Phew!

Time log number 2… complete.

Here I’ve identified the key, critical areas that I made a note on in my first time log. In my prior log I had made note on the key aspects of daily behavior that needed a shift. I guess there’s only one way to tell…

The key results of my 2nd 9-day time log:

Driving:

8 Music

23 Audio

1 with Friend, just catching up

6 Rehearse

23 Calls and texts

Rehearsals did not skyrocket but they did increase to a degree, which was desired. a Big jump was seen in listening to audio programs, which have been playing ubiquitously in my car as of late! (Learning A LOT about marketing right now…)

Sleeping:

Average lumber per night: 5 hours 41 minutes

Average nap length: 27 minutes

Average sleep time went down around 35 minutes, and average nap time was a drop in about 15 minutes as well. Preferably I’d like to see naps just stop altogether. I think that they only occur because there is a lack of CRUSHING urgency and a feeling of tiredness seems to warrant them at times. Still a nice improvement here.

Rehearsing Speeches:

6 in car

7 out of car, average length of 22 minutes

Out of car rehearsals still weren’t tremendously frequent but honestly I felt as though I didn’t need them. I would rattle off a few lines of my next gig and feel 100% comfortable in terms of preparation. The speeches went off without a hitch. I feel as though when I speak on new material more rehearsal time will be more necessary.

Shower Length:

Average shower length: 6 minutes

Less than half the average time as before. Was shooting for 5, but this is a great improvement.

Read Time:

4 occasions of reading: 35 minutes, 25 minutes, 47 minutes, and 8 minutes (finishing the chapter)

I was aiming for 45 minutes per session and did not reach this goal. However, 25 minutes – 45 minutes is a solid range (though I aim for more).

Project Time:

20 occasions of working on projects.

Average project time: 47 minutes

A much bigger improvement over the last time log. I was shooting for an hour but this improvement of more than 15 minutes is significant. Distractions and choppy work sessions aren’t in my best interest and I know that my conscious efforts to eliminate them were successful.

Facebook / Email:

Email checks: 14

Facebook: 7

Email got a bit out of hand, and my minor blips into email (IE: to touch base of check up on even a single message) all added up to be a bit more than I’d like. I think once a day aught to be sufficient 90% of the time and will look to improve this continuously.

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To be frank, there were parts of this process where I thought I was forcing myself through with “will,” but I knew I needed to make the comparisons and its good to see tangible improvement after calibrating the areas I wanted to work on.

I think that if you want the highest level of personal efficiency, such an experiment is essential in seeing your own strengths and flaws.

Until next time…!

In late February / early March I decided to keep a log of my time for about a week – and it turned out to go for about 9 days. It was different having to record everything I do, and I think if nothing else it showed me how many things go on in any given day, and how many random tasks and interruptions occur in the midst of bigger-picture stuff.

Rather than getting carpal tunnel and boring the heck out of readers, I decided to summarize major notable points instead of re-typing everything.

The benefit of actually doing a time log is that you get to see read figures as to where your time is allocated on a minute-by-minute basis. You might find (as I did), that things are slightly different than you had previously anticipated – and that leaves space open to make real improvements in areas you didn’t know you had issues with, or areas you thought were closer to your ideas than they actually are.

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Here are the areas I wanted to look at, and the areas I will look to improve in the next time log project.

Driving: Here I wasn’t so interested in how much time I spent doing it (which I know if plenty), but more of what was I doing while driving. I like to make the most of my car time by rehearsing speeches, listening to audio, running through philosophical questions (inquiry), or making calls (mostly for business). Sometimes I just end up listening to music, which isn’t a sin but I don’t want it to be the norm because I could be making car time important (and though sometimes music is important in terms of lifting my energy and pumping me up for an event or something, it usually isn’t priority number one).

I drove a total of about 41 times. Within those 41 times I did different things while driving, sometimes I did more than one thing in one drive (like listen to music, then rehearse, for example).

Music – 17

Audio – 16

Rehearse – 5

w / Friends – 6

Calls – 9

Inquiry – 3

Visualization – 1

Clearly most of my time is taken up with music and audio, which doesn’t surprise me due to how easy it is to throw something from the iPod. The big change I want to see here is in far more rehearsals. I make a point to rehearse at least a part of a speech every day now, so my next time log should be much different. I’d also like to see music go down a little bit to make room for more rehearsals and maybe audio material. Inquiry and visualization are fun but not current area of focus.

Sleeping: I have made a point to not sleep much for the last year or so. Its one of the best decisions of my life from what I can tell. Here I wanted to track my actual hours of sleep and my naps as well.

Over the course of 9 nights I slept for 56:45. That’s an average of 6:17 per night. In addition, there were 6 total naps in the 9 days, amounting to an average of about :40 per day. This is not preferable. I’d prefer to see the sleep down to about 5:30 or 6:00 an the naps at a total minimum. These areas will be monitored as well.

Shower: Sometimes after a 4.5 hour Jiu Jitsu practice (running classes, teaching private lessons, etc…) I just want to “relax” in the shower forever. Its a waste of water and heat, and frankly there’s more important things to do – so I recorded my times in the shower.

Average shower time over 9 days was 12.8 minutes. I’d like to see that consistently be around the 5 minute mark.

Speech Rehearsal: Granted, in early March I wasn’t doing as many speaking engagements as I am now, but I wanted to make note of how much I actually practiced so that I can set a standard for myself.

Car Rehears – 5

(out of car:)

Under 30 min Rehearse – 4

Over 30 min Rehearse – 1

I would like to continue to see at least one rehearsal of around 45 minutes per week to just keep myself primed on my best material and used to speaking of extended periods. This also gives me time to perfect the way I communicate. I’d like to see far more car rehearsals, and I will time them next time.

Facebook / email: I have made a point to check these once, twice, or zero times per day. I don’t like to waste time bouncing to my inbox 20 times a day.

9 checks in 9 days. Thats actually just about the ratio I’m looking for. I can’t loose track of that stuff but I also can’t get too into it. Nice work here.

Average Time Reading: Sometimes I do more project work than I do reading (I go through phases like that), but its important that I get blocks of time to read within, so I wanted to track my reading time.

I found that I read 5 times, with an average of only 19 minutes per session. I need to see this number JUMP. The best method of doing so would be to block off larger chunks of time. 19 minutes does not allow someone to really sink into material, I’d like to see 45 minutes on average – at least!

Average Time Working Projects: Same as above. I want to know if I’m giving myself enough blocked-off time to really put effort into the projects that matter so much to my career and eventual grand-scheme contribution to the world.

I found that with 9 different instances of working on a project (about once a day), the average time spent working on a project strait was 28.33 minutes. Again, this is not adequate in my book. If I’m working on a speech or a presentation or my sport psychology independent study, I’d want to see much larger numbers on the board (1 hour at least).

_____________

Craziness, this gives me a lot to work with and a lot to work on.

I have some distinct areas for improvement now, and the next time I work on this time log thing you can expect to see some huge improvements.

Until then!

-Dan

Funny image, to be honest I don’t even understand the message but for some reason I think its cool.

There were a few days I missed on this one, but most every day I carried this experiment out.

Part of me didn’t even want to record this experiment because I feel like I lost passion with it, but I cannot NOT finish what I start, so I’m going to at least throw up the details of what happened and go into a brief synopsis at the end. There’s a lot of very random “why would I do that”-type stuff in here, but hey thats what this experiment was about – being able to spontaneously act on something I set my mind to – even if I can’t rationally justify it.

Anyway, here’s a log of

‘Exercising the Will’ :

Day 1 -

I decided to eat nothing from 12:00 pm to 9:15 pm. I realized that once I realized that food wasn’t a possibility my mind let it go. If I didn’t set a firm line that I absolutely wouldn’t eat until a certain time, then I probably would have felt more hungry because my mind would have been able to consider food.

Its a good thing that the thought on not being able to eat didn’t run through my head. It was cut off with the possibility of food. Makes me realize (as I realized when I was cutting weight to compete in the Pan Ams in 2009) that thoughts of food – no matter what kind of thoughts – seem to result in a sensations of hunger.

Day 2 -

I had 4 hours to drive down to NY to train at a premier Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academy. I decided to spend an entire hour with no music and no phone, focusing on nothing except what was in front of me – my immediate sensations.

This meditation exercise wasn’t easy, as my mind quickly channelled itself to mental dialogue which it deemed to be productive. I consciously shut all of this down and aimed to focus on the lights on the cars at night, the dark landscape, and my own breathing. There were a few times where I would see an electrical tower or series of trees and I was able to consider them beautiful. Genuinely focusing 100% on my senses brought me to notice those little scenes that just had something mystical and pretty about them.

Day 3 -

I didn’t think of a will exercise all day, and then while in the shower after a long day of training I decided to stand under the coldest water possible for 30 seconds. Its something I’ve always disliked massively, and going from super hot water to super cold water was a shock, it was actually a little hard to breath for a bit because my chest and intercostals locked up on me when I turned on the cold water.

