If you notice yourself running to every event, it is a sign that you are reacting.
Reacting is easy because it takes our agency away. The systems we’ve grown up with train us to follow every notification and expect everyone else to do the same.
I can’t remember the last time I did something worth running for.
Can you?
I’m not a betting man, but I bet parachutes aren’t on your mind.
In fact, I’m sure that you haven’t thought about parachutes in a long time. I am betting that you are like me in a sense that you don’t ever think about parachutes.
Well, rarely.
The only time I think about parachutes is when I am on a plane.
You know what would make me obsess about parachutes?
If I jumped out a place.
That is a forcing function.
A forcing function is a tool that forces a decision some kind. And they are powerful.
They don’t have to get to life or death though for effectiveness.
Let’s bring the camera in a little more to something that isn’t so extreme; your alarm clock.
Alarm clocks force you to decide as they go off. It isn’t a life or death decision (most days), but it is useful in making you decide.
You might select snooze, but you do decide.
There are frameworks like the LEAN Framework that build on this concept to help people do amazing things.
I want to make things even simpler.
There are two tools that you can build into your starting small toolkit that will push you further. They both work with reminders and deal with uncomfortability.
Forcing Deadlines:
For your idea, select a date for you to do something public with what you learn. (Reminder)
When you decide the time, tell your friend that remembers EVERYTHING (we all have one, it was the person you didn’t want to tell when you read “tell”). (Forcing Function)
ex. I want to learn how to write HTML, I promise to make a website for my photos by November, I am going to tell Bobby along with the date.
Forcing showing your work:
When you work on something, use a Porodomo timer. (Reminder)
During the “long break,” snap a picture of what you are doing and put it on Social Media. Start an anonymous Twitter handle if you worry about identity. (Forcing Function)
The altMBA is powerful.
When I started writing this, that is the first thing I thought of, so I figured why not start with it? The program was a rousing success for me. I learned a ton of tactics that change the path of the projects I engage in. I learned how to ask better questions and how to give feedback.
There was one change that may have set my life in a different direction, and that is the idea of “direction” (no pun intended).
Before doing this program, I was a ball of energy with nowhere to go. I often sat, shaking, generating, but with no way to understanding of direction I missed making a real impact. I dismissed it.I made it a point to avoid direction at all cost because it felt wasteful. Even in my first post in the program, I dismissed goals.
Now, because of the work of altMBA, I have changed.
When I did the work, and saw how powerful asking the question “Who is this for?” was, and how much clarity that question had when it’s asked earnestly and with an open mind, it was shocking. This led me down a path of understanding someone’s world view. I’m now more particular about the transformation I want to make. Most importantly, I’m shipping more impactful work in a much shorter time.
Direction is a force multiplier, and with this new strategy regarding my work, I can’t wait to see what’s next.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been sick.
As a kid, I used to get sick often, about once every 2 months. It used to come like clock work. Some of it was self-induced (imagine giving yourself stress headaches in the third grade…) . I got used to the idea of sickness. I had methods and a plan. By the time I got to college I had a “sick kit” always ready. I walked with Dayquil at all times.
In the last year or so since I decided to eat better, I stopped getting sick. In fact, before this week, the last time I remember getting a cold was early last year, January of 2015. I ended up getting confident. I threw away most of my medicine. When my roommate was sick, I didn’t care. I used to laugh, because he made light of my decision to not wear a coat this winter and swear I would catch a cold. I would just watch him get sick at the usual rate.
Well, my ego caught up with me and I caught it this week.
I forgot how debilitating it is. When you are in the middle of the worst of it, it feels like a mental and physical block. Your reserves are done. You can’t think. You are in pain.
It sucks. I learned something.
I had several ideas on what to write today.
But nothing is sticking enough to put down. It isn’t that I have writers block, it’s that the ideas aren’t formulated enough to get put down. If I sat here any longer, I am sure I could come up with another 15 or 20 ideas to put down that interest me in the moment.
I want to try an experiment. I can’t run away from these ideas. I want to force myself to write to these ten ideas over the next ten days. I don’t want my mind to change in midstream.
How do I react when there are expectations, and I can’t maneuver as a writer to write what I want? The experiment begins now.
Yesterday I tried Highrise. Highrise is a CRM (customer relationship management) tool that helps keep track of the people you meet. I signed up for the free option, looked at the tools, and got excited. I wanted this tool to systematize my follow-up, and it looked promising.
After adding my contacts, I went into my account and turned on a feature that automated adding contacts to my Highrise account. It seemed non-intrusive enough, add a bcc (thank you Outlook Macros) to every email and it would get the account. You also connect your Gmail account, and voilà – everyone gets sorted into the software.
I thought I could set it and forget it, and I ended up breaking one of my new rules: segmentation is king. I didn’t realize how much email I receive in a day, and this captured everything. Without segmenting and keeping a tight leash around what I let in or out, I opened the floodgates. In two days, it went from working fine to sending everyone that I correspond with an error message.
It didn’t look good, and it served as a great reminder of that lesson of segmentation, and it reminded me that lessons come in the form of annoyances.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 