Dissolved Aggressiveness

In an earlier post "Stop war by stopping defense" I proposed to stop defending activities because in the believe to defend yourself you can create war - or let's say now - you can trigger aggressive reactions of others.

There were two problems I faced when practicing:

• There is aggressiveness already boiling within others or already in progress to cause them to action - aggressiveness that is not caused by me (oh what a discovery ;-) ).
• Not defending me implies that I get hit and hurt by the aggressive (re-)actions of others.

The solutions:

• You can deal with aggressiveness the same way as you can deal with suffering as I wrote in "There is suffering": Just let it go - Emotions are not strictly part of yourself - of your spirit. They are just like sun and rain - they come and go.
• In the film "Karate Kid" I have seen many years ago the old teacher says (don't know yet how he tells in the English version because I have seen the German): "Best defense - don't be there". - Don't be where the hammer hits. Don't have your self-esteem - your ego - there where others want to attack you personally.
• Imagine that every sort of aggressiveness dissolves when touching you from outside or is about to grow inside of you.
• Sometimes it is really necessary to use forces to avoid big suffering. In such cases remember to never use forces against creatures in general! Use the forces only against violent actions! - See also my earlier post "An eye for an eye".

Be the one where aggressiveness is stopped, where peace evolves.

Related posts: Stop war by stopping defense, An eye for an eye, There is suffering, Stake your claim, Best defense, The wise talk less, The fool gives way without borders.

Economy Performance and Empathy

I don't know how it is in other countries but in Austria in the news you can hear and read about the economy performance about every two weeks. Sometimes they tell that the performance improved but my impression is that more often they tell that it is decreasing and people worry about the economy development.

When people talk about the economy I can see similar patterns as if talking about the weather. It seems that economy is a strange thing which cannot be influenced much. Well, there cannot be a big influence created by a single person, but everybody of us takes active parts in a lot of ways and hence can influence. In particular those who moan most: The companies with poor performance.

Well, yesterday I wanted to buy a medicine for my wife and the response at the shop was: The product is currently unavailable. In a second shop with another product the same. Then I remembered that I ran out of compact flash cards on my last holiday where I had to run around to find a shop where to buy one - in two shops they told me that newer cameras use different cards and hence they don't have it any more - if I want they can order it for me. I had several similar experiences in the last weeks. - Mmmhhhh - companies wants me to buy things and then they cannot serve me...

I see that performance of companies has to do with empathy. Management should put on the shoes of the consumers and find out the lacks and needs of the people around.

How to eat less

Additional kilos are often collected especially (but not only) with the evening meals. In many cases getting additional kilos is done by simply eating too much.

I discovered a way to eat less (maybe I could have read it already somewhere ;-) ): Get a very comfortable and stress free environment when taking meals. You will eat less, when you are relaxed!

For example:

• Eat outside on the balcony or in your garden.
• Put flowers around and turn on candles.
• Avoid TV or other "activities" while taking your meal.
• Meditate on your eating.
• Drink water in between then the next bite will be fresh flavour.

It is very important to eat slowly! - It is another time I cannot resist linking to www.slowdownnow.org. :)

Remember that in a lot of cases eating is a substitute action to get satisfied! Try to be satisfied in your life in general and you will eat less.

Related posts: How to be happy, Urging to forge at full speed, Slowing down.

Reduce the stress factors

As it is not long ago that I have been on vacation, I wondered why I already looking forward to take a rest. This week I was (already) very active (again). One of my intentions during the last days was to find out what does really stress me.

It is not only having few time for doing many things that causes stress. It is also some particular situations that can stress or either particular persons. And it can be elements of your life in general or just a specific way you are doing something. As I found more and more stress sources I got aware of the horrific downsides of stress:

• Reduced quality of what you are doing now and what you will do in the next minutes
• Reduced motivation and therefore also reduced happiness
• Reduced health in the long run (One can stand a stressy week with ease, a month is possible, 3 months is exhausting, 6 months of stress will reduce your life expectancy)
• Because of the restricted view when under stress:
  
  • Trapping into pitfalls
  • Missing important information
  • Doing things wrong - making errors
  • Danger of doing harm to others (while choosing wrong words, producing incidents while not concentrated on the traffic while driving, ...)
  • Not seeing smart alternative solutions for the current problem
  • Missing opportunities (that could have positive effects on a thing that is important for you but has not to do with the thing your are currently occupied with).
• You get a bad image (people think you can't manage your life well)

And the worst: All the above produces either more stress! It is a doom loop, a vicious circle!

So cut off your stress factors!

A first important step is to be very attentive of what is causing stress for you, it can be

• Too much to do in too few time
  You have to plan your time well and plan at least double of the time for a thing as you would expect. And do leave free space in your calender. And unclutter your life. Do less things to have more time for the more important things.
• Situations that are linked with fears
  Find the reason of your fears and solve them or avoid the situations (find a patch not to get into that exact situation).
• Situations that are new
  Get familiar with new situations - take them as a new opportunity to learn and gain knowledge.
• Things that you might have thought they are for your comfort
  Not everything we have got with the intention to improve our life (comfort or quality) does (still) give what it gave in the past or what we expected.
• Methods we use to solve particular daily problems
  Because of old habits we might handle specific events in the same bad way we did it for years. In most cases bad habits worked well in the past or worked well for similar situations (but not for this one). - Be flexible and search for new solutions producing less stress.
• Particular persons may produce stress
  This can be co-workers, your boss or even friends. An important tip here: In a lot of cases you are producing stress (also) for them. So do not stress others and they will stress you less. And sure, where possible you can also avoid contact to those people.
• Moving or being fast in general
  It might be because of fears, because of a manic phase or simply because you think that you will not survive if you don't do everything possible to accomplish more or earn more money. Doing things slowly does not mean not to do them (don't mix that up with procrastination).

Not convinced so far to cut off stress factors immediately? - There is one sentence I was soooo glad to read at www.slowdownnow.org because it helped me so changing my intentions:

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing slowly.

Read the Slow Manifesto at www.slowdownnow.org.

Related posts: Why not multitasking how to, Why investing enough time rules, Change hype, Urging to forge at full speed, The present moment, Hurry home ... no more running, When to strictly avoid multitasking, How to be happy, Slowing down, About drugs, Speed, Productivity limits, External success factors.

Change hype

I lately read a lot of blog posts about change - to be the change, life-long learning and hence changing, not to stick in the past and so on.

People feel stressed by all the new things they could and should learn, by new situations they have to get familiar with, by all the new products rising, opportunities they probably miss. In the end everybody feels stressed because time is going on so fast and they have to adapt. Everybody is a victim and nobody feels responsible and nobody feels himself cause and reason.

I often wonder how fast people decide to adapt new things without analyzing the benefit. And even more often a new thing is the trigger to take action and not a particular problem to solve. So people get used to things they didn't miss before. There is much written about people don't really like to change but I think they change a lot. I see it from words like "beta testers", "early adopters", "trend setters" and others - especially in email newsletters there are many words used that should create a good feeling because getting some really early and still secret information. People want to be cool or simple fear to be left behind if they do not get the newest things.

