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Thinking about thinking . . . and playing

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I’ve been thinking . . .

about this quote:

Too often, young artists paint before they think. Over the years, I have disciplined myself to think before I pain. When I see a paintable subject or interesting situation, I paint more than I see. I paint what is to be seen. I paint what is inside me. I personalize the scene, make it my own so that through my painting you and I, viewer and artist, can communicate. My goal is to create paintings that are a voice, not an echo — Charles Wysocki, Heartland from The 9 Rights of Every Writer

Purple coneflowers

I’ve learned to think about what I write before I write. I know that when I do it’s so much more valuable. The words, the words I choose are chosen so much more carefully when I finally get around to deciding to choose them.

Thinking, trying on a thought, I let it live in me. Giving a thought time to breathe like a fine red wine sets the nuances out where I can see them. They’re like the wisps of a fall dandelion in the breeze floating against a blue sky background.

While I while away time letting thoughts go where they will go, my body takes a posture of relaxation. I breathe in ideas about whatever I’m letting myself think upon. So when I start to write I have a peaceful, deep understanding. I type slowly what I know intuitively about my ideas.

Today I was thinking about thinking about how a life might be wonder-filled if I were to take time to think before every important thing I ever do, especially playing.

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A Sense of Urgency

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I’ve been thinking . . .

about my sense of urgency.

When I was a publisher, I placed a high value on my sense of urgency. Everyone in my book of “those who are good at this” had a sense of urgency about the work we did. We tried to trim any schedule while still delivering top-notch quality.

Urgency is a highly personal relationship between a person and the work. It is a decision on how quickly something needs to be done in order to be done well.

Urgency means meeting the schedule with outstanding work.
Urgency means coming in early so that the next guy has more time to do what he needs to do.
Urgency means focusing on the task at hand, focusing to do it well on the first and only try.

When you work on unrealistic schedules that drive revenues that support your paycheck, urgency is value that is worth cultivating.

I taught my team in publishing that urgency is a merit skill.

Then I came online. I found it unfortunate and frustrating that folks didn’t seem to have a sense of urgency. I heard my urgent voice saying why don’t folks care that things slip and take longer than they need to?

Then I looked again at my sense of urgency. I started to realize that I had learned to be urgent about everything. Everything must get done. There were musts and shoulds, where I needed none. When I unpacked the word urgency I found the words responsibility, control, and oh no! . . . oh yes! stress.

Over time, I’ve adjusted my steps to walk when I don’t need to run.

I’m urgent only when time makes a real difference to the outcome.

I wish I had been a blogger before I was a publisher. Having known this would have made me a better manager.

Sometimes I truly do need a sense of urgency Sometimes I truly am better off without one.

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Space, My Frontier

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I've been thinking . . .

I remember on my first trip to England, how surprised I was when I got into the countryside. Somehow I had expected, from looking at maps, that the small country compared to my own, would be small everywhere.

It wasn’t.

As my dear friend and I road out over the highway, I saw green rolling hills, villages in the distance, and a view took my eyes all of the way to the horizon. I had long before discovered the value of a visual change as a vacation, but this was much more than that. I was filled with a feeling of belonging.

All that I saw, the trees, grass that covered the low hilly country, the occasional bigger hill, every bit felt right in proportion and distance. I felt room to relax, to let my mind stretch out. This country perfectly suited my sense of space. I even remarked on it.

A sense of space and my place in it had I thought about it before that day? I don’t know. I do know that, when we talked about a sense of space, I was talking about something that always had been a part of me.

This morning I look at the space around me. I realize there isn’t any. I’ve turned my desk into a tiny country, with satellite nations on my file cabinet, the credenza, the table, the box beside it, the floor . . .

If it looks like that around me, I wonder how it must look inside my head?

I’m going to take a half hour to empty some places around here. I know that if I do, my shoulders will relax and I’ll start to sit back. I’d like to see whether being empty-headed might be a really nice feeling.

Space, my frontier. I’d like to explore where it takes me.

