Sustainable Work Pace

The hustle-first work culture and un-checked capitalism are full of promise of financial and career success. If I’m not careful, I can let those promises push me to in-humane levels of productivity and burn out.

But what’s the alternative?

I’m not advocating quitting projects, closing down all social connections, becoming a monk, or churning my own butter…though I have nothing against those that decide to go off-grid. I get the rationale!

I’m talking about operating in a different mental gear altogether. To start, I try to step back and evaluate my project goals. Why am I overloaded? How do I make my work sustainable? How do I create more satisfaction in my work? How do I provide well for me and those depending on me to do so?

For those with a Bible background, here’s what Ecclesiastes says: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” To me this includes single tasking, time blocking, and stepping away when a project…both at work and at home…is complete. It means enjoying my work, trying new things, and keeping a loose hold of the results.

My job title and my projects are irrelevant to the satisfaction I get from my work. It is possible, too, that the only choice in the work that I have to do may be my attitude and how I show up every day.

Let’s give ourselves grace and be kind to ourselves. We are not machines, we are organisms that are growing and changing by the minute. Work is good! But work done well, at a sustainable pace, is even more rewarding.

The work that we love to do is needed for the long game.

Garden

A wise friend once told me that many people think of life as a ladder…climbing rung after rung…to be better than others, above others, gaining more prestige, power, and influence. But, he said, life is instead like a garden. We move around our garden of life tending to areas that need pruning, weeding, watering, and sometimes overhauling. There is beauty, there is hardship. We must often revisit the areas of our life that need more care and attention. I like this analogy, and I offer it to you today as food for thought.

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Graffiti

What is graffiti?

I understand all the issues with vandalizing someone else’s property, and I’m all for NOT doing that. However, not all of what we call “graffiti” is the same thing: in my mind urban art involves tagging, stylized lettering, and commissioned murals.

According to the interwebs, “Tags are a primary form of modern graffiti, serving as stylized signatures for artists. They are typically simple, quick to execute, and often consist of 3-5 letters or digits, prioritizing flow and style.”

Then there is the stylized lettering shown here that, also according to the interwebs, “is a valuable form of expression that adds character and vibrancy to urban environments”.

Also this about murals: “A blank concrete wall gets tagged overnight. The city paints over it. Two weeks later, more graffiti appears. This cycle repeats endlessly in neighborhoods worldwide. But some cities discovered something strange: cover that same wall with a professional mural, and the vandalism often stops. Murals reduce crime in ways that have nothing to do with surveillance cameras or police patrols.”

Now, the photos I took that are shown here are from a passing train in downtown Lynchburg on it’s way to the coast of Virginia. Technically, it’s still illegal graffiti, but the art does not reside in any one locality, so following through with arrests are not going to happen. Which is why we have art like these on trains.

My thoughts?

Yes, I know the graffiti shown here is illegal, but I can’t look away. I think it’s pretty. Both things are true at the same time.

I also think commissioned murals and stylized lettering raise important points about our culture and public art. There is a need in people’s soul to see beautiful things and to express ourselves, too. There’s also the need to rebel against rules and I get that part of the discussion as well. I wonder at the root if the graffiti artists wish their surroundings didn’t look so blah and cold and functional and want something colorful, artistic, and slightly random to decorate our spaces.

So what to do?

I think having more spaces in urban settings for artistic self-expression would be nice. Lynchburg does this with sewer drains and an ongoing public art program! It satisfies some of the pent-up frustration of artists with the condition of our modern skylines.

Musings on DJing

Preparing for a DJ event may seem like a piece of cake and as fun as it sounds like at the actual event. I think that’s the beauty of any craft…the output or the payoff always looks easier than the prep work.

Side note, this is one of the struggles I have with taking care of the clapboard siding on my 100+ year old house. I love how it looks like in the end, but maintaining wood siding is 90 percent prep work and 10 percent painting. I like the painting part of the process a lot more than the prep work.