Day 4 -

After going out and hanging with a friend at my house until about 2:30am, I decided to jog around my neighborhood. In the dead of night. In the freezing cold. Over a mile. Backwards! Haha if anyone was up they would certainly have thought I was nuts. I liked this one – this was something I definitely didn’t want to do but when the idea popped into my mind I thought “Time to exercise the will” and just committed to do it.

Day 5 -

I wake up and its freezing rain outside. I have a business meeting in 40-something minutes away. You know what I don’t feel like doing? Feeling that icey rain. So I decide to take the entire drive with one hand out of the car. Man it was frigid, I had to bring my hand in a few times to make sure there was still blood flow and to prevent some kind of frost bite.

Then on my way home I thought about cleaning my bathroom, and how I didn’t want to do it – it wasn’t necessary. I realized, however, that I had missed a day of this experiment and that I would exercise my will and clean the whole thing spotless as soon as I got home – so I did. Sure didn’t “feel” like it, but it was cool to do.

Day 6 -

Before hoping into the shower I realize that I haven’t worked my exercise of the will, and the first thing that pops in to my head is a headstand so I randomly just go into a headstand for as long as I could stand it.

Day 7 -

I have a cool party coming up in a bit, and I definitely want to make it a fun event. It dawns on me that I should invite some people. Some random girl walks by on campus and she’s pretty cute. I introduce myself and tell her about the party and how I thought she was cute and wanted to invite her. We talk briefly and get some laughs in. I get the phone number and I’m off.

Day 8 -

Believe it or not I was afraid of the dark for a long time – even into early adulthood. Could have been all those scary movies as a kid – I use to love horror. On this night I walked around my house in the 100% pitch black – basically going by feel. I even went into my basement and explored it – basically like a blind person would.

Day 9 -

After a hard night of training I am filling up my tank at the gas station but decide to do it in sandals, shorts, and a T-shirt. Its 9:30pm and its well below freezing. I basically aimed to allow the cold sensation to pass through – to take my mind off of it and appreciate my surroundings.

Day 10 -

I wake up and start reading some sport psychology – then I decide that until I’m done with this chapter I will not take my eyes off the book. It was a fun challenge because the chapter took me 2 hours (I take a lot of notes). I was fiending for breakfast after that.

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Thoughts :

I had fun with this experiment. I think that just acting because we want to act is a capacity we could all use to develop. There are so many times when “I don’t feel like it” has held me back – and I want to be able to take my best action regardless. That’s why I developed this experiment – to cultivate the ability to act without having to justify it with reason – because reason is often clouded by rationalization and bogus fears.

Part of me thought the experiment was silliness. And it was. Pat of me just though “why don’t you just do what you really think is best instead of doing all these random things for the sake of ‘developing the capacity.’ Why not develop the capacity in everyday life by taking right action on your own terms?” AKA: why not just do homework when I know its best to do homework, and study when its best to study, and talk to new people when its best, etc… and develop it genuinely like that.

I like that approach too, and thats definitely something I do on a daily basis, but I think having an experiment like this is cool too. Its weird how something silly and pointless like jogging backwards around the neighborhood can actually seem fulfilling when you make it a challenge to yourself – when you make it part of a meaningful project. It actually does give that feel of “damn, I can do that… I can do whatever I tell myself to do.” It does feel like flexing the muscles of the will.

Its not that I want to be able to be the guy that jogs backwards at 3 in the morning or does headstands until his skull hurts – but damn, I definitely want to be able to be the guy who can just ACT and doesn’t need to sit and calculate and get caught up in rationalizing “reasoning.”

It has been quite some time since my last post here on LE. I’ve been traveling to compete, teach seminars, and train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I’ve been writing performance psychology seminars for local sports teams, I’ve been applying to graduate schools (UPenn’s program for positive psychology is totally for me), and I have managed to keep and active social life.

Recently, however, I’ve decided to get into another bout of tinkering with human potential, and what better way to manage progress and ensure follow-through than to post it up on this site?

The Gist

Here’s what’s going on with this particular experiment:

Each day I’m going to make some challenging decision to either Do Something or Not Do Something, and either way I will follow through ruthlessly. For instance, today I’ve decided to not eat until after I’m done teaching grappling class after 9:00pm tonight. Tomorrow I might randomly drop and do 50 pushups while hopping in circles, or I might commit to only getting 3 hours of sleep.

Why would I ever want to challenge myself do following through on at least one random, out-of-the-blue thing that I determine for no reason?

To develop my will.

To develop my efficacy in my decisions ruling over my actions.

Think about it like this: When you tell yourself you’ll follow through on something, and you don’t follow through, you will usually come up with some rational construct as to why you didn’t follow through on your intentions. What I am doing is basically recognizing that I have no reason for doing an action other than demonstrating my will.

I am acting for the sake of developing the ability to act. Period.

My mind will say “Wait, don’t take this difficult action, there is no reason to do it!” and I will act anyway, developing my capacity to blow through any kind of hinderance to my intention.

My actions will not be random simple actions, they will be challenging and/or uncomfortable, such as talking to strangers, karaoke, limiting my sleep or food, limiting my phone use, etc… I do this because it is “uncomfortable” actions that my mind will be quickest to resist, and I’ve determined that “uncomfortable” is not a criterion for my mind to NOT follow through on my intentions.

But… why?

I think about it this way:

Often times when we set challenges for ourselves that are uncomfortable or unusual our mind will bring up enough rationalization to prevent us from following through.

Often times, this is because our present mind state (flooded with fear or with discomfort) is inferior to our mind state when we made the commitment to change or act (presumably, this was a state unfettered by silly fears and doubt, a state connected to our bold intentions).

If one is able to turn off fears and doubts as much as possible by placing action on following through in and of itself, one may be able to develop a will that is more and more powerful at directly effecting behavior - as opposed to a weak will.

That’s the theory anyway!

Getting Started

So today is day 1, the challenge came to me as I unwrapped a delicious granola bar. I thought “Hey, I want to eat this so bad, how about I don’t eat anything until way later tonight?” Hurray, something uncomfortable – something to push through and develop the will.

We’ll see how it works out, there will be at least another 2 weeks worth of these posts coming.

Disclaimer

I’m not a cognitive behavioral therapist, and frankly this experiment might not develop the kind of inner efficacy and strength of mental fortitude that I’d hope for it to develop, but either way I’m pushing forward into it, leaning into my edge, and I know for a fact that I will draw something valuable from it.

Until next time…

The Conundrum and Proposition:

How is it that we come to understand what brings us the most joy?

What is the best way to compose a life that we will find fulfilling?

Certainly no short-winded answers can be given to such questions – but in this relatively small article, I want to bring to the foreground the importance of understanding our own values and needs in constructing an ideally enjoyable life.

The Example:

Allow me to begin with an example:

Lets say you are looking for a trainer to help you with your fitness goal of improving cardiovascular endurance and vitality. You approach a trainer and ask them about how they can boost your progress and enhance your workouts. Here are two separate examples of a possible response from the trainer.

1. “We have people with similar goals in here all the time. We’ll have them work out on the machines and do some work on the bands, free weights, but mostly over here on our state-of-the-art cardio equipment. Working with motivated people like you is always a pleasure and I’d be happy to help.”
2. “With your specific goals, we’d be gearing a program more towards continuous, full-body dynamic exercise. The bikes and treadmills are great, but for the kind of function fitness you’re looking for, we’d experiment with a variety of exercises. Some might be calisthenic, some might be at the cable column, and some involving free weights – but this would be based off of your preferences and what your mind and body seem to align best with. Working with motivated people like you is always a pleasure and I’d be happy to help.”

Which response would you rather hear?

Anyone looking for results would probably choose the second response.

The first response is nice and short, but it conveys very little depth and understanding. Lets assume that after asking details about what kind of program you’d actually be getting into, you weren’t able to get much more out of the trainer. Lets assume that when you asked why you would be doing the exercises he was recommending, his answers were brief and shallow.

That probably wouldn’t bode well for your fitness objectives – and if you knew of one, you’d probably look for a trainer who knew his science and profession to a greater extent.

Reflection:

So lets bring some ideas home here.

Lets say one of yours friends is getting a coffee with you and he asks you what it is that you enjoy in your life and what it is that fulfills you.

If your answer to that question is “Uuuum… I don’t know. I like golf and hanging out with friends I guess…” then you might realize that you aren’t very proficient when it comes to the components of your personal fulfillment.

If you have no understanding of what it is that fulfills you, of what specific aspects of certain activities bring about the most enjoyment – how can you hope to align your life with what genuinely brings about happiness for you?

You would never trust a fitness professional to have control over your physical regimen unless you knew that he understood the dynamics of fitness, unless he knew what makes the body ‘tick’ and could clearly explain and apply these skills.

