Emerging Success

Leave it to the blogosphere to call me to task

2004-02-07T12:27:00.000-05:00

(parallel post)

I've been staring at this in my aggregator for a day or so now, not having read it through, but sure I'd want to keep it around for comment.

Using a blog for self-help?. Seb Fiedler (via Aaron Campbell) points to John Stone, a guy who used a blog to track his progress towards fitness. Apparently, documenting his efforts and results worked well for him. Check out the pictures and animations. In a similar vein, Michael uses his "emerging success" blog to document his efforts to shake off his apathy. Not sure how it's turning out - that blog's been dormant for a few months now.

Related post: An Internet way of self-knowledge
[Seb's Open Research]

Yes, my E.S. blog is largely defunct. I suppose it's more of a statement than if I had been keeping it up. I go back to those posts frequently and am pretty energized by what I find there, after a fashion. But my situation has slipped so far since then that it's tough to write about honestly and not just flinch. I've been living in a basement in Connecticut since early October. The plan was to be house sitting for 6 months, during which time I'd find something, start working, and get all set to move out by the 6 months + 1 day mark.

Instead the people for whom I'm house sitting came back 4 months early and have been kind enough to ...err... "keep me on" until I find something.

So what started off as a favor that I was doing for someone else that had a great beneficial side-effect for me has become a situation where I'm accepting handouts.

Doesn't feel great. Feels really not great.

So I've been selling stuff on eBay, looking for work (though the way I've felt physically over the last week makes it tough)

I'm out of catch phrases, cute little anecdotes, motivational speeches and lists of "The N Things You Can Change To Make Your Life A Better Place" (act now and get our 10 week tape program for ONLY $299!)

Just trying to find some basic dignity now.

The Idea Deck

2003-10-19T19:28:00.000-04:00

Get a file box and a bunch of 3x5 cards.

Every morning take 5 blank ones, put the date on the top right-hand corner and number them 1-5.

Throughout the course of the day put an idea on each one.

There's no attachment to getting any of those things done or considering what it would take to do them. For all intensive purposes "Cure Cancer" and "Velcro Shoes" are on the same level.

At the end of the day put all 5 cards in the front of the box. Don't read them.

Do this for weeks at a time.

At the end of a month (or perhaps 2 weeks, it depends) take them out and read them all, making a little note on each one about what it would take to do them. (Not whether or not it's a good idea.)

Once you're comfortable doing 5, do 10. Eventually you'll find you can do them in one sitting. I've gotten up to 20 a day.

As far as actually doing them? You won't be able to help yourself so I'm not even gonna talk about it.

Week 7: Day 1: Addendum

2003-09-08T18:30:00.000-04:00

I expect it's virtually impossible NOT to misread that last post. I would like to go on to say that it was hyperbole', but that would be a lie.

I realized this afternoon at about 1:30 the amount of energy I spend on waiting for things to happen TO me in my life. How much energy I spend wanting to BE entertained, to BE engaged, to BE interested & enthusiastic. As though I were the subject of such qualities as they were exuded from some otherness I expected to grant these virtues to me.

It is as I have always said and nearly always forgotten: Activity breeds interest.

Keeping my eye on the task helps nothing. It sounds like 3rd grade rhetoric from backyard games of catch with Dad but "keep your eye on the goal. Look to your destination."

I had, this afternoon, at about oh... 1:35, this horrid sinking feeling about all of this and how badly (and effectively) manifested it is in my psyche. I wait for things.

The thing to do would be for me to keep that in very sharp focus. But the subjectivity of experience doesn't do a very good job at allowing you to do that at will (otherwise psychological depression would be rather extremely rare.) So I waxed a teensey bit literary in order to pound the point home and codified it. I read that post 3 times before I was out the door with my written checks and their envelopes in hand, the receipt from the cleaners, and enough cash to restock my caffeine. It was no big deal, took about 10 minutes total. I left a message for the aforementioned lady (T), so we'll see how that goes.

Ya know what? I was not interrupted by the buzzer or the sight of the UPS truck racing by me on the street so they could say they were there and I wasn't.

I've got a list of 10 moving companies to get estimates from and I've written the form email (if they don't like that it's a form email they don't have to take my money.)

And I learned something again that I forget almost without fail: Time seems short when you waste it. Time seems more than plentiful enough when you use it well.

I'm really excited about going out for coffee (or some analog) with T. She already knows I'm moving. How bad could it possibly go?

All of a sudden it seems like it's "only" 6:30 instead of "already" 6:30.

Saved again. I wonder what else I could do.

Week 7: Day 1: Waiting

2003-09-08T15:44:00.000-04:00

UPS Tracking says my boxes are on the road, on their way here. I haven't left the apartment because I have remarkably bad timing with such things. I know that as soon as I round the corner the ups truck will show up. He should be here a few minutes more. I'll just wait.

Once those come I'll be able to go downstairs and pick up my laundry and drop off a new bag. THEN I'll be able to get moving.

Once I have my laundry I can start packing both for a trip I'm going on next week (that I paid for back when I thought I could afford it) and for the move.

I was asked out on Saturday, but I was thinking that while she's really cute and seems pretty sweet (it's someone I've known on and off for a few years) that if I were to start seeing someone now it would probably just end up being bad, what with the move and all. So I should really wait until I'm settled in up in Connecticut. Of course, then I was thinking that I'm only going to be in THAT arrangement for 5-6 months and what a pain in the ass it would be to have to start all over again. So maybe I should just wait some more. But I'll call her in a few minutes. After the boxes get here.

I just finished the last of the Diet Mountain Dew and therefore the last of my stuff to drink stock in the fridge. I should go downstairs to the store. But they might not have any more (a frequent occurrence) which means I'll have to go over to Atlantic Avenue to the market there, so I'm gonna just wait 'til the boxes get here.

A friend of mine is an accomplished writer and I sent her an email a week or two ago about writing based on real-life and how I've been a bit hesitant because it would be really tough to mask the identites of those involved (for better and worse.) An interesting conversation ensued and after a bit I confessed that it's a very strong drive of mine, to write, and what a delightful fantasy it was to write for a living. She asked: "What are you waiting for?"

I've got a couple writing and programming projects that have been running through my head all ready to start sketching out and outlining. But tomorrow night I'm going up to Connecticut to take a driving lesson (ugh. Apparently the driving school can get me into a DMV road test in a week instead of 3 months from now. It's worth the cash, but I have to take a 2 hour lesson) so I won't really have the time to get a meaningful amount of work done before I'm all disrupted and have to leave again. So I'm just gonna hold off on that. Besides, those boxes should be here any minute.

There are a couple unpaid bills sitting on my desk that I could really stand to bang out. But once I write the checks and stuff the envelopes I'm gonna have to walk up the street a few blocks to put them in the mail box. I don't really want to leave 'til the boxes get here. So I'll just wait.

I was sure there was something else I wanted to add. I was about to hit post, but I had this itching sensation in my brain. There's an idea that's almost there but it's barely escaping me.

I'll just wait.

Week 6: Day 4: Step Ahead

2003-09-05T00:34:00.000-04:00

Not bad. Not so bad at all. Despite my radio silence I've finally gotten my Ct driver's license stuff sorted out. The upshot is that having a driving school give me a lesson then lump me in for one of their pre-scheduled tests gets the job done 3 months earlier (!!!) The first available test if I scheduled it myself was December 12th. That would leave me in the middle of noplace with only a 10 year old mountain bike for transportation for a very long time. Not good.

I also ordered a huge bundle of assorted boxes that are supposed to arrive on Monday. Packing has been more or less on hold until then, though the tossing out of my stuff has been going smoothly and quickly. I'm quite amazed at what I've had the strength to part with. I really am quite sick of being owned by my stuff and it's becoming very easy to let go of... largely.

Most of the rest of my stuff has fallen through the cracks because I've been letting my basic discipline slip. No reason to get whiney about it really. The book I'd been reading with the intent of reviewing here was SO bad that I couldn't even finish. I've just restarted The Art of War again. You can't read that too many times.

