Cost of substitution

Don't you sometimes wonder how it is possible that statistics talk about high unemployment rates and at the same time you read in the news that there is a shortage of experts?

Well, there are two reasons for this contradiction:

1. What they don't say in the news: There is a lack of cheap experts. Companies are searching for people who work for a banana and wonder that the only candidates showing up, are apes.
    
2. Companies always try to achieve more with less people. This implies that you need good people because only the best and most efficient workers can achieve more than most of the others. So many workers available but not matching the high performance requirements. But even if the best workers out there achieve more, nobody can run on 150 % for years. So often workers are "consumed" in the long run. You can work at full power and full speed for some months, maybe for a few years, but there are mental impacts and impacts on motivation and health. At the final end when your energy is exhausted you will further be criticized for your decreasing performance. So the already low number of very good people available is also decreased by those who end up with burnout and by those who take their own lifes.

So although there are enough people "available on the market", companies do scorn most of them looking for the best workers only (or for most stupid ones - depending on how you look at it). From the company point of view it even fits the interests when newspapers write about the high employment rates because scared people will ask less money when they apply for a job or stay at even the worst job fearing unemployment. And some of the most efficient and hardest working people may abstain from asking more money.

In our consumer society, employees also tend to be consumed and companies do believe the newspapers when they write of high unemployment rates. They might think that there is enough human resource left, not considering that they cannot fit the high expectations.

But let's assume, a company needs a new worker, what are the required tasks?

• Prepare a job description
• Outsource hunting for appliers or do it on your own
• Make final interviews (or more if you do hunting on your own)
• Prepare contract
• Some other administrative work (preparing clothes, creating user accounts, print business cards, ...)
• Send new employee to courses or have a peer explaining everything
• Accompany employee in the first few weeks (e.g. by introducing to new clients and projects, ...)
• Wait until new employee has adapted to new situations and finaly reaches performance of the previous employee

Depending on how sophisticated the job is, a year or an even longer period might pass by until the old level of quality and efficiency or profitability is reached again. In IT business it is usually a year or two. Always assuming, you find a same quality person again that fits in the team and find it on the first attempt.

Yes, everybody can be replaced somehow, but every replacement required, will cost time and money! To put those costs into effective numbers is difficult and that's why in many cases there is no awereness of the real impact of a staff change ("what cannot be put into numbers, cannot be controlled"...).

Now that we talked about people you can apply this to material, machines, software modules, technologies or structures accordingly.

The best strategy therefore is:

• Choose wisely your workers etc
• Do the required maintenance work (motivation etc)
• Don't consume them

Related posts: Why not multitasking how to, Good heart these days is hard to find, The big difference of the how, How not to eat the frog.

The value of rest and review

I remember a time when my days were less full of action and todos. One habit I had back then was to sit down for about an hour and review the day.

I miss that opportunity to learn each day everything that can be learned from that day. How you look at people when they are telling you something or how you respond; what decisions you take and even what you are ignoring - there is so much that can be improved. But without reflection the chance is so high to make the same mistake a hundred times before even getting aware of a problem.

More than a year of very intensive work has been passed by running at full power and I can't even recall most things that happened.

When running at full speed for too long a few things happen:

• Efficiency and productivity is reduced because
• You get slower
• You get easier distracted
• Getting back to focus gets more difficult
• Frustration about the reduced productivity drags you down even more
• Trying to compensate by drinking more coffee and the like after a while that will just make you nervous but not more productive or simply doesn't work any more.
• Interests drop down sleeping and eating
• Fallback to old well-established core habits
• Health problems
• Headache
• Pain in the back
• Muscle tensions
• Muscle convulsions
• ...

All this makes it quite impossible to grow and instead sooner or later you are exhausted and remain with the brain content of a street dog.

In extreme situations only the habits and philosophies remain that are very well established and implemented.

On the other hand if you have a lot of time and can do everything slowly, you have more control of fine-tuning in everything you do - ranging from your big life-plan (if you have one) to the dialog with the cashier at the local coffee shop. You will be more present and everything will be of better quality. And when you review your day, you can think about situations where you could not get the best out of it and elaborate better approaches. While having enough rest and enough sleep you can even elaborate topics in your dreams.

Related posts: Getting up early and quality, Distractions and sleep, Who cares?, Get focused with 3 questions.

