PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATIONS, AUTOPSIES IN THE 1930s, AND LAW ENFORCEMENT MUTUAL AID - 022

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TRANSCRIPT:

This week on The Writer's Detective Bureau: Privileged Communications, Autopsies in the 1930s, and Law Enforcement Mutual Aid. I'm Adam Richardson and the is the Writer's Detective Bureau. Welcome to the last episode of 2018, episode number 22 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime-related fiction.

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Welcome to the last episode of 2018. I hope you had a wonderful holiday, and I hope you're getting ready for a productive year ahead. As 2019 is fast approaching, you're undoubtedly going to get asked about your New Year's resolution. Now, for me, for the last few years, I've deflected that question. I usually come up with a quick retort like "To stop making New Year's resolutions." I don't know, my resolutions are like most folks, eat better, work out more, lose a few pounds, finish writing my book. It's like rattling off a wishlist of things to start tackling in the middle of winter. I don't know, it just seems kind of lame to me.

I took notice of a suggestion I read in Tim Ferriss' Five Bullet Friday email this morning. This is what Tim wrote: "I'm often asked about how I approach New Year's resolutions. The truth is, that I no longer approach them at all, even though I did for decades. Why the change? I have found Past Year Reviews, PYR, more informed, valuable, and actionable, than half blindly looking forward with broad resolutions. I did my first PYR after a mentor's young daughter died of cancer on December 31st, roughly eight years ago, and I've done it every year since.

It takes 30 to 60 minutes, and it looks like this:

1. Grab a notepad and create two columns, positive and negative.

2. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.

3. For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.

4. Once you've gone through the past year, look at your notepad list, and then ask 'What twenty percent of each column produced the most reliable and powerful peaks?'

5. Based on the answers, take your positive leaders and schedule more of the in the new year. Get them on the calendar now. Book things with friends and prepay for activities, events, commitments, that you know work. It's not real until it's in the calendar. That's step one.
Step two is to take your negative leaders, put Not To Do List at the top and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2019. These are the people and things you know make you miserable, so don't put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, fear of missing out, or other nonsense. That's it. If you try it, let me know how it goes. And just remember, it's not enough to remove the negative. That simply creates a void. Get the positive things on the calendar ASAP, lest they get crowded out by the bullshit and noise that will..

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