What I've Learned So Far

Hall of Fame running back Roger Craig was famous, in his days with the 49ers, for keeping himself in crazy-good shape. He was extraordinarily durable and versatile, and remained a key player in the great Montana-Rice-Lott 49ers dynasty for many years.

One thing he would do in practice: no matter where the play started, if he carried the ball, he took it all the way to the end zone. If that meant 4 yards, fine. If it meant 94 yards, fine. Then he would sprint back to the huddle for the next play.

This approach achieved two things:

1. The extra sprints were just a little more icing on the cake for Craig’s rigorous training methods. (After his playing career ended, #33 kept himself in good enough shape to run many marathons.)
2. He retained the mindset that his job, as a running back, was to score touchdowns. Mind you, he was a master of grinding out yards for first downs, too — but he kept his thoughts on the main goal of winning ballgames.

Take It to the House

So, how am I emulating Roger Craig? By taking each piece of clutter I touch to its “end zone.”

• If it belongs in a file, I file it — the first time.
• If it belongs in the trash, it goes in the trash — right now.
• If it needs an answer, I answer it — right away, not later.
• And so on.

Sometimes it works better to batch things. (Indeed, I’ve sung the praises of batch processing before.) So, for example, I have several papers for the recycling bin collecting in a pile at my feet, because the recycling is at the other end of the house and it makes sense to carry it all over there at once.

As sensible as batch processing is, though, I can’t let the promise of future batch processing lure me into a false sense of security. The simple fact is that I have a problem with clutter. While it’s not as serious a problem as alcoholism, drug abuse, or a gambling addiction, it’s also not minor. It’s not something that comes and goes, or that I’ve ever had an easy time dealing with.

So, without giving into a mindset of struggling — I’m not struggling with this, I’m beating it — I’m taking it very seriously not just to de-clutter my life, but to make myself permanently clutterproof. And that means handling things as they come to hand, and then some.

The Moment and the System

This gets back to an old piece of wisdom from the Toyota Production System: solve every problem two ways. This means that you fix the issue at hand (e.g. a poorly installed part on an individual car), but you also work back through the system until you figure out the systemic reason that the issue arose in the first place (e.g. inferior tools, inadequate inspection, or conflicting objectives).

In the moment, maybe I have a stack of receipts cluttering my desk. I can solve that particular problem by filing the receipts, reconciling them against my credit-card statement, or simply throwing them away. But the only way to solve the problem in the long run is to figure out what I ought to be doing with all my receipts, all the time, forever. (The answer, in that particular case: collecting them in a folder and then reconciling them at a specified time each weekend.)

Onward, then, to my wins for the day:

• Continuing the trend of something I forgot to mention yesterday: deleting unfinished drafts of blog posts that I could write. Some of them I’m keeping, but some of them aren’t worth the trouble, so I’m trashing them. I’ll replace them with better ideas as I go, which is way easier when finished posts are flowing one after another, anyway.
• Deleted many more bookmarks, including 41 — count ‘em! — links to others’ posts on productivity. (Far better to do it than to read about it.)
• Systematically eliminating papers, whether by throwing them out, filing them, or handing them off. This is the area of de-cluttering where the Roger Craig mentality is most helpful, I find. To make it a little more personal, it’s also the most emotionally fraught area for me, since a lot of those old papers represent failed/dead projects, bright ideas that I did nothing with, et cetera. Ah, well, better to be done with yesterday’s nonsense.
• Connected with the previous point, I’ve started discarding older papers from my cold-storage files in the garage. Plenty of things that were useful to me five years ago don’t make sense to keep around anymore, so I toss them.
• More magazine purging.

The rest of my day will be dedicated to exercise, writing, and time with the family. One thing I’m already figuring out: my defeat of clutter will require me to keep my spirits up, because wading back through the detritus of the past is draining. The thing to do is to work ahead a bit each day and not worry about the rest.

Now, please tell me: Are you troubled by clutter? What are you doing about it?

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Related posts:

• The Death of Clutter, Part 1.
• The Death of Clutter, Part 2: The Twilight of the Bookmarks.

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In a perfect world, I’d take a highly organized approach to getting myself de-cluttered.

