Boring Post Alert: Organizing Your To-Do List

Today I came up with a new method of organizing my to-do list.

I struggle all the time with optimizing the to-do list process. A perfect to-do list should be easy to write in a flash without putting too much thought into it, and streamlined to all you to work efficiently and effectively. Ironically, coming up with a good to-do list process involves a lot of the opposite of both of those things.

Sometimes I advocate using a task card system rather than a to-do list. This is where you have a stack of notecards, each with a task written on it. There is no hierarchy or order to them. You do the first thing on the stack, and if it’s not convenient or impossible to do right now, you put it on the bottom of the stack and do the next card. This is helpful because it keeps you from getting overwhelmed with a long list of chores. All you see at any time is just one thing.

Unfortunately, it’s not always convenient to carry around a stack of index cards, and there’s no electronic version of this method that I’m aware of. (If you’re an app developer, call me.)

So when I’m at work I’ve been using a spreadsheet to keep track of my tasks for the day/week. What I’ll do is list the things I want to get done in column B, and then in column A I’ll go through and assign each one a number, starting with 1 (for the most urgent task). Then I’ll just sort the data numerically, and—BAM—I’ve got a to-do list sorted by urgency that I can follow along all day.

At least, that’s how I’d been doing it until today.

The biggest difficulty with this method is when you’ve got a list of 10 different tasks, it’s easy to know which one should be first but it’s sometimes hard to know what’s going to be 5^th or 7^th or whatever. I’d start numbering things and then realize I meant to put something else higher in priority, and then I have to go back and renumber everything that came after it. Same problem if a new task comes up that I need to slot in somewhere in the middle of the day. Basically, it’s not very forgiving of adjustments and mistakes.

But today I hit on a new method that seems to fix that problem. Why stick to a rigid numbering system? If I have 10 to-do items, who says they have to be number exactly 1 through 10? Instead, I’ll number the items based on a rough estimate of how urgent they are (which is much, much easier to guess than specifically what they’ll come before or after). Urgent tasks all get numbered “1.” Stuff that can wait until after the urgent items gets numbered “5” (not 2 as you might expect). I continue like that, increasing each level by 5. Stuff that doesn’t need to get done anytime soon but just needs to be there as a reminder gets numbered “99” just to keep it out of the way.

Then when I sort the data, I’ve got stuff in roughly the order I need to do it in. Next I can go through all the #1s, for example, and renumber them 1-4. (If there’s more than 4 ugent items, I might have to implement using decimals or something. That issue hasn’t come up yet. Frankly, most of the “urgent” things I have to do in a day can be done in any order as long as they’re all given priority over other things, so it’s not even necessary to worry about numbering them individually.) I can do the same for the items marked “5”, etc.

So this is my new system for organizing my to-do list at work. Even writing this post was on the to-do list, after getting all my higher-priority work-related tasks done first. It’s a system that seems like it will suit me just fine, at least until I can develop my task-card app. (Seriously, if you know someone who makes apps, send them my way.)

Human Life is Worthless

This is another Facebook post from 6 years ago. I wouldn’t change much of anything, except maybe a few less “therefores”. I sound like I’m trying to impress people with my word choice, and it’s not a good look. (Maybe someday I’ll look back at this and think I’m trying to impress people with my self-deprecating comments. Dammed if you do, yadda yadda…)

Human life is inherently worthless; human experience is priceless.

That is to say, I don’t believe in free will. I believe in cause and effect. What happened yesterday dictated what I felt and did today as much as what happened when I was five did–as much as what happened when my dad was five, as much as what happened when the universe was born. It’s an unbroken chain of cause and effect and cause and effect, you see.

Therefore, just as the rocks on the beach are where they are because of forces out of their control, so am I here. So are all of us. Therefore we cannot say we are of any more value to the natural order of things than the rocks–or the plants or the planets or the stars or the rabbits or the fish. We are all one and the same. We’re all subject to time, to cause and effect, to entropy.

What is unique to us is our experience while we are here. That’s what matters.

Being happy and not causing unhappiness in others is the noblest pursuit. Indeed its the only change we can ever hope to bring about.

Like or lump it, it’s how I feel. (I can’t change your mind anyway. You’re only reacting how you were always going to.)

