When the is finally cast for your life,  what will your epitaph read?  Will it read like George Bernard Shaw’s quote that you died ”…fully used up…” and follow Neil Young’s philosophy, “It’s better to burn out than fade out.”  Or will it resemble Norman Cousin’s quote, “The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live”?  These losses are the shoulda-woulda-coulda’s - those disillusionments we all hold onto.  What do you do about them?

Having just turned 54, I find myself feeling everyday is more urgently calling me to be present and not miss the gold in the moment.  Time I spend regretting my life in any way, mulling over thoughts of “if only’s,” is time I miss the sacred preciousness and gift of experiencing my life fully.

There are many excellent books on dealing with regrets, including the ten-step program by Hamilton Beazley’s book and Wikihow.com/Overcome-Serious-Regrets summary that captures this and more in its article on regrets.  Regrets.org.uk is a sociological database of time and sentiments of regret catalogued for different communities.  You can go there to type in your regrets and get them off your chest.  Or decide today that the past enabled you to be who you are now.  Your learning route is your own and not to be judged.  Accept it and be grateful for what you do have – not wish it or you, were different.

What shoulds have you let go of and how is that changing your present moments?

It’s Friday and I am in my home office.  It’s mid-day and I’m faced with two unstructured hours.  Wouldn’t most day workers long for that uncommitted time to leisurely enjoy in the sunshine?  Yet notice there’s a familiar comfort to having my office and work surrounding me.  It’s easy to shift into doing a few more things for client development, study projects, marketing, etc. and feeling just a little more accomplished by the end of the day.  But then I’ve lost that renewal time – a real tradeoff.

There are times I complain I can’t get a certain thing done and here it is, two hours before the next phone call and I could bear down and get more items checked off my list.  My busy-bee mind tells me that there’s not enough time to get out and relax…but maybe that’s an excuse for not being comfortable out in public with nothing to do.  

I am aware of the Hudson Institute’s circular model of ongoing change and the 4 phases of “Launch,” “Stuck,” “Renew” and “Prepare,” I feel certain this is some version of stuck.  I know I need to shake it off and be comfortable in the nothingness-emptied out mode, letting it wash over me and feel renewed before I get back to the clearer space of preparing what’s next and launching again with more focus. 

 Okay…I’m out the door.  What about you?

What does it take for you to break up the comfort of your working habits and give yourself renewal time?

You can’t always make snap decisions about keeping or discarding emails, but can organize what to look at and when, keeping your main email box clear. Within your e-mail and personal information management software product, such as “Outlook,” try this approach:

1. Create a minimal number of folders within the email database: Get Back To Them, Training & Development, Contacts’ Changes, Computer Corrections, Order Receipts.  These should pretty well encompass what you’ll receive by email.  Get Back to Them should be your highest priority folder.  The next three will likely require action within a limited time period, so check it regularly.  Order Receipts is to file your copy of anything ordered online.  Keep your main email area as clear as possible.  Refrain from creating any additional side files unless they’re temporary.

2.  Decide when and how often you’ll check your emails.  Control it – don’t let it control you.

3.  If you’re experiencing information overload, let clients (and friends and family) know you review your emails on certain days, so they’ll be prompted to use the phone if they need you for something more urgently.

4.  Be sure and tell anyone making appointments with you that these are best set or confirmed by phone, as not all emails get through and you would not want to miss their communication. 

5.  Ask associates to use descriptive subject lines that prompt you to view their more important items first.

6.  When you’re reviewing your email, only open those you have time for and that appear from the subject line to be most important.  Move other emails to their designated folders to review at the end of the day or next day.  We can be too easily distracted by taking action on something new when we’re supposed to be completing something we’ve already begun.”  The key is to be disciplined in sticking to the system once you’ve created it.

What are your ideas for managing your emails?

In the U.S., over $56 billion is spent on the production and distribution of more than 41.5 billion pieces of mail advertisements, according to the Worldwatch Institute.    It’s not dubbed “snail mail” just because it takes longer to reach us, but because it can slow us down – if we let it.  You can control some of it through the information of stop the junk mail’s website: http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm.  But you don’t always have control over what comes to you.  Here’s what you can do in sorting it through: 

Use the  “20-10-70 rule” to help you discern media’s relevance and what to keep or toss:

-20% is: a.  applicable to you right now or will be within the next three months.  b.   information you can’t get again.  requires specific action you will take within the next three months.

-10% is:  a.   informative for learning and development.   b.  Limit your reading to the a/b/c rules above.   c.  beware of too many magazines, newspapers or books that pile up and cause undue stress and forced reading, distracting you from your primary reading. 

-70% is where most paperwork and info needs to end up rather than take up precious space on your office desk or bedroom night stand, – the trash can.  

 Information can be liberating, but it can also be a ball and chain if you don’t manage it well.     

What are some methods you’ve found helpful in managing snail mail?

I’ve discovered the way to survive, feel productive and enjoy a short holiday week is to take some things off of my plate and be wary of adding new things.

It’s not always easy to dance to the beat of my own drum, though.  I have to be discriminating in which projects to let go of for now and which ones to eliminate completely.  I have to determine which conversations to shorten or decide whether to postpone a pre-arranged goal to take a call and connect with someone rather than rush a call. 

Some of this is knowing that I won’t beat myself up at the end of each day for not completing everything I started and trusting that I will followup at my earliest opportunity with those things I have decided to finish.