Category: Creativity
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The effort is the point
When I was working with an executive assistant, one of their tasks was scheduling meetings with my clients. I considered having them schedule meetings with my friends too, and that never felt right for me. Sometimes, scheduling is just about meeting to discuss business, which is where tools such as Calendly or SavvyCal or Vimcal…
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What AI won’t change in art
Google launched 25 years ago. While it has become one of the biggest, most powerful companies in the world, it hasn’t changed everything about us. For example, while we search a lot, we still ask each other questions. (Partially because Google search has deteriorated.) We still meet up at events, ask for coffees, and sign…
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A 20 year detour
When Ke Huy Quan was 12 years old, he made his film debut starring in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Millions of viewers would know his character, Short Round. Yet as he got older and decided he wanted to act for a living, he saw fewer opportunities to act. He couldn’t see a…
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Practicing vs. pushing
Practice is about getting better, and pushing is about exerting greater force. While sometimes people may want you to push yourself to practice harder—and while yes, sometimes, the need is there!—many times the two aren’t necessarily connected together. Pushing too hard, or too often, can actually ruin a practice, because it creates too much pressure…
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Find spaces to talk about your ideas
Promoting your work actually makes an impact. Anne Trubek notes, after publishing 90 books, “I can trace a pretty, if not completely, clear line between an author’s marketing prowess and effort and sales.” There are a lot of people who would probably want to learn more—as soon as they are aware of it and can…
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Notes on promotion, at the book fair
Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair is made up of 36,000 square feet of books and the people who print and publish them. If you like books, or art, it’s a great place to be. Events are great temporary spaces and occasions to bring a group of people together (known in marketing as activation).…
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You can’t summarize the most important parts of a book
If you want a book to change you, you’ll need to do it the long, hard, stupid way. The saying goes you need to pay twice for a book; once when you purchase it, another when you read it the first time. In the case of a particular book (e.g., 50 Cent’s Hustle Harder, Hustle…
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Stopping
Yesterday, I wrote a response to the question, “How do you do it all?” and this is one of Seth Godin’s techniques that I am still learning: he stops. Even when there’s every reason not to stop. A couple of years ago, Seth Godin stopped working on his podcast, Akimbo. He says, “I stopped not…
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Doing it all
A new friend recently asked, “You’ve written a book, you write a blog every day, you work at Figma. How do you do it all?” I remember that I have also asked questions like this. Here’s my method: Priority: I try to maintain a clear sense of what is most important that day, and overall.…
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Effective first
An effective first approach prioritizes getting your work done (feeding your family, achieving your goal, helping a friend, etc.), within the boundaries of your values and ethics. When you work from a stance of effective first, you prioritize doing the real thing. You tell people about what you’re doing. Through this doing, you get the…