Alex: Now that I have a script to finish, I’ve been focusing on getting my work flow down. It’s tough. I don’t know how some people do it. Some days I’m uber productive and sometimes I’ll go on a week bender where I do nothing besides breathe, eat and drink wine. Sometimes I’ll procrastinate by reading things about being productive. That’s how I stumbled across this gem. James Clear “Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead.” It was like he was in my head, connecting the dots that I didn’t even know existed. I love when people can make you look at things from a different angle. I love it even more when that different angle looks better than your own point of view. (That is one of the main reasons why I want to be a writer!) James talks about the difference between goals and systems and how you need to commit to a process, not a goal. This article was a really easy read and spoke so loudly to me that I needed to share it.
Nik:  Here’s what I have to say about this.  Yes, system is incredibly important.  You have to focus on the everyday discipline of whatever it is you’re doing to get results.  I think that it makes sense in terms of changing your diet or exercising, meal by meal, workout by workout, but when it comes to writing I have a problem with his logic.  Yes, you need to sit down everyday and write, but just because you sat down every Monday and Thursday and managed to compile 115,000 words, doesn’t mean you wrote a book.  You did not create a beginning, middle and end of a NY Times bestseller that people are going to want to read.  You wrote a bunch of blog posts that might be fantastic, but you can’t suddenly label this achievement a book.  It is not a book.  Or two books.  It is a blog.  And his goal, whether he wants to avoid calling it that or not, was to have a blog with good content.  The two go hand in hand.  You need a goal.  You need a system. The magic happens when you have both.  I’m not trying to rain on his parade,  there’s definitely truth to what he’s getting at,  but I could never sit down to write a script or a book without knowing whether I’m writing a script or a book.  I can’t write everyday without knowing what I’m writing for.  I’m all for journaling daily to get inspiration or break through writer’s block, but can you imagine if I wrote everyday for the last six months and then gave it to my agent and told him it was a thriller?  Even though I didn’t know I was writing a thriller?  I bet those days about my favorite new restaurants would be terrifying.  I mean, what?!
Alex: You’re annoying but you make a lot of sense. And now the dots in my head are in a triangle.
Nik: Just shut your pie hole and write your SCRIPT.

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