talent |ˈtalənt|
noun
1 natural aptitude or skill : he possesses more talent than any other player | she displayed a talent for garden design.
• people possessing such aptitude or skill : I signed all the talent in Rome | Simon is a talent to watch.

I just read a great article about the nature of talent from http://freelanceswitch.com/. I like his thoughts on the difference between inborn abilities (talent) and the skills we learn as we progress through life. As a photographer & computer programmer I can attest that neither skill is easy. Both require a great deal of work to maintain and grow. However they are both also based upon a foundation of talent that I was born with.

Steve’s argument is right on:

“Those who’ve never truly indulged a creative urge (much less made it their course of study and their profession) tend to assume that what comes out of a designer (or musician, author, filmmaker) comes out naturally, and with ease. I don’t agree.”

I like to think of creativity as a talent. The skills that are nurtured and grown through life allowing creativity to be expressed in a certain medium stem from hard work and a persistent endeavor to grow.

I love Moleskine notebooks. I was first introduced the them by my business partner, Ken Pettit, a few years back and have used them ever since. This Christmas I received a new Moleskine from my mother (they can be SO thoughtful, can’t they?) and I turned it into my official 2007 goal tracker.


A side note — I don’t make New Years Resolutions — I make New Years Goals. Goals are about the desired result or the aspiration, and resolutions are about the decision or the plan. To illustrate this look at the following two lists of synonyms from the thesaurus:

goal: objective, aim, end, target, design, intention, intent, plan, purpose; (holy) grail; ambition, aspiration, wish, dream, brass ring, desire, hope

resolution: intention, resolve, decision, intent, aim, plan; commitment, pledge, promise.

An old teacher of mine, Cyndi Laurin, who teaches on Quality, Leadership, and Organizational Greatness, sums it up quite well:

“Consider creating goals as launching pads to something far greater.”

Goals carry more power and are more flexible whereas resolutions are to stiff and formal. Goals help lead you to the objective and beyond it whereas resolutions offer nothing beyond their stated plan.

Ok, back to the main point — how am I going to use the Moleskine to track my goals? I first needed to organize it into categories, so I referenced this article by Dave Terry and added tabs to the Moleskine.


Then I needed a calendar in a couple of the sections so I customized this compact calendar from David Seah. The first one, pictured on the left below, has been turned into a two-column layout with the months on the outside and the days on the inside. The second calendar on the right has been more heavily modified with an extra column added to each day.


Each section has enough room for an index page and introduction notes. Certain tabs offer a single line per day for the sole purpose of tracking data — like miles ran. Others offer a few lines per day for more detailed note taking.

And for the finishing touch Dickies makes these wonderful pants with a Moleskine pocket — I take this thing with me everywhere.

5:30 am

Wake up — normally with the assistance of an alarm.
Read in my Bible.
Eat — a small snack to start the day.
Read news — I am an avid RSS news reader.
Clean & dress.
Head off to work — approx 10 minute commute.

7:00 am

Make Coffee — this one is important.
Check email & servers for incoming work.
Respond to emails (make quotes, answer questions, update the to-do list, etc).
Continue reading news.

8:15 am

I am joined by my business partners and we normally talk for about 30 minutes about the past, present, and future. This is a fun time of day — we often muse over crazy ideas that we have drempt up and outline how we are changing the world for the better.

9:00 am

The real work starts — this could include any of the following:

• Web Page updates
• Sales & Marketing
• Computer Programming
• Print Production
• Research & Development
• Finance management
• Networking & contact building
• Project management
• Answering phone calls
• Meetings

1:00 pm

Lunch — often eaten at work where I read more news & emails.

1:30–2:00 pm

Continue with the work from the morning. I often shift focus here, devoting the rest of the day to projects other than what I worked on in the morning.

4:00–5:00 pm

At some point during the day we have to have our moment of comedy & story-telling. Normally this is during the end of the day as things wind down.

6:00-8:00 pm

Head home between 6 & 8 to make dinner.
Read something...more news, a novel (mostly sci-fi or philosophical orientated content)...watch BattleStar Galactica or FireFly...something like this.

9:00 pm

Write. This could be in my journal, a blog, a story, or another project...I just like writing and know that I need practice so I do it in when I can.

10:00 pm –12:00 am

I go to bed.