DAY 7
Week 1 Check-in: Are You Having Fun Yet?

‘How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.’

—R. Buckminster Fuller, architect, inventor and innovative thinker

WE’RE SEVEN DAYS into your project and it’s time to check in on how it’s going. This simple check-in process will keep your project on track – even when you’re not sure where it is you’re heading. It’s based on the Play Cycle of ACT, REFLECT, ADAPT you learned yesterday.

ACT you’ve already done as you played out your project for at least 20 minutes a day over the last 6 days. Now it’s time to REFLECT and, if necessary, ADAPT before choosing what to ACT on again for the next week.

We’ll be doing this check-in at the end of each week for the remainder of the 30 days. If you’re working with a buddy or a group to help you keep motivated and accountable, meet up with them and go through the questions together.

REFLECT: How did this week go?

Write the answers to the questions below in your Playbook.

• Did you do your microblocks for at least six days this week? If not, what happened? Did you forget to put them in your diary as real appointments? Did you tell yourself there was no point only doing 20 minutes?
• Have you filled in your ticksheet as you went along? If you took a rest day did you log it with an ‘R’?
• What can you pat yourself on the back for this week? Progress can seem slow at the start so it’s important to acknowledge everything that went well, no matter how small, in order to stay motivated. If you did every micro-block, that’s a success. If you found yourself really in flow while doing a particular task, that’s an important realisation.
• What part of your project have you enjoyed the most? Which part the least?
• How is your approach working for you? The length of microblock, the timing, how you’re working on your project?
• Have you noticed anything else interesting about your project or how you’ve been approaching it? Perhaps you work better with the TV on than in silence. Or you have all your best ideas while ironing. Even if it seems to make no sense at the moment, write these discoveries down. As Isaac Asimov once said, ‘The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but “That’s funny … ”.’
• Have you received any external feedback yet about your project? It’s early days so it’s quite possible that you haven’t but if you’ve had a good response already to something you’ve done or shared, make a note of it. We’ll be paying more attention to external feedback in later check-ins.

Things not going well?

If it seems like things aren’t going well, that’s OK. Remember that in the early days, you’re likely to be off-course more than you’re on-course. Try to be forgiving of yourself when you’re reflecting on your progress. As long as you move on to the next step and adapt what you’re doing, it will be OK in the end.

Remember that in the early days, you’re likely to be off-course more than you’re on-course

Surprised how well it’s going?

Congratulations! Stick at it and do more of what’s working.

ADAPT: How can you use what you discovered?

What can you do differently next week to get even better results? Perhaps you need to be more realistic about what you can get done in a week? Or you might need to take your appointments with yourself more seriously. If you have a project buddy, ask them to hold you accountable.

If you’ve noticed you get better ideas talking to someone else rather than sitting on your own, arrange to meet with someone next week to talk over your project. If you’re finding your project a hard slog, what changes can you make to make it more enjoyable or exciting?

Get ready to ACT again

I want you to get clear about what you’re really committing to do between now and seven days’ time. Not what you hope you’ll do if there’s time, if you don’t get interrupted, if the cat doesn’t attack your laptop again … what you will do, come rain or shine. This is like a hard contract. It is non-negotiable. Scary, huh? Well, not necessarily. You see, creative people are often not the most disciplined people in the world. We don’t have a strong sense of timing, we’re not natural project managers. In fact, if we were, we might not be creative in the same way. It’s our ability to forget time, lose ourselves, get distracted, ignore boundaries and see bizarre connections that no one else sees that makes us the creative geniuses that we are.

But … that means we need to learn how to put structures in place that hold our creativity and channel it out into the world … So that we can express ourselves, make our mark, share something only we can share, make some piece of the world a little better and receive all the more in return. Today is when you commit to the actions you’re going to take between now and Day 14. This technique is at the heart of the Play Process – it keeps your project moving forward even if you’ve let it slip in the past.

You’re going to make a written commitment to yourself about what you’re going to do, or not do, in the week ahead. You’re already committed to achieving your Play Project. Now you need to get to know yourself as a person who does what they say they will do, someone who trusts themselves to make their ideas happen and their dreams come true. And when you start to do that … well, it really does transform your world.

Your commitments this week

In your Playbook, use the following prompts to make a list of actions that you’re committing to take during this coming week.

• ‘By the next check-in on Day 14 I will … ’ List the things you are absolutely committing to do. You’re not committing to an outcome (which may be out of your hands) but to doing something. It can be as simple as ‘I will write one blog post’.
• If you find it difficult to stick to your own commitments, try rewarding yourself. Is there a treat you can give yourself if you keep your promise? If so, write down what you’ll treat yourself to if you’ve taken action on your project: ‘My reward for taking action at least 20 minutes a day for 6 days this week will be … ’
• If you respond better to stick than carrot you could set up a penalty for yourself if you don’t do what you promised. Noel Langley is a successful trumpet player who has performed on countless hit records by other people but was finding it difficult to make the time to work on his own album. Aside from being busy, Noel realised he was also procrastinating – creating his own music felt a lot more personal than playing on an album by Radiohead or Adele. Noel decided to join The Screw Work 30-day Challenge and used the principles you’re learning in this book to finally get started on his own album. And to make sure he followed through to completion, he made the commitment to his friends that he would deliver his own album by October the same year or take the forfeit of having to walk naked through Trafalgar Square playing his trumpet! Driven by the desire to avoid his forfeit, Noel met his commitment and his album, Edentide, was released to critical acclaim in 2014 and hit the number one spot in the iTunes Jazz chart.
• ‘I also want to … ’ List the things you’d like to do but can’t absolutely guarantee you’ll manage – I’m not holding you to these!

Open your diary and check you can really do what you’ve promised. If you know you may need to do something else on one day of the week, reduce your commitment. It is better to promise less and meet your promise than to promise more and be disappointed at the end of the week, which reinforces a sense of powerlessness over your life. Adopting this simple habit will transform your productivity and it’s also great for your self-esteem.

Make a commitment to others – share it!

Commitments are far more powerful when you make them to others and not just to yourself. So if you’re working with a buddy or group, tell them what you’ve committed to for the next seven days. Or share your commitments with your friends on Facebook.

Assuming it won’t get you into trouble with your employer, why not also share it publicly with others following this book? Post your top commitments to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #screwworkbreakfree and see what others are committing to. You can read more about this on screwworkbreakfree.com.

Player pointers

Committing is not about making yourself feel bad. Far from it. In fact it’s much better to promise to do one smaller thing that you know you will definitely do than to give yourself a big, long list of actions that sets you up for failure. If it looks like you’ve committed to do too much, move some of your tasks from the ‘I will do … ’ category into ‘I also want to … ’

If things haven’t gone as well as you’d like this week, don’t give yourself a hard time. This is probably a very unfamiliar process for you. Think of it like having the training wheels on. You might have set off with wildly unrealistic expectations. As long as you keep microblocking and keep doing the check-ins you will make real progress.

On the website

Go to screwworkbreakfree.com, where you can hear me interview Noel Langley about his creative process to record his first album.