If only I ________, everything would be better.

Really. Write it down. You’ll need it in just a bit.

Lookee there, you already know the answer to the one thing you could do to make everything better. Don’t you already feel much better? Let’s juice it up with some visualization. Visualize yourself already having done that thing. See how much better you feel?

This state of bliss is an effect of what I call ifonlyI (pronouned Phonely-eye).

Here’s how it works:

1. Imagine something you likely won’t do.
2. Convince yourself that doing it would solve lots of your problems.
3. Then, instead of doing it, simply wish you were doing it. Practice ifonlyI statements. (See below.)
4. Next, bury this wish deeply in your psyche and apply it to everything you don’t have or aren’t already.
5. Finally, if you really want to go all out, pay people lots of money for ifonlyI. Shopping and certain organized religions offer convenient paths that separate you from your money while delivering gobs of ifonlyI, but I know from personal experience probably the most efficient way to siphon off money through a constant flow of that wondrously addictive sensation: Gambling.

3 kinds of ifonlyI’s

I’d be remiss to exclude mentioning lesser forms of ifonlyI. Here I parse the different brands.

Stim ‘n Suck IfonlyI.
Goal: Trigger dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine while evacuating your bank account. As described above this form is most powerful when you combine positive thinking techniques with action you never intend to take. A good money sucking cult comes in handy, but slot machines are better.

I used to design video games for casinos, and while my boss applied the euphemism of “entertainment” to our business, I learned that the Disneyesque design and animation we labored to create is almost irrelevant to the real experience of ifonlyI. It’s actually the statistical modeling that evokes the enticing trance and makes the slot machine the drug of choice and the cash cow of every casino.

Optimizing the frequency and sizes of payouts is at the heart of stim ‘n suck ifonlyI. The models are based on an average of one million “pulls” on the one-armed bandit’s one arm. The average take is dictated by law and can be as high as 25% (in Nevada). At that rate on dollar machines the casino takes out $250,000 for every million that goes into them.

The beauty is what the casinos do to optimize ifonlyI. It doesn’t work if they give you your dollar back 3 out of every 4 times you yank the lever. You never get to feel lucky because you never win big. If they pay $750,000 only once in a million pulls, you never feel like you’re “making progress” during the 999,999 pulls they don’t pay anything. Instead, payouts and rates are randomized with different sizes and frequencies to maximize stim ‘n suck ifonlyI. Casinos will also place machines with small, more frequent payouts near machines that drop bigger jackpots but less often. It doesn’t matter which one you pick; you’ll feel like you’re sitting at both, winning often and big. And because you are unconsciously wishing, “If only I win this time I could …” every few seconds, ifonlyI courses through you in a steady stream. Trance comes easily and money disappears effortlessly. Mission accomplished.

For maximum stim ‘n suck ifonlyI cultivate your talents outside the realms of casinos, shopping malls, and mega churches. Try to ignore your big buried wishes, and make sure you stay passive in the face of challenge.

Fantastical IfonlyI.
Goal: Maximize escapist pleasure and comfort. Watching movies is probably the best way to get ifonlyI in fantastical form. It’s better than TV which ain’t bad. The characters on screen live the lives of your dreams without any effort on your part.

Books are probably the worst since they require imagination. Daydreams are dangerous, too. Some consider daydreaming a gateway form of ifonlyI, and while some feel they can control their fantasies, daydreaming can lead to mental simulation or worse— action. Stick with movies.

Hypothetical IfonlyI.
Goal: Act like there’s a solution. At its root ifonlyI might be confused with a hypothesis. If only I _____, everything will get better. The danger with taking this hypothesis literally is that you might actually test it. You might find out what actually works to make your life better, or worse, what doesn’t work. You’d be tempted to change something about your behavior. Best not to test. It’s a buzz kill.

Hypothetical ifonlyI certainly can provide an occasional hit when you bandy about random non-sequiturs related to diet changes or windfalls (or shortfalls of spouses). For example, “If only he’d ___, then everything would be better.” Still, it’s probably best to drive ifonlyI statements into your unconscious so they can act without your thinking about them. Remember the slot machines.

IfonlyI grab bag.

