Late October and early November typically marks the beginning of the festival Divali (alternate spellings: Dipavali, Diwali, Deepavali), one of the foremost celebrations for members of the Hindu, Sikh and Jain religious traditions. Though each of these traditions developed in the Indian subcontinent, celebrations now occur around the world.

Background

photo by jaroslavd

The name Divali comes from the words “dipa” (lamp) and “vali” (necklace), and thus means “necklace of lights” and is usually understood to be a festival of lights.

Particularly in the northern regions of India, Divali marks the beginning of the new year. More universally, it symbolizes the conquest of good over evil — though how exactly this is understood varies in different religious contexts.

The festival occurs annually between October 15th and November 14th, on the new moon. Celebrants of the festival often decorate their homes with lights, dress in new clothes, exchange gifts and setting off firecrackers.

This celebration typically lasts five days in northern India, and four days in the South.

Hindu Traditions

Members of the Hindu traditions celebrate Divali for several different reasons. Especially in southern India, it marks the occasion on which Lord Krishna ensured the victory of light over darkness by defeating Narakasura, a demon from the underworld. In some variants of the story, Sathyabhama (Krishna’s wife) was actually the one who defeated Narakasura.

In Northern India, many Hindus celebrate Lord Rama’s victorious return to Ayodhya after defeating the demon king, Ravana. Tradition holds that people lit lamps along the way to light the path for Rama, his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana.

According to the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, following his return to Ayodhya, Rama was coronated as the king of Ayodhya and Emperor of the world.

Sikh Traditions

The Sikh celebration of Divali coincides with the Hindu celebration, but is celebrated on a different basis. For members of the Sikh community, Divali marks the release of the sixth Guru, Hargobind, from imprisonment.

According to tradition, Hargobind was imprisoned together with fifty-two Hindu princes under the Mughal emperor, Jehangir. When Jehangir finally relented and allowed Hargobind to go free, the Guru said that he would not leave unless the fifty-two princes also be set free.

The stories relate that Jehangir agreed that he would release the princes only if they were able to hold onto Hargobind’s clothing; Hargobind had a cloak made with extremely long tassels, and thereby saved the princes from imprisonment.

Jain Traditions

In Jainism, Mahavira was the last of the twenty-four tirthankaras (teachers who were victorious over the suffering of life).

Jains believe that Mahavira achieved enlightenment at age forty-two, after which time he was known as the jina, a title reserved for important religious leaders like the Buddha.

In time, other traditions stopped using the term jina for their leaders, except for the ascetic disciples of Mahavira. These disciples came to be known as Jainas, from which we get religious tradition’s current name, “Jainism”. The time of Mahavira’s enlightment is thus very important for Jains around the world, and it is celebrated in the festival of Divali.

Similar to the Sikh and Hindu traditions, the festival is also seen as marking the victory of light over darkness, which was demonstrated by Mahavira’s attainment of nirvana on that day. Jains also regard Divali as the beginning of the new year, and they especially worship Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and good fortune, during this time. Unlike the Hindus and Sikhs, which often see Divali as a time for feasting, the Jains typically engage in fasting, a vestige of their ascetic heritage.

It’s one thing to have goals. It’s quite another to actually know how work toward getting those goals achieved — especially when those goals are big.

You may have heard that the solution is to “break the goal down into bite-sized chunks.” Or “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” But what about when you don’t know what those chunks or single steps are? In this post, I’ll give you a practical approach you can use to help you get started when you don’t know how.

(The following is applied in part from Barbara Sher’s Wishcraft, with my own twist based on my experiences, of course!)

Identify the Reasons You Can’t

This part is easy. Imagine your goal. Now, in your best devil on the shoulder voice, list the obstacles to reaching your goal. No money, no time, not an expert… I’m sure you can come up with a few.

Now, get creative. For each obstacle you identified, ask yourself all the possible ways you could overcome that obstacle. For no money, your options might be robbing a bank, begging on street corners, getting a grant or scholarship, whatever. Nothing is off limits.

For each solution, identify what you like about the idea and what you don’t like. For example, I might like the immediacy of robbing a bank, but the whole go-to-jail and be-a-criminal doesn’t work for me. Use this second list to generate even more ideas (it’s amazing how ideas will flow when you start focus on finding solutions, rather than on the problem itself).

Finally, once you’ve exhausted your brainpower entirely, look at your list. Pick one solution to each obstacle — the solution you like the best. It doesn’t matter if you know how to accomplish that piece or not. The actual plan of attack is what comes next…

Obstacles Turn SubGoals

When your brain has recovered enough from all that feverish brainstorming, it’s time to look at what you’ve come up with. All those obstacles that were in your way before should now be turned into mini-goals.