As working in IT I feel overwhelmed by all the technologies I get told to be so exiting new and I should learn. But people are often neither asking for the major benefits of migrating to a new product, service or way of living.

I am not against change - I already changed several times my mainly used programming language for instance. But I ask for benefits and costs of the change. It does not make sense to continuously being in change because the change/migration phase is not the peek of productivity. The arguments are:

• Migration to something new costs time and often also money.
  New products must be bought, people must be trained, ...
  
• New products or paths usually do not work very well at the beginning - there are usually some "patches" required after a first test period.
• New is not always better.
  Sad, but true - there are a lot of new things created that are not having improved quality. - Sometimes new things were just produced cheaper and hence do have less quality.
  

Change can be a good thing and I am not against change. But there must be clear benefits and the costs may not be exaggerated in relation. When something new has been adapted/implemented and it works well then it should be used a while to be profitable.

So analyze the real problem, the benefits and risks of possible solutions as well as their costs. As you do look at different sites, compare prices and qualities before buying a new car, why not also for your personal development?

To change or not to change - that is the question. You have to set the benefits, risks and costs in relation to each other.

As we are all part of the whole we must start slowing down the change speed if we want to reduce the stress of change requests and requirement. I good site to start slowing down is www.slowdownnow.org.

Related posts: Quickly change a habit, Hard exercise, You can learn fast. Decision planning, As it would be the last day, Direction over goals, Slowing down.

Stop war by stopping defense

The problem: You are feeling getting involved in a war.
War can be fought on several levels, it doesn't have to be physical war. It can be fought on economic level, on psychological level, in a discussion (see also How to Keep a Relationship at ThinkSimpleNow), by mobbing and so on. It hasn't to be plenty of soldiers running against another plenty of soldiers. War is already started in the small - when two people cannot live in peace next to each other. Although you in general do not want to fight or trigger a war you sometimes suddenly feel already within a war without either noticing how it happened. This can happen even although your philosophy is very far from starting wars.

The reason: War is mostly started during defense and defense is practiced because of fears.
Mostly a war is caused by defensive actions in the will to survive. While the will to stay living is a legitimate idea life is often not threatened. Defensive actions are already started when the idea comes up that something might happen that in the long run can threaten not only your life but also your resources and either your ideas. Defensive actions are often an exaggerated reaction to some others action interpreted as an attack or interpreted as the possible preparation for an attack.

In your daily life there can be many actions interpreted as an attack or as a threat by others without your notice and so you get fought and don't know why.

The solution: Stop actions that hurt others and don't act defensive where not necessary.
You need to improve your empathy ("try other ones shoes", imagine yourself in the situation of the other, listen with attention) to find out how you are hurting others. Pay attention not only to your actions, also to your words. Find out your fears - they might be completely exaggerated. Don't respond with defensive reactions where not necessary. Step back and look at the situation. Imagine a world war and think twice if it is really necessary to fight right here at the moment. Imagine there is war and nobody attends.

Related posts: An eye for an eye, About religions, Dissolved Aggressiveness, Best defense, The wise talk less.

Setting borderlines

While many talking about setting goals I found something missing during my daily experiences: Missing borderlines.

Where you need borderlines/limits:

• Education of children (there you need a lot)
  
• Weekly working hours
• Minimum sleeping hours
  
• Exploitation of the world resources
• ...

Borderlines have to do with area. You need space for yourself, for realizing your goals and for everything you want to put into your life. So there need to be limits for other things so they do not eat up all the time and space available.

It is like the old Zen koan I got reminded of thanks to Avani at Avani-Mehta blog:

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Time, space and resources are limited. When you want to change in most cases you need free space. The most important area is yourself: Your time, your mind, your health, your personal resources.

To respect also the of other people borderlines is needed for our all living together as every living individual (human or animal) needs a territory - some place to live and hence parts of the resources. This applies to physical needs and either to non-visible things like individual thinking.

So be aware of existing borderlines - yours and those of others. And set clear borderlines to ensure that everything in your life gets emphasized appropriately.

Why investing enough time rules

The Parkinson's Law (basically) states:

work expands to fill the time available

I already wrote about it earlier here.

Introduction: When I got notice of the Parkinson's Law the first time I already had a feeling in the belly that usage of this rule is counter productive and I will not adopt it. However, I found out in the meantime: I am already using Parkinson's Law! - Why? - We have a baby! So, since about 9 months my time for new private projects is from zero to one hour a day maximum. Although he is sleeping sometimes longer in the afternoon or plays alone there are other things like housekeeping to do in this time. And further my wife is not working yet and hence has more time she wants to spend with me. So time for other projects or hobbies is reduced to an absolute minimum. The hobbies I can do most is photography because I can take pictures from our son while looking after him. Many people strongly recommend to shoot in raw and postprocess images on the computer. And for this I simply do not have time. I can be happy if I have time to sort them out and put some on the internet.

The minimal use of Parkinson's law: Reducing the available time and/or budget by a nonessential amount can indeed increase productivity because people then are cutting off the unnecessary things. So this helps avoiding bloated projects. People may also find smarter solutions for an existing problem. But important here is: Continuously reducing time/budget a little is the same as extreme usage of Parkinson's law!

The extreme use of Parkinson's law: Reducing the available time and/or budget by an essential amount will freeze the project! Reducing available time in general or increasing open projects or to-dos by an essential number leads to giving up on all (bigger) projects. In the extreme - what can't be done in an hour or in one (business) day must be dropped. When looking at time and budget separately you can reduce time significantly by investing more money sometimes - sometimes. With a minimum of available time/budget people usually tend to start doing something immediately to solve the problem but usually do not do (any) planning. This increases the probability of total escalation.

Not use Parkinson's law and doing the opposite: On the other hand when increasing available time and/or budget for a project then people can be more creative.

Simple sample: If you have only very little time to furnish your apartment then you will have no time to look at different shops and take the first and/or cheapest things you see. If you have enough time then you can develop ideas for smart solutions how to use the available space in your home. You will feel better and your home will be more functional and prettier.

Enough time means that people use enough time to plan and find smart solutions. And if people find smarter solutions during work (because of their experiences in a new realm of work) they have time and money buffers to implement changes to get the smarter solution. Enough time means improved quality and improved creativity. And if there is really no more time needed to improve quality any more then people may be so creative to invent new products for similar problems. Imagine what type of car you would have if companies wouldn't invest enough time into research and development...

But there is a prerequisite that is needed to make it work increasing quality by increasing time: You need your workers to be motivated! Otherwise they will use the more time doing other things than improving the quality.

Related post: Parkinson's Law and quality, Urging to forge at full speed.

