Changing the Past, Present, and Future before Breakfast

One of my favorite iPhone meditations is the "Six Phase Meditation" that is part of the Omvana app.  I think what makes this meditation stand out for me is that it guides me to take the time to look, in a healthy way, at my past, my present, and my future.  Here is a link to the Omvana website:  omvana.com

Omvana collects many, many meditations, but I think that some of the best are created and read by Vishen Lakhiani, the CEO of Mindvalley, the company that creates the app and the website.  In the "Six Phase Meditation", he first guides you to appreciate the PRESENT by relaxing the body and becoming aware of your consciousness and connection to everything around you.  Next, you enhance your memories of the PAST by thinking of things you are grateful for and by bringing to mind anyone you are angry at and practicing forgiveness.  All you have from your past are your memories.  Focusing on gratitude and forgiveness strengthens your best memories while your worst memories are allowed to wither and fade into the background they deserve.

Lastly, Lakhiani has you imagine your perfect FUTURE.  First, he has you look out 3 years and imagine your life at work, socially, spiritually.  Next, he has you look at TODAY.  How would your perfect day unfold?

Any iPhone meditation gets stale if you use it daily.  But I've found it useful to frequently do an abbreviated "Three Phase Meditation".  I might only spend 5 minutes, but it makes a big difference for my past, present and future.  I try to do this before breakfast.

In that 5 minutes, with now iPhone app, I'll first spend a couple of minutes tuning into the present.  I might just relax in a comfortable chair, scan my bodily sensations from head to toe.  Or I might do a "progressive relaxation", tightening and loosening muscles from head to toe.  Or I might imagine golden light entering my body with every inhale and cloudy, grey negative energy leaving my body with every exhale (another Omvana meditation).  Or all three.

Lastly, I like to imagine how my day will turn out.  Especially before breakfast.  Early enough to make an impact.  Visualize being relaxed at all times. Visualize getting 2-3 big things done.  Visualize some fun, some good experiences with family and friends.  I don't need to,  every day, visualize the future 3 years out as in the Omvana meditation.  But who doesn't have the time to picture how we'd like THIS day to turn out?

If you don't like your past, CHANGE it!

I see a connection between Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol" and a book I just read about the psychology of time.  In the "Christmas Carol", three ghosts help Ebeneezer Scrooge develop a new perspective on the past, the present, and the future.  The book I just read and wrote about in this blog last week, Philip Zimbardo's The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time, is also about people's perspective on past, present, and future.

As I described last week, you can take Zimbardo's test for your own time perspectives at this website:  Time Perspective Inventory.  What do you do if your perspective on the past, present, or future is not positive enough?  This week I'll focus on the past.

If you don't like your past, CHANGE it!  Zimbardo points out that your memory of the past isn't some kind of perfect record of everything that happened.  It's filtered by what you focus on as you recall the past.  Do you focus on the good things or the bad?  Ebeneezer Scrooge focused on certain aspects of the past.  He needed the Ghost of Christmas Past to point out things that happened but that he'd failed to notice.  Just as the Ghost changed Scrooge's perspective, we can change our own perspective by changing what we spend time remembering about the past.

Gratitude is key.  Recalling, frequently, good things that happened, things we are grateful for allows us to rewrite the past.  By focusing on our recent good fortunes, we create positive feelings about our past.  It's probably a good idea to do this for both the recent past and the more distant past so that our overall feelings about our lives are as positive as possible.  I've often heard that these memories of good events have more of an impact if you also conjure up the feelings you had at that time, the feelings when your wife did something nice for you or when you got good news at work.  This changes your experience of the past not through distortion but through selective focus on real events and real feelings.

The Psychology of Time

I just finished "The Time Paradox: the New Psychology of Time", by Philip Zimbardo.  He's the Stanford professor who did the famous experiment in 1971 with students pretending to be either prisoners or guards. As described in this link (Stanford Prison Experiment), the experiment was aborted in 6 days because the guards became sadistic and the prisoners depressed even though they know it was make believe.

For the last 30+ years, Zimbardo focused his research on the psychology of time.  What are people's attitudes toward the past, present, and future?  Is there a way to measure these attitudes?  What attitudes or perspectives are healthy and which are unhealthy?

Zimbardo developed a test that you can take in about 10 minutes for free at this website:  "Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory".  Everyone in our family took the test as I was reading the book.  It gives you a score in each of 5 areas:  2 related to the past, 2 to the present, and 1 for the future.  And it gives a ballpark "ideal" score for all of these.

My results?  Good, low score for "Past Negative".  I don't dwell on regrets.  But not high enough for "Past Positive".  Based on my score, I don't have enough warm memories that I enjoy reliving.  I never felt that this matters too much because I focus on present and future, but the authors describe lots of positive benefits to occasionally reliving memories of family, friends, and fun to build roots, traditions, connections, and community.  If you don't do this habitually, they say that you can strengthen this part of your time perspective through gratitude journals and simple practice recalling good things from the past.

Good, low score for "Present Fatalistic".  I don't feel at the mercy of fate.  High score for "Present Hedonistic" but not high enough.  Zimbardo would say I need to party more.  More focus on fun, joy, pleasure.

High score for the fifth and final category "Future".  So this helps with goal setting and planning.  But my score's a bit TOO high according to them.  They say that if your score is too high, you might have a tendency to accept too many responsibilities, too many projects.  I'm sure my wife and kids would agree.  Zimbardo's recommendation if your "Future" score is too high?  Just say no.

The REAL "Mother of Invention"

"Necessity is the mother of invention".  Sounds reasonable, but is it true?