Monkeys Playing Pretend

The following is a post I made on Facebook 6 years ago today. I thought it should live here now. I would have written it with less acid if I were to rewrite it now, but the underlying idea still holds water in my opinion.

We’re just monkeys playing pretend, you know.

When you pull away everything, all the words we use, we’re just animals trying to tear each other apart. We’re not smart, we’re not advanced. Some of us are, sure. But some cats can use a toilet.

As a whole, our species is selfish, hateful, suspicious, and mean-spirited. We have language and clothes and jobs and sports and all these things that make us look like we’re not vicious animals, but it’s just a superficial disguise. We’re lying to ourselves because it’s the easiest way to keep doing what we’re doing.

I’m not saying humans aren’t capable of some awesome, world-changing things. Good things. I’m just saying that I don’t think that’s hard-wired into us. I don’t think it’s part of our DNA. I think it’s a fluke to be a good person.

So you don’t believe Determinism?

You don’t believe Determinism? Great, differing opinions are what makes the world go ‘round. Let me ask you this: When did you decide that you don’t believe in it?

Oh, I see. You didn’t really decide, per se. It’s just how you’ve always felt. I see.

What do you think caused you to feel that way? Any idea? Was it something you read? Something someone said to you? Maybe just the way you were raised?

No, it’s ok that you don’t have an exact answer for it. There are lots of influences that bring us to the beliefs we hold, aren’t there? Ironically, though, my belief in determinism has a very direct cause. It began with a lecture I listened to, on the subject of free will, and it made a lot of sense to me when I heard it. Much the same way that it doesn’t make any sense to you.

Now, I have to ask myself, why did it make sense? Well, I have no idea, do I? I don’t know what about the lecture caused this idea to click in my head, to answer the unasked questions in my mind. Can you tell me why it doesn’t make sense to you?

No, I don’t mean a list of reasons. Those reasons are just subjective, aren’t they? I realize they may seem like objective facts, but an objective fact still has to meet with our ability to understand it, right? If I said water is wet and you didn’t think that was true, well, that’s an objective fact but for some reason it doesn’t sit the same in your reality as it sits in mine.

So when I say, “Why doesn’t Determinism make sense to you?”, I’m not looking for a list of objections, I’m looking for the reason it doesn’t make sense. Or, to put it another way, I’m looking for the reason that those objections do make sense to you. Follow?

I’ll give you time.

Can’t come up with a good answer? That’s totally understandable. I couldn’t either. If you asked me why ‘water is wet’ makes sense to me, I couldn’t come up with a reason. If you asked me why ‘I am alive’ rings true to me, I also couldn’t come up with a reason. If you asked me why determinism makes sense to me, I couldn’t tell you. I could just as easily have felt like you about the matter had circumstances in my life conspired a little differently. Do you agree?

Determinism isn’t the belief that we cannot make choices in life, or that the choices we make don’t matter; it’s the belief that we cannot choose what we are going to choose.

Put another way: We can make a choice, but our choice isn’t random. It’s determined.

We cannot choose how things effect us.

Our actions are based on how things effect us, and we cannot choose how things effect us. Therefore our choices are determined by forces outside ourselves.

If we choose to act opposite to our best interest, that is still a choice based on circumstances. Why did we choose to act that way? We wanted to be contrary.

But why did we want to be contrary? To prove a point.

But why did we want to prove that point? Because we believe we’re right.

But we do we believe we’re right? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Eventually you run out of causes you can attribute to your own conscious will.

Why Are You Saying It?

There’s really no downside to thinking before you speak.

Ok, I suppose if you’re in a life-and-death situation and you have to shout “Look out for that boulder!” before your friend gets crushed by a runaway boulder, then there’s a downside to thinking about it first.

But generally, it’s never a bad idea. So before you speak up, ask yourself if what you’re about to say is really worth saying. Ask yourself why you think you should say it.

Is it something the other person needs or wants to hear you say? Or is it just something that you want to hear yourself say?

By putting those words out there, you’re altering the landscape of the conversation. There’s no going back. You’d better be sure that it’s worth it.

