The Magical Whiteboard and the Fruits of Labor
For my first official Men with Pens post, I asked James whether I should write a serious post or a funny one. James shrugged, and I realized I’d asked possibly the stupidest question ever, slapped myself across the face, and sat down to write about The Magical Whiteboard.
I have a problem with procrastination. If you are of the human persuasion, you probably do too. I suspect that humans are the only creatures who have a problem with procrastination. Monkeys, for example, probably don’t sit around thinking, “Should I go climb a tree so I can eat a banana now? Meh… I’ll do it later.”
Monkeys know what’s up. But then, they have it a little easier. They don’t have a middle step.
Human beings do. We have a middle step between labor and the fruits of that labor. As human beings, we work. Then we are paid for our work. Then we use the money we were paid to buy our fruit. (No, I don’t know what the fruits of our labor might be; possibly they are pomegranates. For the monkey, the fruits of labor are almost certainly bananas. For us, they might be Fruit of the Loom.)
That middle step of getting paid for our work is screwing us up big time. For the monkey, labor = fruit. For humans, labor = money = fruit.
It means we have no direct result of our labor. If every time I finished a press release, a new piece of finely honed weaponry appeared on my doorstep, I would be way more motivated to finish the next press release. My labor would have an immediate result, just as it does for the monkey. Fruit is just too damned far away for us to remember that fruit is why we’re working.
This is where the Magical Whiteboard comes in. The Magical Whiteboard transforms labor into fruit.
That probably requires some explanation.
If we’re vaguely trundling along knowing that our labor nets us money, we’re not really motivated. Money is boring because it is not fruit (true fact).
If we know how much money we have, though, we start thinking about our money and our fruit. We think things like, “$200! That’s TEN WHOLE BUSHELS of bananas!” Or new pairs of shoes, or that car payment, or whatever. The Magical Whiteboard lets your overtaxed little brain make the giant leap all the way from labor straight to fruit.
So here’s how. Write down all your labor on the Magical Whiteboard. Every single little project you have. Then write down how much that project is worth, even for the tiniest projects. Don’t discount the fruitiness of a project because it’s only worth $5. $5 can get you a watermelon.
A whole watermelon. That is some valuable fruit-labor, there.
When you write down what your labor is worth before you work on it, you transform your labor into money immediately. That’s not enough, though. What we need is to transform our money into fruit immediately.
Now – and this is very important – put a big ol’ box in one corner of the Magical Whiteboard. This box should say in very large friendly letters: FRUIT. Or “Week’s Total.” You can be boring if you want. My box says FRUIT.
To turn labor into fruit, don’t cross projects off your list. Add up the money you’ve earned from your fruit column and put it in the FRUIT box. When you can see, clearly and visibly, all the money you’re making, all at once, a peculiar thing happens. You start to think about fruit.
I’m not kidding. Try this: Think to yourself, “This next project is worth $35.” Not that exciting, right?
Now go to the bank and take out $35. Put $35 in your hot little hand. What do you start to think about?
Damn right. You start to think about how much fruit $35 gets you.
Totaling your earnings for the week in the FRUIT box of your Magical Whiteboard every day transforms money into fruit. You can almost taste it. $100 becomes $150 – do you know how many more bananas that gets me? That gets me a LOT of freakin’ bananas. That gets me MORE bananas than I had before.
And you know what? If I just finish this next project, I’ll be able to buy kumquats. And if I finish the next one, I can buy passion fruit.
Change your motivation. Don’t labor toward completing work or wiping stuff off your whiteboard. That’s useless. Labor toward FRUIT. Keep that motivation front and center, and you’ll be a lot more inspired to get through your list of work.
21 Responses to “The Magical Whiteboard and the Fruits of Labor”
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Tei, that is fantastic. Thank you. I’ve had some serious motivation challenges lately, and I think this might be something that shakes it loose. Great first ‘official’ post!
A rockin’ first post Tei with just one minor correction. And really, being of the female orientation I can’t believe you made this mistake.
““$200! That’s TEN WHOLE BUSHELS of bananas!†Or new pairs of shoes”
Right. More like one pair of shoes
Marc – Welsh Scribe´s last blog post…5 Words Guaranteed To Lead To Freelance Writing Success
You had me at kumquat…
I don’t often have motivation problems, but I have a lot of distraction problems… like when I stop writing to tweet or when someone writes a blog post about monkeys and I feel obligated to comment.
It’s nice to have things written down so you can look up and say, “I don’t have time for monkey comments, I need to make some bananas.”
Really though, it’s a great point. Work for what you really want. I love a post with style…
Henry Bingaman´s last blog post…The Three Most Important Business Questions
Tei, great post and I especially like that tomatoes were chosen as the fruit (of our labor) as the graphic. Technically tomatoes are fruit which I always seem to forget as I find them in the store with the vegetables.
I enjoyed this post – and it’s interesting about visualising the fruit because sometimes we don’t even do work that will lead us to our fruit. Soemtiems we just go for work that will give us enough to get by on, hoping that bigger jobs will come out of the woodwork so that we can buy the bigger fruit above rent / bills etc.
By visualising what fruit you want you can work back to what you are doing and ask yourself – is this leading to my fruit?
Amy Harrison´s last blog post…How To Break The Glass Ceiling? Build Your Own House
Melinda – Hey, I hope it helps. May the fruit be with you.
Marc – You’ll have to blame James for that one. He edits and I most definitely had a singular pair of shoes. Men’s shoes are cheaper, apparently.
