What Am I Doing? What Do I Want to Be Doing?

I have a tendency to allow myself to be distracted and become deeply involved in trying to solve some problem that isn’t important. I can get lost for quite a while until I ask myself, “What am I doing? What do I want to be doing?”

Just today I noticed that a charge for Medicare seemed to appear twice, once on my credit card and once as a deduction on my Social Security statement. It was a complicated mess involving websites from my credit card company, Social Security, Medicare, and my UnitedHealthcare supplement. I was able to determine within ten minutes that the charge was not a duplicate—one charge was for me and one for my wife. That should have been the end of it. Problem solved. “Way to go, Barry.”

But then I started trying to understand all the different charges for Medicare Part A, Part B, Part D, IRMAA, my supplement, and everything else. It was very confusing, and I sloshed around in the quagmire for about an hour until I finally asked myself, “What am I doing? What do I want to be doing?”

“What am I doing?” I was trying to figure out the complex relationships involved in Medicare. “What do I want to be doing?” Virtually ANYTHING ELSE! I wanted to work on this book 1,000 times more than bouncing around in the medical website world.

I like to make a list of “things to get done today,” and at day’s end I often find that I didn’t get very many of them done. I decided to analyze why this kept happening and discovered several problems:

• I would start working on something from my list and then notice another problem—perhaps a dripping faucet. Without giving it any thought, I would stop what I was doing and go fix it. I have come to think of this as “mindless task switching.”
• After fixing the faucet, I would forget to go back and look at my list.
• I would open the technology monster and start going through email, texts, voicemail, and everything else that sent me in directions having nothing to do with my list.
• I had an open-door policy. People could walk in, and whatever help they needed was almost certainly not on my list. Yet I would immediately start helping them.
• I found many other ways to avoid what I had decided I wanted to do.

That seemed like a lot of separate problems to fix, until I realized that one phrase could help with all of them:

“What am I doing? What do I want to be doing?”

I often don’t remember to ask myself the question soon enough. I may switch from this task to that task to another task, keeping myself extremely busy. None of those tasks are what I want to be doing, but I may complete quite a few of them before the phrase finally gets me back on track.

It’s Not What You Know, It’s What You Remember to Do

Many of the phrases in this book are about changing actions, perhaps best summarized by, “What am I doing? What do I want to be doing?” One of the biggest problems I still have is that I somehow find myself doing something I do not want to be doing. Actually, as I think about it, it is the biggest one.

The meaning of “It’s not what you know, it’s what you remember to do” is at the core of this book. Knowledge of how to fix a problem is useless if you don’t put that knowledge to work with actions. Once you know what action is needed, gaining ever more knowledge does not solve the problem.

Knowing that you should put knowledge into action is also just more knowledge, not an action. That is why I like the “remember to do” part of the phrase. It implies that you have already gained the knowledge of what to do, and that is not enough. It contains the two essential elements of remembering what the action is and actually doing it.

The phrase “It’s not what you know, it’s what you remember to do” is somewhat redundant with other phrases I use, and that is very deliberate on my part. If I am doing something I don’t really want to be doing, the key is to become aware of it as soon as possible. To facilitate that goal, I have multiple phrases that are available to pop into my head.

I still have a tendency to be hard on myself. When I finally notice it, my first thoughts go along the lines of, “Shit, you’re doing it again. Are you ever going to learn?” I try to catch these thoughts and change them to something more kind: “Hey, Barry, there it is again. No big deal. Let’s get back on track.”

No One Is Coming

I got this one from Nathaniel Branden, one of my favorite authors. I attended several of his weekend seminars, and during his opening remarks he pointed out that many of the people attending had one or more life problems they wanted to work on. Perhaps they were in a bad marriage, hated their job, or were just plain unhappy. It has been more than forty years since those seminars, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but he said something like, “I’m here to tell you that no one is coming to save you. It is up to you, and only you.” He went on to say, “You may think Nathaniel Branden is coming to save you, but the truth is that I’m here to tell you no one is coming—including me.”

