking!
• Squirrel!
• Are You Addicted to Digital?
• Multitasking Kills Creativity and Causes Writer’s Block
• Step Away From the Catnip and No One Gets Writer’s Block
• Step Away From the Marshmallow and No One Gets Writer’s Block
• Step Away From the Marshmallow Part 2

Now that's Resistance!

As a writer, what do you give thanks for? Your computer? Teachers who taught you to read and write? Writers who inspire you? Your vision and the flexibility of your fingers and brain?

Can you see how resistance, even full-fledged block, might be something to be thankful for?

When we feel resistance, we both want and don’t want to write, usually because we’re afraid. Or we want to write, but there is something holding us back.

The fact that you still want to write shows your courage and the depth of your creativity. The fact that you need to move through resistance to write shows that what you’re writing is worthwhile because it demands you step beyond your comfort zone (and thus grow as a human being).

Respect your resistance. Consider what your resistance has to tell you. Usually we’re resistant because something vital is missing – time, inspiration, research, reassurance, support, witnesses, illumination, respect. Ask your resistance what you need to move forward and give yourself that (even if it seems silly or irrational).

Give thanks for your resistance. It is a normal, natural part of a writer’s life. Give thanks for the insight and courage you’ve been given to move through resistance, which you’ve also been given. Give thanks for the Divine light shining within that drives your desire to write.

Sometimes you need to go deep with your writing

I’ve often proclaimed the power of short, regular writing sessions (see previous posts on 15 Magic Minutes, 10 Reasons to Show Up,or Initial Inertia).

A small commitment eliminates anxiety and is therefore easier to honor. You’ll probably find, as so many of my students and coaching clients do, that showing up for 15 minutes gets you into the flow (an intriguing state of being so focused on your writing that everything else fades away) and you want to keep going.

Even if you don’t, you’ll get more done if five 15-minute sessions a week than you ever will waiting for the day when you have hours and hours of open time – because those days so rarely occur.

You don’t need big blocks of time to write – one of the most effective cures for writer’s block and other forms of resistance is abandoning the erroneous belief that you have to have big blocks of time to write. But there are times when you need to go deeper and focus longer, times when you need to get lost in your writing. And let’s admit it – when you get lost in the writing is when the fun really starts.

Both Short AND Long

Does this trump all I’ve said about the benefits of short, regular writing commitments? No! This is a both-and polarity, not an either-or forced choice.

You still keep your writing commitment small, no more than 15 minutes a day, four or five days a week. AND you reserve an hour or more a couple of times a week as target times.

Targets are not commitments; they are opportunities. If you show up and put in your 15 minutes and feel done for the day, you stop with no guilt, regret or recrimination. The days when you get into the flow and want to keep going, you can because you’ve reserved the time. As a delightful little bonus, the more regularly you show up for your 15 minute commitment, the more often you get into the rhythm and want to keep going.

You may not meet every target, you probably won’t meet every target – these are stretch goals after all. But you create the time and space you need to focus your attention, think deeper and write more complex material.

Reserve several target blocks of time so you’ll keep thinking of your targets as opportunities. If you only have one or two targets blocked on your calendar and you miss one, you could start to think “I’ve GOT to meet my next target” and what was a target turns into an obligation. And not just any old obligation, but an anxiety-inducing, huge obligation.

Keep your commitments small (for all the reasons I’ve mentioned before). Keep your targets optional. You’ll have the time to go deep, focus and get lost in the way only writers get lost.

There are times when brevity is the soul of wit, but there also times when brevity reveals the absence of wit.

Your Brain: Use It or Lose It

What we know about brain plasticity warns us that relying so exclusively on short, instantaneous and disposable messages will change how we think. In the moment, what we think determines what we communicate, but in the long run, what we communicate will determine how we can think. If all you give your brain is short and simple, it won’t be long before your brain can’t handle involved and complex.

We are losing our capacity to sustain focused attention. If we can’t focus long enough to thoroughly think about and analyze complex situations, we won’t be able to solve complicated problems. (And we are facing some whoppers of complicated problems.)

Writers Change the World

We can change this dangerous trend. We start by changing ourselves. We start by giving ourselves – as a form of Self-care and an act of Cultural Revolution – time to focus our attention.

For at least an hour a day, we can refuse to think in bullet points. We can refrain from fracturing our focus with constant interruptions – we turn the phone off, we wean ourselves from TV and Satellite Radio and other media, we stop stuffing ourselves with the mental junk food of email, Facebook, Twitter, eBay and countless other electronic distractions every 10 minutes.