If you’re like me, some of those mini-goals look immediately do-able. You look at them and know exactly how to do them. And that’s fantastic! Set those aside for the moment, and focus on the ones that you have absolutely no clue where to begin.

Now for each mini-goal, you’re going to create a reverse flow-chart. You do that by asking yourself the following questions:

1. Can I do this tomorrow?
2. If not, what would I need to do first?

For each answer you come up with for question #2, repeat the process, until the answer to question #1 is “yes”. Then put it on your to-do list for tomorrow.

That’s it! It’s really no more complicated than that.

An Example of the Reverse FlowChart

Here’s an example from Wishcraft:

1. Getting into medical school is a subgoal in its own right. Now, can I do it tomorrow?
   • “Hardly”
   • “What would I have to do first?”
   • “Well, I’d have to apply to medical schools.”
2. “Can I apply tomorrow?”
   • “No. There are two things I’d have to do first: get high scores on the MCATs, and send for application forms.”
3. “Can I send for applications tomorrow?”
   1. “Not until I’ve decided which schools to apply to.”
   2. “Can I decide which schools to apply to tomorrow?”
      1. No, first I’ll have to go to the library and read catalogs. (I can find out about regular loans and scholarships at the same time.) And that I can start doing tomorrow.
4. “Can I get high test scores tomorrow?”
   • “Obviously not. First I have to take the tests.”
   • “Can I take the MCATs tomorrow?”
     • If I did, I’d flunk them! First I’d better take some kind of premed review course.
     • “Can I take a review course tomorrow?”
       • No—first I’ve got to find out where there is one. I can do that tomorrow, by making phone calls to all the, local universities, college and medical schools. Another thing I can do is dig up my old college class notes and start reviewing them on my own.

You can see the full flowchart (from Wishcraft) below to see how it would all come together (click to enlarge).

Now Go Do It!

If you follow these easy steps, any goal can be made achievable. Simply by changing your mindset from “I can’t do this” to “How can I do this”, you will allow your own creative nature to bring all sorts of fantastic solutions and actionable steps to mind.

And if you’re still having trouble getting started, there is help. You can catch up with the #ideaparty that happens ever Thursday starting at noon EST on Twitter (go to http://search.twitter.com and search for #ideaparty). You can send me a message on Twitter (@maverickstruth) for some brainstorming help. Or you can go read Wishcraft (by the way, did I mention it’s a free PDF and it’s one of my favorite books, all time?).

How do you spend most of your time? If you’re like me, your immediate response is probably one of “working” or “sleeping”.

Is that really accurate, though?

24*7=168

In each week, there are  168 hours. Just for fun, I did some back-of-the-napkin type accounting of how I spend my time. I’d encourage you to do the same.

Of those 168 hours, I found that I personally spend approximately:

• 45 working, commuting to or from work, and eating lunch at work
• 60 sleeping
• 12 cooking and eating when not at work

Which leaves about 51 hours every week for “other stuff”. That’s more time than I spend sleeping, and more time than I spend working. But for some reason, it never registered for me.

Catching the Time

And, if you’re like me, you might just look at your own numbers and say “my God, where is all that time going? What am I doing with it all? And what do I have to show for it?”

Here’s the thing. Every week, we all have 168 hours to do with whatever we want. That could be working, eating, sleeping, reading, exploring, exercising… whatever.

This is especially good news for scanners. That’s a lot of time to spend exploring your various interests. When I realized how much time I had, even apart from work and sleeping, I realized that I could pick ten different activities or interests, and spend 5 hours on each of them, every week.

Making the Time

Now that’s all well and good, but for as much as the numbers say I have that much time, I can’t remember the last time I spent 5 hours a week on something — never mind on ten somethings.

As I was re-reading The 4-Hour Workweek last week, I realized why. In the book, Tim Ferriss discusses Parkinson’s Law, which states

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

In other words, I spend 45 hours a week doing things related to work, and my work tends to fill that time (regardless of how much of it is really just shuffling paperwork around). I spend 60 hours sleeping, because that’s how much time is between going to bed and my alarm. I spend 12 hours cooking and eating because I eat fast and J does a lot of the cooking

But I spend 51 hours “doing nothing” because that’s the amount of time allotted to “doing nothing.”

Now, we all need time to do nothing — to chill, relax, whatever. But I probably don’t need 51 hours worth.

Choosing Your Big Rocks

There’s a popular metaphor for time management, made famous by Stephen Covey. There are many variations on the story (and mathematicians will recognize this as a version of the Knapsack problem), but the gist of all of them is this:

Take a glass jar, a pile of rocks, a pile of pebbles, a pile of sand, and a pile of water. How can you fit the most of everything into the jar?

If you start by filling the jar with water or sand, and you won’t be able to fit anything else in. All you get is water or sand.

If you start with the pebbles, and then add water or sand, you’ll be able to get more in because the water or sand will creep in around the pebbles. But you won’t be able to fit in any big rocks.