Necessity leads us to respond.  But will we respond with invention?  Will we be creative?  Will our imaginations run free?  Will we be open to new ideas and approaches?  The answer depends on whether the situation stresses us out or whether we feel completely at ease.

If we respond with stress, we will NOT be creative.  We will NOT invent. But if we respond in a relaxed, positive way we will maximize our creativity.

Barbara Fredrickson, author of "Positivity", has done research for decades on the creativity associated with positive emotions versus the limited options found with negative emotions.  If we react to our problems with stress, we react to necessity by fighting, fleeing, or freezing.

• We fight:  "It's not fair!  It's not MY fault!  It's HIS fault!"  
• We flee:  "I'm out of here."
• We freeze:  "I don't know what to do."

There is no creativity in these limited, stressed out responses.  This is the teenager explaining why there is nothing he can do about a problem at school, nothing he can do about his poor diet, etc.  If, instead, we are deeply relaxed, confident, at ease, then our options are wide open.  

When we are relaxed, we drop our guard and are open to ideas.  We explore.  We learn.  We build on ideas.  The intuitive part of our brain is more active.  Stress shuts down the thinking part of our brain as the faster acting primitive brain seizes control to react more quickly to danger.  Relaxation returns control to the thinking and intuitive brain.  We are then ready to explore, discover, think, brainstorm and invent.

The real mother of invention is not necessity.  The real mother of invention is a relaxed, positive response to necessity.  So whenever you have a difficult problem to solve or a creative task to accomplish, start with a deep breath.

Meditation Podcasts

Here are some of the best meditation/relaxation related podcasts I've been listening to:

• Meditation Oasis
• 30 Day Relaxation Hypnosis with Jason Newland
• Hypnosis and Guided Meditation
• Wellness Workbook Guided Relaxation
• The Meditation Podcast
• Free Hypnosis Podcast with Michael White

The last of these is hysterically funny.  Michael White calls himself the "Hypnotist Extraordinaire" and uses the silliest imagery such as turning the difficult people in your life into panda bears.  He has Twilight Zone sound effects and, where appropriate, whistles the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".  But I think he's just trying to get the audience to relax and not take the experience too seriously.  He still wants to help people feel better at the end of the podcast.

Following Her Lead

We usually do the bulk of our chores as a family on Saturdays so that we can relax more later in the week.  I'm learning that there are lots of advantages to just letting my wife lead the process.  It can be hard to let go of the need for control, to let someone else decide what we're going to do to get through a bunch of tasks.  But there are SO many advantages:

• She's home more than I am and simply knows more about what has to get done
• She has a better memory for a long list of short tasks.  She can get us moving from job to job without hesitation and, after a couple of hours, I'm stunned at all the things we get done on the list.  I don't know how she remembers it all.  If I had to lead the process, I'd be rechecking the list every 5 minutes.
• I don't have to guess whether I'm giving her the help she most wants from me.  If "A" matters to her more than "B", she'll simply ask me to do "A" first.  I can feel her gratitude for my help grow more and more as I keep working with her and the boys on her top priorities.
• She has us take frequent, long breaks so that I switch to whatever my priorities are.  Ironically, the more I spend time following her lead, the more time I end up spending on my hobbies and interests.  It creates clearer boundaries between family chores and "me time" so that I can spend time on my own interest without feeling like I'm letting the family down.

I wish I'd realized this ages ago.  At work, I'm used to controlling my agenda.  I don't take detailed instructions from anyone.  This can feel very empowering.  But it can feel terrific to switch from being a leader to being a follower.  It can be relaxing, for a few hours each week, to not have to decide what to do and when and to instead to defer to the person with the best grasp of all the things needed in the home.

Big Fish in a Small Pond

My oldest kid is a senior in high school, applying for college.  He's applying to several extremely good schools, but is also following the standard advice to include some colleges like Harvard that are a bit of a "stretch".  He probably could get in, but wouldn't be in the top 20% of applicants.  If they accept him, is it still a good idea to go for it (assuming good financial aid)?

Conventional wisdom would say, "Yes.  Get into the best college you possibly can."  But I just finished reading "David and Goliath" by Malcolm Gladwell who also wrote the well researched, persuasive, and provocative books "Outliers", "Blink", and "The Tipping Point".  The theme of "David and Goliath" is that many things that are normally thought of as advantages often prove to be disadvantages.  Also, disadvantages are often advantages.  Goliath didn't have a chance.

In one of the chapters, Gladwell argues that it isn't always an advantage to get into the best school, the best sports team, the best corporation.  It's best to be a big fish in a small pond, to be in a situation in which you can be in the top 10% of your peer group.  He describes studies showing how the big fish in the smaller ponds--the students at the top of their class in less elite colleges--were more successful in their careers than the small fish at Harvard and other top schools.  The small fish at Harvard had higher SAT scores than the big fish at the schools that were merely "good", but they often were overwhelmed by competition with Harvard peers.  After being the best students in their high schools, they were humbled and lost confidence when they fell into the middle of the pack at Harvard, often dropping out of the harder majors to find majors in which they could compete.

This concept goes beyond just avoiding academic challenges that make it hard to "shine".  It applies to career choices, to how nice a yard I want to have, to other things I want to accomplish.  It's good to shoot for the moon, but perhaps not the stars.

Volunteering: a taboo subject

Like many people, I avoid burdening my family with too much talk about my job.  I now realize that I also need to avoid talking about my volunteer work.

