Tag Archives: happiness

Getting out is harder than getting in

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Here in the UK, or should I say specifically England (yay government unity… *massive eyeroll*), we’re definitely moving into the latter stages of re-opening our economy. From the 1st August even higher risk businesses will be allowed. Not soft play though, which is confusing given that everyone in government keeps banging on about the lower risk in the younger ages. Not that I’ll be going anywhere near one for quite some time.

So with that in mind, all I can keep thinking about is Jurassic Park. Just because you can do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.

The daily act of risk assessment is exhausting. As is the constant battle over the perceptions of others. Are you being too cautious and wasting your precious hours on earth? Are you being too complacent and therefore recklessly risking yourself, your loved ones and the whole of society? It’s far too easy to just swing from extreme to extreme, especially when you’re sleep deprived and a small child wants the door both open and closed and is having a meltdown until you manage to defy the laws of physics for them.

So… I am going to try a few things. They are all things that I was doing perfectly well before this happened, so I know that it’s possible.

  1. Keep writing. I actually completed what could be considered a beta version of a manuscript this week, done in small pockets of time during naps and before 5am. It felt good.
  2. Stop looking at the news. I hadn’t looked at the news for a very long time before this happened and now I’m always doom scrolling. It’s not good for my mental health and definitely pushes me towards the take no risks or we’ll all die! side of the spectrum.
  3. Avoid social media. Again, something I had mostly done, but somehow Twitter scrolling (if not posting) has snuck back in. I’d like to keep Instagram, but I have to make sure I only look at my following feed, rather than hit the explore button and have the algorithm feed me endlessly scrolling horror.
  4. Get outside more. The weather hasn’t been great here and it only takes a vaguely cloudy day for me to talk myself out of exercise. But then the autumn will be here before I know it and I’ll be kicking myself.
  5. Read more. I’m getting better at this again. If you’re taking bad habits out of your life, then you have to be proactive about what you replace them with. Nature abhors a vacuum. Reading is becoming my default replacement.

In keeping with my attempts at more control and optimism, I’ve finished yet another notebook that is mean and moody

and I’ll be replacing it with something more bright, optimistic and with a reminder that there is a world out there:

Have a good weekend everyone. Stay safe, stay healthy and stay sane!

How are you doing during the apocalypse?

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Wow. It’s been over a year since my last post. I think that’s the longest break I’ve taken on this blog since 2014. It’s hardly surprising though, given that since then I’ve:

  • had a toddler who waited until he was 23 months old to sleep through the night without a 2-3 hour stretch awake every night
  • had an office relocation which has added 2 hours to my daily commute
  • experienced a 9 week persistent cough that wiped me out from mid February requiring antibiotics (didn’t work) and a subsequent chest x-ray, but at the time wasn’t a concern because I hadn’t travelled to China or Italy (I still don’t know if it was actually an early case of COVID-19)
  • experienced a pandemic that has changed my role from full-time worker to furloughed main parent while my other half carries on as a key worker

As I write this, we are on day 74 since the UK went into lockdown. Even though restrictions have now been eased, as someone who used to work with healthcare data, I’m overly conscious of the statistics being presented to fit a narrative, so we’ve not really changed things that much. I haven’t been inside a supermarket since the 23rd March. I’ve not filled up the car with petrol since the day before that, so 2020 is doing wonders for my mile to the gallon. I know all of this because I’m keeping a few scribbles about each day for posterity in a specific pocket notebook.

My daily coronavirus notebook. Depressingly far through.

Despite all that, it has been a chance to reset. The first 8 weeks of parenting were the toughest (there’s a reason that this introvert isn’t the full time carer usually), but we’ve both settled into a groove now. It has taken me until the last 10 days to actually feel recovered from the commute and two years of getting by on 5 hours of sleep rather than my usual 8. Now, finally, I have enough mental capacity to step back and think about what life could look like in the future and even – *gasp* – write this post.

Several things have kept me grounded and allowed me to get here. The first is a gift that was technically for my son, but has kept me engaged and invested for hours – butterflies! We set them free today and it was a good reminder that life is both fleeting and fragile, but can also be full of wonder if you let it.

