This group of about twenty men and women had just spent the past thirteen hours beginning at one in the morning doing the hardest and most physically demanding activities of their lives. Over the last seventeen miles they had run, crab walked, bear crawled, alligator walked, elephant walked, carried a giant fallen tree trunk (for three hours), and even ran for a mile or two carrying another person across their shoulders. When they weren’t moving forward, they had done pushups, squats, lunges, and more. Some of it while standing in a cold river or lake. All of it, while carrying a backpack weighing forty-to-sixty pounds that was never allowed to touch the ground (as well as a couple of additional twenty-five-plus pound weights the team also had to figure a way to manage).

They thought at this point it was over. After a grueling five mile Indian run through the busy streets in the heart of the city, they thought there could be no more. Mission accomplished. That they would get their reward (a small patch and the knowledge of having completed the course) and find a way home. They were wrong. There was more. And, when they discovered this, their faces bore the weight of every minute that had come before. In their eyes, the thousand yard stare of a people lost in suffering and pain. Yet, when the word was given to go that extra mile, carrying a buddy, they rose up, gathered what remained of their resolve, and did it.

I don’t consider myself very handy. In fact, when it comes to most DIY home fix-up stuff, I’m actually quite intimidated. Mainly because I have no clue where to start or what to do if something goes wrong. So, you might imagine what was going through my head when we purchased a house for a price so low that we could have put it on a credit card had the closing company been able to accept them. The caveat being, of course, that it needed a lot of work. Not as much as one might think, given the price. Yet, a fair amount. Enough so that it is things I have never done before. I’m like a deer in headlights.

Right now, our plumber can’t continue his work until the bathroom subfloor is replaced. The Instructions show two people, one weekend, and a skill level of moderate-to-hard. I’m one person, with a few hours, and a skill level of w-t-f. Yet, here I am, about to load up my car with a crowbar, a reciprocating saw, my broken-toes, and a hefty helping of gumption and devil-may-care.

My four year old daughter, Beatrix, always — Always! — tries food she has never had before. Despite the fact she knows she won’t like it. She tastes it, chews it, swallows it, and then decides. It does not matter what it is, she will always give it a fair shot. I contrast this with the large number of people who will refuse to eat something just based on how it looks or sounds. Not my Beatrix.

All of us have struggles, challenges, fears, and other impediments that we must overcome on a daily basis. More often than not, our boundaries are illusions created by the fear of what we are truly capable of. All of us, at some point, push through this fear and learn a valuable lesson in the process.

That, in ways both large and small, we are all superheroes. We move faster than speeding bullets (that we pull the trigger on), are more powerful than locomotives (that we purposefully step in front of), and bound tall buildings (of our own making) with a single bound. A secret identity we don’t ever see or admit to. Yet, when the task calls for it, we step into the booth as a person incapable and step out the other side as another doing things we never dreamed we could.

This essay is dedicated to GORUCK Challenge Class 167. A group of superheroes if there ever was.

She would awake early to start cooking breakfast for my Great Grandfather “Pa Pa” Handy and whomever else was staying over at the time. Eggs. bacon, biscuits, potatoes, fresh squeezed orange juice, and half of a grapefruit for Pa Pa. Just as routine, not a single pan was waiting to be cleaned by the time any of it hit the dining table. The kitchen looked just as it did before it all started. And, one could be assured, it would be just as clean only minutes after the dishes were cleared.

She often would tend the garden and start the laundry following breakfast. Which, in my child mind, never seemed to take that long. She would return to the kitchen with a full basket of figs freshly harvested from the tree in the yard. These figs found their way swiftly into a pressure pot and then into mason jars for preserves. The kitchen remained tidy the whole time. The only evidence to the contrary were the tools of task being actively used. Once their job was done they always swiftly and effortlessly returned to the place from which they came.

Lunch and Dinner seemed to be a blur of a single meal in her kitchen. As soon as one was served, preparation for the next was already underway. There was never a time in that span of hours that a pot was not on the stove, a pan was not in the oven, or a serving bowl or utensil was not being used. But, as I’m sure you can surmise, by the time it was all served, consumed, and cleared, the kitchen was spot free and ready for it’s business the following the day.

Even more amazing was that everything else got done as well. The laundry, the gardening, the grocery shopping, the cleaning of the rest of the house, and tending to Pa Pa’s growing list of needs as his health began to turn. One woman against a mountain and she managed to plant her flag at the summit each day.

It was many years after she passed that I was able to truly appreciate any of these minor miracles, let alone care enough to dissect how they were achieved. But age, passing time, and having the responsibilities of maintaining a family and household of my own has made me ponder my Great Grandmother’s deft skills regularly. How did she manage to do it? How did she juggle all of those tasks? The demands and needs? No matter the day or her own health or conditions?

I don’t have all the answers to these questions but I have some clues — especially in the kitchen cleaning department.