I'm the President of our Neighborhood Community Council.  I've been working hard to limit the TIME that I spend in this role:  

• Focus on preparing for and leading the monthly board meetings. 
• Process all the emails that come in.  
• Volunteer for some events, but don't LEAD any events.  
• Go to a few committee meetings, but try not to LEAD any committees.  
• Use a kitchen timer whenever I'm working on my emails so that I don't lose track of time.  

Overall, I feel these techniques have been working.  I've done different kinds of volunteer work for most of the last 15 years, and this year I feel I've been more effective than ever at limiting the time Im spending.  So I was surprised when my wife and kids told me they were unhappy with how much my volunteer work was pulling me away from them.

I protested, "But I thought I was budgeting my time well this year!  What about my kitchen timers?  What about . . .?"  My wife responded, "Perception is reality, and when you keep TALKING about this stuff it feels like it's often dominates our family's attention."  That's when I realized that it's not enough to limit the TIME I spend volunteering.  I also have to limit how much I TALK about it.  I have to manage my mouth as well as my time.

So now, with rare exceptions, I avoid talking about my volunteer work when I'm with my family.  If I quietly put in 2-3 hours per week, then--in theory--my volunteering should be no more of a problem for my family than if I watched 2-3 TV shows per week that nobody else was interested in.

Podcasts: An Old Fashioned Way to Meditate

iTunes introduced Podcasts in 2005.  In the digital world, that's the Stone Age.  I'd heard about Podcasts but never checked them out.  Could something so old still be relevant?

I finally started exploring Podcasts in the last couple of weeks.  After reading reviews of various iPhone apps with which to manage Podcasts, I selected "PodCruncher" (just $1.99).  You can search for any subject that interests you.  The app will return dozens of regular Podcasts on the topic, in order of popularity and relevance.  I searched for "Meditation", and then subscribed to "Meditation Oasis", "My Meditation Station", "Relaxation Meditation Podcast", and two more.  Each of these Podcasts has 20 or more guided meditations.  I've been downloading the best ones so that I can listen to them often.  I used to buy guided meditation apps one at a time, without getting a chance to preview them.  I was often disappointed.  Even the good ones got boring if I listened to them too often.  But now that I've started to use Podcasts, I feel as if I have unlimited choices, I can preview them before saving them, and they don't cost me a thing.

Headphone Heaven

When I listen to my iTunes Library, there is one App I always use because it makes any pair of headphones sound ten times better.  The app is called Audyssey.  Here is a link to their website:  amp.audyssey.com.  When you use the app, it asks you to select your brand and model number of headphones from among hundreds of options stored in its library.  Then, when you play music from your iTunes library, it automatically adjusts the output from your iPhone or iPad so that you get recording studio quality sound.  Here are some links to independent reviews of the app:  Review1, Review2, Review3, and Review4.

I noticed a huge difference with two brands of headphones I own, and my son was blown away by the difference it made when he listened to music with his "Beats" headphones from Dr. Dre (yes my son is spoiled).  In addition to working with your iTunes library, the same technology is apparently used when streaming music with Songza.  I've never listened to music on Songza, so I'm going to sign off for now, download Songza, and go listen to some tunes.

Focus at Will

As I try to make a breakthrough in how relaxed I feel throughout the day, I've learned something unexpected.  When I'm working on a complicated task, I find that concentration and relaxation are linked.

If I can concentrate on the task, if I can tune out distractions, if my mind stays with my work, if I'm feeling fully engaged, then I can also relax my body.  Perhaps not quite as much as when I'm laying in a lounge chair with a cool drink.  But, still, even if I'm rushing to get the work done, even if there is a tight deadline, I can feel calm and loose as long as I'm focused.

Contrast that with those many, many times when I'm working on something difficult and I keep losing my place.  The phone rings, or I get a text, or someone drops by my cube.  Even when the outside world doesn't intrude, my inner world often intrudes.  Instead of staying on task, I'll needlessly shift my mind toward other concerns.  Either way, whether the interruption comes from within or without, it's hard to get my mind fully back on track.  It's even worse because I have ADHD.  I like to say that when something derails my train of thought, the train doesn't just leave the track.  It rolls.

At times like this, if there is pressure to get the job done quickly and I'm not sure I'll get it done in time, how can I really relax?  If I really want to be relaxed almost all the time, I have to concentrate better, ESPECIALLY when the task is very complex or ambiguous.  Concentration and relaxation are as connected as Yin and Yang.

One thing that has been helping lately is listening to the music on the website focusatwill.com.  There is also a "Focus at Will" music streaming app on iTunes.  The website claims that it is a "neuroscience based web tool that uses phase sequenced instrumental music to increase your attention span up to 400% when working, studying, writing and reading."  The basic idea is that the music is JUST BARELY catchy enough to engage the part of your "non-focal" or background attention.  This is that part of your attention that is most easily pulled away from the task at hand.  If this part of your attention is busy with the music, the rest of your attention can stay with the task at hand.

Sounds somewhat plausible, and you can peruse their website to read about the science, but I wanted to try it for myself.  I've been using the website for a few weeks, ESPECIALLY when I'm working on something difficult and confusing.  So far, I think it's making a big difference.  This week I was working on complicated Excel models that normally get me going around and around in circles.  I felt as if I was able to stay on task, that I made better programming decisions (fewer "dead ends"), that I enjoyed working on these models more than I ever have before, and that, yes, I was much more relaxed. 

Meditation Mashup

From Wikipedia: A mashup (also mesh, mash up, mash-up, blend, bootleg[1] and bastard pop/rock) is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another.


I almost always use my iPhone and headphones when meditating, but I usually do "Mashups". There are some apps in which I like the spoken, guided meditation, but I'm tired of the background music or nature sounds. I've found that some of these apps allow you to choose "voice only". Then I can open different apps for background music or nature sounds.