Without belaboring the point too much one big reason I've gotten myself all screwed up is that my plans have changed so radically that I'm not adapting very quickly and I'm still looking at my long term goals with a new pair of eyes and an "Uhm... ok. So what does this all mean?"

I figure I've got 3 readers and I've probably lost 2 of them by my sporadic low-content posting. Quite alright. I haven't earned it yet.

Today: I did get some cute little perl scripts written. I had a couple solid blog posts, and I got through a significant amount of my pending bills. Plus, I stopped myself from going way overboard with tonight's impromptu family dinner (had mexican, stopped halfway through. Major dietary achievement actually, especially since that was actually enough.)

So it's a good thing. I want to get back into the habit of posting here and being excited about my progress, but rather than whine about it I'm going to go work on what else I want to get done by the end of the week.

Week 5: Day 4: Halting the backslide

2003-08-28T16:42:00.000-04:00

For some time I've been slipping. But I've pulled together more than a fair bit and some of the most distasteful silliness is en route to being complete.

The Driver's license problem: Moving out of the NYC metro area means I need a license again. I let mine expire long ago, so I have to go take the driving test. But whether that's here or in Connecticut was a bit of a question, and where was I going to get a car to TAKE the test in, etc. Simple solution to a complex series of problems: Driving Schools. They'll pick me up, schedule the test, take me there and take me home. Done deal.

Moving the garbage: Boxes. Hundreds of boxes I need. So after whining and moaning about it for a while I went to a "moving supply" website and bought a "7-8 room package" and am having THAT delivered. Another major win.

More on the moving: People are coming out of the woodwork with generous offers to help me move. While it fills my heart with warm fuzzy goodness, it's just not a task I can ask of friends and family. I live on the 6th floor. I have more books than several small used book stores, more clothes than most women put together, and I'm moving far far away. I can't ask that of people.

HOWEVER. They can help me pack all they want ;-)

But I'm going to get movers to move the crap (except the computers and the sensitive art. I'm taking those in whatever vehicle I travel in.)

So the big hurdles are falling. Things are moving, and I'm feeling pretty good about my deadlines for moving.

Unfortunately there's a whole lot of stuff that's fallen through the cracks during this process (remember that cute "book a week" idea?), and I have to recalibrate based on what I've learned as a result.

To be perfectly honest though; the way I've been feeling the last few weeks, I'm counting these as major successes and going from here. I'm going to think a bit about why I didn't get done the things I wanted to, but I'm not going to bang my head against a wall any more about it. It just doesn't help do anything but make me feel worse and give inertia and depression a foothold in my mind.

The tasks ahead still seem insurmountable to me. "I have to pack all THIS? By WHEN?" I expect that's more a problem of perspective than anything else (forest and trees and all that.)

Week 4: Day 5: Keeping Up Appearances

2003-08-23T01:47:00.000-04:00

Of course, I swore this wouldn't happen. Promised myself up and down. All kinds of oaths were tossed chickens were sacrificed. Deals were made with extraplanar beings both angelic and demonic.

All that means precisely squat if it's not coming from the heart.

It's the sparing nature of my posting that's gotten me all boiled up tonight, and more than that is what it's indicative of.

A few years ago my spending was really getting out of hand and I decided to do something about it. I've never exhibited the discipline of a reasonable "budget" of any kind (regardless of whether or not said discipline exists.) So I figured that the logical first step would be to chart my expenditures as they were for a month or two, then look at that information in about 6 different ways (I love playing with data. long story.)

I had all kinds of spreadsheets with automated totalling, categories, multiple accounts, etc. All with graphs and charts. It was far more intricate than necessary, but it was fun so I kept with it.

I actually kept with it for more than six months. (I seem to remember it being about eight.) But something happened.

I started "forgetting" to write things down in my little notebook. At night, when I'd do the day's data entry, I'd play catch-up and try to recall what I'd spent during the day. Then I started rounding a bit.

After that I'd miss a day, maybe two. It was ok though, I could extrapolate from old data.

Eventually I stopped completely.

After a few months I realized why. I had started to spend more money, buying bullshit. Toys, software, whatever. Things that wouldn't help me stand up to the bitter scruitinization of the mirror. Accounting for these things became more painful. It was easier to pretend I'd forgotten, to let it slide a little, than it was to deal with the fact that I'd done something that ran counter to the direction I was trying to go.

After all: It's not just a river in Egypt.

So over the past few weeks my posting has been getting erratic, less "interesting" when it happens, and just generally shoddy and haphazard.

It would be dishonest at best of me to say that I had some flash of insight where I associated what happened back then with what's been happening now, causing me to come to my own emotional rescue. Nope. Nothing like that at all. I've been fully conscious of this weird slide into self disapproval, which is why it has been so tough.

So I have this problem that's now a bit easier to encapsulate, having seen it in a couple different instances: The path of least resistance is to realize I'm not living up (to whatever) and to slowly divest myself of the outward indicators my progress, so as to have one less reminder. Then that becomes another point of dissatisfaction, and it feeds on itself and sinks slowly down a deep spiral.

This kind of thing has happened and continues to happen, in far too many areas of my life for me to ignore it. Most importantly I've wrecked relationships all over the place this way. Ones that could perhaps have turned out much differently... But I digress.

Usually it starts with some trivial procrastination or other similar impulse control problem (all various permutations of "let it slide".)

I'm afraid to oversimplify here, but it seems that it comes down to the fact (?) that the fundamental dissatisfaction I have with myself is somehow easier to bear than the solution to the problem or the task that needs doing.

Does that make ANY sense?

Part of me (a BIG part of me) thinks that all this self-referential intellectualizing about my internal workings is destructive. The place to come to, I expect, is the place where I realize it's all more or less irrelevant and that I should just do what needs doing. Cleanly.

But until then, here I am.

- M

Week 4: Day 3: Square 1

2003-08-20T15:04:00.000-04:00

Part of my long-term plan has been to pare down my living expenses incrementally (by moving to a cheaper apartment primarily, but with removal of some of my more expensive habits as well) and to then take a lower paying job so that, within 5-10 years, I could switch industries and leave programming more or less completely as a profession.

If you're not someone who writes software it probably sounds kinda funny to talk about it as something worth being passionate about. But I will always do it for myself and the 2 or 3 people who use the day to day toys I come up with. But working on someone else's project is something I'm a few years away from being completely burnt out on.

Another part of The Plan (pretty much on the same schedule) is moving out of New York City. I love it to death, but... enough already. My feet haven't touched grass in years.

Last Wednesday night I received a request to house sit for someone for 5+ months in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods of southwestern Connecticut.

It's more than $10,000 in rent that I won't have to come up with, and could very well be a little breathing room to decide where I want to move next.

In many regards, it wipes the slate clean and vaults me 5 years ahead in The Plan.

So, after a consultation with my personal account representative of the first transgalactic bank of reality, I accepted.

I'll be moving over the next few weeks.

Of course, I don't have a car. I don't have a license. But I'm getting to those quickly.

I really don't have my head wrapped around what's just happened (is happening.) This is an opportunity I couldn't have planned for.

There is some ego hit in accepting help, but that's my problem. I'm rapidly coming to understand that there's no such thing as "doing it alone." Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps is as impossible as it sounds. All motion and achievement is accomplished through interactions with other people.

I have a serious amount of reevaluation to do.

Week 3: Day 2: Cheap Shots

2003-08-13T18:53:00.000-04:00

Looking at my todo/ne lists for the past 3 weeks, I noticed a trend that I knew would probably be there, but not anywhere close to the degree I saw.

I've been doing the cheap shots off of my todo list with increasing focus. In other words, I've been salting the dig with things I won't particularly find challenging in order to have lots of stuff crossed off.

One major reason for this of course, is that I haven't done a very thorough job keeping myself focused on my goals (remember those? Back from the 1st week, maybe even the first or second post? Yeah. Me neither.)

It's just too easy to let things slide lately.