Quickly change a habit

The problem: A bad habit must be changed quickly to avoid further suffering.
When you found a bad habit it often takes a lot of time to change it. This can be a big problem because the bad habit can have very negative impacts. Although you know the situation, the bad habit and an alternative solution you cannot change the habit immediately.
Sample: You react emotional in specific situations with your wife, a friend, a co-worker or even the boss which lead to litigations.

The reason: Most bad habits are a row of fast automatic reactions.

The solution: Pattern recognition and early intervention.
Most bad habits are not triggered by a single signal. Usually there are several circumstances that must come together - or in other words - most problems are multi-cause-problems.
Although it will still need hard work and you will probably not change all your bad habits immediately the following steps can help to improve habit changing speed:

1. Get aware of all the parameters (external and internal events and status) that are relevant for the critical situation.
2. Identify external and internal triggers and steps that lead to the critical situation or either just increase the possibility of escalation to the critical situation.
   
3. Think of alternatives to avoid already the early contributors to the situation that later on may escalate.

When you analyze only the situation when already escalating you will also only get aware of the critical situation when already escalating, about to escalate or however very shortly before. This can be too late to stop your reactions that are already running automatically.

Early notice when you are on a "probably dangerous path" that may lead to a bad situation and early intervention overcomes the problem of the delay with which you are recognizing the escalation of a situation.

Further, knowing many contributing details, you can choose from a greater amount of possibilities where you can change things. This does not mean that you should avoid any action you take. It means that you can do things in another way when they are far from getting difficult and dangerous.

There is a story I came along many years ago but I remembered it right now because it illustrates what I mean - the hole:

Imagine, you are walking on the street. There is a hole. You fall into it. It is the fault of the others. You are angry about the spite of other persons and you are thinking who could be the person that dig you that hole. It consumes a lot of power and time to get out of the hole.

Imagine, your are walking on the street. There is a hole. You fall into it. It is your fault. You are angry about yourself. It consumes a lot of power and time to get out of the hole.

Imagine, your are walking on the street. There is a hole. You fall into it - it's routine. You climb up.

Imagine, your are walking on the street. There is a hole. You take a roundabout route and don't fall into it.

Imagine to take another street and there is no hole.

Related posts: Safety distance, Hard Exercise, How to instantly change a habit.

Hard exercise

The post 5 Healthy Reasons to Stop Looking for Magic Pills at the Positivityblog gave me a feeling of relief. Although I know that life is life long learning somewhere hidden in the background there is often the search for the "magic pill" - the piece of information or piece of software that solves all my problems at once.

Accepting the truth that there does not exist in general a quick and easy solution solving a big amount of problems at once brings the advantage that you stop wasting time searching for such a wonder.

I often find people trying to solve problems with a piece of software that is definitely not intended to solve such kind of problems. As vendors often write on their websites that nearly every problem can be solved with their piece of software (in some cases you only have to write a damn plugin ;-) ) a lot of people believe it. Or maybe they use that software because that piece of software is the one they know best.... - They often loose a lot of time trying to apply a lot of dirty hacks.

Speaking of software, as a software developer I was used to the idea that solving a problem once (writing a program) solves it forever. Yes, this is (partly) true for software development (with the change of programming languages and underlying operating systems re-solving the same problem can be necessary, so "forever" is mostly not really forever) and it can be (partly) true for a lot of other technical problems. But this is technical realm.

When we are working on ourselves trying to improve and get better you cannot just apply a fix and then all your problems or "instabilities" are solved. Not even for one particular problem it mostly is not that easy.

The sad truth is: You have to exercise - practice on and on to "implement" the changes. This is hard work and takes time.

What helps reducing the time to "implement fixes":

• Analyze the problem and find the "real" (root) problem.
  Sometimes a set of actual problems we face is just a lot of effect of an error made earlier.
  
• Discover the reason.
  Find the cause for the harmful event and the motivation behind your actions that caused suffering.
• Change the philosophy.
  Re-think your particular or general philosophy, beliefs and convictions accordingly so better experiences and results can be expected.

But then still there remains hard work!

Related post: Find the root problem

Safety distance

There is a lot you can learn by trial and error. But there are some actions and either whole jobs where errors can have fatal impacts:

• Changing a baby (you have to pay attention that it does not fall from the changing table)
• Driving a car
  
• Doctor at operation
• ... and many, many more

As I work in software development there are a very lot of errors and there are either some sort of errors that can have fatal impacts - for example the programs for money transfer and other data transactions.

In such cases it is important to have a "safety distance" from the dangerous and critical point. I mean here with safety distance every behavior and security tool that helps reducing the probability of fatal incidents. Imagine you are standing on a high rock and look down. You will probably not step to the very front line. So I think of staying away from the most dangerous situations.

When working on large projects it can also be important to avoid situations and solutions that can go easily wrong as for instance think of worst case scenarios and try to avoid them already in advance by choosing different solutions or at least identify early indicators. And for programming it means to do more error checking in your code, use checksums on data transfers and so on.

You are not immediately a perfectionist if you simply keep the "safety distance" to reduce the probability of fatal impacts. Perfectionism starts when keeping the safety distance to non-critical situations.

Lessons from a baby

I am back from vacation. In former times I slept and read more on vacation. This time I invested the time with our baby. I want to share some things I can learn from my 9 months old son:

• He is feeling well no matter where he is as long as the loved ones are around.
  We often refuse being happy because the hotel room is too small or when we find the beach dirty - things that do not really count in life.
  
  
• Have a smile for every new person you meet.
  Although he does not talk and does not have cool things like a fast car, an iPod or other cool things, he found a lot of friends. Meeting a new person the first thing he did, was looking in the eyes and smiling and so he managed it.
  
  
• Invest time in looking at a new situation or thing before immediately taking action.
  In a lot of cases I could see that he is looking around a long time when confronted with something new. This is a good habit in my opinion which can save you some harm.
  
  
• Everything new is a reason for happiness.
  When you get notice of something new it is at first a reason to be happy. Everything new has the potential of being useful. At least - if it is not - you can say that this also has been tried or taken into consideration.
  
  
• Listen mindfully.
  Although he does not understand much so far, he is listening very attentive when you talk to him.
  
  
• Insist in your right to be respected by others.
  When he is ignored for a longer while he is rising his voice and complains about the fact that he is not taken into consideration. When you respect others and take them into consideration it is your right also to be taken into consideration and that others respect also your needs.
  

Why not multitasking how to

The problem: You know it is better to avoid multi-tasking for better productivity but your environment seems to make it impossible.
Many life hackers strongly recommend not to multi-task, but in most cases it seems simply impossible as reality does not really allow single-tasking in a lot of cases, e.g.:

• If I do not take the phone I have to call back later. Maybe then I do not find the other person available and until I get in touch a lot more time passes and the cost of the phone call either goes on my company. So it is simply better to accept the phone interruption.
  
• In a lot of offices there are more people sitting in one room - in my case the room neither has a door so anybody else easily can come in. Hence disturbing events cannot be avoided. And I either cannot place a traffic light on my desk. Naturally my boss expects me to be available for him - since he is paying me :-). I either cannot leave office as I am expected to be available - we are not so many people that for everybody there is a substitution.
  
