Take care of you

While trying to develop peace in mind and further peace in relationships, at work and so on, there are those situations where we are loosing patience and get wild.

I have read a related post a few days ago: Are 'Difficult' People Really Difficult?

Are they pushing your buttons — or are you doing it to yourself?

There’s no question that in most every organization (plus home and anywhere else we spend time), we come face to face with folks who push our buttons, antagonize, frustrate, or otherwise annoy us. People who behave in ways that make us want to scream. They’re commonly referred to as ‘difficult’. Some we simply label irritating; some we label rude and some we label “impossible to work or be with”.

This evening I have experienced a set of cases where I honestly cannot put the blame neither on somebody else nor on me. Our power is limited and sometimes we have not any more left, to deal properly with a situation that is difficult for us. - I am talking about difficult situations and not about difficult people! The Dalai Lama says - forces should never be used against a creature in general, only against violent actions - see "An eye for an eye".

When we are balanced and in good mood we have extra energy to absorb bad mood of others or we can develop compassion to support others while they are suffering.

When our power is exhausting then we are the ones others must absorb.

Difficult people are not difficult themselves in their being. They are just full of sufferings and they need help to get out. Depending on our own sufferings and the power left other people's sufferings can cause excessive demand exceeding our capacities.

And it is not limited to particular people - there are several situations which can cause the same effects described at the beginning.

So you should not think of finding somebody guilty for what happens to you - not you and not others. What you should do: Take care of you!

When you get exhausted because of too much work, few sleep, too many interrupts and so on you will get aggressive (apart from the fact that you will get also ill in the long run)!

Only a rested and fresh person can tackle problems and get things done efficiently!

Saying that I can see being late another time... :-(

Related post: An eye for an eye, Getting older.

Information Overflow

The problem: Information overflow.
Information overflow is an intensively discussed topic and many bloggers are giving great help in their posts how to reduce information overflow and deal with it. As I always try to find the root problem I was thinking about the reasons.

Then I stumbled upon an interview that David Allen gave on FastCompany.tv regarding GTD - see the video here. He mentions that it is not information overflow, it is "potential meaning overflow" what is the problem.

Well, I think he is right - but he made me thinking more about this. A few days ago I got an e-mail with the subject "Error starting program ..." and I knew that there was not only potential meaning in this. - There was potential work for me in this! - And either as there was no doubt that I have to figure out what the problem is in that case it was not only potential work - it was work, definitely.

So I was about to replace "potential meaning overflow" with "work overflow" when I noticed an IT news article. As IT changes so fast that it can happen that as soon as you start working on a piece of software there is already new technology and you should start all over using the newer technology. So the information can be relevant for your decisions. Regarding the e-mail mentioned above it was relevant to my other planning. As it is not only important to do things right but also to do the right things, sufficient information is required. So incoming information has "potential influence" - on your decisions, on your workload.

So I was about to replace "work overflow" with "potential influence overflow" when I remembered that the original problem I wanted to write about was "information overflow". I noticed that if I wouldn't have read my e-mail and if I wouldn't have read the news then I wouldn't have experienced any problem (therefore I kept the post title as it is ;-) ). And this is what most other people recommend when experiencing information overflow: Reduce your information intake.

But hell, I can't just overlook tons of informations that could change my life. What, if I am on the wrong way? - I think any of you already desired to be young again keeping the knowledge and experience you got when you are older. I think I would have made a lot of things completely different - maybe not from the long-term goals and alignment - but in the daily life I would deal with several problems completely different. So Information is important and actually there is an information underflow and not overflow (this is by the way also what David Allen says), because there is not only information but also information on the information - for instance the relevance of the information. And depending on the relevance it can have appropriate influence on our decisions and either life plans. What, if Randy Pausch did not know about his disease? Only because of the information about his cancer and about the approximately remaining time (which was initially estimated between 3 and 6 months of good health) he was able to adjust his alignment accordingly.


