Wake Up
I’ve chosen today to be the day I wake up. (again.) Life has a tricky habit of leading you when you let it. The problem is upkeep and maintenance. Precious few of us are wired to seek to do the work to keep things preserved. I’m not much different.
Wake Up
The first step in doing something about your life is waking up and realizing what parts of life are living you, instead of the other way around. Accept and absorb the reality that is your life. Look at the things you’re doing well, and look at where you’ve left some threads undone.
Answer this question repeatedly about all aspects of your life: What needs doing?
Build in Small Boxes
There will be lots of things that need doing. It HAS to be that way. Nearly none of us keep everything put together all the time. Things slip. Is it fitness? Is it finances? Is it your commitment to time? Figure out what needs fixing, and then list it all out. But do it in small boxes.
By this, I mean that it’s harder to look at everything in a big fat list. If you’ve got 40 pounds to lose, four credit cards of debt to fix, twenty projects that need doing, it’s going to crush you as soon as you start listing it out. Instead, chunk it up. Make snack sizes. Do this in bite sized bits. And then check off boxes as you succeed. Close lots of little projects. Small victories before large victories.
Disable Excuses
Lots of what we do in the name of not performing maintenance on our lives is done in the name of excuses. I’m pretty fit; I can skip my workout today. Sure, you can skip an occasional workout, but when you suddenly realize you’ve not gone to the gym or run or whatever you do for exercise in months (years?), it’s time to re-examine your logic.
Close all those gaps. Kill excuses. Not enough time to eat well? BULL! That’s a habit you’ve formed. And you can get back to better habits.
Just look for the holes, and plug them one-by-one. Remember, it’s easier to adopt better habits than to escape bad habits. Work towards a new goal instead of telling yourself to stop something you don’t want to keep doing. Instead of losing weight, make your goal to wear size 34 jeans, or to run 5 miles in under an hour.
I could write for hours on goal-setting techniques. It’s up to you, if you want more on that. Just comment and I’ll continue that thread.
Learn to Say No
The one thing most of us do to screw up our lives is forget to say no. For many reasons, that all seem sound at the time, we take on lots of ideas and projects and creative ventures and chores that consume too much of our time for us to be useful.
Learn to say no gracefully. “Hey, that sounds like an amazing project, but my plate’s over-the-top. I know Matthew’s doing work like that, though. Shall I give him your email address?” Don’t be mean about it. Oh, and learn to say no to yourself. If you’re wondering where all your time goes, say no to several of the things you’re doing now that SEEM like a good idea.
Set Check-Ins
If you don’t check up on your goals and the things you know you need to better focus on, you won’t check your progress, so you won’t realize if you’re on track or utterly off course. Without some sense of what you want to accomplish (set specific goals that have some form of tangible outcome), how will you know you’ve moved the needle.
You’re the CEO
One trick to getting more done in life is to promote yourself to CEO of your life. Should the CEO be playing an hour of Nintendo Wii, watching 2 hours of TV, and Twittering for a half hour? I doubt it. Ask yourself as a CEO how to run Your Life, Incorporated to the best of its potential. Sure, give yourself playtime, but consider HOW MUCH play time you deserve.
Stay Awake
Keep your creativity engine flowing. You need to think about alternate roads to your successful path. Think about other ways to view your life’s problems and challenges. Think about how you’d reboot your life, if you were given the option. Is there really only one way to the finish line? I doubt it.
One example: I used to tell people I was a writer. And I rarely wrote. Now that I do what I do for a living, I write thousands and thousands of words a day. I tried something new. I re-thought my problem. And now, I’m making money writing.
And You? What do YOU think?
How else can you help me and your community here on chrisbrogan.com wake up? Share your thoughts and feelings on this with me, please?
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Comments
Agreed. Every so often, my life needs a little recharge and refocus.
Four credit cards’ worth of debt? No, more like 5 or 6…
The key for me is to simplify AND motivate. One leads to the other. If I have too much to do, I’ll freeze and I won’t do anything. If I have only a few things to do, I’ll be lazy and I won’t do anything either. I need to have JUST ENOUGH to do to get the important things done — a strategic semi-clutter.
For me, it’s not what I do in my life so much as what I feel. Happiness, contentment, joy, fulfillment, love, purpose - whatever you call it - it’s top priority. If I don’t feel the fulfilled feeling within myself every day, then it doesn’t matter what I do or not do in the day.
Feeling the thing that keeps my alive is the most joyous feeling ever.
However, in all fairness, what Chris has written is absolutely good advice.
Aloha Chris,
I really got into GTD (http://www.davidco.com/) earlier this year and it did help me wrestle back control of my inbox. One of the main tenants is, if it takes less than 2 minutes, Do It Now. It’s a very simple concept but has helped me get a lot more of the little things done. And I still have a long way to go.