Podcasts have given me perspective, even though the amount of time I can listen has drastically reduced now that I’m not commuting. Favourites have been What Fresh Hell, The Mom Hour and Says Who? In fact, every time I listen to a UK politician right now, I hear Maureen Johnson’s voice: These are not bright guys. Things just got out of hand.

Thankfully, we’ve made our way through the food stuffs that we would never normally have in the house, purchased because, well, there wasn’t a lot of choice and with no guarantee of when we could get the next food delivery in the early days. And there is nothing quite like the fear in a parent’s heart when the nappy shelves are empty day after day, let me tell you. That will stay with me for a long time. But I’ll also be very, very grateful if that was the biggest hardship. Millions out there haven’t been so lucky, and I know it.

Stay sane. Stay safe.

GTD – Mastering Workflow, Mastering Life

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This post is the first in my series about mastering productivity from the perspective of a full time working mom of a toddler with a side business. That’s me with the side business, not the toddler. 

If you’re looking to be more productive, more effective and grow as a person, then there is a bewildering world of self-help business books out there to choose from. Some are fashionable for a year, others stand the test of time. David Allen’s Getting Things Done has been successful enough to warrant a brand new edition in 2015.

It’s always the book I recommend that people start out with. Not because it is a literary masterpiece, but because the methodology he describes allows you to sort out the little things so you then have the mental clarity and space to then deal with the bigger life questions. Books such as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People start with life purpose and other lofty aspirations. I really don’t recommend that as a starter for anyone. Ever.

Despite saying the GTD method is for everyone (and it really is), the book is nevertheless aimed at business executives, with the secondary motivator of selling consulting services. I’ve never had to worry about forgetting to get flowers for my secretary’s birthday (although in the 2015 version I noted that’s been changed to a less culturally charged ‘assistant’). With that in mind, I want to show you over this series of posts how I’ve implemented it in my work, personal life and side business as a writer, without the requirement for a corner office.

Since 2009, I’ve probably read Getting Things Done at least once a year. That’s what I’ve always believed anyway. When I decided to write this series, it forced me not to just choose the bits I was most interested in, or needed a refresher on, but really read what he was saying like it was the first time I’d come across it. I’m not going to lie: the chapter on Mastering Workflow took effort.

I’ve heard so many people say they found the material ‘dry’ and ‘hard-going’. I’d never really thought that to be the case, but re-reading a chapter like this, so early on, I can see why people got stuck here. In a single chapter, he gives you the entire methodology. The remainder of the book is the detailed ‘how to’. I’m a fan of the big picture, but this is intense stuff.

Luckily, it can all be summed up in a handy flowchart. Get a copy. Put it where you’ll see it. It will be more helpful than constantly going back to this chapter while you’re starting out.

© David Allen

I find it interesting that the flowchart remains unchanged, but the titles for the stages have been updated between the two books.

What next?

“Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it’s the right choice to trusting it’s the right choice.” – David Allen, 2001 Edition

Instead of being overwhelmed by this chapter, I’d suggest doing a quick assessment of where you are now. Some simple things to consider:

  1. Do you already have an existing tech or analogue system you need to use? There are some great ones out there that are designed with GTD specifically in mind, but learning the methodology can be hard enough without being distracted by a new tool as well.
  2. Are there some things you can do straight away? The 2 minute rule (see flowchart) is easy and doesn’t require any further support structures.
  3. Which area of your life is causing you the most stress? Ignore the work-life balance for now. If you’ve got a single project causing you problems, then decide if you could implement a GTD strategy just for that. If it works, you’ll find the momentum to expand out into other areas.
  4. If you’re like me, you don’t naturally trust other people to do what they’re supposed to. As a result, doing work that isn’t technically yours to complete can be the source of many feelings of overwhelm. Make a master list of things you are waiting for and then hand off those tasks. The list will allow you to control what you’ve delegated and you can check back in with people at any time.

“Basically, everything potentially meaningful to you is already being collected, in the larger sense. If it’s not being directly managed in a trusted external system of yours, then it’s resident somewhere in your mental space.” – David Allen, 2015 Edition

David Allen sets us up in this chapter for doing hard work. Getting through it separates the wheat from the chaff. He wants you to go all in on the method and promises a life of ‘stress free productivity’ and ‘mind like water’ as the end result. He’s also been quoted as expecting it to take the average person two years to really master the system. That’s a lot to ask of anyone, but I believe you can implement an effective enough strategy in a few months or even weeks. If you want to take it further then that solid foundation is one you can build on when you’re ready.

