Welcome to The Simplifier, brought to you by…

Contents:

1. A Note From Shawn
2. Our Featured Quote
3. Article: Planning Your Own Personal Masterpieces
4. Your Simplification Tip
5. In the News
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
7. Keep Smiling

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1. A Note From Shawn

“They” say that moving is the 2nd most disruptive situation in one’s life—second only to getting married. Well it just so happens that co-editor Lance Brown is thick in the throes of moving and I’m finally at the wrap-up stage of my sister’s wedding. Lance and I figure that the third most disruptive situation must be 107 degree weather without air conditioning. Why else would we be publishing the newsletter on Friday?

Just so you know how hip you are for reading a newsletter on simplifying, the USA is celebrating its first National Downshifting Week July 7-13 (see In the News below for more) which can basically be summed up as “less is more”.  And since this week’s article is on planning, maybe you’ll want to plan some voluntary simplicity ideas triggered by Downshifting Week?  =) Enjoy,

Shawn Tuttle

Head Simplifier
Project Simplify
Co-editor, The Simplifier

 

2. Our Featured Quote

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”

-Alan Lakein

 

3. Article: Planning Your Own Personal Masterpieces

By Shawn Tuttle

This article is part of a series on the 5 Core Concepts. We’ve covered creating meaningful goals, visualizing & clearing obstacles. Next up: planning…

Nature has done an outstanding job designing magnificent trees. They can grow in the most unlikely places, reach outstanding heights, and sway in the mightiest winds without breaking. A single mature tree may have hundreds of branches, thousands of leaves, and miles of roots—all in perfect proportion for the survival of that tree. Considering the sheer number of parts of the tree, this could seem a daunting task! But the tree inherently follows a process that creates each individual part, and each of these parts fit together to form the tree. What seems complex and grand is really just an ordered collection of smaller, simpler parts and processes.

It’s quite similar to creating, say, a five-course meal. Ingredients, utensils, pots and pans are combined in a step-by-step process that results in a variety of (hopefully!) delicious dishes. And it all starts with the vision of a delicious dinner…

Now say your meaningful goal is a little more complex than a dinner. For example, you want to write your first book, or some equally-big goal tied to your hopes and dreams. The vision would be you as a published and successful author. Now how to cook up that vision? Time to start planning!

The goal of planning is clarity. Planning is identifying the various parts of your vision and breaking them down into doable actions. Those actions performed in a certain order allows you to create masterpieces—whether they be grandiose meals or a finished book!

Here are the main parts of the planning process:

-Take stock of resources 
Examples: my friend Joe is a published author, I’m getting an ezine for first time authors, my friend Mary is a writing coach and editor 
The resources that you identify here may or may not be ones you end up utilizing. You may go to a certain website for cooking techniques and instead end up finding a great recipe. The point is that we often need assistance, education, coaching, and camaraderie through the hard or unfamiliar segments of the journey. Taking stock of your resources helps you identify who (or what) might serve in these capacities. 

-Ask questions
Examples: Should I get an agent? Should I self-publish? How long should the book be? Who is my target audience? What’s in the way* of my achieving this? 
Who, what, where, why, when… there will be a lot of questions along the way! Questions help clarify and focus your efforts, so keep asking them. It’s amazing how you become aware of magazine articles, websites, and conversations that “just happen” to help answer your questions. 

-Identify sub-projects 
Examples: research topic, outline book, interview experts, find publishers
This is a crucial step for turning mountains into mere pebbles. “A five course meal” can be a daunting venture. “One appetizer, one soup, one vegetable dish, one meat dish, and one dessert” is much more manageable. These are your sub-projects. You’ll break each of these down even further. 

-Identify actions (and minor sub-projects) 
Examples: call Mary the writing coach, block off daily writing times in schedule, create timeline to follow
Keep breaking the sub-projects into smaller and smaller parts and/or questions until you arrive at an action to take. If an action will take several steps to accomplish, it’s actually another sub-project. As long as the end result elicits a “no problem” response from you, consider it ready for your ToDo list. 

-Organize the information 
Examples.: notes from interviews, potential publishers, the outline
Get your thoughts organized. You wouldn’t try to create a five- course meal based on recipes written on dozens of scattered Post-it notes. Nor can you always rely on your memory to store all the details involved in a complex project. Organized information gives your brain logical steps to follow, and gives it an opportunity to see what’s missing.
    Ideas for organizing info:

• Try a binder with dividers for each major sub-project and for resources. The benefit of a binder is that all the info is contained in one place and it’s easy to take with you. Plus, adding a visual representation of your goal to the front of the binder continually reminds you of what you’re doing all this work for.
  Disadvantages: you take the whole binder with you even if you only want one section. Also, inserting papers the 3-hole punch process.
• Creating a file for each major sub-project has the advantage of being easier to drop in papers plus you can take one file with you if that’s the only one you are working on.
  Disadvantages: they get separated more easily and it’s easier to misplace files than a binder. 