The key is to fill the jar with the biggest rocks first. Then add pebbles, shake up the jar, and let them settle in the cracks. Then add the sand, and finally the water.

When all is said and done, you’ll have a very full jar — filled with the most of everything.

Jars of 168

If the metaphor isn’t already obvious, the meaning is simply this:

We each have week-sized jars that hold 168 hours. We can fill our time with one or two large rocks (work and sleep), one or two pebbles (eating) and then fill the rest up with water and sand (doing nothing).

And while the week will be full, it won’t have as much in it of the things we would want — like going for walks, reading books or catching up with friends. It will seem like there’s no time for doing what you want.

But if you first establish what you want your big rocks to be, and make time for them first, you’ll be able to fit them in. Parkinson’s Law will take care of the rest.

Note: for most of us, there are a couple of big rocks that seem fixed in size and importance: work and sleep. But there’s almost always room for one or two more — or, if you’re a scanner, you may not need more big rocks, but instead just focus on filling up your jar with lots of pebbles (small projects) before you add the sand and water. And maybe in the future, I’ll also write about some ways that people have been able to shrink the size of those biggest two rocks.

Making the Numbers Work for You

Take five minutes now, and figure out what your weekly breakdown is. Determine how much time you have, each week, to spend on things that you never seem to have the time for. Then make the time — book it off with yourself — and start making room for those pebbles and rocks.

Your numbers might be less (you may have kids, or work longer days, or have a longer commute), but the key is to realize that you do have time. We all have exactly the same amount, every week, to spend how we will. It’s our choice how we fill our jars and our hours.

What are you doing with your 168 hours?

@GuruSimple has been uploading videos from the recent Scanner Retreat with Barbara Sher, and this latest one is one of my favorites. So much so, that I just have to share!

In this video (embedded below; direct link to YouTube):

1. Everyone likes to design, execute and maintain to some extent
2. Scanners are typically designers
3. Having an idea and not following through isn’t bad!
4. There are people who like to do the things you don’t like to do

It seems as though everyone is talking about “passion” these days. From bloggers to career counsellors to even post-secondary institutions. The mantra takes on different forms, but usually contains elements of “find your passion and the money will follow,” “if you do the thing you love, you’ll never work a day in your life,”  and the like.

The implications are usually quite simple: everyone has a passion, a thing they love to do more than anything else, and if you’re not doing that thing, you’re missing out. And how do you know when you’ve found your passion? Well, lightning strikes, the heavens open up, there’s a glorious rainbow — in other words, “you just know”.

Finding Your Passion

So there’s a lot of people out there spending a lot of time (and money!) on books, exercises and programs intended to help them discover their passion.

But what of the people who get frustrated and feel like they’re going nowhere (maybe even going backwards!) every time they try to discover their passion. The message coming from all sides seems to be clear: everyone has a passion. If you can’t find it, there’s something wrong — either with your approach, or (gasp!) with you. Try harder. Try this other program. Do more soul-searching.

It can be devastating.

If you’ve found yourself in that position, I want to let you in on a little secret. There’s a good reason you may never find your one true passion: you may not have one.

The Myth of Passion

Okay, before you all start flogging me or rapidly unsubscribing from the site, hear me out.

Some people simply love many things. Rather than having all their energy funnelled into one passion, they distribute it across many things that they love equally. There are no angelic choirs, no booming voices from the sky, and no electric sparks. There’s never one thing that jumps out above all else as something you were truly born to do.

And that’s perfectly okay.

Yes, it’s okay to love painting and abstract mathematics and classical Latin and quantum physics and playing the jaw harp. It’s okay, even fantastic, to love all of them equally, and to be unable to choose one of them as your “true passion.” And you know what? You don’t need to.

Doing What You Love

The “find your passion” mentality tells us that our life’s work should be related to our one true passion. That turns out to be not very helpful to those of us who don’t have a solitary passion. So what do we do instead?

First, stop focusing on finding your passion. The longer you spend searching for that one thing, the less time you’ll have to actually do the things you enjoy.

Second, give yourself permission to explore the things you love. Yes, that’s plural. Remember, you’re not supposed to be looking for one thing — instead, realize it’s okay to spend your days doing more than just one thing! (This isn’t really all that novel — after all, no one ever only does one thing between waking and falling asleep — but it’s just rarely said out loud)

Third, do that which you love. It’s that simple, really. If you enjoy doing something, then do it. It doesn’t have to have lightning bolts, it doesn’t have to make you boatloads of money (although somewhere along the line, you’ll probably want some income, somewhere), it doesn’t have to be done for more than 5 minutes at a time (unless you want to) and it doesn’t even have to be important. It just has to be something that you like doing. End of story.

What If You Don’t Know What You Love?