So why would you trust yourself to run your life without a clear understanding of what makes it the best life for YOU?

We aren’t talking about the path you take towards fitness at this point – we’re talking about living a life that is either aligned with your own ideas for happiness or not – we’re talking about your quality of life over a lifetime!

Is there anything more important experientially?

Applications:

Listing out every possible way to apply this broad idea would be ridiculous, but here in this short example we can go over some basic ideas.

First, aim to bring more depth into your understanding of what it is you enjoy. Whittle down your ideas about what it is you enjoy.

Do you enjoy sports? What sports, and why?

Maybe you enjoy table tennis and basketball because they have a fast and exciting pace, or maybe you like golf because of the coordination and focus involved, and honing those aspects of yourself is something you find enjoyable. Maybe you love wrestling because of the intricate applications of body mechanics and the grace of proper technique in action.

Maybe it isn’t that the sport itself that fulfills a unique need or desire for you, maybe you have associations to that sport that relate to things you values for themselves. For instance, you might associate golf with luxury and ease, or you might associate baseball with friendship because you grew up playing with all your best friends.

If you understand that you like to challenge your focus in golf, then you have found more depth than just “golf” in what you enjoy. You can now take this understanding and challenge your focus in other areas as well – such as scholastic endeavors or at work.

When you understand WHY it is that you value the activities / relationships / situations in your life, you can apply those “whys” to new aspects of your life.

For instance, you might realize that something you love about weight lifting is the fact that you can monitor your progress over time. You might then begin doing so in other areas as well! (You might monitor how many sales you close a month, or the quality of the experiences you have with a loved one, etc…).

In Conclusion:

Only you are responsible for your own fulfillment, and only you create it. Understand that there are needs, desires, values, and associations within you – some of which are unique to you – many of which are shared by arguably all of humanity.

If you don’t understand what composes the best life for you – if you don’t make a conscious effort to know what fulfills you and why – you cannot adequately live in the pursuit of your priorities, in the pursuit of your potential, or in the pursuit of happiness.

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Some people like collecting bottlecaps, some people like rock climbing, others like pottery or oil painting. If we don’t make our living doing these things (which most bottle cap collectors do not), then we call these activities “hobbies.”

But what is the value of a hobby, and why does almost everyone seem to have a few? It seems like such a potentially rich part of the human experience, so we might as well understand it and aim to get the most out of our non-professional endeavors.

What a Hobby is About-

Before going any further, lets take a look at what a hobby is (thank you dictionary.com):

Hobby, n: An activity or interest pursued outside one’s regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure.

By this definition (one that I think most people would agree with), hobbies are basically fun little things we do when we’re not working – mostly because we enjoy doing them.

This enjoyment probably comes from a million different sources for a million different people. Some people play golf because they enjoy the sense of calm that comes when they are out in nature. Some people climb rocks because they’ve always been fascinated with climbing and its something they get a certain rush from. Some people collect butterflies because they like to marvel at the beauty of such a unique and colorful creature.

These activities provide people with variety in their daily experience, sometimes with a creative outlet, sometimes with a physical challenge, etc…

We “get into” these fun little outlets and we make them a part of our lives.

I think its admirable to be engaged in our own lives and our own fun, but I would also still ask the question “what else could you be doing?” or “is this what is best for you now?” to many people involved in hobbies, myself included.

Do I consider hobbies to be evil? Do I want to tell people to stop any practice of hobbies and just work at their regular job all day long? No, not at all.

I just happen to think that often times, a person’s hobby might not be driving them in the directions that are most important in their lives.

Are Most Hobbies Just Wasting Time?-

Maybe this is a bit of a harsh way to put it. I’m not trying to stir anger and outrage in the internet community.

Lets make it clear that I don’t consider myself to be the exception to this tendency to not remain aligned with what is actually most important to us in our lives. Its just an idea to bounce out there, see if it resonates with you.

A point to consider is that our hobbies might not be bringing us towards the ideals of what we want to experience, what we want to accomplish, and who we want to become.

The obvious example might be the man struggling to support his family who has a golf hobby. He might want to reconsider spending that kind of cash on the green, and invest those hours in finding a higher paying job or picking up some side work. Assuming he values supporting his family over playing golf as a hobby (which isn’t necessarily the case, but in this example lets assume it is) – he’d better reconsider how he allocates his time, energy, and money.

I’m not only talking about cases where someone’s hobby is blatantly going against something more important to them, I’m talking about even the most subtle and seemingly innocent cases.

Lets take the example of a college student who happens to have a hobby of playing video games.

If you were to ask this college student what was most important to him in his life, “video games” would likely not make the list (it might, but in this example lets assume it does not). He might include things like: fun, meeting people, living a long and healthy life, contributing to his community, and revitalizing the environment.

While playing video games, one might ask him how playing video games is aiding him in developing those things which are most important to him in his life.

Or you could tell him to write 2 pages about his ideal future scenario of where he wants to be in 5 years. He might go into detail on the types of relationships he would have with people he cared about, he might go into the kind of house he would own and the exciting job he would be involved in.

While playing video games, one might ask him how playing video games is aiding him in creating that ideal future that he drew out so enthusiastically.

In either case he would probably tell you to lay off, stating that video games are just for fun, just to relax, and that everyone needs fun and relaxation in their lives.

Here’s where I think it gets good. Just me personally, but I like this part.

Aligning Ourselves with Purpose-

I think that most if not all people do need some form of relaxation and fun in our lives. I might ask, however, if there are other potential activities that could serve the same purpose of having a fun and relaxing effect on us, while at the same time orient us towards our highest goals.

The general principal might look like this:

For any activity that fulfills any need, determine if that need could be fulfilled by another activity which might further our highest objectives in life.

Boom. There it is. Lets look at how this idea might be applied:

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Example 1: In the example with the college student looking for fun and relaxation, he might drop the video games and instead go play basketball with friends, or get involved in some environmental causes, or do some internet research on careers in his field, or go play pool in one of the dorms.

Any of those other activities listed could not only be fun and relaxing, but would also involve other things that student actually values in his life (IE: environmental causes, living healthy, meeting people, etc…). In this way, he is orienting himself towards that which he actually wants in his life, towards the future he desires.

Example 2: A man in his 50s is an avid chess player. He enjoys the fun and the challenge of chess, and he also likes being able to play with other people and meet friends. Let us assume that this man claims that his family is the highest priority in his life above all else, and that his other main objective in life is to innovate in his field of electrical engineering.

He might be able to switch his activities and find challenge in helping his children to better in school, or rekindling the fire of passion in his marriage. He might find fun in engaging his kids in new activities and encouraging their development. He might also find challenge and fun in new experiments and projects in his field of science.

The point is here, if chess doesn’t hold value by itself, and if family and engineering innovation are his highest objectives in life, then why doesn’t he allocate his energy and time towards enriching his family relationships and actually making progress on experiments in his field? If those are the things he actually does value most, then there seems to be not value not to.

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Am I saying that chess is a bad thing, or that videos games are a bad thing? Of course not, but I am saying that nothing is exempt from potential scrutiny in terms of aligning our lives with what we actually want to do with them in the first place – to what is genuinely most important to us.

It might very well be that for the older man, chess holds a value and an importance that cannot be filled by other activities. It might be that for the young student, video games hold a unique kind of fun and relaxation effect that actually charges him up and makes him ideally effective in achieving what he most wants to achieve and becoming who he most wants to become.

If they were to make that distinction for themselves, I wouldn’t question their actions.

However, I would probably ask them to look inside themselves and determine if those activities at those times were genuinely what they deemed best for themselves.

This doesn’t just go for hobbies, though, this kind of introspection, self understanding and prioritizing can (and occasionally should?) be done with any action or decision.

This brings us to the last segment…

What it Breaks Down to:

Now we’ve gone beyond the isolated occurrences of “hobbies” and onto the bigger picture of living on our own best terms.

Participation in hobbies, like any other action or decision, can be referred to against the reality of what is actually most important to that individual at that time in that situation.

The breakdown looks like this:

Given what you value in your life, given what you want to accomplish, experience, and become, and given where you want to be in 1, 2, 5, 10, 80 years, is what you’re doing right now the ideal action?

Now, if the above question was posed to someone and they could honestly say “yes,” then they are either neglecting the complexity of the question and blatantly placating themselves, or they are genuinely living with a greater degree of conscious involvement and depth than 99% of the population on the planet.

For instance, the chess playing man might genuinely believe that helping his children study could make them reliant on his help, and that he can only focus on innovation in engineering for so long at a time, so there are times when chess as an activity is genuinely best for him given what he values and wants to achieve – then more power to him – he seems to be living life “on purpose” and is consciously following through on what actually matters to him.

Of course we can know very little about what is “objectively” the best decision for us given our values and goals, so we can never do more than make our best intelligent determination of what our best decision is – but it seems to make sense to have a criterion to reference in making such a distinction.