What got you here won’t get you there

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As I move deeper into a year focused on doing what matters, the saying ‘what got you here won’t get you there‘ (made popular by Marshall Goldsmith) has begun to resonate more and more. When life changes in some fundamental way, then you have to change too. This applies to career, family and everything that gets wrapped up in those banner labels.

What has got me here, certainly won’t get me there. Why? Because of that other buzz phrase right now, the one about doing things for ‘the season you’re in‘. Now that one resonates even more.

When you have a child in your forties – your first child especially – you suddenly enter a whole new season. The real problem isn’t that you have to adjust, it’s that, if you think about it, your seasons are now out of order. Another spring has followed summer and now it looks like your autumn and winter are probably going to be rolled into one.

I’m fortunate to have done so many amazing things in my life. I’ve lived in several countries and traveled to many more. I’ve had a few fulfilling jobs (and a few less-fulfilling ones). I’ve been employed, self-employed and consciously unemployed. I’ve written a book that received a best-seller tag from Amazon and plenty more that should never see the light of day. I implemented a successful morning routine and got my health in order.

Now I stumble into the bright lights of the office each morning and need to double-check that I really have got dressed. My morning boot up sequence has been cut from an hour to a maximum of fifteen minutes. Journaling has kept me sane – I refuse to sacrifice that. As for my health, I frequently fall into the spiral of no sleep = poor decisions + low energy. I am officially a different person to the one I was a year ago. A person whose spring is just starting and those seeds I’ve planted have yet to sprout into life.

What got me here won’t get me there. It will again one day, but not just yet. Those seeds will become flowers again at some point, but until then, I have to keep moving forwards.

But how?

I need to ask better questions. Create new routines, not just abandon old ones and let chaos reign.

It’s not as hard as it sounds. It’s also not a quick fix, super-easy solution. With my morning routine, there are some things which are sacred and others which were luxurious habit (see my previous post on streamlining my morning using the MD Paper diary notebook). Reading isn’t happening right now, but it will be again. I know that writing 1000 words each morning can be curtailed by sudden wailing, but I’ve become less fixated on the number and more on at least writing something. 400 words might not be as good as 1000, but it’s better than zero because I’m worried the baby might wake up.

This new season – I have to learn to go back to small wins. Small habits. What are the building blocks I used last time to build the castle. Which ones can I re-use? Which ones are the foundation stones.

I don’t have the luxury now of an hour to exercise in the evenings if I want. Not without compromising other things that now suddenly matter more. The lack of sleep means that I tend towards inertia at every moment of calm. The only way out of that is to remove anything that causes friction between myself and an activity. I’ve always advocated for that, but now I need to recognise just how small those barriers might be. I need to monitor and measure things that I’ve long since taken for granted.

So here’s my simple five step plan. I’m doing it and sharing it so that no matter what season of life you’re in, if it’s flowing along nicely or a momentous change has suddenly derailed you, it’s possible to make a change.

Make a conscious choice. Then make changes.

  1. What are the cornerstones you already have?
  2. What are the unconscious habits you need to let go of or change?
  3. What are the small changes – the tweaks – you can make that will have disproportionate results?
  4. What are the friction points stopping you from getting started each day?
  5. What are the goals, dreams and plans that you need to let go of, even if it’s just for now?

5 Tips to survive sugar free February

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Dry January (or Veganuary) is behind us. For some people, they fell by the wayside after day three. For others, they will have begun to instil the habits that could lead to a complete change of life. Sugar Free February is not just the health kick fad of calendar month 2, it’s also a great way to raise money for Cancer Research.

Copyright Cancer Research

Ready to take the plunge? Most people are surprised by how difficult it is to go sugar free. The reality that you have to do  more than simply cut out chocolate sets in pretty quickly. So how do you make sure you survive for a whole 28 days?

Before we get to specific tips, you have to define what you mean by ‘no sugar’. Are you eliminating any kind of sugar? Are you focused on fructose specifically? Or do you just want to avoid any food products with added sugars? The chances are that whatever you decide, it will still be a big improvement from where you are now. If you’re a complete newbie and only intend to do it for a month then I’d recommend simply avoiding food with added sugar (there’s lots of label reading in your future, sorry).