-Assign timeframes 
Examples: complete research by April, finish first draft by June, send second draft to editor by early August 
It’s been said that a goal is merely a dream with a timeframe. And it just so happens that deadlines are very convincing for motivating action. Some sub-projects will take more time than others, get a sense for how they all can work together at the right time. Decide on recipes by Tuesday, get shopping done by Friday, prepare meal on Saturday. The meal is on behalf of a friend moving in August, set dinner date for end of July.

Remember: the goal of planning is clarity. Identifying sub-projects and resources, assigning timeframes, and then organizing your incoming information within a structure transforms your project from an amorphous jumble into your emerging vision. Once the focused action items have guided your sub-projects to completion, you can add the finishing touches of candlelight and fine china to complete your masterpiece!

—

Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.

*You may want to reference “Clearing Your Way to a Brighter Flame” for more on clearing obstacles.

4. Your Simplification Tip

Support buddies

One of the resources that we busy people often overlook is a support buddy. This is someone you call or get together with on a regular basis, for ex. an hour each week, to discuss current challenges, celebrate successes, and provide accountability.How is this different than getting together with someone for a weekly coffee date? Your support friend should be someone with whom you share mutual respect. You trust this person to keep your meeting discussions private.While you may spend a little time catching up, the majority of your time talking should be focused on the projects you are working on. they may be personal or professional. Keep an eye on the time so that you have equal amounts of talking time while still finishing in your agreed upon time.

An important point to remember that when it’s your turn to listen, do just that: listen—refrain from jumping in with all kinds of “helpful” advice. Let the speaker guide the discussion.  

Close your session with a moment of gratitude that can be simply expressed with a heartfelt “Thank you, I really appreciate your support.”

 

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5. In the News

In the News is compiled by The Simplifier co-editor Lance Brown.

National Downshifting Week
URL: http://tinyurl.com/2zy3zw            
With the way people throw around commemorative Days and Weeks these days, National Downshifting Week may very well conflict with Linoleum Appreciation Day and Give-Your-Baby-a-Bank-Account Week…but that shouldn’t detract from the idea behind Downshifting Week, which is “7 days - 7 ways - to Slow Down and Green Up!” Founder Tracey Smith has made a cool checklist of 7 items to do next week which will help you slow down and take time to appreciate the simple things in life.

Mastering the Fine Art of the Home Office (ABC News)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/2yfxj5                      
That’s not the actual title of this poorly-titled-but-worthwhile article by ABC News, but it should be. If it was, I wouldn’t need to write one of these blurbs for it. ;-)

Immaterial world: Living the Simple Life (The Daily News - Halifax, Ca.)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/2ggyhm                               
This author has chosen to live simply, and that conflicts sometimes with people who think he’s dumb for “wasting his time” walking to work. And not giving his daughter presents on her birthday and Christmas? Madman! Or is it the majority of consumers who are the madpeople? This anti-”affluenza” advocate discusses the tension between the ideal and the real when it comes to really living simply.

If you know of something in the news that should be featured here, let us know!

 

6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com

The Blog Days of Summer*

Here are 6 blog posts from June, to sit out on the porch and enjoy the cool evening breeze with.

Impromptu client story

Preventing that awful overwhelm feeling

Focus on the destination, not the pitfalls

When a mountain becomes an oasis

Have clever slogan, will apply on T-shirt.

An ode to a broom

*Ten points goes to the first person who notices that none of those posts were technically even posted during the summer. Or did I spoil the game just now?. D’oh!  ;-)

 

 

7. Keep Smiling

…JibJab’s Jokebox

The comedy video team known as JibJab became widely known (if not by name) when their video satire of the 2004 presidential election, set to the tune of “This Land is Your Land”, caught fire—first out on the Internets, then on the cable and network news, and then everywhere but the kitchen sink.

The Spiridellis brothers, who are behind the JibJab video empire, have expanded their site to include a user-contributed humor section called the Jokebox. They’ve now collected over 100,000 jokes of various sorts (i.e., video, photo, audio, or text), which, in theory, could inspire an awful lot of smiling and/or laughing.

Of course, not all jokes are created equal, in quality or in taste, so you may find some adult humor (or juvenile humor, depending on your perspective) and/or some dud jokes…but there’s also a lot of creative stuff there, and if worse comes to worst, you can always just check out the JibJab originals, which are more consistently and professionally funny. Though you may find a fart joke or two even there. Ooh, I just said “fart”! (Titters from the audience.)

URLs…
JibJab Jokebox: http://www.jibjab.com/jokebox 
JibJab Originals: http://www.jibjab.com/originals 

 

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Thanks for reading!

Publication Information
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The Simplifier is published by:
Project Simplify
P.O. Box 597
Nevada City, CA 95959
phone: 530.205.5775
web: www.projectsimplify.com
e-mail: (newsletter@projectsimplify.com) newsletter (at) projectsimplify (dot) com