Advice

Sixty-Three things you must stop believing about yourself

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I admit it was the number 63 that got my attention: that’s so specific as to be comedic and I went into this feature expecting platitudes. I expected them to get weaker and weaker until the feature writer clearly just gave up. But instead Sarah (no surname listed) strikes a hell of a chord with me.

She is writing specifically about entrepreneurs but every one of these applies to us writers. Read her introduction for how these things get their the pitons into us and just why they are so damaging. But then do read the whole list, of which here are the first 10. These are things she says we tell ourselves that stop us getting on, stop us trying things, stop us being successful.

I’m not somebody who follows through

2. I’m good at starting projects but I can’t finish them

3. I’m not an expert

4. Nobody cares what I have to say

5. I’m not perfect. Why would anybody listen to/buy from/hire me?

6. I didn’t work hard enough on this

7. I’m not worth it

8. I don’t deserve [money, recognition, success]

9. I don’t have time

63 Toxic Beliefs That Are Poisoning Your Potential as an Entrepreneur – Sarah, Unsettle (19 January 2015)

Read the full piece.

Don’t bother looking for writing work via LinkedIn

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Well, sort of.

But this time, I just couldn’t get the words of a friend out of my head: “Haven’t you ever used LinkedIn to get work?” he’d said. “I just bang out a few mails to connections and—boom!—something always comes up.”

I’ll be honest: I was baffled. Don’t get me wrong—when it comes to LinkedIn, I was a pretty early adopter and trundled past the all-important 500+ connections barrier a while ago. But for me, LinkedIn has only ever been an accessory, a place for potential clients to see I really exist and then, bowled over by the riotous trumpetings of my gold-plated CV, hire me for assignments. Could LinkedIn be more than just a fancy shop window for freelancers?

This Is What Happens When You Spend a Full Day on LinkedIn Looking for Freelance Writing Work – Mike Peake, The Freelancer, by Contently (15 January 2015)

Short answer no with a but, long answer yes with an if. Read the full piece.

Essentials: TextExpander

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I just wrote this on MacNN.com:

Get this essential Mac tool for speeding up your typing

Here’s the thing: yes, TextExpander speeds up your typing, but some of us like typing — and some of us are 120 words per minute. If you’re one of the latter, that doesn’t automatically rule out that you wouldn’t be interested in the venerable TextExpander’s speed, but we figured it wouldn’t be that much use to us; or so we thought. Doubtlessly, if you are a slower typist, then the speed is the key reason to buy TextExpander — but it does so much else, it is so useful in other ways, that we are now dependent on it, and wish we’d bought it ten years ago.

Hands On: TextExpander 4 for OS X, TextExpander 3 for iOS – William Gallagher, Electronista (18 January 2015

Well, I wrote that and then I wrote a lot more, almost every bit of it finding new ways to enthuse about this software. It is that good, seriously. I found out while writing this review that I’ve been using TextExpander for 10 months. Can’t believe it – and yet I find that easier to comprehend than the fact that there was ever a time I wasn’t.

Read the full piece.

Airbnb’s Co-Founder on productivity

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I’ve used Airbnb many times and it is as good as they say. Here’s one thing that its co-creator says about handling his workload:

I try to fill my calendar in reverse, from the end-of-day to earlier; I try to reserve the morning for doing “real work.” I find I can focus more in the morning whereas it’s harder to get focused after having been bombarded by meetings, so I try to save meetings for later in the day.

I’m Nathan Blecharczyk, Co-Founder Of Airbnb, And This Is How I Work | Lifehacker Australia

Read the full piece.

Launchbar review

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Just published on MacNN: my review of a superb utility for OS X:

Get it. Here it is on its official site. Go get it now: LaunchBar is that good. There are alternatives, that’s about the only thing that should give you pause, but the most obvious rival to LaunchBar is OS X’s own Spotlight and that is no competition at all. Sure, both let you tap a couple of keys and begin typing things like application names or search terms, but as excellent as Spotlight is, LaunchBar crams more power into the same space. With a couple of keystrokes you can be entering an event into your calendar, you can be sending files to someone, you can be pasting something from the clipboard that you copied yesterday.

Hands On: LaunchBar 6 (OS X) – William Gallagher, MacNN (15 January 2015)

Read the full piece.

