a map in my own mind

… but were we ever in the first place?

Twice in the last week, I’ve received a sorta automatic email from someone I’m pretty sure I don’t know asking me to change their contact information from some old unknown email address to a new one.

In each case, there has been a real name associated with the change. But I sure don’t recognize it.

I manage a bunch of websites and I write for several publications not to mention the times my address could appear in someone’s address book or contact list because I know someone they know and so we were on the same distribution list one time.

So while I certainly appreciate the world keeping me updated with where they are, do I really need to know it? Nope!

And really, isn’t one of biggest the reasons to change email addresses is because you were getting too much junk at the old address?

If I move, I’m not gonna share my new address with Publisher’s Clearing House. (Note to PCH: I just don’t believe you any more, I really don’t care if you find me ever again. No offense, but you’ve been telling me for more than 30 years that I “may have already won” and I never have! So please find someplace else to peddle your magazines!)

I sure AM gonna tell Rolling Stone. I want them to know where I am. We’ve got a life time subscription!

And if one day I need to find somebody I once corresponded with over the value of a particular drip irrigation system, I figure it’s my responsibility to keep up with that! It’s sure not that company’s responsibility to keep up with me — especially if I only wrote to them one time!

How many people can you actually keep up with? Seems like I read a study about that one time and maybe it was some number close to a couple dozen. (If you know, please shoot a comment thru!)

I just checked my list — for laughs. There are about 500 names in my current Eudora address book. That doesn’t count those in the master excel spread sheet of old contacts from another computer or the contacts in my current outlook list. That doesn’t count the single names that are really lists of names.

I also noticed as I went through, that I have no idea who some of those people are. So do I think they’ll care if they never hear from me again? Nope! I suppose I ought to spend some time deciding which of these addresses to keep and which to archive to that master spread sheet just in case. But that would take time I just don’t feel like spending right now. And I know that the longer I wait, the longer it will take to actually go through that list. But putting off for tomorrow always seems like the easy choice. I do think that backing up that list of contacts is an excellent idea! THAT I think I will do now.

You know, I’m thinking this could be the same kind of put-off exercise as backing up your computer files. But you do have a plan for that, right?

Back in the day, the size of your Rolodex was some sort of measure of your worth as a business person. But now, the list in the computer is invisible to the untrained eye.

So do me a favor, if you don’t really know me, or you don’t particularly want to either give me something, or ask for something, don’t bother telling me that you’ve moved.

Hey, if you think a person should care, ask yourself this question: “When was the last time you had contact with them?”

Friends, even acquaintances and business contacts, need some kind of attention from time to time if they are to be of any kind of use when you really do need them.

As the old song goes, “Reach out and touch me.” But if we’ve never met… then let’s have a formal introduction first.

Is this a rambling? Probably.
Thanks for reading.

I have been thinking about intuition lately. I have some decisions to make that aren’t life altering, but they are important. My intuition will play a big part in my process.

Once a man I knew fairly spit at me, “Your intuition has landed you on your feet for a long time, but you shouldn’t trust that it will always work!”

Uh? Why not?

It does work for me. And when it doesn’t I do have find a way to fix the mistake. (Yep, it does happen!)

However, I also like to think that if I make a decision I have considered at least some options. I like to think that I’ve made the right choice. (After all, who makes decisions, on purpose, and believes they are wrong?)

How can you tell that your intuition is giving you the straight scoop and not just reflecting some history or gossip or something else that’s really just getting in the way? What is it that makes me just know when something or someone is just right, or just isn’t quite right, or maybe more accurately, isn’t quite as it seems?

Dori Molitor wrote a piece called The Sensory Potential about using all five senses to connect with customers. The article published by The Hub click here. She said:

Intuition is a felt understanding that’s capable of sizing up a brand and judging whether it’s authentic, credible and worthy of our trust — all in the same millisecond. Many times, intuitive feelings seem contrary to reasoned logic, but more often than not they prove to be right. … Our intuition tells us, right away, whether we should trust a brand or not. And if you don’t earn your consumers’ trust, you have nothing!

Authentic is a word that coaches throw around a lot. And it’s one that just feels particularly INauthentic to me. But maybe real authenticity does matter in the recesses of my brain that are my intuition.

I depend on my intuition to make all kinds of decisions in my life, from whether I should fly or drive to a vacation in Vermont to whether this is the right plumber for me to whether these pants really do make me look fat.

