Project Phoenix II

You have your observations of things that work for you and things that don’t.

Is there a trend?

A few years ago, I noticed when someone would hand me a paper whether it was a form or a flyer or notes for a meeting, I would lose it. I spent at least 30 min every day of my teaching career for the first 5 or so years hunting for papers I got in meetings. Eventually I realized I was losing 150 min — over 2 hours each week — hunting for papers.

You might be nodding thinking the same thing about searching for your keys or that pair of leggings you really want to wear today. I short circuited that habit by using my camera to take photos of every paper I received.

Define your problem. What is the root cause of the thing that frustrates you? Pay attention to the things that didn’t work for you and get to the root cause of the problem. For me it was the fact that paper would just get lost. Instead of focusing on forcing myself to develop a system to work with the paper, I short circuited it by getting rid of the paper altogether. Consider how you might short circuit your problems in the same way.

Make a list of as many possibilities as you can think of over the next week to short circuit your problem. Keep track of them in your journal or note keeper.