21 Feb 2015
For a long time (read: up until very recently), I was very defensive about my way of doing things. Not intentionally defensive, but I wasn’t interested in looking at my behavior and challenging it with new ways of getting things done. It’s easier to continue on a set path than to mess around with your routines without a guarantee of gain at the end.
This is a bad way to be. There are people who have spent a lifetime and made a career thinking about how to be more efficient and productive. There are people who are wildly successful and attribute that success to easy to implement behavior patterns. It seems foolish not to at least critically examine their methods and try to glean something useful from their technique.
In fact, I’m realizing that the mark of a good technique is that it is easy. If it doesn’t make life better in aggregate, it’s probably not worth it.
Here are a couple things that I’ve been working on lately:
I talk about this in my former post examining deliberate practice and habits. Briefly, set a daily goal, and track its simple execution with a calendar. So far, this has been very effective in my life.
Before I tried the Seinfeld method, I don’t think I would’ve read a book on productivity. But the Seinfeld method seemed to work for me so when I saw this book on my roommates shelf I decided to rein in my hubris and give it a whirl.
I’m glad I did. The main take away from this was
- Don’t let anything that you have to do sit in your head: Write it down
- Once you’ve written everything down, come up with the next physical action
2a. If it’ll take less than 2 minutes… Just do it
- Do those things in whatever order you think appropriate
The book (naturally) goes into much greater detail about execution and philosophy, but these are my major take aways. I’ve been using Trello to organize my life into these lists and so far it’s been working pretty well. I don’t spend any time or headspace trying to remember what it is that I wanted to do since I’ve written it down, and I always have a list of simple physical actions that I can execute.
About a day or two ago, I got sick of looking at the mess of emails in my inbox and decided to archive everything. In line with Getting Things Done I try to
- read/archive the informational material
- respond immediately/archive stuff that takes less than two minutes
- tag/archive things that take longer than 2 minutes and need a response
I’ll let you know how it goes.
14 Feb 2015
I wrote about deliberate practice about two months ago and I’d like to share how it’s going and how it has evolved in my life.
My initial commitment was to write ~250 words a day. Clearly that didn’t work. I’m bumping around 250 words a week, and I’m feeling pretty good about that. My resolution to write consistently hasn’t changed despite my initial failure, I’ve just made my resolution fit the reality of my life and goals.
However, I have been forming daily habits by following the Seinfeld method, Don’t Break the Chain, and it has been great! Decide upon a manageable task that relates to a skill you want to improve and do it every day. For example, I’ve chosen art, fitness, and poi (I should probably throw code on there, but I do that everyday anyhow).
One of the reasons I think this has been successful is that I’m not killing myself over it or setting unreasonable goals. I’m not committing to finishing a painting a day. I can do some pottery, some woodworking, 10 minutes of sketching or anything else that I feel gets my creative juices flowing. I’m just focused on moving the chains forward. My fitness goal is covered by a 2hr climbing session, Capoiera, or 20 minutes of yoga. More than the actual activity or output it’s the consistency of practice that I have found important.
It’s only been about 2 months but I’m excited to add more goals, and see where they take me. I have already begun to see a change in my life as these habits become integrated into my daily routine.
Let’s see where this goes.
ps. I’m using Routinely to track my habits at the moment. But I’m not 100% sold on it. Anyone do something similar and have other preferred apps?
06 Feb 2015
People can be difficult. It’s inevitable that you’ll run into crappy people while doing your thing, and it’ll be hard not to take their bad behavior to heart.
It helps if you remember that peoples external behavior is mostly a reflection of their internal state.
I know I get mean when I’m hungry (I think the technical term for this is “hangry”). In these times my grumpy behavior is very rarely related to external stimuli, I’m just hungry and crotchety. The same is true for people with bad behavior. Their cruelty, anger, or unreasonable behavior is almost always a cover for some insecurity, sadness, or character flaw.
Now, I’m not saying to disregard any instance where someone is upset and assume that it’s only in their head. You should always reflect upon your behavior and be comfortable owning up to the parts where you did mess up. This happens, everyone makes a mistake and as long as you own up to it, apologize, and resolve to fix your behavior a reasonable person should be mollified.
But, if you really did no wrong, or after sincere reflection and apology they can’t get over it, realize their behavior towards you is probably a reflection of their internal state. And just think, you have briefly come into contact with the mess and emotional turbulence that they live with every day of their lives.
Wouldn’t it suck to live like that?
29 Jan 2015
I’m sick. It sucks. I consider this my winter sickness, and I know it’ll pass in a day or two but I’m not happy about it. I am however better at dealing with it.
As a child (and up until fairly recently) I assumed that if I ignored something it didn’t exist.
- Did I wake up with that tingle in my throat that means I’ll be swallowing jagged knives for the next couple days?
- Is my finger feeling vaguely weak and tweaky while climbing?
- Are my knees popping during Capoeira?
If I ignore those feelings, and keep pushing at my busy day or keep climbing, I’ll be fine. My body will finally get that I don’t have the time or patience for its crap and get its act together. Right?
If only it worked like that.
I’m not sure if age or wisdom plays a part (unlikely), but I’ve started to allow my body and health to have a say in my day-to-day experiences. I know that if I don’t rest my sick self my body is gonna get pissed and stay weak, or pop a tendon in retaliation. So, I’ve started listening when it complains and giving myself rest, even if that means not doing what I want or letting people down. As a result, I end up injured or sick less. Nothing groundbreaking here… listen to your needs.
And listen to your needs in all things. I’ll try to get back to this in a later post, but there are times when you need to rest your mind, body, or spirit. That might mean seeing friends over work, or working over friends, or just sitting alone in a dark room.
You do you boo-boo.
23 Jan 2015
Maybe there’s something in the air but 2015 seems to be the time to move. I’ve been in NY for a little over a year now and it has been a time of healing, transition, and movement. One of the reasons I initially moved here was I wanted a little more hustle in my life. Life is delivering.
There was a quality of life in college that I loved but was able to achieve as a result of the structure inherent in schooling. I was a dual-degree student pursuing a BFA in Sculpture and a BS in Comp-Sci. Two distinct but very similar ways of building things (more on this in another post), I was also in a dance company and climbed 3 times a week. These commitments meant that nearly every waking moment was spent in the pursuit of something. I would jump from studio to rehearsal to lab to the gym and back to studio in the course of a day.
It felt like being in the middle of the ocean with multiple goals all around me and swimming towards all of them at the same time. It was exhausting but I loved it.
Then I graduated and got a job.
I don’t know if it was exhaustion from 4 years of running around, or the impression that as an adult I was supposed to exclusively pursue a career, but I stopped swimming in all directions. I felt as if I had so many potential options, none of which had a clear college-like path, that to swim towards any goal meant I would be farther away from the rest of them. This was paralyzing to my newly graduated and freed self. What if I chose the wrong direction? I couldn’t see a clear path in any direction so how was I to choose?
Around the new year, I decided to start moving again. I had been building to this point, but I finally decided to pursue anything and everything I could at the same time. So far it’s been great. I don’t get to spend as much time as I used to on Facebook, but… not a big loss, and I feel better about it all. We’ll see how it goes, and I imagine I’ll have to be much more efficient (“if you want something to get done, give it to a busy person”), but I’m looking forward to the challenge.
