Amanda Linehan's Blog, page 6

An Online Event Built Specifically for INFPs and INFJs…

I’ve got some exciting news to share with you, especially if you identify as an INFJ or INFP personality type, an empath, or a Highly Sensitive Person.

My friends Jasraj Hothi and Lauren Sapala have organized The INF Summit and registration is open.

Jasraj is an author and founder of the INF club, and Lauren is the author of The INFJ Writer and The INFJ Revolution (a free ebook copy is included for everyone who registers!) Both of their work is featured on my Resources For INFPs post. I highly recommend them!

At the summit, Lauren and Jas will be hosting video sessions with INFJ and INFP creators, entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, and bloggers… including me!

My interview will be released this Thursday, February 13th. If you’d like to view it, you’ll need to register for the summit, but otherwise it’s free.

Every video session will include an INFJ or INFP sharing their experience, their strategies, and their thoughts and feelings on living as an INFJ or INFP in a world that can be challenging for introverted intuitive feelers.

At The INF Summit, you’ll learn:

• How to thrive as an empath and skillfully handle overwhelming energy from others

• How to navigate living in a world made for extroverts and thinkers

• Exercises to help with anxiety relief and dealing with the expectations of others

• Simple methods for self-care and deepening connection with others

• How to begin the creative work you know is inside you, despite what your inner critic says

• How to sustain a healthy belief in your creative work and maintain a practice to nourish it

The INF Summit is totally FREE to attend, but sessions will only be available for viewing for a limited time. And as a bonus, Lauren is giving away a free ebook of The INFJ Revolution to anyone who signs up for the summit, also for a limited time. So, if you want to be sure you don’t miss out on getting your free book or seeing any of the video sessions, be sure to sign up ASAP:
I really think you’ll love it.

Amanda Linehan is the author of North, about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller, about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels. Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter.

Using Deadlines To Combat Perfectionism

I’m not the biggest fan of deadlines.

I do use them sometimes for various reasons, but one good reason to use them is to combat perfectionism.

When my perfectionism ramps ups, I can start to procrastinate. Because, of course, this has to be perfect before I can consider it done. Before I know it, the task/project I’ve laid in front of me is stretching out with no end in sight.

Using a deadline in this instance gets me moving and makes me work toward “good enough,” so that I can finish what I’m working on.

For instance, I’m publishing a new book soon called Productivity for INFPs. I got started on this back in November and truthfully, it could have been published by now, but, you know, I started to tinker here and tinker there and then I just wasn’t feeling it for a while and…

You probably can guess how this ends. It stretches out way longer than it has to and I miss getting my creation out into the world in a decent amount of time.

So I set a deadline. January 31.

There’s no reason it can’t get done by January 31, so get moving, Amanda. And it’s helped. Because once a piece of it reaches “good enough” I move on to the next thing, so that I can meet my deadline.

And on January 31 I will have a published ebook. (I would love to have a paperback done by that date too, but it may be a few days later.)

I don’t always enjoy working to deadlines because they can make a project feel forced–like I can’t follow my own natural rhythms. But sometimes a deadline can enhance my natural rhythms by giving me a container in which to set them free.

Amanda Linehan is the author of North, about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller, about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels. Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter.

Circular Productivity: When To Switch Activities

So I’m going through my workday using my INFP to-do list and INFP scheduling methods, which means I’ve got a few productivity parameters and then I’m using “the pull” to decide exactly what to work on in the moment.

So when is it time to switch tasks and work on something else?

When I feel tired and/or bored of whatever it is I’m working on.

This is another “feeling” method of moving forward through your day and work activities.

INFPs like to work in circles rather than in a line, which means that it is best for us to have a number of projects we’re working on and allow ourselves to freely switch back and forth between these activities as we see fit. This is exactly what I do.

Say I have a four hour block of work time. I will work on 4-5 activities during that work time, switching between them every so often, rather than working on 1 or 2 activities for a longer length of time.

You will basically never see me working in long bursts on one single activity. I typically max out at about an hour for anything, and it could be more like 35-40 minutes.

Back to that hypothetical four hour block–I will start off working on something and then when I get tired and/or bored of it, I switch to the next thing. And then I repeat.