Realizing that you can have many loves is liberating — but it can also be paralysing to suddenly be free. It’s like the prisoner who is released from prison for the first time in a decade, who just wants to go back to his cell because the opportunities “out there” are just too overwhelming.

There’s an exercise in Barbara Sher’s bestselling book Wishcraft (available for free to read online) in which you are challenged to describe your ideal day. For a long time, I was stuck trying to complete the exercise. I couldn’t figure out what I would want to do so much that I would want to do it more than anything else on that ideal day.

I’d fallen victim to the myth of passion. I thought my ideal day should be comprised of me doing the thing (or maybe two things) that I loved more than anything else in the world. And I kept drawing a blank; I couldn’t think of a single thing.

So I asked my Twitter friends for advice, and of course, they came through in spades. It’s not hard to figure out what you enjoy, or what you love to do. Simply think back to what you’ve enjoyed doing in the past. When was the last time you had a good time? And the time before that? It might have been a simple 5 minute breakfast with your significant other, it might have been a day out in the mountains, whatever.

What you enjoy and love doesn’t have to be grand, and it doesn’t have to be the first thing that jumps out as “oh my god, do I ever love doing X” (although, you might have a couple of those!). It just has to be something that made you feel good while you were doing it.

And you can have as many of those somethings as you like. The myth of passion is simply that: a myth. You may not have one. You may have as many as there are stars in the sky. And that’s okay.

It’s been a while since I posted a weekly reads collection (which I guess means that they’re less weekly, and more just plain reads). This week, I wanted to make sure to pass along some great links, though, that have been shared at recent Twitter #ideaparty Thursdays.

So this week, I’ve got a bunch of blogs from my fellow scanners, as well as some other folks who have started new businesses, ventures and lives as a result of the brainstorming and networking power of the IdeaParty phenomenon. Enjoy!

If you would like to pass on anything you think I might be interested in, post the link as a comment to this thread! I’m always looking for new things to explore. Especially this week, if you’re an #ideaparty-er, please share your links!

Note that comments containing multiple links are flagged for moderation, so if your note doesn’t show up right away, don’t worry!

Scanner Tribe

http://scannertribe.com/

This new site from @scannertribe (aka. @skannie) is a home for people with so many interests they can’t choose just one to specialise in. Here’s an excerpt:

Well you don’t have to choose or settle down or stop wandering. You can design a life that suits your multi-talented, curious nature.  And you don’t need to feel weird or isolated any more. There are other people in the world who understand you because they are scanners too.

The aim of this site is to gather scanners together, help us communicate with each other, and provide us with information and resources to help us lead fascinating and satisfying scanners’ lives.

WP Coach

http://wpchick.com

Alexia (aka. @emberlexi, aka. @wpchick) has been blogging about and for scanners over at The Alternating Current for a while, but she’s recently branched out to teaching others how to use WordPress (that’s the software that runs this blog, by the way).

Here’s how she describes her new service:

So – what does WPChick do?

Help you with your site.

I can help you install and learn to use WordPress as a way to maintain your web site. Or I can install and maintain it for you.

All at the same rate.

Tomorrow Could Be Boring (But Let’s Hope Not!)

http://www.nukapai.typepad.com/

I truly love the name of this blog. It epitomizes the scanner ideal, much like the author (that’d be @nukapai) is the epitomy of a scanner. In fact, the most recent post (as of this writing) is all about being a scanner. Here’s a neat snippet:

What Barbara’s book “What do I do when I want to do everything?” [ie. Refuse to Choose] helped me realise is that I don’t have to choose, but that I needed to develop ways in which to focus on one thing at a time, then swivel the wheel of interests and activities ’round like a revolving spice rack and pick up the next flavour, focus on that for a while, rinse and repeat. Simple, but brilliant. When it works, you feel as if everyone else is scuttling around at normal speed and your time has just gone into Hollywood blockbuster slow-mo. They run the rat race; you do your thing… and another thing…and another…

Organizing Your Home for Sale

http://homeorganizing.wordpress.com

Staging your home can make a big difference in how quickly your home sells — and for how much. Organizing for a move is one of the hardest and most time consuming parts of a move. Terry Miller (@HomeOrganizing) wants to help you do both. She’s currently working on building up her new site, so keep an eye on it — and if you’re planning on moving or selling your home, make sure to get in touch with her!

After last time telling you how I got my inbox from overflowing to empty, it seems only natural that I also share another of my little time-saving tricks: my handy-dandy Gather Sheet.

Really, The Gather Sheet is just one part of how I manage my time as as scanner. So, I’ll focus on that for right now — but if you all are interested, in a future post, I can explain how I combine it with things like TimeBoxing and the Scanner Daybook.