So what are the 5 keys to success and staying (relatively) sane throughout February?

1. Remove temptation

Your willpower is not as strong as you think it is. Having to consciously choose not to eat those delicious tasty treats every time you open the cupboard is both exhausting and likely to trip you up the very first time you come home late after a bad day. If you don’t want to throw perfectly good food away, then donate it to a friend or family member. If you’re planning to devour it in March, then lock it away in the garage or attic (or any other place you don’t habitually scour for snacks) until then.

2. Find Support

If you can’t convince anyone in your real life to come on the journey with you, then join an online group, browse forums, read blogs. Feeling you are not alone in those moments when you question your sanity about this whole thing can stop you from ramming a whole packet of cookies into your face in one sitting. A lot of people are shocked to discover how hard this is to begin with, even for a month. See the next point.

3. Be aware of the physical response to addiction

Urgh. My least favourite part.

Sugar is addictive. Combine it with fat in a treat and you’ve got an instant brain high that leaves you wanting more. That chemical reaction is something your body misses within a few days. The physical effects of sugar withdrawal are the same as any other addictive substance and people don’t talk about it enough. So go into this being prepared. Irritability, headaches, lack of concentration and sometimes feeling like you have the flu are all possible short term side effects of quitting sugar. My advice: be prepared.

Oh, and apologise in advance.

4. Plan your social life

Just because you’re quitting sugar for the month doesn’t mean you need to quit life. It does mean you need to plan in advance. If you have any say in the location, then choose somewhere that has tasty but low sugar foods on the menu (a sauce can ambiguously contain a multitude of sins). If you don’t have any control, then check out the menu in advance. There is usually something that’s allowed. Find it, make the decision in advance and then do not look at the menu again when you get there. Trust me, we’re always weaker in the moment, especially in those places that have actual pictures of the desserts to tempt you.

5. Remember why you’re doing it at all times

If you’re committing to this month to raise funds, then I salute you. Remember to salute yourself too. When you’re in the middle of a terrible day and your colleague brings in birthday cakes, remind yourself that you can say no because you are doing something awesome.

If you’re doing it because you hope it’s the start of a new way of eating, then avoid thinking about being deprived and think instead of the long-term outcome. Sure you’re missing that slice of cake now, but soon your clothes will fit better, your energy levels will be higher and your body will have had chance to clear out the processed gunk you’ve been filling it with for years. Keep your eyes on the prize.

And remember, if you don’t want to commit to a whole month without sugar, then you can still make a one-off donation to a great cause. Imagine if we could eradicate cancer mortality in our lifetime.

The Realist’s Guide To Sugar Free

How to quit sugar and stay sane in the real world.

MD Diary Notebook pros and cons

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2018 was a busy, complex year. In 2019 I’m going simple.  As simple as possible whilst still being effective. So when searching for a paper planner, that was my main focus. After a wide range of searches, I settled on the MD Diary Notebook and now we’re a few weeks in, it’s serving me well.

Why simple?

In 2018, my morning routine was too much to handle. Becoming a new mom meant I needed less if I wanted to get any real work done, but instead I somehow started to hold onto the morning routine as being work in itself. In short, I used it for procrastination, whilst still checking boxes and feeling good about myself. When doing my yearly review it was abundantly clear how little work actually got done. This year, my goal is to simplify everything in order to focus on what matters.

To give you an idea of how much I need to simplify things, here is a list of all the paper based products I used last year as part of my ‘routine’.

  • A one line a day memory book
  • A Leuchturrm weekly planner
  • Trigg Life Mapper
  • Midori Travelers Notebook and inserts (x3)
  • Pocket notebooks, e.g. Field Notes (x5)
  • A5 notebooks for journaling (x8)
  • A5 notebooks for creative projects (x1)

It’s no great surprise that traveling this year was nothing short of impossible unless I only wanted paper in my hand luggage. For this year, my goal is to stick with the following:

  • A one line a day memory book
  • MD Diary Notebook
  • Pocket notebooks for ideas on the go
  • A5 notebooks for creative ideas

That’s a serious cut and I still want to keep the elements that work. Journaling has kept me sane after countless sleepless nights and full time work days, so I don’t want to let it go completely.