I’m not trying to be dramatic. I don’t mean “worth it” to imply that if you say the wrong thing in any situation you’re going to destroy your relationships. But…it is a possibility. Speaking out can be dangerous.

There’s that famous aphorism, Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you a fool, than open it and remove all doubt. It’s flippant, but the point is sound: When you say nothing, the other person doesn’t know what you’re thinking. They might make false assumptions, but they’ll know they’re making assumptions. They won’t know for sure what you’re thinking.

If you speak up, on the other hand, they’ll know. And they might not like it. More accurately, in fact, they’ll think they know what you’re thinking. You never know how your words will land in their ears. Something you meant as an innocuous comment or even a joke might come across to them as painfully offensive or rude. Then you’ve altered the landscape, and you might not even know it. And even if you do know it, now you have to fix it.

So before you speak, and have to deal with the consequences–big or small–of what you say, just take a moment to ask yourself: Is this really necessary?

Now is always now

I have had a problem lately–since starting a very demanding and draining job–of feeling a sense of dread, of a ticking clock, when I know that I’ll have to go to work soon. Whether it’s the little bit of time I have in the morning before I go to work, or the 30 minutes I have in the middle of the day, or Sunday evening after an eventful and rejuvenating weekend. Even the last few hours of a long break.

But I just realized tonight that the reason I end up feeling this way isn’t actually because work is looming. Yes, work is looming in my mind, but that’s because I’m not living in the present moment. The last few hours of the day aren’t different, inherently, than the first few, or the middle few. They’re just hours. It’s just time, and time is always the same. Steady, neutral.

For the first few hours this morning–the last day of a long holiday–I was blissful and blithe. I sat in my chair and looked outside and drank coffee, and all was right with the world. Now that it’s the early evening, though, suddenly it feels harder to just enjoy my time. I feel the incoming day ahead. The impending tomorrow.

What I need to do is pause, breathe, remember that this is still right now, and just enjoy the time like any other. The only time I need to really worry about tomorrow is tomorrow. (Sure, it might be nice to prepare for tomorrow a little bit so I’m not scrambling at the last minute in the morning to get ready, but there really isn’t much to prepare for.)

Tomorrow is tomorrow and always will be. Right now is only right now.

P.S. — I want a watch that just says ‘now’ on the face every time I look at it. “What time is it?” “Now.” “Oh, perfect.” If anyone wants to invent that I’ll buy one. Thanks.

Meditation #82: Some ramblings about society

Today is a pretty nice day, and days like this always make me lament having to go to work. A day like today makes me realize what a shame it is that we are all born into this society that we are expected to partake in without question. We have to maintain the status quo to sustain the status quo.

It just highlights to me how unfair it is that we are born into this cycle of having to go to work, having to go places, having to do anything. To sustain the society we live in we have to participate in the society we live in.

I always think of the animals in the wild. When the fox wakes up in the morning, he’s not like, “Well, guess I’ve gotta go do the thing now.” No. When they wake up they think, “I’m hungry,” so they go get food. When they think, “I’m thirsty,” they go get water. When they think, “Ack, a bear!” they run away. They don’t think about it, and they don’t have to ignore their urges.

They just respond to their environment as it happens, and that’s it. They don’t have to ignore their urges to. The fox isn’t like, “I’m really hungry I should go find some food. But, ah, it’s not lunchtime yet. I guess I’d better get these TPS reports done first.” No, they just do what they have to do to survive in that moment and that’s that. But we can’t. We have this structure, and we’re just born straight into it, and we have to do what we have to do to survive within the structure. We don’t get to just do what strikes us in any given moment, because if we all did that then society would collapse. (Or so they say. I’m skeptical of that to some degree, but never mind that for now.)

And yet, although we’re human we are still animal. What we have built, this society, is no less natural than what any other animal builds. More complex, more destructive, more problematic, but no less natural. And like a beehive, it’s built to ensure our survival. We developed this thing called “society” as insurance against an unknown future. We built it and agreed, implicitly if not explicitly, to give it our time and our freedom in return for protection from bad things that could happen. Starvation, freezing to death, being suddenly homeless, getting stabbed in the face, etc.

