Issue #025 | September 13, 2020  

THE SUNDAY CHECK-IN 

This week: what's your next step, making time to do your best work, write a better to-do list, how remember everything you learn + more.

Asking the Wrong Questions?

What's your next move? 

Because if you're anything like the smart, ambitious creator I think you are, you've got something brewing.

A new project. Challenge. Adventure. Decision to make.

Am I right?

I have this friend. She's been percolating an idea for a while.

A dream to start her own website for the t-shirts she designs and sells on Amazon. She loves selling on the big A, but now she wants to next level it.

Which means buying a domain name and building her own website.

It's a project she's been meaning to get around to. It's just that her inner critic has been asking all the wrong questions:

Do you have the time for this?

What if you do all this extra work and your store flops?

What do you even know about building a website? You don't have the technical skill.

This all smacks of uncertainty. 

And that's a horrible place to get stuck. Because life is uncertain. 

Our inner critic pointing out the obvious isn't helping. It's disabling our ability to commit to making a decision.

A decision that could open the door to a whole new adventure.

Here's a couple of better questions my friend could ask instead:

Q: What do I need to get out of my way and start this thing?

A: A concrete next step.

Q: What's my concrete next step?

A: Grab a pen and paper and brain dump every big (and little) thing I need to do, learn and get help with, so I can bring this idea to life.

That's all she needs to do to get moving. Sure she's got a lot of work ahead of her, but if she keeps taking baby steps, she's going to kill it with her own website. Eventually.

So over to you. What's something you've been meaning to start but haven't yet? 

Could be anything - a new health and fitness regimen, creating a course, finding clients, writing a book, starting a blog. Anything.

What's your next concrete step?

Don't just say it out loud. 

Go grab a pen and paper. Write it down. Act as though you mean business this time.

Then, if you feel like it, shoot me an email and share your new thing with me.

Mena x


Quick Tips & Cool Tools

✨ Stop worrying about not having any original ideas

  • We're obsessed with the value of newness - fresh starts, new beginnings, original ideas hold more weight than anything old and needing to be built upon.
  • Try naming one truly original idea. Can you?
  • The search for originality paralyses creators from creating - stop this obsession. The world needs your unique contribution.
INC

✨ How to make time to do your best work

  • "Multitasking is a lie".
  • Find 2-3 hours each day to do 'deep work'. 
  • Develop the patience to keep practicing consistently.
  • Understand why what you do matters to you.
  • Find small ways to improve. Every. Single. Day.

→ The DO Lectures


✨ Expert-approved ways to write a better to-do list

  • Time block - give each task a dedicated time slot.
  • Create 'if/then' lists based on your energy levels.
  • Prioritise important/urgent tasks.
  • Draw it, don't write it!
  • Grab post-it notes or your fave software and create Kanban boards.
  • Could you do with a 'could-do list'?

→ Mental Floss


✨ How to remember everything you learn

  • Ever finish reading a book then 15 minutes later struggle to explain what it was about? Three strategies to help you remember stuff better:
  •  Active recall.
  • The Feynman technique.
  • Spaced repetition.

→ Will Schoder / YouTube (13 Mins)


Caught on Twitter


Just for Fun!

It's an oldie - Jeremy Fry, Celtics fan dancing to Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer. Cheesy, but totally love it when people lose all inhibition 🤘🏾 

The guy in the baby blue Nike shirt wasn't feeling it though.