Two years ago, when I started my creative life, I wanted to do so much. I wanted to start a blog, write for online magazines, write short stories, finish my memoir and write the first draft of a novel.

I also wanted to sketch, paint, and make rock mandalas. And I was committed to starting an online business. 

So I embarked on all those projects straight away. I made plans. I bought courses after courses. I scheduled my day so that I can allocate time for each project. 

I had worked as a project manager during my working life so I knew how important all that planning was. But I was missing one big thing. 

I was the only resource. 

There was no way I could do all that I was allocating myself to do in a day. 

Damn.

I was in a deep sh*t and had no idea what to do.

One day I was listening to a YouTube video by a young artist by the name of Struthless (real name Campbell Walker) who went through the same agony as me.

In his early days, he was into many things, songwriting, poetry, drawing, animation, video making, etc., etc. Like me, he wanted to pursue them all. 

He had a mentor Marc Schattner. Marc and his wife Gillie make dog and rabbit face human sculptures, paintings, and sketches. 

That is all they make. 

Struth was in awe of their work and constantly whined to Marc. I want to be as good as you. When will I be able to get to your level?

Then one day, when Struth’s complaining got to an all-time high, Marc sat him down and gave him some tough love.

You know what your problem is Struth, one day you write a song, the next day you write a poem, and the third day you do a drawing and none of it adds up to anything. All you are doing is laying a single brink of million different houses and hoping one day it will magically become a mansion. It’s not going to happen.

Marc’s advice hit Struth like a ton of bricks. Marc had identified correctly. Struth was scattered. 

So was I. 

I was doing several things and making zero progress with anyone of them. 

We live in a world where there is too much to entice us. Spoiled as we have become, we think we can do everything. But the reality is that we have only a limited amount of time.

I am a multi-passion creator. I get excited easily. A soon as I hear something interesting I want to do it. But how can I choose which interest to pursue and which one to park for the time being?

It is not an easy decision. At least not for me.

So I came up with three questions to ask myself to help me make a decision.

Will it enhance me, or will it diminish me?

You got to have a guiding principle in your life. Mine is growth. So this is the first question I ask myself. This thing I am going to commit to, will it just make me happy or will it make me grow. 

Oliver Burkeman, a journalist and writer framed it perfectly:

We are terrible at predicting what will make us happy: the question swiftly gets bogged down in our narrow preferences for security and control. But the enlargement question elicits a deeper, intuitive response. You tend to just know whether, say, leaving or remaining in a relationship or a job, though it might bring short-term comfort, would mean cheating yourself of growth. 

— Oliver Burkeman

That doesn’t mean I don’t do anything for pleasure. In fact, all the things I do are for pleasure. But the pleasure I get from doing the things I enjoy is much deep-seated. 

What it means is that I don’t choose anything that doesn’t give me pleasure. The activities we enjoy are also the activities that make us grow.

Still, there are so many things that I enjoy and most of them can lead to self-growth. That leads to the second question.

Do I have time for it?

We have somehow led ourselves to believe that we can fit everything we want to do in a day.

A mentor of mine Sean D’Souza has a theory. He calls it Chaos Theory. It works on the basis that sh*t happens in life on a daily basis. Praying that sh*t doesn’t happen, doesn’t work. 

Instead, you need to make time for sh*t. 

I have started following the Chaos Theory. I now leave enough time in my day to deal with day-to-day happenings. 

So the second question I ask myself is, Will adding this new thing will leave me enough time to handle the daily sh*t?

If the answer is no, then I ask the third question.

What will I give up in order to take it on?

When my children were young they wanted to do all those after-school activities their friends were doing — swimming, basketball, piano, dance lessons, chess, netball, the lot. 

But I didn’t have time to drive them around to everything. Both my husband and I worked.

So I made a rule.

They can join two activities at a time, and when they have made their decision, they will have to stick with them for six months. They can’t just pick and let go of activity as soon as they decide they don’t like it. The rule worked beautifully for all through the school years of both my daughters.

Now I apply the same rule to myself. 

I work only on two projects at a time. 

The next one can only start if one finished or six months have passed and I have no intention of pursuing it. 

Applying 3 question strategy has worked well for me. Earlier this year I submitted the first draft of my novel for workshopping. 

Now I am writing an article a day and drawing a sketch a day.

I am getting faster and better at both. 

In six months’ time, I will evaluate whether to replace them with a new project or continue with them.

Action Summary

• Focused energy moves mountains. You have to say no to a lot of random things to be able to say yes and focus your energy on things that matter.
• You only have enough time to concentrate on one or two things at a time. So just pick two.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Recently I read an article where the author stressed quality over quantity. Although, in principle, I agree with him, I am in the “quantity” camp. However, I can say from experience that quality comes with quantity.

