Rarely am I serious. Most anyone who’s ever talked to me knows that I don’t often give a straight response to a question or say anything that makes one iota of sense. There’s a reason for that, and it’s that the serious Eric - the real Eric – lives in a world of constant anxious turmoil.
Every month I am tasked with writing a blog. I would fathom a guess that of all the blogs I’ve written, only one has ever been completed when it was supposed to. That includes this one, now over a week late. Usually when it’s late I take the typical route of joking about it, which is something I need to work on not doing. In all reality however, blogging takes an unbelievable toll on my mental state. In the week leading up to the blog due date, it’s really all I think about, usually to an end result of increased frustration with myself because I can’t ever think of what I want to write about.
The problem is not so much a lack of topics to write about, it’s an issue of what do I actually want to write about. I could rattle off 200 great blog ideas in five minutes, sure. What’s wrong with that is that of those 200 ideas, I would feel motivated to write about maybe one. This is something I’ve dealt with my entire life, if I don’t feel passionate about the task before me, my motivation level drops to near zero.
Edison’s Inventions
Last night, I was thinking about Thomas Edison and how many inventions he created over the course of his life. It seems as if he invented something every month, and so many of his inventions are fantastic, things we still use today. As I was thinking about this, it occurred to me that he was doing his own thing, at his own pace. I would hazard a guess that’s part of what made him so great.
I imagined, what if Edison was taking orders from someone who said, “I need an invention every 30 days.” Do you think his inventions would have had the impact they do today? How long did it take him to make the light bulb? Probably not 30 days. Had Edison been tasked with creating something every 30 days, he probably would not have unleashed the amount of great inventions he did. He probably would have just come up with a lot of ‘filler inventions’ – things he created just to appease the powers that be.
Not meaning to compare myself to Edison, I feel the previous point speaks volumes when it comes to blogging. When there is pressure to complete something, oftentimes less is achieved, whether it be in terms of the overall product or the quality of the product. It is only through time and careful thought that I am able to create a blog. It’s through this process that the overall blog writing process is streamlined.
Consider this: every single one of my previous blog posts took no fewer than 4 hours each. This blog post (something I feel very strongly about) has taken me 7 minutes, as of this sentence.
Please don’t misconstrue this as meaning that I feel blogs are not important. I get it, they are. It requires no reiteration. That however is precisely why blogging does take such a toll. It’s that nagging feeling of knowing that I need to do this, but I can’t for the life of me actually complete it because I don’t feel strongly about doing it in the slightest.
My Zone of Incompetence
So how do I handle this problem? Like last night, the solution was to go to sleep at 6 pm and stay that way for the next 12 hours after having a full blown panic attack. While that works to put an end to panic attacks, it’s not exactly a “solution” when it comes to blogs.
Our fearless leader, Tynan, recently gave a lightning talk on something called Satori. In essence, it’s understanding where your strengths and weaknesses are in life. There are four Zones: of Incompetence, Competence, Excellence, and Genius. Blogging for me falls into the Zone of Incompetence: the definition of which (per our fearless leader) is as follows:
“The Zone of Incompetence is made up of all the activities we’re not good at. Others can do them a lot better than we can. Surprisingly, many successful people persist in wasting time and energy doing things for which they have no talent. The best way to handle most things in your Zone of Incompetence is to avoid doing them altogether. Delegate them to someone else, or find some other creative way to avoid doing them.”
This rings so true for me as writing in general has never been my forte. According to Satori (and the fact that blogging falls into what I consider my zone of incompetence), I should avoid it altogether. That however not being an option for me, I feel I must take the latter route according to Satori: find a creative way to avoid doing it.
What I feel would fit my personal blog style much better is to simply do what I do for a living, what I would say falls in to or between the zones of excellence and genius: programming. Perhaps someday I can be rid of the writing portion of blogs altogether, and just create fun and/or creative programs that help others. Upload a zip file, jot down a quick 2 or 3 sentences about what it does, and that would be that.
It doesn’t hurt to dream…
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