FRONTAL LOBES, BRAIN – Intracellular police apprehended several fleeing epinephrine molecules after a high-speed chase through the sympathetic nervous system yesterday, sources say. Pursuit began in the adrenal glands, where the molecules were surprised during an attempt to induce breath and heart rate acceleration, and continued up the spinal cord to the brain, where they surrendered to frontal lobe authorities.

The apprehended molecules are part of a band of roving hormones know as the Adrenalinos. Upon questioning, they divulged the existence of a much larger underlying conspiracy, which includes a plot to lure humans into overwhelm mode by providing them with a never-ending stream of self-improvement tasks to perform.

Complicit in this plot is Magic Bullet, a wanted criminal known for his aggressive attempts to coerce people into the serial use and subsequent disposal of various systems, products, methods and concepts to solve their (often deliberately blown out of proportion) problems.

Bullet, who has been operating in the neuronal shadows for many decades, has proven elusive. This is largely due to his strategy of masterminding and directing groups of independent operatives such as the Adrenalinos. He is particularly adept at working with the mass media, which regularly launch highly effective advertising campaigns for the aforementioned products and systems.

Apparently Bullet believes in his own innocence, as evidenced by a synaptic tape recently delivered to frontal lobe headquarters. Its contents reveal that he views his work as beneficial. “Because of what I do, people are always primed and ready for action,” the tape states. “I also provide a constant supply of new hope.”

But such hope is false and detrimental, claims noted habits researcher Dr. Y.U. Doothings. “Humans lose the vital component of self-trust,” he states. “They pursue a Magic Bullet item or agenda, but when it doesn’t deliver the promised results quickly and painlessly, they drop it—and then blame themselves for their inability to follow through. Self-esteem tends to sink lower and lower with every repetition of this cycle. The resulting cost to each individual organism, as well as to society, is high.”

“The best way to escape the influence of Magic Bullet is simple avoidance,” counsels Chief of Police Otto Nomic. “But that’s almost impossible in modern society. Therefore, citizens should be remain alert and aware when venturing into common problem areas, such as health and body image, personal finance, and relationship issues.

“However, false Magic Bullet claims can be found almost anywhere,” he concludes. “Remember the old saying—‘If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.’”

Meanwhile, the captured Adrenalinos have been taken into custody for an as-yet undetermined period. A formal hearing before the Superior Vena Cava is scheduled for this Thursday. Should the epinephrine molecules be willing to undertake public service activities such as parasympathetic nervous system activation or vagus nerve functional upgrades, their incarceration time could be shortened considerably.

—special report filed by Medulla Oblongata, A.P. Nervewire

Okay, so yesterday I promised you all a new post here today. Problem is, I’m dealing with a gigantic case of writer’s block—of the opposite kind.

In this case, it’s not about my not knowing what to write about.

It’s about having too many ideas, and not being able to focus.

Last Thursday I knew my next post would be about spirituality—how it’s essentially a wonderful thing, but so often gets used as another way to hit ourselves over the head about our own supposed inadequacy.

I started writing about that, and got off on a tangent about how “self-help” and “personal development” are the new spirituality, and why that’s both good and bad.

Which led me to think about how much I’ve gained from the self-help literature out there, and despite that, what I still haven’t found there yet.

And that turned into a digression on how I’m still looking for the magic bullet which will solve all my problems without my having to do any real, honest work on myself. Despite the fact that (a) I know it doesn’t exist, and (b) that’s not a very useful attitude.

Which started me wondering about what I’d say to my readers about that. And how I might write a post, or series of posts, or an ebook, or a newsletter, or whatever, about how to implement all the self-help and personal development stuff we read and hear.

That led me right back into familiar territory—how life feels so overwhelming that it’s hard to find the time and energy to implement anything new.

Reminding me of the post a few of you asked for, oh, over a year ago about how energy is currency.

And how I found new energy recently by getting involved in improvisational theater.

Et cetera.

Et cetera.

Et cetera.

And did I mention, et cetera?

Which all leads me to this moment, in which I sit here thinking maybe it’s a good time to ask again…

What it is that you would like to see me do with this space?

This isn’t some kind of bloggy trick in which I try to get you to do my work for me. Like I said, I already have too many ideas.

My brain feels like a wide funnel with a very narrow tube at the bottom.

All the things I want to write about are jostling each other to get through the tiny opening first, and being very rude about it.

Can you please help me restore some order here?

I would so appreciate your feedback.

Seriously. What would you like to see here? It doesn’t even have to be directly related to perfectionism. Do you have questions to ask? Things you’re curious about my perspective on? Topics you’d love to read about?

Want me to do a video post? Draw pictures? (Though I’ll be doing some of that here soon.) Write more poetry? Do some tabla drumming?

Let me know in the comments below, or by emailing me directly at michelle AT PracticeMakesImperfect.com. I can’t promise to follow up on each suggestion, but I’ll certainly take them all into consideration.

