Scott Desgrosseilliers

Napa Winery Tour

Our Napa wine tour came together in one hours notice. Trip planning needs to have some scheduled spontaneous time so that you can act on inspiration. I realize that scheduled spontaneous time is a play on words, but I don’t mean it that way. We purposely had nothing scheduled for our first two days in San Francisco other than the general idea to explore a little. The night before our flight, inspiration hit as we discussed how someday we should take a tour of the vineyards. The conversation quickly escalated to “Well damn it, let’s do it tomorrow!” followed by a call to the hotel concierge and the plan that we would be picked up at the airport by a driver and taken straight to the vineyards.

It still hadn’t hit me until we were 20,000 feet up. Napa wineries with our own driver bringing us from winery to winery, giddy up! Our man picked us up right on time and whipped out a map of the California wineries…there were many to pick from. We decided to pick two places that we knew of, and leave a couple up to aimless wanderings.

The drive took us just over an hour from the airport. The first stop was Sattui Winery, the driver’s choice. We walked in and I was slightly taken aback by the small mobs of people. Not the best first impression, tell me I’m not trapped on an upscale version of a sight-seeing tour! There is a wrap around bar at Sattui and there were about 50 people in various stages of their wine tasting. It was Monday, don’t these people have jobs?? We impatiently stalked out numerous spots and then charged forward at the first sign of opening. The short wait was worth it, the Sattui wines were all pretty decent. One in particular stood out, Sattui Napa Gamay, a light red table wine that begged to be drank all summer long on a deck. I quickly scratched off an order form. “Let’s get a couple cases!” the over enthusiastic Fiance said. I managed to get out of there with a 4 bottle order.

Now that we were warmed up, we hit the anticipated highlight of the tour, Rombauer Vineyard. Rombauer is theFiance’s favorite chardonnay after we randomly ordered it one evening for dinner. The drive up to the vineyard and the view from the vineyard were gorgeous. An old dog greeted us when we opened the door and boldly tried to eat anything he could get his chops on before we shooed him away. The tasting room was small but only about 10 people were inside. We moved in between 2 older couples of old gray-haired dudes and fake-boobed ladies, and a younger couple. The younger couple poured back a few of their wines. This is Rombauer wine – you don’t pour back Rombauer wine unless you are an idiot. I thought maybe they were trying to look like wine snobs, but instead they looked like wine fools. I couldn’t help myself, I asked the guy how he could do such a thing, he just said he didn’t like it. Give that dude a box of Riunite and stop wasting the good stuff please.

While there was no reason to toss the Rombauer out, it was not phenomenal or jaw-dropping by any means. We had a great time trying out a bunch of the wines and got some nice wine glasses as souvenirs, but didn’t order any wine. This was a shocking turn of events.

Frank family was the third vineyard we chose to visit. It was theFiance’s #2 chardonnay although I was not a big fan of it. I have always felt Meridian was better tasting and 1/3rd the cost. The first station was champagne. The guy poured, we drank, he poured some more, we drank some more, this was my idea of a wine tour. We went through 3 or 4 champagnes, they were all spectacular. There was also an explanation on how some vineyards have to call their wines “sparkling white wine” vs. “champagne” but Frank Family could keep calling theirs “champagne”. However, the “champagne” was hitting me pretty good so I can’t remember the specifics.

What I can remember is that the next room had the Frank Family zinfandel. My first experience with wine was sneaking pulls off my mother’s white zinfandel and wondering why people would drink wine. Zinfandel is a red wine, and Frank Family zinfandel is so tasty the wine guide called LPR. LPR stood for a number of things in his household, including “liquid panty remover”. As the wine entered my mouth after his explanation, and the flavors took hold, I was only thinking “Can I get more of this please?” and “I hope LPR lives up to its name after this tour”. Now that I am engaged I can’t tell you the answer, but let’s just say I got more pours of the wine and I am grinning ear to ear right now.