Work intelligently

Today I read this phrase in a marketing sheet:

"Many people work hard...
...the successful ones are the ones who work intelligently."

I phrased it earlier (in the The productivity trap) this way:

"WHAT to do and HOW to do is more important than the amount of things you achieve."

Or again in other words:

"It is not enough to work hard, it is important to work on the right thing in a good way."

An old phrase also says: "Switch on your brain before you do something."

In the last weeks I have seen pretty good examples where people worked hard on solutions where the goal could have been achieved better and easier by thinking simpler and different.

Another phrase says: "It's lonely in the saddle since the horse died."

Related posts: The productivity trap, Dynamic activity, Get focused with 3 questions, Responsibility and decision.

Be united

Lately I observed a larger group of children on a water playground.

Children were pumping water which flew down in a small river to a dam and later to a mill-wheel or the water could take a different way to another pump. To make the mill-wheel move, it was necessary to impound a certain amount of water.

The goal was set (by the children themselves) to make the mill-wheel move by the water. Basically there were 4 points of action:

• Pump water
• Set a switch point to go to other pump or versus the mill-wheel
• dam (open or close)
• Mill-wheel

As we left, the group of children has not been able so far to get the mill-wheel turned by the water.

Major reasons:

1. Uncoordinated action.
2. Several group members following different directives / having different goals.
3. Egoism and greed.
4. Missing patience.

Some wanted the dam to be closed and others wanted to see the water flowing, some wanted to play with the other pump and started to quarrel about how to put the switch. Although one had the great idea to put the switch in the middle so that half of the water went to both sides, there was always somebody who moved the switch trying to get all the water.

Does this remind you to something?

When they are adults, their brains are developed enough to handle more complex situations but the basic behaviour will not change.

In large companies and larger projects you can observe the same as what I described above.

How to get over this:

• Have clear responsibilities. The less people working on the same thing the better.
• Split into smaller groups/teams where continuous alignment of directives and goals is possible.
• The character and philosophy of the people working together, is important because their personal goals derive from that. So discuss strategies to get a team where everybody is convinced about the decisions.
• In the long-run you should satisfy the need of all parties/customers/partners, so they can trust you to solve their issues. That is the challenge of a team leader...
• Withdraw stress wherever possible. The stressed person will concentrate on self and develop egoistic inner directives.

Related posts: Replace constraint with freedom, Show respect to the team.

Prudential innovation

Very busy times for me - I have started a new job at another company. After 13 years at the same company I feel quite uncomfortable now - I am used to know all the internal workflows and this brings us to the topic:

People are often trying to avoid changes and usually this is seen negative as missing flexibility. I do consider myself of being flexible, but I do feel inner resistance to some elements of my new job. Analyzing the situation I find that this resistance has a simple reason: Some things worked better and more efficient the way I did it before. Not everything that is new, is better. But on the other hand, there are pretty reasons why things are done in other ways at other places.

Different companies have different focus, different countries have different cultures, different craftsmen need different tools, different software has different flaws, ... - and people need to adapt with their thinking, with their decisions and with their way of working.

However, there is always potential for improvement and wherever you go, keep in mind, that your input - the input of the new person with new ideas is very important. The big mistake is, if you judge everything new being wrong or done in a stupid way. If you act this way you will get negative responses and road blocks wherever you turn.

Before you change things you need to investigate in detail why the things are done currently the way they are done! There might be pretty good reasons!

Then, when you have analyzed the situation - then is the point to discuss evaluate possible alternatives and discuss this with the right people. A single person can improve to a certain level, but a complete team getting better and better by collaborating - that is real power.

Related posts: People and information, The big difference of the How, Transferable know-how, See you again.

Know your options

I had a discussion this evening whether it is always good to tell everything or to always offer help.

The strongest argument against was, that you can cause people getting hurt - telling the truth or imposing help on somebody who is not ready, can cause emotional suffering.

I remember, that my grandma told me about big lies that have been told in the family during the war to reduce emotional suffering. I have also experienced some lies being told or some details were hold back during my childhood - to avoid unnecessary worries.

On the other hand, missing some - maybe important - details may lead me setting completely different priorities. I agree in the way that nobody should be urged to take your orders.

But: You should people offer your helping hand - people should know their options! And there is no obligation to deliver - so being on the other side, get the available information to know your options!