In case you don’t have your own, here is some tried and true ifonlyI. Most of these statements come from other people, but if pressed I’d be happy to acknowledge which ones are mine.

Warning: Honesty.

Now it’s your turn.

How do you complete the sentence?

If only I ________, everything would be better.

Here’s mine: If only I’d get you to share this on Facebook, everything would be better.

Being a Man of Action, I’m a sucker for passive tactics. Here’s how that works in negotiation.

Me: I’ll give you 100 dollars for that!

Them: No.

Me: Okay, 200!

See? Sucker. There are times when I’m so eager to get the deal done and move on that I’ll do what’s called “negotiating against myself.”

I’ve learned, and I’m still learning, that not doing something is often the best course of action— not making an offer, not sending the email, not selling the stock, not driving for an obvious solution, not doing what everyone expects— not doing the thing I do because I can’t stand to wait.

And maybe that’s the trigger— when we can’t stand to wait. (I feel a platitude coming on! Oh boy!)

Impatience can be overwhelming. If it stems from fear, make sure what you fear isn’t simply, waiting.

Click to tweet the crap out of this.

This advice is not for people who usually wait and see.

If you are someone who tends toward passivity, you know that chronic inaction can cripple you and drive your friends and colleagues batty. You also know very well the benefits of waiting. You are the teachers for those of us who can’t wait.

Inaction is one of the best actions.

I’ve written about not doing what feels obvious in other articles, but it’s a lesson we Hard Tryers need over and over again. It seems odd to add a goal of inaction to your week’s plan, but that’s what I recommend. Have a goal to not do something.

I’m not talking about self improvement commands like, or “Don’t smoke pot.” or ”Don’t be so negative.” (I love the irony in that last one.)

I’m suggesting you “Wait and see.”

Have you ever seen a shootout at the end of a soccer game? It’s a high-pressure situation used to settle a tied game in which a goalie must defend a shot taken from a very short distance. With the goalie standing in the center of the goal the shooter must decide, and try not to telegraph, shoot left or shoot right. And since there’s no time to react the goalie must decide before the ball takes off, dive left or dive right.

But is that true? There are other options.

The shooter could shoot dead center knowing the goalie will dive left or right and often does. The goalie then would probably do better to skip the dramatic dive and wait in the middle, but imagine the pressure dive instead of wait. The goalie hardly has a chance against a skilled shooter, but those dramatic dives can lead to dramatic saves. The crowd goes wild. Who would want to miss a shot looking like a passive dork? It’s better to make the dive and miss the shot to the center. Right? Maybe not.

This week’s goal.

If you are a Hard Tryer, a Person of Action, a One Who Can’t Wait, take a different tact this week. Plan to wait and see. One of your goals in your week’s plan might look like this.

• Don’t send the email.
• Don’t sell the stock.
• Don’t offer a solution.
• Don’t dive.

So what will you not do this week? Let me know.

Then don’t do it, and find out: How’d that go?

A note on passive versus passive agressive.

I define passive agressive behavior as “being agressive by what you don’t do.” It drives everyone else crazy because you can always claim, “I didn’t do anything.” Walking slowly when someone is in a hurry, never making an offer in a negotiation, accidentally leaving out information, or stalling can be very manipulative, even agressive, even if it’s not done consciously.

Wake up. Don’t be a prick.

This article was inspired by Eric Cutter and his pointing me to this article in the New York Times.

You may have noticed my posts are less frequent these days. That’s because I’m working on a secret project called “The Pilots.”

Wanna know the secret? I hope so.

I’ll tell you this: I’m wrapping up my year to kick ass with a grand delivery you’ll find almost obvious if you’ve been following my articles, although I don’t think I’ve hinted at it. As a promise to people who’ve signed up for First Alerts, they get the first chance to use the thingies I’m making.

So, if you are all excited and want to know what’s going on before everyone else,

Sign up for First Alerts

and now …

Self Revelations

Kohn Ashmore didn’t know something about himself that was so obvious to everyone who knew him. Finding out made him want to never speak again.

“I’m never gonna talk again. I always thought of myself as I heard myself, as a good singer.”

• Kohn Ashmore

As Pilots our job is to know the roles we play and through our roles know ourselves and by knowing ourselves steer our lives more skillfully. I now pass a microphone to Andrew Mills and the fascinating story he produced about self perception. It begs the question for all of us: What don’t we know about ourselves? And another: Why does it matter?