The Frank Family chardonnay was served at almost room temperature. I was always under the impression that you chill white wine and serve red wine at room temp. I was wrong. The chardonnay was very, very good. I don’t have all those hoighty-toighty wine descriptions down – It started out light and slightly fruity, and then had a modest buttery finish that left me opening my mouth for another gulp.

After buying 2-6 bottles of Frank Family it was off to our final winery, Flora Springs. We pulled up and it was 415pm – Uhoh, the winery was closed. The door was still open so we scrambled in to see if we could still get a quick tasting in. Greg the manager was kind enough to let us come in. This would prove to be great fortune for both us and Greg’s sales quota.

Neither of us had heard of Flora Springs before because they don’t have broad distribution for some reason. Greg poured us the first wine, it was a sauvignon blanc, and it was the best white wine I had drank. Sauvignon Blanc is drier than chardonnay, but I usually have drank crappy low-quality versions apparently. This stuff made my eyes water and I exclaimed “Jesus Christ this is good!” and then apologized in case he was offended. In my view of the world when you exclaim Jesus Christ over a good thing, then why is it a bad thing, you are associating Jesus with something that is giving you joy – But I digress, back to the wine.

After a full glass of sauvignon, Greg brought out the chardonnay…again served almost at room temperature. I took a sip and my eyes watered, it was that tasty. TheFiance’s eyes got wide as she drank, I thought she was “in the wrapper” as they say, but she just literally could not believe her own tastebuds. (I just erased my repeated attempts to describe what simply has to be tasted. ) The chardonnay was the best wine I have ever drank in my life.

At least it was the best wine I had ever drank until Greg poured the last wine of the day, Trilogy, Flora Spring’s cabernet blend of some kind. One mouthful and my eyes watered from how good it tasted, and I once again blurted out “Jesus Christ!”, and once again apologized. Greg was laughing at this point, theFiance was debating how we could afford multiple cases, and I was drunk. We scribbled down an order way too big for our wine rack, thanked Greg profusely, and stumbled outside to take this picture before enjoying our ride back to San Francisco.

I’m not good with waiting to do things. Sometimes that gets me into trouble. But choosing to go on a private Napa Wine tour, rather than waiting until next time, gave us the highlight of our trip to San Francisco and a lifelong memory.

Alcatraz

Alcatraz closed down as a prison back in the 1960s. I don’t think the government should’ve publicized that fact. Even in its old and decayed state, Alcatraz still is a strong deterrent to starting a life of crime. I bet that giving Oakland and San Francisco school kids a tour of Alcatraz would force juvenile crime rates to plummet.

A chilly breeze and the unmistakable odor of urine greet you when disembarking onto Alcatraz. But don’t be discouraged by this initial first impression, grit your teeth and hike up to the top where the prison cells are. When you get to the top the views are gorgeous and the wind has cleared any malodorous airs. It must’ve added insult to injury for the prisoners to see the amazing bay view of San Francisco from behind prison walls.

We chose to take the prison cell audio tour. It was hyped as award-winning. I have a lifelong aversion to tours of any kind. I feel a guided tour is a quasi-voluntary passive kidnapping. However, the Alcatraz audio tour was fascinating. A collection of prisoners and guards told the story of the jail along with guiding you along its layout. I literally would be told “Take a few steps forward until you are in front of jail cell 401” or “Walk slowly along the left-side of the corridor until you reach the sign called ‘Prison Escape’”. The pacing of the tour kept the many tour participants from getting bunched up and herded along like a bunch of cattle – A chief complaint I have of tours.

The cells at Alcatraz are 5 feet by 8 feet. There is a small toilet, a sink, and a bed, with room for shelves. How awful. If the jailbirds acted up, they got thrown in an even worse version of a cell, called cellblock D. Cellblock D featured a hole in the ground for a toilet, and it was pitch-black with no bars, just 4 walls. TheFiance wouldn’t even dare to stand inside this it was so horrid. One prisoner on the audio tour describes passing time in Cellblock D by dropping a coin in the darkness, finding it, and repeating, over and over. I think I’d rather obey the laws even if I don’t agree with all of them.

