My Three Words: A Decision Filter for 2015

by | Jan 1, 2015 | Personal, Success

I’ve heard more than one writer say that some of what we write is to clarify our thinking. This two-part series on my focus for next year is an effort to refine my thinking as the calendar turns to 2015. If you didn’t read the previous post, you can find it here.

Man plans, God laughs

                 –Yiddish Proverb

Decisions

How many decisions do you make in a given day?

  • Should I turn right here to miss the traffic light or keep going and hope it stays green?
  • I planned to get up and run this morning, but I was up late last night. Should I hit the snooze button?
  • My budget for the new car is $250 a month, but the navigation system is awesome, and it’s only $11 a month more. What’s $11 a month?

We make decisions ranging from the inconsequential to the life changing, every day. And for the most part we make them on the fly, with little thought. But what about the important decisions? How should we make those?

Decision filters based on goals have always worked well for me. Most of us use them, but we may not think of the decisions in terms of goals. Want to lose 10 pounds before your friends wedding? Skip the ice cream. Want to save money for a two-week ski trip to Aspen? Go to a less expensive restaurant on Saturday night with your friends.

But what about the goals themselves? What kind of decision filters do we use to decide on our goals?

For the past two years, my measurable goals have been non-existent. Oh sure, I’ve wanted to lose weight, mostly when I catch a surprise glimpse of myself in the mirror, or when my feet hurt after a run. Or, I wished I had the ability to write as quickly as those authors who crank out four books a year. But those are simply wants, not goals. They’re a stimulus reaction.

Deciding what you want to accomplish over the coming days, weeks, months or even years isn’t something that should be based upon what others are doing. These are the important decisions. The ones that require thought, and in my case they’re best made with a decision-making framework. The framework I’m using to evaluate my personal and professional goals are the three words I’ve chosen as my touch points for 2015. Simplify, Multiply and Monetize.

Simplify

I’d love to have a way to quantify the amount of time I wasted making decisions on things that meant nothing to me in 2014. Did I think the new iPhone was a significant leap forward, and if so should I get one? Should I buy a new computer? Is this to-do list program better than the one I’m using now? All these random thoughts require answers and the answers require decisions.

Time is an increasingly scarce commodity in our lives. Should we really spend it on things like evaluating the value of the latest phone/watch combination gadget?

Simplification for me in 2015 means limiting options, making fewer decisions, and saying no a lot more often than I say yes.

Multiply

Since time is limited, generating the best possible results in 2015 will come from multiplying my efforts. Spending an extra hour building a system or a template, which can be used multiple times is worth the effort. Doing something that can only be used once is probably not.

I’m in the creation business, but not everything needs to be created from scratch. As a quick example, a single blog post can be expanded to become a series of posts, which can become an ebook, that can be used as an incentive to get people to sign up for an email list.

Multiplication for me in 2015 means executing on creative ideas that can serve multiple purposes.

Monetize

There are two forms of investment in any activity - time and money. For the past two years I’ve spent both time and money learning the work I’m currently doing, but time is becoming scarce now. I need to be able to multiply (ah, there’s that word again) my efforts, which will require more money and that money should be coming from the work I’m doing now. Not the work I did five years ago.

Publishing rather than creating endless drafts is monetizing. Creating products that add value to the audience of The Author Biz brand is also monetizing. If writing and The Author Biz are to be businesses then I need to monetize the work I’m doing with each of them.

Monetization for me in 2015 means publishing and selling books, as well as the creation and sale of products and services through The Author Biz brand.

Will these three simple words make a measurable difference in what I achieve in 2015? Well . . . yeah - I think they will. There’s nothing magic about the words, but there may just be some magic when they’re used to make the decisions that determine what gets done over the coming year.

Thanks to Chris Brogan for the idea of using three words as a focal point for the coming year and thanks to you for indulging me with this bit of reflection as we move into the new year. And remember, if God laughs at your plans next year, you’re not alone.