Through Andrew’s story about his friend Kohn we have an opportunity to witness transformation through revelation. It’s 8 minutes long.

Listen to “Kohn”

I remember. We are walking up the inside of Haleakala, a cliff plunging down one side of the trail and on the upside a low bank of brush. Our trek is almost over. We are very tired. It’s getting dark and I wonder, what happens if we lose our way?

As I walk I close my eyes and extend my arms down and out a bit from my thighs, palms forward. I feel the scraggly brush drift through my right hand and not my left. Cliff’s on the left, I tell myself. With eyes closed I continue following the trail this way through the gentle rhythm as the wild plants tag my right palm. When the trail turns they start tapping my left hand and disappear from my right. Cliff’s on the right, I say quietly. I don’t want my companion to know I’m worried we didn’t bring a flashlight. I want to make sure I can do this in the dark.

Then nothing from either palm. I extend my arms out a little wider. Nothing.

I open my eyes with a start. We are walking on top of a ridge, and I see in the rapidly fading light the cliffs peel off both sides of the trail. We seem near the top where our car awaits. We’ll probably get there before it’s too dark.

My companion comments from behind me. “I’m glad you know where you’re going. I can barely see.”

What do you do when you lose your markers?

My father’s heart stopped a couple days ago. The folks at the hospital started it up again, and my brother who is with him says our dad’s eyes lit up as he came back to consciousness. His thumbs up signaled to everyone in the room, “I’m still here!”

Like climbing the mountain without a flashlight, I don’t know what I’ll do without my dad. He’s a marker I count on to always be there. I know I’ll find my way without him, but I don’t know how.

I’m reminded of Theseus and the thread he took into the labyrinth and Hansel and Gretel and the pebbles they left as a trail back home— stories I don’t find so reassuring. You don’t go back the way you came.

Turns out, probably not.

To make decisions about the future our brains make up stories to fill in the giant gaps in our knowledge, often based on what we think happened in the past. Past behavior is probably the best predictor for future behavior, but the stories we imagine about our past are usually blurry idealized compilations, and mostly they’re wrong. Plus, our ability to predict the future is almost always off. This is especially true when it comes to how we imagine we felt in hte past or will feel in the future.†

For example, most tenure track professors think they will be happier once they have tenure. Most people think they’d be happier winning the lottery.

Turns out, probably not.

If you want a cleaner dose of reality, if you want the best information about where your attention really went and how you felt and might feel again, I have a tool you can download that will get you some.

The Honest and Reviled Timesheet

A timesheet is simply a running log of how you spend your attention and when you change it. It’s necessary if you track billable hours, but have you ever logged your time sleeping, daydreaming, making meals, or making love?

If that thought makes your heart race, your anus shrivel, and your lips utter “Sieg Heil,” then a timesheet might be exactly what you need.

Don’t be afraid, you don’t need to use it all the time. Just once in a while, check reality. It may surprise you, it may confirm the stories you tell yourself, and it might even hurt a little. (From what I can tell, it hurts a lot more if you don’t.)

How a timesheet helps you make decisions

Knowing how you actually spend your attention is undeniably helpful in making decisions and plans. I can’t name all the benefits here, so I’ll give you a couple ideas then report on one experience I had.

Your best self can gain a little control. Paying attention to your actions almost always improves them. Keeping a timesheet is an excellent way to become more conscious of what you are doing and make changes at key moments.

You’ll witness the effects other people have on you. For example you’ll have evidence that the mess your boss hands you has a real cost.

You’ll learn about your circadian rhythms so you can tune your schedule to optimize your creativity and vitality.

You will probably be surprised. And being surprised by yourself is one of the best things in the world.

What surprised me

After my recent Continuous Creation Challenge, I organized my timesheet into an infographic that tells the story of the 60+ hours I spent trying to be as creative as possible. Without the timesheet I wouldn’t have learned the following.

Faking a meal can give me energy. When I logged my energy levels I noticed how they related to my hunger, especially after a night with little sleep. On this one morning though I faked a meal. When I was so hungry it was distracting, I changed my decision to fast until noon and made a meal. What was so surprising is that the act of making the meal seemed to bring my energy back. So I didn’t eat! My energy stayed very high for another hour or so.