There are some definite plus-column things: Aside from a couple games of chess against the computer, I haven't spent more than a half hour playing games since Friday night; and even that was exceptional.

My reading project is going along well, even tough the book is pretty trashy. I'm not going to do a pre-review though.

At 7:00 (10 minutes) I'm going to stop what I'm doing and spend 15 minutes taking my partial goals breakdown and putting the resulting pieces into an outline as the next step towards turning them into real achievable tasks.

I feel like I'm trying to ski through a patch of mud. The resistance of inertia is really far greater than I expected.

More later.

- M

Week 3: Day 1: Desulkified

2003-08-12T16:30:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling a whole lot less pouty about yesterday. Having identified several problems with the event I've come up with a couple solid solutions:

- start working on an established open source project to get my chops back and see where they're at.
- put my own project(s) out there in the universe for public consumption with the hopes that they'll generate enough interest that I'll feel accountable to get them going.

Part of knowing and coping with your own failings is knowing how to get around yourself. Nobody is completely self-motivated. It takes effort and friction from our environment; be that people who we know or life situations that pull us or push us around. It's much easier to be reactive than proactive. But either way, being "active" is vitally important.

My job search is entirely self-motivated. That means that aside from the looming cash deadline, there's really no external motivation. I have to get up and decide to hit the ePavement as it were. And it doesn't always happen. I go through waves of enthusiasm and ambivalence. Sometimes it looks like something is moving along, so I relax pressure on my own drive to find new opportunities and coast a bit. This happened over the last week.

As I slid back into what was essentially inactivity, it became the norm and went largely unnoticed. Then at one point I realized what was going on and tried to snap out of it, failing miserably at the task of overcoming inertia "An object at rest..." as it were.

But the events of yesterday were enough of a wake-up call to, once the initial shock was over, drive me far past escape velocity, and I'm now back on track.

One thing that contributed largely was the rewriting of my list of mid to long term goals. Watching those words come out of my pen helped me remember what was important to me and why in the big picture. Again I was reminded how important it is to undertake that simple exercies.

So in a sense I'm back to square 1. All motivated and ready to go.

Week 3: Day 0: Failure

2003-08-11T23:59:00.000-04:00

How do you deal with failure? Most of us make batteries of excuses and retreat underneath that most noble of cop-outs "it was a learning experience".

Alas. I failed my interview today. Miserably. I could talk all kinds of smack about mismatched resume and job rec. I could talk about the little list of questions I botched that I made in my head and copied onto a pad (that I obsessively keep with me at all times) on the way down in the elevator (I've never gotten nailed by the same question twice.)

But the fact is, my chops just weren't up to where I know they could be and have been. So I failed. I had all the time in the world to study the basics and instead I went off into esoteric land trying to learn things I didn't know.

I should have just made sure that my trump card was a trump card and not a wildcard.

I did learn a great deal from having failed this interview. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I wanted this job, and could have had it if I had been on top of my game.

The most valuable thing I learned was directly related to this blog, in a strangely self-referential kind of way.

On my way from Park Avenue and 59th street down to Grand Central (I decided to walk instead of take the 4, even in this weather) I was thinking to myself and wondering how I would present this here. This caused me to take a good look at the emotional wreck I had become.

I took a heavy pride hit in this and spent the better part of my afternoon and evening questioning my skills, my direction, and any faith I really had in myself at all.

But because I was taking inventory, I had forced myself, after a fashion, to make myself accountable for the failure itself. Yeah yeah, it was a warm fuzzy learning experience. But that's just a mask.

It was really a good solid joust with humility.

Tomorrow I'm getting back on track with goals and their breakdown into achievable tasks.

How do you deal with your own failures? Do you dodge them? Accept them? Sugar coat them? "Use them as warm crystal feely transformative exercises"?

I wanna know.

- M

Another little tweak

2003-08-10T21:12:00.000-04:00

No no, this one is to me, not the site.

Tomorrow is my big interview. I'm "about as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs." Why? Because I WANT this job. Not only that, but I want THIS job. I'm not going to disclose many details (whether I get it or not) because who knows what their policy is about things like that. Besides, it's good to keep work at work.

Every night I spend at home ends like this:

- check email
- check weblog news updates, responding or posting as "appropriate"
- putter around online until I can't hold my head up
- run to the bed before I fall over.

Tonight, because of the interview, I need to be out by about 10:00. But if I go right to bed from the computer, I really won't get any kind of reasonable closure on the day. It's time that could be better spent (as is most of the time I spend at the computers, but that's almost another story.)

So I'm going, an hour early, to take my new book (I forget the title) and sit awake in bed with a nice glass of ice water, and read it without worrying about whether or not I should be "allowed" to read because of the time I decided to check out.

It seems a bit trivial to have actually POSTED about this, but putting it down sets it in stone (well... in "bits" anyway.)

Nighty night.

- M

P.S. Please keep a good thought in your head for me tomorrow (Monday) between 10:00 am and about 2:00 pm Eastern time. Thanks.

Maintenance

2003-08-10T13:49:00.000-04:00

I just learned that the html for this blog is broken when viewed through Internet Explorer. It's kinda funny really. I've mucked with the template and it looks ok now. I'm going to be re-adding comments and side-bar links (hit counter, etc.) a little at a time to make sure it doesn't break again. It won't be too long before it's all spiffed up (I'd say 'again' but it wasn't really all that spiffy before.)

Week 2: Day 5: Keep Digging

2003-08-10T00:15:00.000-04:00

This week I skipped a day, almost two in posting here. That's something I promised myself I'd never do. As such, it's a solid indication of the subtle downslope I've been on. I'm not going to get myself too nuts about it because that kind of self-pitying nonsense is not terribly productive.

But the fact remains that I've been getting pretty lazy and complacent over the past 2 weeks. That first week I had a great burst of activity that was just wonderful. Since then though I have drifted off to a state something worse than where I started from.

One of the things that's always been good for motivation for me has been self-help books. After reading maybe 3 of them, you pretty much stop learning anything new. Of course there are new ways of phrasing what's already stored in your noggin, and sometimes that's equally important.

So in an effort to both keep me motivated AND expand my brain and attention on getting myself together, I'm going to start reading a self-helpy book a week. So I'll pick a day a week (I'm guessing Sundays) and do some sort of treatment of the book I read the previous week.

In the meantime I want to find new (read: additional) short term goals and tasks for my various lists. The original battery of things I had to do was pretty much finished a week or two ago. So now there are these 3 or 4 lingering things of fairly low importance just floating from one daily todo list to the next. In order to overcome the inertia (well... make inertia work FOR me instead of against me, kinda like compound interest but different) I have to build up a certain momentum; even if it's by doing lots of silly little things just to get myself in the crossing out todo item habit. I know I spoke a little about this before, but that doesn't mean I've succeeded in taking it to heart by any means.

It's tough to do though without a whole lot of pressure. That's really a topic for another time though, so I'm not going to get myself all wound up about it here.

But that's an addition to the new plan: A book a week that's "on topic" in addition to my other reading. I'm open for suggestions also. Not that I think it's going to be tough to find personal productivity and self-help books, but separating the wheat from the chaff in this subject area is quite a labor.

Besides, who knows; I might learn something.

Week 2: Day 4: Announcement

2003-08-08T23:58:00.000-04:00

For reasons quite unknown to me I started a yahoo group "Emerging_Success"

Aside from that, this is a minimal post just so that I can say I didn't go 2 full weekdays without posting. It's a pretty thin attempt, but at least it's here.

Week recap? Not bad. More tomorrow (i.e. in 10 minutes)

Week 2: Day 2:

2003-08-06T23:38:00.000-04:00

Today I had a phone interview that went pretty well. I spent the majority of the day studying algorithm proofs and unix system internals in preparation. I heard back within 10 minutes that I got the real-life interview, so that was good.

From what I understand of the job (I've actually heard fairly little about the position they're looking to fill) it sounds like it's right up my alley.

As much as I am aware that I shouldn't be putting all my eggs in one basket, but if it falls, they don't all break anyway.