What Branden said resonated with me. Like almost everyone else at those seminars, I had life issues I wanted to work on, and they had been with me for a long time. I was aware of them, complained about them, and was unhappy about them. I had a vague sense that somehow they would be resolved. I had no idea how, but somehow they would. That was the same as thinking someone was coming to save me. Branden made it crystal clear: No one is coming. These problems are not going to resolve themselves by magic.

Branden also believed that although no one was coming, each person at the seminar had the ability to step up, get to work, and solve his or her own problems. He believed that we already knew the solutions to many of our problems and simply had to tap into that knowledge. That is where the phrase “Ask Yoda” came from. This was only the Friday-night introduction. We spent the next two days learning how to identify and solve our own problems.

I still find from time to time that I have a problem that has been lingering and I am doing nothing to resolve it. I am procrastinating for one reason or another. At times like that, I remind myself, “No one is coming. Get off your butt and figure this out.”

Better Late Than Never

The phrase “better late than never” has been around for a long time, and its lesson is pretty obvious. I had never paid much attention to it. Recently, however, it has become useful to me in two important ways. It releases me from criticizing myself for the delay, and it motivates me to pursue things I never got around to.

I have kept a diary since 1975. The first time I decided to write this book was in 1980. Year after year, I wrote some version of “I should write the book.” It is perplexing that I had the consistent goal of writing this book for forty-six years but somehow never did it. I could probably consult a team of psychiatrists, and they could develop a complicated explanation of how and why I failed to get started. But the phrase “better late than never” helped me finally begin.

I think of the phrase as a free pass. It does not matter that it took me decades to start. I do not have to give myself a hard time about the delay or understand why it took so long. None of that is important. What matters is that I finished the book.

In addition to giving me a free pass from criticism, “better late than never” motivates me to think about what else I have wanted to do for a long time but never started. If I stopped myself from writing this book for that long, I was probably stopping myself from doing other things as well. I have now put them on my bucket list and intend to start knocking them off.

Goals Don’t Have to Be Difficult to Be Valuable

I used to believe that a goal was not worth pursuing unless it was difficult, and the most difficult goal was the most valuable. Perhaps the goal would be “get an A in every subject.” Then I would think, “That’s not good enough,” and change it to “get an A+ in every subject.”

Setting goals based on difficulty created several problems for me. First, I usually failed to achieve them, which felt like a defeat. Second, the goal itself might not have had any value to me. Did I really care if I got an A+ in every subject, even “The History of the Aztecs”? Nope, I did not. All I really wanted to do was pass so I could graduate from college.

I worked on this issue with a therapist. He pointed out that “goals don’t have to be difficult to be valuable.” He also encouraged me to select goals that have intrinsic value to me, not anyone else.

This was an important lesson and required a very different process when selecting goals. As I applied the lesson and thought about what goals I wanted to set, I found myself scanning a number of possibilities, all of which still followed the “very difficult” rule. I could easily think of 20 very hard things to do that might have no actual value to me. The old habit was so powerful that I had to force myself to think of things that had value to me, even if they were easy.

What helped me in the transition from “difficult only” goals to “value to me” goals was to find one goal that had value and pursue it, rather than try to make a long list of valuable goals. I remember the first goal I set with the new method was “spend more time with my family,” and I set a simple first step to have dinner with my wife twice that week. Setting and achieving this goal felt good and made it easier to think of another goal that had value to me, perhaps “lose ten pounds.”

Today when I think about what goals to set, I find it much easier to come up with a list of potential goals that have value to me. Yes, some “difficult only” goals still try to work their way onto the list, but I let them come and go.

Aim Small, Miss Small

In the movie The Patriot (2000), Mel Gibson plays Benjamin Martin. After Colonel Tavington kills one of Martin’s sons, the British soldiers take his older son Gabriel prisoner, to “be hanged as a spy and his body displayed.” Martin takes his two younger sons, Nathan and Samuel, into the woods to ambush the British patrol and rescue Gabriel. Before the shooting starts, Martin gives them instructions, including targeting the officers first. Then he asks: “What did I say about shooting?” Both boys respond: “Aim small, miss small.”

Mel Gibson’s character meant if you aim in the general direction of a man, and your shot is off, you might miss him completely. If instead you aim at one button on his coat, you may miss the button by six inches—but still hit the man.