There is one famous escape story from Alcatraz that was made into a movie. A group of prisoners managed to escape. 3 guys chiseled out the concrete along the vent. Then they climbed up the pipes and got on the roof and scaled over the barbed wire fences. To conquer the bay they used life jackets that they blew up into makeshift rafts. One of Alcatraz’s many security measures was bed checks every 90 minutes. However the escapees made heads out of paper mache and even glued hair onto them, so they looked asleep in their cells. The morning after their escape the bay was scoured but the prisoners were never found.

Alcatraz has many other stories you can hear on the audio tour. Prison life was interesting to learn about. You are grateful at the end of your trip that you are not a prisoner and can leave the island and return home. Any trip to San Francisco should include a day trip out to Alcatraz.

Organization System Part 5 - Maintaining

I am spending this blog week on my first-ever series of articles on the same topic.  I implemented a new personal productivity and organization system using Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  I have never had more going on in my life, and at the same time I have never been more organized to deal with life.  I couldn’t find a way to limit my description of this time management system so I’ve broken it up into 5 smaller posts.  This post is Part 5 - Maintaining Your Organization.  Read Part 1 - Organization System Benefits and Part 2 - Organization System Setup and Part 3- Organization System Collecting Your Life and Part 4 - Organization System Processing.

If you’re reading this you either made it through the organization journey and blog entries, or this is still on the home page inversely ordered.  I am hopeful you made the journey to personal organization with me.  Maintaining your organization system is easy and it keeps you in present awareness of your life.  The feeling of being overwhelmed from too much to do or track will be removed.  Everything is kept out of your head and in the system, don’t forget this!

When something appears on your radar, it is time to start the process.  What actions and outcomes do you want from this “thing” that has presented itself in your life?   David Allen says it comes down to 3 questions-

1. What something means to you?
2. What you want to do about it?
3. What is the next action required to make it happen?

Take the action that is determined and if it can’t be done in 2 minutes, plug it into the appropriate place in the system.  If it can be done in 2 minutes, by all means get it done now!  Proactively managing tasks as they enter your life is extremely liberating and empowering.

Regular weekly review will help build confidence in the organization system.  Anything that has started floating around in the ether known as your life needs to be captured and classified.   Make sure your inbox is fully processed, your tickle folder system is up to date, and your priorities match your passions and goals.

David Allen’s personal organization system is truly life-changing.  I feel more active and engaged with all of my commitments and priorities.  I am choosing them instead of being sucked into the swirls of uninspired life action.  It sounds extremely type-A to be a fanatical list maker and maybe it is. I just know the organization system has freed up my creativity and given me greater peace of mind.  I don’t know many people that don’t need more of that.

Organization System Step 4 - Processing

I am spending this blog week on my first-ever series of articles on the same topic.  I implemented a new personal productivity and organization system using Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  I have never had more going on in my life, and at the same time I have never been more organized to deal with life.  I couldn’t find a way to limit my description of this time management system so I’ve broken it up into 5 smaller posts.  This post is part 4, processing your pile..  Read Part 1 - Organization System Benefits and Part 2 - Organization System Setup and Part 3- Organization System Collecting Your Life

Hopefully you did not experience too much trepidation while staring at the pile of unresolved items from yesterday.  Fortunately we have reached the heart of David Allen’s organization system, the action phase.  There is one rule, and it is tough to adhere to, but it is crucial.  Whatever you pick up, starting at the top of your pile, has to be processed.  Processed does not mean finished, it just means put into the organization system for future action.   Are you ready?

For each item in your pile, you are going to either do it immediately, defer it until later, delegate it to someone else, throw it away, file it, or put it in your someday/maybe system for future contemplation.   I know it sounds nice to put everything into “someday/maybe” but that is how you got this huge pile to begin with.  So resist that temptation.

