Life Management 101--All Work and No Play is a Waste of Time

With this post, Tuesday's Life Management 101 concludes our look at Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It.  This week, Chapter 8, "Mastering the Eighth Pillar--PLAY."

In this final chapter, Stack advises us to resist our society's push to "confuse your job with your life."  Another of her books--Leave the Office Earlier:  Do More in Less Time and Feel Great About It--deals more extensively with this issue.  But here the focus is on the rest, relaxation, and re-creation that we make room for when we tame the omnivorous work monster.  


As with the previous chapters in Find More Time, each centered on one of Stack's eight pillars of productivity, self-assessment provides the architecture.  (Stack's productivity quiz can be found in its entirety on her website.)  For me, this measure showed that Play was tied with Paper, together my weakest pillars.  My cheerless score resulted from rating each of the following ten quiz items as:   1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  My responses are in red.

To what extent do I . . . 

• Close the mental office door and turn off work each day.  [2]
• Leave work on time, so I can get home and enjoy my personal life.  [2]
• Keep my stress levels low.  [2]
• Rest, relax, and play daily. [1]
• Go on a long vacation each year.  [1]
• Create fond memories with the people I love.  [2]
• Have a regular family time with loved ones.  [2]
• Make time for a favorite hobby.  [2]
• Force myself to slow down and stop rushing around.  [1]
• Take care of myself on a regular basis.  [2]

In my humble opinion, this is Stack's best chapter.  She does a great job of making the case for play, and tells us that finding time to spend on "leisure, wellness, fun and stress reduction. . . is one of [her] book's main goals."


To me, her enthusiasm for this pillar was evident in the loving detail with which she described suggested approaches and activities.  As a play-challenged person, I was seduced by many of her recommendations.  I am especially eager to try her brief stress-management techniques, including this one:

REST YOUR EYES.  Try this one for instant stress relief.  Anytime your eyes are tired, like when reading or working on the computer, pause to give your eyes a rest.  Rub the palms of your hands together in a vigorous fashion to generate energy and heat.  Then quickly place your hands one over each eye socket, so that your eyes are at the center of your palms.  Let your eyes relax in this warm darkness for one full minute.  Instant relief.

or this:

BREAK YOUR FOCUS.  When you're stressing out over something, force yourself to stop thinking about it.

• Say or write the alphabet backward.
• Close your eyes and hum a song.
• Drink a glass of water in exactly twenty-seven sips.
• Close your eyes and think of a color.  Now picture seven things that have that color.
• Try to recall all the objects in your purse, wallet, or briefcase.  Write down as many things as you can in one minute.
• List six things you've enjoyed most in the last week.
• Picture a room in your home and write about it as if you're describing it to someone else.

For those of us who work in more standard employment situations, Stack offers some practical ideas for negotiating more sane expectations in the workplace.  It has been a while since my work life was bound in this way, but I found her thoughts useful.  It was, however, dispiriting to see just how deeply workaholism has permeated our culture, and how much strategizing is necessary to achieve so little in the way of self-preservation.  The trade-off I have made in stepping back from mainstream full-time paid employment has meant extremely suppressed income.  (I am fortunate that my husband's compensation for the workaholic efforts he wouldn't dream of giving up anyway allows me this choice.)  The gain is that I escape the usual strictures so many of us have to work with.  My challenge is to stop acting like my own difficult boss, and to stop flunking "play."


Stack strongly encourages her readers to take annual vacations, either involving travel or of the "stay-cation" variety; to create memories; to nurture family relationships; to cultivate a hobby; to stop rushing--by moving slowly, cutting back on commitments, scheduling personal days, and "seizing the moment"-- and to take care of ourselves.  All of these are things I need to do.


But right now, I'm going to try the eye thing.  So I guess I'm done with this post, since I won't be able to see to type with my palms over my eyes.

Life Management 101--From Pillar to Post

For today, and one more Life Management 101 Tuesday, we are looking to Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It for guidance.  This week, Chapter 7, "Mastering the Seventh Pillar--POST," is our focus.

