The Swap

Garth Beyer

For some, finding/making time to work on their art is impractical. The hassle of time management, task management, and people management is too complicated and, in itself, time-consuming. Nearly counterintuitive.

That is why I often suggest that they swap something they do regularly to work on their muse. The reading sessions at night can be put on a halt for a week. Karaoke night, family scrabble, lunch dates; they can all be post-pined for a week or two.

Finding time to work on your art is difficult. Swapping it with one of your weekly (or, hopefully, daily) habits is much easier to do.

Before you know it, you’ll be able to do both.

 

Stay Positive & Time Will Find You

Garth E. Beyer

For Starters

Garth Beyer

First sentences are expensive, mentally that is.

I’ve had writers, teachers, and friends remind me that the first sentence of any writing (the attention grabber) is the most important sentence and needs to be perfect. I squirm when I hear people tell me the first sentence must be perfect because they talk as if there is only one perfect way to start.

There are thousands of great ways to start. My philosophy is to find one that is great and move on. Most changes I see writers make with their first sentence doesn’t make it better, it just changes it into another great one.

Artists, not just writers, spend so much time on perfecting that first sentence.

Make it great and move on.

 

Stay Positive & Chasing Perfection Is Time Not Well Spent

Garth E. Beyer

People don’t remember the first sentence anyway. They do, however, remember the story and the ending.

Can You Do It Better

Garth Beyer

Of course you can, there is always room for improvement. But, I’ll admit, you will get to that point when you don’t want to put in the effort. Maybe it’s because you won’t get acknowledged for your effort, you don’t get paid enough, or you’re stretching the expectations of your job further than your boss may want you to.

I am in full support of finding and executing more ways to do what you have to do better. When you get to that point where you don’t want to (or do not have the freedom to) do any better, that’s when you stay just ahead of the game and work on your muse.

You don’t need to quit your job to fulfill your goals as an artist. Nor do you need to work your way all the way to the top of your current job to be able to support yourself as an artist.

If 4 is the best. Put 3 toward your job and 1 toward your muse. You don’t need a 4-0 or 0-4 ratio.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Tell Me There’s No Way… You Can Do Better Than That

Garth E. Beyer

Habitude

Garth Beyer

When you feel behind, you need to change not what you do, but the attitude you carry with one action. Before you know it, your attitude will be consistent with other actions.

Your consistent attitude with one action always becomes present in all other habits.

It’s just the way it is.

 

Stay Positive & Use It To Your Advantage

Garth E. Beyer

Bittersweet Productivity

Garth Beyer

I never plan to be productive. Night after night in the past I’ve said to myself that I will take care of the banal so that I can be productive in the late evening. I never was. Maybe I got a few words on paper, but not enough to consider it a productive night. And that is why I don’t plan to be productive.

I’ve realized that there is no surer way to invite the unexpected into your life than to plan progress. This alone sounds bitter.

But, what do you do when your entire day is filled with banality, when your routine is running your life, when there’s just no inspiration to be productive with?

Plan evenings, or mornings, or afternoons, to be productive, even when there is nothing to be productive with. You’ll be surprised at how quickly the world will throw something at you to stop production.

 

Stay Positive & Sweet, Sweet Productivity

Garth E. Beyer

 

Looking Like The Good Guy

Garth Beyer

If you’re given 10 free canvases, you still need to buy the paint.

If a friend gives you his old Gameboy, you still need to come up with the games.

When you buy an iPod, you have to get all the songs and shows you want.

Smart product creation is when you pay a large amount for one product that forces you to spend small amounts on what you need to use it: paints, games, songs, etc,.

Keurig is letting Madisonians trade in their used corded coffee makers for a brand new Keurig, looking like the good guy.

But now those that trade up have to buy K cups to go with it. Short term loss for Keurig, but creating a long-term gain. From my estimates, it will take roughly 300 K-cups for the Keurig to be paid off. From then on, it’s all profit.

(The target audience in itself is brilliant. They are appealing strictly to frequent to extreme coffee drinkers. Point for another post, perhaps.)

Keurig makes itself look good, but really it’s genius product design. Not necessarily making them the bad guy, but just a reminder that your habit is their profit, making you the product.

If it weren’t for the ease of pirating music. I’m sure Apple would be letting you upgrade your mp3 player to an iPod. I think we can cope though. It takes a very special product to pull off what Keurig is.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Coffee Time

Garth E. Beyer

Congratulations To The Onion

Garth Beyer

I’m speechless.

Here is an excerpt from The Onion,

So, as managing editor of CNN.com, I want our readers to know this: All you are to us, and all you will ever be to us, are eyeballs. The more eyeballs on our content, the more cash we can ask for. Period. And if we’re able to get more eyeballs, that means I’ve done my job, which gets me congratulations from my bosses, which encourages me to put up even more stupid bullshit on the homepage.

I don’t hesitate to call it stupid bullshit because we all know it’s stupid bullshit. We know it and you know it. We also know that you are probably dumb enough, or bored enough, or both, to click on the stupid bullshit anyway, and that you will continue to do so as long as we keep putting it in front of your big, idiot faces. You want to know how many more page views the Miley Cyrus thing got than our article on the wildfires ravaging Yosemite? Like 6 gazillion more.

That’s on you, not us.

You can find the full article: here

Still speechless. Maybe I’ll have more to say about it later.