It’s your intuition that tells you the red car will make you feel faster. It’s your intuition that tells you that a coach really will help you figure out how to make your life work better. It’s your intuition that tells you that I am – or am not – the right coach for you.

But you have to engage your intuition. You have to consider that that still small voice in side you really has learned something from all those years trapped in your head. Maybe you should let it out for a little exercise.

Call me.. see if I’m the right coach for you.

Finally, it’s beginning to feel like fall around here!
There’s just something about fall that makes it feel like the real beginning of the year. And here it is October…Does it seem like we’re already behind?

Even thought I’m long out of school and my kids are grown, this seems like the beginning of the planning season. And the next season to make plans for is really the end of the year..

OH.. So confusing.. But the bottom line?

Making plans is all about deciding. Making plans before you’re faced with a crisis gives you the greatest opportunities and options.

I know that sometimes having so many choices makes the decision harder. And if you wait til the last minute lots of options are no longer available, so the decision seems easier.… Hmmm, Is THAT why you procrastinate?

Here’s a story.

My husband and I went on a little vacation last week. He finally had the engine of his ’67 Sunbeam Alpine back together and a road trip seemed in order — a short one, all the driving had to be contained in a 100 mile circle within which AAA would tow us home if necessary.

As time approached, we didn’t seem certain we could go. We weren’t sure the car would be ready, so I put off the real reservations until just about a week before the trip. Let me tell you, trying to make reservations at bed and breakfasts on a fall weekend – with only a couple days notice – is pretty darn tough!

That delay definitely eliminated some options. And it did NOT make the planning easier!

So as we come up on the biggest planning time of the year, whether your thing is parties, banquets or vacations, start mapping it out now. You can eliminate some stress if all you do right now is put on your calendar the stuff you know you’re committed to: the office dinner dance, travel plans for Grandma’s at Thanksgiving and your, or your kids’, vacation schedules through the end of the year.

If planning is something that easily gets shoved to your personal back burner, a coach can help.

Call me (410.233.3274)
Email me (click here)
I can help you consider all the bits and pieces of your plans… before the very last minute. Let me help you make a map for the future.

P.S. If you’re still wondering if this sounds good to you, check out these stories in my blog.

• Deciding what to acquire
• How do you know when the decision is the right one?
• Or check out the archives of my posts about deciding in general. Click here

It is with deep incredulity that my family talks about my college independent study in game theory. It was way cool, but pretty out of character given my deep dislike of games in general.

I am also terrible at video games. Maybe it’s an eye hand coordination problem but I couldn’t even make the Donkey Kong jump in the right places. I could, however, play Dr. Mario with complete disregard for everything else going on around me. Heck, I could even play that in my sleep. I’d watch those pills keep dropping for hours. (It is true: You shouldn’t play video games, even solitaire, right before bed. Keeps your brain fired up when it should be slowing down. Read a boring magazine instead!)

However, I am so tired of people, parents mostly, complaining that video games killed play time or that video games made a kid commit unspeakable violence. If your kids can’t tell the difference between video games and reality, then you have a much bigger problem than thinking the games are making him do it.

But I digress.

I was tickled to find that librarians are being encouraged to play video games or at least to acknowledge that people who do play video games view the help desk differently. InsideHigherEd.com is an online source for news, opinion and jobs for all of higher education. The June 25 article reported on the annual meeting of the American Library Association.

Ever watch a little kid with a new video game? Notice him furiously reading the directions first? Na.. didn’t think so.

“With video games, ‘you can play while you are inept,’” said James Paul Gee, the author of Why Video Games Are Good for Your Soul , You can poke around in a video game. Try the same things in different orders and get different results (Or, so I’ve heard). Gee also said there are “lowered consequences of failure.”

I remember my engineer husband’s frustration when my geek son first started tinkering with the insides of computers. “HE DIDN’T READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! He doesn’t understand circuit theory.”

Says the kid, “Don’t worry, Dad. They’re designed to only go in one way!”

On demand learning is a very powerful thing.

Maybe it really doesn’t matter if you know all the rules before you jump in. In fact, what if waiting until you have all the information just keeps you from getting started.

So start now; or start over. Click AA,BB, jump, jump in a different place, see what happens.

If there is no blood, you can always change your mind.

Richard Reardon over at his R&R Business Development Blog started talking about the difference between “wanting change” and “wanting to change.” That’s an interesting distinction.

He suggests that looking at what you have now is the place to look for clues to what you need.