In this chapter, Stack deals with Post in the military sense--one's assignment and set of responsibilities.  As with each chapter concerning one of the eight pillars of productivity, we start from a self-assessment related to that particular realm.  (See Stack's website for the entire productivity quiz.)   My score on Post--not one of my worst pillars--resulted from rating each of the following ten quiz items as:   1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  My responses are in red.

To what extent do I . . . 

1. Hire out tasks requiring a level of expertise I don't have. [2] 
2. Hire out simple chores to helpers. [2] 
3. Have goods delivered to avoid unnecessary time at the store. [2] 
4. Complete shopping efficiently. [3] 
5. Run errands efficiently. [3] 
6. Function efficiently as the social, child, and family coordinator. [2]
7. Do routine chores on a regular basis and keep my house clean. [2] 
8. Conduct preventive maintenance on my home. [2] 
9. Prepare meals quickly and systematically. [2] 
10. Expect family members to do their fair share of the housework. [2]

In general, Stack's vantage point on the subject of time management seems strongly a function of an upper middle class life style.  Her recommendations often rely on a level of financial prosperousness that allows one to purchase services and products beyond the means of many potential readers.  She makes a good, if by now standard case for buying help, for those who can afford to do so.  But ever since I held a part-time job cleaning a professor's home, and chasing pubic hairs around his family's tub, I have had a bias in favor of everyone doing as much of their own s_ _ _ work as possible.  It keeps us humble, I think, and provides a counter to the increasing class divisions in our society.  It also assures that most of the fallout of overcomplicating our lives and overaccumulating possessions will land right where it belongs.


And as a feminist, I resist Stack's assumption of the household executive role.  For example, items 6, 7, 8,  9# on the list above.  Not that I have done much better than she at functionally escaping this gender-typing, and the unequal division of labor that still applies in most of our homes decades after women were "liberated" to participate in the nondomestic labor market. But perhaps one of the reasons that Stack is a productivity expert, and I am something of an unproductivity ace, is that I spend more time than she seems to being troubled about this.


Politics aside, however, I agree with and had already adopted several of her recommendations, including:  consolidating errands; online shopping; farming out work for which I don't have the necessary expertise (like filling our cavities, wiring light fixtures, and replacing mufflers); relaxing cleaning standards; having a meal plan; and training my children to participate in household work.  I need to step it up a bit in some of these areas.


I especially liked the simplicity of her distinction between routine and maintenance chores.  It helped me to see that putting off routine chores can turn them into maintenance level jobs.  Stack also pointed out that maintenance chores can be scheduled when I can get to them--generally, unless I've allowed them to become maintenance emergencies, like the furnace that had to be shut down in the middle of a very cold January a couple of years ago, and replaced, after a freezing night.  I hope this categorization will have the effect of urging me to do better at taking care of the daily stuff daily.  


I'm not sure that this week's reading can be said to have yielded me more time.  But following some of Stack's good advice, and reinstituting some of my own good past practices may increase my peace of mind.  I suppose that could save me some angst, and the time I devote to it.

Next week, Play--the final pillar.  

---

# To be fair, Stack gives her husband credit for preparing most family meals.

Life Management 101--Where Did All This Paper Come From?

Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It is the current resource for Life Management 101 Tuesdays, as we make our way through her eight pillars of personal productivity.  This week, we examine Chapter 6, "Mastering the Sixth Pillar--PAPER."

Here, Stack provides insight and advice to those of us hip-deep in the dross of dead trees.  You know, the paper, paper and more paper that spills from countertops, obscures desk surfaces, fills our cars, and layers our lives.  As with each pillar, we begin our paper pushing with a 10-item quiz to diagnose the extent of our affliction.  (You can find the entire productivity quiz on Stack's website.)  I should not have been shocked that my score revealed a weakness in this area.  But really, I didn't realize my little problem was as bad as it is.  For each of the items below, I determined which of the following response categories was most descriptive:  1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  My responses are in red.

To what extent do I . . . 

