Out of the Newsroom

If you have ever wasted some quality time watching one of those “nature” type shows or something old school from National Geographic, chances are that you have seen something about the idea of how creatures learn. Every life form above the lowly slug seems to have something close to the idea of intelligence, and of course the king of the mountain when it comes to the intelligentsia of our world would be–the human being.

So that would basically lead us to believe that Man (and yes, I mean that as hu-man, thus including both Man and Woman, so there is no sexism implied by the term) is intelligent enough to learn new things. We should be able to recognize in that child-like fashion of discovering when something is bad for us, and to not do that bad thing again. (As in not touching the stove when it is on and hot, thus not getting burned.)

Thus it is a simple paradigm: Man is a learning creature. Or at least he is supposed to be.

One quick diversion here: This line of thought should not in any way be applied to affairs of the human heart. There is no logical progression to be applied in that area. In no way should anyone assume that we are learning creatures when it comes to anything that has to do with love, sex, jealousy, attraction (fatal and non), lust, hormones, etc., etc. Not that anyone ever understands this small disclaimer. In fact, most of us spend our lives proverbially putting our hand back on the “hot stove” of all things connected to the pursuit of, acquisition of, and maintenance of anything remotely resembling love–never once realizing that at every possible opportunity, we are somehow going to get burned.

Back to my original premise. I am a Man. Thus, I should be a learning creature. I should be able to figure things out and learn new things. I should be able to grow my storehouse of intelligence that sits between my ears and retain information that is slightly more important than the memorization of the entire script of the movies “Animal House”, “Caddyshack”, “The Godfather”, “Scrooged” and “America’s Sweethearts”.

I should be able to, as the psychologists would put it, modify my behavior. Things that are good, I should do more of. Things that aren’t, I should do less of. I should embrace that which makes me a better man, friend, son, husband, father, colleague, boss, writer, and whatever else it is that I am destined to be, during my relatively short stay on planet earth.

All of this is background to explain my motivation to bring some sort of order to the chaos that is my life. I am not an organized person. This I have known since I was a child. I always had a messy room and despite every effort of my mom to alter than behavior, it just wasn’t going to happen.

And it still hasn’t. I am a grown man, but any space or room over which I have control is destined to be a cluttered and disorganized environment. From the floor of my loft space which serves as my office at home, to the room which is my office at work, to even the desktop on my computer screens–there is always too much stuff to deal with. Thus it becomes little stacks of stuff, which become many stacks, which become a mess.

This might lead you to believe that I am not a fan of organization and nothing could be further from the truth. I love to see things organized, sorted, collated, neat, accessible, and logical. I have spent a small fortune on anything and everything that held the promise of helping me become organized. Every book, gadget, software package, or life changing system that has ever been created to assist in the effort of being more organized has probably found a way into my life with great promise and enthusiasm on my part.

And now each one is likely to be just another part of the clutter and mess that occupies the afore mentioned places over which I am allowed to be in control of. Including the place between my ears.

I know the reasons why I am not organized. I have studied the systems that would help me out. I can understand the benefit each would have to every part of my life, if I were more in control of my time. I can learn the “how to do this” part of the exercise. I can even understand the “why to do this” reasoning.

The problem is that I can’t seem to be able to master the repetition factor. I am just not wired to master any system more complicated than “lather, rinse, repeat”. By the third word, I am asking myself “Is this the first time, or the second?”, followed by “Do I have any meetings today?” followed by “Did I get my oil changed?”, followed by any of a thousand questions attached to every aspect of my existence. And then I am back to wondering, “Is this the first time I am putting the shampoo in my hair or not?”

The secret to any organization system is the premise that as a learning creature, once you figure out the whole risk versus reward or pain versus pleasure equations–then you will repeat the behavior that will lead to the successful outcome, specifically in this case–being more organized.

More simply put, I see it and I get it. I just can’t seem to live it.

But I do believe that if at first you don’t succeed, you then should try as many fruitless attempts as necessary to figure out why you will need to keep on trying.

Which brings us to my new initiative to organize myself, and it is to start with something small but important and attempt to apply some serious attempt at bringing organization to it. This has led me to the idea behind what organizational maven Merlin Mann of the website 43folders.com calls “Inbox Zero”.

Inbox Zero is the idea that by using some simple, but powerful action techniques, one can manage the ever growing torrent of email that arrives at all hours of each day, so that your inbox will have zero items in it, whether it is on your computer, smartphone, or whatever home your email lands in. It is a system–because when we are talking about getting organized it is always about having a system–that is loosely based on the principles behind the Getting Things Done program (also known by the truly hip as just GTD) which was developed and espoused in the book of the same name by David Allen.

GTD has become popular with many in the younger “knowledge worker” culture. In very simple terms, GTD is about taking each item that comes across your desk (or into your life) and determining quickly what to do with that item in the form of deciding to “Do It, Delegate It, Defer It”. That is if you haven’t decided to Delete It. From this simple thinking, you jump to a whole flowchart that describes the “workflow” that GTD is really about, that ultimately leads to the nirvana of “stress free productivity.”

Right. Got it. Absolutely. Have I done this GTD thing? Absolutely not.

I’ve decided to go with just the smaller “Inbox Zero” strategy under the premise of making this sort of change will have the best potential of actually working by taking it in small, manageable bites. I figure that if I can tame the beast that is my email on a daily basis, nirvana can’t be far behind.

So here I go. After a bit of reading and studying of Mann’s webpages about Inbox Zero, I am taking the plunge and dedicating myself to living the “Inbox Zero” life.

I feel more organized just having typed that.

I know what you are thinking, and you’re right. We’ll see how long it lasts.