distraction hierarchy

Hierarchy of Digital Distractions: Top of a brilliant, too-accurate pyramid infographic by InformationIsBeautiful.net

Productivity and task management seem like strictly practical issues, but in fact they’re deeply emotional. That’s what David Allen describes at in the first chapter of Getting Things Done, when he talks about the sense of calmness instilled by having a mind like water.

It seems to me that tuning into and recognizing your own feelings (especially hope, shame, relief, and fear) is THE crucial first step for figuring out what to do, getting stuff done, and letting stuff go. That’s what I’ve been working on today. Here is a little background, and some thoughts and lessons on this theme…

In the last eight months I made several major changes in my life: I ended my marriage (on the best of terms), sold my house, moved to a new state, eliminated my debt, stopped working on some projects I’d outgrown, began some intriguing new projects, had a brief painful relationship with a thoroughly incompatible partner, began a rewarding intimate relationship with a wonderful friend, and downsized my possessions to fit in a room plus small storage area. Plus, I got knee surgery to fix a torn ACL. Plus, a fair amount of business travel thrown in.

Yeah, it’s been a lot to manage — with a lot of mixed, deep feelings involved in every step. And a lot of stuff that needed to get done: projects, tasks, and priorities. Everything from figuring out where stuff goes in the kitchen to selling a house.

Through this process of major life-surgery I’ve had to face something I’ve avoided: I’ve spent most of my life in a near-constant sense of dread. I was scared that my life and work were spinning out of control, and that all sorts of disasters were waiting to pounce due to my inattention or ineptitude. I coped with it by keeping busy. If I just kept doing enough, surely I’d get ahead. Then I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a flat-out panic. And I’d work all day and feel like I’d accomplished nothing by evening, and feel terribly guilty and ashamed. I felt like I was failing at nearly everything.

In fact, I wasn’t failing — at least, not most of the time. Not any more than most people do. In fact, in a lot of ways I’m doing pretty damn well with my life. But because I was certain I was failing, and constantly braced for the next crash, I avoided looking too closely at what was happening, at what I needed to be doing.

It’s kind of like how you shut your eyes and cover your face before a car crash. It’s a reflex. You don’t really want to watch.

But when that kind of mental flinching becomes a permanent way of life, bad stuff happens. Namely, disorganization and procrastination — with all the bad stuff (tax penalties, pissed-off partners, missed opportunities, poor health) that go along with it.

It’s important to recognize that for all the pain that disorganization and procrastination cause, they do offer immediate, addictive emotional relief.

When you deliberately blur your mental vision and don’t look very far around you or ahead, and when you don’t habitually keep close track of information you need, then for short stretches of time you create the illusion that nothing needs to be done or figured out right now. It’s a false sense of security, but it does provide a sense of rest and it’s easy to do. Also, it works about as well as drinking salt water when you’re thirsty.

Since I’ve downsized and simplified my life and commitments, I’ve realized that I don’t want to keep living with that daily dread. I could keep it up — because I’ve done it my whole life. But at this point I’m making a conscious choice to change. Dread eats up too much of my energy. I’m 43 years old, and I’d like to use my remaining time and energy in ways that please me.

So I’ve been focusing on organizing my life, especially projects, tasks and priorities. Here’s what I’ve done so far, and what I’ve learned:

1. I CAN’T THINK AMIDST CLUTTER. Clutter distracts me, and provides a ceaseless nagging of all the things I might have forgotten. I cannot focus on a task when I’m around clutter — unless that task is decluttering.

So I’ve put a lot of effort into organizing my new room so that everything I need has an intuitive place, and that things I don’t need on a daily basis get stored or filed, and things I don’t ever need get tossed. This includes eliminating as much paper as possible from my life: I scan every paper I’ll need, shred most of them, file only a few original copies. I have redundant electronic backups (external hard drives AND offsite backup) for all my data.

The downside: Organizing feels so rewarding to me that sometimes I dive into that for emotional relief as a form of procrastination. I’m working on that.

2. MULTITASKING IS A MYTH. This was truly a devastating thing to admit to myself, since I always thought I was a consummate multitasker. But in fact, tons of scientific research and an honest look at my own experience indicates that human brains really can only do one conscious thing at a time. I cannot listen to two simultaneous voices and understand well what both are saying. I cannot run a quick Google search and track what a client is saying on a conference call. I cannot Twitter or instant message while trying to do another kind of writing. I cannot read an incoming text message while paying enough attention to driving.