• Consistently purge my files without fear.  [1]
• Create and maintain a filing system that allows me to find papers easily.  [2]
• Follow a daily processing system for staying on top of the mail and paperwork.  [1]
• Handle bills in a timely fashion and keep up with recordkeeping.  [2]
• Know where to put every piece of paper I receive.  [1]
• Handle phone calls and voice mail productively.  [2]
• Use technology to reduce paper and complete tasks quickly.  [2]
• Keep insurance, medical documents, wills, and important papers up-to-date and easy to locate.  [2]
• Use a calendar system to track family members' schedules. [2]
• Organize and keep up with my reading.  [2]

Okay, so I'm drowning in paper.  But what can I do about it?  And is Laura Stack's approach likely to work for me?  

I'm beginning to think the answer is no, for the most part.  Her advice involves the kind of total life-revamp, relying on complicated systems and routines that I used to find appealing, and to devour regularly.  Until I foundered on the rocks of what sociologists call praxis--i.e., application or use of knowledge or skills.  

I can't use a tickler file, as Stack prescribes, because I can't care enough about adhering to it for longer than a few days.  I can't stay on top of my mail, or the notes from my meetings, because I am regularly interrupted by one crisis or another before I can complete the necessary ministrations, the sorting, discarding, delegating, execution and organization.  I can't maintain even the most basic filing system because I would rather watch a basketball game with my family than shuffle through records, warranty cards, and insurance policy updates.  

I admire people like Stack who can accomplish these things, and have enough control to sustain the necessary resolve and focus to keep it together.  But the combination of prescription and my perfectionism strengthen my desire to avoid such undertakings.  Or maybe I'm just too lazy.

I would love to get out from under all the paper, though.  What I need is a much lower maintenance design.  A little less fairy tale, a little more down and dirty.  I think I'll try to wade through the diabolical Health Insurance Pile, maybe an inch at a time; go through the drawer crammed with meeting notes, agendas, financial reports, etc.; and aim to get all the new junk mail thrown out each week.  Far from the order Ms. Stack details, but probably the best I can do at this point. 

Up next, Post--one of my less horrible pillars.  (Stack's usage of the term "post" reflects her military family's understanding, meaning one's assignment and set of responsibilities, inside and outside of the home.)  Six pillars down, two more to go.  

Life Management 101--Indecision, Incompletes, and Insufficient Focus

Chapter 4 of Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It--the current featured resource of our Life Management 101 Tuesdays--is entitled "Mastering the Fourth Pillar--Pests."  Stack's book is organized around her 8 "Pillars of Personal Productivity," which means we are now halfway through our time-finding journey.

In her consideration of "Pests," Stack is referring, not to Wikipedia-defined pests, as in 

an animal which is detrimental to humans or human concerns. . . .  a loosely defined term, often overlapping with the related terms vermin, weeds, parasites and pathogens. In its broadest sense, a pest is a competitor of humanity; 

but rather as

the time-wasters and robbers that keep you from being able to accomplish your goals. . . .the 'termites' that eat away at [the] foundations [of our productivity]. 

So who knew "Pests" would be my second best pillar?  (Which means I'm relatively good at dealing with them, not that I am good at having them.)  Maybe it's because I've had so much practice in this area.  My "Pests" score consisted of the numbers associated with my responses to ten related items within Stack's Productivity Quiz.  (If you're curious about your own productivity scores, the quiz in its entirety can be found on Stack's website.)  I rated each quiz item on the following scale:  1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  My responses are in red.

To what extent do I . . . 

• Confront problems head-on and make decisions quickly.  [2]
• Complete tasks I start; don't let projects stall.  [3]
• Keep interruptions from wasting my time.  [2]
• Create shortcuts to get things done quickly.  [2]
• Combine activities and routines.  [3]
• Make good use of down time.  [3]
• Turn off the technology when with my loved ones.  [3]
• Know and avoid my biggest time wasters and distractions.  [3]
• Make productive use of driving or commuting time.  [3]
• Eliminate aggravation and save time when traveling or flying.  [3]

To be honest, I had some difficulty figuring out the classification scheme that led to these issues/behaviors being lumped together in the "Pests" category.  And once again, I did not encounter in Stack's elaborations any suggestions that were new to me.  I am beginning to think that the main value of this book is the opportunity to conduct its assessment, and to take a clear-eyed look at where my stumbling blocks are.  Like, all over the place, apparently.


