Eliminating 11 Things in 2011

December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author: Sam Davidson)

     

1.  Clothes I don't wear.
2.  Books I don’t read (or won’t read)
3. Credit Card Debt
4. Stuff under my bed
5. The clutter under/around my desk
6. General clutter at my office cube
7. Not having Netflix
8. Complicated articulation
9. The need for everyone to like me
10. Passive input
11. Something else

THOUGHTS ON ACTING ON THE ELIMINATION

I think I’ll start by a big purge/cleaning come the first of the year. I do a fairly decent job of cleaning up the general mess in my room on a weekly basis, but there are disorganized piles accumulating around the perimeter.

Credit Card Debt will be a bit trickier. I’m going to need to make a better plan of chipping away (along with my loans) in a more focused way (the word of 2011).

I was hoping to make this list that is solely tangible and manageable—but it was hard to come up with 11 things. Something like item “Complicated Articulation” is difficult to throw out just point blank. But it’s something I realize more and more. I have a need to soften the extremes of language. In dealing with people, you have the candor running in the back of your mind that is tempered with the careful and respectful language I’d like to use when dealing with people (especially in terms of criticism). My problem is that I have a hard time forming opinions and arguing them. Hence, this term I’ve just sort of made up called “complicated articulation.” (Which is complicated in its own right.)

Reverb 10 is messing with my idea of how much I should just stop and outright change things (in a bold, drastic manner).

This prompt is a little “resolution-y” to me (not necessarily a bad thing). The tricky thing about resolutions is that people create huge goals that cannot be fulfilled in the span of a month. It’s this major a year-wide hope OR it creates goals that have no measurable outcome. So I’m debating how drastic a list like this needs to be. I’m trying to be sensible about what I can do in this round of elimination. But I wonder if I may be tipping too far on one end of the scale.

Passive Input is another nag I’d like to shake away.

This is most directly linked to web content I view. I read a lot of blogs, articles, quips, and things online (and off). Some of it is simply for kicks and laughs. Other of it is incredibly useful information.

My problem is that I read it, scan it once and then usually forget about it. The nature of my work in social media, marketing, and theatre involves a fast-paced social aspect on the web. Often the content is just for general education. Sometimes it can have a real, direct impact in my life, or I can use it to change something about how I do things as an actor or use social media with theatre marketing. I want to eliminate passive input and charge it with active interaction. This may mean writing more comments, providing advice from my perspective and creating more of my own content.

Another thing it may require is some careful reflection. 

Why does this particular photo, entry, whatever strike me? Why does it interest me? Do I agree with this point of view? Can I contribute any qualifying information? This will help guide to more focused and purposeful viewing. It will also strengthen and build a greater network.

I’m in this transitional period where I want to stop thinking like this humble student and start working credibility about being an “expert” or leading professional in my field. This doesn’t stop the learning, but it does require an attitude shift.

Additionally, if something isn’t useful to me (in terms of all of this content online—this noise), I need to eliminate it.

One trend I’m seeing with a lot of Twitter users whom I value is they are now keeping their followers to a very tight group of people. When I first started using Twitter in a “marketing” sense, the mantra was “follow those who follow you.” Which is a nice gesture, but it’s not the best advice in the world when you think about it. It’s not about numbers and popularity, it’s about the quality of the relationship. So I can keep subscribing to all of these REALLY USEFUL blogs, or following all these fascinating people, but it’s NONE of it is going to be any use to me if I keep scanning or ignoring the content and leaving it behind to accumulate with all the other noise in cyberspace.