I get pumped as I approach a goal, and I deflate after I reach a goal. Look at the energy line compared to the goal finishing moments.

The Stoker needed as much attention as the Creator role. This was one of the bigger surprises. I knew my sleep was way off so naps were necessary, but counting sleep, naps, food, and exercise, even though I was working as hard as I ever work, I (apparently) needed as much attention to the Stoker role as I did to the roles that make stuff.

How to use a timesheet

Choose a time period. It’s probably best to track your time consistently for a full week so you can see what you do through weekends and on different days. At the very least track your time one day from the time you wake until you turn off the light to sleep that night.

Set up the right columns. Here’s what I suggest.

• Date. Only if you are tracking more than one day.
• Time. Write down the exact time something changes, an activity, your energy, or a role. Everything in the row to the left of the time marker or starts at that time. See the example.
• Energy Note. Every time you notice a change in your energy or mood, write the exact time and your mood change.
• Role. Note the primary role you are playing. Note the time when your role changes.
• Activities. Jot down what you are doing, and what you are paying attention to.
• Hours. Total up the time you spend doing specific activities or playing roles so you can know how much time you spend doing different things.

Analyze the data. Add up the hours you spend on each role or big activity for each day. Here’s a decent time calculator. You don’t have to go into extreme detail like I did to notice interesting patterns, but consider asking your friends to help you examine your timesheet and look for useful surprises and insights. If you want to see some observations of mine, look at the comments here.

Download the tool.

My Example

While the concept may seem simple, I want to show you my example for ideas and techniques. I did my original timesheet for my creative intensive by hand, and it’s coded with references and acronymns so I reconstructed the timesheet for the first day all neat and tidy.

Note that I didn’t get to bed till 2:30am. That’s about 4 hours later than usual, so this timesheet is logging a day where I’m at an energetic disadvantage. I started the day at 6:33. See my notes about my energy and the roles I’m playing. I’m first a Father preparing breakfast for my daughter, then walking her to the subway station. I steal a few minutes between 7:50 and 8:22 to write a Pilot Fire article. Then the Stoker takes over as I trapse off to a tennis match. I return to stretch and listen to music before really starting work. I’m “Very happy & tired” and because I’ve decided to fast till noon, “Hungry.”

I log the whole day through the next night noting every time I change roles or activities or notice a change in energy. (It so happens I was also graphing my alertness on another chart.)

Then I total the hours for each role including when I sleep. I mark up the page when those changes happen; for example, from 6:33 to 7:50, my primary role is Father. Because we don’t measure time in metic, the math takes extra brain power I rarely tap. I used this.

Adding up the hours for how I spend my time based on the different roles I play is very revealing. For my Continuous Creation Challenge I was tracking roles grouped in the Creativity and Vitality fires.

Reality is underrated.

We make decisions all the time based on prejudice, habit, denial, and wishful thinking. And how often to we say, after the fact, “Oops, I did it again?” A simple timesheet can give us a glimpse of our actual behavior so every once in a while we can say, “I’m going to try something else this time.”

† Daniel Gilbert’s work on happiness crushes our beliefs about how we make decisions. I highly recommend reading his book, Stumbling on Happiness and listening to his Ted Talk or better, his conversation with Laurie Anderson.

Could you take 6 or 7 minutes to look over a picture? I spent last weekend doing Joel Zaslofsky’s Continuous Creation Challenge and documented almost everything I did in a single infographic.

I spent 60+ hours with just a few rules.

• Create as continuously as possible.
• Take the best care of my body and energy as possible.
• Don’t do anything else.

Here it is, take a look, and please let me know what you see.

The Continuous Creativity Timeline

Thanks!
David

Friday, May 3 2013

7:00 am. I decide, I will crush him.

With green tea coursing through my viens and three times his measly years to boast, I’m going to show that six foot pipsqueak what “going ape” means. He won’t know what …

My phone hums. The text reads, “Can we make it 8:30?”

My thumbs fly, “Sure, buddy!” Send.

… the court will burn with my flaming feet …

7:28am. I finally find my wallet. Whew!

