As I ascended Mt Shasta the words of John Gray, our leader, echoed in my mind.  He had told me to just keep focusing on taking one step at a time.  When mountaineering, it is of utmost importance to pace yourself, rest if you need to, and keep focused on just putting one foot in front of the other.  If you keep doing those things, you will get to the top.

Through the last few months, a continual process for me has been to refine and simplify my way of doing things.  I have had to figure out how, in the absence of external motivation, to keep myself going.  I have tried multiple organization and project management methods, and multiple programs and accessories to aid me with that organization.

The realization I have come to is this: I just need to put one foot in front of the other, and focus on that.  It seems simple really, but here’s how I have been able to apply that idea to my specific way of doing things.

Getting Things Done as a Motivational Tool

First, I have been implementing the steps of David Allen’s Getting Things Done that I discussed in an earlier post.  Far and away the most important aspect of that for me has been breaking down each and every project into specific action steps.  The are the equivalent of bite-size project morsels (damn I think I just made myself hungry for desert).  Each of these steps isn’t necessarily simple, but they all are completable within a fairly short block of time once begun.

Why is this so motivational?  For me, I no longer look at my projects and find myself lost in a sea of uncertainty about what to do next.  Every week I spend time planning what to do next, and then the rest of my time is spent doing smaller specific steps, and then checking those off my lists when I complete them.  It is intensely gratifying to me to be able to knock off several things within a day, and I feel good about myself and what I have accomplished by being able to see all the things that I have done.

I use a free online program (named Tracks) to organize and track all of my projects and action steps.  It’s simple visual layout makes seeing my next action steps and projects easy and encapsulates everything in one place.

So I am hopeful that I will be able to maintain this mindset, keep my progress going, and have great results.  I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

This year, I’m not working for a company that grants me vacation time.  I’m working on Aaron-time.  Sometimes I think Aaron lets me have too much time off from work.  So the question then is: how much holiday vacation do I allow myself to take?  Should I set some days aside that I use to completely divorce myself from any thoughts of work?

I guess I will probably end up working the whole time through the holidays, just not as much as I would normally, and not on any kind of real schedule.  I keep thinking that I’ll feel guilty about that though.  When I had vacation from work I didn’t feel guilty in the slightest about not working.  Now I will, because I still haven’t gotten anything concrete up and running and I desperately need to.  Either that or get a part-time job… *ugh*.

If you, like me, are prone to lose perspective on this then I have a piece of wisdom for you. And this comes from a source much, much wiser than myself: Aesop (he of the many fables.)

Here’s one of my favorites:

The Miller, His Son, And Their Donkey

A MILLER and his son were driving their Donkey to a neighboring fair to sell him. They had not gone far when they met with a troop of women collected round a well, talking and laughing. “Look there,” cried one of them, “did you ever see such fellows, to be trudging along the road on foot when they might ride?’ The old man hearing this, quickly made his son mount The Donkey, and continued to walk along merrily by his side. Presently they came up to a group of old men in earnest debate. “There,” said one of them, “it proves what I was a-saying. What respect is shown to old age in these days? Do you see that idle lad riding while his old father has to walk? Get down, you young scapegrace, and let the old man rest his weary limbs.” Upon this the old man made his son dismount, and got up himself. In this manner they had not proceeded far when they met a company of women and children: “Why, you lazy old fellow,” cried several tongues at once, “how can you ride upon the beast, while that poor little lad there can hardly keep pace by the side of you?’ The good-natured Miller immediately took up his son behind him. They had now almost reached the town. “Pray, honest friend,” said a citizen, “is that Donkey your own?’ “Yes,” replied the old man. “O, one would not have thought so,” said the other, “by the way you load him. Why, you two fellows are better able to carry the poor beast than he you.” “Anything to please you,” said the old man; “we can but try.” So, alighting with his son, they tied the legs of The Donkey together and with the help of a pole endeavored to carry him on their shoulders over a bridge near the entrance to the town. This entertaining sight brought the people in crowds to laugh at it, till The Donkey, not liking the noise nor the strange handling that he was subject to, broke the cords that bound him and, tumbling off the pole, fell into the river. Upon this, the old man, vexed and ashamed, made the best of his way home again, convinced that by endeavoring to please everybody he had pleased nobody, and lost his Donkey in the bargain.

