Monday Memo #25
Collect gems.
The Monday memo is food for thought to fuel your week.
Hi everyone,
The world is full of treasure if you can train yourself to notice it. The way to do this is simply to pay attention to your inner thoughts and the world around you. To notice the things that you notice, and to remember what you’re interested in.
For example, you read a phrase, or a topic comes up in conversation, or you see something on the news, or you notice something on the ground, and you think, “that’s interesting!” Your unique interest is all it takes to make an ordinary thing into a gem.
Most of the time, these thoughts occupy your mind for a brief time, and then they fade away. But you can train yourself to capture these moments, to collect the gems, in ways that will be richly rewarding for you and for others.
The way to do this is to start a gem collection.
First, collect rough gems as you come across them. A gem is anything you notice that feels special or interesting to you, that stands out. It can be anything at all. When you come across something special, capture the fleeting thought by taking a picture or making a note.
Second, shape and cut your gems. Make some time to review the things you’ve collected and reflect on why you found them interesting. Over time, common themes will begin to emerge. When you reflect on why things interest you, you are shaping and cutting the gems in a way that is unique to you. Make a note of your reflections.
Third, polish your gems. Return to your gems occasionally, consider them as a collection, and reflect again on why they matter. Polishing your gems will bring out their beauty for others to see. A short, well-crafted paragraph, illustrated with a simple drawing or photo will highlight your reflections like a beautiful flower.
Exercise.
Start a collection of things you find interesting, beautiful, or meaningful. If you already have a collection, revisit the items you’ve collected and reflect on the themes you see. Why do they interest you? Shape and cut the gems into stories, to highlight why they are unique and meaningful to you.
Polish your gems by crafting them into simple posts that you can publish on social media. See what happens.
Upcoming:
Our next Collaboratory with Jono Hey is titled Tuning our minds to notice. Jono will help us think about how we can collect, cut, and polish ideas for sharing with the world. His own collection is called Sketchplanations, and he has just published a book of sketchplanations, called Big Ideas, Little Pictures. The Collaboratory is happening on Wednesday, June 5th, from 9 to 10:30 AM Pacific, (that’s Noon to 1:30 PM Eastern, 5 to 6:30 PM BST).
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