Guide To...

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Tue, 05 Mar 2013 19:38:15 -0500

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Sun, 21 Oct 2012 07:22:05 -0400

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Sun, 21 Oct 2012 07:21:59 -0400

Overworked, Overwhelmed, Overscheduled? Work More

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 04:29:26 -0400

Overworked, Overwhelmed, Overscheduled? Work More:

youmightfindyourself:

itwonlast:

By MARY H. K. CHOI l Wired Oct.6, 2012

You are overwhelmed, overscheduled, and dejected, because you keep trying to have it all—or at least most of it. You want a fulfilling job and personal life, and it’s not working. The way out? Work more. Hate to break it to you, but career and home aren’t the only poles. There is another: all those beautiful, disregarded side projects.

Does that make you want to pitch your desk lamp straight into my face? Fair. But that itchy desire only means I’m right. Obviously, neglecting your family and home eventually gets them both confiscated by people with clipboards and badges. But if you want to be a maker of things—or at minimum avoid a quietly desperate life in front of the television—you have a responsibility to head down to the workshop. Even the coolest jobs get stultifying with repetition, and the only way to break that cycle is to bring another job into the mix.

In fact, the cooler the day job, the more important it is to get outside of it. “If Marvel Comics asks you to write Spider-Man, it’s an honor of the highest order,” says Brian Michael Bendis, writer of flagship Marvel titles like Ultimate Spider-Man and New Avengers. But Bendis has also created a bunch of his own comics, including the police procedural/superhero book Powers. “For me, having both Powers and Spider-Man is best. With creator-owned projects, there are a million ways to do a million things on every page. You’re looking for a truly unique idea, and when you find one, you have to wrestle it to the ground. It’s hard.”

And it’s supposed to be. Have passion, yes, but acknowledge that side projects are still work. They shake things up, just like switching up your workout helps you stay one step ahead of your torpid metabolism. They scramble the synapses. It’s bracing stuff.

Even better, side projects can lead to a whole new life. Tina Roth Eisenberg started the blog Swissmiss in 2005 as a sort of proto-Pinterest, a visual archive of things she thought were well designed. That little side project turned into a design studio with the Museum of Modern Art and the Food Network as clients. Eisenberg loved it … until she didn’t. What kept her enthusiasm up was a bunch of different side gigs: a lecture series, a list-making app, a temporary-tattoo business. Eventually those jobs turned into moneymakers—and let Eisenberg stop working for clients. “People call me the queen of accidental businesses,” Eisenberg said in a recent speech. “While I was really thinking about what makes me happy, I realized, wait a second: I’d done it—just on the side.”

Not every story will end as happily as Eisenberg’s, but reinvigorating a job with another job can be habit-forming. That’s why movie stars take to the stage. It’s probably why Mad Men star Jon Hamm plays the voice of a talking toilet on Bob’s Burgers. Stripped of the responsibility to panic over the microcrises of something that has become, on a macro scale, boring, your brain can find new ways to focus. You start a new gig, and every crisis is macro. It’s never boring. And the skills you learn dealing with the new job port over to the old one. “A couple of times a year Marvel gets together. We workshop our book ideas in a big, tough room,” Bendis says. “But the second we walk out, we’re talking creator-owned stuff.” For Bendis, the Marvel retreat is a chance to reconnect with his mainstream work and learn about the crazy, off-the-wall stuff that his colleagues are working on. Side projects are an engine for generating more, better ideas. And that’s good. Unless your idea is just another take on Fifty Shades of Grey. The world’s all set on those, thanks.

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Thu, 18 Oct 2012 06:35:11 -0400

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Thu, 18 Oct 2012 06:35:03 -0400

Sex

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 08:34:23 -0400

Sex

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Mon, 08 Oct 2012 03:18:49 -0400

gastrogirl: southwest loaded baked potato skins.

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 03:18:17 -0400

gastrogirl:

southwest loaded baked potato skins.

wehavethemunchies: Sweet Potato Hash with Chipotle Seitan...

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 03:17:53 -0400

wehavethemunchies:

Sweet Potato Hash with Chipotle Seitan Sausage (by Yack_Attack)

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Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:43:11 -0400

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Mon, 24 Sep 2012 06:46:29 -0400

wanted-food: Fish and Chip Potato Skins

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 13:48:55 -0400

wanted-food:

Fish and Chip Potato Skins

"The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt,..."

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 13:48:04 -0400

“The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”

- Salman Rushdie
A reminder to myself when doubt visits.

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Sun, 16 Sep 2012 07:19:11 -0400

trading-places: Need.

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 07:48:39 -0400

trading-places:

Need.

thatkindofwoman: Favorite food. Ever. My dad used to call me...

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 06:32:46 -0400

thatkindofwoman:

Favorite food. Ever. My dad used to call me ‘Her Royal Fryness” as a kid and until my late teens.

Emma Watson is the face of our fall women’s issue. Get to know...

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 07:58:58 -0400

Emma Watson is the face of our fall women’s issue. Get to know the British actress.

"We tend to judge others by their behaviour and ourselves by our intentions."

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 01:12:44 -0400

“We tend to judge others by their behaviour and ourselves by our intentions.”

- Albert F. Schlieder (via modernhepburn)

"Girls always wait for the world to give them things. To see what sweet, smart, obedient girls they..."

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 01:12:37 -0400

““Girls always wait for the world to give them things. To see what sweet, smart, obedient girls they are, then paste a star on their foreheads. It doesn’t work that way. The things you really want in life, you have to take.””

- The Flamenco Academy by Sarah Bird (via theepitomeofsimplicite)