I use the phrase “Aim Small, Miss Small” to remind myself or others to deliberately pick a very small, precise target rather than vaguely aiming at a large one:

• Rather than thinking generally “I want to get in shape,” I prefer “I am going to walk two miles today.”
• “I want to write a book someday” becomes “finish one chapter today.”
• Rather than tell the hockey kids I coach “shoot the puck,” I will say, “don’t look at the net or the goalie, pick an exact open spot, perhaps three inches in the corner, and aim for it.”
• “I want to be a good grandparent” becomes “take a grandkid to the ballgame today.”
• When playing golf, rather than think “keep your eye on the ball,” I now think “keep your eye on one blade of grass where I want the club to strike.”

Do I Really Need All These Ways to Interrupt Me?

I noticed that I was no longer able to get very much done, either at my company or in my personal life. I seemed to be working diligently, but my productivity kept dropping. One day, I stepped back and did some analysis. What was going on? Was I just getting stupid in my old age? No, my brain was fine. I had simply created an environment with far too many ways to interrupt me, pulling me away from the important task I was trying to complete and dragging me into something else. I started thinking about my father’s life in 1960 and my life running my company.

My father ran an insurance company in Chicago. In 1960, he had about two hundred employees in one downtown office. His personal office was in a corner, and his girl Friday had an office directly in front of his. That office was occupied for thirty years by Mrs. Murphy, whom we all affectionately called Murph. There was no way for anyone to get into my father’s office without going through Murph. His phone never rang. Calls went to Murph, and if she thought one was important enough, she put it through to my father. He never saw most of his snail mail because Murph opened it and dealt with it. If my father had a meeting scheduled from 9:00 to 9:30, Murph made sure it started on time and, more importantly, ended on time. There was virtually no way to interrupt him. Now compare that with my own office life:

• I did not have a Murph.
• I had an “open-door policy,” which meant any employee could interrupt me at any time.
• I had a direct-dial phone on my desk. Nobody screened my calls. If anyone dialed the number, even a junk caller, my phone rang.
• All my snail mail was dumped on my desk each day.
• Email came directly to my computer in random order and announced itself with a beep.
• My cell phone was always on, receiving calls, texts, emails, instant messages, and assorted other interruptions.
• If a meeting dragged on, no one was there to end it.

The distractions increased every year. More email, more texts, and more employees walking through my open door. The problem was not limited to the office. If I was trying to fix the water heater at home, my phone would ring, a text would arrive, or I would hear some random damn beep.

The important realization was that technology was not doing this to me. I was allowing technology to interrupt me. No wonder I was getting less and less done as the interruptions seemed to increase exponentially. I asked myself, “Do I really need all these ways to interrupt me?” The answer was clearly no.

I started making a list of priorities and turning everything off until the important tasks were completed. I closed my office door so employees could not come in. I turned off my cell phone, unplugged my desk phone, and shut down email and messaging on my computer. I turned it all off and completed the tasks on my list, just as though it were 1960. When the tasks were finished, I turned everything back on and opened my door. At that point, the calls, emails, texts, visitors, and everything else were no longer interrupting me because I was not trying to do anything else that could be interrupted.

Watch Out for a Bowl of Cheetos

If there is a bowl of Cheetos on the table during a meeting, I’m going to eat a few, and perhaps more than a few, even though I may be on a diet and Cheetos are certainly not on it. There are just some things that are irresistible, and the best thing for me to do is take away the bowl. No Cheetos on the table or in the house.

I asked a friend who had been an employee for years if he remembered any phrases I used that might be good for this book. He remembers that when he was lost in a quagmire of answering endless emails, I would tell him, “Email for you is like a bowl of Cheetos. You are going to eat one email after another and another. Picking up the phone and freaking calling prospects is your job, not eating Cheetos.”

He says I used a different word than “freaking,” and I probably did. The point was that putting a computer with email in front of him was just like putting a bowl of Cheetos in front of me. I know they aren’t good for me, but I eat them anyway. He knew email would suck him in and keep him from more important tasks, but he still opened it. It’s been 20 years since I had this conversation with him, and he said that when he finds himself lost in email he thinks, “Stop it, you’re eating Cheetos again.”

