Last week ended up being interesting in ways I wasn’t necessarily expecting. Between a professional seminar that left me wanting something very different, tinkering with my productivity system for what feels like the thousandth time, finishing a surprise NDA project, and getting back into some of my own writing, there has been quite a bit happening behind the scenes.
We’re also coming to the end of August, which means we’re leaving my birthday month. I’m a little sad to see it go, but birthdays have a way of making you think about where you are, where you’ve been, and what you’d like your life to look like when the next one rolls around. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.
When a Women’s Sales Seminar Doesn’t Actually Teach Sales
Last week, I attended a professional seminar that was supposed to help women become better at selling. I went into it hoping for practical methods and strategies I could actually take back to work and use. Instead, we covered just about everything except the mechanics of selling.
I will give the facilitator credit for what happened afterward. They noticed that I left early, reached out to ask if everything was okay, and gave me an opportunity to explain why I left. I told them that their philosophy surrounding sales simply didn’t align with mine. What they choose to do with that feedback is entirely up to them, but I appreciated that they asked for it.
The experience also did something useful: it made me want to build the thing I had hoped I was going to attend.
I’m now working on putting together a two-hour workshop for my local Chamber of Commerce that focuses much more heavily on practical strategies people can actually use. I want someone to spend two hours with me and leave with information they can take into their business, job, or next sales conversation and put to work.
I’m hoping to do that sometime in late September. If everything works out, I’ll probably record it and put the video online for anyone interested. If recording isn’t practical, I’ll at least turn the material into an article so people can get something useful from it.
Sometimes being disappointed by something is a pretty good way to figure out what you wish existed.
Building the Person I Want to Be by My Next Birthday
With August wrapping up, I’ve also been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want this next year of my life to look like. I’ve been toiling away at my “I AM” statements and trying to create a clear picture of who I want to be by my next birthday, including what I’ve accomplished, how I spend my time, and what my everyday life actually looks like.
The difficult part is resisting my natural tendency to turn all of that into more work.
I don’t want the answer to every goal to be “do more things.” I’m trying to get better at separating actual goals from additional tasks that make me feel productive without necessarily getting me closer to where I want to go. There is a difference between working toward something and simply being busy, and apparently I’m going to learn that lesson whether I like it or not.
One thing I’ve realized is that I need to become slightly obsessed with my planner.
That probably doesn’t sound particularly healthy when I phrase it that way, but there is something about regularly seeing my goals, projects, deadlines, and progress that makes me want to keep moving. When those things disappear into the background, it’s much easier for me to lose sight of what I’m supposed to be working toward.
Which naturally led me back down the productivity-software rabbit hole.
My Never-Ending Search for the Perfect Productivity System
If you’re new here, I have tried an unreasonable number of productivity and task-management programs. Todoist, TickTick, Notion, Obsidian, ClickUp—you name it, and there is a reasonably good chance I have downloaded it, built something in it, decided it was going to change my life, and eventually found something about it that didn’t quite work for me.
For a while, one of my favorites was Tana. I really liked how I could organize information and connect everything together, but the direction of the software seems to be shifting more toward AI and away from some of the things I originally liked about it. I’m happy for the developers and whatever they’re building, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the problem I have right now.
So last week involved yet another round of experimenting.
I’m currently testing something new, but I’m going to keep the name to myself until I’ve had enough time with it to decide whether I actually like it. I’ve been through this cycle enough times that I’m no longer willing to announce I’ve found my perfect system after using something for approximately twelve minutes.
If this experiment doesn’t work, I may simply retreat back into the Apple ecosystem and run everything through Calendar, Notes, and the other tools I’ve been using over the last month. Sometimes the boring solution that reliably works is better than the exciting solution that requires constant maintenance.
We’ll see. The jury is still out.
A Surprise NDA Project I Can’t Tell You About Yet
I also had a surprise project land on me recently with a very tight deadline. I had about one week to get the entire thing done, so I put my head down, did the work, turned it in, and waited.
The good news is that it has officially been approved.
The bad news is that I can’t tell you what it is.
It’s an NDA project, and I probably won’t be able to talk about it until sometime next year. I don’t even know exactly when next year I’ll be allowed to say anything, which makes this update somewhat useless except for the fact that I’m excited and wanted to tell somebody.
What I can tell you is that this is a big deal for me personally. It involves something I’m extremely passionate about, something I genuinely love, and it involves space.
That’s it. That’s all you’re getting out of me.
When I’m finally allowed to talk about it, though, you can be absolutely certain that I will.
Finishing Kara’s Craft and Blood in the Rain
While secret space things are happening in the background, I have two much less secret projects that desperately need my attention: Kara’s Craft and Blood in the Rain.
Kara’s Craft is my book about writing craft, and it’s especially important to me that I get this one right. I don’t want to write a book that simply tells people my opinions about writing for a few hundred pages. Yes, there is plenty of me rambling in there because apparently that’s unavoidable, but I also want the book to have substance.
If you’re someone who wants to start writing or improve the skills you already have, I want you to be able to take something from the book and actually use it. That means practical exercises, useful explanations, and material that helps you develop as a writer rather than simply giving you another writing book to put on the shelf.
Then there’s Blood in the Rain.
I started this dark fantasy novel years ago and told myself I was going to finish it within a year. I believe that was roughly four years ago, which tells you how well that plan went.
The particularly ridiculous part is that I only have about four chapters left.
I genuinely don’t know what my hang-up has been with finishing this book. At this point, however, I’ve stared at those remaining chapters long enough. I need to sit down and finish the thing.
My current goal is to get both Kara’s Craft and Blood in the Rain finished by the end of September. That gives me the remainder of the quarter to stop fiddling around and get these two projects across the finish line.
Getting Stronger and Working Through Frozen Shoulder
Health-wise, things are actually moving in a good direction. I’m still dealing with frozen shoulder, but my mobility is gradually coming back. I can lift my arm a little higher than I could before, and those small improvements feel pretty significant when you’ve spent enough time unable to move normally.
I’m also beginning to incorporate weightlifting back into my routine. Right now, the focus is rebuilding strength and getting those parts of my body working properly again rather than trying to immediately return to where I was before all of this.
I do have one particularly annoying issue where certain movements cause my shoulder blade to click. I’ve been told that muscle tightness can sometimes contribute to that sort of thing, so I may look into seeing a massage therapist or another qualified professional who can assess what’s happening and help me work through some of that tightness safely.
For now, though, progress is progress. I’m moving better, I’m lifting again, and I’m slowly working my way back.
Heading Into September With Plenty to Do
So that’s where things stand as August comes to an end. I have a sales workshop to build, a productivity system to test, two books that need to be finished, a shoulder that needs continued attention, and one secret space-related project sitting quietly in the background until I’m finally allowed to tell you what I’ve been working on.
There is plenty to do, but I’m trying to approach this next year differently. I don’t want to measure progress solely by how much I can cram into a day. I want to be clearer about what I’m actually trying to accomplish and make sure the things taking up my time are moving me toward that person I keep describing in all those “I AM” statements.
We’ll see how well I manage that.
I’ll let you know how the workshop goes once I get closer to putting it on, and if I’m able to record it, I’ll share where you can watch it. Otherwise, I’ll put together an article with the most useful material so you can take what you need from it.
And hopefully, by the time I write one of these updates again, Blood in the Rain will have fewer than four chapters left.