Mental Plaque, Deadlocks, and Parasitic Drag - the important trivials.
August 8th, 2007One of the challenges in the 80/20 rule, keeping the important few versus the trivial many, is that the trivial many at least for people like myself tend to collect in ones head, as just walking around the house, and reviewing the idea/todo list, there is a constant stream of perceptions which frequently require further actions (the thoughtfront). Reality being what it is, frequently the 80/20 rule lops off the majority of things, just not enough time or resources in a day. So instead of being marked as done, they are all categorized as ‘not now’…and frequently by the constant influx of things more important ‘not ever’. Worse, re-remembering that one can’t do it, is a constant reminder putting things from short term memory into long term memory, so I find that even once I’ve actually done it, there is a loop reminding me running in my head. Here are some examples.
- The toilet in our apartment doesn’t stop filling itself. I don’t have to fix it, but filling out a maintenance form, getting a hold of the manager is tedious, especially with deadlnes.
- There is a bank finance charge of $35 I shouldn’t be charged. I can’t really outsource tracking this down easily.
- Taking some furniture to get shipped, it’s not important but the furniture sits in my room collecting dust/space both physicallly and mentally.
- writing a post/wiki about this subject, it’s not important but it is interesting
Deadlocks
To top that off, many of these are deadlocks, I can’t outsource it because either it’s a ‘me’ task, or that take time and funds better spent elsewhere, but I can’t do it myself because that energy per my priority list, should be spent somewhere else, and I can’t forget or ignore it. These deadlocks are gordian knots in the psyche, they take up far more energy than their diminutive size might imply as they are a puzzles for the brain to constantly turn from different directions looking for a new way to solve (or get out of) it, only to find that’s not possible.
Parasitic Drag
Many of these together add up as is parasitic drag, and equally in that the viscosity of the mental world we move through, turns from air, to water then to maple syrup. This drag takes a toll on the ego, as one constantly running through a check-list of things one can’t do, is about as much fun as wading waist deep through buckshot…and subconsciously this is how things end up appearing (dread, fear) because somewhere every paper scratch and calorie spent moving is talled up.
We are motivated by what we can do, what we’d like to do but can’t eats into ones energy stores. Processing all these ‘not now’s below a certain threshold, I find myself, not wanting to move at all, and engage in escapism (overeating, oversleeping, depression, etc), which of course is horrible for productivity.
Detecting when this is happening isn’t always straighforward. For me, introspection won’t work, as gradual emotional changes at the time seem like ‘it’s always been and will always be this way’ even though I know logically that that’s not true. Journalling helps, doing the freeform ‘what’s in my head’ during the morning and evening, anything that last on their longer than 3 days I tend to reprioirtize to get it done, and allocate/batch a few hours or a day just to clear out as much as I can which is enough to clean the slate so I can focus again.
So even though it’s not the MOST important thing, sometimes budgeting some time and clearing out trivials is great for productivity. This is application of the rule doing what actually works instead of what should work.