The interview itself was much lighter than I'd suspected, and most of my studying (which actually took place over the last 3 days) was unnecessary (but will be for the "real" interview on Monday, so it's not work lost by any stretch of the imagination.)

I have a problem when I play poker, which has led to me not playing poker any more. Once I feel I have a good hand, I rush for it. Every other concern I have drops and I just sprint. Now, for many (most?) things in life this is a really good way to be sure you cross the finish line. But if you have more than one thing going on, and they require maintenance (or at the very least, mindfulness) then that "one thing" has to be pretty damn special to justify dropping everything else and bolting straight for it.

If I get this job it will have been worth it. If I don't, then I've been horribly remiss by dropping most other concerns while shooting for it.

It's impossible to know before hand if the additional focus would make enough difference to get me across the finish line if I wasn't going to make it already.

But, given what I know (that the urgency of most things on my plate is fairly low) I think hitting the books full steam for the next 4/5 days is the right tactic.

When push comes to shove, I want this job. If the work I do over the next few days doesn't get me the job then it will still be time very well spent.

And, as I write this out I realize that THAT is the key in this case: The work I do has value independent of the immediate goal. It's education; permanent enrichment, a one-way gift to myself.

I should have as good reasons for most things I want and do.

- M

P.S. The check STILL hasn't cleared, so nothing terribly productive is happening on that front other than me having a whole bunch of checks written, in stamped envelopes, waiting to go in the box until the money is there. I'm not playing games with this.

Week 2: Day 1: Tempus Fugit

2003-08-05T00:16:00.000-04:00

I try very hard to be mindful of time. I'm very bad at it. Seconds spill into hours and days much faster than 60 per minute sometimes.

For this reason I've been working towards a discipline for micromanaging my time. Like so many other devices I've mentioned in the last 2 weeks (!!!) it works very well when it works, which is to say, when I have the discipline to implement it.

The little technique is this: Declare, at the start of a task, exactly what I'm going to be doing and exactly for how long I'm going to be doing it. "Until it's done" is right out. (This doesn't work well with atomic tasks like a particular phone call or trip to the store.)

When I get up in the morning, come in to my "office", turn on the computers and set them all to start downloading email and news, I spend the intermediate time copying everything that's undone from yesterday's todo list to todays, assuming it applies. This is when I add anything that springs to mind.

After that's done, I start picking things off the list saying in effect "this is what I'm going to do for the next ___." (usually 10 or 15 minutes.) Here's some things that go hand in hand with that:

- Never allocate time for more than the immediate task. Remember you're not allocating time to the task, you're allocating a task to the next immediate block of time. (subtle but important distinction. This way you don't have the schedule of your whole day weighing you down emotionally.)
- ALWAYS allocate less time (about 75%) than you think the task is going to take. Why? If I know I'm going to do X for 15 minutes and that it's not going to get done, I'll work hard for 15 minutes. More often than not I finish whatever it was I set out to do. (This does give me better estimates, making me allocate less and less time for repetitive tasks.)
- Never allocate more time than you can sit uninterrupted. For me, a half hour is pushing it. Allocating an hour block to sit and push yourself is unreasonable. Things get in the way. There will be "bio breaks" which are to be avoided whenever practical during such a block of time.)
- No interruptions. No email, no phone, no web, no reading (online or off), nothing. Just the task at hand.
- If you're done early, get up and walk away (see below)
- When time is up, stop. Pencils down mid-sentence. I don't care if it was the LAST sentence and you had 2 more words. Enough. The importance of stopping when you said you were going to stop is immeasurable.
- When time is up. Leave the room for 5 minutes. This is not your bathroom break (though it can add it on ;-) Make sure you have a "change of venue" for about 5 minutes. Look out the window. Don't answer questions, don't socialize too much. Just relax and breathe. You need that 5 minutes far more than you think. Walk around. I go up to the roof and check out the NYC skyline.
- When you allocate the next block of time after one is finished, do NOT allocate it to the same task, no matter how close you were. It's too much like not finishing and letting them bleed together. very bad.

I'm not suggesting you manage your whole day like this; you'd go bonkers. Just pick a time of day when you're feeling good to go and do it a few times. Heck, do it once. Just declare what you're going to do before you do it, and stop there.

That's pretty much it. There might be more. These things may seem draconian to the point of being silly. But they achieve so much. This tact gives you confidence, discipline and something I never hear the self-masters talk about, trust in yourself.

You'd be amazed how much of our self-confidence trouble, low self-esteem and self-worth are related to the fact that we simply don't trust ourselves to do what we told ourselves we were going to do. I'm not talking about keeping promises to other people, that's a whole different standard.

How many times have you said "I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow!" and laughed at yourself before the sentence was even finished? You know you're BSing yourself. You haven't earned your own trust. Little things like this help you develop a relationship with yourself that allows you to look in the mirror and say "I'm going to the gym" and know that the very statement carries gravity.

And that's just a side-effect.

2003-08-04T23:37:00.000-04:00

Week 2: Day 0: The Danger of a Reward System

Coming up with an effective reward system is a challenge of changing your habits. What you're trying to do is change your value systems in a subtle way so as to prefer actions that are good for you instead of what it is you're doing.

Anybody can do good when they're motivated, raring to go and all pumped up. But when you've got "a case of the Monday's" you need something to help you keep you on your feet and pointed in the right direction.

But if you're not careful, you can really mess yourself up and undo all the progress you're trying to reward.

If you decide that the reward for being productive and getting lots done; making the difficult phone calls, stretching your boundaries etc, should be a lapse into TV watching, computer games, ice cream and taking a day off from working out (or whatever) you've done yourself a disservice.

In effect, you've decided to reinforce the very habits you're trying to change.

You've decided to increase the distaste for your otherwise intended destination by focusing on the spoonful of sugar and treating the medicine as medicine.

The reward for being good cannot be permission to be bad.

Sounds kinda silly when you say it like that right? But ask anybody who's ever gone on a diet about that. "I was good yesterday so I can have a milkshake today." No. No you can't. (Well, ok pedants, you "can" but you oughtn't.)

One of the big areas I find I have a problem is computer games. I can disguise it in all kinds of wrappers, but at the end of the day I like to immerse myself in vast online environments and escape the drudgery of day to dayness. Daily I fight with myself when it gets late, to not turn go to one of my favorites.

When I began to realize and accept this (and I'm still in the "begin" part I assure you) I felt this horrid sense of loss, an immense pressure to abandon whatever it was that I was (am) trying to do. It's friggin HARD to change your own behavior. You have to keep your eye on the ball during times of weakness and crisis.

Answers? Heck if I had more answers I wouldn't be writing this. However, it seems to me that sometimes, you can take aspects of your favorite diversions, and include them in something a bit more productive. I'm a programmer and I have an entirely unhealthy addiction to computer games.

One of the things I started doing today was thinking about writing my own game. Sure, it won't be as flashy as anything I play, but it will help me hone my skills in my current vocation, and that can only be a good thing. And I'm still able to "play around" with games.

Another alternative is to do things that force you to remember why you're trying to steer away from your diversion of choice. Want a rootbeer float? Calorie count it. 3000 calories to a pound (ish). How many will that be? Bring it into stark contrast with the direction you're moving.

I'm a bit vague and flighty here I'm sure. It's primarily because I'm still figuring out how to work through this. The computer game thing is likely to be an easy win for me, but how do I distill that down into a general principle?

Week 1: Day 4: Beginning of Month :-)

2003-08-01T18:22:00.000-04:00

One of the main reasons I started this weblog last week was that there has been a failing in all the "success coach" type books and personalities I've run into thusfar. There's nothing wrong with them per se. I've gotten a great deal out of the Tony Robbins/Brian Tracy type crowd. In fact I've read and enjoyed dozens if not hundreds of books from the self-help genre. I've bought and enjoyed the Tony Robbins CD set (yes I spilled more than $200 on it) and every little enthusiastic pep talk I took something away from.

But after the first couple of them I really wasn't learning so much. They are great to read because they are really very encouraging, and sometimes you just need that attitude adjustment.

