Patrick Rhone – Page 527

Why are you so petrified of silence?
Here can you handle this?

Did you think about your bills, your ex, your deadlines?
Or when you think you’re gonna die?

Or did you long for the next distraction?

Alanis Morissette – All I Really Want

A Most Important Question

Hey. You. Yes, you! Come over here. I’m going to tell you a secret. OK, well, it’s not really a secret. It’s more of a question. A most important question. One that, when asked, can provide a wealth of productive power…

“Where does this belong?”

Want to know how to organize a messy desk? Take everything off, put it in a box, then take each item out, and ask that question. For some items, the answer is obvious. For other items, maybe they don’t have a place – find one. Maybe the answer is not “on the desk” or even “in the room”. Maybe the answer is not even “in the house” or “in my life”. Answering this question can not only make the clean up quick but also ensure quick work when things get out of control again. Because, everything belongs somewhere and now you know where that somewhere is.

The thing is, this question works with more than just clutter.

Want to make your task list more powerful? Ask that question of each task. Sometimes the answer is “as an immediate action”. Sometimes the answer is “on a context specific list” or “broken into smaller chunks”. Sometimes, the answer is “as part of a greater project or goal”. But, sometimes, the answer is “with someone else” or “done at some future date” or “not done at all”.

Want to get your email inbox under control? Never look at another message without asking the question. Does it belong in the inbox now that you have looked at it? No? Perhaps in a separate folder of things you need to take action on or respond to. Perhaps in a folder for reference on a project you are working on. Perhaps read and archived. Perhaps in the trash.
But, where the question becomes truly powerful, is when you apply the question to everything. Because if something does not have a place in your home, in your relationships, in your job, or or in your life, perhaps it should not be there.

So here’s my suggestion to you: find a system that works for you; don’t place yourself into someone else’s system. If you find your brain works better while you doodle with a pen in a notebook, embrace it. Write your ToDos by hand instead of using a computer or an iPad. This is the system that works best for me, and I don’t expect it to work best for you.

The GTD app for the rest of us: Pen and Moleskine? | Macgasm

Words to live by.

How Analog Rituals Can Amp Your Productivity :: Tips :: The 99 Percent

For Greenberg, it’s all about feeling the granularity of prioritization. By manually bumping a certain task every day, he feels that it is incomplete. He is faced with the reality and forced to either complete the task, delegate it, or bump it again.

That’s the same thing for me. It’s why, no matter what task system I’m using at the moment, my Today Card is what gets me through life.

The Fall of the US Empire – and Then What?| Otto Scharmer’s Blog

So, looking at how the US shows more and more symptoms of a third world country, and looking at the paralysis of the current political system and how the financial oligarchy is tightening its grip on our beautiful country, the question on the table is what keeps us from changing this? Why do we continue to move trillions of dollars to bankers, billionaires, and ill-conceived wars? Why not redirect the same streams of money to areas with where it could have a profoundly positive social impact: conditional cash transfers to poor people and communities (which Brazil has used with major success), massive investments in education, green technologies (which China does with great success), and hybrid social and business entrepreneurship, which could move urban and rural communities from despair to social, economic, and ecological well-being. What’s holding us back?

Good question.

Only when we’re fully aware of a moment can we be truly happy. Someday I will not be able to smell the needles on the pine tree in my yard. Perhaps I’ll be incapacitated, or maybe the tree will be gone. Perhaps I’ll live elsewhere. Definitely I’ll be dead. But today — right now — I’m holding fresh pine needles and lifting them to my nose. This tree and I exist in this very same day, time, hour, minute and moment. How lucky for us both. I can see how tall it is, feel its bark, enjoy its scent. How tremendously fortunate I am to have this time.

Dave Caolo – Paying attention now because someday I’ll be dead

Fantastic post on mindfulness and the value of time (which I often, and fairly, refer to as the most valuable resource in the universe).

Pat Dryburgh

It should surprise no one I love the simplicity of my friend Pat’s new site.

Addiction, Step One of Twelve, and Focus for A Fiver

Not too far from my home, is an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting house. They have several meetings a day. I would guess ten to twelve (the house is large enough to accommodate). I regularly observe the people coming, going, mingling outside on the porch between meetings. They’re from all walks of life. They are all at ious steps of dealing with their addiction to alcohol. No matter who you are, step one is always the hardest and most important. Believe me, I get that and have a lot of respect for it.

That said, I often wonder as I see them – almost as a rule – chain smoking, downing cup after cup of coffee, chatting endlessly on their mobile phone, if they are merely confronting the one addiction that was causing the most problem, and ignoring the others that are not. Have they really confronted the real problem? The problem of addiction itself? And by confronting and applying the steps to that core problem would it be successful in not only the battle with alcohol but in countless other ways? Have they really done “step one”?

I’m starting to wonder about the numerous applications one can now buy to help with “focus”. There are many of these I have covered here before. Heck, there are many that I use myself. I’m using one right now. That said, am I really curing the root of the problem? Am I simply replacing it with new ones? Would working on the root of the issue eradicate my need for an application like Writeroom when I find even my Desktop too much to handle? Have I really done “step one”?

Don’t get me wrong, I know that these root problems are much harder to tackle. I know that, on the surface, throwing down a fiver on something that will help seems like the right thing to do. But pretending that will cure the real problem, and in many cases not simply replace it with others, is the same as the chain smoking, coffee swilling alcoholic who claims he has dealt with his addiction because of the color of coin in his pocket.

“Hi. My name is Patrick. I have no self control.”

See? Step one. Where’s my medallion?

See also: On distraction and virtual crutches « The Quillink Observer – A similarly themed and introspective post that was brought to my attention in the middle of writing this one.

The Future of the Book. (by IDEO)

Some really neat ideas here that I hope someone will pick up and run with.

(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

Time to taste what you most fear

Sometimes, somebody plays a guitar, and you suddenly aren’t alone anymore.

Merlin is at his best when writing these sorts of posts. Wonderful. Simply wonderful.

Also, describing yourself at a certain age is an excellent writing assignment. Go ahead, try it. Find an old photo of yourself and write about where you were, what your life was like, and what was likely going through your head. I did one here a little while back. It’s rewarding on many levels.