Any apps for background sounds have to be able to play in the background when you switch to the app with the spoken meditation. One of my favorites is Sleepstream 2 which is a mashup on its own because you can add a layer of music to a layer of nature sounds on top of "Binaural Beats" targeted at reinforcing meditation, focus, or other moods. I also like various apps from "Ambi-Science" with great electronic ambient music coupled with Binaural Beats. My final favorite is "Relax Melodies Premium" which allows you to layer dozens of sounds on top of each other in any combination. All of these apps will continue to play when I switch to one of my favorite spoken meditations from Andrew Johnson, Meditation Oasis, or Omvana.

The Best Times to Relax

When I'm at the dentist.  When I have something controversial to present to hierarchy.  When I'm presenting a new training class to 40 people and I'm not sure it will hold their interest.  When I'm in a traffic jam in an unfamiliar city and impatient drivers are making sudden, dangerous lane changes all around me.  When I'm meeting with someone who usually knows exactly how to push my buttons.  These are the best times to remember to relax.

As I've mentioned in recent posts, I'm still working hard every day at remembering to consciously relax at least 10 times per day.  As I've worked at this, I've become more aware of how often I feel at least some stress.  It's been an eye-opening experience.  I have far more "triggers" for stress than I ever realized.  It might only be mild irritation or a little bit of tension, but it certainly isn't "relaxed".  Whenever I'm mindful enough to notice that I've been triggered, and mindful enough to take a deep breath and relax, I feel good about my response.  I'm rewarded by feelings of both peace and pride.

If I look stressed, please yell at me

From April through June, I asked my friend Kevin at work to hold me accountable to getting my emails under control.  Kevin sits by the printer.  Each day, I'd print a chart of the number of emails in my inbox.  Kevin dutifully gave me a hard time if the chart didn't show daily progress in shrinking my inbox from almost 500 messages when I started this all the way down to 0. 

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I've switched to a new goal:  to consciously relax at least 10 times per day.  Last week, Kevin and I tried to figure out a way he could hold me accountable to my new goal.  But how?  I keep track of my goal one day at a time with a small digital counter I keep in my pocket.  There are no charts for me to show him.  Finally, it hit me.  "Kevin, if you ever see me looking stressed out, I want you to yell at me!"  He laughed and immediately agreed.

I think this will be a good reminder for me.  I can't go ANYWHERE at work without passing Kevin's desk.  Even when he's out of town, his empty cubicle will remind me dozens of times per day to keep my cool.

Remember to Relax

I need to develop another new, good habit.  As I've described in my blog over the last couple of months, I've become a firm believer in the idea that self discipline grows best when we develop just one new habit at a time.  Once we add the good, new habit to all our other habits--once the new habit becomes automatic--we have the time and energy to start working on a new habit.

For all of May and June and part of July, I developed a new habit of keeping my email inboxes under control.  This is becoming automatic now.  So I've got a new habit I'm working on:  relaxing.

Specifically, I've been trying, at least 10 times per day, to consciously take some time to relax.  This could be as simple as remembering, when driving, to take a few deep breaths, check for and release any muscle tension, smile slightly, and say to myself, "Even in this traffic jam, I'm completely relaxed and in control."  It might take less than 20 seconds but it feels to me as if it still "counts".  It still feels valuable.  I can tell that these short relaxation exercises are reducing my stress, improving my concentration and my sense of ease in life.

I have meditated for 10-15 minutes almost every morning for several years.  But when this was the ONLY conscious relaxation I did in my day, I found that--by itself--it did not create a sense of calm that would last all day.  Through trial and error over the last few weeks, I've found that what works better for me is to meditate early in the day and then have at least 9 additional relaxation breaks.

How do I keep count?  How do I know that I've met my goal?  I tried an iPhone app called "Clicker Plus".  I'd reset the "counter" to zero in the morning, then open the app and click the "Increase" button each time I meditated, relaxed at a meeting, relaxed at a meal or when talking to friends.  But I found it took a few too many clicks to unlock the screen, open the app, etc.  I wasn't using it because it just wasn't easy enough.

So I bought a "GoGo Digital Counter".  Hide it in a pocket, pull it out, press the big blue button, and I'm done.  Other than the occasional accidental counts while the Counter is still in my pocket, this is working great.  As soon as I meet my minimum goal of 10, I usually continue remembering to relax throughout the day, but I stop counting, knowing that I've met my goal for the day.  I've relaxed often enough to make a difference in how peaceful I feel all day long.  I don't think I'll be doing this "counting" forever; I just need help from this little, cheap device to make deep relaxation a lifelong habit.

Zero and Ziergarnik

Why does it feel so good to get e-mail and physical inboxes to Zero?  This is said to be the "Holy Grail" of David Allen's "Getting Things Done" (GTD) time management system.  Why does it matter?  The answer may lie in the Ziergarnik effect.

The "Holy Grail" of GTD isn't just to delete all your e-mails, bills, and other information that comes to you that may or may not require action.  It is to delete, file, or respond to most of it immediately and then to WRITE DOWN ACTION STEPS for the rest of the emails before filing them.  At this point, the inbox of unprocessed "stuff" is empty.  The "Holy Grail" is reached.

Now that I've finally managed to do this, after years of knowing that it was the right thing to do but never managing to get there, I feel much more of a sense of clarity about what I need to do in my work day, less hesitation from moment to moment about what comes next, and improved focus.  Again, why?