This isn’t that world, and I can’t afford — as Seth Godin would put it — to try to solve “the perfect problem.” I have to solve the problem I have, which is too much clutter, and it has to be happening now . . . and now . . . and now.

Sure, take the big win when it’s available. But get a win. Then get another one.

Wins today:

• Slashed my archival file of bookmarks. I’ve kept this file through about three computers and eight years, and it’s chock-full of abortive projects and ideas and could-do’s. Now I’m keeping it open on my computer and cutting it down throughout the day. To somebody else, this would not be worth doing; to me, it’s a source of mental clutter, so it has to go.
• Dumped more magazines — primarily by deciding “I don’t need to read this.” It’s amazing how liberating that little thought can be.
• Cleared excess books from my bedside and sketched out a reading order for myself. (Radical concept: keep a reliable written list of what you want to do, instead of keeping bulky physical reminders for the same purpose.)
• Simplified my fitness planning for the next couple of months. Again, this wouldn’t be any big deal for someone else, but it’s meaningful to me. It also helps me cut down my reading load.

All of these came in the context of a full day that included a great gym workout and a long outing with the family. And all of them reinforce the wisdom — which I forgot to quote directly yesterday in the previous post — that “Clutter is death.”

Clutter IS death, and now I’m acting like it. I have too many good things to do in my life and my career to let clutter get the best of me. If beating it means chalking up itty-bitty wins like deleting bookmarks and moving books off of my nightstand, so be it.

More to come.

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(Image by L. Whittaker.)

Though it’s taken me a while to follow up on it here — an irony that won’t be lost on you as you read this — I’ve been thinking a lot about the post “Making a Decision to Kill Clutter” from two weeks ago.

As I said in that post, I made the (enlightened?) mistake of searching the archives of this blog for the word “clutter.” I came up with many posts, dozens of them, and that was before I looked for other terms I’ve used for clutter, such as “overhang.”

Without going into any great discursus on the subject, the point is clear: I’ve written enough about this subject already (sometimes at great-discursus length). Clearly, however, even though I’ve taken steps like quitting my Ph.D. program, I haven’t yet done enough to adequately change my behavior around it. Because the clutter is still here, and I’ve still been thinking about it rather than attacking, eroding, or simply releasing it.

So, here goes with a different approach. This one is grounded in practicality and speed rather than abstract concepts or perfectionism. It starts with this photo, taken earlier today:

That’s my frame of reference. I have the drawers open to indicate that they’re part of the problem, too. There’s all sorts of unresolved matter in that drawer unit,* including files from Ph.D. classes and many incomplete drafts of stories. On top of the drawer unit and on the adjacent shelves are a good two dozen books I’m partway through reading, although that stack swelled in just the past few days as I combed through the bookcases in the living room to inject some new titles into the mix. (You’ll see that such an act, in itself, is rather more part of the problem than it is of the solution.)

On the desk are many papers, receipts, catalogs, and bits of correspondence, plus a router-&-modem combo, at least one empty spiral notebook, and a Webelos manual. This is better than it was yesterday, since I removed a stack of about a dozen magazines that had been there as well.

Here’s what I’ve done so far to tackle this:

• Magazines — Yesterday I took the stack that was on the desk and went through it quickly to discard one back issue of The Atlantic, put several sticky tabs in a partly-read issue of Esquire, and remind myself why I had held onto a particular issue of The New Yorker. The answer, in the last case, was to read a James Surowiecki article on . . . procrastination. I put the remaining stack of magazines in a drawer, though in doing so I found a different stack of magazines I had put there several months ago. Since then I’ve read the Surowiecki article, read the rest of the Esquire, discarded both of those issues, and discarded most of the second stack of magazines. I’ll repeat the process going forward, aiming to get rid of a handful of back issues per week.
• Books — As I wrote this post I took five books from my bedside and put them back in the living room. I’ll repeat the process as I continue to focus on finishing just one or two books at a time. My goal is to have no more than three books on the nightstand.
• Papers — Every time I get up from the desk, I take a couple of papers with me to the recycling bin. Just tonight I discarded a magazine article I had torn out and read months ago. Why was I keeping it? No idea. Unlike the other categories, my goal isn’t merely to whittle at this; over the next couple of days I intend to carve the stack down mightily, and to file an armload of folders that have been sitting in these drawers for ages. But intentions are nothing without action, so I’ll tell you how it goes.

