Lacking significance through having been overused; unoriginal and trite.
Productivity
Productivity

Productivity

The Beatles and Productivity

I spent all of the Sunday after Thanksgiving watching Get Back, arguably not the most productive way to spend a day. But The Beatles’ productivity stuck with me, months and months later.

Unsurprising, their staggering output is undeniable proof of just how productive they were in such a short period of time. Former journalist Tom Whitwell had similar thoughts, outlining ten lessons from the film. It’s a good read – the first is something I have had to deal with and could also accuse myself of in the past:

The first rule of improvisation (and brainstorming) is “yes… and.” When someone suggests an idea, plays a note, says a line, you accept it completely, then build on it. That’s how improvisational comedy or music flows. The moment someone says ‘no,’ the flow is broken. It’s part of deferring judgement, where you strictly separate idea generation from idea selection.

As they slog through Don’t Let Me Down, George breaks the spell. Instead of building and accepting he leaps to judgement, saying “I think it’s awful.” Immediately, John and Paul lay down the rules: “Well, have you got anything? “You’ve gotta come up with something better.”

(Via Kottke)

Fuck January

You’re coming off the holidays. It’s cold outside. It’s snowing. Not suggesting be outright lazy for a month, but lean into the new year. You’re much more likely to set goals and keep them if you formulate a game plan.

I keep a planner and in the back pages run monthly tasks that I use as a reference as I fill in my “free time” week to week. This year I decided to be realistic and, outside of a few time-sensitive tasks, combine my “to-do” list for January and February.

I know Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today and that means six more weeks of 2020. But if you’ve seen Groundhog Day, you know the final act is when Bill Murray decides to become the man he wants to be.

“He gets to know everybody in the town,” writes Austin Kleon. “He sees what problems there are in the town to solve, and how he can use his powers to help… He also throws himself into his work: he crafts a super eloquent speech for Punxsutawney Phil, which he presumably gives every day. He learns French. He learns how to play the piano. He learns how to sculpt ice. And it’s when he finally masters these things, when he’s turned himself into a person worth loving, it’s then that Rita notices him, and they live happily ever after. Phil learns, as Hugh Macleod says in his book Ignore Everybody, ‘The best way to get approval is to not need it.'”

If you are down on yourself for not getting shit done during the lockdown, or surprised life hasn’t gotten magically better because it is no longer 2020, or embarrassed that you have yet to start your resolutions (or never set any in the first place), I will just say this: Fuck that.