The failing for me was that in each and every case, those people are speaking entirely from the enviable top. They have achieved (and continue to) what it is they want. They have slogged through the muck and mires of getting a leg-up, and now they have a foundation from which to proceed that I can't even conceive of in any real way.

Tony Robbins, for instance, is fond of saying "You can't get caught up" in response to people who just feel as though there's too much in the way on the journey to their own personal success. "You can't get caught up" is supposed to mean that you are able to take things from the table in front of you and sort them by relative importance and urgency until the order and steps are apparent. If you get side tracked, you're supposed to "just not do that."

Well, ok. I see what he means to be sure.

But if I could do that as easily as he seems to suggest I ought, then I would be on the path I wanted to be on.

None of this would be an issue.

Instead... here I am. I'm at a low point in my own personal enthusiasm, faith in myself, and hopes for my immediate future. I'm not whining about it (I don't think!) It's just the cards I've dealt myself at the moment.

When I'm feeling productive, self-reliant, and I hold my shoulders up, the idea of being a bit run down seems positively silly. "Why should I? I've got so much going for me." etc...

It's at these times when all the "self-masters" (as some magazine article once titled them) are absolutely inaccessable to me. Because if I don't believe in myself to make progress then there's nothing I'm going to read that's going to be able to replace that.

It's a serious personal worldview subjectivity problem.

However.

There has always been one and exactly one thing that has worked for me. It has, in every case of depression, dragged me out of it and allowed me to look at myself in the mirror and dispel the cloud over my head.

More on it later :-)

Week 1: Day 3: End of Month

2003-07-31T23:57:00.000-04:00

Well I actually went through yesterday thinking it was tomorrow today. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the calendar a few hours ago and realized it was only still yesterday and that today wouldn't be coming until tomorrow!

Goals Goals Goals...

I started on it, but didn't get as far as I'd liked (there's a trend here that I'm going to work at ending right now.) I sketched out a few goals I have in separate time frames (such as an A.S. in 3 years and a B.A. in 5.) Still though I'm working on breaking those down into manageable pieces.

As for the information about going to vocational school(s) to augment my resume; I'm still looking hard at it. Unfortunately I haven't received a single piece of positive feedback on the idea, so I'm wavering.

Then there's that little issue of racing at 11:45 to post something here so I can say I did it. That's really just not good enough so I'm going to need to do something about that. It's not as though there were any lack of topics in my head. Nor is it the case that I lack the impulse to put it together. I just get lazy.

It's much easier to deal with changing a "down time" once you've recognized that you're sliding.

Yesterday I wasn't sure, today I am. It's time to buckle down and get something done.

Not because I have to; because I want to.

2003-07-31T16:43:00.000-04:00

Technical Update: Comments

I've just (well... a few hours ago) added a Commenting system to Emerging Success.

I strongly suspect that I won't be able to edit comments. I WILL however, be able to remove the entire commenting system. This I will most certainly do if people don't watch their mouths and intents.

So who's going to leave the first one?

(Or have I been talking to myself for the past week and a half?)

- M

2003-07-30T23:49:00.000-04:00

Week 1: Day 2:

I made my deposit today, which means in the next few days I'll be able to get my phones switched back on (I may be able to swing one quickly, which would be good as I need to do a phone interview over the next couple days.)

Right now (and I mean as soon as I finish this abbreviated entry) I'm going to start charting out my longer-term goals. Where I want to be in several years, 1 year, 1/3/6/9 months, etc.

I should have done that today.

I should have done a lot of things today.

But I got caught up in silliness. I picked up my laundry, made "that deposit", and intended to do a great deal more.

I don't really have much good to say about that.

Maybe I should give myself a break. Maybe I should get off my arse. Tough to see which is closer to the truth. I expect the 2nd one.

I'll probably have a follow-up post in a few minutes, but it's 11:45pm now and if I don't get this out before midnight I won't be able to sleep.

A thought: Reward for being good can never be "permission to be bad."

2003-07-29T15:59:00.000-04:00

Week 1: Day 1: Looking Farther On

My Todo list has been decimated. Most of the loose logistical ends of my life have been neatly tied off. There wasn't really so much on there to begin with, but that's no reason to take a success out of my belt.

I could (and will) continue to reach a bit farther outside my sphere of need to find things to add to that list. But as a strategy it falls woefully short. When the urgent is dispensed with, the important needs to be addressed. (Does that make ANY sense at all?) Stated differently: The best a todo list can do is stop you from backsliding.

It's been a week plus, and it was very important to me to get measurable results from both this forum, and on the path to twisting things into alignment, so I took a very "instant gratification" tact to accomplishment. Frankly that's not such a bad thing because with these things over my head, there's only so far I was able to look forward anyway.

So now it's time to stand up, stretch a bit, and see where I really want to go. I'm still on "red alert" as far as money and income are concerned. So that HAS to take top billing in my goals.

Here are some of the factoids involved in the job hunt.

- I'm going to be coming into a little bit of money tomorrow, as I've discussed. But it will, at best, last me a couple/few months. I can't consider this income. It's a bit of breathing room.
- I've been hunting for work for 7 months. So far, that hunt has been entirely fruitless. There are a couple things pending, but it wouldn't be the first time. (Besides, with something this important; if success is not guaranteed, I have to pursue other opportunities as though it's failure is.)
- One of the reasons my job hunt has been such a headache is that in my field (Programming) in this climate (New York City) there is a very heavy concentration of finance and therefore, financial programmers. My work history has been very independent of vertical industry. So, when the economy tanked, the local market was filled with programmers with very specific long-term financial experience. Now that things are on the upslope, these are the people who are being re-assimilated first. So, though I have the technical skills required for most of the jobs that I see coming across the job boards, I have much less chance of filling the positions than people with even less technological expertise than I have.

So I have a couple options:

- Adjust my search/location to an area (professionally and/or geographically) that will better suit my experience and skillset
- Adapt my skillset and experience to the market I'm shooting for.

Now I'm a NYC bigot. I'm the guy you'll see in the airport in florida in July wearing black jeans, a black t-shirt, dark sunglasses, shoes, and socks making an "echh" face as I get off the plane. I love my city and although I have one eye towards moving out of it in the next 10 years, that's not soon. But all that aside, the fact remains that because I have very little vertical industry experience, there aren't many places I can go to find a greater concentration of jobs with "my skillset". Silicon Valley is one of them. Research Triangle and Boston may be others. It's tough to say.

But the time for bigotry as something that dictated my course in life is really best left behind (a healthy plan anyway, don't you think?)

So let's look at the practicality of moving:

- Moving is expensive. First/Last months rent, security deposit, movers, incidentals (duct tape, boxes, blah blah.)
- Moving is disruptive. It would take me a week or more to be ready to move. It would take a few days to a week to be ready to start looking for work again. New service and utilities must be dealt with, internet connections need to be installed, online identities need to be tweaked.
- I would have to move someplace where mass transit was fluid enough that I wouldn't need a car: I don't have one now. While I fully intend to get my driver's license, it still doesn't magically provide me with transportation.

I know I'm probably salting the dig here a bit. I want to stay at least local and I don't believe that I'm at a point yet where I need to change that much. I could be wrong. Only time will tell.

So based on that rather unscientific analysis I am left with the conclusion that changing geographic focus is impractical, and within my "commutable range" I am looking as cross-industry as I can.

HOWEVER

If I treat this as getting a job in a new field (and it's really beginning to seem like that's exactly what it is) I have another option; one chosen by people trying to break into technology: I can get external training.

In order to become a broker/trader, there are all kinds of certifications and licenses required. How many programmers out there are equipped with these? I wonder what would happen if I were to take classes and get my Series 7 (This is not a revolutionary idea. A friend of mine did this a long time ago.)

I think it would enhance my marketability dramatically.

But then I thought... why stop there? Surely there are other industries that have similar requirements and exams, etc. (Of course this thought came to me about 3 minutes ago.)