In their book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, authors Baumeister and Tierney discuss the effectiveness of the "Getting Things Done" system and suggest that WRITING DOWN THE ACTION STEPS is what frees up mental energy and improves concentration.  They describe the Ziergarnik effect, a psychological phenomenon in which it is hard to stop thinking about unfinished tasks or goals.  Even if you aren't consciously thinking about them, your mind is distracted in ways that can be measured such as through impaired reading comprehension.  The theory is that your brain doesn't trust you.  It thinks you might forget to finish what you started.  You might forget to deal with an email, to pay a bill, to finish a project.  Fortunately, research has shown that if you write down the task in a plan and you are serious about reviewing the plan regularly, your brain relaxes.  It no longer feels compelled to hang on to the unfinished business.  So it stops putting energy into holding on to this stuff.  And 100% of your brain becomes at your disposal to deal with whatever you face right now.

Willpower Workout--Emptying the Inbox

In their book  Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, authors Roy Baumeister and John Tierney frequently repeat their advice to just make just one or two difficult resolutions at a time.  Most of us overestimate our willpower.  We go nuts on New Year's Eve and commit to a list of life changing new habits, effective immediately.  We give up most or all of them quickly because a person with the willpower to make this many changes as once is as rare as a person with the muscle power to lift a car.

The authors say that willpower IS a muscle.  It strengthens with exercise.  But it's best to focus on one new habit at a time.  Once the habit is established, it becomes automatic.  You don't need any more willpower to decide to behave this way.  There is no temptation to resist.  It just becomes something you do without thinking.

My willpower workout for the last two months was to shrink my e-mail inbox at work.  My goal was to stop having tons of emails in my inbox for months that I hope to react to some time.  Seems easy, but I glance over the shoulders of everyone else at work and see that their inboxes, too, usually contain hundreds of e-mails.  Why?  I get an email asking me to do something, but it isn't an urgent priority and I know it will take time.  So I leave it in the inbox thinking I might get to it later or the urgency will suddenly grow and I'll be glad I didn't delete it.  I've got enough projects in enough areas and working with a wide array of people and departments to make this strategy dangerous.  It isn't long before the inbox is cluttered with hundreds of things that I think I may have to deal with sometime but not sure how.  As David Allen talks about in his "Getting Things Done" time management system, all this vague "stuff" in the inbox creates a gnawing anxiety that there are things I should be doing that I'm not.  And this "stuff" creates rework because every time I review one of these old messages to see if I think it's finally time to deal with it, I have to repeat the mental work again of thinking, "What is this about again?  If I wanted to react, what action would I take?  How long will that action take and is it worth stopping other work to attend to this right now?"  All too often, the outcome of all this mental work is a decision that it's just not worth doing right now, but this guarantees I'll be repeating the whole mental exercise.

The core of David Allen's method is to drive all inboxes--email and physical--to zero almost every day.  The inbox contains unprocessed "stuff".  The goal is to process every email and then get it out of the inbox.  You send some emails go to Trash.  You send others to a Reference folder if you don't need to do anything but might eventually need to retrieve information that is in the email.  If you can respond to an email in less than 2 minutes, Allen suggests you do respond immediately, then trash it.

 

The toughest emails to process are those that require action and the action is not worth doing right now.  For these, you need a place (I use a Word document) to document all plans for all projects that you are accountable for, short and long term.  It might be an action you will delegate to someone else.  It might be one you will do yourself.  But as soon as you've captured the action, get the email out of the inbox.  Archive it for whenever you decide to do the action.

At this point, the inbox is back to zero and I find myself feeling much clearer and more relaxed.  It took 2 months of willpower to get here, to break 20+ years of habitually cluttered email, but I think the feelings of an empty inbox are so satisfying, I'll be able to maintain this new habit.  Time to move on to my next willpower workout.

One Pilot, Many Auto Pilots

The book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, has completely changed how I imagine the daily life of a person with great willpower and discipline.  I used to picture someone who willed themselves to get up early when they didn't want to, to floss, to workout at the gym, to eat right, to work hard, and to resist temptations.  All day long they force themselves to act against their impulses.  Everything they do is a carefully chosen task aimed at a goal.

That's not the case.  According to this book, whose research I find totally compelling, a person with terrific discipline is typically pushing themselves in ONE or TWO areas of their lives, trying to form ONE or TWO new habits that require willpower, that require them to push themselves to do something they don't want to do or to stop doing something that they crave.  The rest of their good behaviours are habits. 

This is what I mean by "One Pilot, Many Auto-Pilots".  They are developing just one or two new habits at a time. The new habit does require what we normally think of as willpower.  It is something they DON'T want to do or a bad habit they want to stop.  The "Pilot" is needed; they must consciously change their behavior.  Maybe all this energy is going into flossing every morning.  Eventually, flossing becomes a habit.  It switches to robotic "Auto-Pilot".  There is no willpower required.  No thought.  You wake up, brush your teeth, and floss because that's what you do every day.  You don't even think about it.  Then you work on your next habit:  going to the gym before work.  Or whatever other good behavior you want to cultivate.  Eventually, you've got all these good habits in your life and it really isn't that hard for you.  It's automatic.  At any one time, there is just one "Pilot" that is a struggle and lots of "Auto-pilots" that come without effort or thought.  But to an outsider you look like Mr. or Mrs. Discipline.

Tomato String Theory

I've had decades of failure with home-grown tomatos.  My main problem has been difficulty supporting the tomato plants.  They'd break, drag on the ground, get bushy, and produce almost no tomatos.  The tomato supports I find at Home Depot or Lowes are too expensive when you have 20 plants or more, they get in the way of pruning and harvesting, and they aren't tall enough.