And yet, we end up giving it so much more, too. It’s like we’ve said, “Alright, society, I feel pretty confident I’m not going to freeze to death or starve naked in the streets. Thanks for that. Now I think what I really want is a leather recliner. I’ll give you some more of my time and my freedom for that, too.” I think what I’m looking for isn’t a return to “nature,” because that’s where we already are. We’re natural, and our society is by extension natural. What I want to find is a simplification, a simple appreciation of not freezing to death or starving naked in the streets, and a contentment that that’s enough. That survival is enough. That comfort and convenience is overrated. Having access to every movie ever made isn’t necessary. Having a car that goes from 0-60 in five seconds is far from fundamental. Even having a house with a different room for every possible activity is hugely overrated. (Seriously, you can only be in one room at a time. Why are you paying for so many empty rooms?)

And yet, perhaps it isn’t the society at all that’s at fault. We don’t look at the beehive and think, “Oh, poor bees. They’d be so much freer and happier if they didn’t have to work for the hive all day.” Of course not. The bees are happy doing what bees do. And ‘happy’ doesn’t even factor into it, really. To be happy assumes there is another way to feel. It assumes feeling at all, and feelings are just tags assigned to thoughts. To a creature like a bee, that doesn’t even come into the picture. They don’t have a consciousness that forces them to assign value to their experiences. That’s something only we higher primates are burdened with. We have the ability to think about counterfactuals. We alone can daydream and think about what life could be like “if only.”

So really I shouldn’t be raising my fist at society, I should be raising it at consciousness. I should be wishing to be as simple and oblivious as a bee.

Meditation #81: Mind matters

“The quality of your mind determines the quality of your life.” – Sam Harris

Such a simple maxim, but it’s utterly true. So simple that it’s easy to forget. Whatever you’re going through, however hard it is, or easy it is, or painful it is, or rough it is, or unexpected it is, or joyous it is, or unbearable it is, or [insert adjective here] it is, it is that way because of your mental state. You can argue, scoff, roll your eyes, offer as many yeah-buts as you can manage, but the simple fact is that if you didn’t have a mind to experience whatever you’re experiencing, then it would have no quality at all.

Meditation #80: Untitled

Today I realized I have everything I want.

It’s Saturday. I was washing the dishes, listening to some easygoing music*, while my wife was reading a Stephen King book on the couch and my daughter was engrossed in a fun video game she’s been playing lately. We were relaxing. It was awesome.

All at once I had these thoughts simultaneously:

I am really happy right now. There’s no pressure, nothing to do, nothing to worry about. My beautiful family is happy, too. Everything is peaceful.
Other than the setting, this moment encapsulates exactly what I want my life to be. I’d rather be on a boat, or in a camper van, or on some rural Japanese farm, than on the 23rd floor of a concrete apartment building in China. But even then, it really, really could be worse.
What I’m always working toward is being able to have this moment. When I fret about how many words I’ve written today or how well my books are selling, it’s always because I want to achieve the kind of financial independence that would allow this sort of thing to happen all the time.
Why does it matter if this happens all the time? Why does any time matter right now other than for right now? The world could vanish tomorrow, or in five seconds. I could die of a heart attack. The sun could go supernova. The entire universe could blink out of existence when the one little boy in Brussels who is dreaming it all up opens his eyes. Heck, for all we know this moment is the only moment that has ever existed.

All of these thoughts cascaded into my brain like an avalanche of self-awareness, and I was overcome with a sense of completion. I still want a future where I have the freedom to have relaxing days like this whenever I choose, or at least more often. But I recognize that if I spend more time living in the moment, then it doesn’t matter how often those days come around, because the only one that matters is the one I’m currently experiencing.

*If you’re curious, “Here But I’m Gone” by Curtis Mayfield was the specific song playing when this epiphany occurred.

Meditation #79: Don’t start the thinking.

When you wake up first thing in the morning, don’t be eager to start thinking right away. Don’t be quick to pick up yesterday’s thoughts. Let them come to you in their own time if they really want, and only then after they’ve done it with enough force to make it apparent that they’re not going away. Try to avoid the habit of waking up in the morning and thinking to yourself, “Let’s see, what was I on about yesterday?”

Maybe I’m the only one who does that, anyway.