PopUrls.com
BoingBoing.net
CrooksAndLiars.com
ThinkProgess.org
Huffingtonpost.com
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NYTimes.com
WashingtonPost.com
LATimes.com
Salon.com
(added 10/22/08)
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I reserve the right to add other sites as I find it necessary.
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update: Saturday; November 15, 2008
“30 Day Online Media Fast” was a success. The stream of bad news coming from some of the sites I’d been tracking had really begun to get me down. A fact that became all that more clear when I cut them out of my media diet.

Here’s the goal:

Read a minimum of one novel a month. Read a minimum of 3 plays a month.

There are no restrictions on genre. I’ll keep track of things on my reading page.

Simple, and hopefully S.M.A.R.T.

For my own benefit, let’s refresh our memory as to what the heck this whole challenge was about.

It started way back in June of this year with a 30 Day Challenge. The way I stated it back then was:

For the next 30 days I’ll spend a minimum of 50 uninterupted minutes a day either working on one of my projects, or engaged in active “Me Time”.

I was trying to use the “30 Day Challenge” tool to make myself spend more time getting things done on things that mattered to me (essentially “The Book”). I was successful in that first 30 Day Challenge. I extended it another 30 days and also hit that mark. Now that I look back at my project tracking for that time, I’m remembering that yes, I actually did technically complete the 90 days of working on my project(s) successfully. In one sense I suppose I won one battle and lost another in that I didn’t meet the timeline that I’d set for myself for completing the book. (The engagement is ongoing in the larger war though… I WILL finish this damn book!)

It’s good that I keep this blog. It’s so easy to forget things that may seem terribly vital in their time. As I look back on how far I’ve come with “The BooK”, I realize that missing those last 2 release dates in August and not having a bound copy for all of my students when I came back to teach was ok. It didn’t make sense to continue to spend money on the symbolic gesture of binding a copy every 9 days. It wouldn’t have made sense to spend alot of money binding (incomplete) copies to give to every one of my students for the first week of lessons. Ultimately I gave my students the content that I had in folders (my first year students received loose leaf notebooks of the material.) This wasn’t an ideal solution, but at least I had something to give them. I’ve spent a hell of a lot less time copying this fall than I have in the past.

So, what have I learned from all of this and what the benefits been? For one thing, I have a hell of alot more done on the book than I did back in June. Having the material that I did to start the year has helped alot, especially with my new students. I feel like I’ve finally been able to get them started in a way that feels consistent and honestly their playing is reflecting the more organized approach I’ve brought to the table. I wouldn’t have had that had I not worked on the book all summer. Also, my way of thinking about projects has deepened and matured over the past months since “failing” to release a v.1 of the book. I’m glad that I went through the process of tracking my work for that 90 days. Ultimately I think it’s the shifts in perception that have come in the last 3 months (of frankly avoiding working on the book on a daily basis) that will serve me better over the long term. I have a greater clarity now about how to use the tools of GTD (especially next actions) that I think will serve me well over the coming year. I’ve also discovered more about my habits and tendencies and hopefully am learning to hack my brain in such a way that I am more focused and more able to do the things that need to be done to move my life forward in a positive way.

It’s taken almost three months to get this “90 Day Challenges” post complete, but hopefully it was worth it! : )

Check-Ins

90 Day Check-In: Sleeping in My Bed
Day 90 came and went back on September 6th and I’m happy to report that this habit seems to have successfully taken root. I associate alot of pain with sleeping on the couch now, and can’t imagine myself doing it anymore.

90 Day Check-In: No Television
Day 90 of this challenge came and went back on September 13th. I successfully avoided the idiot box for those 90 days, and though I’ve watched TV from time to time since then I don’t watch it nearly as much. This challenge really made me aware how much of a negative influence television can have on your brain. It’s such a passive activity, and so much of what’s out there is absolute rubbish. Not to mention the amount of time it sucks out of your life. I do know that I must be vigilant and not let it creep back in to my life. There is just too much else to be doing. I can’t spare the time.