Why I’ve Hated To-Do Lists

I actually really hated writing to-do lists growing up as a kid. It probably didn’t help that most of them consisted of such enjoyable tasks as “clean your room” or “vacuum the living room”.

And then there’s that scanner part of me. You know, the part that finds to-do lists constraining and confining. The moment something went onto my list, it would haunt me: “Do me… do me! Even if you’re on a completely different scanner track, I must be done!”

Why I’ve Loved To-Do Lists

On the other hand, I’ve found that — especially when I’m extremely busy — I get stressed if I try to just keep all of my “to-do” items in my head. In some ways, writing things down was my security blanket: I didn’t have to worry about forgetting things, because I knew I could just go back to my list and all would be fine.

This “clicked” for me when I read David Allen’s fantastic Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. As much as I hated them, I consistently found that to-do lists (especially the way that Allen proposed using them) tended to keep me a little more sane.  It was immensely freeing to not keep everything in my head.

The Gather Sheet

It’s taken me a while, but I think I’ve finally found a solution that works for the scanner in me (that’s the part that craves flexibility in when I do things) and the sanity part of me (that’s the part that needs the peace of mind that comes from writing things down). I call it The Gather Sheet.

The gather sheet is what you used to call a to-do list. But it’s not a list of all the things you must get done at a certain date or else lightning will strike you down and locusts will swarm and the plague will hit and the world will end (whew!).

It’s simply a collection of projects that will be tackled sooner or later. What I’ve found phenomenal is how just that simple mind shift can relax the inner scanner!

Understanding the Gather Sheet

Here’s a PDF version of my Gather Sheet; feel free to download it and use it as you so desire. Here’s what all those various fields mean to me:

1) The Date

At the top goes the date. I create a new Gather Sheet every day, because it doubles as my work to-do list.

2) The Requests

Next to get filled in is everything that I want or need to get done. These might be things from my daybook, they might be things that my boss says I have to do, or whatever. I call them “requests” because really, that’s all they are: requests for my time.

In the order they come in, I write these “requests” under (surprise!) the requests heading. It’s really important to include these in the order that they arrived, rather than some ‘priority’ system. If you try to prioritize things, you’ll basically have created just another to-do list, complete with outside pressure and timelines.

I also try to keep my requests as detailed as possible. In Getting Things Done terminology, I include only my “next actions” — the very next actionable thing I could take on any one project. So, instead of “Write Novel” it might be “Create a character sketch for my novel protagonist”. Basically, you want the task to be actionable.

Every time you get another request for your time, it goes on the request list. (The one exception I have here is for appointments — I put those on a calendar because I need the visual reinforcement of timelines.)

3) The Carry-Forward Flags

Now, for each request, go through and fill in the “CF” box. Basically, I use this as an indication of how long a certain request has been sitting on my list.

• A number represents how many days it’s been carried forward.
• A “W” means that I’m waiting on someone else before I can do anything with the request
• An “N” means that the project is brand-new and hasn’t been carried forward at all yet

I’m sure there are other flags that you could come up with, but really those are the only ones I’ve found useful for me.

4) The MIT, APPTS and LHF Fields

MIT means “Most Important Task(s)” and APPTS is short for “Appointments”. This is where any non-negotiable stuff goes. Things that I could get fired for not doing, for example

The MIT box is where I put the one most important thingon the requests list that I must get done on that day. It’s my “keep self honest” box. If there’s something that I would procrastinate on but which I really must do, it goes in this box and is completely non-negotiable.

I typically keep my appointments separate, in a calendar, but you could put them down as requests if you found it more useful.

LHF is shorthand for “Low Hanging Fruit”. What goes in this box is any request that I can get done, fast — generally 30 minutes or less. I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes from getting things done, so I usually try to have at least 2-3 LHF every day.

5) The “Notes” Field (Blank Column on the Left)

This one’s like my mini-daybook, notepad, and call log all in one. It’s place where I can jot ideas as they come to me, phone numbers of people I need to call, details of upcoming projects, sketches of upcoming designs, etc.

Basically, it’s free space that allows me to use my Gather Sheet as my primary collection device in meetings, on the phone, or just when daydreaming.

Getting Stuff Done, Gather Sheet Style

Once you’ve got your gather sheet set up the first time, using it is pretty simple.

• New requests for your time go at the bottom of the request list, with a CF flag of “N”
• Every request that gets completed gets crossed off. If there’s a “next step” to a request (for example, after writing a character sketch for the protagonist, I might want to rite one for the antagonist), it gets its own line as a new item
• MIT gets done first thing — no checking email, or the weather, or anything else until that’s done
• LHF usually gets done next, since they’re things that I can get done quickly
• When deciding what to do next, I usually look for items with the highest CF values and work at them. This helps me not procrastinate on things for too long, but gives me the flexibility to work on things as I feel like it

That’s pretty much it. Use it throughout the day as new requests come in, old ones get done, etc.