Of course, I can TRY to do any combination of these things, or more. And I usually succeed to some level with all of them. But usually not as well as if I’d consciously taken a moment to set a priority and then waited to do tasks in priority order.

Focus is important to getting stuff done. But for me, focus can be another kind of trap. I can get so into doing something that I get obsessive or perfectionist about it, and and up spending way too much time on it. It becomes another type of procrastination.

I’m finding that for me, the skills I need to improve are time management and setting priorities. Not just “what are the things I need to do” but “what are the goals I wish to achieve?” Once I have in mind all my goals, I can set priorities among them, and then decide how much is really enough in terms of moving toward a particular goal for that day.

I’m realizing that my tendency to attempt multitasking often stems from a wish to distract myself (and thus procrastinate), or a wish to please (assuming that people expect me to do everything at once), or boredom.

3. ORGANIZE AT AN APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF DETAIL. I was discussing productivity systems today with a friend. She prefers to list out her to-dos in minute detail, including items such as “find Mr. X’s phone number” and “call Mr. X” in the overall task of “Ask Mr. X. to write me a letter of reference.” That works very well for her because it relieves her of the necessity to figure out the next step to take.

I’ve tried that approach, and I’ve found it does not work for me. The labor involved in listing and checking off so many minute steps feels overwhelming to me, and takes considerable time. In my task-management software OmniFocus I tend to list action items like “Ask Mr. X. to write me a letter of reference” unless I’m noticing that I’m procrastinating on a task. In that case, I may list sub-tasks in more minute detail.

I’m still working with this to try to figure out the best balance for me. But anyone else attempting to use a task management system should tune in to how they feel about using the system. If the system ends up feeling like a chore or a burden, if it scares you, you won’t use it and you’ll feel frustrated or ashamed. Recognize all your emotions involved, and name them. They’re important indicators of what you really need.

4. MOST LIFE-MONSTERS CAN WAIT (AT LEAST A BIT) TO BE SLAIN. For the parts of my life that had become dangerously disorganized, I’ve found I couldn’t just sit down and said “I’m going to face Monster Z right now, and parse out how to vanquish it, and get started.” I tried. I really did. Every time, this effort turned into an emotional wreck, unable to sort out which part of the monster to strike first. I’d make lists of tasks and goals, but be unable to sort them into a doable sequence. I’d feel ashamed, frustrated, and like an even bigger failure than before.

I realized that, with most of these life-monsters, I needed to first build up my strength and skills prior to the attack. I needed to attain more of a sense of my life generally gaining order and purpose on a daily basis. After all, I’d put off wrestling the life-monsters so long that I could put it off a while longer.  In the meantime, I set up doable systems to capture enough incoming monster-related  information to spot flags that would require me to speed up my timeline.

So even though organizing my space or developing a new exercise routine may not objectively be a higher priority than, say, developing a retirement plan — giving myself faster, easier “wins” that directly support my ability to tackle longer-term, bigger goals is what allows me to move forward. Right now, if I try too hard to stare down monsters that loom ever-larger due to neglect, I freeze.

Right now I’m only tackling one life-monster at a time. I’ve learned from the last eight months that trying to do them all at once, or in too close sequence, leaves me overwhelmed, exhausted, depressed, and unproductive on other fronts. Getting through knee surgery and recovery (and dealing with insurance bureaucracy and medical bills) is my current life-monster battle. That’s enough.

Down the road, I’m considering working with a financial planner and maybe a life/career coach to figure out some longer-term monster-slaying strategy. I think getting that kind of support might help, when I’m ready for it. But I’m not ready for that now, so please don’t bombard me with pitches for these professionals just yet. When I’m ready, I’ll ask for it.

5. RECOGNIZE & APPRECIATE WHAT YOU CAN DO OR HAVE DONE. Many people love crossing items off their to-do lists. That gives them a sense of accomplishment. That visual symbol has never worked for me, however. It just feels negative, the act of crossing-off. Not creative, not productive.

I’ve realized that when I’ve been getting depressed because I think I’ve been unproductive, it helps to reality-check myself by taking a day to make a list of all the stuff I actually do in a given day. For this list, anything that takes my time/effort counts. It includes things like:

• Making my bed
• Doing my leg exercises (5X/day, to stick with my physical therapy program)
• Taking my vitamins
• Making breakfast
• Corresponding with clients
• Doing actual billable work
• Arranging to get a transit pass
• Hanging a few pictures
• Vacuuming
• Scanning, shredding, and filing
• Sorting out which jewelry needs repairs
• Reading a chapter of a book

…Most of this stuff would never make my to-do list or get crossed off. I don’t need to track that level of detail day to day. But each of these tasks, and many others, need to get done and take my time and effort. I should at least recognize them. They are not wasted time. So if once in a while I make a “done” list of all this stuff, that reassures me emotionally. In turn, that reduces my tendency to beat up on myself, and gives me more energy to get stuff done.