What results might even be a heady blend of stuff, since my mind appears to work that way.

This will help me channel my blogging energy into things that you’ll find helpful. Or entertaining. Or maybe they’ll just become warnings of what not to do yourselves. Let’s find out, shall we?

Thank you in advance!

___________________________

EDIT:

Per the first commenter below, I’m adding a list of some of the topics I’m considering. Let me know if any of them strike your fancy–or if they spark other ideas about what you’d like to see here.

• energy as currency
• dealing with the fear of anger
• happiness vs. contentment
• caring too much about what others think of you
• becoming self-aware of your tendencies
• strategies to relax (possibly a series)
• taking very small, doable steps towards your goal(s)
•  how to make a commitment to fun and pleasure
• the influence of the Puritan/Protestant work ethic
• our cultural assumptions and how they affect us
• when might you want to be perfect?
• how to balance “tough love” with overcoming perfectionism—or can you?
• how to forgive ourselves
• talking to your “inner control freak” 

Hi. My name is Michelle, and I’m a control freak.

(Chorus: “Hi, Michelle.”)

If Control Freaks Anonymous existed, I would SO be a member.

So this post is as much a reminder to myself as a message to you.

I kind of have this long-standing beef with technology and so-called “progress.” It seems like there is just so much to keep up with these days, and it’s getting worse, not better.

Okay, so I do like modern-day conveniences like…oh, say electricity. And indoor plumbing. But I must confess that there are many, many days when I long for a simpler life, without all the cars and cell phones and fancy office equipment and high-tech gizmos and and and…

Because while they are all conveniences, too, they carry with them an underlying assumption which remains largely unquestioned in our collective mind—the assumption that we must use them, or we’re somehow less efficient, less in control.

We believe, without thinking much about it, that we must keep pace with our own technology.

However, the pace of technological change over the past 100 years in particular has been so exponential that our grandparents truly would not have believed what they saw if they’d been able, as children, to time-travel to today.

Biological change happens over the course of centuries and millennia. Our technology has so far outpaced our biology, it’s not even funny. Yet we just assume that we need to keep up with it all.

Why?

Because we see everyone else doing it.

What we often don’t see, though, is that most folks are feeling as desperate as we are, looking around at all the things that other (equally anxious) people accomplish in a day and taking it for granted  that they need to measure up, too.

It’s a frantic race in which each of us believes we’re the only one who doesn’t have it all together, so we allow ourselves to be drawn into sprints and long-distance events which are either illusory to begin with (you must bake the best cookies ever for your third-grader’s class party or you’re a failure as a mom), or real but not at all in line with our personal values (you’ve got to work a bunch of 60-hour weeks, be a stranger to your family, and prove your worth to your employer to get that promotion).

The irony is that by trying so hard to remain in control, we lose it.

Don’t you hate irony?

And the grand delusion is that there is a finish line to this race. So you just keep pushing, aiming for the day you can finally stop and relax, but meanwhile trying to control all the flailing octopus arms of your life while running at top speed.

Not a great way to keep your balance. Or your sanity.

Of course you want to feel in control. Nothing wrong with that—we all do. The tricky part, though, is deciding what you really want so that you can give up on the notion of having to manage everything else.

In a society that pushes us to “realize our full potential,” “be all that we can be,” and “live our dreams,” it takes conscious effort and real courage to choose the path of aiming for less.

I’m going to repeat that, because it’s so important.

It takes conscious effort and real courage to choose the path of aiming for less.

But aiming for less, and doing that as well as we can, is the real way to live the dream. To make a difference. To feel truly satisfied with what we accomplish.

We need to realize that by trying to meet someone else’s outer standards of accomplishment, we give up our control.

We begin to take it back when we decide what we want from our lives.

As my last post reveals, I’ve been thinking a lot about simplicity lately, and how it’s been one of my longest-standing goals.

That’s right, it’s not just an idea for me, it’s a goal. Because my Inner Control Freak can’t just appreciate something without trying to own it somehow.

I try reasoning with her about this to no avail. She leads me over and over again to the same conclusion.

The fact that my life isn’t as simple as I’d like really stresses me out.

(Actually, what I initially wrote was, “I allow the fact that my life isn’t as simple as I’d like to stress me out. But what if—radical thought!—I just accepted this as the way I am right now? Not that I want to stay this way, mind you. But can this mental/emotional pattern be something I don’t judge myself for while I’m working on it?)

Anyway, as usual, my feelings of stress come from comparing the What-Is to the What-I-Want.

You see, in my mind, I have this image of how organized and uncluttered I want my life to feel. My home is comfortably lived in, but neat, and I can find whatever I need in seconds because I know exactly where it is.

Oh, yes! And (the fantasy continues) I’m also tracking all my commitments and things I want to do so that nothing ever slips through the cracks. I have time for everything. (Possibly the biggest fantasy of all.) I’m responsible, trustworthy, and stress-free.

And someday—maybe even this weekend, if I try hard enough!—I will finish everything on my to-do list.

