Set Aside 20 Minutes Each Day to Do This
Most people’s days are spent in reacting mode: answering emails, responding to texts, and fulfilling the jobs that they’ve been hired for. By taking twenty minutes out of each day - and accomplishing these three simple tasks - you’ll be more proactive and creative while nurturing real relationships (business or otherwise).
When your days aren’t spent proactively, you start to feel agitated. Like you’ve lost some of your agency and drive. This can lead to burn out over time, or feeling like you’re not accomplishing your short term goals. Below you’ll find three tasks that I make a point to accomplish each day. By doing these, I am sure to be fueling my creativity and nurturing my relationships. If nothing else, I take twenty minutes and do this. Give it a try yourself and let me know how it goes in the comments.
I came up with these while taking the Mission Statement Made Simple course in Business Made Simple. I took that online course during the summer of 2020 when I was pretty down (I mean, weren’t we all? The pandemic had no end in sight, there weren’t even vaccines yet, and with the theater shutdown, Downstage Media seemed like it didn’t have much of a future).
During that time I was rebuilding Downstage Media brick by brick. And although I wasn’t putting out a lot of content, there were certain actions that I was doing every day. Actions that helped to increase my influence in certain circles and nurture my relationships. I just didn’t realize I did them. But when I recognized what they were, I knew I had to make them part of my every day.
Here they are, and would love to hear yours below in the comments.
Create Something
Creating is an easy way for creative people to stay motivated. So often, though, we’re stuck with day to day tasks and we don’t always spend time doing what we love.
No matter what, I create something every day. Usually that’s a social media post. Sometimes it’s a video or a blog post. Most likely a tweet because I don’t have to worry about anything other than the words. And whenever I’m in need of a quick idea of what to post, I turn to the Post Deck app that Rachel Miller put together for some inspiration.
If you’re not a marketing nerd like me, then creating something could be a song or a poem or a great recipe. Whatever it is, it should be creative and give you a boost of fulfillment.
Share Something Inspirational
When you share something inspirational every day, you are helping to nurture relationships with the people that matter to you.
Since creative people are creating all of the time (see Create Something above), it’s worthwhile to support those efforts and share them with someone that matters to you. In the Backstage Area that Downstage Media’s clients have, I usually put an article, book, podcast or other material in their Thought of You section. Then I send them an email to let them know that.
Sharing something inspirational can also be sharing a post that you saw on social media with a friend too. Or telling someone about a piece of theater you saw that got you thinking.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
When you share something inspirational every day, you are helping to nurture relationships with the people that matter to you.
Since creative people are creating all of the time (see Create Something above), it’s worthwhile to support those efforts and share them with someone that matters to you. In the Backstage Area that Downstage Media’s clients have, I usually put an article, book, podcast or other material in their Thought of You section. Then I send them an email to let them know that.
Sharing something inspirational can also be sharing a post that you saw on social media with a friend too. Or telling someone about a piece of theater you saw that got you thinking.
Respond to Someone
Everyone likes to feel heard and acknowledged. When clients reach out to me - whether through an email or a DM - I make it a point to respond by the next business day.
On social media, I reinvigorated my Twitter account in the fall of 2020 by pretty much only responding to people. I spent about two months solely responding to people and not putting much of anything else out there. Look at these changes in the amount of impressions. I went from nothing in August to 15.5K in September to 36.2K in October!
August, @annieschiff hadn’t tweeted at all.
September, just responding to people.
Starting to post some content as well as respond.
This, of course, just makes sense in life too. No one wants a friend who is only talking about themselves and “putting out content.” You want people in your life who respond to you.
Use Them In Your Work, Marketing, andLife
We all have days when we don’t want to do a whole lot. Or, we have days where we are doing so much that there’s no time for anything extra.
By committing to these three tasks on your daily to do list, you can be sure that you are fulfilling yourself creatively, strengthening and nurturing relationships, and supporting others who are doing inspiring work.
Not a bad way to spend twenty minutes, right?
What do you set aside twenty minutes to do every day? Leave a comment below!
