Archive for ‘Time Management’

22 items.

The Willpower Muscle

by Colleen Doran on February 27th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Creator Resources, Creator Resources, Time Management

Another great article on stick-to-it-iveness vs/ natural talent. This one gave me a giggle because I found a lot of my own personality quirks in it.

Yet another study finds that it is the person with the self discipline – and not the naturally gifted – who is most likely to succeed in life. The kid who works harder goes farther. The naturally talented are often the naturally lazy.

But let’s take things a step further and consider willpower as a kind of mental muscle. It is a muscle that needs to be built up gradually. You won’t suddenly develop it overnight, any more than you can wake up Monday with a six pac on your abs after years of guzzling beer and doughnuts. You have to work at it and it takes time.

Willpower, like a muscle, can also be overtaxed. Those who exercise too much willpower too fast in too many areas may not find themselves better off, they may find themselves breaking down from the strain of trying to be…well, full of willpower all the time.

While the original article to which this blog post linked is no longer online, I have changed the link to another article which discussed the same material.

Here are two more articles on the same subject at The New York Times and at Inner Idea. I’ve left the original quotes from The Australian below.

What, then, can we do about this unfortunate tendency of the moral muscle to become fatigued with use? One option is to build it up and make it strong. Evidence is starting to accumulate that the moral muscle, like its physical counterpart, can become taut and bulging from regular exercise. People asked by experimenters to be self-disciplined about their posture for two weeks were afterwards stronger willed when it came to a test of physical endurance, compared with other people allowed to slouch about in their usual comfortable way during the fortnight.

By regularly exercising self-restraint and virtue in all areas of life (moral muscle cross-training, we may call it), we will come to resist temptations with the same casual ease with which a world-class athlete sprints to catch a train. That, at least, is the idea.

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Starving Artist Economics

by Colleen Doran on February 26th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Creator Resources, Creator Resources, Education, Creator Resources, Money Management, Creator Resources, Time Management

OK, we all know the chances of success as an artist are slim, but apparently, it’s not just a matter left to chance, it’s almost a mathematical certainty.

This article on Baumol’s Cost Disease centers on the high cost of being a performer, and the low return on that investment.

Baumol’s cost-disease (sometimes more prosaically referred to as the Baumol-Bowen effect) is well-known among economists and arts administrators, but not many working musicians have even heard of it. First described by economists William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen in 1966, the main symptom of the disease is this: labor costs in the performing arts will always inexorably rise, and at a faster rate than other industries. That’s because in most industries, technological advances allow for increased productivity without an increase in labor. This doesn’t happen in the performing arts, though. As Baumol and Bowen famously describe it in their book Performing Arts: the Economic Dilemma:

Whereas the amount of labor necessary to produce a typical manufactured product has constantly declined since the beginning of the industrial revolution, it requires about as many minutes for Richard II to tell his “sad stories of the death of kings” as it did on the stage of the Globe Theatre. Human ingenuity has devised ways to reduce the labor necessary to produce an automobile, but no one has yet succeeded in decreasing the human effort expended at a live performance of a 45-minute Schubert quartet much below a total of three man-hours.

Technological advances have allowed cartoonists to produce a certain type of artwork at greater speed than before, if you are the sort of artist who uses Photoshop for all of your background work, that is. But that doesn’t actually seem to have resulted in faster artists, unless you happen to be a cover painter. It takes a heck of a lot less time to Photoshop a cover than it does to paint an original oil.

The technology appears to have created a demand for more intricate, polished comic art. You can create more impressive images with less effort, but on the whole, I don’t know if it’s actually making most artists faster. They are simply taking more time to produce flashier images.

And of course, if you are Jeff Smith, you’re not using a computer to draw anything. It takes Jeff Smith just as long to draw a comic page now as it did 20 years ago. And there will always be an audience who chooses to follow the work of artists who draw sans machine.

The computer has lowered the rates of some artists and forced others out of the business. Letterers now get paid what they did more than 20 years ago. And tight pencilers no longer need inkers. That work can also be done on computer. The tales of ex-top inkers who now work at the Subway Sandwich shop are not mere anecdotes.

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GOING VIRTUAL: What Social Networking Can Do For Your Business

by Colleen Doran on February 19th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Creator Resources, Creator Resources, Education, Creator Resources, Time Management

February 26, 2009 at 2pm EST

Attending events is a great way to source leads and make valuable contacts, but who has time to visit them all? These days, it’s easy to enhance your efforts without leaving your chair. Robbin Block of Blockbeta Marketing will help you navigate the labyrinth of social media sites. She’ll help you understand how, when and where to use social media sites to effectively grow your business, and how to avoid wasting your time when attempting to do so.

You’ll learn:
* 9 ways social networks can help you market your business; Who’s using them: Are they your potential customers?
* How to choose the right social networks (i.e., “should I be on Facebook?”) ; Strategies for making the most of your time.
* What it takes to build a profile, plus 6 ways to get in the mix.
* The rules of engagement: what to say – or not.

