DevYou

Yesterday I talked a bit about not looking where you don’t want to go, and today I want to add a little cautionary note about that.

While it’s true that you shouldn’t look where you don’t want to go (so you don’t inadvertently go that way), that doesn’t mean you should blind yourself entirely to potential pitfalls. It’s good to know where you don’t want to go — you just shouldn’t focus excessively on it.

So, while “don’t look where you don’t want to go” means focusing your energy and attention on the direction you do want to go, it doesn’t mean you be oblivious to what you’re trying to avoid.

For example, let’s say you’re starting a new business. As we’ve all heard many times, many new businesses fail. There are all sorts of reasons your new business might flounder. Not assessing what those potential pitfalls are is foolhardy. But, in keeping with the principle of not looking where you don’t want to go, it’s better to focus your attention and energy on your potential success, not failures, even though you know they’re possible.

It’s just like riding that mountain bike down a twisty mountain trail with a deep rut down the middle. Only a fool would ignore the rut entirely, but focusing all of one’s attention on the rut is dangerous.

An exercise:

Can you think of a situation you’ve experienced recently that involved pitfalls you feared? Would you say you focused more on the potential good outcomes, or the potential bad outcomes? How did it all work out in the end?

Positive thinking is a force people have harnessed for ages to improve their lives, but there’s a conceptual flipside that’s just as useful. Namely — and this is a little subtle, so bear with me — NOT thinking negatively.

What do I mean by this? Perhaps an analogy will help. When mountain bicycling on steep, narrow trails, deep ruts carved by rain are dangerous. These ruts often run parallel to the trail, and if your front wheel drops into one of them as you’re zipping along, you’ll lose control and crash. POW! Not fun.

The strange thing is, if you look at the rut you’re more likely to fall into it. If you don’t look at the rut you’re more likely to stay clear. It’s a simple technique that helps you remain safely on your bike instead of sprawled out in the dirt: DON’T LOOK WHERE YOU DON’T WANT TO GO.

“Not thinking negatively” is like that. As important as looking where you want to go is NOT looking where you don’t want to go. If you’re taking on a new challenge, then don’t obsesses about failing. If you’re meeting an interesting stranger, then don’t worry that she won’t like you. If there are several possible outcomes in a given situation, don’t focus on the one you would least like.

Another analogy is driving a car down a dark, two-lane highway in the middle of the night. Skilled drivers know not to fixate on the headlights of oncoming cars, and instead concentrate on the right edge of their own lane. Fixating on the oncoming headlights may cause you to drift into the wrong lane. POW! Really not fun.

Things to try:

• As you go about your day, see if you tend to focus on where you want to go or where you dread to go — metaphorically speaking, of course.
• Consider someone you admire, someone who has accomplished notable things in life. Can you sense whether they focus on where they want to go? If it’s someone you know, ask them.
• If you find yourself metaphorically staring at the rut in the trail, see if you can reframe those thoughts, perhaps with the “How Reframe” I wrote about in this earlier post.

In his interviews with Bill Moyers, professor and philosopher Joseph Campbell mentions the importance of setting aside time every day for “sacred time.” Don’t be put-off by the word sacred, even if you’re not spiritually inclined. You see, the core idea of sacred time is that it is sacred to you, a little time in your day that is free of ordinary concerns and day-to-day responsibilities.

If you are spiritually inclined, perhaps you’ll use your daily sacred time for meditation. If you’re not, perhaps you’ll use your daily sacred time listening to your favorite music. Yoga? Drawing? Dancing? Whatever it is, set aside your worldly concerns for 15 minutes, a half hour, a full hour. During that time, be fully present in an activity that nourishes your mind and soul. This practice will bring harmony and well-being to your life.

Speaking of the Bill Moyers & Joseph Campbell interviews, if you haven’t watched them, I highly recommend them. They’re quite enjoyable, and eye-opening!

The human mind is a funny thing. Most of the time it seems like it’s fully under our direct control, but so often it isn’t. For instance, “feeding” your mind certain starter thoughts can have a big impact on what your mind busies itself with, and thus the way you feel and behave. Say you’re responsible for an important, complex project at work. If you focus on what could go wrong, your mind will take that input, that frame — “what could go wrong?” — and, like a little machine, churn out disaster scenarios. These thoughts heighten your anxiety.

