by Ben Toalson | Mar 17, 2014 | In The Boat
A Houseboat with Amenities
When I was a kid, we took a trip out to Lake Powell to spend the weekend with my uncle and some of his friends on his houseboat. It was a blast. There was camping, swimming, speed-boating, jet-skiing, and rafting. I had such a great time that when we returned to our home in Colorado, I spent a few hours making a huge map based on our 20 acre property, including all of the fun things I had experienced that weekend, and some other stuff. It had a beach, river rapids, a natural water slide, rock-climbing wall, a lake, a houseboat (I even made a separate architectural draft of the houseboat and all of its amenities) and a sports complex complete with basketball, football, tennis and baseball. When the map was done I ran and showed it to my mom and she and I sat down and imagined together how we would spend our day.
The Home of my Dreams
Fast forward a few years and I would be sitting in class, completely zoned out in my own world, drawing plans for the house of my dreams. There were several different layouts, but almost all of them had a pool in the main living area.
Amphitheaters All Over the World
Fast forward a few more years and I would be playing and writing music with my friends and dreaming about how we would be selling out shows at amphitheaters all over the world and selling thousands, yes thousands, of albums.
Benland
Rewind to a time before all of this when I was a young kid living in California who loved amusement parks (what kid doesn’t?) and dreamed one day of designing and building his own. I remember sitting in the backseat of my babysitter’s car, sketching out a map of the different attractions and features, and sharing with excitement all of my big plans.
My babysitter, chuckling a little bit, said to me, “Building an amusement park is very, very expensive. You’ll probably never have the money to do something like that.”
I sat for a moment considering what she said, then I thought to myself, ‘I don’t believe you.’
The “Real World”
Today I live in the “real world” and I realize that I can’t just bring the ocean to Colorado and that all of the things I wanted to build there on our property would be extremely expensive and probably not a good investment. Today I don’t know how to design a house and it’s easier to believe that anything I might dream up would more likely sit there on paper than ever become a reality. Today I don’t really see myself playing to more than a room-full of friends and family, if I can manage to get out and play at all.
Today when I think back to the memory of my amusement park plans and what my babysitter said, I believe her. I don’t mean to villainize her… the real villain is this idea that when you dream impossible things, life, experience, reality stops us and tells us that things don’t really work that way. It’s the voice of reason. I have believed this voice for a while now.
Reason, the Friend and the Foe
Reason is not all bad. It’s kept me from making stupid decisions. It’s protected me from coming to financial ruin. It has allowed me to live a relatively safe life. But over the years I have allowed reason to steal my ability to dream big. I’ve traded my big, childish dreams for more reasonable, grown-up dreams.
Reality, the Accuser
When I reflect on my journey to this place of small, manageable dreams, I think about those moments when I allowed my dreams to be struck down by reality. Essentially reality stands pointing his finger and says, “Your dream is a lie.” In the moments where I had a choice to agree or disagree with this accusation, I looked at the evidence; the small, disengaged audience for which we were playing our music; my finances and my circumstanced; and I said, “reality… I think you’re right.”
When you feel hurt by someone or something you tend to not let it be in a position to hurt you again, and for this reason I have been holding my dreams at arms length for a long time. The consequence of this has been a reduction of passion and purpose in my mindset. My daily activity and the purpose with which I pursue dreams is in correlation with the size of my dreams. So I make allowances for all kinds of distractions, I skimp on the details, and I allow myself to be okay with “good enough.”
What if I Dream?
I don’t want to dream that way any more. What if I dream bigger again? What if in doing so I find renewed passion and purpose. What if my dream was so big and I believed in it so much that I could not be bothered with distractions and bad habits? Even if I dream big and fail big, wouldn’t the excitement and shift in my lifestyle and mindset be worth it? I think so.
I am challenging myself this week to dream big. Here are a few of the exercises I am going to try:
Dreaming Session
No details here, just writing down big dreams. And after having written them down, asking myself, ‘How can you dream even bigger than this?’
Sharing my Dreams with My Kids
If there’s an audience out there who will not immediately start telling my why my dreams may not work, it’s my kids. They’ll go along with whatever I say and may just add some valuable ideas to my dreaming process.
Interviewing my Kids
Fortunately “reason” has not set in yet with my children. I can ask them about their dreams and learn from their example.
Designing my House
In the spirit of dreaming big, I’ll do an “architectural draft” of the house of my dreams. I may or may not put a pool in the living room.
