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Monthly Archives: July 2016

Flipping the Switch (or at least thinking about it)

A lot of our big decisions in life are like light switches. We like to think we take the time to consciously decide but, more often than not, we don’t. We default to a yes or a no. Without a critical mass of momentum in the other direction we stay there.

Default “Yes” decisions:
  • Going to College
  • Getting a job and working for someone else straight out of college
  • Buying a House
  • Getting Married
  • Having Children
Default “No” decisions:
  • Moving to and Living in a Foreign place
  • Doing something radically different than anything you’ve done before
  • Doing anything outside of social norms
There isn’t one way that’s “correct”. There is, however, value in take the time to really consider what things would be like if you flipped the switch. You’re likely to notice more switches you didn’t even realize were there.

Cyclical, Frictional, and Structural

In economics there’s a notion that unemployment can be deconstructed into three parts: cyclical, frictional, and structural.

Cyclical unemployment is a result of the business cycle, the natural ups and downs of the economy. It’s largely out of our control and takes everyone with it.

Frictional unemployment happens when we graduate from college or leave a prior job; there’s a period of transition while we find the right match. Frictional unemployment is a byproduct of the process and completely natural.

Structural unemployment happens when our systems don’t provide workers with the skills our economy needs. Heard that one about jamming a square peg into a round hole? It’s like that.

This model for unemployment adapts nicely to how we think about all of our problems:

  1. Is the problem cyclical? Is the situation fundamentally good but everyone is struggling as a result of an unforeseen downturn?

  2. Is the problem frictional? Are you in a part of the process which is naturally difficult, either because you’re just starting or in transition?

  3. Is the problem structural? Are you fundamentally mismatched for where you are? Are you a square peg trying to put yourself into a round hole?
Cyclical and Frictional issues are normal, when they happen we batten down the hatches and ride the wave. Trouble comes when problems are structural, often because they’re obfuscated by layers of cyclical and frictional problems. This makes them hard to identify at best.

If all of your cyclical and frictional issues were lifted would you be happy and at peace with where you are? If no, consider finding a new hole, a new place.

Multitasking

There’s a secret to increasing meaning, learning, productivity, and happiness:

Don’t multitask.
 
With any negative statement, there lurks a positive. “Don’t X” implies “Do Y or Z”. Considering the two together bring more depth than either alone. In this case:

Be present wherever you are. Be doing whatever you are doing.
 
If you’re spending time with friends, be with friends (not on your cell phone).
If you’re answering emails, be answering emails (more importantly, if you’re not answering emails don’t be near your emails).
If you’re working on your creative project, be working on your creative project. Don’t get pulled away.

The real magic behind this is that focus is a force multiplier. Four hours spent on four things is FAR less than four blocks of one hour dedicated to each.

Be present in everything you do- the work, play, friends, and alone time, and reap the benefits of what you sow. Meaning and depth won’t come unless we create the immersion to allow for them.

Decompression

Athletes regularly plan time for recovery, both at a micro and macro level. They plan days off for muscle recovery and schedule larger chunks of time where they reduce frequency and intensity to help their bodies recover.

There’s no reason we can’t bring this to every area of our life. We need regular time for mental, emotional, and spiritual rest and recovery. It’s at this moment that we make new subconscious connections, arm ourselves for greater creativity, and give ourselves the room make grander revelations and leaps in life.

We should live our lives at 100, but growth happens at the resting in-between the stress.

The Seesaw

I recently heard someone say that clichés are underrated, that they often hide nuggets of truth that, upon reflection, help to lead a better life. It’s simply the act of dismissing them as cliché that deprives them of value.

All that setup to lead to something I’ve been considering lately: life as a balancing act.

The analogy of a seesaw seems most appropriate. We have so much to balance between the two sides: work and play, supporting and being supported, time for friends and time for reflection.

We never do it perfectly, but as long as we have a good self-correction mechanism we end up alright.

Sometimes, much like the bully on the playground, we lay our foot down and commit fully to one side. We become fully engrossed in our work and ourselves, forgetting to live the enjoyable parts of life. Meanwhile, more weight accumulates on the other side in a desperate attempt to self-correct.

At this point, mechanics allows for two options: Enough weight accumulates, and we get rocketed back to the other side. An aggressive self-correction to balance the bulk of mass, leaving us to commence the balancing act with our lighter load. This kind of rocketing may or may not be fun, but generally leaves us reconsidering how to balance.