This reply to you is a perfect example. The first thought that came to my head while reading it was, “Where can I put this so I remember to reply to it tomorrow?” Then I realized that is one of my worst habits. Putting simple things aside to do later when I can do them right now and they don’t even have to be put on a list for later.
Thanks for the reminder and thanks for helping me exercise my own GTD muscles. Seems a lot of people are going though changes right now. It is indeed a very exciting time to be Waking Up!
Sometimes it is so easy to go with the flow of your life, rather than paddle your canoe where you really want to go. But sometimes sitting don and asking yourself the hard question of where your North Star is (or should be) is difficult, and means facing some hard truths, so we become very good at avoiding the question at all.
I was talking to a very dear friend recently, and they said they wanted to do something, but it felt like making a five year old eat their veggies- something they had to do, knew they should do, but the dread and the “not fun” side seemed to make the task impossible. Yet I know when I get those nagging, not fun things out of the way, I fell so much better and like I’ve accomplished so much more. Taxes come to mind; doctor’s appointments; cleaning the office and cleaning out closets…all things that need to be done both physically and metaphorically, but getting the momentum is hard.
The trick, as you say, is snacks. You need to say “I am going to attack this project for twenty minutes, then I can quit.” Set a timer. Get going. Once you start and the timer goes off, you have permission to stop. You can quit. Or set a new mini goal if things are going well. But you’ll get so much more accomplished by facing the hard stuff and just starting, committing to do it in chunks, rather than look at the overwhelming whole, and never start at all.
Bite sized pieces, spread out over a few days, or a week, are much better than one huge meal. It’s the starving man at the banquet story- too many choices, so he dies staring at the bounty rather than partaking freely. Give yourself permission to nibble, and see how it goes.
Love it.
I’m going to enure I cook some good quality food this evening, along with fixing a couple of “issues” regarding insurance plans.
Pretend each day is your last one on earth, and make it count! I also color-code my activities in my PDA (for work, fun, family, networking and “me” time). If there’s too much of one color, I re-balance. Remember, we’re only on this planet 100 or so years (if we’re lucky). Every second should be spent doing something great…for ourselves or others.
Great timing for this Chris, this has been on my mind for a few days now. One of the wake up calls I had to realize is that I need more creative people around me and that my shyness needs to step aside and let me do my thing. Of course that was only one of the many things I need to check up and check in. I have printed this out and will use it as a reminder as I go on my journey to make what I am trying to achieve happen. Once again another reason why I am so glad I have your feed. You’re awesome.
This sounds ridiculous, but it actually seems to work. Keep a clean desk. When things pile up on your desk, they pile up in your mind and you get that overwhelmed feeling of never being able to do it all. Plus, all those things are distractions, too. It’s said that Eisenhower could not tolerate a single thing on his Oval Office desk. If it needing attention, he worked on it and got it off the desk. Nothing laid around. Now, being The POTUS helps with that technique because you have a secretary with more pull than 99% of CEOs. But certainly, the less clutter the better.
Thanks for the course correction Chris.
and @JeffPulver - you must give yourself some credit, I think that you have already told me “no” a couple of times! :-)
Chris, as usual, you hit the nail on the head.
I started slacking on the gym, delaying other projects because I am tired (granted I do not get continuous sleep at night as I need to check my 5 yr old’s blood sugar - Type 1 diabetic) which doesn’t help. Some may look at this as an excuse to which I reply: try getting up at different times throughout the night, every night…
The bite sized (fun size?) or small box concept is simple and elegant. We all wish to feel proud of ourselves when we accomplish a task or tasks. It motivates us to do more, gives us a sense of accomplishment, and inspires us to do more.
So, you may ask, how does this help me? I break down that small box into time management: if it takes me 1 hour to organize or “pack” that box, then I say to myself: self, that box needs to be smaller. This means I get more of the “warm and fuzzies” when I sucessfully complete a task, but also helps me re evaluate my time management so I can adequately plan for spending time with my kids, doing freelance projects, being a hubby, and getting an appropriate amount of sleep to get me through the day.
I have not yet had any coffee so I apologize if my thought are a little more random and un-organized in addition to any spelling mistakes.
Chris I think one of the key things you point out here is that the list is never going to be empty (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing!). Sometimes I think “Someday I’ll be so rich and successful that I can just lay on a warm sunny beach all day long and have not a care in the world!” But it’s not true, because even once I make it to that sunny beach, there will always be something to do…I’ll have to remember to call my mom, or do my laundry (or at least call someone to come do it for me!) and yes, I’ll still have to pay taxes. I think if my list was actually empty, I’d get bored.