My CCC starts in 32 minutes. For the 60 hours that follow, starting with a go-ape tennis match, I will become a non-stop vitality and creativity machine, making, making, making stuff, just spraying it all over the place, dedicated to one goal:

Joel Zaslofsky’s
Continuous Creation Challenge

It’s been several months since I focused solely on making stuff. I used to go away to a cabin in the woods so I could write without distraction. I’d take my dog and my computer and my guitar and see how far I could get with the play I was crafting— or was it a musical. It was actually a music concert interrupted by a play.

Then I read about Joel’s Continuous Creation Challenge, and with my first free weekend in months coming up, I decided to take it.

The idea is simple:

1. Dedicate a continuous time period, say 24-120 hours.
2. Prepare a list of stuff you want to create.
3. Write up some guidelines, including distractions you will eliminate.
4. Garner support, prepare yourself.
5. Go ape!

I want to test some new triggers. The format for triggers goes like this.

When I feel the urge to __________, say the word _________, and immediately do ________ instead.

For example, when I feel the tug of internet, video, or news, I want to trigger an image of Laurie Anderson in her studio, and then do something to reset my energy.

So.

When I feel the urge to hit random media, say “What would Laurie do?” and immediately get up and dance instead.

To remain vital and focused means taking care of my body with great food, rest, and a couple of go ape periods of physical exercise. I’m going to launch my CCC with a vigorous tennis match with my daughter’s teenage wimpy-ass-geek filmmaker friend.

8:16am. I pick up my racket and bag of balls and skip out the door.

You sweet lad, how did you beat me before? You’re just 15 and I’m a man! I play twice a week sometimes, and your gangly body looks so new and untamed. The memory of our last match makes no sense, and it can’t happen again. (The risk of existential crisis is too great. I won’t go there again. Not now. Not this weekend.)

I will set record straight: I am your superior.

I must crush you.

Flannel, waffles, and the crunching of fall leaves underfoot all go together to make my dad— a Dad at his best.

Who are you when you’re at your best?

Actors wear costumes, carry props, and make “home” of special realms in order to connect to the roles they play. In an interview about his Tony winning performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Bill Irwin recalls the ritual that helped him drop into his role before every show.

“At “places” we always clink rings. We have these cheap brass costume wedding rings. We clink those to sort of set the marriage.”

• Bill Irwin

Look at yourself. What are you wearing? What are you carrying? And where are you doing what you do? Do your costume, prop, and scene fit the role you are playing right now?

What triggers you to feel “at my best?”

Create “Role Reminders”
so you can drop into being your best.

Here’s what I and others have said about being our best in different roles.

“As a Software Designer, I’m at my best arguing with my colleagues at a whiteboard. I wear my wool hat and wield a red marker.”

• Vishal

“My gloves and work hat trigger me into my Boss on the Job Site role. Then I exude the confidence my team and clients need from me.”

• Raymond, Landscape Architect.

“As a Musician, when I’m at my best, I wear simple, stylish clothing. I carry my guitar. I do my best work in front of a microphone in front of an intimate audience.”

• Diana

“In my glowy yellow windbreaker, toting my U-lock, gliding past cars on my bike, I’m an Urban Navigator.”

• Jodi

“Wearing my flannel shirt, spatula and dish towel in hand, I listen to my daughter’s stories about her day.”

• That’s me, David, at my best, as a Father. (Sounds a lot like my dad, huh?)

Make your own Role Reminder

Dad didn’t think about how to be a Dad. He just showed up that way, but we Pilots think about our roles more consciously. It helps us find balance between them and tap our passion as we play our parts.

Try this quick exercise.

Think of one of your roles as a character in a play. Give clarity to that role by completing the following sentences. Then click Save It! to receive an email with your Role Reminder.

Finally, here’s one for us all.

“My jacket open at the chest, goggles on my head, and my sites on the horizon, I’m a Pilot steering my life as best I can.”

• Amelia, Wilbur, you, and me

I always wanted to be a great man. I’m not, so far.

How we describe our goals makes all the difference, not only in how we feel about ourselves, but in how we behave. Most of us understand the folly of perfection, but it’s very common to hold up our lives to unattainable ideals.

• Write every day.
• Happiness.
• Finally be organized.
• Finally be healed.

