I love how things seem to happen at times that are conductive of one another like two components in a tightly soldered circuit. Take for instance the article by James Altucher: How to Become an Idea Machine which sets up the scaffolding for developing your “What Muscle.”
Generally I don’t like to follow these sorts of “3 easy steps to weight loss” kind of articles about the creative process but given that what he says is really consistent with what we learned in FA school; I think there’s plenty of worthwhile meat there.
Then this morning, the second to last article in my RSS feed is the ever-excellent Matt Kohr with: An article about making “the shit you do” turn into “shit you can actually get done.” which is just beautifully concise. One of the best things about Ctrl+Paint is that you can really tell that he wrote his article once, then went back and edited out anything that didn’t add to the overall point of the piece. Herein, “Avoid Long-Term Goals with a Daily Component.”
When taken together you can see a more reliable picture form. Instead of planning to practice that thing you need to do to get better at whatever your pursuit is every single day; develop a plan that automatically acknowledges the reality of your life. Something that, by default, you can’t help but stick to. That’s one form of success right there and it probably gets you to the same place.
Happy 2014 everyone.