The author describes herself as having been focused on efficiency and productivity since childhood, when her "Air Force brat" existence had her pulling up stakes every year or so.  She recounts the routines she developed for packing and unpacking, for making an instant home in each new bedroom.  She has taken this life-long learning and turned it into a business.  But while her lists and calendars and control mechanisms may work for her, it is starting to seem a bit too nervous-making for me.  


For example, in Chapter 4, Stack takes care to differentiate "combining tasks" (Good) from multitasking (Bad).  In her view, 

multitasking . . . is switching back and forth quickly from one task to the other.  Combining actually means you are doing two activities at the same time.

In my view, whatever you want to call them, both make it difficult to be in one present moment, both raise my blood pressure, and both lead to exhaustion.


Her list of time-wasting activities includes some of my own worst time-sinks, but also some things I consider extremely important to my overall quality of life.  (I'll let you guess which are which.)

• Television
• Hanging out around the refrigerator
• Lolling through the dailynewspaper
• Checking e-mail as it comes in
• Surfing the Net
• Staying in bed too long
• Playing with your pet or a neighbor's (!) pet
• Taking personal phone calls
• Running for coffee
• Taking naps
• Dealing with home deliveries
• Doing home chores while you should be working
• Running errands one at a time
• Reading junk mail
• Socializing
• Letting guests overstay their welcome
• Working in your home office when you should be with your family
• Scheduling too many personal appointments during work hours
• Shopping

I did relate to what she had to say about ignoring one's family in favor of technological devices.  But I am particularly sensitized to this issue by an iPhone addict who has very recently (yesterday evening) returned home from a long absence, and who just this morning expected me to share his attention with his little hand-held friend.  (It is not escaping my notice that I am especially enamored of productivity advice that seems to apply more to my husband than to me!)


Halfway through Find More Time, I confess that I still haven't.  But I remain hopeful. 
Next week, Possessions--my lowest-scoring pillar.  Maybe I'll locate some extra hours lurking there. . . 

Life Management 101--Just Don't Do It

This Tuesday feature will continue to draw on Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It for the next few weeks.  In Chapter 3, this week's subject, we consider  "Mastering the Third Pillar--PERSONALITY."  Five more pillars, and chapters to go.

As it turns out, "Personality" is one of the weaker supports in my productivity structure, as measured by Stack's Productivity Quiz--the strongest of my four weakest.  (Interested readers can take the quiz, on Stack's website, by clicking here.)  As I read this, it doesn't mean that I have a lousy personality, but rather that some of my "behaviors, habits, and choices" need "adjust[ing] in order to support [my] desired direction in life."  That seems apt.

My disappointing score on Personality resulted from my responses to the following quiz items, elaborated in Chapter 3.  I rated each quiz item on the following scale:  1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  My responses are in red.

To what extent do I . . . 

• Control perfectionism, realizing that some things are good enough.  [2]
• Refuse requests when appropriate.  [2]
• Ask for help when I need it.  [2]
• Avoid procrastinating on what I know I should be doing.  [3]
• Know and honor my energy levels throughout the day.  [2]
• Communicate clearly to avoid confusion and rework.  [2]
• Consistently meet and usually beat deadlines.  [2]
• Focus on completing one task before getting distracted by another.  [2]
• Maintain a positive attitude.  [2]
• Stop trying to please all of the people all of the time.  [2]

No surprises here, really.  Perfectionist.  Can't say no.  Trouble delegating.  Procrastinator.  Too frequently working to exhaustion.  Communication difficulties.  Never met a deadline I didn't. . . well, almost never met a deadline.  Task overlapper.  Princess Negativity.  People Pleaser to the nth.  Isn't that why I started this blog?