It’s pretty simple, but it does mean that I only do a little of something at a time and allow it to add up over so many days. But I’ve got multiple things going so I’m moving several things forward at once.

For people who don’t work well with traditional productivity methods (including INFPs) it isn’t always obvious that this might be a good way for you to do things because it seems a little weird and is based on feeling your way forward.

But, it does keep you moving. And, if it’s in line with your natural productivity rhythms, then you’re going to feel more energized and excited while you are doing it.

Amanda Linehan is the author of North, about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller, about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels. Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter.

My Morning Routine

Morning routines are one of those productivity things that get talked about a lot. The idea being that your morning starts you off, so if you want a great day, you start with a great morning routine.

Morning routines can vary widely with some people putting an emphasis on getting a jump on the day and some people emphasizing the mindset they want to cultivate, and everything in between. I also feel like early rising gets talked about a lot in this space, which makes sense if you’re talking about morning routines.

Myself, I am not an early riser. I typically get up around 9 am, which for many years now, has been my preferred waking hour (even if I wasn’t always able to adhere to it). Also, I don’t set an alarm. I don’t like using them if I don’t have to and I find that I naturally open my eyes sometime around 8:30 or so and make my way out of bed by 9.

The first thing I do when I go downstairs is make some lemon and honey water. Lemon juice from half of a lemon in a glass, squeeze some honey in there (maybe a teaspoon) and then fill it up with warm water from the tap and stir. I find that the warm water dissolves the honey better than cool and for some reason I like it warm in the morning. Not totally sure why.

I read about starting your day with lemon/honey water years ago and while I can’t remember the specific benefits, I do know that lemon juice is good for your system. I like hydrating this way first thing in the morning.

Next I make coffee, and then I spend 5-20 minutes having meditation time. This could actually involve a number of activities–breathing exercises, a little yoga, stretching or qi gong, a mindfulness meditation (typically I follow my breath) or a guided meditation.

I like this meditation time because it’s calming. It puts my mind at ease, which is good, because I wake up pretty energetic and with a lot of thoughts. If I’m not careful, I can start with too much mental activity right away and then never quite be able to leave it behind for the rest of the day. Makes me feel a little frantic.

Starting with meditation time puts the focus more on my body and gives me a sense of calm and feeling centered. That goes a long way.

After that I pour a cup of coffee and sit quietly and drink it for a little while. I may read a little, or look out the window or just see what thoughts arise (but I try not to get overly involved with them). I like having this time to do nothing and be quiet. I might even skim through some email or social media messages, but, again, I try not to get real involved with that.

I’ll have something to eat too. Just something little as I’m not usually real hungry in the mornings and then I’ll head upstairs to my office and get to work.

Typically, there’s about an hour between when I get out of bed and when I head to my office. It could be a little longer, it could be a little less, but I like the flexibility.

So there you have it. That’s what my mornings are like. What are yours like?

Amanda Linehan is the author of North , about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller , about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels . Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter .

“Good Enough” Is Underrated

As a recovering perfectionist, I’ve had to change my relationship with “good enough.”

I used to believe that “good enough” didn’t exist. There was perfect or close-to-perfect and that was all that mattered. “Good enough” seemed downright mediocre and self-loathing. Why would anyone do something at a “good enough” level?

But at my last job, I started to learn something. Trying to do all my work at near-perfect levels wasn’t getting me anywhere. It was getting me plenty of stress, and in a weird way it was actually decreasing my work performance.

See, the thing was, I was putting too much energy into work assignments, completing them in a way that I thought was high quality but in actuality wasn’t adding much value to the completed work.

I began to see it this way: I always wanted to operate at a 9 or a 10. But in most instances, a 6 or a 7 was perfectly fine. Going those extra few points was really just draining my energy and making it less likely that things were getting done in a timely fashion.

Working on something until it was “good enough” and then getting it out the door saved me a lot of stress and kept my work moving along. “Good enough” was a much better option than close-to-perfect.

In my writing and publishing it’s the same thing. Writing a “good enough” blog post every week is better than writing a close-to-perfect one every once in a while. Writing a “good enough” story for my newsletter every month is way better than not sending one at all because the story isn’t perfect. Publishing a book at a “good enough” level is much better than not publishing at all, because there will be readers who will be happy I shared rather than holding back, and because in self-publishing I can change just about anything at anytime, so I can always improve on it.