Share Your Dreams
Thanks for following along with me on this journey. If you have any thoughts or experiences of your own about dreaming big, please share them in the comments below. Comments geared toward trying to bring me back to reality will be deleted ;). Until next time, dream big. Now dream bigger.
by Ben Toalson | Mar 10, 2014 | In The Boat
Sleep
Didn’t do so well here… Out of seven days I only got sufficient sleep one of those days. Boy did I feel it. This week was a bit of a blur.
Diet
Although I didn’t even open the MyFitnessPal app once, I did manage to eat healthy homemade meals most of this week, with the exception of frozen yogurt one night and a pizza buffet another night. The app is not absolutely necessary, but it is immensely helpful for keeping me mindful of what I’m putting into my body and how much actual nutrition I’m getting from my food.
Exercise
Nope… I’m actually writing this on Sunday morning, so we’ll see if I manage to squeeze in a last minute workout to claim a sliver of success. (Update: No work out, but did catch up on a favorite tv show)
Meditation/Reflection
I did this the first day. I spent the first 10 minutes just thinking to myself and tried to spend the last 5 minutes thinking of nothing. The 10 minutes of thinking was tough. It was hard to focus my thinking on any single thing and I found my mind wondering quite a bit. During the 5 minutes of not thinking I dozed off. I did manage to circle back to this exercise later in the week. It looks like this may become easier with practice.
Expression
I did much better with this activity. I ended up doing this 5 out of 7 days and enjoyed it greatly. This definitely helped me maintain some level of saneness. I observed that even just knowing I would get to have some creative time allowed me to have greater focus during working times.
Here are some of the things I made this week:
-In Your Heart (musical piece)
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/137743688″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=true” width=”200″ height=”200″ iframe=”true” /]
-Wednesday night expression (random hand lettering)
-Ferris Bueller (art series)
Hygiene/Appearance
5 out of 7 isn’t bad. I won’t go into detail about how religiously I adhered to each item in the routine, but I did write a routine and I did manage to keep up with some of it and that is a huge improvement. I felt a little more confident. I’m usually not worried about my normal, disheveled, sitting in the corner with his glasses and hoodie and messy hair sipping coffee crouched over his computer appearance. I think the pride I took in my appearance translated in some ways in my work. I guess if I could sum it up in a word it would be presentation. I felt like my presentation was stronger and more attractive/effective on all fronts.
Summary
If I was giving myself a grade for this week, it would probably be a 50%. That’s actually pretty generous considering what I had originally set out to do. I don’t feel bad though… this isn’t me beating myself up. This is me being objective. If I’m being honest, this is what most of my weeks look like so now I’ve actually measured the baseline and can work up from here.
I did get a lot done this week and, maybe just because I was being more intentional, felt more focused in my work. Here are some things I checked off of my list:
-Designed an event flier
-Finished the responsive coding for a website
-Recorded 3 podcasts
-Posted 2 brief articles to Crash Test Parents
-Finished a Hand Lettering piece
-Registered my son in kindergarten
-Composed a musical piece
-Wrote and Sent my design newsletter
All in all I’d say this was a good week AND I get to try again this week. On to the next challenge!
by Ben Toalson | Mar 10, 2014 | In The Boat
A Built-In Vacation
This challenge actually falls on a good week. It’s spring break and we are taking it easy, spending some time together as a family, and I will be working on an art project that I’ve been looking forward to diving into. In some ways the break will make it easier to take on this challenge, and in some ways it will be more difficult. I can be easily distracted. I do well enough focusing most of the time, but every once in a while a random thought will drive me away from the task at hand. This happens most often when I have hit a dull spot in my project; my brain gets tired of thinking about the same thing and says, “I’m gonna take a break, see ya later.” Sometimes it gets really bad. I haven’t counted, but I would guess that there are days in which my little 5 or 10 minute diversions add up to cost me 3 hours of work. I’ve tried resolving not to visit social media sites and to only keep my work tabs open, but just about every time I end up caving in.
Five Little Distractions
I also work from home quite a bit. I am usually well protected by my wonderful wife against the distraction of kids rushing into our office. But again, during those dull working moments, I suddenly find myself thinking about how wonderful these people are and how I would like to see them and hug them just for a minute or 10.
Prohibition
My solution to this loss of time has been a strict, no distractions allowed policy, that has pretty much been ineffective at keeping me from doing those things. Maybe it’s not that I need to put these activities under a prohibition, but perhaps I need to govern those activities with more purpose and actually schedule them into my day.
Be in Charge of Your Distractions
My theory is that as I govern my schedule and allow for activities that would otherwise distract, that I will not be as drawn to those distractions while I am working. Maybe by scheduling 30 minutes or so each day to play on facebook or visit my family or watch a favorite show, I will save the other two and a half hours that all of the added up distraction could potentially take away.