The Empty Inbox Fantasy is a lie. I know that logically, dammit. But my Inner Control Freak wants so badly to believe it’s possible, she is willing to live in perpetual denial.

But externalizing her like that is misleading. I know she is really me. And I hate the fact that I can’t accept the world in all its entropic glory.

I’m trying to make peace with the fact that life is complex and messy.

Most days I’m failing. But every time I manage to relax into the knowledge, even for a moment, that the world isn’t neat and orderly and controllable and that’s okay . . . I’ve won a small victory. Maybe nudged a neuron or two into a more peaceful and accepting brain pathway.

Allison Nazarian wrote a fantastic post about this a few days ago, in which she oh-so-correctly observes that simplicity is hard work. I adore her idea that maybe “stew is the new simple.” Go read her post when you’re done here, because she conveys her ideas so beautifully, but here’s the heart of it for me:

Maybe simple is the big, juicy, colorful, sometimes-spicy, never-bland, gloppy and, yes, complicated stew that is my life. . . . Maybe the stew has so much potential for such deliciousness that it—not simple—is actually what I crave.

I am gradually (kicking and screaming all the while) coming to this conclusion, too. Because as much as I want the peace and calm that come from simplicity, when I manage to step out of judgment mode and simply see the world in all its suchness, I see that it is a very, very rich place.

Here’s another thought. Maybe being uncomfortable is simply being uncomfortable. Maybe it doesn’t necessarily mean my world is spinning out of control.

There is a dynamic tension between my wish for simplicity and my acceptance of complexity. And maybe that’s not a bad thing.

What if the connecting word between simplicity and “suchness” (everything in the world being exactly what it is, and no more) is not OR, but AND?

What if I could accept the fact that I will stress over my life’s complexity, and that I also will find much wonderfulness there to revel in?

Can I allow for that? I don’t know—I’m still working on it. I’ll keep you posted.

Warning:  This post gets a little heavy. It also doesn’t give any crisp, clear answers to anything. But I needed to churn up some of the stuff that’s been lying in the murkier depths of my mind, and I’m offering it here in case it’s helpful or sparks a good conversation. Which would be very nice. (Hint, hint, wink, grin.)

For the past few years I’ve focused on scaling back and simplifying my life. I had to. I was depressed, exhausted, and completely burned out.

Now I’ve got several things going on that I’m genuinely excited about. The challenge, for me, is moving forward without getting into that “all or nothing” headspace which has been my lifelong companion.

I make lists of everything I need and want to do. At first this feels great—it clears my head and lets me relax because I don’t have to worry about dropping any balls—it’s all there on paper where I can see it.

Then the lists undergo mitosis, sometimes often within seconds or minutes of being created. They subdivide from nice, clean rows of words into huge, unwieldy, overwhelming deposits of impossible.

I create and revise the lists again and again, knowing darn well there isn’t enough time for it all.

The best I’ve done so far is to realize that I have utterly ludicrous expectations of myself. I haven’t yet figured out how to stop myself from having them. I might have to accept that I never will.

So I’m (slowly, gradually) learning to do something that’s incredibly difficult for me.

I’m admitting—through clenched teeth because I soooooooo much don’t want it to be true—that I won’t ever accomplish everything that I want to.

Whew. I typed it. And my stomach just tied itself in a knot.

Because oh, my God, if I can’t accomplish everything, then I’m a failure! I’ll die with regrets! People won’t respect me! I will Be Less Than I Could Have Been! And that (*gasp!*) is a mortal sin against my life’s very purpose, whatever it is!

(Did I say something further up about all-or-nothing thinking?)

I will type it again, with emphasis.

I WILL NEVER ACCOMPLISH EVERYTHING I WANT TO DO IN MY LIFE.

I am mortal. I have a finite amount of time on this earth. I can only do so much. I need to breathe deep and let that fact sink deeply into my bones.

The first thing I experience when I do is an increased sense of desperation. If that’s true, then every single minute is precious! I shouldn’t waste any of it!

The second thing I feel is the arising of a quieter, steadier part of myself. She tells me that the real waste is allowing the time to fly by unnoticed as I obsess about the future. That if I accept that there is only so much I can accomplish, then I should be as fully present as I can in each moment, to make clear, intentional choices about how I spend my time.

She also says that living in the moment, as clichéd as that sounds, is the way to fully savor my life. This, she gently reminds me, also includes the not-so-pleasant feelings. Because even though chocolate and cheesecake taste mighty fine, I’d quickly get tired of them if that was all I ever ate.

We need the contrast to know when we have it good.

So I’m learning to catch myself in the act of engaging with old patterns—the ones that keep me fantasizing without taking action, making plans with unrealistic timelines, buying products that I keep hoping will be the “magic bullet” to solving this or that problem and not using them, and driving myself into the ground through obsessive workaholism and perfectionism.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed that I keep getting the same amount of frustrated even though I continue to expect different results. Funny, that.