Before I go any further, let me reiterate the story that illustrated the importance of quantity over quality for those who haven’t encountered it yet.

A ceramics teacher announced on the opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. “All those on the left side of the studio,” he said, “would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.”

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class, he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. 

Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seemed that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. — David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art & Fear

This is what I have found with my own work. Since I have started concentrating on quantity, writing an ‘X’ number of articles in a week rather than a ‘Y’ number of excellent articles in a month, I am getting better and better.

It is a different matter that you don’t want to “practice in public” and only want to publish your best article, but believe me, that will be a limiting strategy.

Recently I have started sponsoring to another view.

Initially, we can’t become good, even if we want to.

When we start writing, we are like toddlers learning to walk. A toddler can’t walk fast even if he wants to. So he concentrates on putting one foot over another. Once he learns that, he starts to run. He doesn’t worry about getting his feet on the ground properly; he just dashes ahead, even at the cost of falling on his bum.

Like a toddler, my goal is to get faster at something before I get better. 

It used to take me seven to eight hours to write an article. Now I can write the same article in three to four hours. My goal is to get it down to one hour.

Once I can write an article in one hour, I can concentrate on how to balance it. How to introduce humor in it. How to end it properly. How to write compelling headlines. 

Before getting faster, I concentrated on getting consistent. 

I used to write a diary, just on the weekend. Then, a few years ago, I started writing a page a day. It was a big commitment initially. I would miss days, sometimes weeks, particularly when I was traveling. So now, whenever I am traveling, I take my diary with me. Each morning that is the first thing I do. Write a page in my A5 diary. It has become such a habit that even if I want to break it, I can’t.

Following that, I started a 100 days challenge. I started writing a short article on social media. I did it for 100 days consecutively. I missed two days in the whole period, but I was euphoric. I can do it. 

It took an hour and a half initially. Soon I was able to reduce the whole thing to just ten to fifteen minutes. It included writing and posting on three platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram). Now I can do it in less than ten minutes. 

I am posting manually on each platform. I intentionally don’t use any software to schedule posting. Because posting manually allows me to check other people’s posts, leave them comments, and respond to comments on my own posts. 

Once I got consistent in writing and posting daily, I set my eyes on bigger goals.

Following the success of posting small articles, I set myself a challenge to write 100 Articles in 100 Days. 

Previous to that, I was writing one to two articles a week. On average, it was taking me seven to eight hours over different days to write one article. I am on day 22 today, and already I’m taking less than three hours. 

A lot of it is planning; I select images in one sitting, do the footer for many articles in advance, and spend five minutes to outline as soon as an idea comes to me. 

When it comes to writing, I write in 15 minutes sprints with an actual timer. 

Earlier I used to edit as I wrote, not anymore. I’m now writing in a flow state, leaving the editing for another day. Usually, on the day I’m going to publish. That gives me time to rest the article and let new ideas germinate to make that article even more interesting. 

I see myself as a two-year-old.

I only started blogging two years ago, so I can consider myself a two-year-old in the blogging world where some writers have been writing for seven to ten years. 

It doesn’t matter how much I want; I cannot be as good as a seven-year-old or a ten-year-old writer. But if I can write faster, I can write more articles in a week and a month (and eventually in a year). Then there is a good chance of catching up. 

That is why in this 100-day challenge, I’m not aiming to publish in big publications. Instead, my aim is not to break the streak and get faster and faster. 

I publish daily on my profile and then submit them to a publication that accepts pre-published articles. When I have reduced my article writing time to under one hour, I will concentrate on getting good. 

Already I’m writing two articles a day, one for the same day and one for next week. So if there is something unexpected happens, I have to travel, or visitors drop in unannounced, I have an article scheduled for that day. Scheduling is a great way to ensure consistency. 

I have not reached Tim Denning’s stage to write five articles a day, but I’m sure if I continue following this strategy, in not so distant future, I will be able to replicate his method of writing. Tim writes a week’s worth of articles in two days. That is a big ask. 

To Sum Up

Whatever skill you are learning, try to get fast at it before getting good. 

I have been doing the same with my paintings and sketching and receiving similar results. 

Finishing a thing earlier means you have more time for yourself. And who doesn’t need more time these days?

Twenty-twenty was a great year for online learning. So, with no travel plans to disrupt, I went on a big spree to buy online courses. I am sure many people did the same, as content writers, coaches, and nonfiction-writers all show a big spike in their earnings since the pandemic hit last year. 