Before she started cooking she filled the sink with soapy water. Whenever she used a pan, as soon as she was done with it, she washed it, dried it, and put it away. Instead of saving up all of those ten to fifteen second actions until they added up to an hour of washing after the meal, she learned in her years of experience that it was better for her to do them right away. That the time following a meal could be better spent on the next task than having the detritus of one create another. Remove pan from oven, plate food, wash, dry, put away, serve.

This memory lands home for me these days when I go to add yet-another-task to my list. More often I find myself thinking this — Would I rather add it to the list or would I rather add it to my journal? One is a record of things to do. The other, a record of things already done.

I know what Grandmother Handy would say.

I believe there is a reason for this. It is because later does not exist. The future is great in concept and theory but, until the future becomes now, it is as real as a fairy tale or an imaginary friend. Everything that exists in the world around us exists only in the now. Our natural state is now.

Therefore, imagine how strange and complex a subject the idea of later must be to the mind of a child. Especially one who is only just beginning to grasp the concept of time.

Perhaps we should all try to approach life and our time in it in the same way. Let the past be prologue. Let the future be fantasy. Let your thoughts and actions exist in the now.

It is with great pride (and a certain sense of relief) that I release my very first book. It’s titled Keeping It Straight – You, Me, & Everything Else. It’s available today in both paperback and eBook form. I would be humbled and honored if you would consider buying a copy.

Keeping It Straight is a collection of short essays that explore topics such as mindfulness, compassion, truth, and living a purposeful and productive life. There’s plenty of practical advice to take away as well. For instance, how to deal with email overload and sensible task management.

Here is what some others have already had to say about it:

“Patrick’s writing is like warm butter on dry toast. Each page is full of musings and personal discoveries from Patrick’s life that will make you think about how you’re spending your time and energy, and, more importantly, it will make you think about what priorities are most important in your own life.” – Shawn Blanc

“Fans of David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done’ will instantly embrace Patrick Rhone’s work. Patrick offers the “Why” to GTD’s “How.” – Randy Murray

“Patrick is a wonderful writer and many of the thoughts he conveys in this book compel you to put the book down right where you are in order to make some real changes in your life.” – Ben Brooks

Keeping It Straight is a delightful mixture of advice, reflection and exploration that reads like a poem. Patrick’s honest, genuine approach to a variety of topics from happiness to efficiency make this book a joy to read. Highly recommended. – Brett Kelly

Most of this book has been written over the past few years, originally published online in various forms, for various projects and in many locations. While most of these ideas are out there, somewhere amongst my uncollected works on the internet, and available for free, everything in this book is different from the original. These are now collected, professionally edited, and presented in the way these ideas seem destined to live on – together. Also, I believe you will find that many take on a new life in this form.

Finally, I’d like to thank all who have helped make this possible especially Randy (and Penny) at First Today Press, Aaron at Wet Frog Studios, and Pat Dryburgh for designing the book website.

Buy it today:

• Paperback

• ePub

• PDF

What task can you knock off to ensure it does not follow you?

What bill can you pay to start off with reduced debt?

What simple deed can you do for another who needs it?

What item can you remove from your desk to make the space more productive?

What email can you answer or archive to start of with a cleaner inbox?

What project can you launch? (Ready or not. The details will sort themselves out later.)

I’m answering at least three of these questions as soon as I hit the “Publish” button… Who’s with me?

How much time do I have?

What tools are at my disposal?

What is the next action to move the project forward?

None of these questions can be honestly answered until you have truthfully quantified “What is true now?”. This is why regular reviews, brain dumps, capturing things easily, etc. is so very critical. Until you can define all of the truths of your world, until you know where you are right this moment, until you can appreciate both what you have and what you don’t, there is no possible way you can know for sure that the next step you take is the one you should be taking

I really urge you to read the whole thing, but I wanted to post a particular section here. It is the writing advice I wish I had given my younger self. I encounter young and just starting writers all the time and have given them all manner of hodgepodge advice.Henceforth, I will point them to this:

Ian:

I wonder, if you had the opportunity to send some advice to your younger self to read as you were first beginning to write on the web, what would it be?

Patrick:

Focus on writing well. Read as many posts and books on writing as you need to learn the craft without letting it distract you from, well, writing. Because, after a certain point, no book or post or advice will ever help you as much as putting those words down.

Also learn how to edit your writing to turn it into something other than a collection of words ordered according to some universally agreed to rules. Because some of those rules should be broken. In fact, many should have never been agreed to in the first place. Because those rules can stifle you from finding your own voice if followed too rigidly. More often than not, what you will be editing out of your writing is the rules.

Spend at least twice as much time editing as you do writing. Slave over every detail, sweat every word and punctuation mark. Read what you write over and over again. In fact, never stop yourself from revisiting something you wrote and improving or expanding on it if you feel it would make it better. Even something as simple as adding a comma where there should have been one can change the feel of an entire essay.

Be curious about everything but find one or two things that your are insatiably curious about and interested in. A subject or two that you can never know too much, or think too deeply, about. Write about these things.