So even if I simply notice that I’ve gone down my usual trail toward the murk and overwhelm, I’m trying to consider that a success, because you can’t change a pattern—especially one as ingrained as this—without first being aware of when you’re doing it.

Like I said at the beginning, there are no clear-cut answers here. But there is a growing awareness.

I’m thinking that’s a good first step.

Do you feel like you’ll never get caught up with all the minutiae of life?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got piles of stuff to deal with lying around and weighing on your mind. Possibly to the point where you feel so stuck you can’t move ahead.

And it’s probably not even the truly important stuff—just the basic “to do’s” that happen over and over. Bills to pay, errands to run, magazines and journals to read, receipts to sort, laundry to do, papers to file, etc., etc., etc.

When all of these recurring tasks keep accumulating, how can you ever become current with them, let alone get to the things that you really care about?

You can. But first, you need to revise your definition of “caught up.”

Believe me, I know how tough this is. I’m still partly in denial about the fact that life’s inbox will never be empty. It’s no fun feeling like you’re in perpetual catch-up mode, and the fantasy of being on top of everything…someday…is SO attractive.

But our lives are much too complex for that these days.

There’s no way we can ever accomplish EVERYTHING we want (or think we should), so we need to be selective. That’s a meaty topic in itself, but first we need to feel in control of our current situation. And so…

Today’ I’ll offer one practical, hands-on way to deal with the backlog of stuff that’s holding you back.

Here’s how.

First, choose a physical space to start clearing. Start with one room at the very most, or make it even smaller—such as your desktop or a single file drawer—so that when you get it cleared you’ll have a feeling of accomplishment and spaciousness.

Pick an area that will make a difference in the way you feel. Would it be nice to eat at your dining room table again? Or find things in the hall closet? OK, start there.

Second, if you don’t already have one, find some kind of calendar and planning system that you will actually use, at least for now. Keep it simple—maybe a spiral notebook for making lists, some sticky flags to mark off sections in it, and an inexpensive calendar to jot things in. Think basic and functional while you figure out what system works best for you.

Next, grab a few empty boxes and start going through the physical space you’ve chosen. Remove any “to do” items and sort them into three and only three groups—Urgent, Non-Urgent, and Fuhgettabouddit.

In my experience, the Fuhgettabouddit pile is the toughest one. It’s where you need to be honest and ask yourself the question, “What’s the worst that can happen if I never do this?” If the answer is something you can live with, the corresponding piece of paper or other object goes into the Fuhgettabouddit box. And then you know where to dump it.

The urgent stuff goes in another box and will remain somewhere easily accessible for now. The non-urgent material goes into the other box(es) and can be moved to a temporary holding location.

The main thing is to get your to-do piles contained and out of the way. You’ll be surprised how much better this makes you feel, even though you haven’t actually done anything about what’s in the boxes yet.

Now comes the interesting part that’ll make you go, “Huh?”

Don’t worry about the stuff in the boxes.

That’s right. You’re starting today with a clean slate.

The Fuhgettabouddit box has been dumped. The non-urgent material is waiting in the wings. The only thing you should do is quickly go through the “urgent” box for anything that needs to be taken care of by a certain date, then schedule it in your calendar.

Leave the things themselves (bills, blank birthday cards, coupons, presentation handouts, or whatever) in the box for now.

Because now there’s only one place they can be. That alone can remove enormous amounts of stress.

Every evening take a quick peek at the next day on your calendar to check what you’ll need to have with you physically, then find it in the “urgent” box and place it where you won’t forget it in the morning.

So now you don’t even have to worry about the urgent stuff falling through the cracks.

Now, make it a habitual part of your daily or weekly routine (you can schedule this in your calendar as well) to gradually dig through the “non-urgent” box or boxes. This can be as simple as ten minutes twice a week, or five minutes a day. Nothing there is pressing, so it doesn’t matter if you go slowly, as long as you gradually work through the box(es). Just make the time period you block out extremely achievable and non-intimidating so you’ll really do this.

You now have a plan for dealing with your backlog and can start fresh.

The final step is to design a VSS (Very Simple System) to manage the stuff that moves through the area you’ve just cleared.

In other words, you’re starting from scratch—from a place of spaciousness and clarity. Without all the stuff that’s been cluttering up the space and keeping you stuck.

Again, begin simply. If you’ve just excavated your desk, for instance, you might create a new home for any bills that need to be paid—under a paperweight, in a tiny vertical sorter, in one of those giant paperclip standup thingies.

Or you might set up an “in” tray for magazines and other papers you want to read—and resolve not to let the stack grow higher than the top of the tray. If it does, make it a point to deal with enough of the things in it (read, file, or toss) to whittle the stack back down to size.

And that’s it, at least for starters. Just change one or two small things at a time, and wait until you get in the habit of using your new VSS before tackling another physical area and setting up more of them.

Baby steps. Just remember—baby steps.

Let me know how it goes.