Last year, I tried cheap alternative method to support tomatos that I read about in a gardeniing magazine.  It led to our first every successful harvest.  We're repeating the method this year.  It involves stringing the tomatos, as farmers often do, but it's incredibly simple and cheap.  For each row of tomato plants, all you need is string, two pieces of pressure treated pine ( 2"x2" by 8 feet), and one piece of 8 foot rebar.

1. Cut the pine so that you can hammer it into the soil without even digging a hole.
   
2. Pound in the two pine posts about 6 feet apart with a mallet.
   
3. Use two nails and tie wraps to hold the each end of the rebar on top of a post.
   
4. Tie a string to each tomato plant,twist around the main stem a few times, and then tie the string to the rebar.
   
   
   
   
5. As plant grows during the summer, continue to twist it gently around the string, until the plants are 6 feet tall with tomatos the size of watermelons.

Rose Colored Glasses

A little too much Oprah.  Too many Gratitude Journal entries.  Too much "positive psychology".  Count your blessings, look at the bright side, the glass is half full.

These are all good things.  This is real wisdom.  Optimism is better for health, better for success in life, better for happiness.  But sometimes I think I've been overtrained.  I can see the world through rose colored glasses, focusing so much on what is going well that I don't even acknowledge the things that are making me mad or sad.

I had quite a few days last week with vague feelings of "not quite right".  Discontent and frustration without being clear why.  Foggy discontent.

After a while, I realized I needed to "count my complaints" as well as my "blessings".  I definitely want to emphasize the positive.  I don't remember the ratios, but there are some magic things that happen when the ratio of positive comments versus negative comments in a relationship exceeds 2 to 1 or 3 to 1, or when positive thoughts outnumber negative thoughts by some magic number.  It's pretty clear that we're better off writing "Gratitude Journals" than we are writing "Complaint Journals".  But sometimes it helps to list those complaints. 

This morning, I brainstormed a bunch of things that were bugging me.  At home, at work, as a volunteer, with relatives, with my health, with the health of loved ones.  Things that feel unfinished, out of my control, things that seem to never seem to get much better.  And listing these things made it easier to understand some of the discontent I've been feeling in the last few days.  It was easier to shift my mood.  Ironically, listing my complaints made it easier to return to gratitude.

Perpendicular Parking

For the last few monhts, I've been teaching my 16 year old how to drive.  Tomorrow he'll start a 4 hours per day, 6 day AAA Driving School course.  I realized I'd neglected to give him any lessons in parallel parking.  It was time to start.

We found the perfect setup.  A short dead end street with two trucks nicely spaced apart at the university campus on a Sunday.  Nobody likely to use the trucks until Monday.  My son could practice over and over without the pressure of traffic behind him or any risk that someone owning one of the trucks would ask us what the _____ we were doing.

My son was doing OK, but he just wasn't turning the steering wheel enough to get close to the curb.  I told him, "Turn it all the way to the right so you get close enough, then turn it to the left."

Bad advice.  I laughed until I cried.

What's my next pitch?

I've always wondered why baseball pitchers don't just make up their own minds what to throw next.  Why do they need to have the catcher suggest a curve ball or a fast ball?  Doesn't the pitcher know what his best pitches are, how tired he is, and what the batter's weaknesses are?  Why does he need suggestions from his catcher?

I've got a new guess about why the pitcher wants his catcher to call the next pitch and why the quarterback wants the coach to call the next play.  The book "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength" describes how we each have limited willpower.  It fatigues from uninterrupted exertion.  A baseball pitcher needs to push himself to extreme levels to throw 100 pitches in a game at speeds often exceeding 90 miles per hour and to do so with accuracy, variety, and deception.  Every pitch is draining.  And decisions about what to pitch to throw next are also draining.  I suspect that all baseball teams learned over time to take some of the burden off the pitcher.  You can't spare him the strain of throwing the ball.  But you can let someone else decide what to throw next.

"Keep your distance, and watch out for idiots and maniacs"

"Keep your distance, and watch out for idiots and maniacs".  What father gives this advice to his 16 year old son?  I do.

I'm teaching my 16 year old son how to drive.  A couple of months ago, we were driving to Chicago to visit colleges.  Traffic got very light on I-65 between Indianapolis and Chicago.  I decided this would be a great chance to give my son his first experience driving on a highway.

But I wondered what coaching to give him before I'd let him hurtle down the highway at 65 mph.  I'd been reading in the book "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength" by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney that it is exhausting to make lots of conscious decisions.  Once you get exhausted, you start to make mistakes.  I knew that my son has not yet had time to develop good driving habits.  He doesn't yet do anything on "auto-pilot".  How could I simplify his decision making so that we'd make it to Chicago alive?

First, I told him to be antisocial.  "Keep your distance from all the other cars.  Drive for space.  If someone keeps driving right next to you, speed up or slow down until you have space around you."

Next, I passed on the wisdom of the late, great comedian George Carlin who is pictured above.  In his classic "Idiots and Maniacs" routine, George said, "Have you ever noticed that everyone driving slower than you is an IDIOT!  And everyone driving faster than you is a M-A-N-I-A-C!!!!!"  See this clip on You Tube:  Idiots and Maniacs.

I told my son, "Keep your distance, and watch out for idiots and maniacs.  When the maniacs come racing up behind, look for a chance to let them pass you.  And when an idiot in front of you makes you slow down to a crawl, look for a chance to pass them."

A simple enough strategy, but I waited until I knew he could tell the difference between an idiot and a maniac before I pulled into a Rest Area and handed him the car keys.