Instagram has become my latest bag of Cheetos. I open it in the morning thinking, “I’ll just look at a few things my friends are doing,” and the next thing I know 45 minutes have passed and I haven’t seen anything from a friend in the last 43. I’m aware of the “Cheeto factor,” so I don’t open Instagram at all, and start writing this book instead.

Make a Pile and Hide It

At one time, if you walked into my office, your reaction would be, “What a disorganized mess.” I had folders and documents stacked a foot high on the desk, the credenza, the printer table, and all over the floor. Each folder represented a problem I was working on, a potential project for my company, or something I wanted to read someday.

The problem was not only that it was visually unappealing, it was also a reminder of all the undone things on my ever-increasing to-do list. I would look around the office and think, “Holy crap, I have to get to all this stuff.” Some of the folders and potential reading material had been in the same place for years, untouched. All these things sitting in my field of vision kept demanding mental attention even though I never picked one up.

A few times I tried to sort through the mess, looking at each item and deciding if I wanted to keep it on the “someday I might get to it” list. That approach never got me very far because there were hundreds of items, and it was not always obvious what a given folder contained. I had to spend quite a bit of time digging through the many documents in a folder just to get a sense of, “What in the world is this folder even about?” At the rate I was going, I might have it all sorted in a year, spending my time on minutiae. So, rather than continue with the “one at a time” approach, I took all the little piles, made one big pile, and hid it in the closet, out of sight and out of mind.

A few more months passed and I never grabbed an item from the closet pile. The only time I went in the closet was to toss something else on the pile that I “wanted to get to someday maybe.” One day I woke up to the fact that I was never going to get to the pile, and I threw it all away.

Material kept coming in, such as magazines, newspapers, etc. I also still created folders regarding problems and projects. I could not throw these things away immediately because I still thought, “Someday I’ll get the time to read this. I better save it.” Rather than let them clutter up my desk and my mind, they all went in the closet immediately.

After the cleanup I felt better walking into my office. The overwhelming piles of “you should do these things” were gone. I found it much easier to focus on the important things I wanted to do. And it looked a lot nicer!

“Make a Pile and Hide It” applies to other things as well. I have a ranch and there was stuff all over the place. Some lying in the open, some under trees, a bunch piled in the barn. Wood, roofing materials, old fence posts, paint cans, etc., etc., etc. So I collected it all and put it in a far corner of the property, out of sight and out of mind.

I don’t have less junk, but instead of 20 piles in plain sight, there is one big pile hidden way over yonder.

Sometimes You Can’t Do Things One at a Time

When working on a project, sometimes the “one at a time” method seems like a good idea, but it is actually making the project impossible to finish.

I wanted to clean out my closet and the logical approach seemed to be to look at each item one at a time and decide to either keep it or give it away. However, I hadn’t given clothes to Goodwill in over 10 years and there were a lot of items to sort through. I started the project, did a few, became overwhelmed by the volume, and quit. Then a few days later I would start again, looking at one item at a time, “hmm… should I keep this one or not, I kind of like it, and ….” Weeks passed and the clothes were all still in the closet.

The “look at them all one at a time” method was not working. Since I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life attempting to sort my closet, I came up with a different approach. I selected the 15 outfits I liked the best and gave away all the rest. It took about 30 minutes. I have no idea what was in the stuff I gave to Goodwill, but I don’t miss any of it.

I had hundreds of books, some on bookshelves, others in boxes. I picked my 20 favorite books and gave the rest away. One at a time would have taken days and might never have gotten done.

I remember having a meeting with senior staff to decide what company projects to take on the next year. The concept was “let’s get a list of all the things we could do and then pick the best ideas.” We brainstormed and created a list of about 10 items. After lunch we added 20 more. Then we started the meeting the next day by adding more items. We probably could have gone on for days like this, as there is always another possibility to add to the list. So I changed the process to “let’s think of the first five possible projects that come to mind and then select one.” The first five things we thought of are probably more important than the 90th thing.

Also we got it done quickly so I could go play golf!