• Even if I manage to stay on one project for a day, project priorities often change very fasten. I am told to learn APIs from product A and then suddenly gets obsolete and I should focus on product or project B. And every day a customer may call with some very urgent issue.

…just to give a few examples.


The reason: There is not a single reason and hence no single answer to this problem. You have to distinguish different cases. - Different problem requires different handling.
There are several different types of interrupts - basically I see 5 classes of events that causes need for multi-tasking (starting with the easiest to avoid):

1. Self triggered/created distractions.
   Actions like reading new mail instantly as they arrive, reading news and RSS feeds and so on. Usually you can find out that you switch to such tasks more easy if you should work on some difficult other thing that you really hate to do. You accept - no - you welcome this kind of interrupts usually because
   a) you are (or should be) working on a difficult or nasty task producing inner resistance and opposition or
   b) you have priorities and interests that do not match with your current job (duties) and/or the priorities set by your boss.
   
2. Interrupts created by your family and friends.
   Ever experienced your wife or mom calling you continuously in the office asking you when exactly you will come home or what else to buy on the way home?
   
3. Interrupts created by colleagues.
   Some co-workers do often interrupt by asking questions, asking for help or wanting to tell you some nice story.
   
4. Interrupts created by customers.
   All kind of customer or suppliers, partners and other kind of people. Customers usually have to be treated very well so they are some kind of boss for you.
   
5. Interrupts created by the boss.
   When the boss comes in and asks you things to do now then they usually cause immediately a change of priorities and you have to change task immediately. Your boss is paying you doing your duty - and part of this duty is being available for the boss any time (at least during the working hours ;-) ).

You can assume that you will never stop interruptions completely and totally quit multi-tasking. Especially point 5 from above and partly also 4 are some things you have only few possibility to change. Be satisfied to reduce multi-tasking a bit - use the pareto principle (80/20 rule).


The solution: Reduce interruptions from different sources by using different strategies, accept multi-tasking where it cannot be avoided and see the positive side of multi-tasking. What you can also reduce is the effect it has on you.

Where is the positive side of multitasking? - As I mentioned in the previous post "Decision planning", before taking a decision you should have some days doing a pause not thinking of the issue. Multi-tasking is an opportunity to pause one task (where you maybe have a problem not finding a good solution now) waiting for a good idea or coming back freshly powered.

According to the 5 classes of interrupts I mentioned above here are the different solution proposals:

1. Self triggered/created distractions:
   
   • Re-sync your priorities and interests with the ones of your boss and/or the company (have a talk with your boss about the company goals) or
   • Change your job. Changing your job does not necessarily mean you have to change company. Nowadays in larger companies there are also possibilities to change the field of work also by staying within the company and just change department or products to deal with.
   • When both seems impossible, try to learn something from your daily duty that improves the skills that you want to improve (according to your personal priorities).
2. Interrupts created by your family and friends:
   
   • Your family and friends can be briefed not to call you in the office or not to chat you.
   • Regarding chat one possibility can be that you simply set yourself into do-not-disturb-mode.
   • Inform your family and friends that if you need to pay additional attention to your family and friends while in the office then you will come home later then.
3. Interrupts created by colleagues:
   Regarding co-workers it depends if you are in a team working effectively together or not.
   
   • If it is a colleague you are working with in a team then you can schedule time frames in your calendar where your full attention is dedicated to the open issues - which is a benefit for both of you: The co-worker gets your full attention and you do not get interrupted again with one question after the other. Ask your co-worker to prepare all questions and issues to discuss - which will be an opportunity for the co-worker to deal with the topic and maybe one or the other question either disappears suddenly.
   • But apart from co-workers there can be people just nagging you without working (officially) together on a project and maybe you don't see any benefit from cooperating with them. In these cases there is possibility to nag them back and after a while they will give up nagging you. you can tell them
     
     • that you don't know an answer for their question,
     • tell them to come later when you have time (tell them a time then),
     • tell them to search the internet,
     • tell them to write you an e-mail (or a forum post or some specification) - that is additional work for them and for you it offers easy dropping to your GTD-Folders.
4. Interrupts created by customers:
   
   • If there is anything that a customer should prepare before calling (especially for support calls) then the customer should be "trained" to prepare those things (for example send some screen shots) or fill out some forms. Sometimes people want a solution and neither are aware yet of the problem nor have collected a minimum of data or started a minimum of analysis.
   • On phone calls try to immediately check the "real urgency" (some state always that it is urgent even if it isn't) and for non urgent things estimate the needed time and schedule it on your calendar. State that you are going to solve the customers problem - tell the customer either when exactly you are going to work on his thing. If you need the customers cooperation then it is good to have a time frame where you and the customer both have a reserved piece of time for the issue. This reduces stress on both sides.
   • Never ever forget about customer requests or put them away to think about "when is time"! The customer will learn and call you every week to remind you on the issue which is more and more interruptions - or will give up and choose another supplier. If the customer can rely on you and knows that you will serve him then there is no reason for him to call you repeatedly.
   • Have a forum or at least a support email address and teach customers to drop there problem by mail or forum post. One advantage is that issues discussed in written form can be easier used later as a knowledge base. For customers calling unnecessarily often you can give them some extra wait or tell them you need to look up something and then call back. Call back at lunch times or shortly before the customer wants to go home in the evening. This may help bringing support to forum or e-mail which is better for you because you can decide when to look into the mails.
     
5. Interrupts created by the boss:
   These are definitely the hardest. Who pays, commands. Interrups here often causes changes in the priorities - immediately. But there are things you can do (apart from changing your job ;-) ):
   
   • Ask the boss for weekly meetings to exchange news and current company goals.
   • Ask for a weekly "Priority-Newsletter". Then you get the priorities by mail and can deal with them when you have time.
   • If your boss changes the priorities too often (more than once a week for instance) it might not be a problem to simply skip some - to leave an issue open may not cause any affect tomorrow because then there will be already completely different priorities and older ones are forgotten.
   • Create little "penalties" for an interrupt - for instance:
     
     • on the interruption tell the boss what you were working on and deliver it with a short delay.
     • Take a little longer to respond so the boss can clearly see that you are currently still thinking of the work you were supposed to do before. Let the boss "participate" on the "time loss because of process swapping".
     • State "good that you interrupt, for an hour I need to go to the toilet in reality. Just a minute - then I have more time for you". - This might be exaggerated but it shows two things: A penalty and the important fact that you let the boss know that his is interrupting you. So he gets reminded that he is permanently interrupting you.
     Remember that these actions should only be taken when you get interrupted too often - this is not a strategy that should be used in general!!!
   • Use strategies that were mentioned above to be used for customers.