The last bit of the system is: before the end of the day (be it the work day or before you go to bed), review all that you go done the previous day!

1. Look at everything you finished! Do any have follow-up items that you should write down as new requests? If so, do that first.
2. For any request that didn’t get crossed out, ask yourself: do I still want to do this? (or, if it’s a work task, “does this still need to be done?”). If yes, it gets an arrow drawn in under the arrow column. If not, it gets an X.
3. Flip to a new page, and write tomorrow’s date at the top.
4. Copy, in the same order that they appear on today’s page, any request that you drew an arrow beside. Increment the CF by one (since it’s been carried forward an additional day).
5. Look at your calendar and write down any appointments, including time and location.
6. Decide what your MIT and LHF are for the next day. Write them down. Don’t be afraid to make your MIT something that you want to do, rather than something your boss or significant other wants you to do!

And that’s it. Put it somewhere you’ll see it, first thing — at the kitchen table if you’re using it at home, or maybe on top of your computer keyboard if at work.

The Benefits

Like I said before, the Gather Sheet is what’s worked for me — and I hate to-do lists! The reasons it works are many:

• It gets stuff out of your head, and on to paper. Very de-stressing!
• It respects your time, by allowing you to see everything that you’ve got going on at a glance
• You have the flexibility to cancel items that no longer interest you, or that no longer need to be done
• On a similar note, you can see at a glance you can see what you’ve been procrastinating on — and either get it done, or leave it behind
• You can get things done quickly, because you’ve identified things like low hanging fruit and most important tasks
• It allows you to do things when you want to, rather than based on a priority system that’s imposed on you or arbitrary

What about you? Do you have a time management tool that you like to use? Or maybe you’re trying the Gather Sheet for the first time — how’s it working for you? Feel free to share your insights and ideas for the rest of the readers!

Every so often, I’ll go to send an email and get an annoying little message box telling me that I’ve got way too much junk in my inbox — and until I clean up my act, it won’t let me send any more outgoing messages.

Phooey to that.

The benefit, though, is that I’ve managed to come up with a technique that allows me to go from inbox-overwhelmed to inbox-empty quickly and efficiently. Here’s how I do it.

(Before getting started, I recommend turning off your phone and IM, putting on some headphones and setting out a do-not-disturb sign. You want to get in the zone to move quickly through this process. The process will take anywhere from half an hour to a couple of days, depending on the volume of email you’ve got piled up.)

1. Turn on the Reading Pane

In order to get through my inbox as fast as possible, there are a few simple set-up things I like to do to get myself set up.

First up, I turn on the reading pane. The reading pane is a window that shows your message as soon as you select it, rather than having to double click the message heading to open. If  there is no reading pane option, I try to use as many keyboard shortcuts as possible so I can navigate quickly through messages without having to wait for them to open and load.

Optional: turn on threading for conversations. This helps when you need to keep only certain messages from a conversation — for example, when the most recent message includes all of the previous messages as quotes.

2. Get Ready for Initial Filing

Then, I’ll create three temporary folders (or labels/tags depending on your email package) that I use for my first pass through the messages. These folders are not the height of filing excellence, and you’ll want to do some proper filing later.

1. Action
2. Waiting
3. Keep

Why three? The goal in the first pass through your inbox is to be making rapid fire decisions. Any more than three, and you start to spend time figuring out how to file, rather than just doing it.

Of course, the “trash can” or delete folder isn’t listed in those three — I assume that whatever you’re using will have one built in. But if for some reason it doesn’t, make one for that too.

Also, if your software supports it, turn on keyboard shortcuts so you can file your email with a click of a key, rather than dragging a message using your mouse.

3. Do the Initial Sort

Alright, the set-up is done. Now, it’s time to start clearing out that inbox. I view this step as a wind-sprint: I go as fast as I possibly can, looking at each message for as little time as possible (really, only a split second).

Start with the oldest emails. For each email, skim the subject, the first sentence or two of content. Scroll down to the end of the email and note if it’s got any quoted content. Ignore the sender and the rest of the content.

Now, based on only that scan, either file it into one of those three folders, or trash it. Remember to use those keyboard shortcuts, if you set them up!

Here’s what goes into each folder. The key is to go as fast as possible — it’s a race! (Setting up a little stopwatch to see how fast you can go is a great motivator!)

1) Action — anything that you need to take action on. This could be work to do, an email to respond to, an appointment to write in your daybook, or anything similar.

2) Waiting — anything that you’re waiting for someone else to take action on, before you can take action yourself. Maybe you’re waiting for an email back, or they need to bring you some documents. If you’re waiting on them before you can proceed, it goes here.

3) Keep — anything you will need to reference again in the next 3-6 months. Any longer than that, and you’ll have either forgotten about it (and thus will most likely end up requesting it again), or it will most likely be out of date.

