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Category: Thinking Clearly

Schedule, Eliminate, Delegate

Published on March 28, 2023

Dear busy person,

It’s best to stop worrying over everything you have to get done… and just start getting something done. If you can manage it, block out distractions and get going on the most important thing, first. This will give you the “it’s all downhill from here” feeling that’ll carry you through the rest of the day. If starting feels cripplingly hard, do the easiest task first and snowball some momentum from there. Either way, get some momentum. And do everything you can to maintain that momentum one task to the next. It’s the easiest way to get it all done. Remember, it’s the starting that’s hard. And it’s the worrying over everything you have to get done that makes starting feel cripplingly hard. Play “start; stop; start; stop” all day and you’ll only add unnecessary resistance to your task load. Less think; more do. And at the end of the day, do your future self a favor and schedule, eliminate, and delegate every possible task you can before the start of the next day. Pick apart a giant snowball enough and it eventually collapses back into snow. Same is true when you have a giant snowball of tasks weighing on your shoulders at the start of a day. Pick it apart enough (by scheduling, eliminating, and delegating) and suddenly, there’s no giant snowball to focus on anymore. Only a day blanketed with snow that you can manage one shovel full at a time.

Sincerely,

Your inner work person

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

The 3 Crucial Mind Tools For Clarity

Published on March 27, 2023

1. We meditate to settle the sediments of our mind.

By removing outside stimulation, we allow all of the swishing, swirling, and convoluted thoughts to relax into a kind of order: the crap moves to the bottom and the important rises to the top. Through meditation, our mental priorities become more clear.

2. We journal to filtrate.

We begin by scooping a spoonful of thoughts and pour them down onto paper or screen. Then, through a careful and focused effort, we update and revise what’s poured out so as to make those thoughts more clear, concise, and aligned. What results becomes the new, filtered spoonful that gets poured back in.

3. We speak with professionals of the mind to utilize their high-end filtration systems.

Therapy allows us to, essentially, pour our thoughts through the highly filtered mind(s) of somebody else so that we’re able to get a level of clarity we’re unable to provide for ourselves. Also, when something dangerous, toxic, or overly complex comes up through the filtration process—they can swiftly help us minimize or neutralize the threat. This can be extremely beneficial for the particularly dark and/or murky mind—especially in the initial stages of filtration.

The bottom line is this: our mind is either our greatest asset or greatest liability in life.

The use or disregard of these three tools can largely determine which category our mind falls into. All three aren’t required—any one of these tools alone can lead us all the way to the “asset” category. Applying two or all three, however, is a particularly effective strategy. One that I’d say, if you haven’t already, you at least consider.

Time Blocking Made Easy

Published on March 25, 2023

Macro: 8 hours sleep / 8 hours work / 8 hours life.

Which means: 50/50 split either daily or weekly between work tasks (things we do for survival) and life tasks (things we do for fulfillment).

Pro tip: Take life tasks as seriously as work tasks. Make formal blocks for family / friends / nature / adventure / reading / writing / hobbies / doing nothing / etc.

Bottom line: Those who master how they manage their time… become masters over the fate of their lives.

P.s. Do you struggle over the thought of your life’s fate? My guide The Art of Forward will help.

Lead With Your Heart

Published on March 16, 2023

Lead with your heart and utilize the power of your mind to figure out the rest.

Leading with your mind and trying to utilize the power of the heart doesn’t work out so well.

Why? Because the heart isn’t one to be utilized.

The heart is who you are; the mind is composed of all the tools that you could ever need to utilize and shape that identity.

Force your mind to build an identity that is in conflict with your heart and the heart will inevitably rebel. Many of us get pigeon-holed into this trap because our minds are so damn loud and constantly connected to the damn loud minds of others.

That is why we must quiet our mind; why we must turn down the noise of what’s “practical” “lucrative” and “respectable;” why we must return to stillness.

Because it’s only there… where we’re quiet and thinking as ourselves—not as others would have us think—that we’re able to truly hear what our heart has to say.

So that from there… we can begin to truly lead.

Too busy for self-care?

Published on March 15, 2023

Think again.

Here are 9 creative ways you can intertwine self-care into your routine:

No 20-minute meditation block?

  • Meditate while waiting.
  • Meditate while eating.
  • Meditate while commuting. Commit to no podcasts, music, or phone use of any kind. Just drive mindfully, focus on your breath, and notice all that’s filling your senses in the world around you.

No 40-minute reading block?

  • Try audiobooks instead. “Read” while driving, while doing chores, while exercising, etc.
  • Try the 5-page rule. Read no more and no less than 5 pages in the morning, afternoon, and at night… and inside any other pockets of time you can swing throughout the day.
  • Read from your phone. Instead of obsessively checking social media throughout the day, download a reading app that allows you to consume books as you would social media. I average ~2 hours of screen time per day… imagine if all of that was devoted to reading…

No 1-hour exercise block? 

  • Focus on getting 10k+ steps. Park further away everywhere you go. Do a lap around the office/ neighborhood a few times throughout the day. Take the family/ dog out on a longer than usual walk.
  • Exercise in pockets. Pick a bodyweight exercise and do 3-5 max-ish sets throughout the day. Push-ups every 3 hours. Lunges every 4 hours. Sit-ups whenever you enter or leave the house.
  • Do an abbreviated workout. You don’t need 1 hour to get an excellent workout. Do 2 exercises every minute on the minute for whatever time you have (e.g. 5 push-ups, 10 squats, done each minute for 10 minutes). Go for a 15 minute run around your block. Do as many burpees as you can in 5 minutes.

The Excuse That’s Needed

Published on March 14, 2023

Yesterday, my website broke.

And as anyone who has ever built websites knows… there’s a million things that could’ve caused it.

Fortunately, it was still functional, just all of my theme settings were seemingly erased or there was some major facelift that messed everything up.

Now for context, my previous settings were in place for several years. And, as the saying goes, it wasn’t broke… so I didn’t fix it.

But, once it did break… rather than wreak havoc on everybody and anybody who could’ve been involved or spend a handful of hours trying to troubleshoot the exact (sometimes ridiculously minor) issue… I simply looked at it as a signal for it being time…

…Time to take a fresh look. Time to upgrade from where it was several years ago. Time to question everything about the user experience and re-create new settings from scratch.

Because while the pain of having things break is that you have to fix them… sometimes that’s the excuse you needed (and didn’t know you were waiting for) anyway.

P.s. How To Stay Calm When Things Break – A Buddhist Teaching.

Non-Negotiable

Published on March 13, 2023

My best piece of advice for anyone living “all-in” in the digital world is to take frequent, deliberate, non-negotiable breaks away from all things digital.

P.s. Tweet this.