With the new year around the corner, and the continued reality of an economic pinch. It seems as good a time as any to take stock of my new found interest the minimalist lifestyle, or more commonly stated, the simple life. For the past year or two I’ve tried, from time to time, to post my ongoing attempts at gaining more focus around the things that matter most in life.
How important is clarity in a world vying for your attention? It seems that all that surrounds the modern life conspires for it fragmentation. Increasing obligations, and mass marketing all threaten any attempts at a prolonged coherent thought, not to mention consistent action.
I awake in the morning with the goal of accomplishing certain things. And in all honesty, how successful my day is, already depends on how clearly defined these goals are. If not, I don’t stand a fighting chance with so much vying for my attention. If I am not zealously clear as to the days objectives, forget about it, its not going to get done. Maybe you can relate?
And so goes the endless cycle of daily routine and failure. But what I sometimes wouldn’t consider is although I was good at writing down my goals, and reviewing them often, there also seemed to be things that would always frustrate the process. Things that make you forget what you are trying to accomplish, and so easily seem to throw you of course.
As a result of this history, I started asking myself, what I could do to give the goals in my life a fighting chance. And it just made sense, that if there were competing forces vying for attention, that those forces, needed to be deleted, or managed. That’s when I began to realize that the information on productivity was endless. At first the concept of simplifying your life wasn’t sexy, and in some ways, I guess it may never seem that way to a lot of folks. Don’t expect any 30 seconds advertisements praising the virtues of only buying what you need. But as of late, the subject has been gaining a very practical sort of relevance in my life, and in the life of millions of people who are just plain tired and stressed out by overly complicated lives.
The further I’ve read on the topic, the more I began to see that by riding myself of distractions, and the barrage of incoming information and messages, the clearer I can think, and the more focused I can become on a single objective.
David Allen refers to these messages as open loops. He defines what it means in his Getting Things Done book:
An Open Loop is anything pulling at your attention that doesn’t belong where it is, the way it is.
The Getting Things Done method is an intricate system of built around the premise that one needs to get as much stuff from outside of your head, so that you can focus on actually getting things done. I’ll admit, after reading the book, that it was very helpful, but at times, seemed overwhelming. So here, I’ve just focused on some basic things that have begun this process for me. I may tackle a more thorough review of the GTD book at a later time.
Here’s an unrelated video that I stumbled on that I think gives an example of what your life can turn into if you’re not aware of how easily it is to become overwhelmed with everything vying for your attention.
The “Stuff” that’s to blame
David Allen describes stuff as:
Anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven’t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step. [pg. 17]
Here are some of the “stuff” that I’ve identified as contributing to a more complicated existence for me. In a later post, I’ll share what I’ve actually done to manage or rid myself of some of these things.
Mess
This is a term generally referring to all the things around you or in your life, that don’t need to be there. They can be huge things, or all those little details. A physically cluttered environment, or all those to do list, that keep rolling over into the next to-do list. The more cluttered my environment, the more my brain seems to have to work.
Toxic Relationships
These are the people, that for whatever reason, are apart of your life, but for some reason, seem to repeatedly affect you in a negative way. Where they are in their life, and where you are, may just not be congruent.
Television
Some call it the one eyed devil, and I’m not here to cast stones or preach, but here are some interesting statistics from the A.C. Nielsen Co. that really shook me up! These statistics really made me evaluate how I was spending my time.
According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.
Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000. source
I did the math, and that comes out to about 55 TV messages per day alone. Messages all calling for some sort of action, or lobbying for storage place in an already desperately clustered brain.
If you’re anything like me, you have a ton of messages all being delivered via various in boxes. Jumping on my laptop to check my email used to be a morning ritual. And to be honest, I sometimes still struggle with this. Why is this a such a big deal? Well for me, it appears that how I begin my day, really effects how focused and successful the rest of it was. And beginning your day bombarded by hundreds of unread email can be destabilizing.
Internet
In 2006 researchers from Ball State’s Center for Media Design (CMD) uncovered this:
The average person spends about nine hours a day using some type of media. source
The internet is a beast when it comes to sucking ones time, or throwing me of course. There’s an obvious benefit to networking, staying in touch with family and friends, and all the various constructive activities that keep us online(I’m not sure if this included Mafia Wars people. ;-). However, for me, I’ve realized that the things I’ve usually set out to do, often get thrown of track by an urgent desire to post some ridiculously important facebook or twitter status update, or some imaginary email I’m expecting.
Phone
Now you don’t want to be stuck on the highway at 2am with car trouble, and without your cell phone(I’ll tell you that story another time). But there are times where that little metallic object in your purse or pocket, can be the channel where people can reach into your life, and easily throw you of course. A way to manage that access is vital.
Bills
Bills, Bills, Bills. I know, you don’t like me cussing up a storm like that. Financial disorganization, or unneeded expenses can really put a lot of unneeded stress on the mind. For me, the largest of which is my home mortgage. I’ll explain why I call this an unnecessary expense next time, and what I’ve done, or am doing to manage these various open loop traps in my life.
Part 2 to come…
What messes with your focus, and what ways have helped you get back on track? Trust me, I’m all ears.
Written by Veron Graham
Topics: Uncategorized