Uncategorized – The True Gen

Flow: A chart

I’m a big fan of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s book, Flow. (Wikipedia tells me the name is pronounced mee-hy cheek-sent-mə-hy-ee.) Simplistically, it’s a psych book for people who already like life and want to get more out of it.

The idea is that to really get locked in to the task at hand, your skills need to be challenged at just the right level. Too much challenge and anxiety sets in. On the other side, if your skills are untested, you get bored.

Here is how M.C. represents it in the book:

For comprehension’s sake (my own), I simplified it a bit here:

Each time you get bored with what you’re doing, be it work, your golf game, the ski run you’re on, or what you’re reading, find a way to make it interesting again with a new challenge. Then, when you find yourself on the edge, figure out which skills or what kind of preparation can bring you back to the center.

A new blogger’s two best friends: the drafts folder and a content calendar

Oh, boy: a blog post about blogging. We knew this day would come but not in the sixth post…

The good news is I will be brief and (ideally) helpful. Getting a blog going has been fun, but the actual work involved, the brain space required, and the teeth gnashing over grammatical mistakes has been a surprise (please post a comment when you find them, Dad).

To help keep things going I have two ideas on how to make the process a bit smoother:

1. Fill your drafts folder with post ideas

Fight bloggers’ block by noting potential blog topics in your drafts folder. Throw in a headline and at least a few lines of body copy. When bloggers’ block strikes, hit the preview button for a particular topic, and you’ll see what it could look like published for all to see. It will be a little more motivating than something scrawled on a yellow sticky or floating next to your grocery list in an Evernote app.

2. Get thee a content calendar

This covers some of the same ground in terms of capturing your ideas for posts, but gives you more of an overview of the content you want to create in down the road. I created one that goes through December 2012 in Google Docs that you can download as an Excel file. It’s very basic – take a peek:

A lot of the work in health content I do revolves around the National Health Observances. This can serve as your personal version of that: a collection of your own observances and rites that you want to share. A must have for all the Wiccan bloggers out there.

I’m new to this, so maybe these ideas aren’t new to you. Either way, please post any tips you’ve developed for putting the “ing” in blogging.