All of those little course-lets that just seem pretty flacid (paralegal, etc.) would probably be potent adjuncts to my top-shelf technical skills.

PLUS the value of education for personal esteem absolutely cannot be overrated.

See, now I'm all excited :-)

Let me close here (It had to come eventually) by adding that to the plan: Research on these types of programs and perhaps their relative marketability is very high on my new list :).

My plan for about 2 months or so has included getting my Series 7. But now I've got a couple other things to chew on.

Harrumph. I had planned on talking about setting goals and how you go about pulling them into pieces to make manageable tasks out of them. But this is pretty good too.

As always, if you have any information or sources of information that might help, please don't hesitate to contact me through the email address posted here or any other channel you know of.

Thanks for listening,

- M

2003-07-28T23:31:00.000-04:00

Week 1: Day 0: A demon revealed

As time has worn on for me with the job search, it's been more and more difficult to stay enthusiastic and motivated. One of the ways I've attacked this has been to maintain a set "work" schedule which included full weekdays, hard stop times, and put away everything on the weekend so I can relax and recoop a bit.

But one of the things that went with the bathwater was my daily regimen of maintaining a little list of things that needed doing and taking myself seriously while doing them.

For approximately an equal amount of time, Mondays have been horrible things. It takes until noon to wake up with or without a caffeine drip. Then I end up making a couple calls maybe; puttering around on the job boards, and calling it a day.

It has just been too tough to get "back into the swing of things."

Last week, as Friday drew to a close and I reviewed in my own head and here, what I had accomplished and how I felt about it, I was positively euphoric. I had accomplished a great deal and regained a fair amount of pride. I wasn't worn out. I was energized.

So why did I need to put it all aside?

There's a careful balance between diligence and overworking. But when it comes to establishing routines and habits, taking 2 days out of every 7 to go out of your way to skip the pattern really seems to do damage.

I could be far off here (which is actually always true.)

But my new working theory is that pushing everything aside on the weekend ends up doing more harm than good. I don't mean I should be sending recruiter emails on Saturday nights. But I should "stick with the program" in it's abstract. Stay mindful of what I want to accomplish (even though it's likely a completely different list.) Take myself seriously (wake up when I'm waking up.) etc.

Maintain the pattern and you'll have vastly less to "recover from" come Monday.

Otherwise you'll do something like publish a real cop-out post at 11:30 on Monday night just to get in under the wire. :-/

- M

2003-07-28T14:53:00.000-04:00

Week 1: Day 0: A personal success

Happy Monday everyone. I've got a full-blown post coming later today. I just wanted to post a little woohoo.

For reasons I don't understand I get paralyzed with fear when I have to cold-call someone. This becomes exponentially worse with each of the following factors:

- It's about something important
- It's personal
- It has to do with money
- It has emotional weight

For years I've been thinking about this; mulling it over, trying to get on top of it. But still it's just been there. I'm better at it than I used to be, but far from good.

Of course, once the call has been made, all worries are dissolved and it is never as bad as I'd feared.

Just got off the phone with the nice lady Meredith at Prudential. My 401k is officially cashed out, and I'll be getting a check cut tomorrow morning, overnighted.

So it looks like I'm going to be able to turn my phones back on (yes. I found out 10 minutes ago that my long distance is out on my cell and my land line.) AND pay August's rent.

Plus I'll be able to breathe. Not relax, mind you. Breathe.

WOOHOO!!!

Of course the real success here is much less about the cash than it is about having actually made the call.

I'll get back to y'all later. I've got some potentially interesting news about this forum for later this evening.

- M

2003-07-25T16:42:00.000-04:00

Day 4: Addendum. A note on errors

Oh yeah... (I always seem to do this)

I read back over the previous entries at least once a day, and I notice HORRID spelling and grammatic mistakes (hmm, was that one?) I could go back and edit them, but I'm not going to. I want to look back in another couple weeks and see an improvement.

My nighttime reading at the moment is "The Transitive Vampire" a really great book on grammar (and one that's humorously misplaced into the occult section of bookstores more often than not.) It's a little thing and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Cya ;-)

2003-07-25T16:40:00.000-04:00

Day 4: Can't think of a title

It's 4:20 in the afternoon and I've been trying to decide whether to just wrap E.S. up for the week, or to add ES posting to my Saturday or Sunday regimen as well. Eh. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it... or ... something like that.

So, in case I'm done, here's a recap of the week:

In the plus column:

- I'm waiting for word on 2 separate job opportunities, and I have one more call to return on a third.
- My Social Security card came in the mail today. (It's a requirement for my License application.)
- My weight isn't any better, but I'm much happier about what I've (not) been eating. There's the whole pear thing, but that's nothing to get TOO excited about really.
- In anticipation of houseguests tomorrow night, I've spent the last two days excavating my apartment (and letting alot of other stuff fall by the wayside.) But by tomorrow afternoon my apartment will not be recognizable by people who've seen it before. This is a win that's NOT to be underestimated by my estimation (there's a whole lot of stuff to come about the importance of having a clean, livable environment and the destructive nature of The Mess.)

Now for the minuses:

- I've been dodging the 401k thing. I'm not really too sure why, but I can't afford (by several definitions) to let this slip much longer.
- The number of jobs I've applied to hasn't really been up to par. I could/should be making more of an effort in that regard. However, I have gotten a great ratio of feedback on the ones I have gone for.
- On Wednesday I REALLY screwed up a programming test. There's no excuse for it really. I've been writing software for more than 25 years (I'm 34 btw.) But I never went to school for it so there are some gaps in my knowledge that, while I'm filling fast, are still pretty glaring.
- I have a hard time deciding to make progress in meeting "someone" while I have no income. There are basic pride issues that are really tough to get over. Already this calendar year I've had a couple false starts that just couldn't have gone anyplace because of my income situation. Who knows though.

Oh yeah... There's one more big plus.

I started a blog called Emerging Success. It's going to be a great outlet for a whole lot of thinking and writing I've been doing for the last 20 or so years about how to work WITH yourself to succeed, rather than to try and deny or subvert your own nature. As my writing skills grow (and my spelling improves) I expect this forum to contain something close to the best I have to offer. And THAT'S saying something.

Tonight I'm off to Happy Hour with a social group I belong to (Social Circles.) Because you've gotta have fun and hang loose sometimes.

Signing off for now.

- Mike

P.S. I'm just about to disassemble my home network and move my computers from one room to another. This is a larger task than perhaps it sounds, so if I'm offline for a few days it's because I've messed something up. No biggie.

2003-07-25T00:02:00.000-04:00

Day 3: Changing Habits, what doesn't work.

I forgot this part. It's more important than the last part.

Let's say you don't like your eating habits (or, more properly put, the RESULT of your eating habits.) So you do some searching around and you come across the Bill Philips book "Body for Life." Great book. I'm a fan of most of the self-help gurus out there. I think they all suffer from a critical flaw, but that's a topic for another time.

So you read body for life and are spellbound by the before and after pictures contained in the sleeve to the hardcover edition, not to mention being envious/desirous of his biceps (depending on your gender & sexual preference I suppose.) So you, in your enthusiasm, read it cover to cover, soaking up every page, making shopping lists, workout schedules, everything. You're gonna change your life and have that 6-pack by summer, and to hell with the rest of the world. You'll show them.

And for three days you drink those noxious drinks of his, eat 5 "fist-sized" portions of food a day (or whatever that was, I've forgotten) and you work out like a fiend at your new gym.

By the time 1 week, maybe 2 is done, you've no particular recollection of why you ever thought you'd change, since after the first 4 days you started eating pizza and calling your personal trainer to "reschedule" (i.e. cancel.)

What happened?

Well you got caught up in the enthusiasm and tried to replace your entire behavioral structure in 3 minutes. But you are what you do. You are what you think. You are your habits and priorities and goals and activities. In trying to do that all at once, you tried to just say "I'm not me any more. I'm this person over here." And while you think that's what you meant, what you REALLY are saying is "I'm going to surgically replace the bad stuff with this new human upgrade 10.0. But the rest of me will be the same." I've got news for you: The rest of you is a vast portion of self, and no aspect of you exists in enough isolation that it can be merely replaced.

