Lesson 10 B2 “ME PROCESS

Guest writer

“Simplify”

As we get ready to begin the NEW YEAR, many of us take the time to write or revisit our goals our goals for 2014.

Besides the seemingly ubiquitous goal of “losing weight” or “getting in shape,” one that often seems to come up is some form of “SIMPLIFY THINGS.”

And while there seems to be an endless barrage of new technologies, streams of information, and tasks that are piling up and COMPLICATING our life, trying to merely “SIMPLIFY” things can be pretty dangerous.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of distractions out there that “COMPLICATE” things, and we should be dumping those. But that doesn’t mean that our lives and business are going to get any less “COMPLEX.”

Indeed, the longer we live, or our business exist, the more complex things become. This is a natural and necessary process. E.g. you started out as a single cell and now you are trillions of specialized cells all communicating and interacting to keep you healthy and alive.

You Resolution should not be to simplify things. It should be instead to increase YOUR CAPACITY FOR COMPLEXITY.

Consider The Realms of your existence

PHYSICAL – You’re a Physical being and have to keep up your physical health.
Mental – You’re conscious and aware (I hope). What are you doing and learning to keep up your mental acuity?
EMOTIONAL – Your feelings and emotions initiate all impulses and behaviors. Are you aware of them and take care of your emotional well-being?
SPIRITUAL – Regardless of whether you’re religious or even consider yourself “spiritual” we are evolved as social creatures, and have an inborn need to connect to communities and causes bigger than ourselves. Are you doing so in a healthy and productive way?

That’s just you, and already there are levels of complexity there because they all relate to and affect one another. If you’ve ever lost a big deal or had some tragedy happen, you’re not only emotionally depressed. It can cause you physical discomfort, put your mind in a fog, and make you not want to be around anybody. If you’ve ever stubbed you toe in the middle of the night, your mood shifts (likely to anger or at least aggravation), your thinking is limited to which explicatives to use, and you’re not likely feeling very spiritual at the moment.

Consider now all of your Roles you play and Relationships beyond yourself.

Are you a spouse or significant other?
A Son or Daughter?
A Brother/Sister, Niece/Nephew, Cousin, other family member of some sort?
You may be a business owner/entrepreneur/executive/partner/principal.
You also likely have a specific skill or trade – Technician, Physician, Lawyer, Craftsmen.
You’re a homeowner or a renter
A taxpayer
A citizen or resident
A member of organizations
A practitioner of a certain faith
A leader of some group
A customer or client of several people/businesses
Etcetera

If that’s not complex enough, keep in mind that those relationships, for the most part, don’t just relate to each other in some way, they all relate to you in those different realms of existence. Just take that primary relationship with your significant other. There is a physical, mental, emotional, and a spiritual component to it that all relate and balance. The other roles will have differing level of relation, but they still all connect.

WE’RE NOT DONE.

Now consider your time and the Rhythms and Routines in your life.

Annual – what things do you do for your personal health (all 4 Realms) on a yearly basis? How about for all of your Roles? Chances are there is something for all of them that you do at least once a year.
Monthly – this could also be quarterly, but you get the idea. What things do you have to do every month for you, your roles, your business, etc.?
Weekly – Less things have to be dealt with on a weekly basis, but this becomes an ideal level for planning. Have you ever blocked out the time for an “ideal” week. When do you sleep, eat, exercise, interact with family and others, and do the necessary tasks for your business or job? It’s a good exercise, and modern scheduling software like Outlook makes it easy to make those things repeatable events that can be easily moved around when necessary.
Daily – If you have no other daily rhythms, there should be something in there for all of you (eating/sleeping/some sort of exercise, reading to learn something new, some meditation/relaxation, a prayer or gratitude process) and for your primary relationships – business and personal.

Take the time and plan out your year and create these routines in your calendar. It will give you a good idea of how much time you actually have, and can help keep you from procrastinating on various topics. Of course it doesn’t mean things will go as planned, but it will serve as reminder and motivation to strive for an ideal.

WHAT ARE YOU REACHING FOR?

Seeing your available time will also give you a chance to plan for those things that are not Routine, but are single events or outcomes – the things you’re Reaching for.

Vision – Where are you going? What life are you trying to make for yourself and others? Are the actions you take today getting you closer to that vision? Plan accordingly.
Mission – Why are you going there? Is it really what you want or feel called to do, or is it someone else’s vision that you’ve just accepted? Why are you here? (This will be a whole other blog post in the near future).
Goals – How are you going to get there? What are the milestones along the way that define the path you take?
Objectives – What are you doing to go? What actions and steps do you have to take to reach those milestones?

