Day 86: Mondays

Day 86.  I can’t say I jumped out of bed with a spring in my step this morning.  It was more like I reluctantly peeked out from under my covers accepting my fate:  work.  It’s Monday.  Monday is the day when I start everything; from a new diet to a new nutrition plan to a new project to a new exercise program to a new book and on and on.  Even if it’s a Tuesday at 7am when the decision is made to start something I’ll say, “We’ll start on Monday.”  So what am I starting this Monday?  I’m starting a crusade to get my part of the editing done on the rest of the scenes for the documentary!  Does “crusade” sound a bit dramatic?  Well, it is but I need to be dramatic.  I need to light a fire under my ass because I HAVE TO FINISH THIS!  I could call it a broken record considering I’ve been saying the EXACT SAME THING for the last year and a half but instead I’m calling it a crusade because that’s what it feels like it will take to actually get me to do it in the time frame I want to do it.  The new plan is to be hyper-focused on my doc editing for the next 10 weeks to push through the scenes while Screenwriter Monica and Director Brenda get the Toothless script ready to shoot and while Screenwriter Cindy finishes her first draft and while Screenwriter Kelli (that’s me) gets a first words on paper draft done.  Then, when I’m through all my doc editing, I can flip that ratio.  I’ll be full time on my new venture projects and overseeing the rough, fine and final cut of the doc.

Oh it’s always so easy to make a plan, write a list, set a goal.  Executing it is another story.  I can’t remember the exact quote or who said it but it stuck with me.  It was something like, “in real life you’re rewarded for productivity.”  In other words, it’s all about getting shit done not talking (or writing) about getting shit done—by the way, if you don’t know this about me already, I’m highly productive at the latter.  I scribbled, “Don’t Overthink, Just Do” on an index card and stuck it above my Avid that’s how much reminding I need.  It’s also on my top 40 daily reminders list.  It’s all about doing.  The simple reality is this particular “doing” for me is challenging.  I’m a fish out of water with the editing.  It’s not my natural habitat, which makes me easily distractible and always looking for an excuse, any excuse, to go do something else; something I really like and want to do.  Hell, sometimes I’d rather go clean the house than do this editing work.  It’s not always like this—pulling teeth—to get me to do my work, but it is this morning, this Monday morning.  I’ve been away from it for several weeks doing things I really love like acting, writing, working on my movies and my new venture.  But, I know that this work I’m doing is not only something I really want to accomplish but it is also the key to moving it forward…to finishing the film.  Nobody else is doing it.  Just me.  And whether I’m still being dramatic or not, it very much feels like it’s also the key to my liberation–to me having my life back.

Why is it when we know we have to do something we have no choice but to do that’s when we most don’t want to do it?  Or maybe that’s just me.  Hmmmm, truth is, I’m procrastinating right now as I write this.  My plan was to post, “Happy Monday” and then go fire up the Avid.  See how sneaky I am?  I need to slap myself a la Cher to Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck and yell, “snap out of it!”  I puttered on the doc this weekend and got a little bit done but now it’s time to get serious and clock back in for some full time work on it.  There’s much to do today for scene 12—the scene I have my eye on finishing and having prepped for Dan the Amazing Editor Man by the end of the day.  Okay, enough with the whining and putting off the inevitable, it’s time to think outside the box inside the box and create from what I have…a Monday.  SFX of a slap.  Snap out of it!  It’s time to start.  

Until tomorrow, create from what you have…Mondays.

Kelli Joan Bennett is a filmmaker, actress, writer, entrepreneur, advocate for creative thinking and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Think Outside The Box Inside The Box Media.

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