You have to coax your being into a new mold. You can't jam it in there overnight. Your ego is an incredibly powerful instrument and it's got it's own ideas about what it wants and why.

Rather than force change, you must convince yourself that it's warranted. It's a process very much like convincing your boss that your idea was his idea all along. Once you do that, it's a forgone conclusion right? (Ok, I'm simplifying a bit I know.)

I've tried (as have you I'll gamble) many many many times to "just change my diet" and every time I've gotten dietary whiplash. But in doing something simple and not very sweeping, like finding a piece of fruit I liked and eating one a day, I'm convincing myself that change in diet was my bodies idea all along. It just feels better to do that. But I still like pizza. So I gladly eat a piece of fruit when I wake up (sometimes before bed) and some Za for lunch or dinner.

It will be a little while before I'm settled into it very much. But then I'll push a little more. Buy some apples as well and have one or two with lunch, in addition to as/with breakfast. Maybe I'll go for salad greens and blue cheese dressing. Doesn't matter so much.

At first glance this can seem like an insanely slow process. But I firmly believe it's a sure one. Too much at once will just cause you to snap back in resistance.

Next I have to start looking at fitness. I know what that means... That means facing my worst enemy.

Situps.

2003-07-24T23:45:00.000-04:00

Day 3: The Daily Regimen

Now. The Todo/ne lists are a wonderful, vital part of the process of getting from point A to point B. I don't care who you are or what you're trying to accomplish, somewhere even if it's in your own head, you have a list of things that need to get done in order to get there. This is true whether or not you write it down, make little voice memos, use PIM software or a palm-pilot; whether you're designing software or painting.

But the reason you are not where you want to be (or dream of being, depending on how you phrase it to yourself) is not because you don't write everything down or use pithy little lists.

It's because you have habits and behaviors that don't cut it.

So all the additional pieces of software or dedicated pads of paper or PIMs of one sort or another are not going to change your life. They will help you shift a bit, and your head will clear out to a degree you will not believe after you start trusting the list (more on that some other time.) But a todo list isn't going to change your life.

Recognizing and changing your priorities and habits is what will change your life. But how do you do that? Well... fair question. I'm gaining some small measure of success in that regard myself, so I'll tell you what I've learned and we'll walk together.

Your habits, belief structures, and priorities all run together, very deeply. There's an element of "having to trick yourself" that, while I dislike, seems necessary.

The easiest thing I've found thusfar, is to put myself on something resembling a schedule. Of course, the word "schedule" makes my hair stand on end, especially when it's not related to work. But you've just gotta do what you've gotta do.

And what you've gotta do is something different. Out of the ordinary. It doesn't matter so much what it is as long as it's something that moves you in the right direction. And you need to add that thing to your daily regimen; that list of things you do every day, without fail. It includes things like your wake-up time, shower, shave, shampoo, breakfast, email, lunch, etc. It is NOT a complete list of everything that happens during the day. It's the "invariants". The things that do not change from one day to the next.

I, for example, am home all the time. There are NO external demands on my schedule whatsoever. So if left to my own devices I will go to sleep at 5 am and get up at about 10 or 11. Then I'd lounge around in some funky Old Navy pajama bottoms with little ghosts on them until 3 or 4, while hitting the job boards, answering email, blogging, etc.

But I realized (recently) that this approach was simply not allowing me to take myself very seriously. So I changed a few things (it took MONTHS to get from where I just mentioned to...) Now I get up before 9 am every day. I take a shower and get fully dressed, down to the shoes. Then I sit down and take my todo list from the previous night, and recopy everything on to a new page (more on this later too. I find it VITAL.) This is when I start looking for things to add. There are a few things I make sure I do every day:

- Send a substantial email to at least 2 friends. (not just a url.)
- Write in my primary blog
- Write in this blog
- leave the apartment for a walk, regardless of whether or not I need anything

Now, getting from the "blah whatevers" to that wasn't easy, and it's tough to remember why, for instance, getting out of my apartment, is important. I used to skip it. But now I've got it pretty much down.

What I accomplish by having these to do and done is that I begin to trust myself. I don't know if it's common among people who don't consider themselves successful, but I have a very hard time believing I'm going to do what I set out to do. Friends and family all pretty much think that's nuts. But it's true. When I accomplish the things on that daily list, then I know that I've started off in a good spot. The day had hope. It helps me sleep. (And lately, something has to.)

The effect of having a bit more faith in myself today than I did yesterday (and it's a cummulative benefit even though the list doesn't change) is that when I look at my goals and todo lists, they start to become more than just lists of things I haven't done. I begin to believe more that these are things that are WELL within my grasp. As such, they all start seeming a little smaller.

Here's a great example:

In the past week I've added "eat a piece of fruit." And frankly, it's pretty tough. Fortunately I've found a repository of pears, which is the one fruit I really enjoy. But I'm running out (and there ain't no mo' where that came from.) As a result of eating a pear a day, I've started seeing it in start contrast to the other crap I eat (I'm a carb guy all the way. Pizza, Chinese, Ramen & Burgers) and I've noticed the difference in how I feel when I eat fruit or a hot pocket. I went to the supermarket today and, while I didn't buy any more fruit (still got a few left) I noticed, post hoc, that I'd spent a fair amount of time in the fresh produce aisle, testing apples and just generally seeing what there was. Also, in retrospect, I was more bothered than usual by my choice of frozen pizza (even if it was "healthy choice".) And this after a week or so.

It's baby steps. Perhaps smaller than they should be. But I like being able to eat something and not feel like I have to take a nap afterwards. I wonder what I'll buy tomorrow.

- M

2003-07-23T23:18:00.000-04:00

Day 2: The backside of the Todo list

Todo lists are wonderful little tools that help you get things done that you need to get done. They can really help you get through the day.

But on their own there really a small-time tactical tool. After the day is up, your todo list is garbage right? Wrong.

If you're going to track your progress in getting to your goals you need to have a better idea of how you ended up where you did at the end of the day/week/month/year.

You need a Todone list. (That's "to-done" a bit of a dumb play on words. Things like this keep me entertained.)

During and at the end of the day, you need to track your todone items. These are the things you accomplished during the day. The reason it deserves mention is that it should have things completed from your todo list as well as things you did that were NOT on your todo list.

Why is this important? For days like today frankly.

I did precisely squat today to help me towards my goals. I'm not proud of it. I'm gonna get over it by tomorrow. But in the grand scheme of things, I need to know it happened. More importantly, I need to know what it was that occupied my time while I wasn't getting things done.

I realize I'm jumping all over topics here, but I'm using this forum as a palette to blast ideas onto and get feedback from.

What I did today (instead of making that phone call I mentioned yesterday that's so VERY important) was to putter around with email, get up late, blog a couple things (I have another weblog) and went out to dinner for the birthday of one of my sisters.

On my way home on the 4 train I realized how little I had accomplished. How I had not moved forward at all towards any of my "reasonable" goals.

But, having returned home at 11:00 at night, the day was not over. I realized there was one thing I could do that would help me regain a bit of pride and help me sleep a little more soundly than if I had nothing to show for the day.

I could write here.

2003-07-22T18:46:00.000-04:00

Day 1: Funkitude

It's all well and good to be enthusiastic about ticking things off of your goals when you're so pumped full of caffeine that you could take over a small country armed with a plastic spoon.

But where do you find the will and enthusiasm to continue moving forward when your todo list is 400 items, you haven't slept well in days, and you've just gotten NO from 24 recruiters? It's tough, and something I'm very far from mastering. But here's what I've got so far.

I'm a big fan of todo lists. This is to say: When they work for me, they're great. When they don't, they become a reminder of all the things I have not accomplished.

However, the addiction too accomplishment is a beautiful thing, and if I can get that to work for me it goes a very long way towards bringing me out of a depressive funk. So, I seed the todo list with nonsense. Things like: "make dinner" "go for a walk" "go to the roof and look at the skyline." and if I'm really getting desperate I get to the one item that I have a hard time not laughing at: "Cross this off your todo list".