Make a List of What You Got Done, Not Only To-Do Lists

I like to make to-do lists. They can be very valuable in helping me remember my priorities. One mechanism I use is to have a note on my iPhone titled “To-Do,” where I keep my list. When I complete an item, I delete it and move on to the next, provided I don’t allow myself to be interrupted. If I am lucky and complete everything, my to-do list will be empty, so I start adding items for tomorrow.

This seemed like a reasonable approach, and I used it for a long time. Then I discovered the concept of “make a list of what you got done” and decided to give it a try. When I looked at my empty to-do list at the end of the day, I resisted the temptation to start adding items for the next day. Instead, I created a list of what I had gotten done that day. If one of the items was particularly important, I paused to think, “It was great that I finally got that vacation booked. That will be fun, and I’m looking forward to it.”

I found that reviewing the things I got done improved my mood, and I enjoyed it. Reflecting on the day’s achievements increased my self-esteem and confidence. I also felt motivated to repeat the process and get some more things done the next day. I don’t make a comprehensive list of every little thing I get done each day, but the last item on my to-do list has become, “Review and celebrate the important things you got done today.”

Interestingly, I had not even realized that my old process of deleting items and moving on to the next one was a problem—or something that could be improved. I just happened to stumble across the phrase “make a list of what you got done.” The phrase made sense to me, I gave it a try, and it made my daily life experience better. I did exactly what I encourage the reader to do in the title of this book: If It Makes Sense to You, Try It.

A Good Excuse Doesn’t Solve the Problem

The phrase “A good excuse doesn’t solve the problem” reminds me to focus on the result I want rather than the difficulties I encounter while pursuing it. It motivates me to keep trying until I either solve the problem or consciously decide that it is no longer worth pursuing.

As an example, perhaps I am trying to close a major business deal, but my primary contact will not call me back. I have left two messages, sent three emails, and followed up with a text. Still no response. It is tempting to think, “Well, I did my best. It isn’t my fault that the client won’t respond.” That may be a perfectly good excuse, but it does not close the deal. If the deal is important enough, I might get on a plane and visit the client personally. I might contact someone else at the company who can help me. I might even call the owner. If none of those things works, I look for another approach.

Over the years, I became very good at focusing on solving problems rather than explaining why they had not been solved. However, I discovered that not all employees thought the same way. Once, the roof at my office was leaking, and rainwater was falling on important equipment. I pointed it out to our office manager and asked him to get the roof fixed. A few days later, another rainstorm arrived, and the roof leaked again. The office manager told me, “I called the roof repair company twice.” In his mind, he had done his job. I pointed out that I had not asked him to call the roof repair company. I had asked him to get the roof fixed. He responded, “But I called twice and sent an email. It isn’t my fault.” He believed that having a good excuse relieved him of further responsibility. Unfortunately, the equipment was still getting wet.

I once debated with an employee about when an excuse is good enough to stop trying. I eventually realized that the entire debate missed the point. Once I focus on deciding whether an excuse is good enough to stop, I have already shifted my attention away from solving the problem.

This does not mean that I pursue every objective forever. At some point, I may decide that continuing to work on a problem or pursue a goal is no longer worth the time, money, and effort. That is a conscious decision and is entirely different from saying, “I gave up because he wouldn’t call me back.”

Be the Man in the Arena

The phrase “The Man in the Arena” comes from Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 speech “Citizenship in a Republic,” delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris. Roosevelt said, “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena....” The arena is a metaphor for any difficult undertaking. The person in the arena acts, takes risks, makes mistakes, gets criticized, and may fail. Roosevelt contrasts that person with the critic who stands safely outside, risks nothing, and points out everything the person doing the work got wrong.

I like being the “man in the arena” and have been one for a long time. However, it comes with a price. Our society has far too many critics, and the internet and social media give them too many ways to tell me why I am doing everything wrong. They do not just complain. They will try to stop me any way they can.

“Be the man in the arena” reminds me to continue getting things done but to expect criticism, resistance, and artificial obstacles created by the bystanders. The alternatives are to let them stop me from doing what I know will benefit a lot of people or to become one of the critics myself. I much prefer being in the arena.

