How to Get Your Life Back
This was originally posted at wanderplay.net
If you’re anything like me, you find our modern hyper-connected world both wonderful and terrifying.
We have the freedom and power to instantly start reading millions of books, songs, games, and movies. We can message or be messaged by almost anyone we’ve ever met, or meet millions of new folks on social networks. There are thousands of fascinating blogs to check out. (Just today I discovered austinkleon.com and sacred-economics.com.) We can instant order any product, download a hot new app, or read one of the million emails sitting in our inbox. But this abundance of choice comes with downsides that all of us know too well: overwhelm, analysis paralysis, self-blame, and increased regret. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, make sure to check out this Barry Schwartz TED talk.
The typical advice is that we need to “learn how to say no.” You’ve heard that before, right? Cut out some commitments and you’ll be back in control. But saying “no” is utterly insufficient to the problems facing us today. Sure, it may have been good advice even five years ago, but times have changed very fast. It’s not just the proliferating choices we have, it’s all the ways that marketers and corporations (and sometimes friends and family) can actually reach out and disrupt us, even when we’re not at our computer.
There is just too much to say no to.
Evaluating every possible project, product, service, or request and deciding if it should be removed is an impossible task. Instead, try this:
Start from zero, and learn how to say yes
In sculpture, there are two macro techniques:
- You can start with a large block of clay, for example, and carve out your design.
- You can start with nothing, and only add the clay you need to make your design.
(Video game level designers also understand this distinction, as some editors take an additive approach, and others subtractive. )
I’m suggesting that in your life you focus on an additive approach:
Start from zero, and decide what to say yes too, then add what you need for those things. Everything else should be a “no” by default, without any thinking necessary. Now, this isn’t easy to do, but it’s the only way to live on your own terms in the new world of instant-everything-all-the-time. And the key skill to do this isn’t learning how to say no, it’s learning how to choose exactly what to say yes to.