Also, ignore the numbers. Ignore the audience. Ignore the fact that, for a very long time, no one may be reading. Just make sure that you are. Be your own biggest fan (when warranted) and harshest critic (when warranted).

Finally, do what I say, not what I do.

I like doing them late at night, before bed, alone. I like the warmth of the water. I like the smell of the dish soap. I turn on our under-the-counter radio and listen to the BBC on Minnesota Public Radio. It is just me, the task at hand, and the news delivered calmly, with balance, and a proper tongue.

I perform each step in a particular, rarely wavering, order.

1. Unload the bottom rack of the dishwasher.
2. Unload the top rack of the dishwasher.
3. Rinse the dishwasher safe plates, glasses, and silver and load each in their proper place.
4. Fill the sink with soap.
5. Wash each item in order from cleanest to dirtiest.
6. Empty and rinse out the sink.
7. Wipe down the counters and oven.

I find solace in the structure of these actions performed rigidly so that my thinking is focused and somehow still. When my brain is relaxed in this way I find that my body follows suit.

I’m sure we all have tasks like this. Some of us weed the garden. Some of us knit. Some of us mow the lawn or shovel snow. These tasks that we get lost in almost by design due to their repetitive nature. In these times we drift into the order and let our minds go.

We often don’t think of these as moments of meditation but it often has the same mental and physical effect. We are busy doing nothing yet doing something all the same. The more we can identify these times of productive meditation, the more we can make sure to enjoy them for what they are.

The time a project takes does not somehow magically change because the actual time one has to complete it has. Could I have done that job in the timeframe the client wanted? Sure. Would I have had to spend just as much time as I originally quoted after the fact correcting mistakes and problems because I rushed through it? Probably. Would it be harder, and thus take more time, to make such corrections after the fact than to get them done right the first time? Definitely. Yet I can’t even tell you for how long, by how many clients and managers and in how many different ways I have been asked to do this very thing. I know I am not alone. As a matter of fact, a common joke in the computer industry is “You can have it cheap, you can have it fast or you can have it done well. Pick two.”

What you trade in time you most often exchange for quality or quantity. Sometimes you have to change the project or task that you set out to do. Sometimes you just don’t have the time you need for the project at hand. Maybe you cut a corner here and there. Maybe you drop less important aspects. In this case, the time itself does not change. The quality or quantity of the project changes accordingly with the time saved. It is now a different project, with possibly less than satisfactory results.

I try to use this approach with even the simplest items on my daily task list. For instance, I try to take an honest look at what I want to accomplish in the 15 minutes of time I may have to make a phone call. I am not going to make a call that I know has an hour worth of discussion in that time frame. If I do, I know that I will be trading a true discussion of the topics for bullet points at best. I may have to make another call to the same person later that will make up for, or even equal the time I chose not to spend in the first place. Is that the most effective use of the time? I think not.

Therefore, when you have a block of time to fill be careful to choose the right sized task to fill it. Like most things in this world, when it comes to time, nothing is free.

Here it is:

• I always have pen and paper with me for capturing all the random bits of stuff that pops into my flighty little head. I generally use my Levenger Pocket Briefcase loaded with their 3×5 cards. That being said, it is not unusual for me to use Simplenote on my iPhone or (tisk, tisk) send myself an email from same. The point is not the tool. The point is to get that thought captured somewhere before it leaves my brain forever.

• I have a master list of all of my tasks and next actions for projects in my Levenger Junior Circa notebook. This is just one big dump of stuff culled from all of the input sources I capture to. I have a “trigger list” with all of these sources listed so I remember to look there. I create one big list, no contexts, no projects, no order. Just a big pile of stuff. I use my dash/plus system to track the status of items on the list. Also, the Cornell Ruled style of the Levenger pages allow me to keep notes in the margin (especially for “waiting for” and “delegated to”) if needed.

• Now, at this point I know you GTD purist types are shaking your head in disbelief. “What about contexts?” – I don’t need them really. I am a tech consultant by trade so I am either in my home office, where I can work on my master list, or at a client’s, where I am working on their list. The closest I get to ever using a context based list is writing down errands I have to take care of on an index card and sticking it in my pocket briefcase. “What about projects?” – If I have a project that requires breaking down into actions, I will do that on a separate page. Then, I put the next action on the big list.

• Every day I take out a 3×5 card and write the date at the top of it. I then pick three things off of the big list I would like to get done that day. I then place this card next to my computer and focus in on getting these things done. That does not mean I might not do anything else on the master list. It also does not mean that I wont get distracted by other “firefighting” that comes up during the day. That being said, I have found that having just three items on there makes it possible to clear that card every day. This makes me feel like I am moving the master list forward little by little despite the fact that for every one thing done, two may be added.

I admit that this system may not scale well if you have a lot of stuff coming your way. With that said, perhaps the larger lesson to take away is to always look for ways to simplify your system to the basics of what it really needs to be. Far too many people feel the need to build in complication that is unnecessary. This system is simple and, more importantly, it works for me.