Purposeful Procrastination

Increasing headspace and unlimited bandwidth.

I am participating in a course about getting stuff done created by Michael Neill. What if we are just like smartphones? Not enough bars or insufficient bandwidth slowing down the phone or you? What do you do when you run out of memory, making it impossible for the phone to work? How many tabs do you keep open while working on one? I'm up for unlimited bandwidth and increasing headspace.

I practice Purposeful Procrastination. I have been taking classes and courses since grade school. In summer school before 5th grade, my dad taught 'Speedreading' and 'Test Taking.' [At least 30% of the test questions' answers are in the other questions on the test.] He also taught every day at 5 p.m. over supper. I did all my schoolwork in school. I never took a book home because I did all of tomorrow's 'homework' in class while the teacher lectured. Anything written, I let the paper fester and ferment in my mind until the night before, sometimes taking notes on thoughts as they appeared. I would write the first draft out before bed and, in the morning, do the final draft. Study hall was free time to read my book of the moment. In college, I dragged the books to class to do the same. The Navy ensured books or materials stayed in the classroom or the building, fitting right into my way of study. I love open-book tests. Life is an open book test, and the internet is one fine resource, a corollary to the small voice within.

These are the rules I learned before turning 13, after 7th grade. Effective goals have primary and secondary reasons that are good for public consumption and use. The tertiary list is private and where all the inspiration comes to keep the goal in play. If you have to write down the tertiary, it isn't one. The money always shows up in the time needed. The corollary is if it doesn't, I don't need it. As long as I read the book and did the 'homework,' the answers always appeared on the exam. I never cram for exams. I was an A student, happy to get a C, only got A's, cared with no emotional attachment to success, and was constantly challenged for not working up to my potential. The courses I attended on leadership, management, and time are long. I just heard of GTD today, but its essence was in one or more of the courses I attended.

My method is an ongoing creation of everything I've seen and what works for me now. Use what fits or calls to you. Some of this took weeks of dedicated and focused time to arrive where it made sense, produced an insight, or made a little difference. If it didn't fit me, I changed it, ignored it, or threw it away. Inadvertently, it has always been about increasing headspace and unlimited bandwidth.

Every day's task is attached to promises, plans, commitments, need-to's, and agreements agreed to or imposed. They used to appear haphazard and baffling until I made a list of all of them in one place. The Commitment, Plans, and Dreams list, now called Someday, had good and bad news. Attempting all of them together is impossible and guarantees failure for most of them. Some of them are polar opposites, canceling each other if ever implemented. I saw an order, a progression to an overall plan. Staying organized: adding and removing over time became a process. The increased bandwidth lets the small voice within rule each moment and allows the obvious to appear. It is like having just one tab open. My ego is a valuable tool. The ego runs the tasks, and practical action determines accomplishment. Goldilocks too hard, too soft, just right analysis keeps my ego humming. Just right creates headspace and keeps bandwidth at maximum. "Just Right" is only found after too hard, too soft—a measurement to do daily or more often.

There are three kinds of daily tasks: what only I have to/can do for the plan [which has become a tiny set, something about ego to humility], what I may delegate, and maintenance [laundry, haircut, etc.]. Once I learned how to delegate, an increase in headspace capacity occurred and freed bandwidth. Delegating is an art form in itself. A housekeeper and a handyman gardener solve almost all maintenance items. When I lived alone, five hours a day was maintenance-related. Housecleaning, laundry, food prep, eating, and cleaning up after, when not practiced, make an unlivable mess. When delegating, my version of perfect is only perfect for myself. It may even be abuse if I require it. I evaluate now against, Does it work? Yes, then leave it and praise the work. Everyone does the best they can with the information they have available at the moment. When I believe thoughts on how everything should be, it sucks up bandwidth and headspace. I am no longer in charge of the Universe or any part of it except me. I am not the pilot. I am the plane.

The proverbial to-do list has too much on it. I have three lists now: Today, Soon, and Someday. On Today's list is what I WILL do today. I like seeing it empty when the morning arrives. If I ended yesterday empty, that is my usual, and sometimes life happens; I begin the day with total capacity and full bandwidth. [Inbox zero has a similar effect.] I saw this week ending the day with all tasks done, is my say so. Full bandwidth and total headspace capacity are a choice. I am the one interfering with the signal and filling the headspace. Nothing, and nobody can do that unless I say so, unless I allow it. I have a little app on my PC. Clean Memory, when pressed, works instantly. When I am stuck on anything, I push it. The humor alone opens bandwidth and clears headspace.

I enjoy the day proceeding in a lackadaisical manner. I relish a lot of goof-off time. A fly on the wall might say it looks like work, however. Lackadaisical lets the bread crumbs appear, spread out randomly, and I wander to and fro to receive them. The small voice within only provides one recommendation at a time. The ego offers many more. The ego's color and political commentary eat bandwidth and headspace. I break the day into blocks and continue to embellish for the best format. I used to use Start-Stop-Change. Stop-Change-Start works much better for me. I can get stuck in the flow, and hours go by before I recognize the time. There is always an appropriate place to stop a task, change to break, switch to another job, and start again without having to repath or repeat the adventure. I leave what I am doing now at the end of a sentence, paragraph, or chapter and place the mental and sometimes actual bookmark. I get much more done in 20 minutes of flow, followed by 10 minutes to recharge, walk, clear the registers, or evaluate. Then, onto another 20 of flow. The ability to step into now, the present, is no longer an accident hoping to happen. The space of being present to nothing is exceptionally relaxing. Headspace clears, bandwidth interference drops to zero, and flash, I'm back to joy.

If any item sits on Today's list for three days, I put it back on Soon where it came from. Based on this week's insights, I am testing putting anything left at the end of the day in Soon. Soon's function is a staging place to break tasks into Today-size pieces. Soon is a place where strategy and tactics occur for implementation Today. It's part of the morning's fun time and the end-of-the-day gratitude process, including programming subbie [the subconscious never sleeps and loves good things to work on] for the night. The Soon list of projects-commitments each has a date stamp. I used to let them take up head space for up to a month, but now, if I fail to break down and work on the project in ten days, it goes back to Someday. Suppose it stalls, back to Someday. Soon projects-commitments must have a charge, a certain amount of embedded and living inspiration to go with each piece on Today. Finite inspiration needs to gestate longer. Inspiration that grows independently with each completed item happens when the small voice within is flying the plane. The small voice within has infinite headspace capacity and unlimited bandwidth.

Someday holds all the good ideas, inspirations, and grand plans I am not able or willing to do Today or Soon. Someday contains all the miracles I can and have imagined. I want to remember and keep them. It could be called a bucket list and certainly holds mine. I review Someday for inspiration when I lose the spark and can't see it in Today or Soon. Then, I take a nap.

Every time I stop believing in cause and effect, synchronicity happens. Google attempts to influence you with ads based on a recent search or visit to a website. That is manipulation and one reason I never Google Search. I'll have a random thought, "I wonder what Bob is doing?" A few minutes later, Bob calls, wondering what I've been up to for the last four years. It never happens during strain, struggle, and sacrifice to get things done. You can't make it happen with willpower. It occurs frequently with total bandwidth and maximum headspace, especially with no open tabs.

What are you doing to get stuff done? How often do you experience synchronicity? Are you in perpetual overwhelm, or could you use some purposeful procrastination? What's the best book you've read on the subject?