Happy New Year

It's kind of silly to point out the Top 10 lists, Top 100, Worst 10, etc that have been ubiquitous the last few weeks, but there they are.  I've also been wandering around some of the "what I've learned" posts, most of which I'm not quite sure are helpful to anyone else, but if they spark some internal reflection, then hooray. 

You can probably guess that I'm not a huge fan of the resolutions, or even to-do lists for the upcoming year.  I can barely get through my daily to-do list.  (However, I did see a great idea for inbox zero for the new year.  Just tag everything in your gmail inbox as "2010" or "oldinbox" and archive it.  That way you start with an empty inbox and you still have everything if you need to refer back to it, which you probably won't.  I'm going to do this with all my emails (sometime today, it's on the list.)

So here's my 2010 postmortem.  Just do it.  Yes, it's the Nike tagline, but it's the best way that I can describe some of the highlights of the year for me.  I heard that David Simon was starting up a new gig, and I decided to blog it.  The birth of WatchingTreme has meant a lot to me:  I made a trip to New Orleans, have met a lot of cool people, and I'm collecting a lot of info that people can refer back to.  Just because I decided to do it.  Same thing with getting to be a contributor at Edward Copeland on Film.  I still don't feel that I'm necessarily pulling my weight, but I hope I'm getting better.  He made a call for writers, I said I'd give it a shot, and now I'm a regular contributor.  Some other big deals are agreeing for a short play of mine to be selected to a studio series by an actor friend (it got selected) and to go on a writing audition for a developing project (I got selected).

So for me the upshot is to just say yes to opportunities, follow the projects that seem really cool and interesting, and just do it.  People ask me all the time how I do all the things I do, and I don't really.  Just not at the same time.  I just prioritize what's important for right now.  Sometimes I write for the blogs, sometimes I research for my dissertation, etc, just not all on the same day. 

If you wait until you "find the time" to do something, you won't.  Exercise gurus have been telling us this for years, and it's just as true for anything else. 

Lest I become too pedantic, here's a rockin' vid to thank you for reading.  All best wishes for 2011!