Ok, back to my musings about DJing.

The part you don’t see is the amount of hours spent wondering if I have enough music in my library to please the audience and if my equipment is reliable for my next event.

While my music library is extensive, it’s extensive to my tastes but not necessarily everyone’s. And people’s tastes are changing with new songs that come out every day. So I listen to the radio, break out the old playlists, search online for the latest hits or even the classics for particular genres.

Once I find a tune that I don’t have that I think may be a crowd pleaser, then comes previewing it for content and quality. Not everyone likes explicit lyrics and I do a lot of family events, so I keep it clean, which is a balance between clean and rocking, too. I try to find both.

Then is the mechanics of purchasing each track, bringing it into my playlist app, then transferring to my DJ software playlist crate for analyzing and processing the metadata. Then I review the in and out points and reset those to remove dead space. I do some mixes in my DJ lab just to get a feel for the track, and now my prep work is complete. Sometimes I’m doing these last few mechanical steps right up to the day of an event which is actually nerve racking.

Don’t get me wrong, even the prep work for DJing does not feel like work. It’s how I play. It’s a recreational outlet for me, too. But there is a lot of time spent on the preparation for an event than at the event itself.

Philadelphia

Philadelphia was my hometown as a kid and I moved to Virginia as a teen. When I’ve visited Philly as an adult, I’ve felt like a tourist and not a native. This is a very black and white way to think about visiting, though, and rarely is the world black and white in reality. As I think about visiting, I realize that I see new things that I never experienced when I lived there before. In reality, I’ve grown and changed and the city’s impression on me is also growing and changing me.

Maybe this is what cities do… and big cities in particular. The static infrastructure is there for ages, but I am affected by the city when I interact with it. What I thought was the static city of Philadelphia changes when I experience the space over time, and also with other people. Some shops have come and gone, people have come and gone, and some infrastructure is updated slowly. But ultimately, the city is an anchor in a sea of change.

It was good going back to Philly. I was able to be a tour-guide and gave a little bit of myself in doing so. It changed my perception of Philadelphia, too, as my perception of the city changed again as other people discovered it for the first time.

To the guys on International Women’s Day

Rather than paying lip service to women for International Women’s Day, let’s really honor our female counterparts with meaningful support. Here are some ideas for you:

  • Believe women
  • Stop interrupting women when talking
  • Go through a mixed-gender meeting without saying anything but taking notes and truly listening
  • Stop mansplaining
  • Put your neck out there and call out sexism
  • Push to release the Epstein files
  • Stop hiring only your male buddies for the job
  • Give up your committee seat of power to a woman
  • Take ownership of your kid’s activities and parenting them
  • Learn how to cook for your family and do that most days of the week
  • Practice egalitarianism in your romantic relationships
  • Keep your wife’s appointments on your calendar
  • Pay women equal for the same job
  • Support women’s reproductive rights
  • Support LGBTQ rights
  • Support human services to support women and children
  • Take initiative for your life and don’t expect women to mother you
  • Do your share of emotional labor in your marriage and with your kids
  • Say “I was wrong, you were right” and mean it
  • Unlearn patriarchy and unhook it from all your spheres of life

I hope this helps. Any other ideas? Please write them in the comments.

Longevity

I traveled to colonial Williamsburg this past week to take a little time away with my wife. I was out on my morning walk to take in the sights and early morning sounds of the city. I’ve walked around Colonial Williamsburg many times when my kids were little and it felt good to reconnect with those memories again.

I took a casual stroll down Gloucester Street, taking in the colonial-period buildings, the trees that have been around for centuries, and even the reenacters that were starting their day. I took in the stick-built structures, the slate roofing, the ironwork details, and the study brick blocking. While many of the buildings are restored to the original specification, they are remarkably basic in their design and well-built in their construction.