Ultimately, doing things at a “good enough” level allows me to show up on a regular basis, and I believe that showing up is more important than doing everything perfectly.

Amanda Linehan is the author of North , about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller , about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels . Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter .

“Scheduling” For INFPs

As an INFP, I like talking about how I get things done because it’s different than the way a lot of other people do things. The point isn’t that I’m special or anything, it’s just that I’ve had to experiment to find out what works for me because the “typical” way doesn’t often work.

I was talking with an INFP friend (Hi Jas!) about writing/work schedules recently and we discussed the idea of using “intentions” rather than scheduling things at a certain day/time so that the to-do item could be on our minds rather than strictly scheduled.

The way that this works is to set a work intention for the week or the day and then you let yourself be pulled toward it at the right time.

This “pull” is important for INFPs and over the years I’ve tried to learn the best way to work with it.

I have a couple of posts up (at least) that go into this process: Sticking to the Plan vs. Going with the Flow and My INFP-Style To-Do List. Both of these posts explain how I use a little structure to give myself space for “the pull” because that space is important.

Ultimately, I use structure to give me the most space possible so that I can then go in any direction I want to. Take the writing of this blog post for instance.

On my calendar, every Tuesday afternoon there is a block for “Write Blog Post” because I aim to post a blog post on Wednesday morning every week. Now, this is a little bit of a trick because blog posts don’t always get written on Tuesday afternoons, nor do they always get posted on Wednesday mornings. But they will generally get posted by the end of the week. For instance, it is now Thursday afternoon.

But anyways–Tuesday afternoon came and went this week and I did not write a blog post even though I saw it there on the calendar because there was something else I wanted to do (and at this point I can’t even remember what that was).

Wednesday afternoon however, I was ready to write a blog post so I sat down and started writing. I got about halfway through before I saw something on my website that needed attention, so I abandoned the blog post to take care of that. No problem. It’s still only Wednesday afternoon and I just need to get something posted by Friday. And I was glad to take care of that thing on my website.

And now it’s Thursday afternoon and I’m finishing up this post and will get it posted afterward, so I’ve made my weekly blog post in a circuitous but ultimately, finished, way.

The thing is that having it on the calendar reminds me that it needs to get done every week, but I know that it won’t necessarily get done on a Tuesday/Wednesday but it will get written and posted by Friday.

If it’s not on the calendar, it may not be on my mind enough to actually get it done, and I really like doing a blog post once a week. But if it’s scheduled too tightly, I may miss out on something else pulling at me on that time and day. Simple, right?

A Writing Story: A Complete Mess

I began writing fiction in the summer of 2009. A couple of flash fiction pieces–one of which I published in Writing on The Walls 1: A Collection of Very Short Stories, called Their Love Could Follow Moonstones.

In late October of that same year, I suddenly decided that I was doing NaNoWriMo. No plan, no outline, no notes. (By the way, check out this post by author and writing coach Lauren Sapala on “pantsing” for an interesting take on the subject.) I did have an idea though and I was pretty sure I could stick it out for 50,000 words and write something resembling a story.

And that is exactly what I did. By the end of November I had gone just over 50,000 words (on the very last day) and had written a novel.

Now, it was sort of a mess, or more accurately, a huge mess. But that was okay because I had completed it. I had really taken the idea that this was about quantity, not quality to heart and I was satisfied with a mess, but a mess that was complete.

And anyways, I was going to revise it and hopefully make it less of a mess. And then I started actually doing that, and realized that it was probably better to just let it go. The mess couldn’t be cleaned up, not without a lot of effort.

And, I had a better idea. I would take some things from this novel and write a whole new one. I already had one novel under my belt and this one could only get better, right?

Actually, yes. And that novel was Uncover.

When I started writing, I had something of an idea to write a YA thriller similar to the Christopher Pike books I had read while growing up, so that was something of a model I was using. Also too, I outlined.