90 Day Check-In: No Sugary Snacks
Kicking the sugary snack habit has been great. Again, Day 90 of this challenge came and went successfully. Saying “No” to sugary snacks for those 90 days has helped alot with saying no in the days since. I haven’t been as extreme with it in the days since, but I’ve noticed that I’m much more conscious of the sugar that I put in my body. My brain just kinda says “you don’t need that stuff anymore… It’s not good for you…”. I seem to have successfully knocked out my soda habit as well. (Knock on wood and all of that…).

30 Day Check-In: Questions
This is one of those challenges that didn’t go so well. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I didn’t keep it up for the full 30 days. It’s been a while since I started this one, but I seem to remember that about half way through the 30 days I had a bit of a breakthrough. It had to deal with wealth, and how you define it. It came after reading Paul Graham’s essay How to Make Wealth. The thing that I took from it is that essentially wealth is not money. The pertinent passage is here:

Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn’t need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn’t matter how much money you had.

Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money. [...] People think that what a business does is make money. But money is just the intermediate stage– just a shorthand– for whatever people want. What most businesses really do is make wealth. They do something people want.

What I took from this was the answer to my question: “How did I create a million dollars doing the thing that I loved to do? I made things that people wanted and they gave me little pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents.”

Asking the question definitely got my brain moving and working but it didn’t lead to the place that I’d hoped and ultimately created more questions, which I suppose isn’t such a bad thing after all.

30 Day Challenge: Open Loops
This one was a bit of a wash-out. I was never clear enough as to what constituted an “open loop”, so ultimately this fell by the wayside. My guess is that the list of open loops wasn’t broken down into enough discrete next actions.

30 Day Challenge: Morning Pages
I remember that I started this challenge at a time when I was feeling unfocused and thought that having a goal of 30 days of morning pages would be a good thing. I didn’t complete 30 days straight, but I have been using them more regularly in the days since to clear my head. This is a tool that I believe in and that I’ll regularly revisit.

Project Challenge
I’ll cover this in a later post.

So there you have it. It feels good to put this stuff to bed.

• Went on 2 auditions
• Saw 2 plays
• Responded to 9 ads in Backstage
• Read 5 plays and started a 6th
• Mailed the soap letters

I like being able to look back and see exactly what I’ve done to forward the different areas of my career. It can be very difficult sometimes to see the progress that’s happening. Alot of times things happen behind the scenes, and unseen forces might be moving things in your direction without you knowing about it. Careers in the arts seem to rely very heavily on he whole “sowing seeds” metaphor. Thus the abundunce of overnight successes that were 20 years in the making.

At least if I’m tracking my actions it’s a tangible reminder to myself that I am doing something to make my life better, even if it’s in small ways and in baby steps. My acting actions are the seeds that I sow.

I’m going to give the whole “challenge” part of this a break for a while. I’ll continue to track my exercise routine here.

I know myself well enough to know that I need another 30 days with this one to make it an unshakeable habit.

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30 Day Challenge: Television Replacement
Start date: Tuesday, 8/15/06
Next check-in date: Wednesday, 9/13/06

I’m ready to let go of this as an official “30 Day” task, but plan to continue the 20 minute daily minimum and will continue to track things here.

Every day for the next thirtydays I’ll write morning pages.

What are “morning pages”?

3 pages of stream of conciousness writing, as described in Julia Cameron’s book “The Artists Way“.

Why are morning pages important? They help to clear out all of the gobbledygook in your head. They help you focus. They help you put things into perspective. (For a more detailed explanation check out Julia Cameron’s book.)

I’ll make every attempt to actually do these in the morning, but I know that in the past there have been times when this just doesn’t work. The most important thing is to do them daily.

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30 Day Challenge: Morning Pages
Start date: Tuesday, 8/15/06
Next check-in date: Wednesday, 9/13/06