While the Vision and Mission should be all encompassing, the goals and objectives can get specific to the different Realms, Roles, and Routines.

Phewwww…. That’s a lot.

But it’s not all. At the center of all these things, the framework for how they relate can be thought of in terms of the Cost and Value Exchange. Think about these dimensions of exchange:

Energy – Is this action I’m about to take, or plan for going to make me feel better, or exhaust me?
Space – Do I have the space (both physical and metaphysical/digital) to take this on, or will this free up and give me more space to do XYZ?
Time – We seem to have less and less of this… How long is this going to take me, or will this give me time back?
Money – the human-invented medium for exchange. How can I go about make more money or spend less money so I have more to exchange for more energy, space, and time?

It is a constant give and take between these things. You give time for money so you can have space to live, and food to eat. But you’ll also give your time to things that zap your energy. You may be able to spend less on that new TV because it’s such a great deal… but if it won’t fit in your entertainment center it’s not so much of a value.

Look at each point above, and all of them can be evaluated in terms of the cost and value of the 4 things above. Once you really understand those principles, the ultimate question to ask then, is, “Is it worth it?”

AND FINALLY, DON’T FORGET YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

Whether it’s the environment of your home, community, car, or workspace or the metaphysical “environment” created in between the people there, Buckminster Fuller’s quote rings true:

“Environment is Greater than Will.”

The ENVIRONMENT provides a continuous stimulus that will either support something and make it sustainable, or not. If it’s costing you a lot of energy, space, time, and money to maintain the environment, again ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”

The quick analogy I use here is that of a mango tree. I love mangos, so I planted one in my backyard. I can give it all of the attention, fertilizer, water, trimming, fungicides, etc. in the world. However, if I were to plant it in my parent’s house up in the frost zone, all of that effort would be wasted after the first freeze. No, the only way to successfully grow mangos in northern Florida is to build a greenhouse – to control the environment. The question then becomes, are mangos worth the cost of the greenhouse, or would I be better off planting peaches, which will naturally grow in that environment?

“WELL, THIS JUST SUCKS.”

“It’s too much.”

“It’s overwhelming.”

“I can’t handle it all.”

I was hesitant to write this blog because these are the responses I’ve received when explaining this to others in person.

And the reality is, they were right. It is overwhelming and far too much for anyone to focus on at one time.

But that’s the point.

You don’t focus on it all at once. You maintain an awareness of these things, you set up systems to remind you of them, but at any given moment, the key to all of this is being able to give your focus to one thing. The art and skill of it is learning for how long.

AND THAT BRINGS BACK TO THE ORIGINAL POINT.

The goal is not to simplify things (ultimately, you can’t).

The goal is to increase your CAPACITY FOR COMPLEXITY.

Think about when you were learning math:

First was counting – How many dashes here? - - - - -

Then you learned to add: 3+7=?

Them you learned to subtract: 8-4=?

Then you learned multiplication.

Then division (and then loooong division).

Then fractions and decimals.

Then prealgebra and equations.

Then algebra. (Wait, where did these letters come from?)

Then geometry and trig.

Then algebra II (Logarithms, anyone?)

Then derivatives and Intervals in Calculus.

Then differential equations and non-linear algebra.

Then… OK, few of us got all the way through the list so far.

Just remember – as you were going through the process, each progressive step seemed at least somewhat difficult or overwhelming. But by the time you were doing algebra, long division was no big deal. And if you made it to algebra II or pre-calc, fractions probably weren’t giving you such a hard time.

The point? The number never changed. YOU changed. The math never became simpler, you increased your capacity for mathematical complexity.

The same principle can be applied to all of these areas of your life.

BOTTOM LINE

Your life is not getting any simpler. Accept that your life is only getting more COMPLEX. Dedicate effort to learning how to arrange things so you can focus on one thing at a time. That will at least make things a little less COMPLICATED.

When you know what you’re up against, you can plan to take it on one chunk at a time.

And while we didn’t even touch on all the technology and its ability to COMPLICATE OR SIMPLIFY what’s in our immediate attention, I recommend an online tool, ironically (or appropriately) called SIMPLEOLOGY. You can check it out, here. http://www.simpleology.com/blog/

Happy New Year, and as always, a pleasure to serve,