4) Trash – everything else goes here. In other words, if it’s not actionable immediately, if it’s not actionable after you get the info you need, or if you won’t need to reference it within 6 months, it goes in the trash.

Processing Tips: 

• Don’t take the time to actually read the e-mails. If you start reading, you’ll get bogged down, start thinking about responses or other stuff you need to do yet, and then boom. You’ve stopped processing.
• Similarly, no matter how quickly you think you can get something done, do not stop processing to do it. Throw it into the action folder and move on.
• Be ruthless. When in doubt, put it in the trash — 99% of the time, you’ll never need it again, anyway.
• Keep only the most recent emails from a conversation, especially if old emails are quoted in newer ones.
• In general, your Trash folder should get the most emails. Action and Waiting folders should be next. Your Keep folder should be smallest.

4. Do Half

It’s not always going to be practical to clear out your whole inbox in one sitting. If you have thousands (or tens of thousands!) of messages, even spending only fractions of a second on each can still take way too long.

Instead of forcing yourself to process your whole inbox at once, I like to clear it out by half. Again, start with the oldest, and simply move through half of the emails as quickly as possible.

Reward yourself with some time away from the inbox — go take a walk, get up and stretch your legs, and do something completely different. The other half of the inbox will still be there when you get back.

Each time you sit down to do more cleaning, keep doing half of your inbox until the pile of emails is small enough that you can knock it down all in one sitting.

5. Take a Break

Once you’ve got your inbox cleared out into your three main folders, take a break — preferably for a couple of days, but at least until the next morning. You need to completely clear your head of all the junk processing you’ve just done.

At the same time, don’t fall into the trap of thinking “oh, my inbox is clean, so I don’t have to go back to finish those little files.” To this point, you’ve just done some mass sorting — the real work of cleaning has yet to begin. You may want to set yourself a deadline, a date when you’ll get back to your processing.

6. Manage the Folders

Now it’s time to go into each of those three folders you created, and work through them. I recommend taking an afternoon to do this — Friday is good, because you want to get home for the weekend (and so won’t dilly-dally on any one email too long) and because it’s a nice way to wrap up the week.

In each folder, you’ll want to again go through each message, this time in a little more depth. I use a standard GTD methodology here: if the message is something I can take action on in two minutes or less, I do it right away (and then remember to trash the email once you’re done with it!). If not, it goes on my next actions list and I move on.

You can start using additional folders here, if you need to, but typically I don’t bother. I like to keep my Action, Waiting and Keep folders small and manageable. Too many folders (for me), keeps me from seeing what all I have on my plate — which makes it easier to procrastinate, etc.

Note: If you do decide to do filing (based on specific project, etc.) be careful with how you file things. If you had a previous filing system in place, don’t just throw messages into those pre-existing folders unless you are sure that they have been cleaned with the same rigour that you just put your inbox through. Create new folders if you have to.

7. Keep It Clean

This is where I admittedly tend to falter the most. I’m not necessarily the most terrible person when it comes to cleaning, but I can be downright awful at keeping things clean once they’ve been cleaned.

The trick I’ve found that works for me personally is to not over-complicate things. Like I hinted above, too many folders for me makes me less likely to file things properly (who can take the time!). For other people, I know that more folders can be better because then everything has its own particular place and home.

Whatever your technique, your inbox can quickly get back to overfull if you let it. Experiment with different systems of organization, play around with different systems, do whatever you have to. Just do your best to keep that inbox at zero and, if need be, schedule regular check-ins with your inbox, where every so often (I like every Friday afternoon), you burn that baby back down to empty.

I first encountered Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind via his guest posts on Zen Habits. I am a regular reader of his contributions on that blog as well as his own, as I find him one of the more practical and to-the point personal development bloggers I’ve come across.

So, when Jonathan was looking for reviewers for his new e-book entitled “Reclaim Your Dreams: An Uncommon Guide to Living on Your Own Terms”  (link), I was more than happy to offer a review in exchange for a gratis copy of the e-book. That said, here we go!

What’s It About

I simply love the first page — it sets a high expectation for the rest of the book,  establishes the tone and gives you an insight into the content.

First Page from Reclaim Your Dreams

Unbrainwashing

The book itself is divided into two roughly equal sections. The first, a lengthy preamble entitled “Unbrainwashing: or Creating Room For Your Dreams to Grow”, presents an introduction to Mead’s philosophy.

In this section, he centres on the psychological side of personal development, inviting the reader to answer some tough questions: “Why do you live?” “Are [your thoughts] the type of thoughts you truly want?” and “Is this a decision that’s coming from my heart, or am I unnecessarily limiting myself in some way?”