So why choose the MD Diary Notebook?

Firstly, the majority of the book is lined pages, with slightly darker lines splitting the page into quarters. It allows me the free form elements to control the pieces of my practice, but the structure allows me to limit it to a single page per day. That in itself reduces the procrastination time. I’m not artistic enough for a fancy BuJo, but as Ryder Carroll himself pointed out in his recent post, it’s not about prettiness and social media likes, it’s about serving a purpose.

This gives me the pages I need without requiring me to brush up on my calligraphy, or having to draw out calendar pages. If you do like artistic and pretty, then the lined format is much less likely to work for you.

I use the first quarter to write down three things I’m grateful for, a positive affirmation and my main goal for the day. That then leaves me the remainder of a page to do a brain dump and get any nagging thoughts or events I want to remember in the future off my mind.

Monthly Calendar View

The MD diary allows me to combine my planning and routine together so that when I travel, everything is in one place. Each month has a square for each day, with a wide right-hand margin and further space at the bottom of the page.

Admittedly I have to keep my writing small and neat to make this work. Many would argue that it doesn’t leave much space for a whole month’s worth of planning, but again this forces constraint. Is it really going to get done this month or is it more of a wish-list item? I use a digital app as my actual task management system because I’m very granular (a typical GTD-er) so don’t need that space for long lists.

The Year View

The year view is also compact. Perhaps a little too compact for most people.

Again there is space down the side for important notes, but I’m guessing this section will work with different coloured highlighters and a key to what they actually mean in the margin.

Of course, form factor isn’t everything. There still needs to be sufficient quality and that is something I’ve always found to be the case with any Midori product. The paper works well with every fountain pen I’ve thrown at it, including a 1.5 stub nib with reasonably wet ink. Due to the space restrictions, the majority of users are likely to be writing with a medium nib at most, so I don’t see this being a problem.

General planner-procrastination observations

Last year I spent far less time on creative ideas. There were probably fewer A5 notebooks in comparison to previous years, but the ones I did fill were packed with naval gazing more than actual work. Similarly I used a LOT less pocket notebooks. Looking back, that was because I was firefighting for much of the time and my old GTD habit of capturing thoughts and ideas to put into my system began to slide.

So far I can completely recommend my new setup as a way to control the start of your day, but as is the case with these things, the true test is if it is still working for me by the time that second quarter of 2019 rolls around.

Sugar cubes, pudding tax, ‘New Year New You’ marketing and simplification

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The first full week of each new year is when I actually begin any planned improvements. I’m such an introvert that I need time after the holidays to process and set my focus. For those starting their resolutions on New Year’s Day, this is the tough week. This is where it gets real. I’m just starting out and there is something nice about that, even if it means tough is still lying ahead, waiting for me.

It’s no surprise that the first week of the new year has been filled with health related stories designed to tap into people feeling guilty for their holiday gluttony and determined (again) that this is the year they’re going to turn everything around. 

It’s interesting to see that sugar has largely replaced fat as the demon in the headlines. When I first began looking into the benefits of a sugar-free lifestyle in 2015, saturated fat – indeed any fat – was still public enemy number one. The change has been swift and is getting less subtle. 

That Public Health England are now focused on reducing sugar intake as one of the key ways of reducing the obesity epidemic is the main driver behind this. I’m under no illusions that this is an altruistic gesture. Obesity simply correlates to more occurrences of diabetes and heart disease (amongst many things), all of which cost the NHS money to treat. Regardless of the motivation, it’s good to see that finally people are starting to be told the truth about how much sugar is added to our foods by manufacturers.

Of course, depending on the media outlet involved, the presentation is different. Nanny state and tax threats drive some clickbait headlines, others provide a more balanced view. But the truth behind the message is the same across the board – we need to reduce the amount of sugar in our diets.

What none of it seems to want to focus on is how hard it is to actually make that happen. A few foods get targeted here and there as extreme examples,  but that doesn’t really help people with the everyday foods that have sugars added to them. The unexpected ones – those often labelled as ‘diet’ and ‘low fat’ – that catch people out.