Decision Free Driving

I just finished driving for 2 and 1/2 hours on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  And the only reason I have the energy to write in this blog right now is because I practiced "Decision Free Driving".

Whenever possible, I drove in the "Decision Free Lane".  That's the middle one.  In the left lane, I have to keep deciding whether to change lanes to let the guy behind me pass by.  In the right lane, I have to decide whether to speed up or slow down to let someone merge.

I drove at "Decision Free Speed".  I went with the flow of the traffic in the center lane most of the time.  I didn't need to constantly judge whether I was risking a speeding ticket.  Plenty of "police bait" kept passing me on my left.

When traffic got very light, I couldn't "go with the flow of traffic".  There was no flow.  Just my car in long stretches.  So what speed should I drive?  I let "cruise control" take over.  Speed limit plus 5 so that, again, I didn't have to think about speeding.

I listened to "Decision Free Radio".  Pandora.  Commercial free music so that I wouldn't feel compelled to switch from one station to another.

The older I get, the more I realize that saving 5-10 minutes per hour by pushing my speed, changing lanes, watching for cops with my foot hovering over the brakes in case I see one is exhausting.  The book on willpower that has been the subject of my last few posts has made it clear that all these little driving decisions sap energy and willpower.  On a long drive alone at night, I'd rather conserve my energy by keeping things simple.

Willpower: when to work it, when to rest?

When I started reading Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, I was confused at first.  The first few chapters talked about how all people get drained if, over an extended period, they exercise willpower or make many decisions.  Baumeister was one of the top researchers in this field of psychology and coined the term "ego depletion" to describe how we increasingly lose our ability to push ourselves, to resist temptation, to make good decisions, if we make too many decisions or push our willpower too long in one sitting.  He describes judges from Israel who heard prisoners plead for parole all day long.  Early in the morning, the judges were fresh.  They granted parole, on average, 65% of the time.  But granting parole is a risk.  What if the felon repeats the crime?  By late afternoon, the judges found it easier to play it safe.  They granted parole just 10% of the time.

What confused me is this:  are the author suggesting that we avoid making decisions?  Should we avoid pushing ourselves?  Should we avoid doing anything difficult because, as the authors say, we have a limited amount of willpower to use for all the tasks and decisions in the day?  Should I just go for the easy way all day long so that I've conserved my willpower for emergencies?

The answer is both yes and no. 

• Yes, I should conserve willpower.  It helps to be aware that willpower and good decision making are both limited resources.  Best to not waste them on things we don't really value.  An example for me is driving in the center lane of the highway so that I don't need to make decisions about letting faster cars pass me or whether to speed up or slow down so that cars entering the highway can merge.  Better to stay fresh for tough decisions at work or at home in which it matters to me to be at my best.
• But, no, I should also exercise willpower.  Later in the book, the authors describe "Willpower Workouts".  Research shows that willpower can be strengthened if you take on just 1 or 2 things at a time that require willpower.  For example, students in a study who were told to stand up straight or sit up straight whenever they thought about it ended up with improved willpower in all areas of their lives versus a control group.  Without being told to do so, they ended up studying more, exercising more,  amd eating better.

So the bottom line is, don't make 20 New Year's Resolutions because that isn't realistic for almost anybody.  And, yes, don't make trivial things like driving too complicated and draining because you are better off saving your limited willpower for things that matter more.  But it is always a good idea to have SOMETHING, some part of your life that you are pushing yourself to change.

e-mail fatigue

So THAT'S why I hate e-mail!  Decision fatigue!

Lately, I've been writing posts based on the book Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney.  I've been blown away by the author's explanation of "decision fatigue", the fact that any long, uninterrupted series of decisions--if we don't get a rest and maybe a bite to eat before we continue--is going to drain us.  Big decisions with a lot at stake are the most draining, of course, but even trivial stuff like which lane to drive in on the highway saps our energy.

So now I know why I hate e-mail.  At my job I get at least 100 e-mails per day--not including the junk mail that I know I can delete instantly.  All the others require decisions.  Do I file this for later?  Can I just delete it?  What's this guy asking for?  All too often, people want something--expect something--but they don't just come out and say it.  I have to DECIDE what they want, and now I know why this drains me.

And then there are the tiny decisions:  sort by date?  by author?  by subject?  If I sort by subject, I wonder if I'm neglecting something urgent.  If I sort by date, I wonder if I'm missing the chance to respond to and then delete 10 messages that are all part of a chain.  So I go back and forth but research has shown that even these small decisions are draining.

And then if I let my inbox get too big, and it's often well above 300, I repeat decisions on the same e-mails for weeks.  I see again that old e-mail.  I didn't know what to do with it yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that, and I don't know what to do with it today.  But now I've struggled with decisions multiple times for the same e-mail.  This is why many time management experts such as David Allen with his "Getting Things Done" system urge you to get the inbox to zero almost daily.

This is my current 30 day goal.  Started 6 days ago with my inbox at 380 at 9 am.  Started to graph the size of my inbox every morning at 9 am.  Showing the graph to a friend each day.  I told him he's holding me accountable to improving every day.  He didn't volunteer for the job.  But I told the poor guy he has the job now because he sits next to the printer.  Every day I show him the graph and I feel compelled to have progress each day.  He just laughs at me, but my inbox is already down to 220.  And I don't dare to walk past him on any day with a graph that shows anything less than progress.