Building know-how, finding contacts and partners, collecting your own experience - this all helps in getting a more complete view of the situation and the possibilities you can choose from.

Related post: Knowledge is freedom, Total cost of commitment.

Minimum effort

I remember that my most creative times were when I had much time available for thinking, trying something out and philosophying about the future and experiences from the past (BTW: these were the days prior to having a family and especially those times where the relationship with my wife was a long-distance relationship because I had plenty of "free" time I could dedicate to my work ;-) ). Later on, when I was already married it happened that I had to travel a lot in car with colleagues. The communication / discussions we had there also lead to a lot of creative solutions.

These times are definitely gone for me. There is productivity pressure. More has to be achieved with less effort/time/money. And I can see similar at a lot of other places. People want to make more cash with less effort or people want to get more for less money.

One thing I wonder is, why pressure is not just happening due to bad planning but also continously used as a strategy to get the most out of the working crew. I already wrote about parkinson's law several times what I think of it - basically causing impact on quality. The only positive aspect that probably has been the original intention is to cause productivity optimization in the way that the workers find the easiest implementable solution that shows the biggest effect.

But guess what: Working always with the minimum possible effort in mind, you can't achieve really outstanding and big success. I don't mean that for each step in a big project you shouldn't search for the most efficient way to solve the problem. Applying this principle to a project as a whole you end up finding the easiest and not the best solution - and there might be a huge difference in the overall benefit and even in the return of investment. I think, when building the pyramids, they didn't thought of the easiest solution but for the best quality solution.

And with trying only the quickest and easiest approaches companies either might not win big advantages over competitive vendors...

Related posts: Parkinson's law and quality, High quality needs time, Economy forecast, Urging to forge at full speed.

Productivity limits

In the last weeks I have worked at 100% - I have slept not more than 3 to 5 hours but needed to fully concentrate during the day and nights. In between I was on full speed handling children or parts or other work in the household or somehow related. - A reason why I did not post here for a while.

This works for some weeks but then it comes to an end. The last days it was already very difficult to concentrate and be productive. Fortunately I had a deadline to be kept so I did know exactly how long my energy must last.

So my important advice for employees: If you need to work extra hours, make sure that it is for a limited time only. Know the goal, mission and see the end. Example: If a colleague has left the company and your boss is not going to fill the gap expecting you to do the work from now on working more then this is not such a situation (assuming that your normal work is not reduced at the same time)! - Effect: You will loose power and at the final end although working more hours your boss will complain about less productivity.

Important advice for companies: Know, that your employees have not everlasting batteries. Massive extra hours should be reserved for emergency! This should not be a normal situation! The power of your employees will get less and hence productivity, creativity and they/you will have no more flexibility to adapt in emergency cases. Even if you try to hide it, somehow your customer will notice due to reduced quality, slower response times etc.

Related posts: Parkinson's law and quality, Stop the service, Reduce the stress factors.

The productivity trap

The problem: Attempts to increase productivity and efficiency finally do not bring the big success.
When starting or pushing your personal development, strategies to increase productivity and efficiency are usually some essential parts. While it is important to find out where you waste time something is missing.

The reason: It is not the amount of work or the amount of results that counts.
It is not the amount (however you are trying to get your results into numbers) and neither the quality of the results that make things or people successful. Some people seem to do just one thing and have success.

The solution: WHAT to do and HOW to do is more important than the amount of things you achieve.
Imagine a person working hard to develop a new method to produce candles more efficiently and then the electric light bulb is invented and the candle sales go down drastically. This is the reason why industrial spying is undertaken by companies for example (at least I think this is a major reason). Because it is extremely important that you are doing the right things the right way!

And this means:

1. Do good analysis
2. Decide wisely on what to do
   
3. Do it the right way (in the means of how it creates the best benefit for the user/customer)

Related posts: Razor sharp focus, Dynamic activity, Speed, High quality needs time, Get focused with 3 questions.

Knowledge is Freedom

You might have noticed that I currently do less posts on this blog lately. This is not due to less interest or that I don't have opportunities to learn general lessons of life. - The reason is: I am in a heavy upgrade of my knowledge in the branch of my main profession - the IT.

In relation to that I want to point out some general important considerations:

1. Knowledge is creating/increasing job security!
   In a downturn many people fear to get laid off. People with a high level of knowledge simply have a higher value for a company (if the knowledge is not just focused in a very limited area - although even this can make sense).
   