Lets not forget that we have a massive capacity to deceive ourselves, and we will tend to rationalize and avoid change. However, if we at least set our compass we won’t be able to help getting closer to alignment with our highest values day by day.

…

We’re alive for how long?

What are we doing with this time?

What matters to us?

Whelp, we better get to it.

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Here’s a bunch of my personal notes from an inquiry on Integrity and Congruence. I argue that the

repercussions of living without this inner harmony has detrimental spill-over in many facets of

our lives:

Didn’t clean it us a tremendous amount to get “bloggy,” its just cold content, a mesh of a lot of schools of thought and insight.

Enjoy.

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Congruence means ‘in agreement or harmony.’ When I talk about congruence in terms of self development, I’m referring to a general sense of integrity within ourselves and with our behavior.

This implies understanding what you want to achieve in your life and acting in accordance. This implies understanding who you want to be and what virtues you want to exemplify in your life and acting in accordance. This implies knowing what youwant to experience in your life and acting in accordance.

Having this degree of real self understanding is massively valuable in life. Again, so much of our stress and anxiety originates from not understanding what we want, and from not actually taking action on what we want. Settling most of this works wonders.

I’m going to drop a bunch of mindset ideas onto the board right now and let you all soak them in. Like I said before this is big picture stuff, this is how we tie these ideas together into a way of living on our own terms.

COMPLAINING

Have you ever known anyone who was doing something but complaining about it the entire time? Kids do this all the time with schoolwork or sports practice, or fixing their car, etcetera. Basically anything that isn’t immediately fun or entertaining is put in the “complain” category.

I’m going to pose something to you guys, I’m going to throw out a perspective and see if it resonates with you. I pose that when people complain about something while they’re doing it, the issue is not the activity itself, but the fact that the person doing it is not sure enough that this is his best action and is not confident enough to make a clear determination and stick with it. If your car tire runs flat and you have to pull over to put it up on the jack, do get pissed and kick your car door? Do you curse your car and your life?

We’ve all seen people freak out on their cars when something like this happens, and the reason its ridiculous is because its a completely useless expenditure of energy. Kicking the car doesn’t fix it, and it also doesn’t help you avoid the issue in the future, it just adds another car door ding to your list of expenses.

You could say the same about a big assignment like an essay. Sometimes you’ll see someone writing an essay and they’ll say “man this sucks, I wish I could be at the beach” or “I’d so much rather be playing mini-golf” or whatever.

Again, I’ll pose they complain partially because they don’t have a clear enough concept of what is best for them in their lives, or what they want out of life and what that requires, and so they act on objectives – like schoolwork or fixing their car – out of a sense of “should” and “have to,” and they resist it the entire time.

Someone who exhibits congruence would probably not prefer a flat tire, but if their best rationally determined action is to fix the car (or apply the spare) – given where they want to be and who they want to me – then they’ll fix the car.Why resist the best action? This doesn’t happen unless you never confidently come to conclude what is genuinely best for you. The thing is, you can’t do that unless you understand yourself and are settled within yourself.

In the eyes of the congruent individual, reality is as such, his values are as such, and his objectives are as such. An action is chosen and followed through on, period.

Granted we can calculate the ramifications of every action and thought we ever have, but someone who is settled in themselves will be able to make a best determination and have the confidence and wherewithal to follow through. Decisiveness comes naturally from a clear understanding of the “what”s and “why”s of our lives.

TWO-FACED TENDENCIES

Lets go to another example. Do any of you know someone who conveys a different self to different people? They might totally agree with one person on a certain topic, and then agree completely with someone else who has an opposite view. I think the term “two faced” implies malice, but to be honest I feel that most of these people aren’t consciously malicious – though I’m sure some of them are.

Sometimes the matters at hand are trivial, and the individual tells one friend he likes vanilla ice cream best and he tells his other friend that strawberry is his favorite. This is silly but harmless. What if the matter at hand is more serious? What if this person is talking about who to blame for a conflict within a group of friends, and they end up siding with whoever they are talking to. This is remarkably common, right?

Again I’m going to get bold here and pose an idea to you all. This is something you can take or leave on your own accord of course, but hear me out. I pose that one reason why someone will put up all these fronts with different people is because they do not have a clear conception of their own standards, values, and preferences. They wait for other people to tell them what is right, what is important, even what flavor of soft serve tastes good. They are so disconnected and unsettled from any kind of self understanding or firm beliefs of their own that they talk and act in completely opposite ways around different people.

They haven’t developed the capacity to make distinctions for themselves and stick by them as real and authentic.

ACHIEVING THE OBJECTIVES OF OTHERS

Another example: have you ever met someone who always seems to be running around for everyone else? These people make commitments with anyone who asks for a favor. If someone asks for help on an essay or needs someone to cover for them in a volleyball game or needs a ride to the airport, this person just agrees to it.

Consequently these people get run into the ground, right? They have so much of other people’s stuff to get done they barely have time for themselves. They rush to fulfill the objectives of others while their own goals aren’t met. At the same time, they commit to so much that often they forget their commitments or they are unable to fulfill them all – and sometimes this gives them a bad wrap. Seems so unfair, huh?

Time to pose another congruence idea. See if this one clicks, again I’m just putting this out there for you to gauge on your own. I pose that these people spend their time running around doing everyone else’s stuff because they don’t have a firm enough idea of what their own “stuff” is, and how to move it forward.

If you find someone who is always rushing around for other people, I encourage you to ask them what’s most important in their own lives and how they plan on going about it. I am almost guaranteeing and you will not get more than a vague, blurry, and broken vision. Here’s why:

If you don’t know how much you have on your plate in terms of projects and objectives, and someone you know requests a bit of your help, your mind will probably first look at your own life and determine if such a commitment is viable.

If your idea of your own aspirations or personal responsibilities and projects look like a gooey grey mass because you haven’t determined any of it firmly, then you’ll refer to that grey mass and assume that you can fit something else in there. And you agree.

On the other hand, if you have your purpose defined, and your specific short and long term objectives defined with next steps to take on each one, then when someone asks for your help on their own project or endeavor, you are no longer referencing a gooey grey mass of pseudo-ideas, you are looking at a well orchestrated map of your future and of your current allocation of time and energy. Hence, you will now make a rational determination depending on your actual ability to take on more activity, instead of aimlessly taking on obligations.

NOT FOLLOWING THROUGH ON PLANS

Have you ever known someone who is always saying they are going to do something, but they never do?

A common example is the person who drinks and says “oooh man, drinking sucks I seriously don’t want to drink anymore, seriously!” Then three days later they’re puking over a toilet saying the same BS?

Why is this? Why?

This happens because the person has to real standards for how they will act and what they have determined to be best for them given what they value in life. They probably don’t make any decisions based on their personal ideals and standards. The way they act with drinking is probably the way they act with everything.

If its perceived to be pleasant – and its a common behavior – then they partake in it. When there’s some pain associated to it, they totally bail on it… until they don’t feel so bad and they run the same circuit.

If there are no deeper understanding in terms of what you stand by as a person, if there is no pain and pleasure attached to real outcomes you want in your life, and the person you want to be – then you can’t help but be yanked by pleasure and pain in the present – you can’t help but be incongruent.

BOREDOM

We could say that someone who is bored just doesn’t have adequate stimulation or material around him to keep his brain occupied. Or we could say that the stimulation doesn’t fit to his specific interests or even to his values, and so he experiences the frustration of boredom.

The ‘quick and cheesy tip’ for this issue of boredom might be to remember to bring around a book when going to the bank or to have fun music to play in the car at all times or to avoid places that don’t offer enough stimulation or information.

These might be good tips, but I think that there is a deeper kind of development that we can achieve that strikes at the root of all boredom: being disengaged in the environment / with our live sin general.

I argue that if you know what you value and are actively oriented toward the attainment of your ideals, being who you want to be, and experiencing what you want to experience, you will always find a way to engage the present moment to exemplify your kind of excellence.

You could lock me in a dark room for 2 hours, and so long as I knew I wasn’t getting locked in forever (in which case I’d be franticly scrambling to get out), I would not get bored. I could do calisthenics, I could give time management speeches to imaginary audiences, I could focus intensely on all that I’m grateful for in my life, I could visualize my desired future, I could catch up on sleep.

The possibilities are always endless, if you seek to engage yourself in life you will find ways to do so – you will find ways to enjoy and learn from the present and orient yourself towards your ideals despite your surroundings – which is fulfilling in itself.

I will wager that the person you know to be bored more than anyone else has a very weak idea of what they enjoy in life, of what they want to do and who they want to be. Hold me to that one. If they did, they would DO SOMETHING about it in the present moment.

LACK OF DRIVE AND MOTIVATION

We might argue that someone without drive or ‘motivation’ is in a situation that lacks opportunity, or that he is born a more lazy person, or that he just doesn’t want to do ‘big things’ – and that doesn’t make him “bad,” does it?

