I’m teaching a workshop tomorrow afternoon and I am having the same problem that I always do with workshop prep.

I’m trying to cram too much into a short session.

I know this is a common problem when creating workshops. It’s hard to know what to include, what is ‘enough.’ You want people to understand your topic and you want them to feel like they got what they came for but you also don’t want to overwhelm them.

And I think this is exacerbated by my ADHD desire for context.

When I pull a piece of information out of my brain, it never comes alone – it drags a whole net of related ideas with it.

And the word related is covering a lot of territory here.

Related might include other facts relevant to that piece of information but it also might include details of when and where and how I learned that fact, other people who have expressed similar ideas, metaphors and analogies that are connected by a very thin string to the original topic…

You get my point here.

So, not only am I wading through stuff I *know* is useful and relevant and winnowing that down, I am also wading through all kinds of stuff that *may* be relevant and trying to decide if any of it is useful for the topic of the day.

Needless to say that process is a challenge.

I’m up for it but it is still a challenge.

I do have one important guiding principle though.

The heart of my workshop is this idea:

Writing is a tricky business and it’s ok to find it hard but if you can get comfortable with your own process, you’ll get your words on the page.