Wishes like these intrinsically set us up for failure. As ideals they are understandably desirable, and that last one is probably the most seductive, to finally be healed, but for different reasons I describe below they better serve us as starting points to be carefully contained, perhaps imprisoned, or even killed outright.

When it comes time to take action, crush the voice of perfection as if your life depends on it.

… because, in my opinion, it does.

To write (or practice anything) every day

The “every day” goal is dangerous. Take it from me, I’m near the end of a year of rigid rules, and I know first hand what it means to set every day goals. I’ve failed them all. I knew I would, but it’s part of my experiment to create a clear cut edge and live on it for a whole year.

(NOTE: This experiment has been quite exhilarating and perhaps unnecessarily painful. My willpower is fatigued. I’m going to stop in a couple months.)

What’s useful about the every day wish is the desire it locates. One student of mine wanted to paint every day even though she hadn’t painted in months. Her studio was all ready to go, but the every day goal made it easy to tell herself, I’ll start every day tomorrow.

We chucked the every day idea and reframed her first goal as a Painter: Put paint on canvas by 9am on Tuesday.

She did it. She did it Friday, too. That’s measurable progress.

Happiness

Happiness is so vague and always transient. You never arrive at happiness. With millennia of works dedicated to how people might move toward happiness, it’s obvious as a species we are far from nailing that one.

In my opinion, happiness is overrated, especially for something that never sticks around.

Learning how to fully engage with any activity, reducing stressful behaviors, practicing responsiveness, gauging our emotional reactions, discovering our circadian rhythms, and connecting to supportive, loving colleagues and friends are all activities we can actually do.

Wanna?

Okay!

Let’s smother the fuzzy pursuit of fuzzy happiness, make a clear choice about what we’ll try next, and take that next step.

I felt crappy all morning till about 1:00 this afternoon. I tried eating, dancing, standing on a bench and picking at my peach tree. Writing this article finally got me going after about an hour. My next step is to finish it before improv group tonight.

What’s your next step?

To finally be organized

Sure it feels very good to bring order to chaos. That’s the danger. I love tidying my home, filing papers away, even sorting nails and screws. You can spend your whole life organizing— as though being organized is a righteous end to itself.

Stomp down perfection before this happens to you!

Feeling organized is probably the most common thing people say they want from working with me. It’s so funny because I usually just ask, “Once you’re organized, what will you do?” Then we “organize” their lives around those goals.

Organizing serves a purpose. Staying focused on something specific, being able to retrieve really important information or stuff, those are the reasons you might want to organize a few things. Organize only what’s most important to you. For everything else, don’t waste your attention.

To finally be healed

In his interview with Terry Gross, David Sheff recounts his son Nic’s heart-wrenching struggle with drug addiction. David sees his role as a Myth Buster when it comes to helping people overcome damaging behavior, and perfection is one of them. Perfection would have labeled Nic’s last trip back to rehab as failure.

David sees it very differently.

“He had learned … this behavioral cognitive thing where you can interrupt either the craving that would lead to a relapse or you could stop a relapse early. And if you can, you’ve made so much progress.

“To me, it’s possible to look back on [his relapse] and say all the treatments before that were a failure: Here he was sober for such a long time, and he relapsed again. But for me, it’s the opposite: It shows that the treatments had helped him so much that he was able to recognize that he was in a free fall.”

Progress, not perfection.

We all bare wounds and some of us deep illness. To finally be healed is a dream. To make progress is within our grasp, and really, all we can strive for.

At 40 I knew I’d never fully heal from my emotional and physical traumas. To realize I’ll never be a smooth, tight 17 year old again lets me quit trying to be one.

The pain does move from this place to that. I call that progress. Last week I killed on the tennis court. That’s real progress. Still, I’ll always have my parent’s nasty divorce. I’ll always have my appendix scar and all the heartbreaks over the years. I remember when I chipped a tooth on a salad fork. My dentist took out a grinder and smoothed the sharp edge so it wouldn’t cut my tongue. He said, “We can try to patch it if you want, but I like it.”

I kept it chipped. That’s how you know it’s me.