Those are my thoughts on emotions and productivity for now. I’ll be writing more about this, I’m sure. But what are your thoughts on this topic? How do your feelings — and your awareness of them — affect how you get accomplished in life and work? Please comment below.

Without going into details, I’ve been handling a lot of major personal stuff lately — and I’ve been fortunate to have a strong and growing circle of close friends who have stepped up to offer me a steady supply of energy, support, perspective, honesty, sympathy, empathy, nurturing, and fun.

And I do this for them, too. That’s the core of deep friendship and other loving connections: You give of your own energy to help sustain others who are running low or in transition. At certain points we all need more nurturing; and at other times we have an abundance of energy and emotion to offer. Life comes in waves.

Personally, I’ve always found it very hard to ask for the help or nurturing I need. I don’t trust people easily, especially where my feelings of vulnerability are concerned. I assume that any emotional need I have, however small, will be perceived as too great an imposition. I don’t expect other people to be available to me. (Yes, I’m working on changing this mindset, quite deliberately. It’s a coping mechanism I’ve outgrown.)

As I’m reaching out more to my close friends, I’m wishing I had a tool that would help me to gauge their situation before I make a request, so I can be more sensitive to when I might actually be imposing.

Here’s what it might look like…

Imagine an online social network where your “friends” truly are only your closest friends — your confidantes, the people you care for most and who care about you, your trusted support network or tribe. This is definitely about quality, not quantity.

Imagine that you could download a small app or widget that would allow you to specify your current level of available emotional energy, attention, and time — that is, what you have to offer whoever in your circle might need it. It would also allow you to specify your current emotional needs from a customizable category list, and rate them low / medium / high. You could even transmit notes like “Need encouragement to finish filing my taxes” or “feeling lonely on the anniversary of my divorce” or “shoulder massage badly needed” or “I haven’t had a good laugh all week.”

This information would not be published in any way — it would only be available to the people whom you specify, through this app. It wouldn’t be available to search engines or for syndication.

When the people in your close circle are connected through this app, you could look at the app’s dashboard whenever you feel like you have some energy, attention, and time to offer, and indicate the current resources you can offer. The dashboard would display the current needs of your close friends, ranked according to how well they match with your emotional availability. Then you could take action — from arranging a coffee date to sending a text message to stopping by to give a hug and listen — to respond to that need.

Friends with significant needs or crises would be flagged (perhaps even via mobile alerts), so you’d know if a loved one needs immediate attention and realign your current priorities if needed. Because when you experience a death in the family, the end of a significant relationship, a serious illness or accident, the loss of a job… just reaching out to contact your closest friends can seem daunting. What if you could simply alert your entire support network with just a few clicks?

…Obviously, more would need to be fleshed out — like tracking needs that have gone unmet for more than a day, or having multiple friends collaborate to meet someone’s need. But what do you think of this nascent idea? Does it already exist? Could it?

Thanks, Dawn

So now that Tom helped me get WP manually updated to 2.6 (Bluehost only offered automated update options to 2.5.1 — another grrrrrrr……) WP now seems ready to cooperate. (Well, except that my secure login stopped working.) I’m trying it out with this post. We’ll see what happens.

Moment of truth: Is this thing on? If you’re reading this, it worked.

UPDATE: OK, now that I know I can use the site again, here’s a gripe I have that maybe WordPress developers can do something about:

Why is the WordPress update process so F*CKING OBTUSE???

Here’s what I mean…

Having to manually delete and upload files to the web server is totally intimidating to people like me who aren’t server savvy. And I’m definitely no technophobe. But right now this is a huge hurdle to many people who’d want to use WordPress’s functionality and flexibility.

Some web hosts offer “1-click updates” — but those often aren’t to the latest version of WordPress (which is currently true of Bluehost). And those 1-click update processes often fail inexplicably. In my case, every time I tried to update WordPress via Bluehost, the process failed and the error message said to call tech support. Which, as I mentioned, was useless.

In my case, my only option was a manual update.