I have coached youth hockey for more than thirty seasons. I live in a small town, and we do not have a large population from which to draw players. One year we had only seven players talented enough to play on a competitive travel team. They were excellent players, but seven was not enough to form a team. I was good friends with a coach in Taos, New Mexico. He had only six players in that age group. Together, we had thirteen—enough to form a competitive team. We created a combined team and called it the “Taos Mountain Dragons.”

Who could possibly object to this plan? The answer was a few members of our local hockey governing board. When they learned about the plan, they told me something like, “We can’t possibly approve that. We can’t have Colorado kids practicing in New Mexico. We just don’t do things like that. It’s a crazy idea. They are three hundred miles away.” They then told me they would not register the team in Colorado, making sure I could not implement my plan.

I asked them, “If we don’t do this, where are these seven Colorado kids going to play hockey this year?” They had no answer and no plan. They were just bound and determined to stop me.

As I write this, I still find it amazing that there are people like this in the world. I cannot get my arms around why anyone, when confronted with a problem and a solution, would attack the solution and do absolutely nothing about the problem.

I reminded myself that I wanted to be the man in the arena and that intense criticism was simply part of the deal. I ignored them and registered the team in New Mexico, where our local board had no authority. We played about forty games in eight tournaments and won seven of the eight, despite never having a single practice. We would simply meet in the tournament city and play. It was a wonderful experience for all the kids, and many of the friendships they made have lasted a lifetime.

Do I Really Not Care?

I have learned over the years to pay attention whenever I hear myself say, “I don’t care.” I need to stop and ask whether I truly no longer care about the issue and should quit working on it, or whether I still care but am simply tired, angry, or frustrated.

For the past few days, I have been working on a water problem at my ranch in Gypsum, Colorado. For some reason, the water pressure had dropped to almost zero. Water is critical to the property. It is used for showers, toilets, cooking, cleaning, irrigation, and many other things. The ranch is off the grid, and all the water comes from a natural spring about 1,000 yards up the mountain. The system is complicated, with more than 3,000 feet of pipe, eight pressure reducers, backflow preventers, filters, and other equipment.

After working on the problem all day without solving it, I told my wife, “I just don’t care. I’m done.” But that was not true. I still cared a great deal about solving the problem. I was simply exhausted. A more accurate statement would have been, “This water-pressure problem is a real bear to figure out. I’m tired and frustrated, so I’m going to stop for today and pick it up again tomorrow.”

Sometimes “I don’t care” may be completely accurate. A friend might say, “You should read this great book about the history of opera.” If I respond, “I don’t care about that,” it is a perfectly true statement that requires no further analysis. The dangerous version of “I don’t care” is when I say it about something I really do care about.

I hear people say “I don’t care” surprisingly often. Sometimes they mean it, but I have noticed that the words are often a reaction to frustration rather than a genuine decision to stop caring. It is a hard habit to break, and I still catch myself saying it more than I would like. When I do, I ask myself, “Do I really not care anymore, or am I just frustrated?”

Is It Time to Stop?

I tend to procrastinate when confronted with a big project. I find all sorts of ways to not start. I can work on other things, look at Instagram, open email, etc. When I do manage to get started, I can “get on a roll,” getting one thing after another completed. It feels great to get things done related to my important project, so I keep doing them. “The more you do, the more you can do.” I stay on that roll long past the time when I’m tired, not thinking well, and producing poor results.

I was reminded of this phrase as I was working on this book today. I had been working on it for six hours and finished about six phrases and was happy with the results. I was hungry and tired, and not thinking as clearly as earlier in the day. But I plowed on, writing several more phrases, each one worse than the one before. I was getting more tired, more hungry, and irritable. I finally remembered to ask myself, “Is it time to stop?” and the answer was “absolutely.”

I can also become obsessive about solving a problem. Once I get my teeth into it, I’m like a dog with a bone and have trouble letting go. Sometimes I do this, and the problem isn’t even that important. I just keep trying to solve it, forgetting my health, other people, and often other things I want to do a whole lot more.

It’s simple, but asking myself, “Is it time to stop?” is effective. I just wish I remembered to ask myself this more often.