Alexandersmap

    Category: Productivity

    • On Ritual and Routine

      “Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.” — Jane Kenyon

      Last year my bride and I took a morning walk on a quiet beach in the off-season. We saw an older gentleman swimming with his dogs in the brisk Atlantic Ocean and met him as we were walking back towards our car. Well, as is usually the case, his dogs met us first, and he joined them in introductions soon after. He looked like Obi-Wan Kenobi in a thick, hooded robe. He mentioned that he took this Atlantic Ocean plunge with his dogs every day of the year, no matter the weather. The robe and the walk back home were his rewards for completing this ritual, and were thus an integral part of it. His fitness level and radiance betrayed a lifestyle worthy of consideration.

      Lately I’ve thought more of lifestyle design—of deliberately choosing how to spend my remaining time on this earth in daily ritual and routine. We might agree that we’re already living our lives based solely on the bookends of ritual and routine. The question is, are we optimizing our life or should we build better bookends? Is writing first thing in the morning the best use of this time? Or is a long walk better? Or a brisk plunge into cold water? The answer is whatever sets the table for an exceptional day—what comes first should hardly matter, just that we do the things that, stacked together, make up a productive and meaningful day, and by extension, our life.

      We tend to track things like workouts, but don’t always track other things that make up our days. Tracking habits makes sense when you’re trying to establish or reinforce them. I began flossing every day when I stared at an empty box one day, knowing I’d broken the streak. A friend quit smoking simply so he didn’t have to leave a day on his calendar without a big X through it. We forget sometimes in our realization that we can’t control everything that we can control some things. And these small things, added up over time, become big things indeed.

      The way to be a good steward of our gifts is to protect our time in ritual and routine. Kenyon outlines hers in the magical quote above. We might add a few others that punctuate our own days. The trick in building these bookends is to fill the space in between with more activity worthy of our precious time. We know that that space will be filled either way—shouldn’t we make it fulfilling?

      Plunge into things that optimize your days

    • What Things, Accomplished?

      “The fact of the matter is that aiming discipline at the right habit gives you license to be less disciplined in other areas. When you do the right thing, it can liberate you from having to monitor everything.” — Gary Keller, The One Thing

      Doing the right thing begins with knowing what the right thing is, of course. Keller points out that that right thing ought to be our one thing we prioritize in a day. Not the only thing we focus on, mind you, but the box we must check before we move on to other things. His recommendation is time blocking, and working on it until you’ve achieved your goal for the day.

      As a daily blogger, that one thing for me is writing before I move on to other work or family time or exercise. The question is, what are we saying no to that we might say yes to our one thing? One might say the answer is that if you’re focused on the right thing, it doesn’t matter what you say no to. Everything aligns when we focus on the right thing, which Keller said more efficiently than I just did.

      But is writing a daily blog an appropriate one thing? Shouldn’t exercise or family or work be prioritized before writing? It’s not like I’m paying the mortgage with the stream of cash coming in from blogging revenue. The thing is, blogging isn’t about generating revenue for me (you won’t find an advertisement, a Substack subscription offer, or even a basic email subscription. No, the writing is free and probably too hard to find, and is simply a process of documenting my thoughts and observations. Come along for the ride or opt out—for it’s either welcome or no hard feelings, really.

      So what comes after the right thing has been checked off becomes the next one thing. We generally know what this ought to be, the trick is to time block for this second and third right thing the way we do our one thing. Does this make us overly structured in our days? Perhaps, but that which we don’t prioritize often gets overlooked. We must schedule ourselves lest we forget ourselves.

      So maybe the question shouldn’t be, “what’s the right thing?”, but “what things, accomplished, will make this a day without regrets?” More succinctly, decide what to be and go be it. Of course, everything begins with one. But it shouldn’t end there.

    • All Perfect Light and Promises

      Sleep baby sleep
      Now that the night is over
      And the sun comes like a god
      Into our room
      All perfect light and promises
      — INXS, New Sensation

      The days of May grow longer and full of daylight, which means that the early morning hours are brighter and full of their own promise. These are the days when I wake up feeling like I’ve missed out on something special if it’s already light out. I thrive on astronomical twilight and the hope of the coming day. Each morning ought to be celebrated for the ripe potential it offers.

      These are all days to remember, but memories are built on action and an underlying purpose. We aren’t here to make it through the day, but to make something of the day. We feel this most intentionally in the early morning light. For it truly is the start of something new.

      I dwell on early starts and dabble in productivity, for each are a bridge to fulfill the promise of the day. We owe it to ourselves to meet our purpose and potential head-on and make something of each in the brief allotment of time offered. The trick is to be nimble and open to everything that comes our way, without being bogged down by distraction. When you get up earlier than most people you find elbow room to process such things as priorities and purpose.