The reason: Potential relevance of information for survival strategies.
Our daily life is full of potential opportunities as well as potential risks. Our decisions "handle" them based on the information we have. Most of our decisions highly depend on the information they are based on. Our preferences, goals and priorities do also have influence but they are just applied to the information we have. And they are influenced by the information we have. Our complete view of the world is based on the information we have (we could rather still think that the world is flat without the according information). If I didn't know that there are computers I barely would have decided to become a software developer. ;-) - And if I would have known earlier that sitting all the time in front of the computer can have big impacts on health I would have started training earlier.

So it is the potential opportunities and potential risks that drives us taking action and the potential relevance of information makes us collecting information. There wouldn't be that large amount of information if it would not have any relevance. Every knowledge of any type can help being more creative in finding solutions on a completely other type of problems. This makes it either more interesting looking left and right also to completely different areas and domains of life and science.

We could have very different kind of goals and so information could have very different meaning and relevance, so what can be generally said? - Well, at the end there are two kind of goals I think:

1. Goals that give our life more content, more sense.
2. Goals that - achieved - promise a longer life.

But the rush for information, the importance that we give to information, let me think more of the general desire to survive or fear of "not making it" as the intention behind it rather than living a life of satisfaction and happiness.

There are a lot of people living on this planet and the population is still increasing. It is clear that not everyone can survive when the limits are reached. So I can understand people's fears. I cannot avoid thinking of the dinosaurs in comparison to humans. What, if in those times it was just increasing the probability to survive if the creature was a little bigger? - I imagine that a rush in size could cause exhausting of the world resources and hence to the extinction of the dinosaurs. - I don't have any scientific proof for this theory. The phrase "size matters" can have two meanings here... ;-) - However, I can see similar patterns in development of human beings, just the definition of "size" is different.


The solution: Look at the costs, quality of information and the relevance in the long run and use time management methods to manage information.
Intake of information is not only benefit, it does also cost something: It costs time and brain resources - and sometimes also money (buying books for instance). Here I remember again the many other bloggers that say: "Reduce your information intake". ;-) - And I think they are right. The problem is to decide what information is really important and learn to decide quickly. It is also a matter of focus to reduce the amount of information you really take into consideration and process. Focus on what really matters!

Before looking back to information itself, let's have a short look on the role of information regarding the desire of survival. There are also other factors relevant here:

• Physical power (Health and strength)
• Intelligence
• Substantial resources
• Financial resources
• Tools (either material tools or mental tools and methods)
• Flexibility
• Allies (mentors, friends, partners, family and other helpers)
• Entourage / Leaders (depending if want to lead self or prefer to "escort" others)
• Speed
• Derivation / Karma (if you believe in Karma)
• Accident
• Information, Knowledge and Experience (last but not least)

Information can be an important factor - but information is not the only factor to success! This important fact reduces the relevance of information in general. The right information can help improving the other factors, but the major part to improve the performance on the factors mentioned above is hard work!

Now, when we look back at the information in detail we can see that the relevance of information depends on it's quality - and here are a few factors:

• Reliability (of the information source)
• Accuracy (scientifically proofed or just opinions)
• Timeliness (actual information, late information or future prediction)
• Costs (time and money needed for you to get benefit from the information)
• Relevancy (for your goals, priorities and preferences)

Evaluate the quality of information regarding the factors above and then decide what informations not to consider and which to process. Remember that there can be a whole bunch of information (e.g. a specific news channel) that - as a whole - can cause too much costs to keep reading (if only one out of 30 articles contains really new information for instance).

Depending on your current life stage and current requirements some information can be more relevant than other. Do not consider everything important at the same time - so do not set the focus on too many things within a single year/month/week/day. There might be times when you focus on education and times when you focus on your work or on your family. And there might be a week with focus of optimizing investment and another focusing on your hobby.

You can deal with information arrival as with emotions while in mediation. Just salute them and let them pass. See "There is suffering" for details. Welcome every information but this does not necessarily means that you need to deal with it.

When selecting relevant information think more on the long run than on actual hypes and things of temporary interest. If you change your focus with any new incoming information you will barely bring anything to an end. Prefer the better and lasting solutions against the quick fixes. But also remember that it is better to put a towel on a bleeding wound than searching too long for a better solution. A good solution that is established is better than a perfect one that never gets realized.