But the point is, that’s life! And it really is what one makes of it. It’s alll about maintenance. Do that maintenance consistently, and don’t let those little tasks pile up, and you’ll be amazed how much time there is to pursue all that needs pursuing.
Live every moment, and don’t spend so much time worrying about the little things that need to get done. Write it on a list, then forget about it until it’s your scheduled “maintenance” time. Like an oil change - you dont’ drive your car around continuously thinking about its next oil change. So don’t live your life focused on the maintenance. Just live it for what it is at this moment.
About 2 years ago, I got tired of living the life I felt I was living by default - you know the choices you end up with because you didn’t think ahead and made the safest choices at the time.
I went back to grad school, got the job I’ve always wanted to do, in a community I always hoped to be able to live in. It was so empowering, and yet there are still things I do by default, behaviors I don’t question or challenge and there always will be. Thanks for the reminder.
Maybe it’s the gorgeous springtime weather, or the fact that winter was so harsh on me, but this weekend, I vowed to do just that. I’ve been in a rut for the past few months, but last week I decided that change was necessary, and more importantly, that I needed to simplify my life - or in your words, to “learn to say no.” And that’s what I’m doing. I’ve listed out most of what I need to do, want to do, want to have, and should discard. I’ve yet to see if this works, but I at least feel a bit better about where I’m going.
Chris,
Nice piece… (laughing) I could go off on this subject myself in a much longer post (and maybe I will), but in the spirit of checking off small boxes, I’ll start with a comment here. I’ve always been a big fan of the saying “the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step” and the important part to me is that you look at how to take that step (and then most importantly *take* the step), even if you are not entirely sure where the journey will wind up. Many times, the most amazing things happen by virtue of you taking that first step down a new path. Thanks again for the good reminder.
Dan
I’m losing weight. One of the things I’ve learned as I do this is that keeping constant awareness of my internal dialogue as it relates to food is really, really tough. So many behaviors are automatic and almost seem to preempt thought. That’s why planning what I eat throughout the day has become so important. It’s the only way to hem in those seemingly unconscious actions that occur when I’m just winging it. I’m heading off poor choices made on the fly by making my plan, making myself stick to it and learning to pay closer attention to the way I think and act in certain situations. I think, ultimately, every major change that one attempts to make is like this.
A big one for me was to stop listing to Nay Sayers. If you think something will work and plan it out properly, you CAN do it. Nay sayers, second handers, and others will say anything just to deter you and you need to shut them out. Be original. Be a creator, and let go of what others think because what matters to you is most important in the end.
I’m not so sure I like the fact that you are encouraging people to say no…especially when it might be me who they are saying no to! Can you maybe put a clause in there that reads - say no, unless The Diva is asking, in which case the answer should always be Yes!
It’s all about triage- Say Yes to new experiences, things that value add, and say no when you are over-extended or can’t see the value add. As Chris said to me once, and I keep this in mind all the time now- check the calories in/calories out balance and decide accordingly.
What a great post. I, as most people here I’m sure, needed something like this. I am the worst when it comes to time manegment and saying no. I feel like I must help everyone. Thank you for this. I will use your teachings to better myself. The force is strong with you.
@Jeff Pulver: Let me test your “no” skills: Want to fly me to Stockholm as an organizer for PodCamp Europe?
Your post came at an apposite time. It was a factor in a major decision I made today to sign up for a long term training program. I decided to, finally, this morning - the final day to decide. Then I decided I had too much to do, and everything was too chaotic to consider doing something so time consuming. But then I read your post, and remembered to step outside my habits and get some perspective, and I changed my mind again. It’s the right decision, and I was almost about to walk away for the wrong reasons. So, thanks.
For what it’s worth, when I’m on top of things, I use the system from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. As with all these things, it requires you not to fall off the wagon - but if you stick to it, it’s absolutely magic. Kind of like what you’re saying about small boxes, but with an insistence on looking at individual specific Next Actions to move each thing along. Brilliant stuff. Worth an afternoon’s read.
i just shot an episode about water pumps/drip irrigation in my workshop and looked at the footage, and the clutter was amazing. Its overwhelming. I’ve found that its true, if you focus on a small area, you can accomplish that task easily and not get overwhelmed by the larger picture.
Now my garage is another story. 2 early 80’s F150 trucks, power tools, bikes, and antique chairs piled in the back of both trucks. i’ll focus on getting rid of the chairs.
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My favorite lesson learned of late is the breaking into small chunks thing. I tend to have bigger and more challenging projects these days, and I can easily get overwhelmed and just not do anything.
Breaking things into steps and checking the steps off the list is sooo much easier and more satisfying than panicking. Oh, panicking is fun, to be sure, but it doesn’t beat check marks. :-)
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I fixed our noisy leaky toilet today.
I count this small task as a major victory. :-)