Sunday, September 23, 2007

Has setting goals become more challenging?

Why are setting goals more important and more difficult than they were in past generations? I can name to major reasons. First, people are simply living longer periods into retirement with better health and more resources than previous generations did.

The second reason is that people seem to have many more options today. It was not too long ago when people had fewer choices and fewer opportunities. Most aspects of people’s lives were determined by fixed conditions such as tradition, social class or race, limited education, or simply where they were born. For most of the population this dramatic growth in options is a recent development. But it will be increasingly common for an increasing number of people from now on. And the continued growth in computer and communication technology will only increase the opportunities and options in the future.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Am I wasting my time?

I recently read a book by Alan Lakein titled How to Get Control of your Time and You Life. I don't know how long it's been laying around the house, but the paperback version cost $1.95 new, so it must have been there quite a while.

The book emphasizes the need to focus on the truly important tasks and not let your time get taken over by less meaningful ones. One of the interesting pieces of advice I wrote down was:
Every time you find yourself working on an old or unimportant project, tell yourself “I’m wasting my time”. Do this often during the day if necessary.

Now here's a situation that brought up some interesting questions about applying this. This week while working from home, I found myself watching the Congressional testimony of General Petraeus on the progress of the Iraq surge. On one hand I'm a very strong advocate of insisting that citizens of our democracy need to make a real effort to keep informed on the important political events of the day. And the future of the Iraq occupation is right up there near the top of the list of important topics. However, given the amount of time that it would have taken to watch (and really pay attention) to all of the testimony, would it really have been better to read summaries of it in the paper, or catch the review of it on PBS later that evening?

In the end I decided, with some regret, that watching the live testimony and paying close attention to it was not the best use of my time. This is not meant to be a commentary on the quality of the questions and answers (though it could be). It's just that you need to accept the fact that you cannot do everything you want to do, and some activities though well meaning, are effectively wasting your time.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Life Expectancy Test

I just took a great little Life Expectancy test at http://www.poodwaddle.com/realage.swf It asks you various questions about your health, life style, family history, and then computes your life expectancy. In my case it turned out to be 82 years, which isn't bad. I actually expect it to be longer, potentially 100, because of medical science progress over the next 30 years.

I was curious to know which factors effected the results the most, either positively or negatively. Compared to the average person, I expected the moderately intense exercise I do (jogging) would be a real benefit. It only added 1.4 years to my life expectancy. My diet was slightly more important, adding 1.8 years. The biggest single benefit was that I am happily married, which added 2.0 years to my life expectancy.

The biggest reductions? Sleeping only 6 hours per night (or less) on the average knocked down my life expectancy by 2 years. Hmmm... getting 8 hours of sleep per night would actually improve my life expectancy more than all the exercise I do. That's unexpected, and good to know.

By far, the single biggest detractor was the amount of driving I do - over 20,000 miles per year. This dropped by life expectancy by a whopping 4 years. Ouch! That was at least double any other single factor in the entire test. Now I know where my greatest health risks lies.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Morning Affirmations

One interesting practice that I've heard recommended by several people is the daily morning affirmation. The idea is to chose one for you, then say it in your mind and give it some brief though when you first wake up in the morning. Ideally, before you get out of bed, or even open your eyes. Let it put you in the right frame of mind for the day and remind you how you want to live out this day. I'm still working on mine, occasionally adjusting it, but here's what I try to remember each morning on awaking.


I will let myself be guided by compassion, respect, and a sense of gratitude today.
I find that this can actually begin to make a difference if you make a conscious effort to keep it in mind when you make those quick little decision on how to act and respond to people.

Others have suggested that you wake each morning and try to envision a what a better world would be like. I find that takes a little too much mental effort early in the morning when I'm not fully awake yet, but maybe it's something to practice at some point.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Success with MITs

I've been trying to write down ~3 MITs (Most Important Tasks) for the day each morning for about 3 weeks now. Here's my success rate at actually accomplishing them so far:

1st week: 63%
2nd week: 64%
3rd week: 82%

This takes some practice, but it's beginning to pay off more. Some lessons learned so far on setting MITs for the day:

  1. Be realistic. There are occasions when spending time with the family or with friends is the most important thing you can do that day.
  2. Focus on truly important tasks for the long run. Less important daily to-do items belong on another list. I caught myself listing responses to a fairly routine email as an MIT, ugh.
  3. Be flexible. Sometimes there are good reasons to modify or remove items, or replace them with others during the day when something comes up. Just be honest with yourself when you do this.
  4. Keeping score each day for fun actually helps. I found myself staying up late just to complete a task and get a perfect score for the day (i.e. completing all my MITs)

This should be obvious, but to get the maximum benefit out of this, spending enough time choosing the right tasks can sometimes be the most important task of the day.