It occurred to me that these structures are a testament to some basic principles of longevity. By necessity, they were built using basic materials but in doing so, were created to last. Their construction is simple, yet functional, and based on good science and sources.

That got me thinking about my work both in the communications campaigns that I build and the relationships that I have the privilege to be a part of. I wondered simply how I am building something to last, and how I use the basics of communication tools and practices in my craft day after day to not only get the job done but to assist future generations in learning about the present work.

Which leads me to the longevity of the physical and digital way that I store my work to best create something that last but also to create something that I can be proud of. It’s more than the outcome of the work but the path to get to the work. I have more questions than answers around the tools to use to create my work.

Can someone else pick up what I’ve done and see what I did without vastly special tools? How long is the shelf-life of the work that I produce every day? As a knowledge worker, is my only deliverable a mental impression that I gave another person or persons and how do I save that for future generations to learn from?

I say all this to say…I have spent a long time putting my work into closed digital systems that require special tools to extract them. I am looking to change all that and not sure I have a plan other than a desire to do so. Well, that’s not strictly true. I have inklings of a plan and a few methods that I have picked up from other people that I am willing to try and put into practice.

Am I talking about throwing out my computer and smartphone in order to live my best Luddite life? Well, not exactly, but is there something that I can learn from weaning myself off of my computer and smartphone? Probably.

Am I talking about printing my best work and processes out on archival paper and in the vain hopes that someone will want to peruse them at some future date? Well, not exactly, but can I learn something from the generations of curators in public art spaces about saving information for the future? Yes, I think so.

Am I talking about cutting all my streaming media sources (audio and video) in favor using only physical media, or better yet, live performances? Well, that goal seems more tangible these days with the resurgence of books and vinyl records, but still, it’s a sacrifice.

But it might all be worth it.

Leadership

“I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.” – Barak Obama

As a civil servant, I owe it to the people that I serve to show up every day and work hard. I strive to do that with positivity and skill but many days that is harder than it may seem.

While we live in a climate favoring sound bites over conversation, nasty politics over human rights, and might-makes-right over servant leadership, it helps me to know that there are examples who have exhibited leadership and grace in the face of obstacles.

I want to show up different.

I want to save my energy for the long game.

I want to work hard where I’m planted.

I want to put people and principles first.

I’m thankful today for people that have shown how that is done.

Decoupling

In one year I’ve:

deleted Instagram

deleted my google/gmail account and replaced with proton

deleted my amazon account

removed all photos, posts, and connections from Facebook (stuck with the account for now for biz reasons)

replaced Spotify with Qobuz

replaced Windows with Linux

replaced MS Office with Libre Office

replaced OneDrive with Dropbox

replaced Notes with plain text files

started a new Bullet journal

started reading books again

started watching DVDs again

It can be done. it feels like the end but it’s just the beginning. I’ve spent the last 30+ years building the internet and absorbing all the shiny new apps. I’m now rethinking my own dependency on big tech and where these companies are taking us and what they support.

Speak Up

“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.” – Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., Selma, Alabama, on March 8, 1965.

When you use your voice to speak about things that truly matter to you, to speak truth that matters to you, then you enable others to do the same. Speaking up makes a difference and being honest with those around you does too. Whether you are speaking to personal connections or business contacts your voice is important.

It may be uncomfortable to speak up, especially when there’s so much truth that needs to be spoken, but the opposite is just as uncomfortable…to let the truth be silenced. You may not always get a response, but know that a response does not necessarily mean that communication has not happened. Someone may let you know privately they heard or read what you said.

Please know that people are watching and listening and your voice is heard and needed. The first step in conversation is one we often overlook. It’s the crafting of posts that you think go unread; it’s the speaking truth out loud and seeing heads nod (or not) and wonder if your point came across. But know that you matter and your voice is important.

As we gain encouragement and get bolder about communicating truth it will encourage others to speak up, too. And don’t forget that speaking so others can truly hear you is just as important as your message.