I’m thinking that what I have now is not much help in deciding what to change. I have stuff and I have plans and that’s precisely what keeps me stuck where I am. Perhaps if YOU look at my stuff, YOU might get a clue about what I need. But it’s not your life.

But if I think I want to move to a new house that would indicate a specific change and a plan of action to be developed — lots of stuff has to go away from this house and lots of little things need to get fixed on a more immediate time table.

But if I didn’t know that moving was the change I had in mind, then no amount of looking at my stuff would give me the impetus to rent a dumpster.

So I’m thinking a different first clue is to ask what is it that you don’t want? Then look at the opposite of that and see if that is what you DO want — or if maybe it points at least in the right direction.

Personally, I need pencil and paper to figure out the opposites and that gives me a nice list in the end. And I love lists.

Try practice.

I know that final push to actually be awake in the morning is a struggle for lots of people. My DearHusband hits that snooze alarm the first time at about 5:15 am finally finds himself on the way to the shower between 6:15 and 6:30 (Yes, I KNOW, that’s a lot of snoozes!)

I’m glad my oldest son finally moved out. It was time; he was 20 something. I was tired of trying to set off a nuclear bomb under his bed every morning to get him moving.

Some people with ADHD take their meds an hour before they really have to get up and then, thanks to the better living with chemicals, they can just get up.

But when I saw this suggestion by David Seah over at Better Living Through New Media . He was talking about his experiment to get up every day at 6 am. He’s trying practicing getting up… Well, it boggles my mind. He sourced StevePavlina.com
who suggests:

This is going to sound really stupid, but it works. Practice getting up as soon as your alarm goes off. That’s right — practice. But don’t do it in the morning. Do it during the day when you’re wide awake.

Steve has a couple of articles about getting up and getting going like How to be an early riser and this one that my father would have just loved called Bear Bombing (You just gotta read that! But don’t call children’s services on me.. I only laughed and IMAGINED it would work.) They all sound pretty logical, but I wonder if a mother could make a kid practice? THAT’s the time to get this straight, when the kids are small and require only a shake or two and not a neutron bomb!

I’m not sure it would work. If you’ve tried it an it worked for you, I’d sure like to know about it.

Happy waking.

Kerch

I was trying to find the original Nature article about the deciding study done at the University of Amsterdam that I referenced in an earlier post. (I’m working on the handouts for a teleclass I’m doing for ADDA on October 17, 2006)

The actual article from Nature is no longer available if you don’t pay for it, but I found this reference from Telegraph.co.uk

Here’s the really pertinent part:

Participants in the experiment were asked to choose between four different cars, and were given details of 12 attributes including leg room and mileage about each make and model. The scientists found that people identified the best car around 25 per cent of the time, which was no better than chance. The surprise came when the researchers distracted the participants with puzzles before asking them to make their choices. More than half then managed to pick the best car.

I think that’s a really important concept. You can’t hold all the salient points in your head at once. So let your brain work while you’re not paying attention. It can figure stuff out that you can only imagine might be an easy out.

New stuff has a way of sneaking into my house. Some stuff, I pretend I don’t know where it came from. Some stuff was a gift. Some stuff, I just felt sure I needed to own.

I just read Andrea Lee’s blog on Shopping | Rethunk She makes the point: Go to the mall and pretend you are at a really cool museum.

Back in my previous life as an artist, I went to trade shows regularly. And everybody had the coolest stuff. In the beginning, I probably spent more money than I made, until I came up with my personal dedication to the notion of “appreciating without having to own.”

You go to a museum and don’t feel compelled to bring home the pictures from the wall. (And if you do, those guys with guns at the entrance do a pretty good job of dissuading you from the act.)

Sometimes, armed with my mantra, I shop at places like Pier 1 and other specialty stores. But I specifically look for the cool thing I might just know I need to buy. And then work back thru my mental inventory of what I already have and decide what might do that same thing — if it were just moved to someplace else.

Couple the appreciating without having to own with re-purposing what I already have is a great way to, at least, keep from adding to my personal pile of too much stuff.

I had a note from a woman named Suzanne. She said:

I listened to your ADD class on decision making. Excellent!
I’m making a big decision now regarding returning to a career that I had retired from 18 years ago. Actually I am about 90% committed and would like to make a “clean decide.” In fact, when I was in the business before, and quite successfully, I always left a bit of the back door open. I wonder if it is ok to go forward even though I don’t have a 100% commitment.

Suzanne.
I’m glad you liked the class. And so, I’m pretty sure you know this, but I’m not a fortune teller. so I really can’t predict if you’ll be happy going back to your previous profession.