I find that several methods useful for time management can also be applied for selection of information intake:

• ABC analysis
• 80/20 Rule (Pareto principle)
• Eisenhower method (when doing research)
• ...

And remember that not every new information is really new. Some of the repetitive information can be useful if it reminds you on important things you keep forgetting but a lot of information is just repackaged old stuff.

And before you begin to take action because of some new information take a moment to think if the new thing is really promising an improvement - because change is only movement - not necessarily in a better direction or to a better future.

Related posts: Hard exercise, There is suffering, Change hype, Setting borderlines, Crying for attention, Tell not more and not less, Razor sharp focus, Analysis and therapy, Knowledge is freedom, Direction over goals, Principles over rules,New year decisions, People and Information, Prejudice vs economization, Team meeting with yourself.

Plan to get fear done

The problem: Worries are escorting your daily life.
Often, when decisions have to be made and when things have to be done time is lost while "fearing around". If you look at your daily life there can be plenty of little fears that accompany plenty little things that you are doing or thinking of.

The reason: Missing plan how to deal with new issues.
Looking into detail there are multiple reasons for the problem: Missing alignment, missing priorities, missing goals, missing knowledge, open decisions, sticking to things that passed away, Missing acceptance.

The solution: Have a plan to get things done and close the file.
When new issues - new problems, new goals, new phases of life - show up then you should deal with them correctly in order to solve them. Otherwise they will remain open somehow (even if "only" in the hidden basement of your brain). The final intention is to "close the file" - to make a checkmark the completed task or issue.

Although the issues might differ a lot in detail what they have in common is that they are open issues - they are consuming "brain force" and hence blocking you. As for recurring things you should have a procedure, here is a proposal:

1. Become aware.
   Other than with emails where it can be clearly defined when there is a new item in your inbox for your personal mind it is not so obvious. Get sensitive for the blocking status - get a feeling for your mental "inbox". So that you can be conscious of new issues that touched ground of your mind and keep staying there. Look at yourself, step back and name the issue - definition is an important thing. Then become also aware of the related fears that come up when you think about the open issue.
2. Get the facts.
   When you know your problem you can examine the facts that come along with your problem. Stick to clear facts at this stage because you are currently making experience. It is important not to make unproven assumptions at this stage. Facts can be related to the current effects you are experiencing as well as to the reasons or the environment you are in.
3. Set goals and priorities or remind on them (if there have been set already priorities for such a type of issue).
   Goals and priorities are two different things that shouldn't be mixed: A goal mostly implies or comes along with the definition of an outcome and can be that you arrive from point A to point B but the solution can be very different depending on your priorities which can be for instance to arrive as soon as possible, consume less energy, pay less, have opportunity to know new people and so on. Depending on the priorities the variety of solutions is narrowed which later makes decision easier.
4. Do research.
   Gather knowledge about the issue, about the effects, side effects, reasons and possible "cures". Separate clear and proven facts/rules (during practical use) from theoretical knowledge and from theories (unproven theoretical knowledge). And put aside your hopes and desires. Only with a clear separation of the knowledge item according to it's "strength" good decisions are possible. The research part is often the one that cannot be satisfied completely - especially when issues are urgent or not expected to have strong impacts. The time invested into the research phase should be adequate to the size and impact of your issue.
5. Evaluate possible solutions.
   Find existing/known solutions or invent new solutions. This is the creative part. Then summarize the expected effects, side effects, benefits and drawbacks of the most applicable solutions. Think of a worst case scenario also.
6. Review.
   Depending on the sum of facts, goals, priorities, results of research and evaluations it might be necessary to "go back to the start" or at least some steps back. Depending on what turned out in the previous steps it might be necessary to go back to point 3 - Set goals and priorities. Depending on urgency and impact the review phase might be skipped.
7. Choose your way.
   Make your decision, choose the best fitting solution for your issue. It can also be a set of actions and strategies that can lead to solution of your issue.
8. Accept the consequences.
   You have chosen your way and actions from best knowledge in an efficient way. All the consequences give you new experience and it is not worth crying if something happened in a different way as you expected. Remember that there is no wrong or correct decision - just actions and effects and as you have chosen your way the consequences are just bringing you the results of what you have decided to do in your life. So, why worry?