If you’ve been wondering how much time you should spend on social networks, or you’ve already dipped your toe in the water but find that you aren’t sure how to make them work for your business, you should listen in.

Presenter: Robbin Block, Blockbeta Marketing, www.blockbeta.com Marketing consultant, instructor, and speaker, Robbin Block of Blockbeta Marketing, has been helping businesses of all sizes to market effectively for over 25 years. Robbin has in-depth knowledge of the Web and its strategic application to business. Her engaging and often humorous presentations provide practical tools that can be put into practice immediately. Robbin has an MBA from Boston University and a BA in Economics from the State University of New York at Albany. She’s also a SCORE counselor on marketing and the Internet, where she’s worked with hundreds of small businesses and startups since 2003. She volunteers at KBCS 91.3FM Seattle on the One World Report public affairs program as a writer, copy editor and voice talent.

A registration form, along with a updated 2009 teleclass calendar, is attached for your convenience. Please note that we must receive the registration form to reserve your spot.

The fee is $15 for members and $25 for non-members. When you register you will be sent information about how to dial in, as well as any applicable handouts from our speakers. And, as a special bonus, all registrants will receive an audio file of the class.

For those unable to attend, but want to learn what was covered, classes will be available as downloadable audio files for the same price. More information on these files will be posted on the Guild’s web site as the files become available.

Registration forms will be posted monthly for each upcoming class at www.gag.org/teleclasses.php. For more information about our teleclass series please contact the Guild office at 212.791.3400 x10, or email sales@gag.org.

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Practice – Not Genius – Makes Perfect

by Colleen Doran on February 2nd, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Creator Resources, Creator Resources, Education, Creator Resources, Time Management

Must Read.

A few years ago, I wrote an article on my work schedule (reposted just a few weeks ago, click the Time Management tab), and the rather intense demands in it led some people to observe that my attitude showed a disturbing level of American go-get-it drive, a sad obsession with “being #1″, and a workaholic tendency.

Darn those crazy Americans! When are they ever going to learn to stop and smell the roses (I grow roses, by the way.)

Well, this very interesting article is yet another look at the simple fact behind success; PRACTICE is a greater indicator of success as an artist than innate talent, and the work habits of those artists who succeed show that those who work harder get better results. It’s not God-given talent, it’s drive and work ethic.

Scientists have investigated this question of expertise — specifically, skill at a level that seems unobtainable by normal, motivated individuals. In one study, researchers led by Florida State University professor K. Anders Ericsson studied musicians at a Berlin conservatory. Students were divided into three skill levels, including one the faculty had identified as having the best chance of becoming world-class soloists. The researchers had the students keep diaries of their schedules and looked at such information as when they started playing and their practice habits as children…

The results were clear-cut, with little room for any sort of inscrutable God-given talent. The elite musicians had simply practiced far more than the others. “That’s been replicated for all sorts of things — chess players and athletes, dart players,” says Ericsson. “The only striking difference between experts and amateurs is in this capability to deliberately practice.” The group even determined the number of hours musicians must play to compete at the highest professional level — about 10,000, the equivalent of practicing four hours a day, every day, for almost seven years. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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A Messy Desk is a Sign of…

by Colleen Doran on January 31st, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Creator Resources, Creator Resources, Time Management

Here’s a very interesting and fun article about what your mess may mean about you.

According to some researchers, a messy desk may be the sign of an active and intelligent mind. High achievers often have piles of paper and book mess around their offices, but there is order amidst the chaos:

A clean desk really does signify an empty mind. “Office messiness tends to increase sharply with increasing education, increasing salary, and increasing experience,” they write, based on studies that I am inclined to accept without reservation.

My office and home used to be very messy, mostly because of the piles and piles of paper from self publishing, and the fact that I could no longer afford to rent outside office space. Moving about 100 boxes of stuff into a 750 square foot condo made for cramped quarters. I was miserable with the situation.

Read through the posts as well. Here’s an interesting tidbit:

Years ago McClellan offered a motivational theory that suggested people with clean desks and grip and grin photos were motivated by power; people with messy desks/offices were motivated by achievement; people with toys and family photos were motivated by affiliation. The theory went on to suggest that each of us is motived by all 3 factors in varying degrees.

Hm…my office looks like all of these things, with different zones showing extreme organization, minor clutter, and friendly family photos. My clutter increases or decreases depending on my workload, but nowadays, I schedule time to deal with clutter every single day, so it doesn’t get out of hand.

“Messy desk owners typically, for example, have separate piles for urgent, less-urgent, and non-urgent documents.”

A good point, that. But trouble comes when there is no more room for separate piles. They bleed into one another, or start to fall down, or both. By that point, using the desktop to create a new document is kind of impractical.

“As the mess grows, the rate at which the advantages grow tends to slow and eventually trail off,” the authors write. “Meanwhile the rate at which the disadvantages accumulate will eventually start to take off….”
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