But what am I supposed to do about all that?  It may just be my dreary late-December mindset, but all of the advice that Stack packs into this section on personality issues related to productivity, or the lack thereof, seems to me to consist of variations on the word don't.  Just don't be a perfectionist; and don't procrastinate, multitask, be negative.  Just don't be the kind of person that has all these traits that get in the way of living what Oprah calls "your best life."


To be fair, Stack offers lots of practical advice, and it isn't her fault that I've spent a lot of my adult life searching similar volumes for the answer, so that almost none of it is new.  So I'll keep reading.  Maybe it will be like meditating.  I'll just put in the cushion time, or in this case, the page-turning and idea-processing, and over time some change will seep into my bogged down system.  


Next week, Pests.  Not vermin, but distractions, interrupters, and other such roadblocks.  In the meantime, I'll keep trying to have a different, better, more productive personality.

Life Management 101--Finally! Something I Don't Suck At

Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It  informs this Tuesday feature for the next few weeks.  Chapter 2, our focus for this week, is entitled "Mastering the Second Pillar--PRIORITIES."  If you read last week's Life Management 101 post, you are probably discerning a pattern.  The book has eight chapters, one each for the eight "Pillars of Personal Productivity."  And each chapter is entitled "Mastering the [insert numerical adjective corresponding to chapter (and pillar) number] Pillar--[insert pillar name]."  A clear, if unelectrifying road map.

But let's talk about priorities.  I'm especially eager to engage this topic, since "Priorities" was by far my best pillar, as measured by Stack's Productivity Quiz.  (Interested readers can take the quiz, on Stack's website, by clicking here.)  I guess this means that I'm pretty clear about what's important, and take some pains to address it, even if I'm not particularly disciplined or efficient about it.  (My less-than-stellar pillars, in decreasing order of wonderfulness, were: Pests, Post (?), Paper, Play, and Possessions.  But later for all of that.)

I achieved my quite presentable score on Priorities by responding to the following quiz items, which are expanded upon in Stack's Chapter 2.  Each item was to be rated 1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  My responses are in red.

To what extent do I . . . 

• Spend enough time with the people who are dear to me.  [4]
• Volunteer in a way that feeds my spirit and makes a lasting contribution.  [4]
• Eliminate time-zapping addictions from my life.  [3]
• Limit my children's activities to manageable levels.  [3]1
• Make my health a number-one priority.  [3]
• Exercise consistently.  [4]
• Enjoy the way I spend most of my day.  [3]
• Practice healthy eating habits.  [3]
• Get enough sleep.  [3]
• Make time to feed my intellect and continue my learning.  [3]

Of course, as with any static measurement of a dynamic phenomenon, these numbers are only as good as the day in which they are attributed.  Fluctuation certainly occurs for me around this apparently stable column.  And not only in the behaviors that are being assessed, but in the mood of the assessor, which affects my propensity toward grade inflation.  And even on a good day, there is room for improvement in the degree to which my actions reflect my so reluctantly crafted mission statement.  

You may be wondering why the sleeping/eating/exercising piece is a part of Stack's concern with priorities.  But really, it makes sense that if we don't maintain our instruments, we aren't going to be particularly good, or enduring as performers.  And as I move further into that portion of my existence when refurbishing becomes more of an issue, I recognize this wisdom.  Which is probably why I'm way ahead of Stack on this one.

I am withholding judgement as to whether or not I am likely to "find more time" by spending more time with this book.  With next week's pillar, Personality, we begin to move in the direction of my lower-scoring stanchions (although I think of myself as having lots of personality).  The chapters which deal with my more problematic areas may be more telling as regards the book's potential usefulness to me.   

For this week, I intend to rest on my fairly well-deserved laurels.  I will need the rest, as we head into the murky waters of my time-mismanagement foibles. 

---

1 I reframed this item to reflect the evolution of my parenting role, and gave myself credit for working to provide appropriate support to the adolescents still living in my house, and to pare down and simplify such commitments. 

