Hillary Rettig's Blog, page 10

Why We’re Such Poor Appreciators of Our Own Work

Here is a delightful two-minute film from Derek Sivers which discusses why we often fail to fully appreciate our own work. It also explains why it’s a bad idea to compare your work with that of a famous person.  Comparisons are perfectionist, but comparing yourself to someone famous is especially problematic because of what you’re […]

“If You’ve Made Them Cry, You’ve Succeeded In Getting Your Point Across.”

A Success Academy charter school teacher was caught on film harshly criticizing and publicly humiliating a first grader. She literally tore the girl’s classwork into pieces and flung them aside! The school is claiming that the incident was an exception, both for this teacher and the system in general. However, there’s plenty of testimony that […]

If We Could Turn Back Time: Cher Models Nonperfectionism!

I’ve always loved Cher’s tweets: they’re so playful and sincere, even when she’s making a sharp political point, which she does often. So naturally, I loved this New York Times piece about her Twitter style: She pays little to no attention to rules of grammar, like punctuation or sentence structure, and she capitalizes many words […]

Why “Positive Procrastination” is (Mostly) a Scam

Every week, it seems, someone publishes an article about how procrastination can be good for you. This week it’s The New York Times. I am all about using whatever productivity techniques work for you. But in my experience pro-procrastination techniques work for very few people, and are actually more likely to undermine your productivity than […]

How John Scalzi Meets His Deadlines

This week, bestselling author John Scalzi blogged about how he’s going to meet his 2016 deadlines: “For me, the major problem is not writer’s block or plot issues or anything structural involving the novel; I generally don’t have problems with those once I start, and with this new novel, thankfully, I didn’t have any real […]

How to Get Out of a Slump

I got a lovely note from a reader that included this passage (reprinted with kind permission): “For the last one and a half week I have been in kind of in a slump, disappointed after a school assignment I had trouble finishing. I thought I finally had my writing problem under control, but ended up […]

Russian Translation of 7 Secrets of the Prolific Now Available!

And it’s got an amazing cover!               Thanks to the good people at Mann-Ivanov-Ferber for the translation.    

The Joys of Being a Late Bloomer

This piece originally appeared on the blog of The Woman and the Owl Foundation, a fantastic group that, “explores and encourages the development of women spiritual leaders of all faiths and backgrounds through education, community, and support.” I also did a video interview with them which you’ll find here. Many thanks to Jessamine Dana for […]

Some Awesome Links and See You in Colorado and Missouri!

Busy preparing for my Colorado and Missouri trip. As my Facebook friends know—and, by the way, you’re invited to become one—I’ve morphed into a mushroom fanatic since moving to the midwest, and will be attending the Telluride Mushroom Festival. Oh yeah, and I’ll also be giving a bunch of writing-productivity and joyful-activism workshops, and would […]

Reminder: Upcoming Workshops in Colorado, Missouri, and Michigan

Hope to see you at a workshop! Always check my calendar for the latest dates and information.