Who among us hasn’t found him or herself in a situation where juggling responsibilities and priorities seems like a daily struggle?  How do you step back from those things you have offered to do so that you can focus only on what is most important?

After I left (escaped!) my job, the thing I wanted most immediately was a bit of time to relax and be completely irresponsible.  I didn’t want to worry about doing anything at all.  I suppose that’s what most of us want when we get away from work or go on vacation – a chance to leave the cares and worries that are swirling around constantly in the background of our minds, and to just focus on relaxation and being in the moment.  So, with my new freedom, I thought about all the things that I could do without the tether of a job tying me to one location.  And for a while, I relaxed a bit a went on some short trips.  I rode on Space Mountain for the first time in 15 years, and hiked in the mountains around Lake Tahoe.

All too soon, however, I found myself volunteering and agreeing to take responsibility for things which really should have been secondary to my main goal – starting a business and focusing on myself.  And with a creeping certainty, those commitments began to take up more and more of my time; they began to eat away more and more of my mental energy.

So it goes with me it seems.  I often find myself oscillating between doing too little and taking on too much, always struggling to find the right balance that will let me be calm yet productive, to take care of myself and also give back to others.

Today my renewed focus is on figuring out what combination of things works best for me and will make me most happy.  I hope you find this balance in your own life.

All ramblings aside, about a year ago I read a book by David Allen called Getting Things Done.  It’s (surprise!) a book on productivity.  And it’s much more than concept.  It is chock-full of ways to be more organized and productive, and contains detailed instructions to implement David’s very well thought out system, known as GTD (getting things done.)  

What makes the system in the book so appealing is that it present a way to organize all of one’s projects and “to do’s” into a comprehensive system that allows you to free your mind from the mental burden of worrying about projects all the time.  The idea is this: write every single thing you need to do down in one place, think about the desired outcome, plan the next actionable step, and then figure out what is most important to do next.  Once everything is down in a list you can refer back to on a regular basis and update, the “open loops” of worrying about things in your mind can be removed, and a person can get into a zen-like state of working on only what is most important right then, without having to be concerned about what isn’t getting done.

At least that’s the idea.  I never did any of the things in the book the first time I read it.  But I’m changing all that with my second read-through, and I have to say that after just a short session of listing a few things that have been on my mind, thinking about what the best possible outcome is and then writing the very next step I can take to get to that outcome, my spirits were lifted and I felt better about things.

So, for anyone who ever has forgotten a bill, who has ever stayed awake at night worrying over something, I recommend this book to you.

Sometimes I get confused about what to do next too, Mr. President.

Just don’t follow my lead by reading and forgetting.  Read and do.

Maybe he’ll let me work for him…

Maybe I just discovered that I have no creative juices flowing at 9pm and I shouldn’t be blogging now. Maybe this was a really boring post.  Hrmm.

Not so much anymore.

I have escaped the 9-5.  Now I have to deal with the 12-12.  And the Monday-Sunday.  Because when inspiration hits me, I can either grab it and ride it for all it’s worth regardless of the time and day, or I can ignore it – possibly to lose that idea or thought forever.

So right now it’s Friday night.  Back to work.

It’s tough enough to deal with fighting off the urges to surf all of the internets and to rock the Nintendoes without having to manage blogging time management as well. *sigh*  Well, I did it to myself, so I have no one to blame but me.

Back to work!

^ aaron playing videogames working

Harnessing Entrepreneurial Manic-Depression

The Entrepreneurial Mindset