   
2. Knowledge is creating more options!
   Expanding your knowledge is opening your mind to other - new - things in general. Especially when gathering knowledge in other (completely) new areas you get a more complete view of the world. You begin to see more and more options: More options to solve a single problem, more job opportunities, more benefits and even risks - that all helps you to find your way in life that fits best for you.
   
   
3. Knowledge is boosting creativity and efficiency!
   Especially when you get more knowledge in very different areas of life you are increasing your creativity because of the linking of different approaches taken in different branches or areas. For instance physicians often look at biology to find more efficient solutions in their realm. By getting more creative you also find better options for using your time efficiently.

There are some side effects of knowing much that you may like, such as:

• When learning you have the opportunity to get in touch with other people.
• Your opinion is appreciated when people begin to notice that you know much.
• You get more self-esteem and feel more inner security.
  

Some of the challenges are:

1. Work-Life-Balance
   To get more knowledge often implies that you have to gather that outside of your daily job - in the evenings, nights or early mornings. While the family can often understand that for a while, you most likely get into trouble, if it gets usual that you spend your spare time more working than dedicating to your family.
   
   
2. Overwhelming amount of knowledge
   The more you know the more you get aware how tiny your knowledge is. There is not enough time to gather and learn all available knowledge (not talking about the not-yet-available knowledge). So: You have to choose wisely what to learn to not waste your time!
   
   
3. Efficiency in learning
   There are several different approaches to learn something new: Read books, ask experts (coaching), take courses, play around and try (experiment), ...
   Attending a course is not always the wisest choice, especially if you want to offer a unique service or product as a follow-up. In many cases, if you want to be at the frontline of some new technology or movement there is either not much offer in courses or books.

Related posts: The most important things to know, Transferable know-how, Hunting for degrees, Information overflow, Show respect to the team, What to learn from the Borg, Biggest worries, Needs and meaning, Know your options.

Speed

Imagine the situation: There is a dog dropping. A women is approaching in bicycle and in the hand holding even a plant. She does not notice the waste and drives right through.

I walked slowly instead and noticed it long before.

What to learn from this?

Beware of your speed! - Whatever you do, whatever decisions you are about to take, keep in mind that being too fast is a bad idea - it drives you right through the mess!

Taking decisions too fast without watching and evaluating the situation or operating too fast reduces the quality of your output. Take into consideration that with every mess that you produce you are not only failing to achieve the goal, you are creating additional work for you - needed to clear up the mess.

Again I do remember what the doctor told me:

Nobody is dying within 60 seconds. You always have at least 60 seconds for analyzing the situation doing nothing. (There might be some exceptions, e.g. when a very lot of blood is extruding around.)

When the patient has got a medicine in a dose somewhat too high trying to get back equilibrium might be difficult.

Should this not be enough to calm us down?

Related posts: Slowing down, Transferable know-how, Reduce the stress factors, How to instantly change a habit, The productivity trap.

Analysis and therapy

Whenever I face a new project or a new environment I usually do a lot of analysis, investigation and exploration. This is of course not a bad idea - I mentioned the importance of analysis in several other posts already.

Lately my father was in hospital and they did a lot of exams. But from a particular doctor I learned that a particular test/analysis/exam only makes sense in two circumstances:

• When there is a therapy indicated on a positive or negative result.
• When there is scientific interest in knowing that detailed information.

This is a good rule to avoid exaggeration of analysis.

And you can widen this idea in the way that it does not make sense thinking of something if there is no consequence whatever the result is. Keeping this in mind frees you from a lot of "spam thoughts" and reduces your "information overflow".

Related posts: Spam thoughts, Think yourself, Detect the weak point, Focus by decision, Information overflow, Will to change is not enough, The benefit of planning, Early intervention.

Razor sharp focus

While the economy is undergoing essential changes - which by the way seems to be necessary for this world - you also might want to realign some core elements in your life.

The problem: You are unsure about directions and tend to be undecided.
Especially when many parameters in the environment are unsure many people tend trying to do "business as usual", to follow known rules and well prepared paths. But many of the well known paths and proven strategies now even do not seem a really good choice. What then often happens is that people do switch priorities and goals very often - try this and that and be erratic in their behavior.

