Pocket Universe

When I read truth, I love to share it. And thanks to 43 Folders, I found a fantastic article about living a backlogged life. The gist of the article is this: At one point in time, if we missed something, it was gone: a phone call, a TV show, whatever. But now, thanks to the wonders of technology, these time sinks are now collected and sorted and aggregated for future enjoyment. Instead of letting technology free us, it has removed our ability to let go of the past.

As I’ve been trying to get my life organized, this point particularly resonated with me. As I try to get my life organized, I have realized that the more you hang on to the past, the more difficult it is to enjoy the present. The more I worry about sorting and deleting and responding to my old email, the less time I spend actually working on things that I need to do today. And sure, I have hundreds of hours of shows recorded on the TiVo, but which are the ones that I watch as soon as they are recorded, and which are the ones I think that I might get to someday, maybe?

This has also affected my life in a purely financial sense. A long time ago, I read a great book by the Motley Fool entitled You Have More Than You Think. The authors offered a piece of advice about purchasing luxury items which has great application to daily life: Don’t buy something new unless you’ve used up what you already have. For example, don’t buy a magazine at the newsstand if you have a magazine you haven’t read sitting on the coffee table at home. Don’t buy a new book if you have a shelf of unread books in your office. It’s really a simple rule, and it’s very lenient if you’re using what you have. I have been trying to follow that rule, in general, but recently I have gotten very specific in applying it.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling very poor, and feeling like my spending was getting out of control. In an effort to get ahead of the game, I decided to go into lockdown. I have so many unread books sitting around, and so many unwatched DVDs, and so many unplayed video games, that I could literally not buy any media for probably a year, and still have plenty to do in my free time. So, until I have made some headway on what I already own, I am not buying anything new. I expect that at some point, something will come along for which I will bend these rules a bit, but I hope that will be the exception rather than the norm. Until then, I hope to find a new appreciation for the things I already own. Maybe I’ll finally get to that great book that I’ve heard so much about, or that videogame series that I never finished. It’s as if my entire life were leading up to this point. I’ve collected all this crap my whole life; time to start enjoying it.

Ive been reading 43 Folders recently, paying special attention to their Inbox Zero series, with tips on getting your email inbox down to zero messages. The latest post in the series, Processing to Zero, provides helpful tips on doing quick triage on email messages. The key to the technique is quick processing of chunks of mail: reference for some, a To Respond” mailbox for others, and the trash for most. The more brutal you are (or if you prefer, realistic”), the quicker you will get through it.

In particular, I have set up smart folders in Mail on Mac OS X so that they are divided into four groups: messages received in the last 2 days; received in the last 5 days; received between 5 and 60 days; and received more than 60 days ago. Since Mail sorts folders by name, I have named those folders Alive, Breathing, Comatose, and Dead. In keeping with the triage theme, that will hopefully help me to deal with those messages realistically. Why spend minutes or even seconds agonizing over a terminal patient, when that precious time could be used to save one that still has a chance? I will try these techniques over the next few weeks and report back on how well it has worked. If I am diligent and ruthless, hopefully I will have zero messages in my inbox by then.

or: Why Do I Want to Do Dishes After Paying My Bills?

Whenever I watch a movie where someone’s life is spiraling out of control due to drug addiction, whether it’s Goodfellas or Midnight Cowboy, I am always frustrated. The character is usually using drugs as a way to escape the depressing reality of his daily life, but I always think, “Why doesn’t he just stop using drugs? Doesn’t he realize that his addiction is the cause of all his problems??” And the answer, of course, is that it’s easier to seek a temporary escape from your problems, instead of confronting them head-on. And the more you avoid them, the worse they get, which just compounds the avoidance instinct.

So what does this have to do with me? Quite a lot, actually.