When deferring, delegating, classifying as someday/maybe, or filing, if the item is a physical item you will be putting it in your folder system according to the directions below.  But if it is a mental item such as “Research Meditation Tape Marketing Partnerships” you need to capture that somewhere also.  Time to setup your daily planner.

Have your daily planner ready with some blank pages.  Label the pages as listed below, for the following mental placeholders:

• “Emails” – A laundry list of emails you need or want to write.
• “Calls” – Phone calls you need or want to make.
• “Errands” – Random stuff like dry cleaning or getting the dog’s fur cut.
• “Home Projects” – Re-arranging furniture, cleaning out the fridge, etc.
• “Someday/Maybe” – This is a great mental brainpower saver.  When an item from your pile is something you want to do someday, such as “Schedule another psychic reading’, but you don’t know when you want to do such a thing or even think about when you want to do it, put it here.
• “Projects” – A list of any on-going projects, professional, personal, and all in-between.  I have a wedding project, honeymoon project, blog project, Motorola project, and a bunch more for all my side business schemes.
• Each Project gets a page – All the items in your pile, and all future items, related to something on your project list, get listed here. 

Now you are ready to deal with your pile!

Take the first item from your pile.  Ask the big question that determines your next workflow step.  Is this item something I can take action on?  Suppose the top of your pile is “look up mba programs”.  That is something you can take action on.  Maybe not this moment, but it is actionable.  If it is a brochure for a future travel destination on a trip you haven’t even begun to contemplate yet, you can take action on it (believe it or not).  A copy of a paid utility bill is something that requires no action.

If the item requires action -

1. Can it be completed in 2 minutes?  If it can, do it immediately.  This might be something that needs to have a file created and then stored in your general folder storage from Step 2.  If so, make a label, stick in on a folder, put the documents, reference material, etc. in your folder, and file it alphabetically according to the label you gave it.  The item could be a hacky sack from a junk drawer, if so, determine where to put it now.  It could be a box of staples or an old pen, and you have no use for it, so trash it now.  The whole point it that if the action to process the item can be completed in 2 minutes it is done immediately.
2. If it cannot be done in 2 minutes, is it something I can and want to delegate to someone else?  If so, do that now.  For example, the item in your pile is a piece of paper from your mental inventory that says “Have Mark write the business plan for xyz.com”.  You are deferring the action to Mark on project xyz.com.  You would write “Mark do the business plan” on your XYZ.com project sheet in your planner, and on your email or call list “mark to write business plan”.
3. If it cannot be done in 2 minutes, but it is something for you to take action on, assess the item for date sensitivity and how you want to be reminded.   
   • If it HAS to be done on a certain date or time, put that in your planner for that day and time. 
   • If you want to think about the item next week after your big work deadline is met, open up your tickler file, pick a day you might want to deal with it, and toss it in the folder. 
   • If it is a mental item such as “marketing plan for meditation website”, put it on the meditation project page you have in your planner and then throw the page out. 
   • It could be a brochure for a convention that would help your side business, list it on that project page and put it in that project’s folder.

If the item does not require action-

1. Is this an idea or dream you want to keep in your visions, but just not deal with it for awhile?  Put it on your Someday/Maybe list in your planner.
2. A receipt for a bike you just bought that has a one-year warranty or something similar?  File it in your general purpose files.
3. A pen you haven’t used in a year or something else that is useless – stop being a packrat and throw it out already!

Continue mowing through your pile following this process.  Don’t put an item back down just because it is not something fun or pleasant to deal with, follow the process.  It works!  As you start making progress, you will get more and more motivated to finish.  The weight of the world literally lifts off your shoulders as the system processes your life for you.

Expect a good afternoon worth of processing to plow through everything.  I reached a zen-like state where I was burning through items like a man possessed.  Finally the holy grail of organization!