For the most part, Mead avoids giving answers to the questions (from the outset, he acknowledges that what works for him may not work for everyone else. ). Instead, the writing stays on the higher, philosophical level, explaining a concept that will be familiar to many personal development readers: you are ultimately responsible for your thoughts, emotions and your happiness.

Manifestation

The second, meatier part of the book is entitled “Manifestation: or How to Make Your Dreams a Reality”. I was really excited about this section, as the first thing he discusses is how to solve the problem of not knowing what your dreams are. Mead then jumps into the most tangible exercise in the book. Writing, stream-of-consciousness-wise, the answer to these questions:

What does my heart desire? What do I really love with a passion? If money wasn’t an object, how would I spend the majority of my time? If I could have any career, regardless of my current experience and skills, what would I want to do?

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? This is a familiar exercise to anyone that’s spent time investigating personal development techniques.

But scanners, you’ll also recognize that answering these types of questions don’t do much for us. In fact, when I read those questions, my heart sunk a bit — I thought to myself “classic scanner trap.”

If you’re like me, you’ve tried answering those questions! But it’s impossible for a scanner to nail down any one thing that we “love with a passion”. In fact, we may love something with a passion for a few years, weeks or even just half an hour, never to love it again.

I won’t belabour the point; it’s just something I wanted my fellow scanners to be aware of, since the remainder of the section really pulls on the idea of “having a dream” and then making it reality. The emphasis on career choice is particularly sticky for scanners (for whom choosing a single career path can seem torturous!)

That being said, I did enjoy the section on getting past fear, a lesson that most of us need to learn at one point or another. Mostly, just be aware that while there are techniques that can be adapted to the scanner personality, it’s just not always immediately apparent how to do so.

Overall Thoughts

From the beginning, Mead makes it clear that this is a book with bold ideas, targetted to an audience focused on PD. At the same time, he’s aware of his responsibility as a writer, saying

It’s my hope that some of the things I’ve learned will work for you, as well. But most importantly, I don’t want to tell you what to do. That would go completely against everythign I’ve found to work in my life: listening to my own heart.

I think the book would have been stronger if the author had spent a bit more time actually telling us what to do. Not necessarily in the sense of giving us “all the answers” (no one can give all the answers when it comes to matters of the heart and mind), but in the sense of actually giving concrete ways and tools for listening to the heart.

Yes, there are exercises and “things to meditate on”, but I didn’t feel as though they were concrete or guided enough. Sometimes, I felt like saying “Jonathan, stop beating around the bush, and give us more tangibles and less philosophicals.”

Not that this is unique Reclaim Your Dreams – it’s a trap that I find many, many PD books fall into.  This is just really unfortunate, since Mead’s blog posts are typically very grounded and very practical, and this felt like a departure from that formula.

That being said, I think that people who are either really new to personal development or really familiar with the techniques (who know what their dreams are and are experienced at listening to their hearts) would probably get more out of this book than I.

Those newer will find the concepts new, fresh and challenging. Those PD ‘gurus’ (I use the term lightly, of course!) will find Mead’s approach a twist on the familiar. But those who are familiar with the concepts but need more help with the concrete applications probably won’t get quite as much out of it.

PS. One bonus comment that has nothing to do with content, but because I’ve been doing a lot of work with typography lately, I wanted to comment on it. This book is beautifully laid out, with a smooth line for online reading. But! It is hard to read offline if you (like I) prefer to print things out. Just a small caveat to an otherwise nicely formatted book.

So a few weeks back, I looked at my calendar and thought “wow, it’s going to be busy. I’d better queue up some posts for Sententia so that no one will notice if I don’t have time to write.” And queue them up I did. But I get back today, and … there’s no posts!

I checked my drafts folder, my published folder, by everything folder, but alas. Nada. It’s as if 2 weeks of posts just up and vanished.  I suspect it has something to do with the Wordpress (Gears) Offline Mode that I was trying to use while writing them, in that I didn’t correctly upload my content when I was back in online mode.

Regardless of the reason (and despite the fact that I will have to rewrite a bunch of material), I do still want to share this material with you. So, coming up will be…

• A review of Jonathan Mead’s e-book Reclaim Your Dreams
• An introduction to “Boreout” — as bad as burnout for anyone, but just plain toxic for scanners
• The “Finding your Passion” Myth
• Getting to Inbox Zero

I do have to rewrite them, so they won’t be up immediately, but they are coming soon! Also, this is a great time to find out if you have anything in particular you’d like to read about on Sententia. Questions or comments I can address, or even things you’re interested in that you think I might also find neat. Just leave a comment and let me know!

P.S. Some of you will hate me for the title, and the fact that you’ll now have the song stuck in your head all day. To that I say, if I have to have it stuck in my head all day, you can suffer through it too! Either that, or go load up some ambient tunes at my favorite internet radio stations: soma.fm (no affiliation, just love ‘em).