Life Management 101--Finally "Womaning Up" to the Whole Mission Statement Thing

I am currently making my way through Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It.  Having plowed through the introduction last week, this week I read Chapter 1--"Mastering the First Pillar--PLANS."

And, although I have a master's degree in planning (urban and regional planning, actually, with a concentration in social planning--which has to do with social policy, not parties), I do not exactly excel when it comes to organizing my own life.

In this chapter, I didn't really encounter any earth-shaking ideas, anything I hadn't read before in my ongoing struggle to pull myself together.  But, as a friend noted in a recent conversation, it seems there are some things we just have to keep learning.  Every so often, I have to be exposed, once again, to the idea of lists--daily and master to-do lists; project task breakdowns; shopping lists; reading lists; communications lists.  And I need reminding that it might help to have some overall idea of what I am trying to achieve--dreams, goals (Stack calls these "dreams with a deadline."), and yes, a mission statement.  I'm not sure why I resist this good advice.  I imagine it has something to do with my split personality.  Though I am capable of logical, rational thought, a strong part of me clings to a "bohemian" identity.  It is this part who wants to recreate herself fresh each morning, and scorns predetermined activities.  But her results have not been everything even she would wish.  And so we do this dance, my selves and I, which brings us back repeatedly to the literature of organization.

Stack has organized her book with chapters that correspond to each of the eight "Pillars of Personal Productivity."  Each chapter is structured by the section of the Productivity Quiz which deals with that particular "pillar."  The relevant assessment items were to be rated 1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  They included:

To what extent do I . . . 

• Have a personal mission statement for my life.  [2]
• Maintain a list of my life's goals and dreams and make plans for their accomplishment.  [3]
• Try to gain flexibility at work.  [3]
• Keep effective to-do lists so things don't slip through the cracks.  [3]
• Break larger projects into smaller ones.  [3]
• Prepare for the next day the night before.  [2]
• Plan for chaotic transition periods during the day.  [3]
• Prevent crisis by preparing well in advance.  [2]
• Embrace flexibility and weather change.  [2]
• Continuously work to improve my efficiency and effectiveness.  [3]

I have included my response to each item, in red.  "Plans" was not one of my weakest pillars.  In fact, it was my second strongest.  Which explains why my composite score, which featured  one slightly weaker and five significantly weaker areas, indicated a need for "major repairs."

It would seem that these "major repairs" are going to involve a fair amount of "homework." (Oh, joy!)  Early on in chapter 1, I was instructed to put down the book and go through the steps of identifying important values; writing a paragraph for each of the three most important of these, defining it and specifying how I would know that I had lived up to it; and then combining these into a draft mission statement.  Thus, having earlier sidestepped Marshall Cook's mission statement admonition, I was forced to bite the bullet and come up with a reasonable facsimile.

This is what I wrote:

Family

            Doing what I can to make sure each member of my family feels loved and has the necessary support to make a happy life for themselves is important to me.  I want to do what I can to grow in my roles as mother and partner.  I want my family to be a haven for each other, now and in the future.

Justice

            As a neighbor and citizen of the world, I believe that I have a responsibility to work for justice for everyone, to lessen inequity, and to improve the life-chances of those whose circumstances are especially difficult. 

Creativity

            I want to develop and use the gifts I have to create meaningful and beautiful things that will bring enjoyment, solace and inspiration to myself and others.  

I can't say that I am particularly thrilled with this "Mission Statement."  Maybe the reason I have avoided writing such a thing is the same reason I don't get a tattoo.  I can't make the commitment.  I can't imagine a mission statement, or a tattoo that I would want to live with for the foreseeable future.  Of course, a mission statement is presumably more removeable, and the process of shedding one less painful.  But there is something belittling about seeing in print the limited business of one's life.


Anyway, now I have my very own one of these things everyone seems to be so enamored of.  It remains to be seen how this will contribute to my greater productivity.  First, I have to let it heal--and to avoid picking at it.