Great Example on Routines

chrispian says on July 6th, 2005 at 7:10 am

I wouldn’t advise anyone to do something as stressful as reviewing what you have to do tomorrow before you go to bed. Most productivity types have enough running around our brains that it’s hard to shut down and sleep as it is. I make every effort to clear the extra noise from my head before bed. Reading something I enjoy (non-technical, non-work related stuff, fiction, magazines etc.) works best for me.

More power to you if you can think about all that enough to do a to-do list and then go to bed and not think about it.

anne says on July 6th, 2005 at 9:06 pm

There must be a balance somewhere . . . I’ve been known to wander blearily into the kitchen in the morning, searching for coffee, and, in passing, glance at the calendar and get the shock of my life. “I’ve got to be way over THERE? In 6 minutes??” Sounds of hair-tearing commence.

But it beats lying in bed the night before, staring at the ceiling, and mentally going over three alternate routes to said location.

Sigh.

Heather says on July 6th, 2005 at 10:24 pm

I am a BIG Flylady advocate. When all these productivity/ lifehacks blogs sprang up, I felt upset that no one was giving Flylady her props.

She (her name is Marla Cilley) runs a *completely free* email group and website (flylady.net). If you sign up, you get reminders and essays. While geared to homemakers, her system was WAY ahead of the lifehack curve. The basic theory is that perfectionism leads to procrastination; that routines and small action steps (15 minutes on a daunting task) make things manageable; and that clearing clutter, unfinished projects, and developing good habits (she has a good essay on how it takes a month to create a habit) can create great space and energy for your real goals and higher aspirations.

Sound familiar? Well, David Allen applies these principles to the workplace and gets the big bucks, but Flylady has an email group of a quarter of a million members, and despite the folksy tone and emphasis on SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives), she deeply “gets” everything these blogs are about, and, without fanfare, has been helping people craft better, simpler, and more satisfying lives for years.

Thanks for mentioning her; I think she deserves a place in the Productivity Pantheon. No hype, just true help.

I actually was just writing to her, which is how I found this post. This is some of what I said:

Hi, Marla,

The testimonial I just read from the woman who quoted David Allen (“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do, it comes from not finishing what they started”) prompted me to write in.

David Allen is a productivity guru who *really gets it* — he’s really flying. The quote may come from an interview or one of his books, as it’s a big theme with him — that we create thousands of small agreements with ourselves to do things, and then beat ourselves up, procrastinate, or give up when we can’t meet them. He advocates small, clear, sequential actions (babysteps!!). His philosophy, clear instructions, and positive tone dovetail perfectly with your system. For years, as well as Flylady emails, I’ve received his “Productivity Principles” newsletter. I don’t subscribe to many email newsletters, as it becomes more clutter and is anxiety producing, but I love his insights.

Two weeks ago I finally ordered his main book, “Getting Things Done,” and it’s amazing. Although it’s geared to productivity in the workplace, it has several wonderful chapters about why creative people end up with unfinished projects, huge to-do lists and piles of paper, and large, unrealistic resolutions to file and organize everything.

Despite often referring to your long email essay on the subject, paper clutter has daunted me my whole adult life. Allen understands these piles — they are a jumble of reference materails, things I mean to read, to-do lists, large resolutions, and ideas for projects. He has a nice, clear system for separating these out, and turning the projects into babystep action plans. The theory is once you understand the agreements you’ve made with yourself, you can prioritize, take action, and finish things. Like the Flylady program, he understands that taking care of the niggling, small things creates great clarity, space, and energy for the larger things in life.

I’ve been working on these issues for years. Your routines have helped (and I am a big Flylady advocate, recommend you on writers and editors boards and to this great women’s support group I’m part of), and I also love and often reread Karen Kingston’s “Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui” because it’s clear, straightforward, inspirational, and not about “organizing” clutter, but about totally letting the energy flow by letting it go. For me, David Allen’s book has reached the level of your group and Kingston’s book in terms of information, motivation, and reinforcement of the same theme from a different perspective. For the first time in my life, I’m not overwhelming myself with impossible daily to-do lists with huge goals (“apply grad school,” “write book”).

The reason I’ve written in such detail is I think you’d really enjoy the book and feel a kinship — that someone from the high-stakes corporate realm is also working routines, babysteps, and releasing human potential by attending to the “small” tasks.

David Allen is enjoying a big burst of Internet fame right now, as a group of prominent and influential young technology bloggers have adopted his “Getting Things Done” system to deal with large programming projects. He has his own blog, and recently commented that, on the whole, they were *making things too complicated* and adding too many whistles and bells (this reminds me of the testimonials and questions you often get from people who are driving themselves crazy trying to make a perfect Control Journal or calendar system).

When I started reading all these blogs that were so impressed with David Allen, I felt a burst of indignation on your behalf. This big fad is for what the young Internet generation calls “life hacks,” in other words, systems to make your life easier. They cite things like Heloises’s Household Hints as pre-Internet “life hacks.” I want to tell them that quietly, with no fanfare, Flylady has been on top of and ahead of the “life hacks” curve. In fact, when they write, with amazement, that things can be done in small periods of time, or that routines make things so much easier, I want to say “Hundreds of thousands of Flybabys worldwide have discovered this, so give Marla some credit!” (I just was making a list of links of these for you and YES, someone has posted about Flylady on “lifehacks.org..so the connection HAS been made!)

So you have tapped into a universal need of our times. It’s way beyond household management. You know that, but have started where you are and from who you are (which is a big key to life) to help those in similar situations, and then, gradually, people very different from you. I thought you’d enjoy knowing that this whole topic is very “hot” right now, and while professional organizers and life coaches might be on Oprah or CNN or making thousands for their seminars, the fact that you offer a FREE support group with reminders and tons of information is a real gift to us all, and something of a miracle.

Thanks and all the best,
Heather in NYC

Leon says on July 7th, 2005 at 10:18 pm

Heather, it is great to tell us your views on FlyLady. I have visited her site and I agreed her site is pure help to others.

I hope I can able in contact with Marla as well and understand more on her methodologies. Email me (leon at lifehack.org) if you are able to contact her.