The reason: You are full of worries and slightly entering panic mode.
Over the years many things adjusted to each other somehow (more or less automatically). Bigger changes in the environment now do disturb the balance in a significant way. Arising fears are a natural effect. But you should deal with them properly.

The solution: Get informed, dedicate to creativity and evaluation of new ways, choose and focus.

• Analysis
  Open your eyes and look around - get informed about what is going on around you.
• Creativity and Evaluation
  Take yourself time to excavate your creativity, evaluate possible solutions and new ways.
• Choose and focus
  Choose between your alternatives, choose a few important new goals and priorities - this might not be always clear from the arguments. In case of doubt follow your inner voice - your gut feeling.
  Then focus on the very few important new goals and priorities. Command yourself with the words "Razor sharp focus!".
  To have all your priorities served remember to give enough time to each and be patient with step-by-step improvements. Don't expect the fast and big success - "Constant And Never-ending Improvement" is the wise way.
  What then happens while on your way is that you will get critics - this is natural and there might be new arguments, but if you did the analysis and evaluation right then you can be sure that a few critical words of others are not really a reason to change your decisions!

Related posts: Information Overflow, Focus by decision, Focus by direction, Know better and act on it, Total cost of commitment, Time bandits, Why not multitasking how to, Slowing down, New year decisions, The productivity trap, The golden rule, Team meeting with yourself.

Total cost of commitment

The problem: Available time for new projects is very short.
Although you already invested a lot of effort into strategies to improve productivity, you still have not really much time free for your new ideas or new projects.

The reason: Maintenance work
Our life is full of things created during the progress of mankind. Many very helpful tools have been created, but also many "toys". And we are not limited to things. Because of the progress in IT keeping contact with many people also is possible in a size that never has been possible before (talking about social networking). I lately got back in contact with many old class mates and I would like to meet them all re-vitalizing the relationship. In addition to that I have set several goals during self development and I do play several roles - in the job as well as for my family and friends.

But there is a lot of "maintenance effort" needed to keep everything we use, every relationship and every service "up and running". Many people have their daily life filled up with maintenance tasks.

The solution: Reduce your commitments and life goals - unclutter your life - get less done.
While optimizing your life and finding out that you can get more things done when you start really optimizing, you might tend to set too many goals while creating your life plan and living your dreams. Together with a lot of existing stuff to be managed this may eat more time than available.

Many things, once started, eat up a certain amount of maintenance time/money (even if you are "just" a blogger - there is maintenance work answering comments or searching for advertising options etc.). To start living a big dream might come along with the fact that you have less time left dedicated to your family and friends (just to give an example).

The day has only 24 hours, you can't fill in everything and in the highest quality.
Set only a few clear major priorities/goals and declutter your life accordingly.

Keep in mind, that it is more important to be happy than to achieve something great!

At the end it is important that you enjoyed your life and leave with clear conscience rather than having your name be remembered for a long time after your death.

Review your current life with the appropriate services you are using and providing looking at all the related work that comes along with those. Often it is not easy to identify the whole related maintenance work for a particular thing or service because not occurring in a bunch.

So carefully log or analyze the tasks and time needed to keep your things and services up and running. Put them in relation to the outcome for you. You might find out that several services are not worth it for you. This applies also for every goal and every commitment you have set or taken.

Related posts: Crying for attention, Slowing down, How to be happy, Know better and act on it, Razor sharp focus, The family, Know your options.

When to strictly avoid multitasking

The problem: Mistakes and errors caused by multitasking
Multitasking often results in mistakes and errors as you forget about a task while occupied with another or because because you get in time trouble and hurry because you loose too much time switching tasks (overhead).

The reason: While multitasking your attention to the single task is reduced.
Often longer lasting tasks involve long waiting times. Although many life hackers warn about multitasking and recommend to avoid it, there are some tasks that continuously ask for multitasking because they are simply very time consuming while not needing the full attention or come along with long waiting times between several actions.

The solution: Only multitask jobs that come to a proper end themselves.
When analyzing my multitasking behavior and the cases where problems occur due to multitasking habit I found out that safe multitasking can only be done for tasks that can be checked at whatever time if they came to a proper end. An important thing is that when multitasking the multiple jobs should not run on same priority. There should be only one active task that has your full attention. Other tasks - those that safely can come to a proper end left on their own - should run as "background task".