      What would we give for one more day? Someday we’ll wish for it, won’t we? Get up and greet the morning, and bring to the day everything that would be answered in this question. As the expression goes, this new day wasn’t promised to us, but it is a gift. Feel the energy in the promise, the vibrancy of place, the potential of the start. Amplify that feeling with full awareness and hope. And dance with it.

    • The “I’m Glad I Did” Lens

      “Go live your life. Live it fully, without fear. Live with purpose, give it your all, and never give up.” Effort is important, for without it you will never succeed at your highest level. Achievement is important, for without it you will never experience your true potential. Pursuing purpose is important, for unless you do, you may never find lasting happiness. Step out on faith that these things are true. Go live a life worth living where, in the end, you’ll be able to say, “I’m glad I did,” not “I wish I had.” — Gary Keller, The One Thing

      Without being reckless, what would you have done differently yesterday? How about this year? Who would you spend time with? Where would you linger a beat longer? Where would you have gone if not for the place you stayed instead? What work would you have applied yourself to, worthy of your precious time? In other words, what do you regret leaving off the table in this brief life?

      Perhaps, choose to do it today. Perhaps reach out to that person. Perhaps, linger in the moment when it arrives instead of rushing off to the next urgent thing. Perhaps, book the trip today, while there’s still precious time. Live through the lens of “I’m glad I did” and defer “I wish I had” instead. Be focused. Be intentional. Be bold.

      There is the idea of deathbed regrets. We are all on our deathbed, whether today or a hundred years from now. We ought to feel the urgency in that realization and do something with our time. Through what lens do we view the world? Choose the “I’m glad I did” lens. We probably won’t regret it.

    • The Clear Path

      “We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” — Robert Brault

      I have a work friend who works at a frenetic pace. He’s constantly charging from one thing to the next, in a hyper-reactive state trying to do more than one ought to aspire to in a day. His favorite self-depreciating joke is to turn his head sideways and yell “Squirrel!” and take a step in that direction. In a way that’s exactly what he’s doing with his time. Despite his best intentions, the chase becomes his day, the path always changing in crisis mode. His answer is to work even harder.

      The world wants us to fall in line, to play our part, to belong to something bigger than ourselves. The trouble starts when we aspire to greater things. We might decide what to be and head down the path to being it, but there are so many seemingly urgent distractions along the way. Greater things call to us, but good enough is so very much closer.

      Every day we check the boxes: writing, exercise, flossing, etc. that move us from this to that. Incremental progress isn’t a leap, but it’s progress nonetheless. We are, after all, on the path to our goal. But is it enough? Baby steps aren’t quite a stride, let alone a leap. But it helps if those baby steps go in the direction we’re aiming at. Save the squirrel chase for some other day.

      There’s something to be said for upping the ante. When we aren’t progressing forward quickly enough we may choose to take a leap: Sign up for a 5K, or a writing class in Paris, or make a bet with a friend with stakes high enough to make you uncomfortable (like donating money to a candidate you despise if you don’t hit your goal by a certain date). These stakes aren’t a clear path, but they sure help us focus on it.

      Life flies right on by, whether we chase our dreams or not. We ought to pursue the greater at the expense of the lesser. This begins with ratcheting up those incremental habits to something more like a stride, or even a leap. We’re less likely to stray down a side path when we’re charging along towards our primary goal. Raise the stakes, and the path becomes clear.

    • A Series of Outcomes

      “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” — Walter Elliot

      “The future we have bet on unfolds as a series of outcomes.” — Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets

      The journey of becoming what’s next never stops, does it? We just move from one version of ourselves to the next, and then the next still, until we reach the end of our days. The trick is to build off each, creating something bigger than our current selves in the process. Life is reinvention and renewal, but it is also fragile and fraught with danger. We must be bold in our choices and tough in our resolve.

      “The thing about life is that you must survive. Life is going to be difficult, and dreadful things will happen. What you do is move along, get on with it, and be tough. Not in the sense of being mean to others, but being tough with yourself and making a deadly effort not to be defeated.”
      ― Katharine Hepburn

      Being hyper-aware of the race we’re currently in is essential to savoring a life well-lived. So too is being hyper-aware of the direction we’re going in, that we might stay on course for who we aspire to be in the next version of ourselves, and the one after that. We must play the long game even as we deal with the cards we’ve been dealt in this hand.

      There is no other way to progress through this life than one step at a time. Sometimes we leap, sometimes we take smaller steps than we’d like. Sometimes we go sideways around an obstacle. But we must feel the urgency of the moment and act. Life is urgent because life is so brief. We simply have no time to lose if we are to reach the places we’ve set our course for. And yet we must take the long view, even as we deal in today. Life is now, with an eye on whatever we can make of then. We must get on with it.