I had it all planned out. It was going to be so much fun.

It really was a great idea, if I do say so myself. My blog is about overcoming the kind of perfectionism that gets in our way by telling us that what we’re doing isn’t good enough. National Novel Writing Month (which I’ve written about before), is a month of hands-on practice in blasting straight through that mindset with wild writerly abandon.

So I was going to blog my entire NaNo novel publicly, right here, during the month of November.

Practice Makes Imperfect and NaNoWriMo—what a natural combination!

I got in touch with the organizers, and they were going to feature me in one of their daily Q&A spots. I would get to publicly practice what I preach in a very visible way, and maybe turn some people on to this annual event that I love so much in the process. We could cheer each other on, inspire each other, and keep that flow of raw, gloriously unedited words gushing.

Except then I heard an inner warning siren go off. It was followed by a voice:

“Wait, you’re the person who says she’s finally coming to grips with the fact that she can’t do it all, no matter how much she wants to. Who says she’s tired of trying to be superhuman. And who is already having enough trouble handling all the things on her plate now. And you’re thinking that you can manage to write 50,000 words next month on top of all that?”

Damn.

The disturbing truth is that once you embark on the path of self-awareness, it gets harder and harder to be in denial. Even when you really, really want to be.

So today I’m here to tell you that I will not be doing National Novel Writing Month this year.

And that makes me incredibly sad.

It would have been so joyous! Not to mention good for web traffic! I would have gotten exposure to many thousands of people around the world who do NaNoWriMo and visit its website, and who might have seen my Q&A feature and checked out my blog! I could have possibly been inspirational to people who were thinking about trying NaNo this year, or who were doing it but flagging in their enthusiasm, just by writing my novel publicly! And maybe some of them would have become regular readers or subscribers here at Practice Makes Imperfect! So many exclamation points that I will now miss out on!

Not to mention that I simply adore doing NaNo each November.

It is actually harder for me to not do it than to do it and drive myself into the ground. The latter has been (until recently) my modus operandi. I know very well how to pummel myself into submission over a goal that I’ve arbitrarily decided I have to achieve.

It’s much harder to admit that the world will keep on turning and that I will keep on breathing without my writing a novel next month. It’s so difficult to allow myself to just drop something that would prevent me from the self-care that I need to focus on right now.

Which is why I’m letting NaNo go this year. I need the practice in saying no to things I want so that I can say yes to things I want even more. Like health. And sanity.

BUT . . .

If you have ever wanted to write a novel, I cannot recommend NaNoWriMo highly enough. Here’s an excerpt from (again) my own previous blog post about it:

What makes the program so effective? It allows you to barrel right past your critical mind. You have to write so much so fast that quality concerns fly out the window—you just don’t have time for them. “I can edit later” becomes your mantra. And the amazing thing is that once you push past your initial resistance, get into the flow, and establish a daily writing routine, you realize it’s completely feasible to write 50,000 words or more in a month if you just keep writing and don’t overthink it.

It’s fun, it’s intense, and it’s probably the best training program for recovering perfectionists I’ve ever found.

If there is ANY part of you that is saying (perhaps very quietly) “yes!” right now, then I heartily endorse NaNoWriMo and suggest that you check out their website right away. Because this year’s novel-writing adventure begins at midnight this Saturday night.

If you decide to do it, I’d love to know so that I can holler and whoop and cheer you on!

(Image courtesy of ex novo)

The first post in this series explained why you need an Outboard Brain, and got you started on the first step of creating one by asking you to do a time-released brain dump.

Time for the next step.

If you have gone through the process since then, you now have either a deck of cards or a notebook (or maybe a computer file) filled with everything you want or need to do. And you’re probably getting impatient about what to do with them already. So let’s dive in–we’re going to categorize these suckers and make them start earning their keep.

NOTE: I forgot to mention something in my first post in this series–you should definitely include dreams and long-range plans on your list. They’ll get their own category, so go ahead and jot down at least a few now if you haven’t already. That kickboxing class you’ve been thinking about but are more than a little intimidated by? Taking your kids on a cross-country vacation? Learning Slovenian? C’mon. You know what yours are.

OTHER NOTE: I’ll do some explaining first, but at the end of the post I’ll give you a list of common categories to help get you started.

YET ANOTHER NOTE: Try not to make your categories either too broad or too narrow. For instance, having only two categories for “Work Stuff” and “Home Stuff” probably won’t be very helpful, unless your life is MUCH simpler than most people’s. On the other hand, having separate categories for “Grocery Store,” “Post Office,” “Pet Store,” etc. is too cumbersome. Try a middle-of-the-road category like “Errands.”

Now let’s get into it.

The Card Method

If you’ve got a deck of index or other cards, find a section of floor so you can spread them out. Inform any small children and pets that these cards are not toys, nor are they edible.

Begin laying out the cards in groups, keeping them all visible if there’s room. Don’t come up with a list of categories beforehand–let them develop organically as you sort. This is the advantage of the card method. You can move things around and change your mind until everything is organized into the groupings that make the most sense.