I have a tendency to fall into this trap, myself. Fortunately, I have a remedy. It’s easy to do, and it has two wonderful effects: 1) it lowers my anxiety immediately, and 2) it seems to inoculate me against the kinds of non-constructive thoughts that raised my anxiety in the first place, at least for a while.

Here’s how to do it:

There’s an old saying in computer science: garbage in, garbage out. In this exercise, we will replace mental garbage with a more constructive alternative.

1. First, notice that you’re anxious, and look for the tell-tale signs of the garbage-in problem: obsessing about what could go wrong, focusing on obstacles instead of solutions, doubting your abilities or worth, predicting disaster, et cetera.
2. Take whatever thoughts are generating this anxiety and replace them with questions beginning with the word “how.” For example:
   • “I’ll never finish on time!” becomes “How can I ensure I finish on time?”
   • “The project plan is a disaster!” becomes “How can I refactor the project plan and improve it?”
   • “I’m not good enough to get this done!” becomes “How can I do something right now that will move the project forward?”
3. Note any changes in your anxiety.

The beauty of this technique is it converts the energy you would have wasted on worry into constructive, productive energy by taking advantage of your mind’s natural tendency to work with whatever starter thoughts you feed it and changing the frame. Next time you’re feeling anxious, give the “‘How’ Reframe” a try, and see if it works for you.

This morning, while waiting for a table at a busy restaurant, I read the local weekly newspaper to while away the time. I hadn’t brought the weekly with me; it just happened to be conveniently at hand when I arrived and got stuck in line. None of the articles were about subjects that interested me much, but it was a worthwhile way to spend a little time.

Why? Because I read each article with the following two questions in mind:

• What makes this article work?
• What would make this article better?

If you’d like to become a better writer, this simple exercise is incredibly instructive. Conveniently, material is always at hand. Think, for instance, of all those magazines in your dentist’s waiting room. What makes the articles tick? Take a look and see.

You can add more questions as you go, if you like. For example:

• How does the first sentence hook the reader?
• Is the writing clear? If so, how?
• Do you like author’s sense of rhythm?
• Is one article obviously better than another? If so, why?
• Why did the author (or editor) choose this particular title? Does it grab your attention? Why?

Newspapers tend not to be adequate-but-not-great choices for this exercise because newspaper articles are strictly forumlaic. Magazine feature articles and essays are much better.

Do you have little ways to sharpen your writing skills that you particularly like? Share them with your fellow readers in the comments.

Now that we’ve looked at all ten cognitive distortions, let’s look at what to do about them.

While it’s best to learn about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques by reading Feeling Good or to actually talking to a cognitive behavioral therapist, I can outline the primary technique used to combat and ward off cognitive distortions: the Triple Column Technique. Feel free to try it out, and if you find it helpful, take a look at the book.

How To Do The Triple Column Technique

1. Grab a sheet of 8 1/2” x 11” paper and a pen or pencil.
2. Turn the paper so that the width is 11” (landscape).
3. Draw two lines from top to bottom so that the page is divided into three even columns.
4. Label the first column “Thoughts”, the second column “Distortions”, and the third “Rational Responses.”
5. Identify the negative feeling (or feelings) you’re experiencing (eg. sadness), and jot it down at the top of the page. Next to it, jot down a number between 1 and 10 that indicates how intensely you feel that emotion.
6. In the first column, try to write the exact thought you were thinking when the feeling arose. At first this can be a bit tricky, but with a little practice it’ll come more naturally. Typical thoughts might be: “I’m a failure”, “I always screw up”, “Why should I try? I’ll only fail.”
7. In the second column, write the distortions that underlie the thoughts you’ve identified. Remember to inspect each thought for each of the ten possible distortions. Note that some thoughts will actually contain multiple distortions.
8. When you’re done listing the distortions, use the third column to write rational replacement thoughts for the original distorted ones. For example: “I succeed at many things, even if I fail at a few now and then — just as everyone does. No one succeeds 100% of the time, and I recognize that I do succeed quite often.” replaces “I’m a failure.” The key here is to write rational responses to your irrational thoughts. Under the light of rational thought, distorted thoughts crumble, and the absence of distorted thoughts means the negative feelings they generate go away or never arise in the first place.
9. Now that you’ve completed the exercise, take a moment to see how you feel. Perhaps the feeling has dissipated. If not, perhaps it is less intense than before. How intense is it on the same 1 to 10 scale?