As reducing some sort of interrupts you can also - in parallel - reduce the lasting effect of the interrupts. I recognize it often that the actual interruption is short but not the required work that is generated by the interrupt. Here you have to distinguish between the actual interrupt, the change of priorities and the generated required work. For example when your boss is getting to you with some sort of work to be done then that is the actual interrupt. You can put the topic in your inbox (speaking of GTD-principles here) but an interruption does not necessarily implicit that you immediately have to start dealing with the subject coming up during the interruption. And further it does not automatically implicit the amount of work invested right now. You can start working on it for 15 minutes and for the rest allocate appropriate time slices in your calendar. And some things that now seem to be important turn out to be obsolete already a few days later. So do not take every new issue too serious!

Depending on your actual job there is some percentage of time lost dealing with unavoidable interrupts. Depending on that percentage you should leave appropriate gaps in your calendar. So an interrupt is still annoying but it does not bring you in trouble finishing your work in time.

When you reduced the number of interrupts and their effect you can focus on those tasks that really need to be done. Many tasks are too big to solve them in one piece and so they have to be split. Analyze them, cut them into smaller pieces and schedule appropriate time frames in your calender - for instance - every Friday is day to work on the new company's website.

When you get interrupted see the benefit of getting in distance to the current problem you are struggling with having the opportunity to get back to the overview again probably finding a better solution to your detail problem as mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Related posts: Decision planning, GTD - E-Mail-Folders and Tags, LTO - Letting things open, When to strictly avoid multitasking, Razor sharp focus, Cost of substitution.

Detect the weak point

Lately I got a link to a video of the song "Guten Morgen liebe Sorgen". It is a german song I already knew but this video seems to be a life record and quite at the beginning the singer wants the audience to sing also. As they sing very soft his first reaction is "I never heard so many people singing so soft. Let's detect the weak point." - Then he asks first the males and then the females to sing.

What we can learn from it:

When something does not work well, don't hesitate to make investigations, analysis and tests to identify the weak point(s). Every chain is only so strong as the weakest link!

Related posts: Crappy guesswork, Analysis and therapy.

You can learn fast

The problem: Repetitive experience of negative effects.
I am sure everybody knows the situation where something negative happens and you know that you already experienced this several times. And you are angry because you don't know how it happens that you again trap on the same egg.

The reason: You know the negative effect when it arrives and not when you are causing it.
Negative effects are often caused a lot earlier than they really hit you. If you can immediately experience the negative effect after your action then you will learn faster because you know well the action to omit or replace with some other action. Think of your childhood shocks - how fast it could happen that from some experience you learn so intensive that it is a problem to change your learned habits later.

The solution: Try to draw the link from negative effects to the causing action(s).
Sure, often negative effects are caused by multiple events that are not always under your control. But in general there is something you contribute to the bad situation. So when experiencing negative effects then draw the line to all your actions that contributed to it and memorize alternative ways how you could behave in the future in such situations.

And second when you do things draw the line to possible effects in the future - also in the far future! So treat people nice. The one next to you in the bus you stepped on the foot could be your future boss. ;-)

Related post: Think yourself.

Decision planning

The problem: Instability of decisions already taken
Often after you made a decision it happens that you uncertain if it was the right decision. A single news headline a day later might bring instability into your mind.

The reason: Decisions are often made to fast and without knowledge
The decision taken from out of the belly is often a good decision but people forget that for a good belly-decision you need according information in the background (of your brain) and appropriate experience. Decisions are often made too quickly because of urgent problems. People do not want to loose time and go ahead. But going too fast may cause wrong decisions and wrong decisions can cost a lot more time and money than stopping a while looking around before going on.

The solution: Plan your decisions similar to a project
In general it is good to know very early about upcoming decisions because then you have enough time to prepare and make a decision with profound information. In the last year I had some long term and big decisions to make and I think I did the right decisions. Looking back I can see the following steps:

1. Define the challenge / problem / goal.
2. Search for related information (Search the internet, read books, ask people, ...).
3. Get an overview about your current situation (or what it will be when the decision is to be made) and your resources (required material, money and time).
4. Identify probable paths to solve the problem or reach the goal, the required resources and possible pitfalls.
5. Wait - do something else and let the information seep through.
   Depending on the complexity, time to point of actual decision and scope this time may be either one day or several months. This opens your mind to view the world (or the market - if you are a salesman) in other perspectives that may contribute to solve your issue.
6. Review existing information, consolidate and search again for related information - this time more specialized towards the most attractive solutions. Mostly you have minimum 3 ways to solve a problem so there should always be several choices (and not just do it or not to do it).
7. Look at the most attractive solutions from (totally) different point of views and other perspectives.
8. Take a deep breath and take the decision.
9. Check the best opportunities to take your first action and plan continuous actions to realize your goal (to organize material, money and reserve time on your calendar).
10. Action! - Decisions do not have effect without the according actions.

Simple sample to illustrate:

1. You are going to to sports and then you will take a shower.
2. You search or ask where the shower is (well not when you are at home but maybe out in the public, at a hotel or at friends) - before you already undressed ;-).
3. Check your path from sports to the shower.
4. Know what will be available and what you need to take with you to the shower - e.g. towel, soap, slippers, new clothes.
5. Well for such simple tasks you might not need to wait long, but at least count down slowly from 5 to 0 before you go - this gives a little time to your brain coming out with something your might have forgotten.
6. Recheck if you have everything. Double-checking everything is always a good idea - not only because usually during the steps you might get interrupted at least once (by others or yourself).
7. Imagine different possible activities you could do and opportunities you may have after taking the shower (maybe to go out with a nice girl ;-) ).
8. Breath and decide to go for a shower - (or decide to skip it if they way is too long or there is no warm water available ;-) )
9. Check the best opportunity (less people currently under the shower for example or somehow occupied) so you don't have to wait.
10. Go for it!

A more significant sample:

1. Your family plans include children and so your family is about to grow. You would like to change to a larger apartment.
2. Search the internet and market to find out the value of your current residence and the prices of larger apartments or houses in different regions to get an overview what is available for what price.
3. Check your current financial possibilities and give an estimation about your (and your wife's) work and earnings situation in the future.
4. Check banks for required loan offers and read carefully the contracts. Talk with your parents about your plans - they might have started saving some money for you already when you still were a child. :-)
5. Wait at least a few weeks. Walking around you will see related advertisements you might have passed by already several times, you will be attentive to related talks in TV, radio or discussions of people sitting next to you in the train. All this can give you new ideas and opportunities.
6. Sort already retrieved information and classify - e.g. houses with garden, apartments, sort by district and so on. The one or the other may turn out to be more attractive than other solutions. Go and search again especially for offers in your favorite district for example.
7. Think again of the opportunity to remain at your existing residence. Think also about the benefits that the new residence can bring along - for example a shorter way to work or cheaper supermarkets in the near. Review the benefits and costs of your desire and think of the financial risks.
8. Take a deep breath and ... sleep another night ... and then take the decision.
9. Check the best opportunity - a good offer - and start planning your move.
10. Take action - choose your new home and start throwing away things you do not need any more, pack your things that you will not need any more until the move and ...

