Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number three-hundred-forty-two of Operation Achieve Anything. Last night I finally got my act together and fit in two SNL viewing to bank an extra review so that I can get back to work with less stress as to whether or not I will make my day. Up until Thanksgiving, I would typically be one day ahead at all time so that each morning when I woke up, I was actually posting my review from the night before. I would then have the option stay ahead of the game by watching and reviewing my next episode in the evening, or put the viewing off for twenty-four hours if I need a break, or in the case of an emergency.

Granted, it’s the same exact amount of work, but it’s the pressure and options that make a difference. For example, the other day, I didn’t end up getting to my SNL viewing until about eight o’clock in the PM. Between watching the show, writing the review, laying out the page and publishing the finished product, it can take two to three hours from start to finish, and that’s when I’m able to stay focused. Since I was cutting things so close, I was freaking out the entire time, making the viewing experience less pleasurable with it having nothing to do with the episode.

I’d rather wake up, spend about an hour or so to get through my Daily Break post and then almost instantly post my SNL review meeting my day’s deadline within a couple hours of waking up, easing any stress about what I NEED to get to. Right after Thanksgiving, I needed a break so I dropped to one review a day on the day it was due since every time that I’d bank a review I’d use it to take a day off. Then, this week, I spent all of my free time cleaning up old pages throughout this site to get it to be more presentable for when I plan to start and actively promote it at the start of the New Year.

Yesterday, I needed a break from this cleanup process, so I used the time to stay productive and here we are. As soon as I publish this post that I’m writing, I have to proofread and publish my banked review, and then I’m technically done for the day. I’ll then be able to enjoy some time with my family as I go inside the main house to play for a while, keeping in mind I live in a garage, and not a guest house or anything fancy when mentioning the main house vs. my room. Then, once I’m done with them, I’ll head back out here and casually watch tomorrows episode.

Being that it’s the weekend, I’ll probably just relax once that part of my day is done, but on weekdays I’d then move on to working on cleaning the site until I’m ready to go to sleep. Again, I’d be able to get through this phase with ease from having a more casual start to my day. Usually, I need to take a nap or some sort of break to separate my deadline-based day from my extracurricular efforts. Working with the schedule I just described eliminates the need for this midday break as well since I’m dealing with so little pressure, also keeping in mind, I’m aware that this pressure is based on my own nonsense, but this is the way I have chosen to live.

Unfortunately, this only fits into yesterday’s assignment, where I was supposed to explore the Michael Jordan quote about how we make zero percent of the shots that we never take if I was to crowbar it in to work. I guess I could do so by pointing out how all of this effort to figure out my schedule to clean-up this site for New Years because as I just said, I plan to start and actively promote TheWickerBreaker.com at that time. Up to this point in my life, I’ve never taken the real shot of marketing myself or my work, so all of this prep work, and cleaning, and sticking to deadlines, can be seen as running the routes to get the ball in just the right position for a swish.

In general, my biggest problem has always been my fear/hatred of anything business or marketing landing me dead center a Catch 22 scenario where even though I know that no one will read my work if they don’t know that it’s out there, but I just don’t have the confidence to promote that I’m worth anyone’s time. Any active effort I did make toward putting my work in front of eyes were either passive attempts like through contests or would go terribly wrong with me unable to have the speaking skills to fully articulate my thoughts. Now, I’m more confident in my writing and am willing to take many more shots.

With that, I’m going to consider yesterday’s task to be done and move on to introduce today’s assignment where I’m now supposed to make a promise to myself to give up on counting on shortcuts to become what I want to be. As someone who set up this site as a ten-year challenge/project in an effort to improve my writing skills, I think I know a thing or two about patience, even if I still have an eye out for shortcuts as I go. Of course, I dig deeper into the details when I check in tomorrow, but until then, I’m now going to wrap this bad boy up by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.   

Talk to you soon.

Sincerely,

The Wicker Breaker

P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.