By the way, do not do this technique in your head. It’s essential that you do it on paper. There’s something about putting pen to paper that makes it truly effective.

Good luck!

Earlier this month I wrote an article called “What I Learned About Life From Watching Roger Federer”.

Roger Federer, as you may recall, is the number one male tennis player in the world — the Michael Jordan of tennis. In the article, I talked about how his economy of motion, equanimity in the face of difficulty, and deep consistency are inspirational and instructive in ways that transcend tennis and have relevancy in various aspects of life.

Ever since then, I’ve been giving thought to how one can “Federerize” one’s productivity, and I’ve coined a phrase for it: The Federer Swing.

What is the Federer Swing? It’s bringing the three qualities I mentioned above — economy of motion, equanimity in the face of difficulty, and deep consistency — to one’s productivity. Let’s concentrate on economy of motion.

The more I thought about economy of motion, the more I noticed how much wasted energy I expend while working. Now, as someone who follows the principles of GTD pretty closely, I thought I had a fairly streamlined workflow (eg. not keeping my file cabinet in a different room than my desk — what had I been thinking), but upon closer inspection, and with the economy of motion of Federer’s swing in mind, this turned out to be an area I can refactor significantly.

For example, while writing this post I notice I waste time and precious energy (even if just a bit — it all adds up) by checking the Preview habitually. I write blog posts in TextMate using Markdown syntax (which increases my economy of motion and efficiency), but then I reflexively hit ctrl-option-command-p every so often for no apparent reason — just a behavioral tic. True, sometimes I really do need to see the post-Markdown preview. For instance, when I’ve used a Markdown syntax I’m not used to, and I want to see if it worked. But, most of the previewing I’m doing is just pointless. An equivilant action on the tennis court might be twitching the racket in some habitual way just before swinging. If the twitch serves no purpose in the context at hand — hitting the ball — then the twitch isn’t economical motion and must go. Likewise, seeing a post preview a dozen times isn’t economical and must go.

For another example, let’s say I’m programming. And, let’s further say I need to look something up about a method I’m trying to use. I switch to my trusty browser to find information, but suddenly it dawns on me that I could take a minute to pop on over to Google Reader and see what’s new in my feeds. Just “a minute.” Now, obviously, stopping to check news feeds is counter-productive, since the goal at hand is programming, not feed surfing. But, let’s look at it in terms of the swing metaphor. When Federer dashes across the court to hit the ball, does he stop along the way to check his cell phone voicemail? Preposterous! Un-economical? Yes. In the extreme. And yet, I know for a fact I’ve stopped to check feeds in the middle of another task. Perhaps you have too.

All that said, I think there’s a danger to being too draconian or rigid about economy of motion. There are times where being a little loose, a little scattered, is advantageous. Sometimes wandering off the path for a bit leads to serendipitous discovery. But, generally speaking, when bearing down on a specific task, refining economy of motion is useful and desirable.

I’m a huge fan of processing my email inbox only once a day. I plow through it mid-day every day, and when I’m done my inbox is totally empty. It’s amazing how much this has helped my overall workflow.

The trouble is, when I swoop into Gmail to compose an email at other times of the day or evening, just seeing the unread messages in my inbox gives me a mild but perceptible jolt of stress. Worse yet, I feel the temptation to process all that mail right then and there. Obviously, this little jolt of stress and resisting the temptation to read all that mail is a waste of energy. So, I purposefully set up a method of composing new emails without seeing the inbox at all. I do it by combining Quicksilver and Gmail’s compose page.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Launch Google Notifier. Under ordinary circumstances, I strongly advise against running mail notifiers (unless you’re, say, expecting an urgent email that requires immediate attention), but for this process we need a way to get to the compose URL and Google Notifier is one such way.
2. Set Google Notifier to use Gmail for composing email. Set this in the Gmail tab of Preferences.
3. Choose Compose Mail in Google Notifier. A new browser window will appear containing the the Gmail compose form.
4. Bookmark the page. I called this bookmark “compose_gmail” and filed it with my “just for quicksilver” bookmarks. Remember to give it a name that is descriptive, but unique so that you an do an efficient type-ahead search in Quicksilver.
5. Quit Google Notifier. You don’t want it running, do you? Nope!
6. Bring up Quicksilver and rescan.