If you kept that back door open because you had a genuine thought that you might actually want to go back in, that’s different than leaving it open because you weren’t sure you were ready to close it.

That does not imply you should not go back. But it does ask what you think you’ll get by going back.

In my opinion, all meaningful work is about more than the money.
It might be a different decision, if you need the money to survive (if babies will die without it) (I love that you heard the class and get the reference without explanation!) If you’re just ready to work again after you’re kids are grown, well, that’s different, too.

So my questions would be:

• What do you get from working?
• What do you get from not working?
• What do you loose if you work?
• What do you loose if you don’t work?

One thing that I depend on when considering these kinds of important questions is my “one clear thought” in the morning. I think about the thing before I go to sleep. (sometimes that leads to not much sleep, but the morning does come!)

Then first thing, before I get out of bed, I think about the issue at hand.. and then pay very close attention to the conversation that pops up. For example, lately, my husband and I have been on a house hunting expedition. My first thought about a great property with a not so perfect house was: “You’ll have to do a lot to brighten that place with so few windows.” Everywhere I sit to work in my house has LOTS of windows. so.. the decision, for me, in this situation, is “don’t buy the house.”

I think only the very simplest of decisions are made with 100% surety. Yes, you definitely should brush your teeth in the morning. But everything is negotiable. So what ever choice you make today will affect tomorrow. Likely the very hardest part is not the deciding itself, but having the confidence in the decision so you do continually remake it. That leads to perseveration! It’s not useful.

What’s your one clear thought in the morning over your issue?
Drop me a note, I’d love to see how the process works for you.

Kerch

Making a new habit can be complicated for people. On one hand you know you’ll have to do the thing over and over, and depending on to whom you talk, for 7 or 30 or 60 days. But what if you don’t really know what habit you’re trying to get? What if you think it’s getting up on time, but really, its about getting to work on time. They might be related. But they’re not necessarily the same thing.

Sometimes the new habit really means you get out of doing the thing all together.
Check this out:

Margaret Rome is an extremely busy realtor friend of mine. We had some down time together over the last couple days (OK, Yep, she’s helping me look at a house) and, as it often does, conversation turned to marketing. She’s had a blog for about a year and posts faithfully every Sunday. “How do you do that, Margaret – be so consistent?”

“I hired a writer to do the actually writing and posting for me.”

While Margaret is away at a conference, she emails short ideas to Peg Silloway who gathers them up for future reference. When Margaret notices something in the news or at a conference, or she hears other realtors talking or even just has her own brilliant thought, she sends an email to Peg. Peg makes the blog post happen using something Margaret sent her. Peg can write like Margaret talks so no one’s the wiser.

How cool is that? Who do you know that can take over a part of your job that you don’t like.. or that just gets away from you?

But what if you choose to write your own post?

Here’s another interesting bit worth noticing. There’s a schedule. When Sunday rolls around Peg and Margaret know that there has to be something new. Funny thing about Sundays. They come every week! Tie the new habit – the blog post – to an existing habit – Sunday! Maybe that’s not the right thing to which you’ll tie your new habit. But days of the week are sure dependable. Maybe you’ll pick trash day. Oh, imagine what might pop up for you then? Do your kids have a half day on Monday? You could promise yourself you’ll always post on Mondays before they get home.

Here’s the secret. You just gotta DECIDE what to tie the new habit to.

What do you think would be the easiest habit for you to tie a new habit to?

In case you missed the other parts of this process:
In step 1, you assess the danger of a situation. If there’s blood, attend to that immediately. 911 is the standard call for help all over the US — so people know what to do in crisis.
Step 2 addresses the need for survival past flowing blood. Money allows you to buy what you need. So people who want to give you money should have a pretty high priority.
Step 3: Everything else is negotiable.

Maybe that’s what makes deciding hard. Because there are so many options, so many reasons for making one choice or another. It means you have to think about what you decide. Negotiate, evaluate the options and adjust — and readjust –the priorities. Do what must be done.
Rules just eliminate possibilities. Sometimes you need that. But don’t be too quick to presume that limited options make deciding easier. You could miss a really great choice. Or an opportunity to learn something new.

My father told me “NEVER mess with batteries. The stuff inside them is acid and can burn you.” So I didn’t. It was a rule and it made pretty good sense.

When my son was about 10 he and a friend decided to find out what really is inside batteries. They gathered all the 9 volt batteries they could find. (Sorry about your burglar alarm, folks.) They put them in the street and waited for cars to drive over them.

