The lament is incessant, and it’s often about work although not always. Day-in and day-out we chastise ourselves: “I need to expend less time doing _______ , in order to expend more time doing ________.” We regret not paying more attention to family, hobbies, recreating, exercising…or doing some other work than the work we’re actually doing. It’s subtle but pervasive: too often we’re convinced that we’re failing to do the things that matter most, often to the point of feeling we’re not an effective person living a worthwhile life.
Here’s a simple cognitive mind-tweak that will erase that remorse/frustration, thus allowing you to steer yourself through a productive and satisfying day. I call it, “clustering.”
This “cluster” perspective is not about the subject matter. It’s about the mechanics of how the subject matter is processed. As usual it’s a simple thing.
The undeniable mechanical fact? There is no single most important element in a life, such as “my family,” or “my health,” or “making money.” Yet we feel driven to rank these life-processes in a 1-2-3 order of importance. Don’t feel guilty about it. On planet earth, especially here in the West, it’s just how we tend to think.
Here’s what happens when we rank primary endeavors: Whenever we’re not immersed in number one on the list, we feel guilty…and when we are working on number one, we feel guilty about not attending to numbers two, three and four. Arrggghh!
So to remove internal remorse – and the personal uptightness that accompanies it – stop ranking the processes of the day.
Not too long ago I was caretaker to my elderly parents, now deceased. This effort included time, money and focused attention. My dad was 93 and lived in a nearby independent living community. A year before he died, he had a small stroke, and then several others. It affected him enormously, and I tried to show up every day in order to help him recover. My mother? She was 94 at the time, wheel-chair bound, and in an assisted living facility across town. I did my best to see her often too, sometimes, near the end, three or four times in a single day. I’m a lucky guy because my parents survived to such ripe old ages, and every additional moment with them was a blessing.
It’s arguable that I should classify those particular life-efforts as “the most important.”
But besides spending time with my parents, I had other systems that had to be processed carefully in order to keep my life-machine chugging along properly: my businesses and staff, my writing, other family, my various business partners. I also had my friends, exercise…my non-profit work.
Should I have scored these, too, in descending order of importance?
Consciously and unconsciously, for most of my adult life I have been good at prioritizing my life-systems and then focusing on which one is most important (for over twenty years, most of that time as a single custodial parent, it was my children). Back then it seemed to me that my single-minded focus was gallant, but in truth it was narrow-minded and even a bit pretentious, and the price I paid was constant guilt whenever I was not working directly on life-system priority number one…and, as I said, even when I was working on number one, numbers two and three were being short-changed and the guilt continued! My base composure was of ruffled uncertainty and there was no winning the game. I was feeling guilty all the time…
But that was then and this is now: The more accurate mind-set I’ve adopted is this: Don’t rank life-systems. Cluster them.
I group my important daily system activities. Here are the three system-components of my current personal “primary cluster” group. (Why three and not two, or four, or seven? Because, to me, three just feels right):
- Contribution, especially to my family, friends, employees, business partners, and readers.
- Making money and wisely distributing it.
- Strengthening and calming my mind and body (because without that happening, the other two won’t happen).
The key stance? The components are equally important. This is sensible real-world positioning because we’re dealing with the subjective. Each is a free-form endeavor; fluid and emotional. And there is cross-over and the ebbing and flowing in intensity of need and attention. But in all this, the three separate component systems feed and complement each other.
Ranking is pointless.
Most days, I spend time in each of the three components (and of course, on some days one element gets more attention than the other two). Today for instance, a Monday morning, it’s 2:00am and I’m at home working on this book, but in another half-hour I’ll get a few more hours of sleep but still wake early. Then, still at home, I’ll handle some emails and do my daily 30-minute personal organizing. After that, I’ll work some more on this book and then drive into the office to see what’s up and to just hang out with my staff for an hour or so. In the early afternoon it will be a visit to the gym and a good stairmaster workout. Mid-afternoon, I’ll hike the river trail for an hour or so with my fifteen year old granddaughter Lexi…a mutual meditation of sorts. I’ll be home and showered by 6pm. Then I might go out for dinner with a friend and afterwards, catch a movie. Or maybe I’ll stay home and sit here on the couch in front of the fire and read until 10pm or so. Then, to bed.
It’s going to be a perfect day, loosely but deliberately choreographed, and almost all of it spent within some element of my cluster; nearly every minute well-spent.
What about what I believe? Shouldn’t that be listed in the primary cluster? Are my beliefs not important enough? It’s not that at all. My personal beliefs are an all-the-time thread that weaves their way through my day, like breathing. It’s the same for my certainties about how mechanical reality operates – my Systems Mindset. Some of the things of our lives don’t need prompting or scheduling.
Since clustering is a mind-set, it can be implemented instantly. Again, it’s not about the subject matter. It’s about how the subject matter is processed. Identify the most important system-elements of your life (yes, briefly, on paper*), declare them equal in importance and then spend most of your day focusing on the system-elements of each. Don’t keep score. The cluster elements will smoothly intertwine; the results well-balanced and satisfying.
It’s all good!
Clustering’s exquisite bonus? Calmness of mind. Here’s a favorite quote from James Allen’s book, As a Man Trinket: “A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought-evolved being…and as he develops a right understanding, and sees more and more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, he ceases to fuss and fume and worry and grieve, and remains poised, steadfast, serene.”
So, no more ranking! Instead, cluster. And through the day, as you contribute value to those segments of your life that are most important, there’s no guilt, just calm satisfaction.
Photo by H. Koppdelaney via Flickr used under a creative Commons License.