Related posts: Crappy guesswork, The fear, Something more important, Primary motivator.

To-Do-Lists and the calendar

About a week ago I read about to-do-lists at lifehack ("Back to Basics: Your Task List").

And then I also watched some videos of David Allen about the GTD and how important it is to get the things out of your head (see an interview with David Allen here and a presentation held by him here).

I do also feel better when writing things down and when I make lists (of what to buy, what is still to do in our new flat and so on). Until about two years ago I was using mostly To-Do-Lists but I used the calendar only for noting down appointments with external people.

Now I use GTD like methods (see "GTD - E-Mail Folders or Tags") - see also See also "A Two Minute GTD Overview from Success Making Machine".
But: I make also intensive use of the calendar.

Mr. Allen points out, that actions that take more than two minutes should be done immediately and others should be deferred. One "destination" for the longer tasks may be the calendar. I want to point out that using the calendar is even more important than creating to-do-lists!

When I used only To-Do-Lists I had the following problems:

• When asked for a particular project finalization date or asked for possible schedules for new projects then I could never tell real dates instantly.
• I wrote down the things to do but mostly did not write a time duration estimation to each task.
  
• I set priorities but no deadlines.
• I had noted an order by in reality it is usually not possible scheduling bigger tasks always one after the other. The reality is that I have to work on different projects in parallel.
• I was not in Sync with other people relevant for a project.
  

When you use a calendar and schedule everything you need or want to do then the problems mentioned above are all addressed:

1. When you are about to put a task into the calendar you automatically think of the task length because on most calendars there are written real times. As you need to find free time for each task you will automatically fill up the next days. You can see free space (gaps) and when your last task is scheduled. Tasks taking longer than a day must be split and you have to schedule another day and another. - The big advantage is that you are dealing with fixed dates. So you have an overview about your time (spent) and not "only" about the things that need to be done.
2. Priorities are set implicitly by moving or deleting a task to make fit in another. It is also a decision about priorities but you don't have to figure out a number (as it is usually done).
3. You can schedule two hours working on project A and afterwards scheduling two hours working on project B. Next day can be the same time splitting and so you can make progress on both projects. Such splitting is usually not showing up on a to-do-list.
4. As I note down also the vacations of other important people at customers I also have an overview of not-available-times of other people and can sync my actions accordingly.
   

You can also schedule for instance 1 hour each day for all the small tasks that you get notice of (un)expectedly - for example review and act on the items in the action folder.

Related posts GTD - E-Mail Folders or Tags, Network planning. The benefit of planning.

Procrastination and interrupts

I am definitely not feeling to be a procrastinator but lately I found myself procrastinating a bigger task. - The very strange thing was that I was not fearing that task and I either found it to be meaningful. So I could not find a reason why I procrastinated that task.

I analyzed the situation and came to the following conclusion:

1. I experienced a lot of interrupts before and I was already expecting the next one.
2. To get back onto the task after an interruption can take a while if the task needs intensive concentration and therefore needs time.
3. When too many interrupts occur it is frustrating because you waste your time with getting back to your task and before you achieve a mentionable step forward you will be interrupted again. So you work and concentrate but without progress. That is really frustrating.
4. To avoid that frustration you stick to little tasks that can be finished between two interruptions. Those little tasks are often not so important but it is more efficient to get them finished than trying to advance in a bigger task without success.
5. So my subconscious brain made that decision to proceed on the small tasks. And it was not procrastination! - It was improved efficiency as far as possible in that situation!

What I learn from it:

• Eating the biggest frog first (working on the biggest task first) is not necessarily the best choice. You should schedule the biggest task at a time where you usually experience less interrupts which is not always in the morning hours.
• You should try to get some isolation when you want to work on a bigger task. - In my working environment it is quite difficult - as I wrote earlier here - but not impossible to reduce interruptions anyway.
• The subconscious brain tries to help you and is not just repeating bad habits learned in the past.

Related post: Why not multitasking howto.

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!