Continuing the Thread

The part of that last rambling post that I’ve been most stuck on has been the total aside (“Like {…}”), where I use the term “financial independence” to mean two different things, meaning what it means–never needing to work again–but also just “not being dependent on others” or really just “sustained.” But the reason I’m hung up on the aside is because the end-end I’m really thinking about here is happiness. (Something Benson has done a lot of thinking/writing/toolbuilding around.)

There’s a ton of research on this from Freud on down. (OMG exactly.)* Besides the scholarly research yet to be parsed, I’m interested in collecting layman’s tools for creating environments nurturing to our semi- universal end-ends. (Aside: this kind of stuff is the reason I majored in Psych in the first place, and I am somewhat surprising myself that I am returning to this subject matter at this time. I have some ideas as to why, which I may write on if I feel they are helpful in the broader discussion.)

Something I saw yesterday was from Jason Fried, net-famous founder of 37 Signals.

_As a successful entrepreneur and businessman, you’ve got many important demands on your time, yet you still manage to get stuff done. What’s your secret to time management? What methods/tools do you employ to manage your time well?

I’m really not that great at time management. I forget to do a lot of things (especially writing thank you notes which is a horrible thing to forget to do). Backpack reminders have definitely helped, but I’m still not great at remembering the little things. It’s something I need to get better at (and that’s not a software thing, it’ a personal thing). Software doesn’t solve problems unless you make the software solve problems. Software is dead unless you breathe life into it.

The other thing is to make things easy on you. It’s a lot like our Less Software approach – the less features and the less code, the less can go wrong and the less you have to manage. It’s the same with time. Make things easier on you – make quick, simple decisions and then go back and change that decision if it doesn’t work. If you make a mistake it’s no big deal if you can correct that mistake quickly. Don’t burden yourself with stuff that really doesn’t matter. It’s a bit of an art to figure out what really doesn’t matter, but it’s more than you probably think. Most things we all spend our time on don’t really matter._

The interesting thing here is he doesn’t answer the question (although his comment Software doesn’t solve problems unless you make the software solve problems is very helpful to our discussion). He implies that knowing what doesn’t “really matter” is an inherit skill, as is choosing what does “really matter” over what doesn’t. But I would argue that this exceptionally soft skill is exactly what seperates “successful” people from not. My question is, what tools are there to facilitate and nurture this ability? Covey saw wild success putting a point on some techniques for just that, but I’m more interested in tools to fundamentally rewire the neurological events that create such behavior-or-the-lack-thereof. What-the-bleep meets Covey, I guess. Hmm…I’m already in academic territory. But, in the meantime, I’ll continue to be on the lookout for layman’s tools, and thinking about low- and hi-tech methodologies for nurturing “happy” “pre-ends.”

There’s a sick joke in there somewhere…

next: story as #1-primo tool!

*(Holding a strong goal intention (‘I intend to reach Z!’) does not guarantee goal achievement because people may fail to deal effectively with self-regulatory problems during goal pursuit. The present review analyzes whether realization of intentions is facilitated by forming an implementation intention that spells out the when, where, and how of goal pursuit in advance (‘If situation Y is encountered, then I will initiate goal-directed behavior X!’). Findings from 94 independent tests showed that implementation intentions had a positive effect of medium-to-large magnitude (d = .65) on rate of goal attainment. Implementation intentions proved effective for selfregulatory problems having to do with initiating goal pursuit, shielding ongoing goal pursuit from unwanted influences, disengaging from failing goals, and conserving capacity for future goal striving. There was also strong support for postulated component processes; implementation intention formation both enhanced the accessibility of specified opportunities and automated respective goal-directed responses.)

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