Samples for tasks that can be safely run in background:

• Washing clothes (Washing maschine)
• Copying files on your computer, burning CDs/DVDs, ...
• Filling your tank at the gas station (usually can be fixed and it quits automatically when the tank is full)
  

Samples of tasks that should NOT be run in background:

• Cooking
  Why not: If you watch the milk to boil it will boil in the moment you look out of the windows.
  
  
• Filling a big bucket of water (inside house)
  Why not: When you forget about the tasks the water runs out on the floor
  
  
• Handling less important phone calls.
  Why not: Even if your mom talks long about something very unimportant the subject might change and suddenly something important is said.

The point is that you should only run tasks in background that you can safely forget about.

Related posts: Why not multitasking how to, Reduce the stress factors.

Crying for attention

After reading some articles on the net the first days this year I gave up the hope for the rest of the year that quality of news and articles get any better. The first days of the year began worse than ever with subject lines trying to get my attention and while reading the appropriate article I left the site disappointed and full of anger because the headlines where near completely exaggerated if not wrong (in the way that it either didn't match the article's content). I lost a lot of time reading completely unnecessary stuff....

The problem: Everything and everyone is trying to get your attention.
Companies, products, problems, groups, persons, ... - everything is crying for attention. Look here, look there, you must read, watch or have this and that.

The reason: You are a potential customer and you should be motivated to buy and consume products, services and information.
We are often annoyed by advertisments or by the behaviour of salesman when they are trying to catch our attention and get us as customers and often we see a company or a system as the annoying element. But there are people behind trying to earn money. It is the same as in a room where a group of people talk. The noise gets louder and louder because everybody needs to increase the volume to get heard. The advertising "volume" and amount increases with the time. But why can't we simply ignore all that stuff? - Because "Knowledge is Power"! Knowing the important things pushes you in a better situation in general. You have more control, save and earn more money, be happier - in general you be more successful having more of the important knowledge. This is the reason why we don't reduce information intake drastically. And the problem is that what shouts loudest is not always the most important.

The solution: Improve your ability to focus and the ability to ignore what does not matter.
Easy said, hard work to be implemented - and I can only give you some considerations that hopefully help you sorting the things out. So think of the following before starting your information intake:

• Is this really new to me?
  Often we read something that we already have considered to be this way. Reading what we ever thought to be this way is confirmation of our considerations and we love that. So ask yourself if you really need so much confirmation from outside about your own opinions or considerations.
  
  
• Can this have the potential to change my life?
  Think whether this book, article, advertisement has really the potential to change your life. Ask yourself consciously: Is it very probable that this information changes my life?
  
  
• Who could be behind pushing that information and what could be his intention?
  The same information can be provided in very different words and manners. It usually depends on the author and his intentions how information is prepared and manipulated. So the question about the author and his intention can be of relevance for the reliability/quality and the importance of the information.
  
  
• Watch your needs and then the market.
  Often information is brought to you to make you consume something you might not have known that you needed it. Don't watch products and find their importance for you, instead you should do it the other way round: Focus on your needs and search for solutions/products/services that could help you achieving your goals or improving your life quality.
  
  
• Information can be wrong!
  Don't rely too much on information in general. Just because some economy analyst is saying that economy is bad should not cause you to get in panic about loosing your job. Such an information can already be wrong because the parameters used for measuring economy could be theoretically a good indicator but mismatching practical experiences in the real world (See "The mismatch problem"). Especially information about the future should also be considered as "nice thoughts" only. And there are either authors knowingly producing wrong information to misslead you.
  
  
• You are always missing information.
  When searching for information (e.g. while comparing different products or services or when you worry about current politics or economic changes in progress) you should give up the desire to know everything. There is always some doubt remaining. This should not mean that you shouldn't search and read information. But after you collected a certain amount of knowledge about the issue, consider to stop when it doesn't make more sense getting more information.
  
  
• Rely on "common sense".
  Often relying on your intuition and common sense leads to a good decision without the need of reading a bulk of information. So the cost performance ratio is often much better if you just rely on common sense. So before you go to research for making a decision think if research is really convenient.
  
  
• Ignore articles with crazy titles.
  My experience is that those articles with the most crazy title do have the most unnecessary content. Maybe because without the crazy title nobody would read it. I am glad that those authors help me identifying unnecessary information by giving crazy titles. Here an example from today's science news (freely translated): "Mistaking apes are humanly" or another from an english IT news channel: "Buddha Machine Wall Plays Relaxing Ambient-Loops".
  