Organization System Step 3 - Collection

I am spending this blog week on my first-ever series of articles on the same topic.  I implemented a new personal productivity and organization system using Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  I have never had more going on in my life, and at the same time I have never been more organized to deal with life.  I couldn’t find a way to limit my description of this time management system so I’ve broken it up into 5 smaller posts.  This post is part3, collecting your entire life into one pile.  Read Part 1 - Organization System Benefits and Part 2 - Organization System Setup

A goal of this organization system is to give you a clear head at all times.  A clear head can only come about if everything is dealt with in some fashion.  By everything, I mean, literally, everything that is somehow taking up space in your brain as an open issue.  David Allen’s organization system deals with every open issue and commitment you have with your job, family, friends, and most importantly, yourself. 

In order to deal with everything, you have to capture everything to deal with.  Start with any piles on your desk or current inbox system.  Make one big pile somewhere, I used my guest bed.  Open up all your desk drawers and grab the random junk that lies in there, throw it on the pile.  I had blank cd-roms and DVDs, extension cords, greeting cards from my lady, hacky sacs, old markers and pens, tons and tons of rift-raft.

You are just getting started.  Go into each room of the house.  If there is anything that is out of place and it is small in size, grab it and put it in your pile.  Closets are especially dicey.  I had scary amounts of useless trivial crud piled up in the deep recesses of my walk-in closet.  I also had 3 “junk drawers” throughout my place.  I brought those into the guest bedroom and dumped them on the bed.

At this point a couple of feelings surfaced.  I was excited that I was finally going to deal with all this stuff I had accumulated.  I was also nervous, how the hell was I going to get through this junk pile of accumulated items spanning many years back?  The next phase of collection is the most beneficial however.

Get a big pad of paper and a pen.  Start with one room, look around it.  Anything that you want to change about the room someday, such as “find a print for over the guest bedroom” or “re-organize book rack” – each gets written on a separate piece of paper and thrown into the pile.  One item per page of page!  Put each piece of paper on your junk pile.  Don’t roll your eyes or blow this part off.  You are not going to actually perform every action you have written down.  But it will find its place in the organization system so that it is off your mind until it is time, or you have the desire, to deal with it.

When you have finished your room by room list of future actions you’d like to take, you need to list everything that is inside of your head.  Any future projects, calls to make, trips you need to plan, emails you need to write, ALL OF IT, write each one down on a separate piece of paper and throw it in the pile.  David Allen has a great list to help trigger things to write down, but you’ll have to get his book for that.  My list included “research Desgrosseilliers Indian side of family” – something I’d like to do someday, maybe, but not sure if I ever will.  “Write book” which I am in the process of doing, “Re-assess 401k allocations”, I hope this gets the idea across, write down anything you can think of – because you want your head clear.

The collection phase of the organization system can take a wide range of time depending on how much of a pack rat, mental or physical, you have tended to be.  Looking at the massive mound of to-dos on my guest bed, I felt great.  The size of my organization problem was now quantified.  I simply had to mow through the pile and I would be completely, fully organized.  If I had the tools to mow through the pile effectively, I might not have ever gathered such a pile of things to begin with.  Tomorrow the heart of the organization system is revealed, how to deal with every single piece in your to-do pile and all future tasks that need to get done.

Go to Step 4 - Processing Your Pile

Organization System Step 2 - Setup

I am spending this blog week on my first-ever series of articles on the same topic.  I implemented a new personal productivity and organization system using Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  I have never had more going on in my life, and at the same time I have never been more organized to deal with life.  I couldn’t find a way to limit my description of this time management system so I’ve broken it up into 5 smaller posts.  This post is part 2, setting up your filing system.  Read Step 1 - Benefits before this post, and Organization System Step 3 - Collect Your Entire Life Into One Pile.

