Practice
Previously when I was talking about product creation I said the three ways to get infoproducts produced quickly are: don't make it look good, get excited about the topic, and practice.
This last Sunday (January 13th, 2008) I took my girlfriend to the Arco Arena stadium in Sacramento and attended an open-to-the-public Sacramento Kings basketball practice session.
(Don't I look oh-so-entertained?)
Everyone benefits from practice -- not just professional sports players. You benefit from practice every day of your life, from driving a car to brushing your teeth, to writing that e-book and recording video.
Practice means you get used to a routine and can focus your creativity on things that really matter.
You automate the hard part -- getting the ideas down on a page -- and can think about cool homework assignments to add to your books, better headlines, or fun ways to market the product to your list.
My older sister graduated from college a few years ago with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a minor in Journalism. She had to write a lot of papers. When she still lived with our parents, I would visit sometimes and see her working on a paper at the computer.
I noticed a few things about her at the computer:
- Sometimes she would "warm up" for a paper by quickwriting. She would open up a blank Word document and start typing anything that came to mind just to get her into the rhythm for a few minutes, then start on the actual paper.
- She kept a blog for fun. This was a private blog and obviously I never read it, but she would write pages and pages on that thing. Keeping a blog gets you used to writing.
- She would wait until the last minute to write the paper. Usually the night before. She was a great student but was unable to work on a paper ahead of time... her brain wasn't trained for it. Her brain was trained to write under pressure with a time constraint. If you ask me that's the best way to write because it means you get the most work done in the least amount of time.
The books I write -- you can check any of them out on the sidebar of this blog -- are filled with dumb little jokes and puns. Most of the time I don't realize I've written them until they're already typed out. Because I'm not really thinking about what I'm typing, the final result is funnier, more story-like, and more interesting.
Even ignoring all the creative benefits of practice, when you make a routine, the process is easier and repeatable. This doesn't just apply to the creation of your product -- it applies to the promotion of it too.
Once my product is finished, I'm so used to writing the sales letter, writing the ad, posting the WSO, sending an e-mail out to my list... that I get a weird unsettling feeling if I don't do all that stuff right away.
I use my own PHP scripts to setup these sites quickly, for example, the scripts I offer at www.SalesPageTactics.com to do things like add a contact form, make my site more interactive, or setup a countdown timer to increase urgency.
When you get used to releasing smaller imperfect products over and over, you will cut down on your launch time with each release and have time for more "fun."
You'll get more excited and as a result have a more creative finished product with lots of flow.
Most importantly, you'll actually have something out there selling and making a little bit of money so you can move on to creating the next product and setting up a new income stream.
Filed in: Product Creation
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- Best Jokes For You! » Practice | January 14, 2008
Robert once again you have hit the nail on the head.
I normally feel guilty about waiting until the last minute to complete a project. Now after reading your latest blog post I know I wait until the last minute because I work better under pressure.
Thanks for this valuable eye-opening information.
J.R.
Hey Robert,
Some great tips. I love the idea of warming up so I’m typing this to get a bit of practice in before I do something important! LOL
John
Hi Robert,
The idea of “Practice” is an important part of getting things to work the way you want. Even doing things each time , over time is a form of practice. I was noticing how much quicker things become the more you do them, especially online. Maybe it is because you have a platform to work from since you have been there before.
But “Practice” is never a waste of time unless that is all you do and never get onto the “doing it”, what ever “it” is. That’s when practice becomes practice practicing – not a good thing.
Thanks for another interesting post.
Harry
Harry… that’s so true. It’s tempting to use practice as yet another excuse to keep yourself from getting anything done.
You can look at failure as a form of practice. Supposedly it took Thomas Edison 10,000 tries until he had a working light bulb. Each time, he hoped it would work, but when it didn’t, it became “practice.”
He figured what did and didn’t work one step at a time. You can be sure by attempt #10,000 he had his process pretty well automated.
Robert,
I have to practice sometimes if it is something I haven’t internalized, like a writing project on a new (for me) topic.
On the other hand, if it is a subject I know “cold,” or a subject I have researched and done a lot of thinking or writing about, (festering) I just write it. Then I may do a quick edit, and it’s done.
So for me a festering topic is easy, a new (to me) one is hard. I have so many festering ideas I usually have to put them aside for what needs to be done.
I’m going to try that automatic warm up writing thing the next time I get stuck on a new topic.
Keep up the good work,
Lowell
Robert, you did it again. You made us all think, and that is, as always, what a good blog should do… 🙂
When that has been said one should also be careful if style becomes so “sloppy” that you lose some of the people. I’m not in any way thinking of your manuscript, but merely making a point that there ARE also people out there who begin last minute and produce so little that they shoud have learnt the lesson long ago.
So, I guess, it’s just a question of balance. 🙂
Thanks for your articles. Keep ’em coming! 😀
The age old saying is true!
“Practice makes perfect.”
I don’t recall anyone saying you need to practice perfectly.
Great points here Robert.
The thing is, practicing something requires that you actually DO it.
Most people who don’t find success at online marketing either give up too soon or never take action in the first place.
Anyone who has learned to play an instrument will tell you that the first time they tried playing it was a disaster. But with practice, you get better and better and eventually you’re good enough at it that people think you make it look easy!