That’s the gist of it so far, at least. There will be more to say at intervals.

Keep in mind that I’m not a hoarder or a hard-case packrat; I do get rid of stuff all the time. But if a hoarder compares to someone who is morbidly obese, my clutterrific ways put me in the same category as an ordinarily overweight person: no terrible overeating problem, not a complete couch potato, but still carrying an extra 50 pounds that weren’t there in high school. You don’t change those habits overnight . . . but you can start to, which is what I’ve done.

My focus, now, is on “mastery of the Next Ten” — the next ten minutes, the next ten papers to clear, the next ten e-mails to handle, the next ten sentences to write. When that gets to be too much for me (oftener than you’d imagine, given my attention span), I focus on mastery of the Next Two, a.k.a. the “Now and Next” approach. It boils down to this:

• What one thing am I doing right now? (Do it to completion, even if it’s discarding one piece of paper.)
• What one thing will I do next?

Repeat as necessary. I can tell you, both from experience and from the initial survey of this clutter, that a lot of repetition will be necessary. But so be it.

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* (All eight of you who have been reading me obsessively for years — and let me pause here, the day after Thanksgiving, to express my gratitude for your faithfulness — will recognize the drawer unit as Alex of “Alex and Markus” fame.)

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(Top photo by Bill Barber.)

First, let’s have the visual results speak for themselves. Here are two pics of me from this week:

The one on the left was taken in the locker room at work, just after a hard chest workout (note the crazy pump in the pecs!). The one on the right is a typical daily physique shot.

In terms of my Physique Project, I’d say that I’m doing fairly well on building my arms, legs, shoulders, and chest; less well on building my back; and not very well at all on shaping up my midsection. Yes, my waistline is trimmer than when I started, but I’m not really changing the shape of my abdomen, and I’m certainly not making progress as quickly as I would like . . .

. . . or as I would be making, if I paid closer attention to my nutrition. I don’t say that to beat myself up, but rather to acknowledge that everything good I’ve read about building a great midsection emphasizes the importance of getting your nutrition right if you want to remove the fat that’s hiding your sixpack.

(Just a reminder: it is physiologically impossible to spot-reduce, so no amount of crunches or whatever is going to preferentially shrink my love handles. I just have to get leaner, period.)

• The moral of the story: I need to eat better, consistently. This requires better forethought on my part. Ergo, it will probably be more of a struggle than I would like. C’est la vie.

In terms of my mix of activities, I really like what I’m doing. A year ago, I was too scared of another torn calf muscle to do barbell squats or to get back into running, which I loved for so many years. Now squats are an essential part of my workout regime, and I’m running a couple of times per week.

Also, and this relates back to the midsection thing, I’ve been inconsistent with my core workouts and generally lax about the frequency of my cardio work.

• The moral of the story: Do more and better of what I’m already doing. It’s possible that I’ll start getting up early some days so that I can do one workout in the morning and another one at lunch; this should give me more time and structure to ensure that I hit all areas of work often enough.

Finally, here are the workouts I’ve done from Monday through Friday of this Thanksgiving week. (For reference, my bodyweight hovers around 165 pounds.)

Monday: ran 4 miles.

Tuesday at the gym at work:

Elliptical warmup — 5 minutes.

Incline d.b. bench press: 3 x 10 x 50#’s
D.b. rows, per arm: 3 x 12 x 40#
Bird-dogs, per side: 3 x 20

Steeper incline d.b. press: 3 x 10 x 40#’s
D.b. shrugs: 3 x 15 x 50#’s
D.b. curls: 3 x 6 x 30#’s

Pushups: 3 x 15
Kettlebell wrist curls, per side: 3 x 10 x 15#
Calf raises: 3 x 15 x bodyweight

Pushups, 60-second intervals: 10, 10

Thursday: ran 3+ miles.

Friday (today) at the big gym near my house:

Stationary bike — 7 minutes.
Foam roller to loosen muscles.

Barbell squats: 20 x 45#, 10 x 95#, 8 x 125#, 6 x 155#, 3 x 10 x 175#, 15 x 175#

D.b. row, per arm: 3 x 10 x 50#, 3 x 10 x 45#

Unilateral leg press: 4 x 15 x 70#

D.b. curls: sets of 7, 7, and 10 @ 30#

If you have thoughts on any of this, I’d be glad to hear them in the comments. Thanks for taking this journey with me.