Becoming completely organized and present is a dramatic change.  Dramatic changes sometimes require dramatic first actions.  The organization system I implemented from David Allen requires a bold first step.  You need to collect everything in your life, and even more daunting, in your head, and harness it all in one huge pile of stuff to deal with.  Before that step can be taken, you have to be setup properly.

Keeping your mind free and clear is the goal.  In order to do that, when "stuff" arrives in your inbox, either from the mail, your thoughts, email, wherever, you need to deal with it.  Go out and buy a brother labelmaker, a ton of large tabbed manila folders, and a daily planner.  I never thought I would be advocating something dorky like a labelmaker, but it makes a huge difference in this process, so do it.

The filing system is crucial.  You don't want it to be time-consuming to file something.  It needs to be easy to adapt to new folders, re-labeling of items, and anything else that comes up.  The filing system that David Allen advocates and I wholeheartedly recommend is to:  1.)Remove all hanging racks and folders so your file drawer is an empty drawer, and 2.)keep all your files alphabetically according to however you remember what it is you are filing.  Simple!  If you get your cable bill from Comcast, and you think "Cable TV", take your label maker, print out a "Cable TV" label, and put the mail in that folder.  If you think "Comcast", print out a "Comcast" label, file it alphabetically according to that.  Or if you think "Utility Bill - Cable TV - Comcast", print that out and file it that way.  The beauty and effectiveness is in the simplicity.  If you suddenly notice that you keep thinking a different way about a folder, you can easily reprint a label and move it to its corresponding alphabetical position.  Getting rid of those irritating hanging rods and folders is a God-send also, the files are much easier to access, re-order, and put back. 

General Filing System Setup: 

1. Take your existing file cabinet, remove the hanging rods, folders, and categories. 
2. Make labels for all folders according to how you remember them. 
3. Put the folders back into the cabinet according to alphabetical order.

What if you need to remember to look at a bill, piece of mail, reminder to get tickets, or a place to keep airline itineraries that are needed on a specific day?  Maybe you have something you want to deal with, such as a flyer for a conference you want to attend, but you just can't spend the time to deal with it for 3 weeks?  A quality organization system needs to be able to handle these types of things.  These items call for a tickler system.

The setup of a tickler system involves one folder for each month of the year, and one folder for each day of the month.  The current month's day is the front folder in the tickler file drawer.  After the last day of the month, then the next month's folder, then the day's of the current month that have already passed.  After the last of those day's, the following month's folders are in order.  When you get something, anything, that you have to deal with on a certain day, you put it in the folder for that day.  If the day is more than 31 days out, you put it in the month's folder that the item needs to be dealt with.  Even if it is something you don't have to deal with on a certain day, but don't want to think about for 2 weeks, you can put it in a folder that is 2 weeks away and then it is off your mind.  At the start of each deay, you open the folder for that day, dump the contents on your desk, move the folder to the next month, and then deal with the items.  I have found this to be a big brain reliever!  My head is clear of those "things I need to deal with, but not right now" items.  And I have place-holders that I can trust for the tasks and papers that I must get to on certain days.

Tickler File Setup:

1. Create 31 folders with the numbers 1 to 31 on them.
2. Create 12 folders with each month on them.
3. Setup the current day as the first folder and the rest of the days of the month following it.
4. Put next month's folder after the last day's folder.
5. Put the folders of days already passed in the current month, after the next month's folder.
6. Put all future months after the last day.

The last set of folders are your project folders.  With experience you will be able to determine when you need a project folder.  I define project folder need as anything that is ongoing, accessed frequently, and is a hot topic for me.  I currently have project folders for my wedding, honeymoon, meditation site, chocolate business, and book.  If I come across a cool place in Italy for our honeymoon while reading a magazine, I rip out the page and throw it in the honeymoon folder.  No more wondering if I'll remember!  Important email instructions concerning my meditation site?  Print it out and put it in the meditation site folder.

