{"id":5964,"date":"2015-05-22T12:19:09","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T17:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=5964"},"modified":"2015-05-22T12:19:09","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T17:19:09","slug":"all-the-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2015\/05\/22\/all-the-things\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/snapping-fingers.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5966\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/snapping-fingers.jpg\" alt=\"Snapping fingers\" width=\"800\" height=\"581\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/snapping-fingers.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/snapping-fingers-300x218.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a>This week, I seem to have bumped into articles and videos about how <a href=\"http:\/\/writerunboxed.com\/2015\/02\/03\/monotasking-the-forgotten-skill-you-and-i-need-to-re-claim-asap\/\">multitasking and other hurried methods of producing<\/a> usually have<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work\"> a negative effect on production<\/a>&#8230;or it&#8217;s just where my mind is at this week and those articles stood out more. (My guess: the latter situation.)<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I think about moving on to a nice, new project, but&#8230;novels don&#8217;t get written if you don&#8217;t turn over at least a large part of yourself to them.<\/p>\n<p>The urge to take up new hobbies and chase possible leads is always tempting, but when it comes to the one or two things you do very well, a focus bordering on obsession never hurts. (Or just admitting that you&#8217;re hooked and letting obsession wash over you.)<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Do Not Turn Away from Your Thing<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;ve written about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/2014\/03\/21\/the-power-of-having-a-thing\/\">the importance of having a thing<\/a> elsewhere. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/2014\/03\/24\/more-about-having-a-thing\/\">A couple times<\/a>, in fact.) Especially when writing a novel, which can take a long time to complete, the urge to do something new and fast is always a temptation for me. I think about creating other podcasts and returning to writing articles (and not just because they have always paid more than fiction).<\/p>\n<p>But the novel as a thing has me hooked. Rarely is writing a novel fun to me, but there are few things in my life as satisfying as finishing another book. Because of that way of looking at novels, I can&#8217;t let other things take over.<\/p>\n<p>I recently watched the video below and liked what&#8217;s said about being creative and wanting to do too many things at once.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You have to make decisions in your life, and as a creative person &#8212; you can&#8217;t do everything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/126545288\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/126545288\">Turns<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/breakwaterstudios\">Breakwater Studios Ltd.<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The video is short and beautifully produced; I definitely recommend giving it your time. There are many other wonderful things said and made in the short span of this mini-documentary.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Doing All the Things<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I recently mentioned in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.meningorillasuits.com\/2015\/05\/13\/men-in-gorilla-suits-ep-119-last-seenbeing-disciplined\/\">episode of the podcast I do weekly with a friend<\/a> that, if I had more time, I&#8217;d have loved to focus on music (cello, in particular). But\u00a0when focusing on the thing you plan to master, the reality is it takes up most of your creative time. There&#8217;s nothing wrong with giving yourself to that thing you love and not trying to do everything you think about doing.<\/p>\n<p>Ask me the creative things I do best in life, and my answer is this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Writing<\/li>\n<li>Juggling<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are other things I&#8217;m good at, but those are the two biggies. (And if I&#8217;m being honest, I can see a marked decline in juggling skill when I became more focused on writing.)<\/p>\n<p>Writing is the thing I love doing most, so that&#8217;s the thing I&#8217;ve chosen to do.<\/p>\n<p>Everything else is simply a hobby&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, I seem to have bumped into articles and videos about how multitasking and other hurried methods of producing usually have a negative effect on production&#8230;or it&#8217;s just where my mind is at this week and those articles stood out more. (My guess: the latter situation.) Sometimes I think about moving on to a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5964"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5972,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964\/revisions\/5972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}