My own greatness

At 40 I also realized I wasn’t a great man. What followed was an existential crisis that lasted a couple years. I wouldn’t call it perfection I was seeking, but it wasn’t attainable by any measurement.

I still want to be a great man, but that’s not what I think about any more. I want to build things. I want to have impact. I want to travel to China with my daughter and my dad this summer. I can measure those things. I’m already making progress.

And today, right now, I’m off to play with my new improv group and guessing it’ll be fun. I’m definitely going to find out.

Nowadays, there is a backlash against busyness backed by simplistic dichotomies that stress is bad and more leisure time is good or that busyness will actually kill your ability to have a remarkable life. It’s like the new protest created an elite group: People Against Busyness!

Does it really help us to pit stress against leisure or busyness against accomplishments? I don’t think so.

To promote my own way of thinking, I offer you a much more useful simplistic dichotomy to consider:

There is good busyness and bad busyness.

Click to tweet this.

(What does that mean? Consider this question as you read on, then please let us know with your comments what kind of busyness serves you very well.)

Let me frame the argument people make against busyness as honestly as I can. People who are too busy struggle to:

• Be spontaneous.
• Make strategic decisions.
• Take advantage of important opportunities.
• Accomplish long term goals.
• Discover important revelations.
• Accomplish remarkable accomplishments.
• Have deep personal interactions.
• Take care of their health.

I say these struggles emerge when people fill their lives not with busyness but with bad busyness.

Behold, there is good busyness. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it, and I think we need more of it, and we need to seek it whenever we plan our weeks and days and every minute we make decisions about what we will do and what we will don’t.

Dissolving the Busyness vs. Accomplishment dichotomy.

I love what Cal Newport is up to, but I’m going to blow apart what I think is a misguided hypothesis: You can’t be busy and remarkable. Cal does define “busy,” as “a schedule packed with non-optional professional responsibilities.” I agree that is a type of hell, but narrowing his definition doesn’t add to credibility of his headline.

Here is the comment I left on his blog:

“I was just talking to a colleague about space in our schedules. I have too much unstructured time and lean too hard on my own discipline to focus. I need more meetings and deadlines where other people rely on me to show up and deliver. In contrast, his schedule is jammed with meetings. But he feels like he needs only a bit more little unstructured time just to rest.

“I consider him one of the most disciplined and accomplished people I know, yet recently, when he gained a lot of open space in his schedule for a short period, he found himself wasting his time instead of daydreaming, engaging in productive play, and doing deep work. Without the structure he flailed.

“My colleague is a university professor and researcher. He’s organized most of his structured time around managing his research team, teaching, developing patentable ideas, and creating new companies. The structure he set up for his busyness actually drives his accomplishments (which are arguably remarkable). For example, when he has to prepare for a new class, the deadlines drive a productive period where he makes his team’s discoveries understandable in bite-sized chunks.

It’s true for his health, too. When I told him my own workout schedule, which requires a lot of discipline, he suggested he would never get the exercise he does if he didn’t have exercise commitments in his schedule with other people. His busyness has made him extremely fit. Plus, he loves those activities.

“Obviously there’s not just balance to craft; it’s about what you do with your structured time that effects your accomplishments. I have so much unstructured time that my willpower gets tested too often. In contrast my colleague needs just a little bit of ease in his schedule, but only for the sake of some down-time because it’s the structure of his busyness that keeps his accomplishments flowing.”

The criteria for good busyness.

Having eradicated it last July, I am rebuilding my busyness. My plan is to add good busyness in the form of more meetings with the following attributes— suspiciously resembling what people feel busyness deprives them of.

• Most people in the room are smarter than I.
• Presentations that invite critical feedback.
• Focus on long term goals.
• Collaborative play as work.
• Playful, physical exertion.
• Listening as a shared skill.
• Flow as a shared goal.
• Love as a core value.

Specifically, this week:

• I’ll be launching Pilot Fire group for supporting each other around roles, planning, and long term goals. Interested? Sign up for first alerts.
• I’m joining a regular improv gathering.
• I’m signing up for Meetups on Divorce Support and Mobile App Design.
• I’m playing tennis 2-3 times this week.
• I’m attending the World Domination Summit in July.

You can choose to quit bad busyness and make good busyness.

What is your criteria for good busyness? And what are you going to change this week?