I don’t know about anyone else, but I am totally digging the zen slant to your posts lately. Have you been tapped by the wand of woo? Whatever it is, keep it up: it is most excellent.

Good advice - is is definitely something I will do. Fits right in with a discussion we had at work about the “urgent” versus the Important.

Very nice article, Merlin. I especially like, “Fixing a small, stupid problem that’s been driving you nuts for years.” It’s amazing to me when I write down my “small annoyances,” that they really aren’t small anymore because of how long it has been an annoyance. There are some really good things here to think about. Making time to do something that is worthy of attention (at the expense of some that are not) is actually a new year priority for me. Excellent job!

Bless you, Merlin. This post couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Thanks!

Perhaps Merlin has been hitting the wand of woo in The Book of the Way:

In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can’t be gained by interfering. Lao-tzu

Most excellent post, Merlin. Thanks for all you do to keep us on the path.

[…] One of the blogs I read on a normal basis, 43 Folders, has started a new series called “Modest Changes.” One of these “modest change” suggestions was quite simply “cancel something:” Our first modest change is to cancel something. […]

I am a recent reader of the 43 Folders and am very impressed with the take on things I get here. Good stuff. I especially liked the Hipster PDA! Maybe this is obvious to long time readers but not to a newbie like myself, but why the trademark on the phrase ‘Huge Life Change’? To what does that refer?

I really can personally agree (with nervous laughter) about having projects simply for “sentimentality”. You have to figure though that these ones specifically are that which we keep on our lists because they bring us joy (even if they’re no where near completion, or even the beginning stages). This is what makes it stand out. I have several of these idealistic projects.

These are mostly what my list consists of at this point. Would you say it’s worth putting at least one sentimentally-enqueued projects under “Column B”? What’s the best, if any, way to try and get one of these done?

Nice, I’m glad I was directed over here. One thing I would have to say is that I’ve spent the last year unlearning some of this. I went from being part of a team to be being the only person left. A lot of assumptions about urgent vs important or the ability to dump things actually hinge on there being someone else, normally junior to you, who will pick them up and complete them.

I’d say the biggest thing I have learnt in the last year, and I am far from finished even beginning to understand the challenges, is the skill of “do it now”. Often it means taking time out from my urgent and critical project to complete a small, apparently meaningless and certainly not critical thing. What I learnt to my cost is that all of those little items build up and suddenly customers and suppliers are complaining about poor service and you have absolutely no viable defence for not having done it.

I just dumped my inbox [I cheated on the DMZ thing and actually skimmed through, saving a couple things I’m working on, before moving everything out] — 19 emails instead of 1500 is much more inviting and I feel loads lighter. Thank you, I never would’ve gotten around to it without your post.

I’m going to try this list one next — I was using the tiddlywiki for awhile but let it go, time to restart.

Sadly, “something I feel obligated to do (but have no real interest in ever doing)” is the work project I have on my desk. It’s not that it’s not interesting; rather, the people feeding the project to me should’ve had it to me much sooner so I could have finished months ago while my enthusiasm was still high. sigh At least there’s an end in sight.

So my modification of this idea is to choose in the future to take one something that I would love to do, rather than another project like this one.

We had our old garbage can for TEN YEARS and I used it about a dozen times a day, allowing it to annoy me just below my radar— it was just ugly and disfunctional enough to irritate but not irritating enough to provoke action. Now that we have the nice new bin, tossing something into the trash is a neutral-to-pleasant experience, as it ought to be. I wonder what on earth I had been waiting for.