still haven’t run out of ink
Daily Page – March 25, 2020
I neglected my daily page yesterday. I'd feel badly, but we all need to give ourselves a break, especially now.
I do find the boundaries here useful. I write in my [Whitelines Leuchtturm1917 notebook] knowing that at the bottom of the page I have to have finished the thought. It's a good exercise in reflection and writing.
What are you doing to help get you through and work on your craft?
I write with a refillable fountain pen. The twelve-dollar bottle of ink on my desk lasts six months. Not bad given how much I write. Every third day or so, I refill the pen. This is my sixth fountain pen and has a peculiar behavior: no matter how well I clean the nib after each fill, the pen blots one glob of ink onto and through the page. What a mess. And it has been driving me crazy.
For months I've worked on a solution. I wipe the pen carefully, hold it upside down, and flick it to settle the ink, but that glob keeps blotting the page.
This morning, I filled the pen, wiped it oh so very carefully, and, as I have the last month or two, folded a scrap sheet and wrote a bit. Four words in, the pen belched a glob. After a dozen more, all was well.
Returning to my Morning Pages I wondered, why can't I solve this problem? when in fact I had just practiced a fine solution. I wrote the glob onto a piece of scrap. Ten seconds of scribble and the problem was solved. I've had it solved for months. How have I missed that?
I've missed it because I've been fixed on one solution instead of the problem. I've been willing to settle for nothing but a refilled pen that writes cleanly from the first word. Fixated on that, I missed having solved the problem of blotting on my writing pages.
I forgot to be aware of what's happening. Wishing for something, I missed the solution I had already discovered.
I'll bet that a blotting pen isn't the only problem I may have solved without noticing. It might be time to pay better attention.
Last week I was asked to define leadership and describe my style of leadership. Today I came up with a succinct answer:
Leadership is being responsible for problems and failures while giving credit for success to those who do the work. Leaders say, That’s my fault. Blame me. My team and I will fix this. Leadership is the clear display of strength, compassion, honesty and character.
I watch Governor Andrew Cuomo display real leadership. I haven't been Cuomo's biggest fan, but in this crisis he has been remarkable. So too have Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon and City Of Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh.
Less impressive has been the idiot man-child in the White House who cries that the pandemic is outlasting his short attention span.
Leadership is about mission and people, not the leader. If it is about someone who thinks he is a leader, then he is no leader at all. At best, he might lead us, in this case, quite literally to death.
I'm thinking about leadership a lot these days. Choices of leadership are on display. Clear choices. We each need to choose wisely.
Task & Timer bgfay - March 23, 2020
Here's my situation:
I can’t seem to get myself going this morning. There are some things I could, maybe should be doing, but none are really of much use and most are dependent on communicating with others so I send email and wait for replies. Everyone is dealing with stuff and my email isn't top priority. Nor should it be. I have brief moments of productivity between long stretches of nothing to do.
Maybe you can relate.
I'm not complaining, just trying to find a way to deal with the way things are. Since I'm not alone in having this problem, maybe we can test-drive a possible solution. You'll need a task and a timer.
One issue with working from home is boundless time.
Yesterday, I had five important tasks to do and finished before noon. Today, there wasn't even that much, so I read the news. Big mistake on two levels:
(I'm typing this on a screen but in a minimal editor set to full-screen mode and free of distractions.)
When in doubt, block computer/phone distractions, assign a task, set a timer, and work for the allotted time.
I may not finish this post before the timer sounds. That's fine so long as I keep going for forty-five minutes, as long as I'm working and focused long enough to pass the points of frustration.
I'm most likely to abandon things out of frustration within the first fifteen minutes. Past that, I usually stay with the task and make something of it.
Here's my confession: I tried to quit this post twice already. At two minutes in and again at twelve minutes, I gave up. Both times I went toward checking email and news, but the timer called me back. I still have time on the clock, I told myself and kept going.
Having nearly finished, I'm not sure I've created much of anything, but staying with the timer is worth something to me.
Maybe it's worth something to you.
I'm home with my wife and kids, dog and cats, daily calls to my mother and brother, email from friends, and my work. Working entirely from home this way is quite a shift and a tough balance. I'll need time to grow accustomed. Having one specific task and a timer helps.
My timer, by the way, is up. I'm off that clock. Time for a break. Maybe a few push-ups to get the blood flowing. Then I'll set another timer, start at the top, and revise this into a post.
Setting the timer for this one task got me going. How cool is that?
What are you doing to adjust to working from home? Leave a comment below. Let's talk.
The idea for timed writing comes from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones and Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers to name just two writing books that suggest it.
The idea for using a timer in this way also comes from the New York Times piece "Letter of Recommendation: Kitchen Timer" by Ben Dolnick that I have copied here for those lacking a Times subscription.