Renaissance Restart

One of the modules of the Renaissance Project centers on discipline.  The notion is pretty simple:  Those of us with a renaissance bent are full of ideas, things we want to do, places we want to see, so if we want to see our ideas and projects flourish, we must put some effort into self-discipline.

We might take heart from the fact that Leonardo apparently was notorious for starting and not finishing projects.  Maybe it comes with the turf.  If we feel drawn to the renaissance life we must fight the urge to try each new idea at the cost of following through on ones we already have going.

I’ve noticed that it is easy to be disciplined about certain things and hard to stick with others.  I spent some time thinking about why I slouched off on the blog.  I like the idea of sharing ideas with you.  I like that about 50 of you are following the string of ideas.  So why was I able, in the 6 weeks I’ve missed, to take a course in thrown pottery, and work hard to sharpen my equity trading skills, while leaving the blog unattended? For me it is simply that I have not mastered WordPress.  The details of making WordPress work are far less interesting to me than  getting the ideas across.   I want it to be easy to write the blog.  But since I haven’t taken the time to master the tools, I can spend a bunch of time laying out each piece, sticking in the right HTML code for links and headings, and so forth.

So I think I’m learning that, for me, a key to self-discipline in areas where the “trivial” (learning how WordPress works) stands in the way of the substantial (getting the ideas into the blog – forgive me for assuming the ideas are substantial) is taking the time to master the skills that make the trivial easy.  That way I can get to the substantial without a lot of hassle.  I have a feeling this is true for many of us.  So there may be a bit of renaissance insight here.  Two insights, actually;

• We should take time to learn systems that can help us get to the core stuff we want to accomplish (don’t let the trivial stand in the way of our substantial offerings).
• If part of our renaissance offering includes a system, or course that others must learn, make it easy to follow the tutorials (don’t make it difficult for our customers to get through the trivial in order to get to the real meat).

It’s good to be back.  You’ll know pretty quickly how effective my “kill the trivial” approach is.  Meanwhile, I’m off to figure out WordPress.

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