A ‘lazy’ person just has weak reasons to do anything. If he had strong reasons to get up and accomplish something, or develop himself, or help others, or create works of art – he would do it. He just isn’t connected to what is compelling within himself – he isn’t connected to his own deepest values – to what brings him joy – to his dreams.

If he understood what was valuable to him in terms of relationships, fun activities, tasks related to his highest and most desirable goals – he would be striving every second of his life.

If he only had that degree of self understanding, then by virtue of congruence he would not be able to stay away from striving for his ideals – be they huge or small.

ISSUES WITH SELF IMAGE

Some people take the judgements of others to heart, or they take external failures to heart. It seems like these people might just be more ’sensitive’ than others. Their feelings are more easily hurt than most.

Band-aide solution: Tell the person to keep their head up, not feel so bad, and try again. Tell them that they are a winner for keeping up the effort.

Again, I argue that a much deeper issue is underlying this apparent ’sensitivity.’ I argue that a person who is so negatively effected by outside events – such as the judgement of others or apparent ‘failures’ – is in fact just unsure of their own traits and of what constitutes merit for them.

Their identity is not clear at all, so when someone else has a response to them, this is dictating reality to them, that is telling them the kind of person they are. They depend upon the response to see their identity.

Someone who knows the path they are on, who has made their own real distinctions about right and wrong, cool and uncool – they are rooted within themselves in that they know who they are and what they stand for. Outside events happen and people make judgements, but they have their own firm determination of their purpose and standards, and so they don’t feel like a ‘bad person’ and they don’t feel ‘out of place’ when other people respond to them negatively.

The sensitive person merely needs to get a grip on who they are and what they stand for, this will eliminate 98% of their dependance on other people to tell them their worth or quality.

Someone settled in their own world, someone who has determined his path and his character firmly – he will not be disturbed. His reality rests on internal pillars, not external ones.

INDECISION

This idea ties into the ideas of ‘boredom,’ ‘complaining’ and ‘not following through on plans.’

Essentially, someone who understands what they want to do, who they want to be, and what they want to experience will much more easily come to conclusions as to what is best for him in his life than someone with only very value, socially defined standards for themselves.

Someone connected to himself in this way will be able to identify what is best for him because he has a path to follow, while indecision typically plagues he who has no idea what he wants, why he wants it, or how to get it. Such a person will live in indecision.

Someone with a firm idea as to what they want, why they want it, and how they will get it will always be able to come to at least a direction to head in – if not a specific plan.

DEPENDENCE ON PRESENT STIMULUS

Someone who has no idea of what they value, of who they want to be, and of where they’re going with their lives will be very easily swayed by stimulus in the present.

Just like the person who couldn’t follow through on plans – they get sucked into what looks appealing at the time. Someone else has an idea that seems cool – someone else has a sense of certainty – they the incongruent person chases that.

They will tend to respond much more to what seems pleasurable in the moment, avoiding what seems painful in the moment – so much so that it will seem as though they are going against what they value because they do things like lie to friends or steal.

In fact, this isn’t really going against their standards because they don’t really have standards, they have vague ideas of how they ’should’ act, and these reasons are not true to them as individuals.

Someone rooted within can see genuine value in what they stand for. They have made “firm distinctions” (important bit of jargon) about what is important to them, about the kind of behavior they want to permit from themselves and others, about what they aim to do and who they aim to be. The standards that they are connected to within themselves provide pleasure when exemplified, and provide pain when violated.

Hence, the congruent person will have internal factors that they stay consistent to, and they are not only pushed and pulled by the apparent pains and pleasures around them in the present, but they are pushed and pulled by a commitment to what is important to them as people.

Here I’ve just put forward a bunch of different situations in which a lack of congruence plays a role. In the example of the person who resists the present activity, the individual lacks the ability to look at their situation and their own values and objectives in an accurate fashion. This being the case they cannot confidently commit to a course of action without resisting it or double-thinking it – they are not settled. In the second example, the gossiping individual has no firm sense of what is cool, or of what is right or wrong in their own world, and so they incongruently bend their supposed intent to random social pressure – they are not settled. In the third example, the busy body has no idea of his own life’s objectives and of what it will take to get to them, he lacks that crucial self-understanding and so bends to the requests of everyone around him – he is not settled. In the third example, the individual makes a vow to himself to avoid something, but the vow is based on nothing inside himself, it is based on pain in the present moment. As soon as it disappears he acts against what some part of him probably recognizes is best – he is not settled.

This idea of congruence basically implies living on your own terms completely and by your own standards.

It is obvious that this idea of congruence is not the only psychological factor at play in these imaginary scenarios, and its also not the only potentially valid perspective to take on these scenarios. In the first example, the anger might arise more from a surprised disappointment than from an ignorance or lack of confidence in terms of what the best action is. In the second example the gossiping individual might have pressing issues with self esteem and so depends on the acceptance and approval of others. In the third example the man running around doing other people’s tasks might hold exceptionally high standards for himself in terms of making his family and friends productive and joyous. Who knows?

The fact of the matter is – in my humble opinion and empirical first hand experience – getting an understanding of your purpose, of your own values, and of your own distinctions on how to live in accordance with your ideals, a lot of these other petty issues in your life start to straiten themselves out so easily. Soooo easily.

Its not like “okay, self-help book time, I’ll use technique 546 and when I feel resistance well up inside me, I’ll breathe in 13 times slowly through my left nostril…” And look, I have nothing against self-help books or teachings, I guess technically I fit in that category although I don’t use that term too much. But yeah a lot of that stuff is great stuff, but what if we were able to strike at it from a deeper level in terms of coming to meaningful evaluations of the world based on your own standards as a human being and acting along with your ideas in accordance?

Now we’re not as much talking about tips and tricks, we’re talking about personal identity and empowering ways to move through every facet of our experience. Now, you see, we’re talking not so much about the “doing” – about following steps and using memorized techniques – but more about the “being” – about living as a settled, confident, STRONG individual. This is a major aim for me in self-development terms, this kind of change in our deeper nature to becoming a more at ease, capable, joyous, bold person, and I’d certainly want you all to be able to strive for that as well.

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There seems to be a theme in the above issues. All issues obviously stem from a lack of congruence and integrity.

They all also seem to have to do with a form of indecision or lack of initiative.

BOREDOM – we cannot find something to do to stimulate or engage our minds

INDECISION – we cannot determine which actions to choose because we have no real reference

TWO-FACED TENDENCIES – we cannot determine which side to take because we aren’t sure ourselves

LACK OF DRIVE AND MOTIVATION – we aren’t compelled to act and so we stagnate

NOT FOLLOWING THROUGH ON PLANS -  we aren’t connected to anything compelling in the plans we committed to, and so we do nothing about actually acting on them

ACHIEVING THE OBJECTIVE OF OTHERS – we have nothing to act upon for ourselves and we find ourselves experiencing cognitive dissonance for picking up everyone else’s chores

This theme of indecision is likely because without an understanding of what we value in life, or where we want to be, or how to get there – we cannot adequately act. Decisions are more difficult when there is no meta-purpose to base them off of. Even the decision to make a business’s purpose one of profit is a decision that is either based on what a business is ’supposed’ to be based off of, or it is based upon what we genuinely value in a business to suppose our highest aims.

Having this internal reference provides clarity in terms of what is best for us in our own determination, and it also provides ‘motivation’ in that we follow through due to an action’s relation to what we value most in life.

Many of them also have to do with what looks to be a kind of dependence:

ISSUES WITH SELF IMAGE – dependence on the judgements of others to validate you

COMPLAINING – dependence on ease and pleasure in the present moment

BOREDOM – dependence on specific stimulation in the present moment

TWO-FACED TENDENCIES – dependence on the acceptance and validation of others

DEPENDENCE ON PRESENT STIMULUS – dependence on pain and pleasure in the present to leverage our decisions for us

This dependence likely springs forth from the fact that we are unable to provide ourselves with intellectual stimulation to be engaged in life, we are unable to determine the merit of ourselves, our actions, or our views.

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Today I’ve run through my Efficiency Study Life Experiment. Reading through the study provided me with insight in terms of common sticking points and recurring issues – something I was definitely looking forward to.

Why? Because now I can set some new habits in place to ensure that I manage my time and my life in ways that facilitate the experiences and achievements that I most want in my life. Fantastic.

Before recording a single day for this study, I determined that when I finished it, I would implement 10 changes into my life that would deal with the biggest issues I encountered.

Here they are in all their glory:

(You’ll notice the first 3 have to do with a sense of urgency and getting my life honed hard towards priorities [a big theme for me right now], while the last 7 are more in the category of general “best practice” for efficiency.)