Now take a moment to rank each category’s cards in their approximate order of urgency and/or importance. Don’t spend too much time on this–if you can’t decide whether picking up a birthday card for Aunt Edna is more or less urgent than figuring out the menu for the dinner party you’re hosting next week, just choose one of the two and move on.

When you’ve got them how you want them, sweep each group into a stack. Jot the category names on cards–preferably ones that will stand out, such as on differently colored paper, cards with raised tabs, or with sticky notes or flags attached to them. Clip or rubber-band all the categories into a single stack if you have a way to visually differentiate them, and into separate stacks if not.

Now hang tight for a moment while I talk to the folks who did this a different way.

The Computer Method

I didn’t mention this method in the last post, but some of you may have created your to-do lists on the computer. If so, you can sort them into categories by moving them around with merry cut-and-paste abandon.

The only drawback is that you probably won’t be able to see everything onscreen at once; you’ll need to scroll up and down in your document. Still, good for you! The items are movable. And I didn’t even tell you to do it this way.

The Notebook Method

This will be a little harder if you’ve written your to-do list in a notebook, but not much. First, grab some highlighters in as many different colors as you can, a bunch of colored pens and markers, and a scratch pad.

Before you start marking up your list, read through it to see what categories suggest themselves. (Again, see the end of the post for some start-you-off suggestions.) Jot the categories on the scratch pad as you go. Be as messy as you want. All you’re doing is making your thought process visible.

When this list feels pretty much complete, grab a highlighter and use it to mark through all the to-do’s in one category. Use a second color for the next category, and keep going until you run out of highlighter colors. (What’s up with that, people at Sharpie and Sanford? Six isn’t nearly enough!)

Then you’ll need to get a little creative with your opaque colors–maybe red squares, blue circles, green arrows, etc. in the left margin for different categories. (The six-year-old in me just piped up with, “Pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons, green clovers–and new blue diamonds!”)

Now Everyone Back in the Pool

Notebook people? (“Here!”) Computer people? (“Here!”) Card people? (“Here!”)

Good. We’re actually going to pause here, because even though you physically have the same notebook, electronic document, or stack(s) of cards you started with, you’ve just done a lot.

Now is a good time to test-drive your categories for a bit, see if they work for you, and make any needed adjustments. For now, keep adding items to your list in their brand-new and wonderfully appropriate categories, and removing them as you do them.

In the third and (possibly) final post in this series, I’ll cover how to turn these categories into a coherent Outboard Brain that works for you. In the meantime, here’s a list of a few broad categories to kick-start your thinking process. Of course you’ll have categories that are unique to you, but these are fairly common. I’ve added a few notes to some of them. Don’t feel you need to use all of these, either–use the list as a springboard for your mind.

• Things to be done on or by specific dates (Don’t wait on these–go ahead and enter these on whatever calendar or tickler system you use now so that they don’t fall through the cracks.)
• Urgent Items
• Errands/Shopping Lists
  
• Active Projects/In Process
• Delegated to/Waiting For (For anything others are working on that is important to you or in which you’re a key player.)
• Spouse or Key Relationship (Things to discuss or do together.)
• Family (Ditto the above.)
• Business Ideas (Things you want to research and/or implement.)
• Finances
• Health
  
• House
• Books to Read/Movies to Watch/Etc.
• Fun Things to Do (In my opinion, this is a wonderful list that everyone should have!)
• Recurring Events (Birthdays, anniversaries, key action reminders, etc.)
• Someday/Maybe (This is the category for those dreams and long-range plans. It’s a catch-all so you don’t forget about them and can review them periodically. Writing it down does not mean you’re committed to doing it.)

Holy categorization, Batman! See you next time.

(image courtesy of ex novo)

In the comments section of my last blog post, Barbara raised the question, “Why do I rebel against my own to-do lists?” That sparked a lot of thinking for me. So now I’ve got a series of posts about to-do lists . . . yep, you’ve got it. On my to-do list.

Why do we even use to-do lists, anyway? What’s in it for us other than stress because we never seem to cross enough things off of them? Because when they work, to-do lists actually help us relax. Yes, that’s right. Relax.

“Huh?” you say. (That’s one of the things I like about you. You’re so articulate.)

Allow me to explain. Oh, and to be clear, I’m using “to-do list” as a catch-all term. For you it might mean anything from a hastily scrawled sticky note to a complex, category-driven application on your computer or PDA. Whatever works for you. (Or doesn’t work, as the case may be—don’t worry, we’ll get to that in future posts.)

A to-do list is really nothing more than an outboard brain.

Early humans simply didn’t need them. Imagine our cave-dwelling ancestors:

1. Hunt animals.
2. Gather plants.
3. Gather wood, feed fire.
4. Cook.
5. Eat.
6. Mate.
7. Repeat.

The absurdity is clear. And it’s not just the fact that leaves and charred twigs didn’t make very durable personal planners, either. Our ancestors knew what to do because it was all about survival—what was necessary was also pretty darn obvious.