Yes it's goofy. Yes it's stupid. But the psychological effect of dragging that big black pen through aNOTHER item on that list is like a load off the world.

One of the things that people (i.e. me) screw up regularly with their use of todo lists is the granularity of the items they put there. If I were to put "get a job" on there then I would be bound to copying that over and over again, always seeing it as undone. An important thing to remember is to manage the scope of these items. If it's something you can't do in 20 minutes or at MOST a half hour, it's just too big and at times of depression and funkitude it will become daunting.

I'll say this again: You have to break up tasks into their atomic pieces, that is the smallest "doable units" of activity you can manage. If something is on your lists for days on end then something is wrong. You have to clarify it somehow.

For instance, the only money I have is in the 401k from my last job that I never rolled into anything. I don't have rent for August at the moment. So I need to cash that out. It's the worst strategic move I can make financially since there's a dramatic penalty placed on this. But at the moment, unless money falls in my lap, it's what I have to do.

So for WEEKS this has been sitting on my todo list: "Cash out 401k". Ok. great. But that doesn't mean anything. Not in the realm of tactical quick-hit 10-15 minute action (yeah, I know I said 20-30 before. I'm changing it.) So I broke it down into the following (about a half hour ago.)

- find latest 401k account statement from financial institution
- write down contact phone number and account rep name (if they aren't present then grab them from the website)
- do a quick search of their website to see if there's an account maintenance page online
- write a list of questions for the phone contact (when it happens)
- make the call to determine what I need to do next.

Now THOSE are todo items. I can do that in about 20 minutes. All of it (depending on how long the phone call goes.) None of those things are particularly daunting (aside from my cold-calling issues, which I'll get over.) Some may yield nothing, but that's ok. it's not the point. I've phrased the item such that even if I don't find any information on the website I can still cross it off.

This has become, instead of a dreadful thing hanging over my head, a list of things I feel pretty good about.

Note: Even writing about these things here, in this forum, helps to clarify my mind about where I stand with them.

WRITING IT DOWN IS PROGRESS.

Now, it's 6:30pm. It's time to take the day off. NO I did NOT accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish today. But for your mental health, you have to stop at some point. If I get a coding bug, or some great writing ideas (or even some mediocre ones) and the spirit takes me to do something that happens to work towards my goals, all the better. But after 6-6:30 I refuse to force the issue. Realizing this was a vital turning point in my mental health.

I might post later as I've a list of topics a mile long.

- Mike

2003-07-21T16:28:00.000-04:00

Ok. I just set up a new email address for this blog. I WELCOME AND INVITE all commentary about this content. That address is (strangely enough) emergingsuccess -at- yahoo.com (I don't want to just give it away to spam harvesters.)

I'm going to change the templates so that this appears around. In the meantime, please feel free to send me an email if you found this. I haven't publicised at all yet and it would be interesting to see how people get here.

2003-07-21T13:43:00.000-04:00

Day Zero: Current Status. What am I looking to change?

Here's a list of stuff that's on my mind right now. These are the current deficiencies in my situation that are weighing most heavily on me. This is in NO WAY a complete list of things I want to change, nor the negative space of what I'm looking to achieve. It's just a point of departure. This list will be refined, updated, added to and before TOO long, subtracted from:

No Driver's License (any more. I let it lapse when I moved to NYC 4 years ago.)

NO income.

My living environment is unacceptable: i.e. my apartment is a disastrous mess, kinda smells funny and seems to be perpetually that way. There's the odd mouse about.

I'm ...err... "between relationships" and frankly, the ones I've been between before haven't been remarkably healthy. (fortunately, they've been with good people though.)

I am in an increasing (though still fairly small) amount of financial debt, both to corporations and to family.

unemployed

This morning I got on the scale and it said 205. I'm a bit fluffy about the midsection for 5'11".

I'm perpetually tired, bored, or otherwise unenthusiastic (with the occasional exception of when I drink a 2 liter bottle of diet-coke or two. They contain a bit over 600mg of caffeine. That's 3 nodoz.)

I've kept that list to things that have measurable success attached to them. There are several aspects of my personal psychology, behavior, attitudes, and habits which are the sources of these situations and I will deal with those in turn. But if NONE of the things above were true, I'd be well on my way to feeling whole.

But there's a significant problem with that list, even given it's limited scope: It's a list of negatives. All those things are nots and don'ts. Every time my eyes glance over them it is as though they are being spoken to me by someone outside myself, and I can envision the wagging finger and disappointed head shaking (note: this is not an image of my father. He was never prone to that kind of behavior.)

It seems an idiotic little semantic distinction, trivial at it's best. But that couldn't be much farther from the truth. We reinforce these things in the way we hear them. And if you wake up in the morning and are instantly pounded by a list of things that are wrong with your life, it'll be amazing if you can get to the shower under your own power.

The solution to this is simple of course: Don't talk in terms of what you don't want to be true. Talk in terms of what you DO want to be true. (note that I will talk, ad nauseum, about the most trivial little realizations, the most obvious points, because no matter what we think we know, rereading and rewriting these things grinds them into our head even more.)

So, here goes. This is the baseline list of things I want to accomplish, in an unknown timetable.

Hmm... timetable...

Ok. Let's do it. If I'm going to shoot for it, I'm going to do it. I want all of this to be true in 3 months.

I will have my New York State driver's license

I will have two streams of income. One will be from a "day job" and one will be from some, as yet undecided, venture.

My apartment (be it the one in which I'm currently living, or some other) will be worthy of a dinner party, and indeed I'll have one to celebrate that fact.

I will be seeing a woman I have a significant interest in, not a "relationship of convenience" (i.e. sex) nor a co-dependent nightmare.

All debt will be paid. All of it. (fyi: my total debt currently stands at about $25,000

I will either weigh 185 pounds (or less) OR I will have put on significant muscle mass that my body-fat has gone down to a point where my weight at that time will be quite acceptable to me. (muscle is much more dense than fat, so a flat "weight" number doesn't make sense if I start working out.)

I will be energetic, enthusiastic, and involved with my life through changes in my dietary habits, other attitudes, and environmental factors.

Not bad. Not where I yet want to be, but a damn good start. That will do for now. I've got to plan where I'm going with this a bit.

I'll post feedback links soon, as well as links to other resources as I find them, and as they are suggested to me.

2003-07-21T12:47:00.000-04:00

Day zero: Introduction.

Happy Monday! And welcome to Emerging Success. Who am I? What is this? Why should you care? I'll get to those one at a time.

Who am I? I am Mike Wilson. Nobody in particular really. I'm a vastly experienced programmer who's a remarkable underachiever, especially lately. Due to circumstances I'll get into sooner or later I have been out of work for about 15 months. Living in a $2000 a month apartment in Brooklyn Heights I'm without prospects, with some savings, and not a whole lot of hope in favors, "business networks", online job ads, my own resume, and only slightly more in myself. Lately I'm a bit prone to tough bouts of depressions and funks. I'm pretty worried and almost scared enough I expect. But I've made a decision: I'm not going to take it any more, and I'm bringing as many people with me as will come. Which brings me to the next natural question.

What is this? This blog, emerging success, is a step-by-step journal of the steps I'm taking from unemployed, without next month's rent, to sparkling success. All the little tools and tricks I'm going to use to change my habits, the successes, the failures and all the forward motion and backsliding are going to be put here, with a few hopes:

It gives me a chronicle of what's happened so that I can look back and see where I've been, where I've come to, and how I got there.

My most sincere hope is that something I put down here helps someone else on their journey up out of it, or to the top of it.

And if people see what's going on and have some good advice that I otherwise wouldn't have heard, that wouldn't suck either.

So why should you care? Frankly, I'm not so sure that you should. You're living your own life and happy with the way it's going no doubt, right? right? Hmm...

Well, enough for the intro. Let me post this, then do some work.