Carl Setzer

Today: another day where I sit amazed at the information stream I've set up for myself. Emails, website, tweets, etc, tons of stuff I WANT to process. Add to that the stream of stuff I "should" read. It's really mind blowing. I consider, though, "why?"  It's hits me that is rather new. Must of my life, getting access to information required more effort. I needed to subscribe to a magazine or journal, go to a library, etc. Plus, editors and publishers weeded the irrelevant (ostensibly, at least). I never needed to invest time in determining whether I was investing in worthwhile information. Now, knowledge races towards me. Things that would've required hours, of not days, of research I can now access from my bed. And it's all there... ALL, good, bad, useful and not...all. And I value that, democratizing information, even with the added burden. I'm working on the control skills. Really, though, the challenge is gluttony, on my part. I love ...

I work hard to make sure all my tasks have been captured, either in my calendar or my to-do list. Everything. Now,  I've had several folks give me a hard time about that, basically accusing me of a lack of creativity, or paranoia. They seem to view this as a sign of being rigid, inflexible and unable to adjust. All those give me a good chuckle. No, the reason I capture everything that needs to get done (in an electronic tool...this is important): it makes me agile. I KNOW everything that needs to be done, thus, it's easy to re-prioritize and address whatever comes up, whether another opportunity, or the need to respond some crisis or another. It's my way of both honoring my commitments and yet maintaining an ability to respond. Nothing craps on a sense of accomplishment like missing a key deadline in the midst of "responding". Having my life solidly organized, and in an easy to access tool helps me to live in the moment. I'm not trying to retain all those ...

One thing that often happens with me: odd hour wakefulness focused on organizing. Not out of any sense of anxiety, mind you. Rather, my brain comes alive with ideas. I find it amusing. My current focus when it comes to personal organizing: realistic daily loads. I've been using what I'll call a "day dump". I throw most of my outstanding workload into "today", then shift the un-done into tomorrow. That's quite frustrating. It makes it look like little gets done. And organizing starts to take much longer, especially as time oases. Plus, when you scroll thru a huge task list, it's easy to get overwhelmed. I'm trying my best to build my task list into something that has a real chance of getting accomplished. Helps keep my main foci on page one, and not scroll around looking for sheet I should do next.