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entries for 2002/7/27
vision
You know, there's a huge mental gap between my daily actions and my mission statement. This book I'm reading (The Fifth Discipline) mentions mission statements breifly in one chapter, and points out that they're meant to be rather abstract. When I read that, something clicked in my head.
My mission basically says, I'll keep myself healthy both mentally and physically, be nice to people, build a good business, and give something back to the world. Well, I still agree with all that, but it's rather generic, isn't it? I mean, I know for a fact that several people have based their own missions on it, and my life is nothing like theirs. I don't mention cornerhost, or software. I don't say "I'm going to run" or "I'm going to lift weights". It's all just generic.
On the other hand, my daily actions tend to stem from the email I get and what I've put on my to-do list. They're either reactions to problems or steps toward goals. Most of those goals are also reactions to problems. A handful stem from a vague notion of what
I want in the future.
Inside my business, I'm starting to have a better idea of where things are heading, especially now that I've come up with the gameworld idea. But outside my business, I really have no clear vision.
I think that's part of why my business seems to have taken over my life. When I really sit down to think about it, I realize I'm not working 24 hours a day. I do all sorts of things during the day between answering emails. I take phone calls. Eat lunch. Daydream. Read. Surf the web.
Stephen Covey points out that tasks expand to fit the time allotted. Well, I've pretty much handed ALL my time over to my business. Why should I be surprised that it seems like so much work?
But the thing is... When I have free time, I don't know what to do with it. I usually pick up a book or start working on a "just for fun" project. Every once in a while, I get obsessed with a project, and start neglecting my work the next day. And then I wind up with a small backlog, and pretty soon I'm overwhelmed. So instead, if I have free time, I either wind up wasting it, or I just keep working.
I think that perhaps a better way to deal with a clean worktime/freetime separation would be to have a strong vision that kept me focused, and a well-thought-out schedule to manage my time.
In the past, I've tried scheduling my whole week, setting aside certain hours for certain specific tasks, the way 7 Habits prescribes. I found it hard to make that work. Getting Things Done goes so far as to say you should never do that, and that your calendar should contain only things that must get done on a certain date, and not before or after (scheduled meetings, for instance).
I want to try a hybrid approach. Where I schedule certain hours as times to work on certain areas, but take my pick each day from my next actions database. For example, I want to spend 9am-10am working on cornerhost automation every day, but what actual task goes in that slot will vary from day to day.
When I worked out a schedule like that, I realized I can get up early, work out, review my goals, answer my personal mail, have breakfast, and then go to work. (I'm used to reading my work email first thing in the morning). I can also make sure I get the "important but not urgent" stuff in early, so even if the rest of the day is spent answering mail, I've at least moved forward a bit. But then, if I spend 2 solid hours answering mail, I'll probably get it done. Then I can work on marketing for an hour. Then an hour on paperwork like bills and keeping the books. Then answer mail some more. By the time 6pm rolls around, I can stop working.
I created my "scorecard" spreadsheet for next month with just that schedule, and realized I really could make it work and probably finish early most days.
So then I started thinking about what I'd do between 6pm and bedtime. Right now, I put a checkbox for "work an hour on montybot" and another for "spend an hour on any actions in the next actions db" (or in other words, work on any goal, whether it's work related or not). That still leaves at least two hours just for fun.
Here's the thing. I know I'm taking those two hours already. I'm probably taking 6 or 8 or 10 every day, broken down into a couple minutes here, a half hour there... And with nothing to show for it.
But when I think about having four hours of "free time", every day, I start getting nervous. Yeah, I'd love to spend more time with my friends and do more fun things... But four hours a day? That's 28 hours a week!
Working for the sake of working is just as much as waste of time as playing video games or watching TV. Ditto for letting work expand to fill the day. Or doing anything that doesn't enrich your life in some way.
I guess if I just worked all day, and then at the end said, "well, now I've got a few hours to kill", I probably would waste them. But if I kept a list of fun experiences I wanted to have, then at the start of the day, I could pick something of the list and say "hey! this is what I have to look forward to tonight!"... If I did that, I'd probably have a much more interesting life. In fact, now that I think about it, most "fun" people I've met plan their fun like this, at least informally. It's not that they're not spontaneous (they often are), it's just that they take fun seriously!
All of this comes down to the question, "What kind of life do I want to live?" That's a huge question, and if I had an answer, I'd probably change it every day. But maybe instead of just setting goals for the day or week or month, I can spend a little time thinking about what it would take to make each day, week, or month really really great. In other words, rather than setting goals based on current problems, I should create a compelling vision first, and basing my goals on that vision... I do that sometimes, but not nearly enough.
Another aspect of a vision is it answers the question "how much"? For example, I like games like chess and go. I'd like to play chess with my dad more often. I'd like to find someone to play go with. But I don't want to be a grandmaster, or even a great player. I just want to have fun.
Likewise, I want to get in shape. But I don't want to be bulging with muscles and have my veins popping out of my skin. Yuck! I don't even like lifting weights. I don't really like team sports, but I'd play tennis if I had someone to play with. And I like to run, though I need to develop stamina. I used to love biking, back when I had a bike. I'd love to go rock climbing in the mountains or kayaking down some river. Why not focus on things I enjoy? My mission says be healthy, and my goals say weigh X pounds, but without a vision of doing it and having fun, my brain just says "why bother?"
Okay, enough thinking... Time to go write a vision statement. :)