Yes, I know. Odd, huh? Uncover is actually the only novel that I have written fully from an outline. But it was my kind of outline, meaning not overly structured. It was really just a list of things I wanted to get to in the story, written in order. And I would just write to the next one in line.

But, despite my outlining, at the end I had something that was not a mess. And in fact, I thought it was pretty decent. Certainly decent enough to share. And so, in January 2012 it became my first self-published book.

And for the month of October, it’s free. It’s a good month to do it because of Halloween and autumn. Uncover takes place early in the fall and involves a group of teenagers getting lost in the woods overnight. There is plenty of suspense.

So that’s the story of how Uncover came to be and I can’t believe it’s almost been ten years since I started writing it. I think back to that first NaNoWriMo I did and I’m really glad that I was satisfied with the completed mess I got from it, because ultimately that’s where Uncover came from.

So here’s to those messes. Especially as we get closer to November.

Amanda Linehan is the author of North , about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller , about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels . Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter .

What I’m Reading, Watching and Listening To: October 2019

So the last time I did one of these it was May. Time for a new one!

Reading

I’m currently reading a couple of books by indie author, writing coach and INFJ Lauren Sapala–The INFJ Revolution and Between the Shadow and Lo.

I’ll start with The INFJ Revolution because I just finished it. Lauren has written two other non-fiction books for “sensitive intuitive” writers The INFJ Writer and Firefly Magic: Heart Powered Marketing for Highly Sensitive Writers. This one is the third in that “series” so to speak but isn’t just for writers.

The INFJ Revolution addresses INFJ and INFP personality types for the most part, but anyone identifying as sensitive, intuitive, empathic or spiritual may very well get something out of this book whether or not they know what type they are (or even care). Through personal stories and observations of other people, Lauren walks us through the strengths and advantages of INFJs and INFPs and how we can better serve the world through greater knowledge of our selves and what it is that we actually do best.

If you’ve never read one of Lauren’s books before (and I highly recommend any of the titles listed above) you’ll find that her writing is conversational, heart-felt and deeply moving. I always feel while reading her books. This is not simply information gathering.

Which brings me to her fiction book Between the Shadow and Lo. The main character, Leah, is an early-twenties alcoholic living in Seattle, spending most of her time finding the bottom of a bottle, after which all kinds of alcoholic craziness ensues.

Aside from the crazy situations that Leah finds herself in, one of my favorite things about this novel is Lauren’s writing style that I mentioned above. It’s quick and easy to read and it has a rhythm to it that reminds me of a good verbal story teller. I feel very pulled along by the voice.

So yeah, get over to your favorite online bookstore and buy a copy of one of these books (or all of them).

I also really wanted to mention some old Christopher Pike books I’ve been re-reading, but maybe I’ll just leave that for next month since this is getting kind of long.

Watching

There are a lot of things I’m watching on Netflix right now because, frankly, there’s so much stuff! I have to remind myself it was only 6-7 years ago that they started doing original programming and now there’s an explosion of possible things to watch.

Anyways, one thing I’ve been watching is Basketball or Nothing, a documentary show about the boys basketball team at Chinle High on the Navajo reservation. They’re going for an Arizona state title and they have the potential to do so. I think I’m one episode away from finishing it so I’ll know soon if they pulled it off.

Basketball is my favorite sport, I even played when I was a teenager, so this show caught my attention right away. Along with the actual basketball, the show also weaves in the personal stories of the athletes and coaches and, in general, what life on the reservation is like. So lots of interesting stuff all around.

And speaking of basketball, I’m also watching the WNBA finals between the Washington Mystics and the Connecticut Sun. They’ve played two games so far and the series is 1-1. I’m hoping the Mystics pull it off. I can remember going to games their very first season in the summer of 1998, right before my senior year of high school, while I was still playing basketball myself.

Listening

I’ve been wanting to talk about this album here for a while because it is one of my favorites–Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. In 1989, when this was released, I turned 8 years old and the singles from this album were some of my favorites at the time.

30 years later, as I approach age 38, I still listen to this album on a fairly regular basis and find I get even more enjoyment out of it than when I was 8. It is the perfect blend of Pop and R&B (and probably some other musical genres as well) and is optimistic and hopeful without feeling forced.