Robert
Great post. The doing and practicing gets you doing is the key to get things done.
I’m with John Taylor this was my warmup so I can go do something of value.
Mike
hey Robert,
Another great post. You are right though, the more you practice the better you get. If we were all only as good as you 🙂
Yes, practice makes perfect, or something like that.
Just as important as practice, is knowing when to take a break. Sometimes too much practice can be counter productive, especially when you find yourself getting agitated or frustrated. That was my problem, until I devised a routine that would pull me away from practice that wasn’t making me perfect.
Thanks Robert for the enlightening topic.
PhPlank:
another fantastic post! (and you already have enough comments to post NOW…
(you need to make a script that automatically posts the next post once 10 comments are recieved and moderated)
can you do a live webinar? say on webex.com? and take questions?
whee!
how much is admission? first person .10, next person .20, like a dimesale? 😀
Okay Ari since I have enough comments I’m going to post the next blog entry now, even though it’s only been one day.
I feel like I’ve been hitting my mailing list too frequently lately so I’m going to see if we can still get enough comments to fill it up without me sending an e-mail.
Thanks Robert for sharing me this. I guess I needed more
practice so I can focus my creativity on more important
things.
cheers!
Anthony
Great points… Most people tend to do better on time constraints when their behind is on shooting line.
Smaller imperfect products… That’s nice way of putting it.
Often I write, I do it in one sitting… and give it to someone for small proofread. Dan Kennedy often talks about how he writes daily. This is what I have adopted in my lifestyle nowdays… I write daily, be it on a blog or an article or may be a product…
God dag! Kan jag ladda ner en bild fran din blogg. Av sak med hanvisning till din webbplats!
Hey Robert,
Years ago when I was in school and playing an instrument (trombone & trumpet), both my private instructor and our school’s music teacher stressed practice…not just any kind of practice though. Their saying was “Perfect practice makes perfect.”
Although I agree with them, once you’re at a certain level in your chosen pursuit, I do believe that all the Practice one does early on is just a rehearsal to get to that certain level.
Keep practicing and Rock On Robert!
Uggh! I have to have papers and stuff like that finished before the date due. I am not right until I get that done. I like to do that in case I need to tweak it and for the simple reason to have it done to do other things.
It is a good idea though to sit down and write. I seem to have little fits of fury and come up with all kinds of ideas. If I don’t sit down and write them all out, I forget them or they are just not as savvy when I do get to write them down later.
Hey whatever works for the individual!
Good stuff Robert. Alway enjoy your posts.
I feel like I’m a writer at heart – I love to write. A lot of the time I tell people it’s like breathing to me.
But I also realize that one reason for this is that I have written almost constantly since I was little. A lot of it was crappy, pointless writing, but I trained myself early on to put words on a page.
I also discovered that if I didn’t write, even for a few days, it was harder to get the words flowing again.
This is why I write a lot, every single day. I have journals I write in if I have a lot of personal thoughts in my head, I have my blog I write posts for, I write a lot of notes for my podcast, and other things.
And when I “practice” writing and come up with something that’s “ok” but not my greatest work, I’ll find something else to do with it. Like polish it up and use it for article marketing, or something similar.
And speed-writing or train-of-thought writing is a great way to break things loose if you’re having trouble getting going. I use that method a lot – usually in journals.
The more you “practice” writing in various forms, the easier it gets to keep the words and ideas flowing – and you improve with time. I write very little nowadays that is just downright crappy, and it’s because of all the writing I’ve done in the past.
Thanks for a great post Robert. These methods have served me well (except for waiting until the last minute – that doesn’t work for me) and I hope more people start using them. 🙂
i loved your sister’s comments about waiting to the last minute to do things. i can’t count how many times, in college, i wrote english papers in my car during my one hour break before english class when the paper was due.
Hey Robert
What a great post many thanks
I still feel like I am ‘all over the place’ with my writing and also my ‘Things to do’ and feel that its time I got into the routine …
I guess that this will come more with practice (as you have stated) but still feel like a bit of a failure in the organisation department.
I need to organise myself so that I know what to practice so that I dont end up all over the place doing bits and bobs and getting paralysed 🙂
Do you have any good tips to make your self feel better about your own self worth when it comes to organising your self to get things to practice ??
Does that make sense ?? LOL
cheers Carl
Cor! Robert, I never though possible of anyone looking that bored during a basketball practice session. What was happening? Were the Sacramento Kings players not practicing well? Probably something else was getting at you and I hope it wasn’t your girl friend!
As for your sister, I liked how she wasn’t trained for doing things ahead of time so that she preferred working under pressure! But, why? Was it because she was, as you said, a bright student and had the confidence to dedicate the least amount of time to the task at hand? Wow, that will only work for the creative few I think. For the rest of us, the struggle is on to put together a few words…
What I like about your post though is how you not only write it but, at the same time, you take care of all the promotion of it. That is it. Job completely done! A master is at work.
Unfortunately for me, this reply was not such a flash in the pan and had to think a little bit so it was not a quick response. Yet I am glad I replied. Practice, I want to practice.
German
I love the reminder of the benefits of free writing. I can imagine how difficult it must be to be totally self employed and make one’s own deadlines.