Though just between ourselves, I’m currently looking at Alfred, a big rival to Launchbar and it has a lot going for it. I shall return.

Open the doors

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It worked. Previously…

I’m closing the doors for one day.

For Wednesday 14 January 2015 I am working on only one project. Nothing else allowed, not even emails, not even phone calls. We’ll see how I get on but even now, writing to you late the night before, I’m feeling a bit liberated. I was looking at a project plan just now, the very barest skeleton project management jobs and realised I was sighing as I went to add in some detail. As I went to colour it all in. And that realisation, plus the clear fact that I can’t finish it tonight, led me to this relief. I will not look at it tomorrow. I cannot.

Close the doors – William Gallagher, The Blank Screen (14 January 2015)

It’s true that today I am in a flat-spin panic about everything I’m behind on but the main project from yesterday is far, far and three times far further along. Still not as far as I need it to be but so much further that it’s about the only thing I’m not panicking about right now.

So I’ll do this again.

When I can possibly fit it in.

Close the doors

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Right now I have ten major projects on and all need tending to. Now, I don’t expect you to be interested in this but I do want you to help me come to a realisation.

Ten is too many.

I know I should shed some. I can think of one that will go away in a month; another that will be done in three months. That’s down to eight already, come on.

A third needs about five more days work and it’s gone completely. Seven.

Still too many, especially as I can casually say that about the project that needs five more days, that doesn’t change that fact that it has needed five more days for about four months now.

But if I’m not ready to shed anything yet and actually I am very ready to add things if you’ve got an interesting idea, I am trying something new tomorrow. Or rather today, by the time this first appears on The Blank Screen website.

I’m closing the doors for one day.

For Wednesday 14 January 2015 I am working on only one project. Nothing else allowed, not even emails, not even phone calls. We’ll see how I get on but even now, writing to you late the night before, I’m feeling a bit liberated. I was looking at a project plan just now, the very barest skeleton project management jobs and realised I was sighing as I went to add in some detail. As I went to colour it all in. And that realisation, plus the clear fact that I can’t finish it tonight, led me to this relief. I will not look at it tomorrow. I cannot.

If this works out, I may do what US writer David E Kelley used to do: he’d spend half the week writing crime series The Practice and half writing Ally McBeal. Ask him a Practice question on a McBeal day and he could not answer you. That was just not in his head.

I like the idea of nine projects being out of my head.

I just hope I do spend the day on the tenth and don’t just eat toast and watch TV.

Contact has been made

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I do get told that I am a networker. I get told this a lot. Why does that feel wrong, though? Why does it feel wrong enough that I don’t believe it? Maybe because of this:

Research has found that people who engage in “instrumental networking,” where the goal is career advancement, made people actually feel physically dirty. So dirty, in fact, that they thought about showering and brushing their teeth!

Stop Dirty Networking: Make Friends, Not Contacts – Hamza Khan, 99U (1 October 2014)

Really.

In my case, I’m just more interested in everybody else than I am in me. I know that sounds false and possibly even stupid but the way I see it, I know all about me, I was there, I saw me do it. Everybody else is new and isn’t that interesting?

This 99U article is about a couple of other sources which you can read if you slog through the full feature. But for once the article is the better bet: as short as it is, it’s to the point. And it suggests:

Opt for spontaneous networking, where the goal is the simply the pursuit of emotional connections and friendship.

Read the full piece.

Learn structure from Obama’s script writer

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By far, the best way to learn how to write speeches is to read the great ones, from Pericles’ Funeral Oration, to Dr. King’s Mountaintop speech, to Faulkner’s Nobel acceptance address. But if you’re looking for some quick tips, here are a few things to bear in mind next time you’re asked to give a speech:

1. Write like you talk. There is no First Law of Speechwriting, but if there were, it would probably be something like this: a speech is meant to be spoken, not read. That simple (and obvious) fact has a few important (and less obvious) implications. Use short words. Write short sentences. Avoid awkward constructions that might cause a speaker to stumble. Tip: Read the speech aloud as you’re writing. If you do it enough, you’ll start hearing the words when you type them.

6 Tips for Writing a Persuasive Speech (On Any Topic) ≠ Adam Frankel, TIME (12 January 2015)

Read the full piece.