Uncovering the seeds of Ineffectiveness: Where indecision meets disorganization, a 'nested loop' begins to cycle…

As evidence of my commitment to transparency and my own growth progress which I hope can benefit you I am going to tell you about my frustrations today for the purpose of transparency to help you and to help me. When I am publicly transparent it motivates me to improve. I also hope that both that vulnerability invites you into my world and you are able to learn something while you are here. So, here are some reflections on my frustrations for today.

A ‘nested loop’ is a term that I use to describe when I start with one problem and in the process of attempting to address it another problem arises. So, I then have a problem inside of a problem. Then I find that I have to spend an inordinate time on the problem inside the problem to the preclusion of solving the original problem. This makes me hugely frustrated with myself.

Do you ever have that problem?

Consider this. I am on Day 3 of focusing on “organize” and “Review” using the Zen to Done approach for getting organized (get it here: http://ad.vu/vgd9).

By the way, I really like this approach.

I have worked on the first 5 habits for about 6 months and made significant progress. I am at a challenging impasse where I am focused on the “organize” and “Review” habits for the next 30 days. (Focusing upon changing one or two habits for 30 days is a very good idea. This is how you solidify a behavioral habit change.) I will make steady incremental progress here and part of how I will make sure of that is that I will be transparent about it on my blog and in my ‘tweets’.

Let me set the stage. I was out of town last week. I have two weekly appointments that didn’t show this morning. Then I had a scheduled phone call and that person didn’t call. So, that has thrown me off. I checked my automated email reminders and they are all still set. I checked my phone and it is working too. So it wasn’t me. I will let that go. I will email each one and get back on track for next week. Yet, that process has thrown me off, more than I would prefer.

When one of my phone calls did not happen I began reviewing the email campaign he had sent to me to understand his strategies. I figured he had gotten me to bite I should study how exactly he did that. I started taking notes on that. However, it is not on my 3 most important things to do, but as I began reading his emails I realized it should be in my top 3. His strategies which are marketing strategies would be very helpful for me as I ‘review’ my own marketing plan. Yet, reviewing my marketing plan was not on my top 3 most important things, but as I said I realized it should be. So I put it on there.

So, back to my three most important things for today, that just became 4. The concept of focusing upon one’s three most important things at the beginning of the day is also from the Zen to Done approach for getting organized (get it here: http://ad.vu/vgd9).

Here are my three most important things for today which became 4:
1. Brand Integration document.
2. Organize files and folders – especially those that relate to Cogmed & my marketing plan.
3. Prepare for Fitfamilies.tv video-taping for next week.
4. Review my marketing plan and my metrics to see my progress.

I put quite a bit of time in #2 so we can check that off for the day. However….

Problem #1: I realized that as I was organizing my files that I really needed to review my marketing strategy and progress on that. As a matter of fact it was probably the most important thing to do today, but it was not on my list of most important things to do. I know this is getting redundant, but that is what happens when I get thrown off. I get redundant.

Problem #2: So, I stopped to save a document, a document that was notes on his email marketing campaign that had succeeded in getting me to contact him. Yet, it was not on my list of 3 most important things. Yeah, we covered that. Then I realized that in my process of ‘organizing’ I had changed the folder name. My brain had not yet caught up to my change. I couldn’t remember where it went.

That is when it happened, or continued to happen. I got frustrated. I became indecisive. Then I realized I was off the track. I was now thinking about the need to review my marketing plan, but I had not finished my brand integration document review and revision.

That was the moment when indecision meet disorganization and a ‘nested loop’ began to cycle. I began to ‘cycle’ or loop. This is when historically I would get frustrated with myself, take a break, etc.
I am not completely sure whether I always got out of ‘nested loops’ before. However, I am convinced that I now have the skills to do so. One of those skills is the transparency of blogging about it. By letting you in on my little ‘nested loop’ it motivated me to make SURE I do something about it.

What did I do?

I wrote about it which helped me to clarify what I needed to do.

Solution #1: I will ‘review’ where my most recent marketing strategies have gotten me to tomorrow with my interns. I had felt pressure to keep working on blog posts, but it is exactly this pressure to ‘do’, ‘do’, ‘do’ that gets me disorganized. I was feeling pressure to get organized so my interns can help me get more blog posts up, but I am actually up to date on them.
So, I will instead, ‘review’, ‘review’, ‘review’ with them. This is making me realize that reviewing is devalued by me. It is not ‘doing’ or so I thought. I am realizing that ‘reviewing’ is critical to keeping on track. It is what will keep me moving in the right direction within the forest instead of just hacking away without a sense of the bigger picture or the pathway I should be on. So, now it is clearer to me what gets in the way of me of having ‘review’ as a routine habit for me. This is useful and I can catch myself when I devalue reviewing in the future. This will keep me on track.

Solution #2: I will go back to the brand integration project and work on it now.

Solution #3: Because I am ahead of schedule on fitfamilies.tv I don’t have to work on it too much. I will review it tomorrow and fine tune what I want to do.

Whew! I am out of the nested loop and back to work and I even got a blog post out of it!

By the way, I really did like my opening, I hope you did too:
“Uncovering the seeds of Ineffectiveness: Where indecision meets disorganization, a ‘nested loop’ begins to cycle…

Charles Shinaver, Ph. D.

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