The song content ranges from social issues to “let’s have fun and dance” and it all comes together really well. Not too heavy. Not too light.

As a bonus, you should check out the videos for Rhythm Nation and Miss You Much over on YouTube. Delightful.

Amanda Linehan is the author of North , about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller , about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels . Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter .

Push Ups

I like finding the easiest ways to get the most results.

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I needed a little more upper body strength. I used to lift weights regularly as part of my workouts, but as I began practicing yoga that dropped off because yoga will definitely build strength (depending on what type you’re doing) and I just felt I didn’t need it.

Fast forward 11 years and I found that I had lost some of the upper body strength I once had. (Incidentally, my lower body was stronger than it had ever been, but that’s neither here nor there.) I had been doing a lot more gentle types of yoga in the last few years, so maybe that had something to do with it, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t as strong as I used to be and had lost some muscle tone.

I wanted to work out my upper body but not turn it into a whole other workout that I had to do. I already practiced yoga, went to the gym for cardio workouts and walked a lot. I didn’t feel like throwing weight lifting or specific strength workouts back into that mix. I wanted something simple that would cover a lot of ground in terms of muscles. Also I wanted to enjoy it because then it wouldn’t be hard to keep up.

So I thought of push ups.

When I was in my teens and twenties, I could do a fair number of push ups. Not a crazy amount or anything and I’m not sure I ever tried to see how many I could do in a row, but doing ten in a row would have been pretty easy for me and, I don’t know, if I had tired myself out I might have hit twenty or twenty-five. So I knew that at one time I could do them pretty easily.

Also, I knew they would hit a lot of different muscles. I wasn’t sure which ones exactly, but I knew that it was more than just 1 or 2, so that was good because I wanted to kill as many birds with one stone as I could. (I actually don’t want to kill any birds, but that’s a good expression.)

And, I thought they were fun. I’ve always liked body strength exercises and, I don’t know, I just like knowing I can push myself off the floor multiples times. Maybe I’m weird.

Lastly, I knew that I could throw them in to my stretching time when I went to the gym. I like to stretch after I’ve used the elliptical machine, so doing some push ups at that time barely alters my routine at all.

I decided that when I went to the gym–which is once or twice a week–I’d do push ups when I stretched. I also decided that I would make this dead-simple and fairly easy, so I would do sets of 5 until I couldn’t do anymore, taking a break for a minute or so between sets.

In January of this year, I could probably do 3 pushups total. So for a few sessions I’d do those 3 and stop, but then soon enough I could do 4 and then 5 and then 8 and so on and so on. All from just doing as many push ups as I could do once or twice a week and being very unconcerned with the number.

I knew I would continue to improve with very little effort. Doing 3 push ups once or twice a week sounds like nothing, and that’s kind of the point–it is. But doing those three push ups a few times will get you to 4 and then doing 4 push ups a few times will get you to 5 and so on.

That’s the thing, the improvement is very gradual but because you’re doing it regularly it adds up (kind of like writing a novel!!). At this point in time I can do almost twenty push ups if I’m doing them in sets and thirteen if I’m doing them straight through. Those aren’t tremendous numbers but for as little effort as I’ve put in, I’ve increased the number I can do 6 times.

Also, I’m continuing to improve. So in six months, who knows? And this only takes me five or so minutes once or twice a week.

This is the lazy way to have ambition.

Have you ever thought about what easy things you can do that would add up to good results? Put on your lazy lens and look through it.

Book Giveaway for HSPs

I wanted to share with you guys a book giveaway currently going on that is for Highly Sensitive People, Empaths and Sensitive Creatives. If you’re interested, you can check out the giveaway here. It’s active until September 15th.

I’ve read one of the three books being offered–The Empath’s Journey by Ritu Kaushal–and it was a fascinating look at understanding empath abilities and intuition through the lens of moving to a new country and adjusting to a new culture.

If you identify with any of the terms above, download this book and check it out. I think you’ll find something interesting and helpful there.

The other two books–both fiction–I have not read, but I have downloaded. They each feature characters who are highly senstive, empathic or intuitive and I’m looking forward to how they might explore this.

Anyways, if you’re looking for something to read and are interested in high sensitivity or intuition or empathy head on over.