Hello beautiful people!
Let’s change focus now and then.
The first step to this process is labeling the point of view you have about your work as you do it. Take a moment to ask yourself, “Is this task something that has me focusing on the macro or the micro of this situation?”
Let’s define those terms a bit.
Macro POV is what we call “producer brain” over here at Team Bonnie Gillespie. It’s something I do ridiculously well by default. I didn’t have to train this part of my brain, or if I did, it happened so very early in my development that it never felt like something I had to learn. Give me ANY issue and I can pull way back from it, see its position on the map from way high above, get dispassionate perspective on its relationship to all other moving parts around it, truly gauge its importance, and get decisive about the big picture from this 10,000-foot view.
When you’re thinking macro, you aren’t distracted by the “little things” that are begging for your attention. You know they’re there, you know they have value when it comes to moving things forward, but you’re seeing how they all connect to create the WHOLE result.
Conversely, the micro way of thinking provides for focus on the finest of details. If there’s a “little thing” that could make all the difference, it won’t be missed during micro thinking. Of course, if there’s a “little thing” that may be inconsequential to the big picture, micro thinking is great at focusing on it too. If the macro thinker is the exec producer, the micro thinker is the line producer. Logistics, details, checklists, spreadsheets, deadlines, relationships, schedules… these are all in the micro wheelhouse.
Interestingly enough, I also have a keen ability for working at the micro level. Get me going on crunching numbers or wrangling data and hours can pass before I realize I’ve been in a zone on a tiny (possibly insignificant) task through sunrise. When you’re thinking micro, you don’t stop to think about where this work you’re doing fits in the big picture because that big picture will distract you from finishing the task at hand.
So. Most creatives share a particular reality, when it comes to the whole macro/micro thing: We label ourselves as scattered, unfocused, incapable of making decisions, bad at finishing up the detail work, and unable to reach goals. We never consider that perhaps we’re spending too much time switching between macro and micro focus, doubting whether our micro work is effective at moving forward the macro goal, or trying to do micro-level tasks while we’re in macro focus (and vice-versa). We never imagine that our frustration comes from all the doubt and time-shifting.
Think of it like this: You’re trying to create crop circles. You have to drive around in a tractor flattening the grain in a particular pattern and while you’re in the tractor, you cannot see whether or not your vision for the crop circles — which are viewed from high above — is being fulfilled. So, you hop in your little plane, you fly up over the flattening you’ve done, you check your work against the plans, you calculate that you need to shift your trajectory by two degrees to get the effect you’ve designed, then you land the plane, hop back into the tractor, and start on in again at ground level.
When labeling macro and micro for all of this, it’s super easy compared to, oh, let’s say labeling the tasks of updating your footage, adding data to your show bible, editing your bio, hitting an open mic night, creating your own content, overhauling your website, doing some resume feng shui, and starting to say no to projects at the tier you’re trying to leave behind.
How do you know if you’re doing stuff that needs a tractor or a plane to make the most effective moves at any given time?
Ah… aren’t you glad you asked?
Well, yeah! Because once we get good at labeling what we’re doing, we can focus better for the task in front of us with the right energy. More importantly — much more importantly — we can let ourselves off the hook for all that beating-ourselves-up we may have been doing about how damn inefficient we were, when we were repeatedly moving back and forth between the tractor and the plane and not even knowing that’s what we were doing!
An efficient, productive, creative leader is someone who labels her work accurately and dispassionately, who commits to the zone she is in while she is there, who shifts between macro and micro with precision, and who — eventually — delegates to others every task she isn’t as inspired to do, of all the tasks in the mix.
And since we know, thanks to the population analysis we did on Day 2, that all creatives are leaders, it’s time to get down to the work of understanding which of our tasks are macro and which are micro so we can get to leading. Once we’ve done our labeling, it’s all about budgeting time for each type of work, and releasing all that wasted energy (and time) we spent certain we suffered from lack of focus or ADHD or low motivation or whatever destructive label we were so happy to embrace for ourselves (when labeling the WORK is what will free us from all of that nonsense).
Ahhh… better already.
Today’s work: Begin labeling your work. What’s big-picture (macro)? What’s finer-touch (micro)? Share below how you categorize the tasks of running your creative business. If you’re feeling ready, try to take on a project with the labeling POV in place and see how much more smoothly you move through the various elements the project entails once you know you’re working on the ground then hitting the sky for a better view of what impact that detail work actually has on the bigger goal. When you feel yourself trying to talk yourself out of switching from macro to micro and back again (you have a strong muscle for that, if you previously labeled this action as your deficiency), remember that while this movement may feel inefficient at first, it’s actually quite genius because it allows you to get 50 yards of grain flattened, then 1% of the angle shifted, then another 50 yards, then another 3%, and so on. What a blast to actually move things forward — and verifiably in the right direction — thanks to trusting you’re shifting focus for the better view!
Now, we’re 1/5 through our 100-day course today. Take a deep breath. Put your hand on your heart and take another, deeper breath. (Remember Day 10?) I want to take a moment here to be sure you’ve made room for your more expansive self. I want you to treat yourself with compassion for any judgments that are coming up about the work you’re doing, the pace at which you’re consuming these materials, or anything else about your process right now since — if you’ll recall — you made a deal for these 100 days that you were gonna be really gentle with yourself and that means, for starters, more deep breathing.
Finally, an important reminder today and every day: You are doing BIG work and a LOT of it. I told you I could help you make a major shift in your life if you came on this journey with me and there’s certainly resistance stacked up about suddenly loving yourself and your creative pursuits so much more, huh? Welp, I want you to really give yourself credit for your victories — every single one of them, no matter how small. Because when you diminish your victories, it teaches the universe you don’t need them. (Tweet it.) Celebrate your progress, gorgeous. I’m so damn proud of you.
’til tomorrow… stay ninja!