Here are some distractions that I will be more purposeful about making time for this week:
1. Social Media – I like interacting with people and keeping tabs on close friends. I like keeping up with the latest viral videos and memes. Like it or not, I learn a lot here about what’s going on in people’s lives, and how they perceive and respond to what’s going on in the world. It is also a place where I get to share the exciting things I am doing.
2. Family – It’s hard to go more than five hours without picking up and squeezing tight my boys. It’s hard to go more than a few hours without saying “hi” and “I miss you” to my amazing wife. It’s also hard for me to sit comfortably in a chair, sipping coffee and working on my computer, when I know that my wife is downstairs playing ring master for the circus that is our home… maybe it’s not that hard. When I do spend time with them I want to be able to give them all my focus instead of carrying in the back of my mind the work that I’ve left undone.
3. TV Shows – I didn’t talk about this much above, but I have caught the binge watching bug that began spreading rapidly at the onset of online streaming for tv shows and movies. We cancelled our cable subscription a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m not capable of spending 60 hours in two weeks watching every episode of Breaking Bad (especially now that Netflix has every episode). Not to mention Firefly, The Office, Arrested Development, etc. PLEASE don’t comment or message and make other suggestions. The point is, I really enjoy these shows. I enjoy the art of them. In some ways they are both entertaining and inspiring. I just need to not watch 7 episodes in a day.
4. Vacation – This is more of a long-term thing, but applicable for this week because of Spring Break. I would also say that for me, true vacation means unplugging and finding recreation in things other than tv shows and social media. There are a few times and days this week that we’ve set aside to be together as a family, and to visit some extended family. I am looking forward to a visit to the zoo, the museum, playing chess with my oldest, playing some music with my wife, and other fun, non-technology related activities. Though I can’t take a vacation every week, I do intend to look at the months ahead and carve out time away.
That’s it for now. I happy to report that during the writing of this article I did not once go check facebook. As I did with the previous week I will keep track of my activities and give a recap of my experience. Here is my recap from the “Self Care” week. Leave a comment below and let me know what works for you in keeping the distractions at bay. I’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas, or questions.
by Ben Toalson | Mar 3, 2014 | In The Boat
Ask the Internet
Last week I posted a question on reddit.com asking, ‘Freelancers with kids… what are some of the struggles you experience working as a freelancer with a family that depends on you?’ One of the most common answers, and the one with the most upvotes, had to do with not getting enough sleep and the influence that had on productivity. I can definitely identify with this.
Sleep Deprivation
My wife and I have been fortunate in that all of our boys began sleeping through the night pretty early on. For the first several weeks though, it was torture. I remember especially, because it wasn’t that long ago, the feeding schedule we kept for our twin boys. When they first came home from the hospital they were really slow eaters and they had to eat every three hours… both of them!
Double Tired
They slept in a makeshift nursery, in the side area of our room (which is now our office). After their 9pm feeding, we would swaddle them up tight and place them in their swings (yes, they slept in baby swings… pediatrician approved). The first alarm would go off at midnight. This was my shift. I’d get up, make a bottle, wake up one of the twins, change his diaper, feed him for 30-45 minutes, burp him, re-swaddle him, then I would do it all over again with the next one. Finally, sometime between 1:30-2am I’d crawl back into bed. The next alarm would go off at 3am, but this was Rachel’s shift so I slept right on through until 6am. Wow, just writing about this makes me tired.
Sleep and Productivity
These days we get quite a bit more sleep. But almost any parent will tell you that once you have children, you never sleep the same. Even without the occasional middle of the night interruptions, we find ourselves sometimes staying up too late just so we can have some ‘us’ time and getting up really early to get a head start on a very demanding day. I can’t deny that this lack of sleep, especially over a long period of time, has definitely had an effect on my productivity.
Hours vs. Productive Hours
This got me thinking about all of those times I would sit down with my journal and try to write and re-write my schedule. Out of all of the pages in my composition notebook, I must have dedicated at least 10 or 15 pages during the last 6 months to re-working my schedule in an effort to squeeze in every hour that I possibly could, because the more hours I could find in my week, the more work I could get done. I started thinking about those hours and how many of them I don’t spend so wisely, and I thought to myself, ‘I don’t need more hours, I need more productive hours.’
I’ve experienced it before. Every once in a while I have those days when I just burn through my to-do list and get a ton of stuff done. Every once in a while I look back on my day and feel very accomplished for all of the tasks I’ve completed and all of the ground I’ve covered working toward my goals. Most days, however, I find myself straying from my schedule, easily distracted, and constantly having to reign myself in. What can I do to have fewer of those kind of hours, and more productive, burn-through-the-to-do-list hours?