 

1. Oscillate between periods of Achievement and Exploration: I noticed that most weeks I will work on some Achievement-oriented stuff like building presentations and making phone calls to set up meetings and writing material for coaching and making flyers, while other times I am involved in more Exploration-oriented stuff like reading, taking notes on audio programs, writing inquiries on topics in self-development, etc… I want to make a firm distinction between these two and keep them separated – this is the most important new habit I am going to implement! I will designate the last week of any given month to do the more Exploratory work, while I want to cram the rest of my life with activities that are bringing me towards concrete ends in Time Management Consulting, my Jiu Jitsu academy, making money, making and booking presentations, getting referrals, etc… Don’t get me wrong, the Exploration stuff is great, thats where I innovate new content and thats important to me BIG TIME. However, I want to get things done and focus most of my time on those activities that will get things done. If I have little slices of time I might do a little exploration here and there, but I know where I want most of my resources. I might change up the way I separate these two facets of my work, but I will definitely keep them separated.
2. Set firm weekly goals tied into my highest monthly / annual / life goals: I have been doing this for all of August, and I think it has kept me on track in a fantastic manner. Having concrete weekly goals makes it much harder to flounder time away, and it orients my resources towards my bigger life goals which seem abstract without the middle-man of a weekly goal list. This helps to bring urgency into the picture as well.
3. Purge my potential creative writing and Life Experiment list monthly: Each week, I come up with new ideas for Life Experiments and articles and inquiries. It is always the case that I come up with more ideas than I finish. Soooo many more ideas than I have time to tackle. This is a great thing, but it tends to backfire when I see huge lists of potential creative work. Some of it I’m not interested in anymore, some I have forgotten about. Now on the first of each month I will delete the potential writing that I’m no longer interested in working on.
4. Set time caps on potentially time consuming creative tasks: For instance, I could get stuck for 2 hours finding the best template and font to use for a flyer, or I could spend 20 minutes deciding which color to use for a border. Both of these seem way too long, and with little tasks like that, I think its best to just set a short timer and make a decision. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. This is what I do for research – I only allot a specific amount of time because I know I could spend all day doing research. Now I’ll apply it to small creative tasks that have the same potential to rob time.
5. Stack chores and do them before / after away from computer tasks: Here I want to take advantage of doing like activities with other like activities. For instance, instead of interrupting my creative work or my research a few times during the day to run laundry and clean my car and go to make copies at staples, I can stack these activities on top of one another. In doing so, I can get into “physical work” mode for a specific amount of time, and then go back to “mind work” mode fully. In addition, all of this physical work time gives me long stretches to listen to audio programs, instead of listening to 5-minute snippets while I do little tasks intermittently throughout the day. I must beware of “feeling productive” while listening to audio programs – I will keep a fast tempo and do all the chores swiftly so I can return to the other cool things I can do (see my good friends, go out at night, work on material I want to use in consulting, etc…).
6. Have a list of mindless physical tasks established: Sometimes I am too excited to be creative, my mind and body are alert and positive but in more of a bouncy, pumped-up way – and doing creative work doesn’t make much sense in these situations. So, I will have a log in my project list for random physical tasks that I can do when I have a lot of energy to release.
7. Designating times for the phone, especially in car: Barring some kind of impending emergency or big event on the horizon, I can avoid even noticing that my phone exists while I work on the important things in my life. So, while working on creative material, I can set my phone on silent and put it face down. Then when I break for lunch or I am getting ready to go out, I can make the calls / texts I want to make and the return calls I want to make. I can also save these calls and texts for when I’m in the car (going to a friend’s house, to a meeting, to class, etc…). Even if I’m waiting for a call, I can keep the volume down and only pick up if its a priority call.
8. Keeping track of wallet, phone, keys… : I can’t keep forgetting these things in random places, seriously. I’ve decided that when I’m out, I’ll have my wallet and keys in my left pocket and my phone in my right pocket. That way I keep a routine and nothing gets lost in the mix, its all habits. Also, when I am at home I only have specific, designate spaces where I allow myself to put my phone / wallet / keys down. So when I’m looking for them in my house they can really only be in one of a few counter tops or tables.
9. Check email and facebook every two or three days: I used to check this stuff daily, but honestly most of the time I don’t have a need to do so. Unless I have a pressing project or some very important contacts to make, I only need to look at it once every 2-3 days. If I look sooner, I will just check for the things I need to see and look at the rest on my designated “email and facebook” days.
10. Only relax while working for long enough to rest my neck and spine: When I sit and read / write for 6-8 hours strait, I end up having little pains in my neck and back that are alleviated by laying down or leaning far back. This is fine to do, but I notice that when I do this my body goes into sleep mode because I don’t sleep much. My answer is to only relax while working for long enough to get rid of the pain, get comfortable, and sit right back up to get alert and working. I will also permit no “long blinks” when I’m relaxing, they tend to want to turn into naps.

I know I’m going to have fun implementing these new habits, and I’m sure that’ll bring me to make even more distinctions in this area. 

Stay tuned.

 

 

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Took a little longer than expected, but the efficiency study is complete.

Over the last few weeks I’ve done 5-10 minutes of writing about my own efficiency to do what I want to do in my life – whether thats finding time to do my best writing or fitting in social events with the rest of my schedule.

This is going to be cool for me because I’m going to be able to read over all my notes on this project, which I have not done as of yet. Here goes:

Aug 4th-

Designating specifics for specific times, blocking out my day with time slots for individual activities. This is a good thing.

Research and building my GEMs (files where I record “keepers” from the material I read) / Archives takes less mental sharpness than it does to work on one of my speeches. Taking out most of the creative element allows me to still get things done in terms of finding new cool distinctions and extracting them. (I can calibrate my activity to my level of mental acuity, and work to get my acuity level up so that I can work on whatever I please… my options are limited as my faculties are limited)

^This means that when I’m tired I can work on less mentally straining stuff like research or GEMs or housework.

Always carry the iPod. Another 15 minutes of listening to productive audio while I eat breakfast or walk around the house doing chores is only a good thing.

Find the best use of discretionary time in terms of what needed to get done that day anyways. I spent some time surfing psychology on the web when I could have worked to build my GEMs.

Aug 5th-

I was on a roll with the stuff I had drawn up for myself. I had time slots and a nice variety of awesome projects.

One thing I’m noticing now is that I can’t write these things when I’m dead tired. I’ll have to include LATE last night into the daily efficiency studies.

Part of me yearns for more sense of real urgency in my life, for more PUSH towards something that must necessarily happen. Though its nice to have free reign to read and write as I desire, I want to have a bunch on my horizon that I have to chase hard. I will do this with my consulting and presentations at URI for tomorrow. I want to set dates I want things done by and I want to set goals for how much I can do with this (and tweak it given what the market can bear).

Eating food at night tends to be a time waster downstairs. I should prepare foods quickly – and preferably have something portable and workable while doing other work – like a granola bar or something.

I managed calls and texts today very well, putting the phone on silent and honing into fulfilling work. Sometimes you will have interruptions every 30 seconds, and you must learn to do activities that can be interrupted – and usually get done with those phone conversations or text conversations so that you can hone into working more deeply.

Aug 6th-

Most notable comment – keep the cell on silent when working. It makes a massive difference.

However, what do you do when you’re already in a conversation via txt with 3 people, and you’re having them rain down on you?

It seems like these times should be matched with car times, because in the car I have nothing better to do but call and txt. Then again txting a driving isn’t very safe.

It seems like I should align these times for before or after my productive blocks. I can use them like a breather and at the same time I can run through info to build my GEMs files (right now I’m working on Lifehacker and 43 Folders). I could also check facebook, email, analytics, phone / cc bills, etc… I can do anything that can be intermittently interrupted without detriment to the process.

It also seems like I should run these text-a-thons all at the same time so that its one flood for one period, and not a big trickle that chops up by day.

Also, when I’m feeling low on energy and working on anything (especially my most creative work, such as my speeches), I’ve gotta get up and snap out of it. I can walk downstairs, pace back and forth, and generally convey that high intensity and energy that I carry in me, I have to wake it up. I can run some internal dialogue about how pumped I am to be working on what I’m working on.

There is no reason not to be listening to productive audio when eating. I do it during all chores, why not all logistical things where I am not engaging my brain with other things.

I’ve moved checking email and facebook to once every 2 days. Good move. I have to now find designated times to check out the psychology forum. I never daddle their all day, but sometimes I will check it a few times throughout the day and I feel like one time is idea. I will from now on only check it in the morning, and I’ll plan to check is once every 2 days.

Aug 7th-

I have a new term: accordion activities. These are activities that can be short or long depending on variables.

For instance, today I was in limbo as to when I was going to the beach with my friends. It was one of those “could be any second, could be an hour from now” situations. No use just sitting on edge until the call comes in. Instead I worked on doing a book review (I like to read and record the GEMS of various books or content-oriented websites). This is something that can be interrupted by texts without real detriment. It can also be done for 5 minutes or 5 hours. Writing articles and speeches is not like that, those are creative activities that require blocked away spans of uninterrupted time.