Decision Fatigue

The most eye-opening thing I read in Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, is what the authors call "Decision Fatigue".   They describe a wide variety of research showing that people get tired when they make many decisions without a break, quickly losing the ability to make further decisions wisely and fairly.  In one incredible case, a variety of judges heard parole requests all day long.  On average, if they heard a case early in the morning, they granted parole 65% of the time.  But the judges were much harder on the poor prisoners who had the bad luck to appear late in the day.  The judges paroled them only 10% of the time even though their crimes and their sentences were no different than those who appeared in the morning.

Turns out that even small decisions of minor importance are draining.  A series of shopping decisions, for example, can drain you of the mental resources needed to make harder decisions later.

Walk into an automobile showroom and WATCH OUT.  They'll have you make a ton of trivial decisions about trim, the color of the dashboard, color of the carpets, options for cup holders and then WHAM!  They ask if you want the $3,000 V6 Turbocharger option, knowing that you'll just say, "Whatever!"

Makes me think about conserving my decisions.  Drive in the middle lane.  In the left lane, I have to constantly decide whether the guy behind me is coming up so fast that I'd better move over.  In the right lane, should I speed up or slow down so the Ford Pinto can merge?  In the middle, just go with the flow.  Similarly, lock in the cruise control 5 mph above the speed limit and forget it.  No peering ahead for the cop car, ready to make a decision to tap the brakes.  Maybe that's why lots of people eventually start to drive this way.  They start to see how draining these small decisions can be on a long drive.  Better to save the energy for whatever I find when I get to the destination.

Willpower Behind the Wheel

According to Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, we exercise willpower whenever we strive to control our thoughts, actions, or feelings.  And we all fatigue as we use our willpower, as if we were doing push-up after push-up.  Just as with physical exercise, we need time for rest and recover before we can do another round of willpower "push-ups".

A good example in my life lately involves teaching my 16 year old how to drive.  He wants to accumulate 50 hours of practice as fast as he can so he wants our driving sessions to last as long as possible.  But I know that driving taxes his willpower.  He has to force himself to focus.  He has to control his thoughts.  He has to remember to look in his blind spot before changing lanes, to monitor his position in the lane on the road, to figure out what other cars and pedestrians might be doing, to remember to start and stop smoothly.  I can see now when this becomes too much for him, starts to make mistakes, and then the lesson is over for the day.

Conserving Willpower

I'm reading Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney.  They share some amazing experimental results showing that willpower is analogous to physical strength.  Like strength, willpower can grow through exercise.  But, like strength, you can't apply it for hours on end without getting drained.  Even the best athlete can only run so many miles, can only do so many push-ups.

The authors describe many experiments showing that groups of people who had to resist chocolate chip cookies when the researcher's back was turned or who were told to show no emotion when watching animals suffer in a documentary or who otherwise had to restrain themselves were subsequently unable to persist at puzzles or other challenging tasks compared to control groups who could have all the cookies they desired or who could cry when watching sad films.  Their willpower was drained as thoroughly as an athlete who runs 20 miles and then is asked to run 10 more.  One of the authors, Baumeister, apparently is one of the top researchers in the field.  He coined the term "ego-depletion" to describe what happens when someone has, temporarily, used up much of their willpower.  "Ego-depletion" quickly became the primary way that most psychologists described this phenomenon.

The lesson for me is that I need to consciously conserve willpower.  I should not try to force myself for long periods to do things that don't come naturally to me or to put myself through prolonged temptation to do things that are a waste of time or worse.

It's not that I shouldn't exercise willpower.  On the contrary, the exercise of willpower strengthens it.  It's more a matter of recognizing human limitations, and not kidding myself that I can just push ahead for hours and hours on a tough task without taking a break.  Maybe I can try, but if I'm honest with myself I'll notice my fatigue, loss of concentration, and reduced capability.  Better to take breaks and to limit the time I spend on the tasks that drain me.

This is part of being aware of my changing self.  I need to be aware of when I'm exercising willpower.  I'm not exercising--and draining--willpower when I do things out of habit, when I do things that feel natural and easy.  When, instead, I'm pushing myself, that is OK but I need to feel the drain on my willpower and to take a break while I'm still feeling fresh and energized.

3 Most Important Questions

"The 3 Most Important Questions" is one of the guided meditations in the new iPhone App "Omvana".  It has made a big impression on me.  For the last few months, I've been trying to improve how well I use my imagination to picture the changes I'd like to see at home and at work.  This meditation gave me a completely different perspective on how to do this.

The author, Vishen Lakhiani, believes that there are 3 key questions to ask as you imagine your ideal future:

1. What experiences do you want to have?  Both short and long term, what places do you want to visit or live in?  Ideal living conditions?  Achievements?  Adventures?  Fun?
2. How do you want to grow?   Skills and knowledge you want to master?  What kind of person do you want to be?  What is your ideal self?
3. What do you want to contribute?  How to help your family, your community?  What kind of legacy do you want to leave.

Lakhiani believes that there are what he calls "end goals" and "means goals".  He feels it is most important that we define the "end goals" first.  Only then should we define the "means goals" that get us there.  Further, he says that there are three distinct types of end goals:  experience goals, growth goals, and contribution goals.  For me, I find it important to look at these both short term (the next week or month) and long term.

I've asked myself Lakhiani's 3 questions many times now, and that when I structure my time envisioning the future in this way, it unlocks my imagination.  More ideas flow.

I started thinking, "Who is Lakhiani?" There seems to be more depth here than the typical guided meditation on an iPhone app.  I'm a positive psychology book junkie, and I've never heard these ideas put this way.  I found that he's a former Microsoft employee who decided to form his own internet company, "Mindvalley", and that now he's a top motivational speaker.  Here's a link to his video explaining his "3 Most Important Questions" ideas.

The 3 Most Important Questions