An Experiment
There’s a lot of productivity stuff out there. I know because I’ve read articles and listened to podcasts and had many conversations on the subject. I’ve drawn some of my own conclusions and I’d like to do an experiment. During the next 28 days I’m going to take some of my ideas and put them into practice and record my experiences daily in my journal. Each week I’m going to focus on a different aspect of my approach to finding more productive hours in my day.
This week I’m starting with me. One of the things I haven’t been doing a good job of is taking care of myself. With 5 young, needy, dependent, very vocal, persistent boys, with whom I am very much in love, I seldom make time to really care for myself. On the outside this looks like selflessness and sacrifice, and in many ways it is, but if I don’t take care of myself, I am ultimately depriving my family and my work of the best version of myself.
What do I mean by “taking care of myself?” I may find a few more answers along the way, but here are a few I’ve identified:
-GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP
This is where we started our conversation today, and this is where it starts for me the most. When I haven’t gotten enough sleep, I want to eat poorly, I don’t care for exercising, I don’t rest as well during my day. Sleep is on the top of my list of things I need to do better, because everything else seems to hinge on it. My goal is to get into a rhythm of getting 7.5 hours of sleep each night, or 6 at night with a 1.5 hour nap. Just writing this out, it looks like a lot of hours to me, but I have to remember, it’s about productive hours, the quality of the hours, not the quantity. I’m basing the duration of sleep on the circadian sleep cycle. Each cycle lasts for about 1.5 hours and peaks at the end, during your most wakeful period. Research has shown that waking up at the peak of your 4th or 5th cycle (6 or 7.5 hours) helps you to be most alert during the day. I’m going to use a sleep calculator I found at sleepyti.me to determine my sleep schedule for the night.
-PROPER DIET
I can tell a difference when I eat junk/processed foods versus when I eat healthy, home-made food. When I eat poorly I don’t focus as well, I’m more easily distracted, I want to eat more bad foods, I don’t have as much energy, etc. I’ve even read that poor diet can have a negative effect on sleep, which in turn makes you more likely to eat poorly. What an awful cycle. Alternatively, when I eat the right kinds of foods I have more energy and I feel more focused and “even” throughout the day. My goal is to monitor what I am taking in each day and try to maintain a good balance of nutrition. I’m going to use an app called MyFitnessPal to keep track of what I’m eating daily. This might mean that I take more time to prepare food for myself throughout the day, but if it means that I find more productive hours, I’m in!
-EXERCISE
I actually love to run. I would go every day if I could. The problem lately has been that it has been difficult to find any time outside of working hours that doesn’t take time away from my family. I also would like to be doing some strength training, but I’m not quite as excited about that. My goal is to run at least 4 days/week for 30 minutes and to do some form of strength training 4 days/week for 15 minutes (including stretching). With prep and cool-down that’s almost 5 hours/week, but it’s totally worth it if I can have more energy and stamina during my working hours.
-MEDITATION/REFLECTION
I don’t necessarily mean sitting on the floor cross-legged with my eyes closed (though I’m not counting that out). I am rarely alone with my thoughts, so when I am, I feel like my brain is gushing, trying to catch me up on all of the information it is trying to process. This also means that I don’t really have much quiet time with my brain; a time when there’s no noise or distraction, and I can just sit and think about nothing. My goal is to find some solitude for at least 15 minutes/day and split that time between gathering my thoughts and trying not to think at all.
-EXPRESSION
I enjoy many forms of artistic expression, and I also love processing my thoughts on paper. I am pretty good at making time for these activities, but they are mostly spontaneous and not well structured. This is good in a lot of ways because some of my best ideas come out of those spontaneous moments when “inspiration hits.” I would like to continue allowing for these spontaneous moments, but to also make regular, purposeful time for expression. This could come in the form of writing in my journal, writing and composing music, painting, drawing, taking pictures, etc. I may even schedule a different one for each day. My goal is to take 30 minutes/day for 5 days each week.
-PERSONAL HYGIENE/APPEARANCE
I was really debating putting this one on here, but I want to be real and the truth is that personal hygiene and appearance can have such a strong connection to ones sense of self-worth that it can heavily influence productivity. I am embarrassed to say that some mornings I’m so busy with getting the boys up and ready that I forget to brush my teeth or put on deodorant before I rush out the door. I wear glasses a lot more than contacts these days and I rarely style my hair. Yesterday I bought a new pair of jeans and realized that this was the first time in 4 years that I’d worn a pair of jeans without gaping holes in the knees. Some nights I’m so worn out from getting the kids through their night-time routine that I simply don’t feel like taking a shower. Like I said, it’s embarrassing to confess some of this stuff, but I would venture that there are some out there who are going through the same thing so I wanted to address it. My goal is to write out and adhere to my own personal morning and night-time routine.
