Category Archives: enough

Freedom From Choice

Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want

– DEVO, Freedom of Choice

When you choose Apple, in many ways you are choosing a sensible default. You have made a choice that greatly narrows the field thus making your options, due the the scarcity, that much easier. When you go to buy a new computer, you no longer have hundreds of choices to choose from, as Windows or Linux users do. You now have only a few. All made by one company. Those of us who have made the choice, based on need, to always buy a laptop or desktop, have narrowed that choice even further. Other purpose based needs narrow this even further. Are you are a professional photographer who needs plenty of storage for RAW photos and a large screen for editing, yet needs that in a portable package that can be used reasonably outside for the occasional wedding shoot? Guess you are getting a Macbook Pro with a 500GB drive and a matte screen then.

I’ll bet, at some point, Steve Jobs woke up one morning, looked in his closet, and had to decide what to wear that day. He choose a black Gap mock turtleneck, Levi’s 501 jeans, and a pair of New Balance sneakers. It then occurred to him that it was the perfect outfit for most occasions and weather he found himself in. He may have even worn it around for a few days, in a iety of circumstances and environments, just to test it out and make sure it was the right thing for him. Then, he went out and got a dozen more of everything and threw out the rest. At this point, he made the final choice, to make this outfit his default, thus freeing himself of the weight of having to decide what to wear based on so many temporal and ever changing factors…

Hot? Cold? Raining? Dry? Sunny?

Black Mock Turtle. Levis. Sneakers.

Does he wear shorts sometimes if the situation calls for it? Sure. How about a tux? Yep. But the point is that he has the vast majority of his needs covered with the sensible default.

For many of us, there is a certain freedom that comes from not having to choose. But that freedom does not come from having choices foisted upon us. It comes from having made some decisions, up front, about what is appropriate for the majority of situations we may find ourselves in.  It comes from reduction and filtering. Such decisions are born of evaluation, reflection, and knowledge. But, most of all, it comes from the desire to live a life that is focused not on things like what to wear or to buy, but instead on doing everything else with that much more thought, consideration and care.

A Most Important Question

Hey. You. Yes, you! Come over here. I’m going to tell you a secret. OK, well, it’s not really a secret. It’s more of a question. A most important question. One that, when asked, can provide a wealth of productive power…

“Where does this belong?”

Want to know how to organize a messy desk? Take everything off, put it in a box, then take each item out, and ask that question. For some items, the answer is obvious. For other items, maybe they don’t have a place – find one. Maybe the answer is not “on the desk” or even “in the room”. Maybe the answer is not even “in the house” or “in my life”. Answering this question can not only make the clean up quick but also ensure quick work when things get out of control again. Because, everything belongs somewhere and now you know where that somewhere is.

The thing is, this question works with more than just clutter.

Want to make your task list more powerful? Ask that question of each task. Sometimes the answer is “as an immediate action”. Sometimes the answer is “on a context specific list” or “broken into smaller chunks”. Sometimes, the answer is “as part of a greater project or goal”. But, sometimes, the answer is “with someone else” or “done at some future date” or “not done at all”.

Want to get your email inbox under control? Never look at another message without asking the question. Does it belong in the inbox now that you have looked at it? No? Perhaps in a separate folder of things you need to take action on or respond to. Perhaps in a folder for reference on a project you are working on. Perhaps read and archived. Perhaps in the trash.
But, where the question becomes truly powerful, is when you apply the question to everything. Because if something does not have a place in your home, in your relationships, in your job, or or in your life, perhaps it should not be there.

Addiction, Step One of Twelve, and Focus for A Fiver

Not too far from my home, is an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting house. They have several meetings a day. I would guess ten to twelve (the house is large enough to accommodate). I regularly observe the people coming, going, mingling outside on the porch between meetings. They’re from all walks of life. They are all at ious steps of dealing with their addiction to alcohol. No matter who you are, step one is always the hardest and most important. Believe me, I get that and have a lot of respect for it.

That said, I often wonder as I see them – almost as a rule – chain smoking, downing cup after cup of coffee, chatting endlessly on their mobile phone, if they are merely confronting the one addiction that was causing the most problem, and ignoring the others that are not. Have they really confronted the real problem? The problem of addiction itself? And by confronting and applying the steps to that core problem would it be successful in not only the battle with alcohol but in countless other ways? Have they really done “step one”?

I’m starting to wonder about the numerous applications one can now buy to help with “focus”. There are many of these I have covered here before. Heck, there are many that I use myself. I’m using one right now. That said, am I really curing the root of the problem? Am I simply replacing it with new ones? Would working on the root of the issue eradicate my need for an application like Writeroom when I find even my Desktop too much to handle? Have I really done “step one”?

Don’t get me wrong, I know that these root problems are much harder to tackle. I know that, on the surface, throwing down a fiver on something that will help seems like the right thing to do. But pretending that will cure the real problem, and in many cases not simply replace it with others, is the same as the chain smoking, coffee swilling alcoholic who claims he has dealt with his addiction because of the color of coin in his pocket.

“Hi. My name is Patrick. I have no self control.”

See? Step one. Where’s my medallion?

See also: On distraction and virtual crutches « The Quillink Observer – A similarly themed and introspective post that was brought to my attention in the middle of writing this one.