    • Going Further

      “All people, no matter who they are, all wish they’d appreciated life more. It’s what you do in life that’s important, not how much time you have or what you wished you’d done.” — David Bowie

      “If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.” — David Bowie

      How did you spend your time in the last 24 hours? Did you find yourself out of your depth? Someplace exciting? I hope so. My own time was spent digging a ditch for a drainage pipe, and then filling it in again. And I tried a new way to cook bone-in pork chops and corn on the cob. On the surface, none of this is particularly exciting, but it was all unique experience compared to the norm. Life is about trying new things to see what we’re capable of, after all. Sometimes those new things seem pretty mundane.

      The point is to do more things out of our comfort zone. I’ll never be a rock star, but I’ll keep trying new things in this lifetime. I can confirm that 26 meters of ditch digging teaches you a few things about yourself. There was always going to be sweat equity paid this weekend, whether a hike or a long walk on the beach. Both of those sound a lot better than digging that ditch, but I’ve done each many times in my life. The ditch informed. And now that it’s done, I will take that labor with me to the next decision I make down the road.

      Choosing adventure and experience over the routine is a path towards a larger life. But so too is choosing the small challenges that everyday living presents to us. We won’t always be up on a stage with the spotlights on us, but we can all appreciate life a bit more. Doing more is the way.

      David Bowie might have been a rock & roll star, but he was also an avid reader, who would look around at all the books in his library mournfully, knowing he couldn’t possibly read them all in his lifetime. We all feel that way about something in this brief lifetime. All we can do is live with urgency and celebrate what we manage to get to in our days.

    • Begin Anew

      The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day. — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

      Very long days lend themselves to the notion of skipping things we promise ourselves we’ll do. Things like writing, for instance. But sometimes we must shake ourselves loose from this notion and remind ourselves that we have miles to go before we sleep. There are days when I’d rather sleep, to be honest. You may have those days too.

      Productivity and effectiveness are demanding dance partners. As active participants in the dance, our job is to show up and do our best, and try to do make it a little better than yesterday’s best. This constant improvement can’t go on forever, we know, but maybe just another day. We might tell ourselves this tomorrow too, but today will do for now.

      One day at a time, and then another still. The cadence becomes our identity, and the day feels empty without the work. I suppose that’s why they call it fulfilling.

    • Optimizing the Interval

      “Several hours or several years of waiting is all the same when you have lost the illusion of being eternal.” — Jean-Paul Sartre, The Wall

      “Those who are truly decrepit, living corpses, so to speak, are the middle-aged, middle-class men and women who are stuck in their comfortable grooves and imagine that the status quo will last forever or else are so frightened it won’t that they have retreated into their mental bomb shelters to wait it out.” — Henry Miller

      On the face of it, this pair of quotes might feel morbid and dark, but they’re simply pointing out the obvious. Memento mori: we all must die, so what will we do with the time left to us? We ought to make it something worthwhile. And so it is that at some point in our lives we truly recognize that someday our time will end. That moment of realization until the last moment of our lives is our interval. We owe it to our fragile selves to optimize that interval.

      Given the outcome, shouldn’t we stack as many healthy, fully vibrant and alive days into that interval as possible? Lean in to consistent exercise and good nutrition, that we might not one day surprisingly soon erode into a shell of ourselves. Read the great books now, that we might build our foundation stronger, and sit at the table of the greatest minds awaiting our arrival. Contribute something tangible in this world, not to be remembered, but to sustain the positive momentum the best of humanity offers. These are worthy goals for an interval as shockingly brief as this.

      Several hours or several years are just the same, friends, we must seize what flees.

    • Mining for Gold

      “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need” — Cicero

      My attention comes back to the garden this time of year. It’s too soon for annuals, too early for most perennials, and my sinuses are reminding me that the cool air is filling up with pollen. We celebrate the great awakening of the garden and surrounding landscape, even with a few sniffles and sneezes to punctuate the season.

      I know a few things about awakening. I came into this world in April, so I mark the end and subsequent beginning of another trip around the sun this month. Take enough of those trips, and reinvent yourself enough times, and you begin to see patterns of behavior. Learning who we are is like reading the current in a river, finding the deepest channel and accelerating downstream towards our destiny.

      I mostly write in a home office with a solid library of books patiently awaiting discovery. There are books I’ve read many times and books I’ve told myself I’ll get to someday. For better or worse the convenience of a Kindle tends to dominate my reading selection nowadays. So why keep books at all? For the same reason I plant daffodils. Daffodils are planted once and reappear in your life regularly to punctuate the moment. Books tend to do the same. I’ve turned to my collection many times over the years since I’ve planted them on the shelf.

      What we plant in ourselves tends to grow. Will we amend our minds with rich content and labor, or simply lean into whatever other’s grow for us? Give me dirty fingernails thumbing through favorite books. We mine for gold in the garden and in the library. These are our days to dig deeply and plant that which will live beyond us.

      Daffodils