One is a paper I’m writing with a small, all-volunteer group, on behalf of an organization I’m a devoted member of. There’s a lot of conflict and dissension involved—not on our writing team, but around the situation that we’re being asked to write about. The conflict is no surprise, but it adds to the stress and fatigue.

The other is a corporate training program I’m creating—also, interestingly, having to do with conflict, negotiation, and communication.

I have confidence (in the abstract) that both projects will turn out well. But the process of creating them has been or threatens to be more painful and difficult than I think is necessary. That’s a pattern for me, and I’d like to break it.

One way to do that is to see if I can make steady progress, in short work sessions, rather than bingeing (as Robert Boice calls it).

Another is to depart from my lone wolf approach. After all those years as a freelance writer, I’m used to Doing Everything Myself. I’m not in the habit of asking for help.

Changing my m.o.

For the writing project, which I’m currently editing, my usual m.o. is to try to mind-read the other contributors and come up with the perfect phrasing to express what I think everybody means. The alternative I intend to try is to get the other committee members on the phone and hash it out together. In fact, that’s how we were working during the conceptual phase, before the actual writing started. But somehow when the dreaded draft phase began, we fell into the more isolated pattern where one person writes, then passes it on to the next person for revision, who passes it on to me for editing. Discussing it in community would be less stressful and more productive, I believe.

For the training program, I’m putting out a call for support buddies on my favorite online forums. Maybe I can check in with them with progress reports (thereby helping with goal #1, steady progress) (yay accountability!) and for regular cheerleading. And especially for brainstorming and bouncing ideas around.

So that’s the plan. Asking for help. Not sure why this has always been so hard for me. Fear of rejection? Maybe just forgetting it’s an option, after having been self-employed for so long? I don’t need know the Why, so much, at this point, but I’m hereby declaring my intention to change the What.

My project for last week’s Bite the Candy was to reorganize a file drawer of materials from some of the business writing workshops I’ve led. There’s good information in those files, but it’s been jumbled. I need to be able to get my hands on what’s in there, quickly—especially exercises and examples that I can adapt for future workshops.

Just thinking about reorganizing all that information made me tired. My typical pattern, when I go through files, is to get caught up in looking at every page, evaluating whether to toss or keep it, and if I keep it, whether it should be moved and where. (I’m a detail nut and a reading junkie—what can I say?) It takes hours just to go through a few folders. I love dumping the castoffs into the recycling bin, but I don’t get to enjoy a feeling of accomplishment because so much more remains to be done. Plus I know this is not a great use of my time. So I’d been avoiding these workshop files.

Yet I got the job done in one morning! Here’s what was different. I pre-planned how to manage the project so it wouldn’t drive me crazy…and so that if I stopped before I finished, I’d be able to pick it up again without wasting time figuring out where I’d left off.

I also asked myself—important—what would be the simplest way to approach it, involving the least amount of work.

The two-part solution: 

• I got out a plastic file crate, so that I could pull from the drawer just the files I wanted to work on, and put them in the crate.
• For the few hours I devoted to the project, I made it my task just to locate the various writing exercises and examples, wherever they were in their different folders. I didn’t have to revamp all my workshop files. I only needed to find out what was there.

The crate meant that I could easily come back to the project if I didn’t complete it that day. It also put a comforting physical frame around the task.

Limiting my goal to identifying the exercises and examples meant I didn’t have to study each piece of paper. It was enough to glance at a page, and if it was what I was looking for, to mark it quickly, with a sticky note or by turning it sideways.

I didn’t create (as I’d previously thought about doing) a new filing system that was topic- or function-based rather than client-based. I just left the pages in whatever client folders I’d found them in—but I clipped the examples together and put them in the very front of those folders. Now I can search by client and find the examples pretty quickly.

On a separate piece of paper—bright pink so it will be easy to find, and in its own folder in front of everything else—I scribbled the names of every client file that contains useable examples. It’s a decent workaround and a good-enough solution for what I need.

For the first time in recent memory, I finished a filing-related project in a couple of hours. Whew.

If you have a project to tackle and don’t want to wait until the next Bite the Candy session, set up a joint accountability day with a friend. Email each other at the beginning of the day about what you’ll be working on, then report on your progress (and cheer each other on) throughout the day.

Before you begin, ask yourself: What’s the least I can do that will give me a feeling of accomplishment?

In fact, why not ask yourself that question about any project you’ve been avoiding? Post your answer in the comments if you like, or send me an email: janet [at] janetbailey[dot]com. I’d love to hear how you’re simplifying your projects.

My throat has been scratchy for the past few days. I tell myself that since it hasn’t turned into a cold (yet), it won’t turn into a cold, and that because I had a nap today I can start pushing myself again tomorrow. This attitude has gotten me into trouble in the past, cold-wise.

I really, really want to go to a Feldenkrais seminar tomorrow. It’s been on my calendar for weeks. It’s got a mindfulness slant, and I’m longing for some mind-body awareness that will free me from this chronic neck pain so that I can sit for longer stretches. (Ahem, how about taking more breaks at the computer?) But the class is 45 minutes away, and lasts all day, and I’m so tired.

I ran this by my S.O., the Professor, who said, “Don’t make yourself crazy, to get not-crazy.”

That’s the aphorism. You may quote him.

Ask yourself this question:

“If I knew how to [insert the thing you're stumped about] what would I do?”

That’s what I asked on a Friday afternoon last fall, faced with the need to more actively market my speaking and coaching in this blahdy-blah economy. And struggling with where to start.

How I reframed it:

“If I knew (which I do) what to do to build my business…

and if I could do it, and mostly enjoy it (which I could)…

what would the steps be?”

I listed some answers on a couple of sheets of butcher paper. So the whole thing didn’t feel so official and daunting.

In half an hour, I had a pretty decent plan, out of which emerged some priorities—one of which was this blog—and a bunch of next steps. I also had a powerful sense that this vision for my business was, in fact, doable.

Not incidentally, this method also works for getting blog posts written.