They learned that 9 volt batteries are made up of six little skinny batteries, all wrapped together. Cool? Huh?

If he’d followed the rule, even I wouldn’t know that.

I’m glad, however, that they didn’t get further, because there’s acid in there and you can get burned!

Experiment! What away to learn.

I said in my first bit about my prioirites for deciding: “The second step or priority I use for making decisions is this: People who want to give me money take priority over everything else.” But I’ve been thinking about that.

It’s important to decide how much of your life you’ll give over to people who want to give you money. I’m wondering if you’ve been on the road for a three days and you get home at 8 pm, should “the man who wants to give you money” expect that you’ll work another couple hours on a report about the trip?

At what point does “the man” own you? At what point do you get to say, “No.”

I think that it could be a different answer for everybody. The new hire may be more inclined to toe the corporate line, to learn the corporate culture. A man with 30 years experience may be in a different position.

But if you know your decision about “the man,” and you know why you chose to construct it in that specific way, I’m thinking it will be harder to be taken advantage of without your consent.

Priorities don’t have to be complicated.

Here’s a reminder of my number one priority… always: If there is blood, you must attend to it. Immediately. By the way, that doesn’t mean you have to get inappropriately “big.” It means attend to the problem. If a child fell off the swing and knocked a tooth loose, push it back in, apply ice, and call the dentist.

The second step or priority I use for making decisions is this: People who want to give me money take priority over everything else.

When my clients, or prospective clients, call nothing else matters. Except, remember, when step one applies. One could say that’s terribly mercenary of me. But, in fact, if you have a job, you go to work every day. You have to. If you don’t, the man won’t pay you. You could choose to take a day off. But you can’t do it randomly. You ask permission. You plan.

If something comes up, like blood, it’s an emergency. You call in, if you can. People bleeding are, or should be (in my opinion), more important than work.

But when the emergency is handled, you go back to work. After you take that kid with the loose tooth to the dentist, you go back to work.

People who want to give you money are the top priority.

“All literature on ‘effective decision making’ can be reduced to: Look before you cross the street. The academic solution is sufficiently broad to analyze everything, and thus nothing.” So says Dale A. Duten in Quitting: Knowing when to leave… a job, a marriage, or any other unhappy spot you’re in (1980, Beaver Books Ltd., Canada.) It’s a great little book, out of print, I believe but often available at Amazon as a used book. I particularly love the mathematical formula he devised for knowing when you might be successful at quitting. I’m not talking about making the right choice, but at least making a choice that you won’t revisit over and over.

But for the actual priorities of choice, I have just three simple rules. I’ll cover them in the next couple of posts.

First I always ask, “Is there blood?” I’m talking real-red-coming-out-of-your-arm blood? Not that you think there might be blood. Neither that you imagine really bad things will happen.. but real blood.

Real blood flow must be stopped immediately. This is a first aide kind of problem. And all other activities must wait until the blood is stopped.

This is a reactive position. If you’re in a planning phase the question is better asked: “Will any babies die?” I saw this in the newspaper once. OK, not exactly that phrase but I know the woman was misquoted. The reporter wrote something like: No serious harm would be caused to small children. I know she really said no babies will die if we do this.

Of course, if actual babies will die, the decision should be obvious. If it’s not, that’s a whole different problem, in my opinion.

As an AD/HD coach, lots of my clients have trouble making decisions. So finding ways to make it easier has become pretty fascinating to me. I came across this article in News@Nature about a recent study done at the University of Amsterdam on people shopping for bigger ticket items.

Published online February 16, 2006, author Helen Pearson reports “ Studies say you should list the pros and cons, then sleep on it. … The best way to make a tough decision is to put your feet up and think about something else.”

The article goes on:

For the simple decisions, students made better choices when they thought consciously about the problem. But for the more complex choice, they did better after not thinking about it, Ap Dijksterhuis and his colleagues report in Science1.

My teachers have been telling me since grade school days that I don’t use enough of my brain. It seems like a brain can only hold so much information on its front page, so to speak. So it’s comforting for me to know that the parts of my brain I’m not using right now are off doing something that I’ll be able to use later.

If you’d like to know more about what I know about making decisions, you can buy a recording of a teleclass I gave called Decision Making: Can’t You Just Make Up Your Mind? It’s part of a series of audio classes in the library at www.addclasses.com

Check it out, let me know what you think.

Thanks.