Wordpress developers: Rather than add more bells and whistles, can we focus on a simple update process please???? Obviously WordPress users who aren’t total geeks cannot rely on web hosts to provide a simple update path that works. Why should we have to rely on web hosts for this? Can’t the update process be made more automated, so we don’t have to manually mess with deleting and replacing files via ftp?

UPDATE: Lisa B reminded me that there’s a WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. I did try that about a year ago. I recall it didn’t work for me, but I don’t remember how or why. But I did uninstall it. I’ve just downloaded the latest version and installed and activated it, to try it again.

BUT… That said, regardless of whether this plugin works, I think the fact that it is a plugin could itself be a surprisingly significant barrier to plenty of WordPress users. Implementing this plugin involves downloading a zip archive, extracting the plugin folder from it, and FTPing in into your plugins directory on your web server. I’ve known several people who, while not technophobes, are even less server-savvy than me — and they’ve installed WordPress (often because their web hosts offer 1-click installation), but don’t use any plugins because they find that installation process intimidating.

Can’t we just integrate an automatic upgrade feature into the base installation of WordPress? Why does this have to be a plugin? Seems to me like it should be a basic and simple function built into any blogging tool.

(UPDATE: If you’re reading this post in a feed reader, you may see a big block of spam below. Sorry about that — my blog has been hacked. I’m working to fix it.)

The thing about conferences is that, in my opinion, it’s really damn hard to both attend the conference and blog about it much — unless I go to the conference specifically to blog it. A lot of things get in the way.

Right now I’m at Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas, where yesterday my blogging ethics panel went very well (thanks to my excellent panelist and a very engaged audience). More about that panel later.

Here’s a quick rundown of my reasons (or excuses) why I have a hard time blogging at conferences, unless that’s my reason for being there…

1. No time to post. Conferences (at least good ones) are about action and events. And when formal events (like panels or keynotes) aren’t in progress, there are myriad informal events — especially conversations, checking out exhibits, etc. I can’t write, talk, and listen at the same time. Ain’t happening.
2. Lugging a laptop sucks. This is mostly my own fault. I haven’t yet gotten a smart phone or a tablet PC. Meanwhile, my hopes for an Apple tablet steadily recede into the realm of “yeah, right, keep dreaming.” While my Macbook isn’t a brick, it’s just heavy and clumsy enough that I have to think twice before pulling it out and getting it set up to post. Plus my computer bag is fine for going to a meeting or to deliver a workshop; it sucks to lug it around all day, especially in a town like Vegas which seems to assume the average human stride is 17 feet. Unless I’m going to be rooted in one spot with access to a power outlet and good wifi for awhile (which is what I’m doing now, in the conference’s “blogger lounger”), posting seems more physical trouble than it’s worth.
3. Paying clients come first. I did a pretty good post for Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits yesterday about a great session I attended about military blogs — a topic of increasing interest to me (more about that later). Poynter pays me, and I really like working for them. Contentious is an important vehicle for my consulting business and, well, everything I’m interested in — but when no one is writing me a check for a particular post (or to blog over a particular period of time), immediate priorities shift.
4. I’m tired. At conference, I talk to a lot of people, which is generally a lot of fun — although I occasionally experience utter social frustration (illustrated below, video courtesy of Graydancer). But all that social interaction — which I value — saps my energy. That makes it tempting to put off blogging.

OK, so enough whining. On to solutions. I’m realizing that these things are becoming a priority for me:

• Get a more ergonomic laptop bag. Preferably a backpack model that doubles as a briefcase. Something that doesn’t keep killing my back. I’m seriously aching here today.
• Get a really good moblogging tool. I’d like to take the luxury of waiting to see what’s in the next iPhone, but the need is getting more urgent, so I’ll start shopping now.
• Learn to microblog more effectively. I’ve been getting pretty impressed by the capabilities of Twitter, Del.icio.us, and other services that can provide microblogging. If I can shift my thinking effectively, I could do a lot more with that — and integrate it into this blog.
• Get over the guilt. I’ll blog when I get to it, and generally that’s not really a problem. I need to have more realistic expectations for myself.

OK, time to grab some lunch…

I took a second to see if anyone had posted about their iPhone bills online. Oh yeah, they have — and this makes me really nervous:

And then this….

Of course, since then AT&T simplified its iPhone billing…

But I still really want to see one of those bills for myself. I’m worried not just about the detail, but about “surprise” charges that might be hard to spot and time-consuming to contest.