Before you start consuming:

• Search for hidden costs.
  When you read or hear about special offers then keep in mind that there are usually some hidden costs that are not mentioned in the advertisements. Advertisements usually exaggerate the efficiency as well as the economical factor of the product or service. And sometimes they are very hard on the limit to be a straight lie.
  
  
• Consider the total cost of ownership (TOC) of the product or service.
  Even free services can produce costs - not necessarily "just" money. Even if you consume free services maybe on the internet there is some maintenance effort coming along (regular password changes, dealing with several notification mails, keeping profile data up-to-date and so on).
  
  
• Will this make me more happy than just hanging around relaxing?
  Has this product or service really have the potential to make me more happy instead of just doing nothing? Doing nothing and just relax and enjoy the present moment can make very satisfied and happy. Don't underestimate this (see "In the present moment").
  
  
• What other activities are dropped when consuming this product or service?
  Consuming itself consumes time - time that can't be created from nothing. Instead your time and attention is moved from something else to the new point of interest. Choose consciously what to drop and if. Maybe buying and playing the new computer game drags your attention away from your family. Consider carefully if you really want that.
  

Related posts: The mismatch problem, Spam thoughts, Who cares?, Information overflow, In the present moment, Get focused with 3 questions, Total cost of commitment.

Between GTD and GHE

While optimizing my life with GTD (and other) principles, I asked myself lately the questions introduced with my earlier post "Get focused with 3 questions". While the second one does not really makes sense when the main goal is to optimize time management, the other two make sense: "What for?" and "Who cares?"

Optimizing my life is just a means to an end, it's just helpful principles - but helpful for what? Just for getting more done, just to fill up your life with more content so that you can think at the and that you had very much done in your life? - That sounds silly for me because in more or less years we are all forgotten. There are only a very few people who manage it to be remembered even a long time after their death (like Gandhi or Einstein). And I believe that their main goal was to serve the world instead of being remembered.

However, I came to the conclusion that from now on I will focus more on happiness than on optimizing my life as I was already facing the fact that GTD somehow got ended in itself with no higher goal in mind (any more).

So to have another 3-character abbreviation (nowadays nothing can live without a cool abbreviation ;-) ), I decided to name it GHE - Getting Happiness Established. First I was thinking of GHD, but "Getting Happiness Done" does not seem to fit here. ;-)

Working on GHE brings up sense for GTD again because there is a lot of things that is far from being fun (at least sometimes) - toilet and kitchen cleaning, buy food, ironing, change diapers - just to mention a few. There can also be problems or tasks in your office that are far from being fun but must get done, simply to keep your life "up and running". It is not always possible to do a work that perfectly fits your (current) desires but you need work to pay your bills. Otherwise the situation of singing happily under the warm shower in your well heated flat while outside cold winter wind blows cannot be established.

Not everything can be turned into fun - or in other words, happiness cannot always be established - talking from the practical view and not from the theoretical. In those situations or times where you have difficulties to get happiness established then use GTD principles to get rid of those tasks or situations ASAP (yet another abbreviation - standing for As Soon As Possible).

If your life sucks completely then use GTD principles to win just a few minutes or an hour for your personal use to do or feel something that makes you happy. A few minutes of happiness can be worth a lot of suffering.

I do read much about happiness is just a decision. I think returning to the present moment is an important required step after you decided to be happy. And with some exercise you might even be happy while getting rid of unwanted tasks using GTD (and related) principles.

Related posts: Get focused with 3 questions, Highly happy people, All Done Status, Who cares?, In the present moment, How to be happy, Between short and long term goals, The main purpose, How to rebuff somebody, 2 major mistakes, Your situation does not suck.

One-Way Ticket

While moving through your life you face several opportunities and in every situation you have a lot of choices. Often you want to leave choices open as long as possible.

Comparing a situation with a room you may see many open doors but you don't know what will happen when you go through. Those doors may be labeled and colored in a very attracting way and you feel hard to choose.

What then happens often is that you want to just do a few steps through at least the most attracting doors, lurking at what is in there (for you). You want to keep the opportunity to take another door. When you look back in the room you were in, you want the other doors to be kept open.