It occurred to me that if we know we must be somewhere or do something later in a day, we should get our stuff together and prepare ourselves fully WAY before the time comes, be it the day before or a few hours before. That way there are no variables for having to find things or change cloths or gather materials. Hence, if I’m going to Jiu Jitsu I already have a water bottle filled, some fruit packed for a snack, and my grappling cloths ready. Then I can literally leave and know almost exactly when I’ll get there, as opposed to rushing last minute (a very human tendency).

On another note (and this is something I’ve mentioned before), doing logistical things at a fast pace pays off. In this instance, I use “logistical” in terms of anything that is not creative or necessarily meaningful or desired, such as walking to a club, making lunch, taking a shower, etc… I lot of time can be flittered away on those things. Its funny, but I notice that when I have a clear idea of my purpose in a given context, to as to where I’m going and what I’m going, I have a very fast tempo (because I am driven by the compelling things I want to accomplish).

I keep forgetting to bring my ipod inside when I walk inside. Then when I’m making a sandwich or something I can still be jamming out to some productive audio on philosophy or psychology.

Started a hotkeys text document. Definitely a good idea for reference if I want to be captain speedy in the mac environment.

Aug 8th-

I have noticed that when I am pumped on something, when I am really excited about something – it becomes difficult to sit, focus, and hone into work. If I come home from an awesome day at the beach or an intensely fun event, the tendency is for me to want to “bask” in that emotional state some more. It makes me want to play music that resonates with that state (high energy, fun music). I noticed that even in the car ride home from such an event, I want to crank tunes instead of doing what I usually do and listen to audio programs.

In terms of efficiency, is my objective to bask in that state or to settle into working? Of course this depends, for work without joy probably is not very good, and joy without work doesn’t facilitate my highest goals.

The next time this happens, I’ll aim to either keep the tunes on and occupy myself with mindless tasks like room / car cleaning or other grunt work, or I’ll take some deep breaths, channel my excitement into a functional work state, and get to pounding away on speeches, inquiries and articles.

In an interview with David Allen (author of “Getting Things Done”), I heard him quote a book called “The War of Art,” where he said something like: “We resist what comes forth from our soul, because we must draw it from there.” I resonate with this insight. I find that often what we are most excited to express tends to want to hide, there is an antsy-ness to its coming forth.

This may be why I am rarely in a peak state when I write, there is some resistance in drawing content from within myself. The answer here seems to be pushing through and expressing it anyway.

During the night I spent a bit too much time on a tedious, relatively mindless task: looking for a photo in my records. I was sifting through and poking around for 20 minutes or so.

This instance made me realize that such tedious tasks should either be coupled with productive audio (since I wasn’t occupying much cognitive energy during this task), and that such tasks aught to also have time limits. Obviously I could spend 30 minutes picking the right font to use on a flyer, but that would be a waste – 5 minutes tops would do the trick almost as well and would move me on to bigger things.

Dealing with excitement before an event can also involve doing mindless work. This is why its important to have a list of simple physical tasks, so that in the bit of time before something exciting (a tournament, a big trip, whatever), we can still get things done.

Aug 9th-

Today I successfully switched activities to something less cognitively involved when I felt tired. I got up and moved around because I noticed I was dozing off, and then I regrouped with another priority task that involved less thinking and creativity.

We tend to flounder time when we get antsy about something. When your mind goes into the land of potentials and it imagines desirable and undesirable consequences, you end up floundering mental faculties and unless you have some low-involvement activity to get into, you’ll wind up floundering your time, too.

Locked my keys in my car like a rocket scientist. I still do not have the flawless habit of checking for my wallet, phone, and keys before transitioning between different contexts. I still find myself running into the house after I leave and realize my keys are inside somewhere. My “spaces like offices” project should help with this, but its not fully integrated. I’m totally going to get sneaky and attach a key somewhere under my car.

Food is plain logistics to me. I can appreciate good food, but in my day-to-day life, food is just fuel for my body and mind to strive in fulfilling directions. Thats it. Period. It serves no other real purpose for me during most days. I have found that I can mix a meal with conversation and make the event worthwhile. Normally I just want something fast, something I can eat while I type or read. However, if I am eating more of a real meal with utensils and all, engaging people I care about (parents, friends, brother) in conversation makes the event have some value outside “fuel.”

Aug 10th-

Napping is not an ideal in my opinion. Although sleeping 2.5 hours at night and taking a 1 hour nap during the day does allow me to feel more awake throughout the day than a 3.5 hour sleep at night, napping tends to interrupt potential creative time. Getting into and out of bed, getting into and out of the semi-groggy state that sleep involves… these are both factors that discourage naps in my opinion.

Got lost taking the back roads to my house. Granted I had productive audio to listen to, but this could be a big waste of time. When in doubt, GPS (might as well USE the thing).

Setting firm daily and weekly objectives and blocking out other projects seems to be a very effective way to channel oneself totally into priority tasks and make “free time” (which I am lucky to have this summer) into ideally productive times, too.

Today I’m setting a morning objective to take more notes on the “LifeHack” book I got online. Lets see if this morning objective gets things going correctly (IE: pop out of bed and pound into material).

Do not permit “long blinks.” When you sleep as little as I do, your body will do all that it can to slip in some shut-eye. This same rule can apply anywhere: do not permit short periods of anything that you don’t deem to be in line with your ideals in the first place. If I need sleep I’ll get it, but when I’m working I don’t want to doze off – so I won’t permit any of it.

I am pretty good at focusing on one task, but what I want to become proficient with is dedicating to work on only project Y until it is done, then only project X, then only project Z. This is a kind of discipline I know I would benefit from. I will do this tomorrow and see how it works out…!

Aug 11th-

Didn’t set my computer alarm, just my phone alarm for 4:30. Even if I get a good amount of sleep, I find that such times usually just get blown over in a sleepy haze. I shut off my phone alarm and didn’t get up for a second. Which turned into two hours. I am awoken to realize I’m late for a casual meeting. AAAAH out the door I go.

Worked exclusively on my speech today for 3-4 hours. In the beginning there were a lot of txt interruptions, but I got them handled, put the phone on silent and faced it down. Working strait through was a bit of a challenge for only one topic, and I did have to battle through sleepy eyes from time to time. During this time when something else came to mind I wrote it down like a mind-sweep, and forgot about it in order to keep working. Overall this resulted in some very big progress on the project in general.

Towards the end of my project focus, I picked up the phone and sent out a few texts

which was a bad idea. I ended up now having more interruptions while working. They weren’t terrible ones, its just that I could have waited until I was in the phone to contact those people (when I have less priority stuff competing with it).

Aug 12th-

There are some activities (such as washing the car or doing laundry) than cannot be coupled with creative writing or even with the computer at all. During these activities I usually will listen to cool music (which I find gives me a good pace during these activities and makes them enjoyable) or I listen to come kind of productive audio about psychology / philosophy.

My recent idea is to try to stack these activities so that I knock them all off at once – which is more efficient. In addition, I would be able to listen to productive audio for a more extended period of time as opposed to random 5-minute blips of time when I do these “away from cpu” activities.

Forgot my wallet in my car when I went out tonight. Makes me think more about my “organize spaces like an office” idea. The premise is: what if in every context I had my things organized.

I have my car organized so that I know what is in what side door, what is in the glove, etc… and I have all of this written down. I did the same with my room.

What if I could make a point to always have my phone in the right pocket and the wallet in the left. What if I made THAT into a habit? I probably wouldn’t loose track of my stuff as much. I will be writing about this in a productivity post soon, this is an idea that I’m going to stick to.

Aug 13th-

Was in an awesome social state for a lot of today. When I am in these states I feel like just jamming to good music, dancing, and meeting people. This draws me away from yearnings to do much “productive work” in the traditional sense, though it sure feels good.

During these times it seems as though my best bet is to in fact go out and be super social and bouncy, or to settle down by doing something that doesn’t have to involve all my creative faculties. Something like taking notes on web articles or podcasts that I want to learn from.

Its funny, but it seems that positive emotions tend to trump “productivity” almost every time. Of course I recognize the value of producing good work, but at the same time if I feel really good doing something else that is in alignment with my values (meeting people, chicks, etc…) then I feel the strongest draw there. Its an art to know when to draw out of that and when to lean into it.

Today I was listening to a Merlin Mann audio recording, taking notes on it, and also surfing his site for content as well. When I heard something that clicked I’d write it, while in the meantime I was skimming his written stuff to see what I would want to refer to later. I found this to be a good use of my mental capacities.

Aug 14th-

First thing’s first. I had a tremendous amount of time today to get things done, and I totally focused on doing the highest priority tasks that I identified at the beginning of the week. I must say that using weekly goals as a guideline for priorities in the battlefield of real time… its daaaarn useful.