Ironically, though their lives were physically demanding and dangerous, hunter-gatherer societies also spent far less time fulfilling their basic needs than we do.

Even later agricultural societies had more leisure time. Yes, people had to work long, back-breaking hours during crucial periods such as planting and harvesting. But for most of the year, they could finish up work in the fields and kick back with jars of mead at the end of the day, telling stories around the hearth fire. There was no, “Sorry, honey, the feudal lord asked me to work late again tonight, and on the way home I need to get gas for the mule and pick up your doublet and hose from the dry cleaner. Can you make sure little Sigismund gets to spear-throwing practice on time?”

No, it’s only our modern lives that have become this complex, and overrun with demands on our time that often feel completely overwhelming. To deal with it all, we need to find external ways to capture our commitments, because our brains simply aren’t wired to hold all that information and feed it to us as we require it. Our ancestors didn’t need it, so we didn’t evolve that way. And biological evolution lags so far behind technological evolution that we needed to call in reinforcements.

Thus, the humble to-do list was born. (It has grown up to become far less humble in its adolescence, like most teenagers, but that’s a story for another day.)

By writing down the things you need to accomplish, and by when, you free your mind from what author and productivity expert David Allen calls “open loops.” Even if you’re not aware of it every moment, these open loops sap your energy and concentration simply by remaining undone, because at some level you’re aware of all that incompleteness hanging over your head.

Then, if you don’t find some way of recording these open loops outside your own gray matter, not only do you feel anxious about all of your undone tasks, you’re also anxious (again, this may not be fully conscious) that you might forget about them. It’s a double-whammy of worry.

Keeping a to-do list—and keeping it more or less current—eliminates the second of those two worries. Unfortunately for those of us who are planner and system addicts, Writing it All Down (or Getting it All Entered) is not synonymous with Getting it All Accomplished. (“What? You mean I bought this gorgeous new Franklin Covey planner in rich buttery nut-brown leather with a personalized monogram, and filled in all my calendar items and things to do, and it’s not going to do them for me??? I want my money back!”)

Sorry, you still have to do the things yourself. But getting some clarity around what those things are, and getting them out of your head and onto a list, gives you an incredible feeling of relief. Sometimes you feel overwhelmed with everything you think you have to do, and when you see it all written out in ink or pixels, you realize there’s less of it than you thought.

Or that the truly urgent stuff is doable, and the rest of can be deferred for a while with no harm.

Or that what you thought was a huge, icky, complicated project actually has a set of steps you can take in an obvious and logical order.

Or that everything looks a bit more manageable than you were anticipating.

Or that there are things you really, truly don’t have to do. Now, and maybe ever.

Or a combination of all of these. Whatever you discover, somehow just being able to see it in written form helps you wrap your mind around it all. And the sense of relief is amazing.

Want to try it?

Throughout this series of posts, I’ll offer some concrete, practical suggestions that will let you feel the relief that comes from having an Outboard Brain of some sort. Give them a test drive and let me know what works for you, what doesn’t, whether you have any questions, etc. As always, I’d like to make this a real conversation, not just me doing all the talking . . . uh, writing.

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do a brain dump. You can do this in one of two ways, though I recommend the second one.

Way #1: Use a small notebook.

Way #2: Use a stack of index cards.

I recommend the index cards, because while this exercise is only about capturing your thoughts, next time we’ll deal with categorizing them. And that’s easier to do with a stack of cards you can shuffle around than a list you can’t. (Helpful hint and Alternate Way #2: When I did this recently, I cut some blank cardstock down to the size of business cards, wrapped a rubber band around them, and had a very portable working Outboard Brain.)

Now, take 15 minutes or so when you can be undistracted. Transfer the contents of any current to-do lists to your new TOB (Temporary Outboard Brain). Don’t forget that receipt from lunch where you jotted down the errands you want to run this weekend, the sticky notes hanging precariously from the bottom of your computer, and any other spots where pesky to-dos like to hide.

Then, do a brain-dump from scratch, as much as you can think of off the top of your head. What’s in your short-term memory because you weren’t near your computer or Blackberry or a notepad when you thought of it? What has come up in the last few hours that you haven’t written down anywhere but want to remember?

Don’t worry about being complete—that’s why you are going to carry your TOB and a writing utensil with you everywhere you go for the next several days. Here’s where the magic happens. Because you have it with you, every time you think of something you need or want to do, add it to the TOB right then and there.*

*Exceptions include while driving, operating dangerous machinery, or in the middle of a heated discussion or amorous encounter.

At first, you may find yourself pausing to jot things down a lot. That’s okay. The flood will slow down and eventually become a trickle. That’s when you’ll know you’re essentially done with your brain dump. Also, don’t worry about keeping your cards or notebook pretty. This is temporary, and doesn’t need to be a work of art. In fact, you might use this as practice in allowing things to be slightly messy!

