- Tana Fis Letters
- Posts
- no.14. Express, Show your Work
Edition no.14. 5th May, 2023
Most people struggle with Express.
Especially if you are a perfectionist.
Imagine putting yourself out into the world, being defenseless against judgment and critics. Not having a place to hide.
It's scary to hit the publish button.
It's also very hard to stop consuming mindlessly and shifting gears to actually finishing projects.
Finished projects are the heart of the creator economy.
Delivered content is the heart of your business.
Not captured ideas.
Not an organized Second Brain.
Not a collection of distilled notes (even though these are the most helpful among these options).
Delivered deliverables are the 💙 of your business.
💬 4 Quotes
Quote 1
“A dish that is 90 percent finished has the same worth as a dish that is zero percent finished.”
Restaurant customers can't eat a dish that's 90% ready.
Your customers can't receive a piece of content that's 90% ready.
Develop the habit of finishing.
Trust me, I understand this is not easy because I struggle A LOT with this.
Deep inside, I am a phenomenal Dreamer and Ideator.
And a mediocre Finisher.
That's why I advocate for the importance of finishing, I know the pain of not finishing.
It's been an incredibly tough ride to develop the habit of finishing, but I'm glad I'm on this path.
Without it, my brilliant ideas are worth nothing.
Quote 2
“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything."
I am being redundant.
Because I really want you to understand this.
Ideas without execution are worthless.
Zero value.
Zero.
Please, stop being afraid.
Please, stop sabotaging yourself.
Please, start executing on your ideas.
Quote 3
“Your community needs you to share your ideas with others.”
I heard this phrase from Nick Milo 1 year ago.
It struck a chord with me in an extraordinary fashion.
Such that it's still very vivid in my memory.
I attended his pledge and have become a consistent contributor to the PKM community.
Now I pass along this pledge to you!
You are not only doing yourself a favor when you share your ideas.
You are doing your entire community a favor. (Regardless of what community you belong to.)
Please, start showing up.
If not for yourself, do it for your peers. They need you!
Even if you're afraid…
Quote 4
“The truth is this: At the bottom of every one of your fears is simply the fear that you can’t handle whatever life may bring you.”
At the bottom of your fears, is the fear that you can't handle it.
If you knew you could handle anything that came your way…
What would have to fear?
NOTHING!
There is nothing to fear if you trust yourself and the Universe you're a part of.
Now, expressing has become a matter of developing trust in yourself.
When you develop trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way, nothing will stop you.
Bonus Quote 5
Do you know what you can definitely handle?
Small things.
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
This is the major secret to finishing.
The major driver for expression.
The key behind success.
Breaking down big mountains into small steps.
Breaking down big projects into small tasks.
📄 3 Notes
1. Solution to Overwhelm: Intermediate Packets
An Intermediate Packet is a reusable tangible piece of knowledge.
Intermediate Packets is also a mindset.
The mindset of an Intermediate Packet is based on two major principles:
Breaking down a project into smaller pieces.
Recycling smaller pieces into future projects.
These smaller pieces are the Intermediate Packets.
In other words, Intermediate Steps.
This makes big projects become less intimidating because you break them down into smaller pieces that you can wrap your head around.
There is another huge benefit of this mindset:
To work in different spans of time.
For example, What can you do in 15 minutes?
You don't need 2h deep-work sessions all the time.
15 minutes is usually enough to finish an Intermediate Packet related to a project you're working on.
Then you can do a deep work session to bring everything together.
Some examples of intermediate packets:
Notes
Drafts
Stories
Outlines
Research
Diagrams
Prototypes
Brainstorms
Landing Pages
Promotion Emails
The real magic happens when you recycle these packets into future projects!
2. Lean Writing Framework
The Lean Writing Framework is a pretty simple mindset from Ship30for30.
You don't start big in order to create something great.
On the contrary.
The Lean Writing Framework is a progression to content creation that makes everything easier.
First, start expressing several small ideas.
Then, listen to the signal.
If a piece of content performs well, this is a good sign that you can expand on this idea and make it larger.
Keep making successful ideas progressively larger, and listening to the signal.
Expand on your best ideas, from the bottom up.
This is a form of validation.
You are always validating your ideas before you commit heavily to them. It's like a safety net.
A possible progression could be:
Tweet ↓
Atomic Essay ↓
Twitter Thread ↓
Long-Form Article ↓
Free Email Course ↓
Digital Product ↓
Online Course ↓
Business
3. The Art of Raising Necessity
Raise Necessity is a phenomenal concept used to make you more motivated to work on something.
It’s one of the 6 habits of high performers outlined in the book High-Performance Habits, by Brendon Burchard.
Your "Necessity to perform" comes from a mix of internal and external forces.
Internal Forces:
Identity
Obsession
External Forces:
Social Duty, Obligation, or Purpose
Urgency
4 Aspects of Necessity
These aspects come together to make you have a feeling:
"Feel like you need to perform."
And this feeling is a HUGE driver.
Your challenge with this framework is:
Raise the Necessity of Expressing your ideas.
Think about these 4 aspects regarding your need to express yourself, and try to make each of them slightly higher.
How can you improve your Identity as a creator?
How can you increase your Obsession with creating?
How can you increase your Social Duty of showing up?
How can you increase the Urgency of creating?
This will help you develop the necessity of expressing yourself.
🔗 2 Links
Link 1: Show Your Work, book by Austin Kleon
One of the best books out there about Expressing yourself.
Show Your Work is a highly inspirational book to… share your work with the world.
I highly recommend it and have read it multiple times because it's a short read and insight-packed. (Affiliate Link)
Link 2: Tana Tour of my Mobile Capture in Tana
Today, “Tana Tours" was relaunched!
And I had the grand honor to be the first guest to demonstrate my workflows to our host, Ev Chapman.
By chance, this means the link is not about Express, but about Capture!
In a way, this is about Express, because it's a part of my work I'm proud to show to you.
In this Tana Tour, I demonstrated a little of my Capture Workflows using Tana's new iOS app Tana Capture together with Tana AI to do some Magic.
Check it out!
That's it. Thank you for reading!
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See you next week, my friend!
Cheers,
Fis