 

The Author Biz Podcast

by | Jun 12, 2014 | Listening, Personal

Learning

I’m launching a new podcast that will focus on the nitty-gritty business details of being an author. Guests on the show will include authors who are well established as well as those who may be unrecognized by the big publishing houses, but totally kicking it through self publishing.

However, this is not just another author interview podcast.

We’ll spend time covering the craft of writing, but we’ll also have guests who will speak on topics like business plans for authors, editing, cover design, audio book creation, business structures, taxes, publisher contracts, formatting, marketing, self publishing, and dealing with social media.

Think of The Author Biz as a writer’s conference with multiple tracks. One that you can attend each week without the need for packing, travel, and putting on makeup. The show will be delivered each Monday beginning June 30th and be available through iTunes and other podcast outlets. It can also be streamed from the website, which is www.theauthorbiz.com.

Why this podcast and why me? Two reasons.

First, this is information I’m extremely interesting in learning. Each step (more…)

My Every Other Year Diet

by | Oct 4, 2013 | Personal

I love to eat.  I love food, especially good food, though not necessarily food that is good for you.  Because I love to eat and I don’t like being too overweight I find myself going on a diet every two years.

Here’s my pattern, beginning with the start of the diet:

  1. I realize I’ve gained too much weight as soon as I can no longer stand to look at my self in the mirror.
  2. Weigh myself and try not to scream too loud.
  3. Write down that weight on a 3 x 5 index card
  4. Start that day to eat differently, much differently, for as long as it takes to get my weight down to where I want it to be, which for me is 155 pounds.
Yes, my handwriting really is that bad

Yes, my handwriting really is that bad

So – that’s the beginning.

I’ve been successful doing this for several years now, and the particulars of the diet are less important than you might think.  Any old diet will basically work for me, as long as I stick too it.  It takes me anywhere between two and three months of dieting and then I go back to what I hope will be a ‘new and improved’ style of eating.  So far that new and improved style of eating hasn’t been effective enough from keeping me from needing to diet again in another two years.

My current diet is what Tim Ferris called a ‘Slow Carb’ diet in his book, the 4 HOUR BODY.  It’s a low carb diet with a kicker.  You can eat whatever you want on one day of the week.  For some reason that makes this particular diet much easier for me to deal with.  If there’s something I want to eat I put in on the list for Saturday, my ‘eat whatever I want day.’  This Saturday extravaganza keeps me from feeling too deprived while I’m on the diet.

This year’s version started on August 24th when I tipped the scales at a robust (for me) 172.5 pounds.  This morning I hit 159, so it’s working pretty well.  At this rate I’ll be done in too months and can go back to eating better, more nutritious meals, but without the restrictions I’m currently on.

For anyone who’s curious, this is an average days eating for me:

Breakfast – A six once package of Chobani Greek Yogurt.  I add nuts and flax seed to the yogurt.

Lunch & Dinner  Beef, Chicken or Fish, (no buns or bread of any type) with either beans or a small salad, dressed with vinegar and oil.

I have two snacks a day.  I have one handful of nuts and either some cottage cheese or a hard boiled egg.

I don’t drink anything with calories during the week.

That’s it.  Then on Saturday, I can eat whatever I want.  Interestingly enough, after making myself sick the first Saturday, I normally eat similar foods, but add bread, fruits, and whatever it is that I feel like I missed through the course of the previous week.

Is this diet scientifically valid?  I have no idea, but it works for me.  I’ve also lost weight by severely limiting fat.  I expect the secret is to just pick a diet that works for you and stick with it.

It’s amazing what happens when you go a week without fried foods or sugar.  First, you feel better, but second, when you eat them on Saturday you feel like crap.  That’s why I normally only seriously over indulge on the first Saturday.

Then, when the diet is over, the real battle begins. Trying (again) to eat good food that’s good for me.  One thing I have in my favor this time is that my wife, who never gains weight, is now seriously into healthy eating.