When important decisions are taken with a profound background of information and looking at the issue from different aspects your decision will be more stable - it will be a solid rock on which you can build further activities and decisions. Good decisions will not be revised every day again and again - when every morning the priorities change completely.

Related post: Direction over goals.

About abstraction and layers

I have seen lately in different realms of real life extensive use of sub-organizations.

For example: When they built the house where our new apartment is the jobs where given in commission and sub-commission. And this for about 4 levels. But we are not talking about 4 different people involved here - no - we are talking about 4 different companies and a lot more people. I could see that information flow often neither reached level 2. I further noticed that there is a strong inhibition on the "bottom" level to contact the above level in problem case. People do quick and dirty fixes before contacting the higher level to solve a problem where it occurs or where it should be solved. But things then easily escalate and then you get a mess easily where everybody's most important interest is pushing the responsibility to somebody else.

The above example can be seen with similar characteristics in many realms and is not limited to "manual" work and communication. Either when thinking of the IT branch or more in detail looking at software concepts I can see such characteristics.

Often each level/layers when you go from bottom (actual implementation layer) to upper levels (towards management and top management) there is always a little bit of abstraction introduced which also leads to information loss and increases overhead.

So my message today: Remember to focus on the actual concrete problem to solve and introduce additional layers and abstraction only where really helpful!

Expectation dropping

The problem: Manic depression
Although manic depression is a well known psychological illness a lot of people not classified as manic depressive anyway suffer from manic and depressive phases in their life.

The reason: Expectations and wishes
Expectations are the motivation for a lot of actions you wouldn't do without the result you hoped for. You delay happiness until a specific goal has been reached. When you have success or simply too many things worked in the past you are mislead to higher goals and higher expectations. When reality tears you back to earth you fall into depressive phase because you did a lot of things "for nothing". You didn't got honored, you didn't earned the expected amount of money or some other outcome of your work turns out to be useless.

The solution: Drop your expectations
Dropping expectations initially sounds like dropping any motivation for getting to action and is pure negativism. But take a second view. When you drop your expectations

• everything that works or results in a positive feeling it is a pure wonder,
• when you do something you do it out of the current necessity or benefit without having to fear investment loss (because you simple do not invest - at least long term),
• you can also drop a lot of fears in form of negative expectations.

Without expectations you easier can decide from one moment to the other whether to invest more time into a specific action or not. When you do things for other persons, do it as a gift, this let you feel distributing love to others.

Related posts: Success with optimism AND pessimism, positivity barricades

Humor heals

The problem: You feel stressed by others (or even yourself).
Situations that cause stress to me are usually when others get in trouble and then put some of their pains at me to help them get out of their hell. This can be in form of unplanned additional tasks for me or in listening to long complains or lamentations about their problems (without searching for a solution). Or it can even be that they are criticizing me because they are angry. And so I suddenly find myself under stress without either knowing how it happened.

The reason: It is part of my mission to help improving the world - and maybe you have similar goals in your life. And as I take my work and goals for serious I take problems for serious - in general.

The solution: Not taking life and problems too serious.
We should distinguish real emergency from other problems. And regarding the "other" problems we should again distinguish between our own problems and the ones of others.

And the most important thing: You are working on your life and improving yourself preventing from problems in the future. You are not responsible for the problems that other people created on themselves ignoring their life's lessons. "Imagine, it's your own fault" is an important sentence for me. But I should add something: "...if you have a problem".

But anyway you have to deal with the suffering person in front of you. And the best medicine to take out the stress, pressure ad hoc is humor! - Exaggerate and make a joke. This reduces stress level immediately.


Related posts: About this Blog, Serious life starts immediately, Quality of solution

Impacts increase with procrastination

Yesterday evening our baby did some big job in digestion and the issue which at first seemed to be small then escalated. The steps and appropriate were:

1. First notice
   Reaction: "The problem is too small yet to deal with. There will come more in the next few minutes and then we will deal with it."
2. Forget
   Reaction: Dealing with other things in the household we forgot about the issue for more than a few minutes - just for "some" time.
3. Fear - most dangerous step beginning real big and fatal procrastination!
   Reaction: The odor was already well developed and the resistance increased opening the diaper.
4. State of emergency
   Reaction: Dealing with the issue which grew up now in a frantic pace.

There was already small impact to the clothing. Changing the diaper and putting new clothes took far longer than changing a half full diaper twice.

What to learn:

• When is the best time to take action on an issue?
  When you think of it the first time.
  This is something my father told me he got taught when going for the sailing patent.
• If you do not take action of an issue it is likely to grow up to a bigger one and the (negative) impact of an issue increases as the time goes by.
• You will tend to procrastinate more as the issue is growing and you begin to develop fear.
  

Time optimization

Two weeks ago we changed to our new apartment definitely and now the daily morning and evening routine for changes slightly - not completely, but enough to encounter some "problems".

For example I did not know the exact times when the train passes and how much time the walk to the station exactly takes. Although the train passes every 10 or 15 minutes, when leaving home it can make a great difference because in 10 minutes I can even change the diaper of our baby. Waiting for the train memorizing the times when it passes I noticed that my clock is not in sync with the train clock. That leaded to further recalculation of my time when I have to leave home.

I either noticed that my alarm clock either wasn't in sync - neither with my wrist clock nor with the train clock.

No everything is in sync and the morning routine is less stressy because when using several clocks for reference you might find some time "lost" suddenly and in reality it is due to an out-of-sync clock.

So my tip: Just use ONE reference clock or bring those you use in sync!

Management By Customer

Lately I am involved into a lot completely different businesses while in the move to our new apartment. From discussions with the building enterprise to buying furniture and organizing the conveyance I made a particular experience: Lacks in analysis, organization and management.

In a lot of cases it was necessary that we think of possible problems, locate bottlenecks and ask for solutions or precautions. Nearly every issue needs reminders set by us otherwise people forget about our issues. Unfortunately in a lot of cases it was/is needed that we organize and sometimes to make pressure to get served.

So my impression is that a new management-by technique is going to develop: Management by customer.

Thinking about this I notice that not only managers need management and organization qualifications - no - every secretary, every accounting clerk, even every assembler needs management qualifications.

On the other hand I do notice that companies do invest more money in making their office workflows so easy that even a trained ape can do it. This noticeable reduces the service quality and flexibility of the employees and accordingly affects a complete company.


Why not investing money in the qualification of the employees?

The reason is simple: Employees can leave the company and the investment of the company is lost. A simple workflow remains in the company and a trained ape is working for a banana. Companies invest much money for education of employees only where the knowledge isn't really useful when working for another company. But it can either be possible that companies do not see the importance of management and life hacking knowledge for all of their employees.

So education and training to increase common qualities is or particular knowledge that can be used in a wide area of different businesses is possible only learned if you are doing it on your own. So don't wait until somebody gets you into a course - do it yourself!

Related post: About Management.

How many posts must I write?

I am currently still in move to our new apartment and in addition to that I was one week away for business. I see that I did not write for a long time and now I remember posts on other blogs telling in their blogging tips that on a blog there should be periodical posting to keep the users interested.