But the truth is, that the doors are not static, they do open and close dynamically. Depending on the situations doors may open and close slower or faster. I do think for instance for business strategies doors are opening and closing in weekly or monthly rhythms while during an emergency in the hospital it might be seconds. So you are not in static rooms, you are on a dynamic journey hoping on and off trains or planes.

Once you decided hoping on a train it does not make sense to jump off in the wildness between two stations. And you cannot expect that returning to the last station you will find the same opportunities you faced before.

And you cannot tell what would have happened if you would have taken another door or train because situations change and you may never face the same set of opportunities again. On the other hand when you move on you might arrive at points where you also would have arrived taking other paths. However, you never can really be sure how it would have been taking other routes.

What to learn is:

1. Evaluate the opportunities (have a look which doors are open) and take yourself the appropriate time (depending on the speed the doors are opening and closing).
2. Take a decision
3. Don't waste time in trying to figure out if it wouldn't have been better taking another door/train/route because you cannot reproduce older situations.

Life is a one-way ticket!

Choo choo train
Tuckin' down the track
Gotta travel on it
Never comin' back
...

Related posts: Decision planning, Direction over goals, 2 major mistakes, Getting older.

KISS

Today two short posts were planned instead of a single longer one. And then I remembered a post at The Positivity Blog: Would You Like To Be a Guest Blogger?

It says that a guest post has to be at least 800 words. So I first felt it could be bad quality by writing only a short post. But thinking of it and remembering several things I learned I will stick to my original plan and the reason is the KISS-Principle - as nothing should be "implemented" (in the widest possible meaning) with more than necessary (but even not with less).

What does the K.I.S.S. principle mean? Here are several interpretations:

• Keep it simple, stupid.
• Keep it simple and stupid.
• Keep it small and simple.
• Keep it sweet and simple.
• Keep it simple and straightforward.
• Keep it short and simple.
• Keep it simple and smart.
• Keep it strictly simple.
• Keep it speckless and sane.
• Keep it sober and significant.

Related post: Who cares?

Urging to forge at full speed

The problem: You feel pressure to get things done and be successful.
In our civilization speed is a fast growing hype. Either people are producing pressure on their own or get pressure from outside - or both. Speed is fun, speed is sexy, time is money - use it or loose it. Being on speed is the default mode for many people. Speed is everywhere in our life, from speed reading to speed dating.

The reason: Fear of going to rack and ruin, fear of (personal) economical crash.
Our anxiety to fall behind, being not interesting any more, being not attractive any more for the job market or for social groups and friends, drives us to full speed.

The solution: Slow down and either stop to get a distant and detached - more realistic - view.
Just stop, step back and look around to get a more complete view of the situation and world (as a painter steps back to see his painting from the distance checking the general impression the painting offers).

Take a serious look at the whole. Try living on full speed for a while and then remember your days when you were younger and had plenty of time to build a Lego house for instance. And try retreating for something you want to do with a bigger piece of time (writing a nice computer program, self development, ...). You will experience that

• it is not enough doing things right, it is also important to do the right things,
• there is a big difference in quality of output if you had enough time achieving it,
• you feel healthier and feel more being an integrated part of the world (hence being happier),
• others feel more comfortable and relaxed, staying with you,
• you notice more details of the world around you which can be the source of creativity.

Being at full speed all the time inexorably leads to a crash. It narrows your view and your options. You will react in panic and do aimless quick shots rather than taking coordinated and target-oriented decisions and actions. This will create a spiral producing more fear and panic and more quick shots.

For many, being on full speed for many is a distraction from dealing with major questions or problems in life. So the paradox situation can be that one who is on full speed is a procrastinator in reality.

Here are some related videos:

• Carl Honore: Slowing down in a world built for speed (19:14)
  
• Eckhart Tolle - “Can I be the Space for this?” - Part I (03:15)
• Eckhart Tolle - “Can I be the Space for this?” - Part II (05:53)

Unfortunately being slow is tagged with being stupid and unmotivated. Slow is not always good, but slow can be good. Discover the tortoise mode - don't be on speed as a default mode!

When will I learn to slow down...

Related posts: The state of mind matters, In the present moment, You can't urge the river flowing, Why investing enough time rules, Parkinson's law and quality, Reduce the stress factors, Productivity spiral, Dynamic activity, Hurry home ... no more running, How to be happy, Slowing down, Minimum effort, Getting older.