Henry – Go! Make bananas! Let us all make bananas!
Mark W. – Again, the graphic’s all James. Will his weirdly useless wisdom never cease?
So very cool.
I like the tangibleness of your idea. Yep. Make it real.
Hm, off to make some grapes…maybe some organic raspberries….
Course by this evening I’ll be wanting those fermented.
Nice debut.
Janice Cartier´s last blog post…Oranges Go Here
Thanks for posting this – it’s a breath of fresh air to find a truly “new” concept (the middle step between work and reward) — I’d never thought of it that way and I’ll be musing on it all day for sure!
Mark Smith´s last blog post…Win A Free Copy Of EstiMate Enterprise!
Amy – That’s right. If you keep thinking, hey, this job is only a bunch of grapes, you might not want to do it. But if this job adds to this job adds to this job – suddenly you can really see how it all adds up to a mythical breadfruit from Jamaica.
Janice – Hey there. Go to wine.woot. They’ll hook you up with some cheap, delicious fruit of the fermented persuasion.
Mark – I’m terribly pleased that everyone is contemplating this fruit thing so seriously. Ponder the fruit. The fruit will lead you to victory.
You don’t even need to add up to the mythical Jamaican breadfruit. Just keep adding fruit, everyone loves a good fruit salad right?
Marc – WelshScribe´s last blog post…Everything is Fuel For Writers
Just checked out wine.woot….YES! I love it when people take me places and bring me things…good things. And lookie there… fun fun fun. Do I detect Tei’s fingerprints all over the copy? Or do you have a twin?
Janice Cartier´s last blog post…Oranges Go Here
I can probably squeeze 3-4 pairs of shoes out of $200, but then again, I’m a fan of shoes that are more functional for things like… oh, walking.
Great post, Tei
Geek’s Dream Girl´s last blog post…What A Radio Preacher Can Teach You About Writing A Great Online Dating Profile
See that kid’s face? That’s me with a new idea. Mmhm.
@ Geek – My Nikes ring up to just shy of $200, so I figure if I wasn’t picky about what I stick on my feet to sneak, I could get a few pair out of a two-fer.
@ Janice – Kiss and tell? That would be indiscreet of us.
(Okay, no, that wasn’t us. But it could’ve been!)
@ Marc – Um… actually I don’t. I’m a big broccoli fan, though. Lotsa broccoli.
@ Mark – When I started to read the post, I thought, “What the f-… Hey. Hang on, this is a good idea.” ‘Nuff said, eh?
@ Tei – You should be proud. I put that picture in all by myself, I did!
@ Amy – I like that line of thinking. Very nice, and yes!
@ Mark – LOL, you noticed! Rock on with tomatoes, man. They’re awesome. (Better than bananas.)
@ Henry – It’s very good for you and your banana goals, then, that we write posts about how to create more bananas. Mmhm.
@ Melinda – I think she’s a keeper, eh?
Taylor – awesome post. I have to admit, when I started reading it, I was a little skeptical about the fruit analogy, but by the end of the post I was laughing out loud and craving bananas.
On a serious note, great advice. As a freelancer it can be easy to lose sight of the end goal. I’d say that it’s especially true if you also hold down a day job. If freelancing is your bread and butter, then you kind of need it to… well, buy bread and butter. But, if you moonlight as a freelancer, the sense of urgency may not be the same. Tallying up the reward for your work can definitely be a good step in that direction.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the store to buy a whiteboard and some bananas…
Adam Di Stefano – 52 Short Stories´s last blog post…Writing While Traveling
What a fun post! It occurs to me this is why I’m so excited about having my first big veggie garden this year – work equals reward, no middle step involved except time, watering and weeding. ‘Course, there’s money up front to have it dug in our nice, boulder-strewn New Hampshire soil. And the Moo Doo. And the fencing to keep the critters out . . . and the plants and seeds . . .
Jean Gogolin´s last blog post…10 Steps To Doing a Kick-Ass Interview
Superb fruity post!! I used to think about purchases in terms of books. Back when I was selling my physical book The Internet Recruiting Edge at $149/copy, I’d consider each book would bring me $100 or so. Thus, if I wanted a bronze dragon statue, that would be 49 books. If I wanted instead a massage chair, that would only be 30 books. etc.etc.etc.
Made buying things a lot more fun, I’ll tell you that!
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach´s last blog post…Prevent thieves from stealing your affiliate commission
I spent several months trying to win freelance projects on Elance. I started using the advice in this blog: http://freelancemoney.wordpress.com/ and have been working consistently ever since. Can be “salesy†at times, but the information is invaluable. Read it!
Yani
This is an awesome idea! That middle step *does* tend to sap my energy a lot.
Catherine Cantieri, Sorted´s last blog post…The Sorted Seven – No. 4: Contact Management
I’m a little hesitant to try this; I don’t want to find out that I really do work for peanuts . . .
Looks like a good practice though. Reminds me of “Your Money Or Your Life” though, maybe you could write a sequel, “Your Bananas Or Your Life.”
Terry Heath´s last blog post…Win-Win Thinking For Multi-Talented Fairies and Mortals
Hmmm….it has really made me think over and over about the “Magical Whiteboard”. Good post loved it
Actually the fruit of labor is time, time is the amount of energy put into a thing or service. A value is placed per hour when a conversion takes place, because you choose to get paid with foreign bank money is why you are taxed. You have the power to choose in which form you shall be paid, with foreign currency or with lawful money in the form of species currency. United States Code Title 12 Section 411, also see Section 415