I totally disagree with this. I have subscribed to a lot of RSS feeds and I do not have any interest that a specific blog brings a new post every day or every week.

What I expect from a blog: If there is a new post it should be interesting, have "real" content and it should trigger some new thoughts (or remind me on old important thoughts I already forgot).

So dear bloggers: There is no need to sit in front of the computer writing a blog post at 23:50 just because you think that you are supposed to. Sometimes you might see pressure where there is no.

Related posts: Blog post lengths or how to write

Hands full

I already talked about the advantage of putting things in pockets to have your hands free to open doors etc (see Hands free).

Now, as I had to carry a lot of luggage in the last weeks and as I am changing flat in the next weeks I see that a free hand is wasted efficiency. Currently I am living at the third floor without elevator so if I would try to keep a hand free I would have to go double the times up and down. This does not mean that the "hands free" idea is now forgotten - no - I try to put everything into boxes and pockets as much as possible. More, I can put one into the other more "available capacity" still there.

So the "Don't go empty" idea is used in combination but even more:

You can put a backpack on your back and another one on your belly. In addition to that you can hang backs diagonal over your shoulders.

Butt attention: You have to take care that all together is not becoming too heavy. Take this into consideration when planning your way to or from the car. Combine heavy and lightweight things.

When you stoop remember to go down in the knees and not by bending your back!

Related Posts: Hands free, Don't go empty

Work Life Balance

A few years ago I noticed the abbrevation WLB and read about Work Life Balance in a journal. Recently reading other blogs I have the impression that this topic is now discussed more often.

What is work-life-balance? When is the balance achieved? How can you measure it?

When you life in a way that does not increases frustration, decreases motivation and cause your power to exhaust over time - so if your life style can be lived long term keeping the wellness - then you achieved work life balance.

That does not mean that everybody has the same requirements in hours for privacy, sports and work. Although many emphasize the importance of not working too much I find it also important to have a work that fits my strengths and that I can have the feeling of doing something that is worth it. Unemployed people are even less happier. But indeed it is important not to exhaust your power.

Get a feeling for the charge level of your batteries. But keep in mind that the batteries are not only consumed when you work and charged when you sleep. It sometimes can also be the opposite.

Related post: Why not work too much

The time thieves and real news

Especially in (but not limited to) the IT business one get flooded with news and you feel that you can specialize only on a small part of the IT world because the field is so large.

But I am now working more than 12 years in the IT business and especially in the last years I feel especially flooded with new technologies and products. What I find really annoying in the meantime is: It takes me a lot of time to investigating new announcements to discover nothing really new and epoch making. My time is stolen by others managing to get my attention for nothing of real interest.

The worst is that things on the first view seem to be attractive - well that's what products and services should be, but only on a closer look (and often some time intensive investigations and tests - especially in the IT business) you can identify that the product is some sort of "yet another ...".

It is the same with publicity in TV: I usually do not buy the things for which is done most publicity. Why? - Because they are usually not so good. Good things do not need publicity, because people spread the word.

Similar applies to news. There is a lot of low quality news that is just publicity.

Focus by decision

The problem: There is too much to be done or too much information to be processed.
Information overflow is a very present problem and it often comes bundled with the need of more efficiency and more stress. More has to be achieved with less effort and less resources.

The reason: Your scope is too big.
You are working on a too big area or on to many areas. The reason for too much activity on too many fields can be unsureness, forecast uncertainty or an uncompleted analysis phase.

The solution: Make decisions.
Prioritize by selecting a few of your possible goals or the areas that are most interesting or seem most important to you. If you have difficulties in finding decisions keep in mind that a decision does not mean that you never can turn back and go another way. But on the other hand decisions should not be revised every day. To avoid frequent change of decisions and priorities do invest time in a good preparation that allows to make a good decision:

1. Analyze the situation.
2. Extract problem zones.
3. Set priorities.
4. Collect information to get an overview.
5. Evaluate possible solutions, side effects and risks.
6. Let sink in the information.
7. Collect more detailed information where necessary.
8. Calculate effort and costs.
9. Make a decision.

A good prepared decision will be a good decision in long term view and will not be influenced during your all-day-work. This is important because if you are unsure in what you are doing your focus will get easily lost and distractions are welcome to rescue you from your dilemma.

Related posts: Focus by direction, Principles over rules, Direction over goals, Razor sharp focus, Analysis and therapy, New year decisions, Considerations on decisions, Team meeting with yourself.

As it would be the last day

The problem: Sometimes it is difficult to decide about the current priorities.
In your life you are playing a lot of roles, for example lover, father/mother, son/daughter, photographer, co-worker and many other. There are a lot of locations and situations where you come to action. World becomes more complex (at least it seems to - maybe only because there is more information flowing ;-) ) and it seems that there are plenty of things that should be done.

The reason: The overwhelming amount of to-dos, ideas and information.
The mass blocks the view to the main things in life.

The solution: Think of the day as it would be the last from time to time.
Some years ago I read somewhere that one should live every day as it would be the last. I thought about that but I came to the conclusion that this is not adequate because there are several realms in your life that require long term view and planning. For example to evolve strong relationships or if you are going to marry you need to create a feeling of confidence and constancy. Or even in your work for your customers it is important to have continuity and stability. Because of these reasons it is important to make long term plans and do long term thinking. And it also would not be realistic to see every day as the last because in most cases it is not true that the day is your last.

However, some day will be the last or something else big happens (an accident for example) that changes the situation and your abilities drastically and then you might ask yourself if you set the right priorities in your life.

It is adequate to think "as it would be the last day" from time to time. At least when you are not sure about the priorities to set for the next day or next week.

Related post: Between short and long term goals.

Why not work too much

I worked a lot in the past two months. Although I managed a lot by "simply" working longer which definitely could not have been solved using only the normal working times there are several reasons why working very much should really be an exception:

• Working too many hours on and on simply causes more errors.
• Creativity is decreasing with the hours awake without pauses and the days of continued stress.
• View is narrowed with the hours awake and days of continued stress.
• Nervousness is increasing if you do not sleep enough.
• Working too much for too long is an attack at your health.

So to summarize it: Working too hard for too long is shortening your lifetime and decreasing your efficiency. So this should really be an exception in emergency cases.

Respect by attention

The problem: People feel forgotten or treated without respect because you forgot those small favors they asked from you.
I am sure you know it: Your girlfriend/wife/colleague asked you for a little favor and you forgot it although you definitely like them and want to fulfill their requests.

The reason: You are somewhere else with your thoughts and not completely present.
In most cases when you are asked for a little favor you are asked while you have something completely different in mind. And actually your first and only brain wave is that thinking of that favor is not important now.

The solution: Pay full attention when your beloved ask you for a favor and set exclamation marks in your thought.
Bear it in your mind what you are asked for and set a date and time (also in your mind - not only in your calendar). Build memory aids that create links to that to-do. Be present with your mind and soul. Then return to your current work. Only if you really got it you have planned that in your mind to do it.

