House of Eratosthenes

Yesterday afternoon was crazy. I suddenly realized 1) I’m working on five things at once, 2) a lot of these things were put on my plate by somebody else, 3) because they realized I’m going to be clocking-out and hitting the road real soon, 4) and that nobody else can do it, and 5) I’ve helped them before, so why not hit me up with the latest crisis?

I suspect other people who actually get things done, have this problem at this time of year. I don’t want to disparage the people who were piling stuff on my plate, some of them were trying to be considerate and respectful — in fact, in one case, the crisis existed because they were being too respectful. I was the one in error, having procrastinated on their project too long. Nevertheless, there’s a problem. There has to be a problem if all this stuff is getting thrown into the pot, in “crisis mode,” at the eleventh hour. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Put the following up on the Hello Kitty of Blogging, before I realized it’s a better fit here. (The people who really need to see it have unfriended me and can’t see it; of course they don’t read this page either, I don’t think…but still…)

Two weeks from now people will be wondering about what resolutions they can make. I suggest these.

1. FRONT LOAD the effort. If the current block of time you’re using, as in right now, this very moment, is not allocated toward a defined purpose already, find something on your unfinished-tasks list that will fit into it. The time has to be burned somehow. If you have stuff that has to get done, burn the time on getting the stuff done. Simple, right? Procrastination is cute and all, but when it leads to consequences that impact others, that means you have taken it too far.

2. Don’t be a helicopter mom. Whup whup whup whup whup…don’t enable others. Helping is alright, but be mindful of when the targets of your help are ignoring consequences and ignoring deadlines, because you’re allowing them to do this. That means you’ve gone too far.

3. If you have found someone to be a valuable source of assistance to you, treat them with respect, not like some dumb beast of burden that hasn’t got anything else to do but stand around, chew a cud and wait for your next crisis.

4. Your observance of #1 and #3 should lead to this one: Think about prerequisites. Figure out what you’re going to need people to do. Do this early, so you can ask them how your latest need, should they choose to accommodate you, can fit into their schedules best.

5. DEFINE. I notice when collaborating with people on things, if I make a list of any sort I often hear this smack-down: “Looks complicated.” Or “You’re over-thinking it.” Or “I find it overwhelming.” Alright alright, I’m sure in a lot of cases I am guilty. Probably most of the time I’m guilty. But when the list is nothing more and nothing less than what it needs to be — five things that have to get done, and the list is of those five things — you will hear me offer a rebuttal something like this: “It is what it is, I didn’t make it that way.” The fact of the matter is, too many people among us have reached adulthood, taking on responsibilities, with other people counting on them to get it all done, without ever having learned to define what has to get done — let alone getting it done. They see a list of any kind, they turn up their noses at it, figure they’re too good for something like that, think of it as “nerd” stuff. THERE IS NOTHING OVERWHELMING ABOUT A LIST. It’s just a list! You want overwhelming? Lists are just the first stage. Man up, Nancy.

6. PRIORITIZE. If everything is important, then nothing is.

7. SCHEDULE. You generally should be doing the high priority stuff first, but that isn’t necessarily always the case.

8. PLOT AND SCHEME. When did these become evil words? Go ahead, be evil, plot, scheme. There’s nothing nefarious about figuring out whether the Dry Cleaners open at 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. This is the age of Google, sit down and do your research.

9. LEAVE THE COMFORT ZONE. Don’t be Beaky Buzzard!

10. Begin with the end in mind. What exactly is it you’re trying to do? Are you laboring toward a goal — see #5 — or are you just frittering away time doing whatever you like to do?

These are things we often don’t discuss, under the premise that it’s a person’s private business to manage his time and his projects the way he wants to manage them. The reason we think about it that way is we want to be considerate to others. But when people neglect this stuff, they end up being inconsiderate to others, so in situations like that, the objective defeats itself. And of course, there is nothing intrusive about suggesting New Years’ resolutions, even to strangers — if you don’t like ’em, ignore them. Just keep blowing deadlines, having crises, imposing on people who have helped you the most…

Further thoughts:

When you break #5 and don’t define, you offer a powerful motivation in others — the persons upon whom you are counting to get the work done — to break #1, to start procrastinating. Think about it: If they’re giving you solid deliveries so that they become your “go to” guy, then they’ve become someone else’s go-to guy as well. If you’re giving them things to do without offering specifics they need to do it, it just makes sense for them to attend to the other stuff while waiting for the necessarily details to, just maybe, possibly, somehow, materialize. It would be ludicrous to expect something different, am I right?

If the thing you’re doing involves the word “each,” or “all,” or “none,” then the thing you are doing demands a list. First thing you need to ask yourself is how many things are on the list. Ten? Twenty? Five hundred? If you don’t know the answer, then that means you don’t have access to the list yet, and the first step of your task couldn’t possibly be clearer. So are you at least in the process of making the list? If you aren’t, then you aren’t doing the thing, you’re just deluding yourself into thinking you’re doing the thing while you watch YouTube clips about cats, or playing games on your phone, or whatever.

Lists are necessary. Nobody is really too tender to work from a list. The next step up from a list is a sequenced list, and the next step up from a sequenced list is a matrix, or grid, a two-dimensional version of a list. That’s still entry-level stuff, and most things worth doing in life, if represented in a way that fulfills #5, are represented most accurately on a grid. If it pays money, and uses your head as something other than a hat hook, it’s going to involve performing each and every single one of X actions, upon each and every single one of Y objects. That is most work. The mundane sort. It can still be quite boring. The challenging stuff demands even more complex levels of tracking framework.

I do have to confess, in this bracket of life I’m fermenting a higher level of contempt toward people who balk at the supposed excessive-complexity of a list. I’m seeing it as the purest form of balderdash. I’m seeing it as, with the layers of bullshit stripped away, a confession that they don’t really do any work at all. I can hold seven things in my head without jotting any of it down, maybe, and that’s if I’m not juggling other projects, which I usually am. Seven. No more. You probably can’t hold any more than that either. How the fuck are you doing anything that involves more than seven tasks without making a list, you poser?

And on that note, I must make preparations to begin the day, lest I be guilty of breaking #10.

[…] Freeberg has some good ideas. Read The Whole Thing. […]
- DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » May I Suggest These New Years’ Resolutions | 12/18/2015 @ 08:02
Good list.
Number 3 really is the secret to a happy, successful life.
- bammit | 12/18/2015 @ 12:38
Agreed. Very true.
- mkfreeberg | 12/18/2015 @ 14:23
[…] 2015 Year in Review Proof God Exists Placemats Whom to Ask May I Suggest These New Years’ Resolutions Yanking Solutions Off the Table The “Hoover Vac” Immigration Policy The Brain-Damaged […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/30/2015 @ 09:16

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May I Suggest These New Years’ ResolutionsFriday, December 18th, 2015

May I Suggest These New Years’ Resolutions
Friday, December 18th, 2015