That’s it! Now whenever you want to send an email without the distraction of seeing your inbox first, simply bring up Quicksilver, type the first few letters of your Gmail compose bookmark name, and *voila!* you land directly on the compose page.

An easy but effective way to improve your GTD system is to make sure your next actions are worded such that they describe the next physical act you must perform — not an abstract notion related to the action.For example: Rather than “Make sure Bob knows the dolphin is really a robot”, use “Call Bob and warn him about the robo-dolphin.”

See the difference? “Make sure bob knows the dolphin is really a robot” is too vague. “Making sure” isn’t an action you can take. You may “be sure” after you’ve taken some action, but “making sure” itself isn’t something you can do.

In contrast, “Call bob and warn him about the robo-dolphin” is a concrete, physical action. Pick up that phone and call him.

When I review my lists, I keep an eye out for these vague, non-action phrasings and replace them. For instance, I frequently — in my haste — add next actions that are just things. Like, “subcontractor agreement”, or “printer ink”, or “robo-dolphin.” None of those are physical actions I can perform, so I replace them with better phrasing: “Email subcontractor agreement to Bob”, “Go to Ink-o-Rama and buy printer ink”, and “Activate and release evil robo-dolphin.”

Er, I mean “Call Bob and warn him about the robo-dophin.” Yes… that’s it. Warn. Must warn Bob…

[Note: This article originally appeared in one of my other blogs earlier this year. I'm up to my eyeballs in preparations for my move, so I'm saving a bit of time by re-using this. But don't worry; the info is still timely. Have a great weekend!]

No matter what style of organization we use to track our “to do” items, we all have items on our lists that fill us with mild but annoying dread. You know the ones. They’re the unpleasant, onerous things we know we must do, but dread doing.

Maybe you hate filling out forms, and you have to fill out a particularly long and complicated one. Or maybe you fear the dentist, so you resist calling for an appointment. Or maybe you have to make a difficult decision about something, and just the thought of figuring it out gives you that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach.

These loathesome but unavoidable tasks tend to get stuck in our lists. They land there one day, and, because we really don’t want to tackle them, they stay there for a long time. Each time we see them, our stress level jumps up, and we avoid them once again.

Here’s a little trick to help get those stubborn items off your list. I call it the Morning Blech.

The Morning Blech has nice side effects:

• It gives you momentum first thing in the morning
• It boosts your energy for the rest of the day
• It helps you start the day with a sense of accomplishment
• It makes your queue of tasks less ominous

Sound good? Great! Let’s try it. Here’s what to do:

1. Wake up and get ready. The Morning Blech should be the first thing — or nearly the first thing — you do for the day. So, get up and get ready for your day. Once it’s time to start doing things, it’s time for the Morning Blech. Earlier is better.
2. Choose a blech from your list. Pick one and only one blech to knock off your list. The ideal blech is something you dread doing, but must do. It should also be relatively small. Something that takes less than 30 minutes is best. Chances are, you already know which blech you should choose without even looking. It’s that little but onerous thing that’s been nagging your mind for days.
3. Do the blech. Crank that widget! Give it your full attention and throw yourself into action. Remember, it’s not going to take more than 30 minutes — probably less, so just get it done.
4. Mark the blech done. Do whatever you ordinarily do to mark a task done, whether that’s crossing it off your list or marking it complete on the computer or PDA.
5. Take a moment to acknowledge your little victory. This is an optional step, but it doesn’t hurt, and very well may help. Be careful though. If, for instance, you high five yourself and shout, “Oh YEAH, baby!” in a crowded coffee shop, people will notice.

And that’s it. Now you can go on with your day. Try it out for a few days and see if it works for you. I hope it does.