Related post: The present moment, Show respect to the team, Unattended mode.

This can be used as a weapon

Many years ago I traveled with my family to the USA and we met very nice friends there. They showed us how to play baseball and when leaving they presented us a baseball bat as a gift to carry home. As the bat was too big to put into the normal luggage we went to carry it with us onto the plane. Arrived a stewardess stopped us with the words "this can be used as a weapon" and told us that they will take it and send us by post. Since this it happens sometimes that I remind those words.

Lately I talked to a few people who worry about leaving their footprints somewhere in the web and therefore participate only very few on forums or weblogs. What this has to do with the story above?

Well, in my opinion a lot of things and words can be used as a weapon. And no matter if you are a person getting active or if you stay passive some people could use your behaviour against you.

And on the other hand: A lot of things and words can be used to improve the world and help others. Introducing positive elements is more important than avoiding negative elements.

Let me give an example: If you participate on the web there could be bad guys sending you more spam, hacking your account and post harmful texts in your name or other things producing negative effects. But on the other hand you can use the web to expand your network, find friends, help other people or even get a well-known professional on the web.

Whatever you fear, take into consideration that usually everywhere are risks AND opportunities. Keep in mind that you do not live from avoiding negative but from producing and getting positives - like a good coffee, intensive good work, a pretty woman or a good glass of wine.

Take your choice.

What is reality?

One of the most important things towards a balanced life is to get a realistic view of the world.

Sure, the effect of experiences has a lot to do with how you take it and from your interpretations - but anyway life manifests every day and there are things that exist however you name it.

Today the sun is shining and we went out for a walk. No matter if you like sun or not or whether you like sun in winter and hate it in summer and not matter if "sun" should be named different - if the sun is shining it's shining that's a fact.

There are philosophies or science fiction films that suggest the consideration that everything could also be an illusion only.

But what is the difference between reality and illusion? How to unveil an illusion?

While growing up you get ideas of the world - on how or what reality is. As long as it is only an unproven idea without feedback of the world/nature it is only an idea and not reality.

How to prove:

• See it with your eyes
• Hear it with your ears
• Smell it with your tongue
• Sniff it with your nose
  
• Sense it with your body
• Feel it in your heart
  
• Research it with scientific tools

How to detect illusions:

• If you suffer there might be an illusion the reason for your suffering.
  
• If you find yourself in behaving automatically in some manner and you suffer by the effects you get then it is time to analyze the situation and get a new view.
• If you experience different effects in same environments behaving the same way then there might be a hidden illusion.
• If other subjects suffer less than you then you should start to improve by unveiling illusions.
• Communicate with others.

How to unveil illusions:

• Criticize your current view.
• Search for reasons.
  
• Analyze your motivation.
  
• Search for new aspects.
  
• Analyze the situation.
• Set in relation the situation with the rest of the world.
• Act and experience the results.
  

What all the points above have in common is the opportunity of asking a lot of "Why?"-Questions. Try to find and answer a lot of such questions.

Your whole life can be seen as a journey to truth and reality and don't expect to arrive before you die. But never getting in action and proving the results will not push you towards truth and reality.

Having ideas about rules of nature and the world is an important step to bring you towards truth and reality. While ideas about rules may not be the last step to wisdom it is a useful first step.

Detach facts and risks from fears and from decisions

In the post Michael Jordan’s Guide to Shooting for the Stars at The Positivity Blog I read today:

When you are actually out there, be detached from outcomes.

“I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot . . . when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.”

Well, while in sports it might fit the needs I would take care of applying that rule to the rest of life.

It is good looking at the consequences because all the actions you perform will have their consequences and knowing the consequences before would often lead to other decisions.

Thinking of (possible) consequences does include thinking of negative results. If you think of a failure in general as an opportunity to learn then failure is never considered in a negative way and positive experiences will be the "only" harvesting the fruits of earlier improvements.

When thinking of negative results produces negative feelings and fears then you should separate first the facts then think of the risks. In the next step analyze your fears coming along with thinking of the risks. Last but not least take your decisions when you can have a detached view so that you do not feel so emotionally involved.

GTD - E-Mail Folders or Tags

The problem: You lose a lot of time by reading again and again the same e-mails.
You know the problem that you are browsing through your e-mails looking on which you need to respond or on which you have to do something and while reading a lot of subject lines and opening some mails because you don't remember well what's in it you remember that you already looked at that several times?

I did not know that I have that problem until I knew of the GTD folder sytem and then observing my own behavior and impressions while reading my mail.

The reason: Growing inboxes and the amount of e-mail arriving let you loose the overview.
You looked at your mails only 10 minutes ago and you remember that the second mail in your inbox was important and needs action. Then the phone rang and you gave a short information but now some other mails arrived and you have to search again that important e-mail. Your inbox is a very dynamic thing and to retain the overview is difficult.

The solution: Simple GTD folder system.
Until a few days ago I avoided introducing GTD folders because in my opinion it was too complicated because of too many folders. Then I read that people using simplified systems and so I tried with these:

1. Action ... All the mails that needs an action - so I have to do something
   
2. Waiting ... I am waiting for a response or some action and confirmation of others
   
3. Hold / Reference ... Mails I probably need later when working on the things in the action folder.
4. Later ... Not so important but interesting things I want to look at when is time.
5. Current ... Archive of the current year (subfolder for each client - or project - as it fits better to your business).
6. Archive ... Archive of the older years (subfolder for each year and then for each client - or project). If you are using Outlook you should export the older e-mails should be exported to a PST file on the disk (on your server home drive). If you have a Linux based mail server then usually it doesn't mind and you can keep everything on your server always available (even using the webmail).
   

I actually named them including the number prefix to have them in actually this order.

For every e-mail that needs longer operation I do put an entry to the calender and move the mail to the "Hold / Reference" folder. Only the mails with smaller amount of work for the time "in between" or for the time dedicated to e-mail replying I put into the "Action" folder. This is to prevent double occurrence of to-do items (in action folder and calendar).

So I use the combination of calendar and simplified GTD folder system and to prevent from double "reminders" e-mails with a short work are kept in the action folder and every longer work will be scheduled in the calendar putting the e-mail to the reference folder or copying the text directly to the calendar (archiving the original mail).

Depending on your job you might face different types of e-mail conversations:

• More e-mails producing lesser work
  In this case schedule larger time blocks for "responding to e-mails".
  
  
• Less e-mails producing more work.
  If this is the case then define each e-mail as a single task and schedule a time block for each e-mail.
  
• More e-mails belonging to few "topics", "issues" or "tasks".
  Group them to the tasks or projects where they belong (have appropriate subfolders in your archive folder) - put only the main e-mail that actually triggers the work (e.g. a final confirmation within a longer e-mail thread) to the action folder and the rest to the Hold / Reference folder (or archive them if all the relevant information is already included in the e-mail containing the decision).