There are many other practices to cover in the weeks that will follow, but for this week, for the sake of my family and my work, I will focus on me. I will be writing about my experiences daily, sharing some of my experiences through social media, and giving a recap with next week’s article.
by Ben Toalson | Feb 24, 2014 | In The Boat
Old Friend and Fond Memories
I recently had a conversation with a friend about something that has been troubling me lately. I love writing, composing and performing music, but it looks so much different these days than it did when I was a younger man. This friend used to play in a band that my wife and I started several years ago. We would play several nights a month, rehearse twice a week, had an active following, and played a fun, well put together show. Now, a few years and a few kids later, our band maybe plays one show every few months, we struggle to find any time to rehearse, our following hears from us intermittently at best and when we do play, we are a bit rusty.
It’s the Kids’ Fault
I’m going to go ahead and blame it on the kids. I say this jokingly because I absolutely love my kids, but here are some of the challenges we face.
First of all, we have five young children and it is difficult to find a regular babysitter. If we were to play out even once a week, with set up, the show, tear down, and travel time to and from the venue, we’d be looking at a hefty childcare bill. Eventually the band might be able to help fit the bill, but not at first. Time is also a huge factor here. There’s a lot of preparation that goes into playing a single show and with the additional time it takes to get the kids set up so they can stay on a schedule while we’re gone, we’d be spending a ton of time for a relatively small payoff. No matter how well the sitter keeps the boys on the same schedule and the same routine, we almost always have to reign them in after a night out. Add in date nights and the whole things becomes even more complicated. Most of all, the kind of time we had become used to investing in the band would take more time away from our kids than we are willing to spend.
Rehearsal looks nothing like it used to. We rarely go more than a few minutes without being interrupted by a minor emergency. Sometimes the kids like to try to play along with their toy instruments which, while extremely cute, makes it difficult to concentrate. Making time to prepare for rehearsal has been difficult. Because we don’t have shows lined up, our rehearsals don’t have much direction, which makes it even easier to get off track.
Excuses and Reality
The above paragraphs are a mix of excuses and real circumstances. I shared these thoughts with my friend and explained how it felt like music, this particular passion, had its time and is now over.
A New Perspective
With a single word, my friend helped me turn my thoughts toward a more positive outlook…
Seasons.
Life is made of seasons that come and go and come around again. I think fondly of the spring-time of my pursuit of music and compare those memories against the autumn in which it seems to be fading now. I even wonder if we are actually in winter for how bare the trees look sometimes. But winter also has its own beauty.
Lifeless Branches of My Musical Tree
I have a Crape Myrtle in my front yard. Every fall it loses its leaves and flowers and becomes completely bare. Even though it looks dead on the outside, life is pulsing in the roots and inside the branches. Life that will burst through in beautiful leaves and blooms late in the spring. Even now, lifeless as it seems, it hosts busy birds that hop and flutter in a beautiful dance around its bare branches.
I am finding new ways to pursue this passion that fit inside the constraints of my circumstances and match the season that I am in. I am making time for the parts that I can sustain. I’m letting go of what it used to look like and taking hold of what it can look like today. I am finding new inspiration in my children and the maddeningly wonderful way they’ve changed our lives. The truth is that though this passion may find itself in a difficult season, it is no less vital that its expression find its way out into the world. The strain your circumstances place on your passion may be the very place from which your work will be most meaningful & inspiring to others.
What It Looks Like Today
Here is what pursuing music looks like for us today: I make time every morning to write lyrics and work out compositions. My wife and I go over new songs and rehearse one night a week. We record what we work on and share it with our drummer so he can work out parts for the times when we can all get together and rehearse. We make time once every other week to video record a new song and share it on our youtube channel. We play live shows less frequently, more locally and have a lighter set-up. This is how we do it for now and next year it may look completely different.
Embrace Your Season
Embrace the season that you’re in. Do not waste your time longing for what something used to look like, but apply your creativity and your energy to what it could look like today. I have been delightfully surprised at how satisfied I feel with the work of pursuing my passion in the season I’m in, and the unique way in which my passion has inspired and encouraged others. I hope that you can find the same satisfaction and joy in your work, whatever season you’re in.