There were many reasons for me to go on this spree. First, I was new to online learning. Second, I wanted to gobble up everything and level up with the established writers as quickly as possible.

I also fell prey to online selling, which has a “buy-now-or-you-will-miss-out” business model. 

The result — I have several courses that I haven’t gone through beyond the first few lessons. 

With the internet, we have access to thousands of courses, webinars, summits, reports, books at meager prices. Yet, most of us find it hard to gain skills. Often it is not for want of application. Some of us may be easily distracted, but others are dedicated.

Here is what I learned from my course buying spree.

Not all courses are created equal.

Most courses are seminar-style, where the presenter provides the information and doesn’t teach any skill. 

Other ones are summit kind where several well-meaning presenters give their views (often contradicting) on the same topic. Of course, not all of the information is relevant to your scenario, but you don’t know that until you listen to it. 

Generally, I rate workshops above the seminars and summit. This is because, at workshops, you are putting into practice whatever you are learning immediately. In my mind, it is the best way to learn.

We are all time-poor. And we are bombarded with information. Unless we put the new knowledge into practice straight away, it will be forgotten or, worse still, replaced by thousand other things demanding our attention.

A big price tag doesn’t mean it will be a better course.

I have bought less than $100, and I have bought courses that cost much more than $1000. What I have discovered that ten times more fee doesn’t mean ten times more value. 

Many times we pay for the brand name.

Some presenters have built themselves a big following that they can charge whatever they like for the courses. Add to that scarcity factor and spot- specials, and you have a winning formula.

Many Udemy courses have the same information at a fraction of a price. Also, many platforms come with free courses. I was pleasantly surprised when I joined Convertkit. It has a well-structured course and an excellent program to teach all you need to know about online marketing and newsletter building.

Buying a course doesn’t mean you will acquire the skill.

Writing articles, building an audience, marketing on social media are all skills. When we buy a course, we think we are acquiring these skills. Instead, what we get is a load of information. 

Acquiring skills needs work on our part. It needs commitment, time, and patience. And it needs practice. When buying a course, you need to make sure you have the time and commitment to practice what the course teaches. Otherwise, you will be buying something that will sit on your computer, and after a few months, you will even forget you bought it.

Don’t get lured by the “special price.” Online course presenters need to sell their courses. So they will be coming with specials all the time. Take your time to buy the course — which is when you are ready to implement it.

Online courses can never replace the face to face courses.

This weekend I attended the first face-to-face workshop since the pandemic hit last year, and boy did I find the difference. 

First of all, I got to get out of the home. Getting out of the home meant I got out of the hassles associated with it. I didn’t have to run a load of washing while I was listening to the audios. Neither did I have to worry about cooking lunch or getting the dinner underway. No vacuuming to fit in between breaks and no answering the doorbell or phone calls. 

I had the luxury to immerse myself in learning. I could fully engage with the tutor. I could ask questions, and got direct feedback instantly while doing the exercises. 

Of course, I could have learned the same thing on YouTube from the convenience of my home. I would have saved the driving time and course fee, but I wouldn’t have learned the skill either. Not as quickly as I did in the workshop. And with much less frustration.

Not to mention learning from the other participants. Each one of us interpreted the instructions differently. Learning from them provided another layer of understanding.

I am not discounting online courses completely. They have their merits, and I envision myself buying many more in the future. But I think both online and live courses are needed.

What I am raising here is our tendency to buy courses as if we are buying commodities. However, just buying courses doesn’t mean we can buy the skill they are promising to teach.

My strategy to go through previous courses (and the future ones).

I have decided not to buy any more online courses this year. 

I am going to go through all the previous courses for the remainder of the year. 

Some of them are sitting there because I was not ready for the skills they were teaching me when I bought them. Others were too long. One course had 80 hours of videos. Even if I watch for two hours a day, every day, it will take me 40 days to finish it. 

But I am going to finish it. 

How? 

Rather than watching it slowly and taking notes, I will go through them in one go. It is the same strategy I use while reading a book that I want to consume to gain information. Even quick listening helps absorb many facts.

Once I have gone through the course, I will have a good idea, what modules I want to watch again. Now will be the time to make notes. I will also be marking the modules that I should watch again, say in six months. 

Going over a course in several iterations has the added benefit of repetition. We don’t learn much the first time we encounter anything. It is by repetition we cement the lessons we learn. Every time we listen to the same information, it presents a different meaning. 

To finish my rant

This is my plan to finish the courses I have already bought. 

I would like to know what is yours. 

Photo by Le Wagon on Unsplash