This isn’t going to be one of those great posts with lots of insightful ideas. It’s one I just have to get out. See, Greg Tirico challenged me to do the Your Turn Challenge, and I’ve been procrastinating all day. Now it’s 9:53pm and I’m way past ready to go to sleep. It’s been over a year since the last real post on this blog. I could say something about shipping or “The Resistance”, but I’m pretty sure I already said it pretty well in that post.
I often ask myself a question I’ve heard Merlin Mann say several times, “What haven’t you shipped today?”. He admits he borrowed the concept and possibly the phrase itself from Seth Godin, but that’s not the important thing here. The important thing is how I answer that question most days: “Well, I should have written something.” It didn’t have to be a blog post. It could have been a journal entry or something. Regardless, I feel the need to write but often lack the focus time to get anything written. Or like tonight, I procrastinate by going on Facebook or Twitter or watch TV.
I was just telling Greg last week that I needed to write more this year. He agreed which was encouraging. Imagine if he’d said, “Nah. You really shouldn’t.” That would have been devastating. What I didn’t tell him was that one of my goals for the foreseeable future is to read more books than I have the last few years. It takes about an hour for me to write a blog post when I’m in the flow and much, much longer when I’m not, those two goals, while complementary, are at odds with each other. Then I remind myself that if I cut out a couple of hours of procrastination, I’ll find the time to find the focus to both read more and write more. But then I procrastinate anyway.
What am I going to do about it? That’s the beauty of these words that Seth Godin published last Thursday: “This is a chance to practice shipping for one week within a community. It might be hard but it’s doable and it might change you. I hope you’ll give it a shot.“ I’m going to give it a shot.
One of the reasons I joined Toastmasters almost 3 1/2 years ago was to be heard. This blog has the potential of being one of the best ways of being heard.
I’m giving the seven day writing challenge a go starting today.
Look at that. it’s 11:49pm. I’m just in time.