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Related posts:

• Why I’m pursuing radical fitness. (30 Oct. 2010)
• Status report: The Physique Project. (22 Sept. 2010)
• Introducing . . . The Physique Project. (18 Aug. 2010)

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My CareOne column “Count Your Blessings” ran last week, but the sentiment is appropriate on this special day and every day.

Our own Thanksgiving plans got skewed this year: my Dad came down with the flu and wasn’t up to to receiving company. (As I say in the opening of the column, Thanksgiving is Dad’s favorite holiday, so you know he’s got to be really under the weather.) But we’ve regrouped, and our little family of four is enjoying a day camped out at home — and, earlier, at the 7th cinematic installment of Harry Potter. It’s not what we planned, and I know Mom and Dad are as disappointed as we are that we can’t all be together today . . . but it’s okay. We’re still blessed.

Be grateful. Appreciate what you have — even if it’s not everything you want. And tell the people you love that you’re grateful for them and all that they give to you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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(Image via Thomas Hawk.)

Since I posted my first sampler of Twitter-length stories, I’ve written several more. I’d love to know what you think of them.

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When he was on the road, he texted his wife to tell her he loved her. At least once a day. Sometimes it was to remind himself.

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Giggling in the den, the smell of the carpet & his father’s cologne. The big man let him win at wrestling. He never forgot that.

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She rose before dawn & launched into a workout a Marine would envy. The ghost of the scared girl she had been faded a little more.

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Great-grandma peeked out onto the porch. The grandkids & their kids came & went at the holidays; that finch returned every day.

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For once–ONCE–in her life, she was cool. She smiled back at him, said “Why don’t you find out?” & let things happen from there.

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They played hooky: pancake brunch, window shopping, making love, sharing daydreams, milkshakes. At last they broke new ground.

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She fell in love with the voice of Ed from Legal on the other end of the line. Ed himself…disfigured? Martian? She didn’t care.

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(Image, once again, by JD Hancock — and it’s worth it to check out his entire series of “Little Dudes” photos.)

If you want glamor . . . you’re gonna have to look elsewhere. This week’s workouts weren’t impressive, but they got the job done — and they got me in a better working groove than I’ve been in for the past few weeks. Read on for details. Read the rest of this entry »

That’s the advice I give in this week’s column over at the CareOne “Life Balance” blog. Those of you who have been reading me here for a while will know that this is not a new theme for me. Indeed, I’m giving the advice that I myself need to hear.

I was going to link to an old post or two when I wrote “not a new theme for me” right there, but then I searched the blog for “clutter” and came up with . . . waaaaaay too many posts. As in, WAY too many.

Hmm. Now to pull off the challenge of really changing the roots of this behavior deep-down . . . by which I mean, “now for the hard part.”

More to come.

Every medium fosters its own genres. Twitter fosters very short stories. Here are a few that I have written lately.

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The two of them looked at each other, after many years, & said “This isn’t working” in the same moment. Both sighed with relief.

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An old man, living alone, he regretted nothing; he dwelt upon the smell of his wife’s hair & how much they had laughed together.

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38 days since she slammed the door on her way out. No calls. 38 days since he was last a father. He blinked and took another sip.

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The 2 of them, giggling, climbed up to the treehouse. They read comic books by flashlight until they fell asleep, heads touching.

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She wondered when she’d stop thinking about the sad, drunk woman – unrecognizable but inescapable – she had been in her twenties.

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I don’t know why so many of these are bleak. If you care to keep up when I write little sketches like this, I (usually, when I remember) mark them for inclusion in my Twitter “Favorites” feed.

Wanna try your own hand? I’d love to read your efforts in the comments. Don’t worry about limiting yourself to exactly 140 characters—just see what you can do in the span of a sentence or two.

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(Photo by JD Hancock.)

. . . won’t you please click through to read my latest CareOne column?

It’s about avoiding stress during the holiday season. Read it, and you will be peaced-out like the tiny Buddha above.

Well, maybe not that much.

Here endeth the self-pimp.

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(Image by Scot Campbell.)