Tomorrow I will write more detailed monthly and future goals and be sure that all of them are aligned with me being who I want to be, and innovating / contributing / experiencing as much as I desire.

On short naps: it seems like they serve a place. I probably got 4 hours of sleep, then took about 40 minutes for a power nap and woke up feeling phenomenal. Its better than sleeping 4 hours and 40 minutes strait for the night.

I’ll make note to keep experimenting with this nap thing. It could be my body feeling lazy or it could be that these little blips of sleep have an awesome effect on my general alertness in the first place.

Why do we resist that which we know we want? Success barriers and other psychological factors involved are fun to bring in, but not so funny on a counter. Even when we know what is best for us, we will often hold ourselves back with silly fears that we will always regret 5 seconds later. It seems like the only mechanism to bypass this is to recognize it as a pattern and aim to change it.

Man I am tired… haha.

Aug 15th-

????? 

Aug 16th-

?????

Aug 17th-

?????

Aug 18th-

?????

Aug 19th-

Putting on the iPod while I walk around and do things in the house is a good idea – especially while eating, making the bed, doing laundry, and all those other activities that involve the body but no intellect.

The danger is, sometimes I will feel like I’m “being productive” while just listening to material and idling with menial house tasks – when in fact I would be best off to take advantage of my computer time and work on projects (I can jam to educational audio whenever I want).

When in a heightened state, the tendency is to perpetuate that state with music or related thoughts. When we feel “on” and excited and fun and social, we tend to want to stay in that good feeling.

For a while I have felt as though eating takes up more time than it has to. I find myself looking through pantries and grabbing a little something – then randomly idling around the same area and looking in same pantry for some stuff I just checked for and I know I don’t have – or I’ll sift through the fridge and do the same thing.

I think that coming up with some easy and ready-made, non-messy foods is a good idea. It seems like its also important that – if possible – to have some “to do while eating” tasks related to the task I’m working on when I get hungry. For instance, if I’m researching, I can bring up a bunch of websites I want to read and I can read them while I eat (since scrolling and clicking will be harder when I’m trying to eat food). Or for instance, if I’m doing some writing, I might do my read-through during the eating time so that I can get some editing in while I get fuel in my body.

It also seems important to eat only once. I find myself going in for small bites time and time again, when I’d likely save a lot of time by just putting a bunch on my plate and feeling satisfied afterwards.

I’m going to experiment with the food thing tomorrow.

Aug 20th-

Food and work. Tried to combine them today.

During breakfast I read a book that I’ve been meaning to read (which only involves sight and cognition so I was able to do it continuously while eating). Later in the day I was eating lunch and I did the same thing: I read.

Using this time wisely seems only proper.

In addition, I did not spend time fumbling around and eating every few hours. I grabbed a bunch of food, sat down with a book and ate it while I read. Bam.

Later in the day I felt a bit tired while doing some writing work, and I took a nap. Granted, I haven’t slept much as of late, but I don’t know if a nap was called for. I aught to have gotten up and attempted to shake off the tired feeling with a little walking around or deep breathing or calisthenics.

As I write this on August 21st, I realize that I will probably be able to experiment more with this stuff today being as I slept for only about 2.5 hours last night. Thats why they call it a life experiment…

Aug 21st-

????? 

Aug 22nd-

?????

Aug 23rd-

I almost nodded off while writing today. Again. This often happens when I’m laying down to type (usually because my back starts to hurt after a while of doing this stuff – and by “stuff” I mean reading and writing and reading and writing).

I noticed the tell-tale “long blink” happen, and I knew I had to snap out of it – I couldn’t succumb – I had gotten enough sleep last night.

So I put on a song that I love, a real sick jam (Craig David’s “Can You Fill Me In”). I stood up, stretched out, and grooved all high-energy to the entire song.

After this I put the computer back on the desk and sat upright, feeling alive, awake, refreshed, and ready to type like a machine.

On a side note, I think its important not to stay laying down for very long. I find that all I need to rest my neck is about 10 minutes or so. Thats all I need because my likelihood of “feeling tired” Get back to the desk. Back strait. F***ing WORK.

I switched to less creative work later in the night as I become tired. I went into note-taking mode on some psychology / productivity stuff that I wanted to record and process big-time. This is a smart move being as I don’t want to butcher intellectual material when I’m not optimally capable of intellectual stuff.

Conversations and interactions can be hardcore time-drainers. This is why its important to have a relatively secluded workspace.

I love warm human contact, don’t get me wrong. Enriching relationships is one of the core pursuits in my life. However, I don’t want to stick around and chit chat when its time to sit down and produce content.

Its important to have the capacity to end conversations with things like “before I go downstairs to get back to work…” or “one last thing before I leave…” Its also important to have the capacity to leave social situations when you deem it best. Sometimes its easier to just ‘chill’ and stay, but if you know in your core that you have other things to do that you value higher at this time – then don’t restrain yourself. I leave my friends to read and write occasionally, its not a big deal.

I had a touch of “inactive state” today. Thats what I refer to as the state where you just feel tired and not ready to move forward on anything. I was at a BBQ and just felt like sitting down even though I knew I wanted to go home and work on content.

In these instances, taking actions and getting excited is optimally important.

 

14 days analyzed hard…

The finale post of this Experiment will involve identifying major themes and making 10 commitments to the way I work and organize my life so that I can make tangible increases in my degree of efficiency. 

 

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Another Look

Previously we covered the topic of “Hyper-intention” when we looked at Frankl’s vocabulary from “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

Here I revisit the term itself in order to make some potentially poignant distinctions about the origins of Hyper-intention. As stated in our previous inquiry, Hyper-intention (HI) is:

An excessive intention to will or force something to be, which in fact ensures that the thing will not be. 

Frankl references that it is common for people to experience HI in a sexual context. When they aim to will – or to force – the experience of orgasm, it becomes something out of their reach. As Frankl puts it;

The more a man tries to express his sexual potency or a woman her ability to experience orgasm, the less likely they are able to succeed. Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed or spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.

I will state that in a sense I agree with Frankl, and I will make a connection that he did not record in his “Man’s Search for Meaning,” and I will also disagree with Frankl in respect to the origins of HI.

A Distinction in HI

It appears as though there is a “category” of HI events that are brought about by a single kind of cause:

The desire to consciously bring about that which is under unconscious control.

The sexual examples would fit into this slightly broader category. It is obvious that orgasm is not under conscious control – while clenching one’s fist is clearly an act that can be committed deliberately. 

However, there are other processes that are controlled more directly by unconscious forces – such as sleep. We cannot “go to sleep” the same way we can extend our leg. It is a “side-effect” or a “by-product” of a specific kind of mental state – possibly of a mind at peace, focused only on comfort and relaxation.

The same can be said of “having fun.” You cannon consciously choose your emotional state the same way you can consciously blink your eyes. The emotional state of “fun” is a by-product of a certain state of mind – possibly of a mind focused on enjoyment of the value of the present moment. We cannot “command” fun to be our experience – neither can we “command” sleep.

When we HI, we are “trying” to do something that we cannot “try” to do. We can “try” to shoot a basketball into a hoop, but we cannot “try” to “have fun” in the same way. 

We want a certain state or experience (orgasm, sleep, fun, etc…) and we “try” for it. If our state of mind does not alter, however, we will be hard pressed to achieve those desired results.

There is no mystical connection between these situations (situations where we desire to consciously bring about that which is under unconscious control) and HI. I pose that they just happen to be commonly found with HI because they are relatively illusive parts of our experience, they are phenomena that seem related to our conscious processes (which they are to a degree), but in fact are not directly controlled by it.

These situations might not be the cause of most HI, but they are notable in that their origin is common and may all lead to HI – and undoubtably many instances of HI share an origin in ‘the desire to consciously bring about that which is under unconscious control.’

A Disagreement

As we have referred to previously, Frankl states that;

Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed or spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.

Given the previous distinction that we made about situations with unconscious origins that we try to control directly, this statement might seem almost undeniable. 

I argue that this is not the case however.

I argue that we can in fact bring about “fun” by making “fun” an end in itself, I argue that we can bring about orgasm by making “pleasure” an end in itself, and I even argue that we can bring about sleep by making “relaxation / sleep” an end in itself.

How can this be so? This bring us back to our previous inquiry into Frankl’s ideas. 

I argue that making fun into and end in itself will only eliminate fun if the original intent for fun was made out of fear that fun would not occur.

I argue that making pleasure into and end in itself will only eliminate the possibility of orgasm if the original intent for pleasure was made out of fear that orgasm would not occur.

I argue that making relaxation and sleep an end in itself will only eliminate the possibility of sleep if the original intent to sleep was made out of fear that sleep wouldn’t occur.

In this way, I argue that it is the impetus to the intent that is a determinant of whether we see a case of HI or not. 

 

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