I’m going out the door to see wide open space. As soon as I get outside, I’ll be looking at that horizon under a BIG Illinois blue spring sky over Lake Michigan. I won’t be thinking about what I have left behind that needs working on.

Most things I do are not things that involve the question of whether a life begins or ends if I’m not there. The world can turn without me.

I’m going to stare at the horizon while I think about nothing. I’m going to explore space — that frontier of reflection in my mind.

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Spring on My Bike

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I've been thinking . . .

I wasn’t much of an outdoors kid, really. I lived in my head. My imagination was plenty. I could find worlds there that kept me busy for days. I could find castles and dragons, and knights and ladies — except on the first days of spring, then I was torn away.

On the first days of spring, I was on my bike seeing how the neighborhood had changed.

There was something about moving from the blacktop of Main Street to the bricks of Congress Street over by Washington School where the kids were playing again. There was something about feeling the change in vibrations through seat of my bike as I made my way there.

I’d stop by the swingset. I’d give it a try one more time. Nothing like a swingset to make a kid feel like she could fly. Then back it would be to my bike to see where the neighbors had been all winter and what they’d been doing.

There’s something about that first real weekend of spring that makes the whole world feel new again.

On the first day of spring, I didn’t even mind homework. . . .

I’m not the type to ride a bike in the city, but I sure am the type to enjoy a spring day — or even a day that reminds me that spring is coming.

This morning, I look out the window and see a blue, blue lake. The harbor is blue and so is the lake beyond it. Any minute now the sailboats will be returning.

I’ll be having that spring bike-riding feeling all weekend, because I can’t help but enjoy being alive when I’m thinking that way.

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Time to Spend and to Save

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I've been thinking . . .

“Beginning in 2007, most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March . . ” This year that is March 11.

The clocks are about to change. I heard a bird yesteday. Soon it will be spring. I hope I get to see it. The tulips are my favorite.

My life has started speeding up. Gee, like it hasn’t been fast all along. Projects are reaching their launch. Big events are happening. SOBcon is one week. My son graduates from college the next. How can time go by faster than it already has?

Spring forward one hour — one hour less. I don’t need less. More might be useful.

Daylight Savings Time. Who is saving mine? I only know who is spending it. That would be me.

Sometimes, without thinking, I spend and save time simultaneously.

We’re on the porch in Massachusetts. My husband is fixing my glasses. My son smiled, “So, you finally found a use for him.”

We’re in the living room in Illinois. I wrote a poem for a kindergarten lesson. “You think you’re five, but you’re only four-thirty,” joked my husband.

I hear my father saying, “If you sleep on the floor, you’ll never have to worry about falling out of bed.”

My my older, older brother called on our 23rd wedding anniversary. “Tell your husband I said he chose wisely.”

When I was small, time was huge, unending, constantly thrusting me forward. But that’s not time, no, not really. Time’s not a moving, unbending force upon me.

Time is a paradox of meaningful or meaningless moments. We can lose track of it We can waste it or wait for our time to be over.

If we’re lucky we find that time is the one thing we can spend by living and save in memories..

Spring back and breathe.

I don’t need to save time, or find time or make more time in my life.

I need to spend more time that I can save as memories.

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Self Promotion: A Winning Answer Every Time — Why is That?

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Why You?

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In the comment box last month, for a post called 5 Reasons People Don’t Get Hired and the Only 3 Questions that Count Martin and I discussed questions we use when interviewing candidates for jobs. But let’s put this in context.

This is my favorite interview question. It requires a form of self-promotion.

If I had a candidate with a resume just like yours, what 3 things would you bring to the job that no one else would bring? No need to worry there’s no right answer.

In 15 years of asking that question, no candidate ever stammered. All of them took their time, gave it thought, and came back with a winning answer. No two answers were even remotely close.

No one got tied up in the confusion that usually hangs around self-promotion.

Why do you think that’s so?

How would you answer the question? What three things are you bringing that no one else would? What three things are uniquely you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
(I’ll be gone late morning to the dentist. Don’t worry if I’m not hanging in the comments.)

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