More importantly, none of them seem to offer any insight on the simple fact that there is something addictive about sugar. Something that makes it hard to cut out sweets and chocolate, no matter how much information we have or how good our intentions are. This is the element that trips people up time and time again, myself included. Just one little taste, one bad day, can get us reaching for a sugar-based snack before we’ve even had chance to think about what we’re doing. Time and time again I’ve done this since the baby was born, eating in some sleep-deprived haze and having very little memory of when or how. This lack of intentionality is something I absolutely must address this year, hopefully with the addition of an extra hour or two asleep each night.

I’ll be experimenting with general simplification of my life to do this and if it works well, that will be something I share throughout the year. There is a certain attraction to achieving more by doing less, but it will be interesting to see if the promise lives up to the theory.

So below are some of my favourite headlines of 2019 blitzing those with resolutions to think about. Where there isn’t a link it’s because I simply refuse to give clicks to certain sources. That’s another 2019 resolution for all of us. Let’s not feed the trolls.

Children are getting targeted in the blitz, with the story that children have already exceeded their entire childhood quota of sugar by the age of 10. That’s 8 whole sugar free years they then need to do just to break even. A scary thought. But I loved Matthew’s sugar experiment with his family – this is the kind of visualisation that you don’t get from simply reading the labels and doing the calculations in your head.

Are we going to get a pudding tax? Some progress has been made with other foods but I think a pudding tax is silly. Target the misleading foods and the everyday foods first.

And of course, the thought that our government would be together enough to order anyone to do anything is implied by the Sun’s headline ‘KIDS will be ordered not to eat Frosties and Coco Pops under tough new government guidelines’. The actual story is about a set of simple recommendations, but why not get people in a defiant and self-destructive mood instead? See earlier comment re: trolls.

If you’re more interested in the information behind the headlines, including some practical and actionable tips on how to eliminate sugar from your life, then my book is a steal at only 99p on kindle. It won’t break the bank and may change your approach to diet and healthy living forever. I’m re-reading it now to remember my own lessons!

 

Not interested in changing your diet but itching to make other improvements this year? Then take a look at my book on Resolutions instead. Goal setting doesn’t need to begin January 1st. Why wait for tomorrow to become a better version of yourself? Not just for the next week, but with a strategy that lasts.

Sugar bans and freakshakes – consciously cutting down on sugar

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Last week it hit the news that Action On Sugar was calling for a ban on milkshakes that had an obscenely high amount of sugar. The Unicorn Freakshake on sale at Toby outlets was highlighted in particular due to it’s 39 – yes 39! – teaspoons of sugar per shake.

Image from Toby Carvery

Whilst banning a treat that contains over six times the amount of sugar recommended for seven to 10-year-olds seems like a good idea, it of course prompted reactions along the lines of ‘nanny state telling us what to do’ amongst many. There will always be people who will deliberately do something rather than have someone else tell them they can’t. But is an outright ban a good idea anyway?

To ban or not to ban?

I believe there is a fundamental difference here in the approach required to many other foods. Firstly, I don’t agree with an outright ban (which may surprise you), but I do believe that menus with this type of item should be very clearly labelled. The news presentation is different to a standard menu presentation, for example. 163g of sugar on a menu is hard for someone to visualise (other than ‘a lot’), whereas 39 teaspoons is much easier. That’s why newspaper outlets use the latter to sell their story.

More importantly, whether or not you label a freakshake with all the information available, people know they’re having something unhealthy when they choose it. Admittedly, they might not realise just how unhealthy, but they’re not confusing it with a side salad. It’s a conscious decision to ‘have a treat’.

Unconscious vs conscious eating

In my opinion, it would be better to focus on those foods that are significantly more ambiguous. The foods that people eat because they’re labelled as diet foods, simply because they’re lower in fat. The foods that catch people out.

I know countless people who have gone on a diet so have stopped adding a spoon of sugar to their tea or coffee, oblivious that the low fat yoghurt they’ve started to include with their lunch (must be healthy!) contains 3 teaspoons of the stuff – a net gain of 2 teaspoons for the swap. And you all know where I stand on children’s cereals – if you want to get anything banned there’s plenty out there that should be. Over the course of a week’s breakfast, people give their kids a freakshake plus in terms of sugar, often without even realising it.

So yes, we need to label better and maybe even ban or tax certain foods, but we need to choose our targets carefully. Bigger isn’t always better. The road to obesity and all its associated health risks isn’t a single freakshake every now and again, it’s all the other meals in between, eaten without awareness until it’s too late.