The other option: The Seesaw breaks under the pressure. We become so out of touch with ourselves that we don’t even allow for the correction and we break. We burnout. We snap.

We almost always manage to put the seesaw back together. But the scars stay as a reminder.

A Reminder

This week got away from me a bit (evidenced by the afternoon post). A few things I’m reminding myself of as a result:

  1. Control only exists in our life to the degree we exercise it. If you let what others think- or what you think others think- direct you then you aren’t in control (although you can always take it back).
  2. Don’t create stories about what others lives are like or what yours “ought” to be like. Just live it.
  3. Presence, happiness, and meaning are about the long game.
I hope this finds you having a wonderful summer Saturday.

What you do, Who you are, and How you work

A product is not a company is not an organization, although they’re all inextricably related.

  1. A product (or service) is what you make. It’s the thing you provide to your customers.
  2. A company is the “who” that delivers the product. It’s not an intricate definition of who, it’s simply how customers and potential customers think of you. A company can be wonderful, but if everyone thinks they’re a jerk, it doesn’t matter.
  3. An organization is the internal arrangement of a business, how it does what it does. It’s the process used to make and deliver the thing. This is harder to see, but if you’ve ever worked for a larger company you know what this looks like.
It’s possible to have a great product with a terrible company or organization. Similarly possible that the company and organization are great, but the product itself isn’t.  Long term success is inevitably determined by how effectively you do all three.

At this point you might be thinking, “what’s the point?”. This might not seem relevant to everyone but, as with most models, there’s value in abstraction and cross-application. Consider how this relates to everything you do:

Your product is the work you do. It’s the outcomes you drive, the things you create.
Your company is you. It’s how people think of you, whether or not they enjoy working with you, and if you bring prestige and acclaim to a project.
Your organization is how you work, with others and alone. It’s your process.

Do you make great things, drive great results? Do people love working with you? Do people trust you to employ an effective process? These things apply to everything you do at both a micro and macro level, no need to reserve it exclusively for businesses.

Purposelessness

We live in a culture that’s obsessed with doing things, with going somewhere, with achieving. Sometimes, the most wonderful moments in life come when we abandon purpose, when we give ourselves the space to aimlessly wander.

We don’t always need to be going somewhere. Take time to stop and smell the roses. Abandon intent. Go for a walk to nowhere in particular, and see what happens.

Note, your life doesn’t have to be devoid of purpos for you to have purposeless moments. Quite the opposite: a life full of purpose can yield the most beautiful moments of purposelessness.

Being vs. Feeling

It’s easy to view our emotions as a source of unalienable truth. They’re embedded through millennia of evolution, a beacon guiding us toward survival. The reality is that they’re more indicator than anything else, and oftentimes bad ones at that.

Fear, for instance, evolved as a way to help us get and stay out of life threatening situations. Think through your life- how many times have you felt fear, and in how many instances was your life actually threatened? I’m willing to bet there’s a low correlation between the two. Fear may have been evolutionarily useful, but our environment has changed. Evolution takes time to catch up.

If we understand and accept this to be true, we can see that our emotions are not necessarily an accurate indicator of how we actually are. You might feel fear, but that doesn’t mean you ought to be fearful. It doesn’t mean that there’s something worth being afraid about.

Try this: the next time you find yourself feeling a negative emotion, substitute the world “am” for “feel” in your internal dialogue. Rather than “I am sad”, try “I feel sad”. Rather than “I am afraid”, try “I feel afraid”. One makes you a slave to your emotions, while the other acknowledges that they’re just an indicator- perhaps a false one.

The ways we hide

It’s easy to hide. When we’re looking to avoid the real issues, we default to any number of things:

  1. Work. We bury ourselves in it. We blindly do. We put our heads down and don’t give ourselves time to consider what we really need to be doing.
  2. Speak. Aimlessly and endlessly. We speak anything but what needs to be said, about anything but what needs to be done.
  3. Think. About anything. Critically, so it feels like it’s productive. Maybe even think about what needs to be done, but clearly with no intent for action.
  4. Resign. Submit to the situation. Believe there’s nothing that can be done. Believe that we have no control over the situation or how we feel about it. Accept defeat.
Sometimes we do it without even realizing it. How do you feel when you’re not working, speaking, or focused on the task at hand? Are you using those to hide?