When Steven King writes a book about writing, we read it.  One of the pieces of advice he gives is about rejection, and he says it's best to treat rejection like a game, and it's a game you keep playing until you win.  It goes along with all the other advice, saying that only failure happens when you quit.

After that weekend, pick-me-up, read more on distractions and chores – followed by Stephen King's book and beautiful ariel photographs of the Spanish Olive Groves.  A surprising story about baby names in the U.S. and a more surprising story about MTV News.

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Yesterday we wrote about focus and distraction and how email has been our biggest distraction over decades.  Today Seth Godin talks about Chores and puts them into a similar category.  If you have worked within a small company or start-up where a bottle washer was part of the job description, you know something about chores.  In Godin's post today, he's coming from the angle of putting off the critical work instead of cleaning something up.  We agree, but we also have a few expanded thoughts.

In lots of productivity advice, words like delete, delegate and do are used to organize tasks.  In many small businesses, this is a challenge, especially if the small business starts as a one-person business.  Determining who to hire first or what to give them is more complicated than doing it all yourself.  Many solopreneurs admit that hiring 5 people to do different things would be easier than one who you would have to figure out what to delegate.  We have personal experience with this.

Chores can also offer a needed break and distraction from creative, deep work.  It can be a mental walk, an opportunity to disengage for a short time, complete a less meaningful task, and then return to work.  The key is balance and moving the critical work forward at the end of the day, week, or month.

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Stephen King is the epitome of a prolific writer, and 20 years ago, he wrote a book about writing called On Writing.  If you are interested in the words of a master, it’s worth checking out Nik Goke’s summary on fourminutebooks.com for an excellent summary of King's book.  Two of the three most powerful lessons Goke pulls from King’s book helped us write #241 today:

Books are magic, and reading is the best antidote to misinformation.

A new publication on our feeds and now in our highlights called COLOSSAL digital gallery of spectacular artwork, and today we landed on some of Spain’s vast Olive Groves.  Spanish olives in the US have typically come packed with a pimento in the middle of green olive.  The aerial shots of the large olive groves by photographer Tom Hegen are a sight for the eyes and thirst for the palette.

The 1440 newsletter linked us to a story about the most popular baby names in 2022.  The link then went to the Social Security Administration, where you can search for the most popular names over decades and different states.  Another click will get you to the top names over the last 100 years, and a quick eyeball comparison shows that only 2 of the top 10 boys' names match the top 100 (James & William), and 0 of the top 10 girls' names are in the top 100.

MTV News in the 80s and 90s was a staple for many Gen-Xers.  Kurt Loder and later Tabitha Soren gave us the news about music and related events without the need to be gimmicky or performative hype.  They talked to a generation who were just beginning to enter adulthood without condescension which elevated us all.

After 36 years, MTV News is shutting down; for many of us who stopped watching MTV when it went from music videos to reality shows, the surprise wasn't that MTV News was shutting down; it was that it was still around.  Special thanks to Kurt Loder and Tabitha Soren for bringing us more than music news.

Deep cuts.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

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Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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