I think Seth Godin is a pretty remarkable observer of business life. I’ve been hanging on to one of his posts entitled The non-optimized life for awhile to let it percolate enough to share it with you.
Seth’s advice, as he states, is important on so many fronts that it bears continued discussion here. His first two paragraphs rock, I’ve set them in here for your reading pleasure:
Surely, you can optimize a website or a blog for traffic. You can optimize ads to make them yield more results. You can optimize your presentation style to close more sales or change more minds. You can optimize your workout to get faster and stronger. You can optimize your diet to lose weight and gain muscle. You can optimize your sleeping patterns to get more rest in less time. Cosmo even says you can optimize your sex life…
And then, at some point, you realize you’re spending your best energy on optimization, not on creation.
True confession: I sometimes spend too much time on optimization not creation.
I like getting things “done”. Those of us who like lists, and tasks, and the feeling of accomplishment, we all know what that feels like.
Doing a project to optimize is more satisifying to our task oriented brains than “creation” And frankly, an empty email box and short to do list inspires in me greater creation.
That said, Seth reminded me in a “here’s what you’re up to” sort of a way, and has inspired me to be more thoughtful with my time allocation. Anyone want to join me in a “at least 1/4 of your time is thinking of the next thing”? Because that’s what I’m going to try to do for the next month!
