The Four Things I Glommed From Watching My Cats That I Try And Apply To My Working Life These Days
June 4th, 2010I’m officially FUCT (like it? I just thought of it)–a freelance, urban, cat-owning thirty-something.*
Yes, going full-frontal freelance, instead of just dabbling as I have over the years (since the first dot-com boom left me gobsmackingly underemployed and staring down the face of bills). This time**, I’ve sat down and written myself a business plan, complete with self-imposed structure, goals, and other kinds of grown up things. As I’ve done that, I’ve realized how much I’ve grown since the last time I really examined my work habits and attitudes…in my pre-cat twenty-something days. It suddenly became apparent to me that I’ve actually used my feline children as a validation and as a model for learning to work successfully.
In fact, I wanted to call this:
Everything I Know About Working Successfully I Learned From My Cats
because it’s awfully catchy. It’s not quite true, though. In fact, it’s really:
The Four Things I Glommed From Watching My Cats That I Try And Apply To My Working Life These Days
- Work intently for short bursts
I appear to have a short attention span. I don’t really. I focus really tightly on a project and get quite a bit done, but then I have to stop, change gears for awhile, and then come back to it. I noticed my cats will play, run around, poop—whatever, giving their full attention and care to it, doing it well—then they do something else. It was kind of sadly validating to realize I do the same thing, that it works well for me, and that I am allowed to work in this way. - Predict where things are going next
My cats are decent hunters, although all they really have to work with is a laser light and the occasional fly. I watch them hunt—at first, they simply chase the light or the fly, but then, they try and predict where the light/fly is going to go and get there first. Sometimes, they’re wrong. But I can see the brilliance of the technique when applied to trying to catch one’s dinner (like a freelancer). At first, you may have to chase your clients, projects, sources of income, or new technologies, etc., etc. But if you keep your eyes open, you may be able to start predicting and get there first. - Be choosey
My cats don’t like certain kinds of food and there is no way to convince them otherwise. They warm up to some folks and snub others—and there is no getting them to change their minds. I’m really bad at saying “No.” My cats are very good at it. I don’t want to emulate their exact methods of saying “No,” but they remind me that is it perfectly OK to not jump on every opportunity just to jump on it. - Don’t eat and shit in the same place.
Enough said.
*There are so many of us it seemed time someone coined an acronym, even an embarrassingly silly one.
**As opposed to my past seat-of-pants plans.