I’ve been doing a lot more reading than writing lately.

Given that I follow about 200 RSS feeds in my Google Reader, a convergence of ideas usually takes some strain – however, this evening I found a sequence of posts that was particularly elegant.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to project planning, preparation, and the effects of preparation lately. As I’m revving my motor back up after vacation, I’m finding a lot of other people are being intentional about getting back into the swing of things as well.

First, Uncle Seth talks about how to fail – something we can all get better at. When I was learning Judo in my early teens, I found it fascinating that almost the entire White Belt is about falling correctly when you’re thrown. What can we learn about failing correctly, so that we land and spring back up when we’re thrown?

Then, Stan the Man at Pushing Social gave us some hints on how to fall into the “Burnout Sucker Punch” with grace – which is a great head-first guide to finding ways out of that pit of writing anhedonia.

Stan’s article reminded me of something James at Men with Pens wrote some time ago about avoiding writer’s fatigue – which still holds true. Setting yourself up early – like, before you even begin a project – is a good way to avoid, or at least delay, fatigue.

Preparation often equates with infrastructure – Amber Naslund dropped a post today about how, while infrastructure isn’t always sexy, it’s so necessary for whole preparedness. In particular, the preparedness she’s speaking of relates to moving on from social media being flash-in-the-pan to full integration. You can’t integrate without infrastructure.

And speaking of integration – Simon Salt at The Inc Slingers wrote a particularly puissant post about the integrity of your personal brand – and, in essence, how shutting down (prolonging your state of prone repose) after a fall can be helpful. Simon was speaking not just of falling down, but intentionally stepping away for down time – which is also key.

What are you learning lately about falling down and getting back up?