Free Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?: And Other Provocations, 2006-2012 by Seth Godin Page A

yourself the message that you’re playing for keeps. After all, if you sit for an hour and do exactly nothing, not one thing, you’ll be ashamed of yourself. But if you waste that hour updating, pinging, being pinged, and crunching, well, hey, at least you stayed in touch.
    Raise the stakes.
In and Out
    That’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make today.
    How much time and effort should be spent on intake, on inbound messages, on absorbing data …
    … and how much time and effort should be invested in output, in creating something new.
    There used to be a significant limit on available intake. Once you read all the books in the college library on your topic, it was time to start writing.
    Now that the availability of opinions, expertise, and email is infinite, I think the last part of that sentence is the most important:
    Time to start writing.
    Or whatever it is you’re not doing, but merely planning on doing.
Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself
    Amanda Hocking is making a million dollars a year publishing her own work to the Kindle. No publisher.
    Rebecca Black has reached more than 15 million listeners, like it or not, without a record label.
    Are we better off without gatekeepers? Well, it was gatekeepers thatbrought us the unforgettable lyrics of Terry Jacks in 1974, and it’s gatekeepers that are spending a fortune bringing out pop songs and books that don’t sell.
    I’m not sure that this is even the right question. Whether or not we’re better off, the fact is that the gatekeepers—the pickers—are reeling, losing power, and fading away. What are you going to do about it?
    It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that come from a publisher or a talk-show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you—that Prince Charming has chosen another house—then you can get to work.
    If you’re hoping that the HR people you sent your résumé to are about to pick you, it’s going to be a long wait. Once you understand that there are problems just waiting to be solved, once you realize that you have all the tools and all the permission you need, then opportunities to contribute abound.
    No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.
Are You Making Something?
    Making something is work. Let’s define work, for a moment, as something you create that has a lasting value in the market.
    Twenty years ago, my friend Jill discovered Tetris. Unfortunately, she was working on her PhD thesis at the time. On any given day, the attention she spent on the game felt right to her. It was a choice, and she made it. It was more fun to move blocks than it was to write her thesis. Day by day this time adds up … she wasted so much time that she had to stay in school and pay for another six months to finish her doctorate.
    Two weeks ago, I took a five-hour plane ride. That’s enough time for me to get a huge amount of productive writing done. Instead, I turned on the Wi-Fi connection and accomplished precisely no new measurable work between New York and Los Angeles.
    More and more, we’re finding it easy to get engaged with activities that feel like work, but aren’t. I can appear just as engaged (and probablyenjoy some of the same endorphins) when I beat someone in Words With Friends as I do when I’m writing the chapter for a new book. The challenge is that the pleasure from winning a game fades fast, but writing a book contributes to readers (and to me) for years to come.
    One reason for this confusion is that we’re often
using precisely the same device to do our work as we are to
distract
ourselves from our work
. The distractions come along with the productivity. The boss (and even our honest selves) would probably freak out if we took hours of ping pong breaks while at the office, but spending the same amount of time engaged with others online is easier to rationalize.