We stop ingesting information and reflect on what we’ve consumed so far. We ponder. We consider. We mull. We stop rushing around in the world. More importantly, we stop rushing around inside our own heads. We let our brain slow enough to allow our thoughts to go deep.

Restore Your Focus

Meditation is one form of focus, and one of the benefits of mediation is that it restores our capacity for reflective, nuanced contemplation. Walking my dogs in the morning without another person to talk to is one way I focus. I get an awful lot of writing done during my morning walks.

Relaxing in a hot bath, hot tub or sauna is another way to focus. Reading a book or a magazine article that’s more than 2 paragraphs long challenges and stretches our ability to focus. Reading printed copy is a different, more focused cognitive activity than reading electronic copy. Reading on the internet does allow you to link to related stories and videos, but that ability to jump around scatters your focus and impairs your comprehension.

And scary as it may sound, just sitting without any input at all (no electronic media, no printed words, no conversation) is a powerful to focus your attention. Listen to the ambient sounds of the world around you. Listen to your own thoughts. Filter out the distracting noises of traffic and the distraction of your monkey-mind and ego-based anxieties so you can hear yourself think for a change.

Please share: do you consciously restore your attention and ability to focus? How?

Write anywhere, just write!

Self-care is recognizing what you need most and giving yourself that.

In an appreciative inquiry, I asked the students in my Entering the Flow class to write about the good things they did for themselves as a writer in the past week.

Because one of the key principles in appreciative inquiry (AI) is that we get more of what we focus our attention on, I encouraged my students to focus on the positive, not on how they might have slacked off sometimes, missed an opportunity or struggled. (This AI principle explains why individuals or organizations who see themselves as problem-solvers get more problems to solve, while individuals or organizations who seem themselves as leveraging their strengths get more strengths to leverage.)

Kari Balak wrote a response so powerfully simple, I asked her to guest host my blog with it. Here’s how Kari took care of herself as a writer:

I wrote. I wrote this week over sick kids, sick me, over job hours creeping up, over a husband’s mad, mad idea to sell the house.

I wrote. I wrote in the car with the leaves turning and falling, with the wind blowing so hard the car rocked and, just for a moment, I wondered if the wheels would come off the pavement, but then I kept writing.

I wrote until the kids came out of the school doors and the moms lined their mini-vans up. Then I folded my pages over my pen and put that packet into my bag for tomorrow.

Because this week I claimed that parking lot as my own.

What good things did YOU do for yourself as a writer in the past week? Please give yourself 10 minutes (or more!) to pay attention to that. If you’d like to share what you discover, I’d be delighted to hear from you in a comment or email.

Then notice how, when you focus on the good things you’re doing for your writing, you seem to find more good things to do…

The hazards of not eating mindfully

I just ate breakfast. Before you assume this is a self-absorbed, Tweet-style post, let me clarify: I only ate breakfast.

I didn’t eat while reading my email or watching TV. I didn’t mindlessly swallow a bowlful of unnoticed food while reading the paper, a novel, magazine or Facebook. I didn’t get dressed between bites or pick up the kitchen or get lost in a dozen other forms of distraction. I ate breakfast mindfully, meditatively.

Believe me – I was tempted to do more. I put a lot on my To Do list today and I could have gotten something else done in the ten minutes I focused solely on eating. My Saboteur would like me to believe I could have gotten A LOT done in those ten minutes. Trouble is, I couldn’t have given full attention to either thing I was doing.

When I start my day with distractions, when I fracture my attention so early, I rarely have the ability to pull my focus back together.

Mindful Eating

Paying attention to each bite, to how I chew an almond and to the texture of a raisin on my tongue, to notice what milk really tastes like and when I can feel the warmth of hot oatmeal in my stomach, is to eat mindfully.

It’s a form of meditation anyone can do at any meal. Just notice the sight, smell, taste, texture and warmth of each bite. Notice your breathing and how your body feels between bites.

Mindful eating is a key principle in how I’m applying the Self-Compassionate Diet by Jean Fain. My goal is to always enjoy what I eat, which sounds decadent and self-indulgent, but is actually a challenging form of meditation and self-compassion.

To enjoy food, I have to pay attention to it, which is contrary to how I’ve used food most of my life, that is, to numb my awareness of life.

Mindful Writing

Meditation deepens our awareness, which makes us better writers. I could now describe oatmeal better than I ever could before. And while describing oatmeal may not be a frequently used writing skill, I can bring this meditative awareness to anything or anyone I want to really know.

Meditation sharpens our ability to focus our attention so that what we write is true. It sharpens our ability to focus so that we can write at all instead of mindlessly multitasking and bungling from distraction to distraction.

It starts with just eating breakfast.