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.