The next post in this series will talk about what to do with all the to-dos you will have corralled by then. Until then, keep collecting, and trust that even though it’s not yet organized into a Holy and Sacred System, you will still have the most important things at the forefront of your mind. Maybe even the forefront of your notebook (use a highlighter or a special symbol in the margin for urgent items) or card deck (clip the urgent stuff in front).

Meanwhile, savor the feeling of release as you mentally let go and entrust your commitments to something outside of you. Ahhhh . . . feels great, doesn’t it?

I’m a productivity geek and a systems gal. Lock me in a Franklin Covey store, give me free access to all the personal planning paraphernalia there, and I’m in heaven.

I am also a certified master of the to-do list. Hand me twenty pages of tasks, projects and agenda items, and I can slice ‘em and dice ‘em any way you please. I’ve done this with my own lists hundreds of times.

My only problem seems to be with doing the stuff on them.

Even as a child, I carried with me a vague sense of unease about all the things I wanted to do but wasn’t getting around to. (How early does Perfectionitis nauseus set in, anyway? Sheesh.)

Then I learned to make lists. At first they were very simple: Homework. Things to Do. Write it down, do it, cross it off.

Ohhh, yes. The flesh-tingling thrill of crossing things off. There’s no high quite like it. The only thing is, it’s kind of like the old joke about the guy who keeps beating his head against the wall because it feels so good when he stops. You have to keep adding to the lists in order to have more items to cross out.

At first this was no problem. As a classic overachiever, I really was able to plow through many, many things quickly and well. I was invariably praised for this, so that pattern was reinforced strongly. Work hard, earn praise, feel worthy. Want more praise and feelings of self-worth? Work harder.

I became a human doing instead of a human being.

Then came the myriad ways to keep track of it all. I’m low-tech by choice, so I don’t go in for all the electronic gadgetry, but my personal planner addiction began the day I discovered existence of the Day Runner almost two decades ago.

No system has worked for me consistently, though. Even when they gently nudge me into methods of prioritization (ABC-123, context lists, or what have you), I’m still overwhelmed by my own lists because I can’t discriminate. I feel that if I think of it, I have to do it, and that I’m perpetually falling behind in a race I can’t win.

Over the past couple of years, an internal war has raged within me between my Inner Drill Sergeant, who sounds like Anthony Robbins on speed, and my slowly-emerging Self-Nurturer, who tells me that if I don’t learn to ease up and take better care myself, I may very well die. (As in, you know, sooner than I’m meant to.)

Lately the war seems to be escalating. I think it’s because my Self-Nurturer is finally starting to make some solid inroads into my consciousness. The Drill Sergeant is feeling seriously threatened. And I’m sitting in between them, trying to broker a peace and convince myself I’m not developing a split personality.

But some helpful realizations have emerged, too. One of the best is . . .

The power of stopping. Really stopping.

Being who I am, I’ve always seen relaxation, meditation, visualization, and other forms of stress release as just more items for the to-do list. Which automatically brings up resistance, because I already have far too much on the list already. (How am I supposed to fit a conscious relaxation session in between getting home from work, feeding the cats, having something for dinner, running that load of laundry I’ve been putting off for two days, taking a walk to get some fresh air and exercise, working on the five small tasks and two major projects I’ve decided I need to take care of tonight, answering a few time-sensitive e-mails, and taking a shower before collapsing into bed so I can wake up to another overwhelming tomorrow?)

When methods of de-stressing become just another series of items to check off my lists, I’ve learned I’m never going to get around to them.

But I’ve discovered that when I allow myself to truly stop—to rest for a while because my body, mind and spirit want it, not because it’s an agenda item to be ticked off—I do experience genuine relief.

It’s a subtle distinction, and I’m not even sure I’m expressing it adequately.

My habitual way feels more like:

“Get home from work—check. Feed cats—check. Go upstairs and sit on bed; close eyes and do creative visualization for 15 minutes—check. Start load of laundry—check.”

My new way, which isn’t a solid habit yet but which I’m achieving more often now, feels like:

“Hi there, cats! Can I hang out with you while you eat? **Scritch, scritch** (((PURRRRRR))). Okay, upstairs. Stretching out on my bed because it was a demanding day at the office . . . ahh, yes. This floating in between awakeness and a slight doze feels wonderful. General sense of time passing, but no looking at the clock. >>>really stopping everything; a feeling of timelessness<<< Mmm, now I feel ready to engage with the world again. Wow! Look—it’s only been 20 minutes! Better go start that laundry . . .”

Gentler, Nicer. More peaceful. When I can actually manage this type of thing.

I’d be lying if I said I’m getting as many things done this way, but you know what? I’m getting all the important things done.

With jottings to myself scratched on sticky notes, more often than with my latest “productivity system.”

Though I did walk past the Franklin Covey store at lunch yesterday . . .

I suspect the war isn’t over yet.