I have a filing drawer in my desk that I put the projects folders in the front of.  Then I put the daily folders.  After that I put the monthly folders.  The bottom filing drawer is my alphabetical general storage files.  I am still amazed at how easy it is to access my files and get to any papers or other rift-raft I might need.  I hope you've hung in there and setup your files in this manner.  Tomorrow we'll collect everything in your house, desk, and brain so that your entire life can be assessed!!

Go to Organization System Step 3 - Collect Your Life Into One Pile

Organization System Step 1 - Benefits

I am spending this blog week on my first-ever series of articles on the same topic.  I implemented a new personal productivity and organization system using Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  I have never had more going on in my life, and at the same time I have never been more organized to deal with life.  I couldn’t find a way to limit my description of this time management system so I’ve broken it up into 5 smaller posts.  This post is part 1, the powerful benefits to a personal organization system. Read Step 2 - Setting Up Your Filing System and Step 3 - Collect Your Life Into One Pile also.

A great organization and time management system keeps you present and aware of “now”.  There are a number of best-selling spirituality and feel-good books about the wonderful things that occur when you are present and participating in “now”.  Those same books don’t often give concrete examples on how to get to “now” from wherever you are.  Getting organized, and more importantly, being able to stay organized, is critical to experiencing your present moments consistently and repeatedly.  Once you find yourself fully present and out of your head, you will enjoy the feeling immensely and want to stay plugged in to your surroundings.

I’ve experimented with numerous productivity systems in my attempt to get organized.  I’ve tried multiple filing cabinet systems, intricate day planners, hourly planners, monthly desk calendar blotters, integrated outlook systems, and heavy-duty phone calendar management systems.  They all failed for various reasons…many times because they just weren’t any fun to maintain.  I’m not saying this organization system is a nonstop laugh riot.  But Getting Things Done is the time management system that solves all the problems I’ve had with organization and the feeling is amazing.  The organization system described in brings more focused results, frees up mental energy, and allows you to be more present in your life – the most important thing you can get from a time management system.

The flood of information creates numerous decisions large and small that create repercussions in your life.  How you handle the results of your decisions can add or remove stress.  Did you open up that wedding invitation, spend 5 minutes wondering if you could go, then realized you had to check with your wife on travel plans that weekend, wonder about dog sitting expenses, check on flights and see they are expensive, and now you are worrying about how to make your decision and realize you have a number of additional things to do in order to be able to come to a decision on the wedding invite?  This is common.  A seemingly innocent envelope cost you ten minutes of your life and will cost you countless time in the future.  What do you do with this invitation?  You have a decision still to make.  You can’t make the decision now.  And there are a number of additional steps that need to be taken in order to close the invitation decision.

The above situation has caused you mental stress, wasted your time, and caused you to become unaware of what is going on in present reality.  You probably spent the ten minutes blanked out and visualizing different outcomes in your head.  A great organization system will prevent all that by dealing with the situation immediately, tracking any resulting actions, and keeping your mind clear.

Every time you think of something that needs to get done, a part of your brain continues to re-check the status on that open item.  David Allen refers to this as “an open loop”.  For example, I know that I someday want to trace my French-indian heritage.  But I also know that I don’t want to do it in the near future.  So this creates an open loop in my head, because it is an unfinished item that I may or may not want to do in the undefined future.  A good organization system will capture these types of things so it can release the slight, subtle, but still present mental stress.  You are freeing up “psychic ram” space similar to when you close down some of the programs on your computer and then it runs faster and more efficiently.

Feeling focusing and knowing that you are directing your energy to what you wish to accomplish is a great feeling.  I’ve already blogged about focusing on your most important actions.   Despite my best intentions, the top 5 action list can get overwhelmed or neglected if I’m not careful.  The organization system keeps my top 5 list on target and keeps my mind clear of distractions so I can focus on it.

Hopefully you are ready to learn more about this organization system.  I really feel it can change your life for the better.  Tomorrow I’ll discuss the first stage of the system – Setting up your filing system.”

Read Organization System Step 2 - Setting Up Your Filing System