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Richard Hodges

The Greatest Of These is Discipline

I’ve tried them all and many of them are working. Of course, I’m talking about ways of staying organised. Be it Apps, Moleskine notebooks or even my home made attempts, I think I’ve had a go at pretty much every kind of solution out there.

But there’s one ingredient that is essential to making anything work, whether it’s GTD or the back of a pack of cigarettes.

Let me begin by quoting the Bible. You may have heard this read in weddings, but it is interesting and powerful nonetheless;

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing…… And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” — 1Corinthians 13

That word charity used here, in the original language is “agapē” and is usually translated in other parts of the Bible as Love, not lust, but the kind of goodwill, charity and compassion one person may have for another.

Anyway, what it is saying is that no matter what a person is able to do, even if they are able to perform miraculous signs and healings, or understand the mysteries of the universe, if they don’t love they it amounts to nothing and is of no use (it profiteth me nothing).

Why have I gone dangerously close to a sermon here? It’s because, when I bring this down to the mundane, I see it as a picture of the essential ingredient that makes everything else matter.

In the case of being productive, reliable and even efficient, I think that the key ingredient is surely discipline.

This isn’t my sermon to you, this is my experience; I’m not disciplined.

One of my weaknesses is that I often go with my gut instinct. Unfortunately, my gut instinct is often wrong and is never rational. This means that things I ought to do, I don’t do and thing things I shouldn’t do, I do.

In the context of this blog post and this blog, I find that whenever I’ve forgotten to do something, I didn’t write it down, I didn’t note it. At best, I might have thought to make a mental note of something but that mental note is never reviewed until I’m being sighed at, and that’s too late.

Discipline. That training and subduing of the will to do that which needs to be done.

As long as there is something that I hold in higher regard than the task of noting something so that I don’t forget it, I will forget it.

Imagining a situation where I might be well advised to write something down, maybe a date for a meeting or something I need to take with me the next time I go to the office, what are the kinds of reason that would stop me from doing just that?

  • Inconvenience
  • Embarrassment
  • Pure laziness
  • False confidence in my own memory
  • False confidence in someone else’s memory
  • Practicality

Inconvenience

This can be an issue when your main driver for recording notes isn’t in immediate reach. Maybe your Moleskine is deep in your Inside Pocket and it’s winter so it’s as reachable as a fart in a hurricane. Or maybe you use an app to record your notes but getting your phone out, unlocking it and launching the app before then telling it you want to create a new note is far too dramatic?

There are steps I’ve tried to take to address these kinds of things. When I’m in an analogue frame of mind, I try and ensure my Moleskine is in an outside pocket, with a pen attached but covered over by a pocket flap so as to avoid getting wet. It sounds like a simple solution, and it is, and it saves a lot of trouble.

When I’m going digital, I have my phone to auto unlock on my face or if it’s paired with my Pebble watch. Once unlocked, I’ve made sure that not only are my key apps in easily accessible places, I try and use the facilities offered by the Android system in conjunction with my apps. For example, OneNote now offers a New Note ‘button’ so that I don’t have to load the app, I just tap the button and away I go.

Many task managers and ToDo lists allow you to create New Task widgets that take you straight into a New Task screen so again, no need to fumble around for the app and the screen.

If all else fails, take a voice note or ask someone else to tell your voice recorder what they were going to tell you, or even ask Cortana/Siri/GoogleNow to remind you! it’s almost effortless these days.

The options are almost endless, endless enough for me to drum into my head that inconvenience isn’t an excuse. If what’s being told to me is important, I will make a note.

Embarrassment

There’s nothing that can damage someone’s cool factor quite as much as getting a notebook out and making a note. I don’t know why and maybe it’s just the people I hang out with.

I’ve had the comments made within earshot when someone is telling me something that matters (such as a table order for a meal out) and I break out a notebook of phone to write it down; Look out, he’s got a phone! Can’t you put that down one minute? Do you take that book with you everywhere?

It is indeed embarrassing, but I’ve learned the hard way (too many times) that being teased for getting a note-taking device out for taking notes is far less embarrassing that getting the order wrong, the address wrong or even the day!

Being embarrassed is not excuse. Wanting to remember stuff doesn’t make you a bad person.

Pure Laziness

I don’t think there’s much that can be said about this. When I simply can’t be arsed to write something down, I deserve to forget and I deserve to be humiliated for it.

False Confidence in Your Own, or Someone Else’s, Memory

I think this fits into the Pure Laziness category, but there is enough difference to comment on the fact that despite the clear deficiency in my ability to remember stuff, I do still have moments where I think I can remember something someone is about to say and I ‘commit it to memory’ only to then not remember.

Even more irresponsible than that is when you ask someone else to remind you. I hate it when I’m told “remind me to put the washing out when we get home”. I feel like saying “you know me, you know my memory, you know I forget stuff so don’t put the responsibility of remembering your stuff onto me.”

Likewise, I make it a habit of never asking someone else to remember something on my behalf, but I do sometimes have a tendency of thinking that someone else is writing this down so I don’t have to.

Practicality

This is probably the only reason in this list for which I won’t beat myself up too much, after all, how can I write anything down if I’ve forgotten my phone or my Moleskine? That’s fair enough, but when I get home, I need to remember to treat myself like a moron and leave my phone or my notebook near something I’m going to need before I am able to leave the house, such as my keys.

The only real practicalities that should be good reasons for not noting what needs to be noted should be things like being on a bicycle, having your arms sewed back on or maybe (on a more realistic vein), you’re holding your crying child. There’s nothing that can really be done in that kind of situation.

What I do when that sort of thing happens is try and make sure I do make a note as soon as I possibly can. If I can keep it in my mind for long enough, I usually get it noted. But not always.

Epilogue

In essence, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a Premium Platinum Super-Duper Diamond Cost Subscription to Omni-Focus on the latest 3D, warp-drive-driven iOS device….. if you don’t have discipline, these thing profiteth nothing.

What kind of things hold you back from writing it down? Can you identify with any of these or have you any other experiences?