 

You can find out more about how to make more informed sugar choices in  The Realist’s Guide To Sugar Free

Five ways to create a flexible planning system

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As you may have noticed, there haven’t been many new posts here lately. It would be so easy to say that life got ‘busy’. In reality, life changed and the systems I had in place weren’t flexible enough to handle it.

Is your productivity system flexible enough to handle change?

Many people from a GTD background spend years getting their system to work just the way they want it to. One of the major strengths of the Getting Things Done system is that it is inherently flexible. There is no preferred tool and you can customise the set up to suit your needs and circumstances.

But once we find a way of doing things that feels right to us, humans develop an overwhelming resistance to change. The system might be flexible, but we become inflexible. Without realising it, I had found myself in this trap. Setting aside the time for creative thinking and writing of posts fell through the cracks as a result.

So how do we make sure that our systems are flexible enough that changes don’t bring everything to a grinding halt?

Don’t be wholly reliant on a system that isn’t transferable.

Whilst we all have our favourite tools (both digital and analogue), there is an inherent danger in being completely tied into one. It may have the best features in the world right now, but when it stops being supported and you can’t export your tasks and projects, you’re in big trouble. Frictionless access to your next actions is vital.

Separate life and work

For many years, people argued that when it came to life and work, it was all one and therefore only one system was needed. Whilst in some ways this is true, ‘work’ changes at a much faster rate now than when GTD was originally published back in 2001. Not only do we change employers much more frequently, many of us now have developed side hustles to cope with a crazy economy in a crazy world. If your system is all nicely integrated to your day job but that changes every few years or even months, then it can be a painful process to routinely unpick it all. With constant data breaches, companies are getting more and more antsy about accessing different tools on their systems.

Letting go is not the same as giving up

We can become deeply wedded to an idea of something we want – or think we should want – to do. When circumstances change, it may no longer be relevant. Sometimes it can hurt to let something go, or feel a sense of failure for not completing it. The end result is a system full of junk that you once wanted to accomplish, but now have no real intention of taking action on. Over time, this clutter can slow everything down until you stop noticing the things that remain important even once life settles down again.

Attractive tools that are easy to use

It’s a simple fact that the more you want to play with your toys, the more time you’ll spend with them. A task management system you don’t like will be a task management system you ignore. The same applies when things change. It might be that your app worked fantastically with email input at a time when most of your tasks appeared that way. But if it is cumbersome when you have to add a task manually and that becomes your new normal, you’re going to stop looking at and updating the tool pretty quickly.

Don’t be a chronic-optimist

When your circumstances change, the new tasks you need to complete take their toll on other items, even if they are seemingly unrelated. Learning new things and using your day in different ways tires you out in the beginning. This means a task you have been completing in 30 minutes at 6pm for years can suddenly take double that amount of time when you’re forced to push it back to 8pm and your brain is extra tired. Before you know it, you’re in backlog with tasks that you haven’t got round to. Like writing this post, for example…

So, after nearly six weeks of tweaking my system after my third major change in two years, I think I’ve made it slightly more adaptable.

Only time will tell.

The legacy of Roger Bannister

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Although it seems a particularly inappropriate time to say it, over the past few years I grew sick of hearing about Roger Bannister. Working in personal and corporate development, it seemed like every book or PowerPoint presentation wasn’t complete without a reference to the four minute mile.

As if getting someone in a suit to reach inbox zero was on par with breaking a time /distance record that had held since man developed accurate timepieces.

That record lasted less than 50 days before it was broken by someone else. The commonly held perspective is that once someone had proven it was possible, others could finally believe it and do it themselves. This is, of course, somewhat simplistic, as a group of runners were all hitting around that mark, but the story does have a nice ring to it.

For me, the real lesson to take away from Roger Bannister’s four minute mile was that he was an amateur. It’s hard to imagine in today’s world of professional athletes, where running or kicking a ball is a career in itself. That famous four minute mile run almost never happened because of bad weather. Harder to imagine is that Bannister came to do it after going to work that day and the success built on a training regime of sneaking in a mere forty-five minutes daily.

It’s not so much about proving something so others can do it. Instead, it’s having the grit and determination to do something yourself, even if it’s not your main priority in life.