this year, i’ve been thinking and learning a lot about friendship. i made an intentional choice to have a group of people i consider really close (best?) friends, a group of people i consider close friends, and then everyone else. i wrote a bit about why over here, but the practice is continually teaching me.
i now realize (believe?) that having regular time with close friends is a necessity; not optional. spending time with them gives me energy and that makes the rest of life easier and better. how? some reasons:
they teach me new things
the people i choose to keep close are some of the smartest, most passionate people i know. john rohn says that we’re composites of the five people we spend the most time with and so i want the people who are influencing and shaping me to be people who inspire me. these friends often teach me things they know that i don’t because we come from different places. this makes moving through the rest of my life make more sense because i can draw on experience other than my own. i like to think the teaching and learning goes both ways, too.
i learn about myself
i’m an external processor and so i actually learn what i think in explaining it to someone else. and, yes, this can happen with people i know less well, but it’s different with someone who knows you well. people who know your whole story can make connections across parts of your life that you never had. it’s harder for strangers to do that, though it is possible. close friends can also tell you tough things (because you have built up a foundation of trust) that you couldn’t hear from someone else.
we share resources
my close friends and tend to share resources in a different way than i do with other people. these obviously aren’t hard and fast rules, but i think resources flow more freely because we know we see each other often. sometimes that just means eating food together without worrying about who’s paying what. other times i means sending each other links and articles that are relevant to a degree that only a close friend would know. also, when a close friend tells me that i should meet someone, i know that that’s a really important connection to make; some of those connections have been game changers for me in terms of career and life trajectory.
being in flow is super valuable. getting into flow is a difficult thing. it’s even more difficult to get into i tif you aren’t used to working in that way. here are two tips on how to get into flow faster.
recognize that getting into flow takes time
this might sound counter-intuitive, but it’s actually important to recognize, consciously, that getting into flow takes time. it’s similar to weightlifting or doing any strenuous exercise. you don’t go from straight from standing still to lifting a ton of weight or doing an intense yoga pose because you’ll hurt yourself. with flow, you probably won’t hurt yourself, but you’ll definitely set yourself up for failure if you assume you can just jump right into flow.
this same insight helps make the point clearer about why you should maximize the amount of time you can’t be interrupted. the true costs of multi-tasking are high and getting back into flow is costly. so if you know you’re trying to get into flow, get somewhere (physically) where you can’t be interrupted.
practice makes perfect
humans are creatures of habit. thankfully, we can use habits to prompt /trick ourselves into doing what we want. the more times you practice getting into the flow, the better you get at getting in it over time. here are a few examples that either i use or i’ve heard about that are effective:
specific triggers or environments that prompt particular actions
turning my phone on airplane mode and flipping it face down is my trigger for a pomodoro session
the first two songs on a specific album are my writing soundtrack. they two songs combined are almost exactly ten minutes (my writing cap-ish). now, when i play them, i know i have exactly two songs to finish my piece. it helps me keep pace (though i often write for too long) and keeps me focused because i that certain parts of the song tell me how much time i have left to finish.
i heard on a podcast once that a person who has a home office actually does a full morning routine as if he they were commuting before starting work. they shower, eat breakfast, take a walk around the block, and then comes back in their house through a different door and into the home office. it helps him get his head from ‘home’ to 'work’ in a way that works for him.
overall, the point isn’t that any specific trigger with work for everyone (although many of mine are inspired from other people). the point is that practicing getting into flow makes it happen faster and certain triggers over time can help your brain remember that it’s flow time.
someone i’m productivity coaching recently asked a really good question. in regards to how to handle urgent vs important things, essentially, the question was about how to handle when the urgency level doesn’t match between the two people. and more specifically, how do you handle situations when things are urgent for someone else, but not for you?
i’ve got four specific tips to that point, but i want to say first that this problem is ubiquitous. i have never known anyone with a job (any job) to not have to deal with this at one point or another.
so the four tips:
ask just just how urgent the thing is
just taking the time to check with someone about how urgent something is can be incredibly helpful. sometimes, the request isn’t actually that urgent and being asked the question will surface that for the requester. sometimes, the request is actually urgent and knowing that can help it feel better to drop everything and handle it. everyone has to deal with emergencies because the world is a crazy place. but being able to tell when something actually is an emergency and when it’s just perceived as one but isn’t one is hugely important.
gently and respectfully remind them that you’re also accountable to other people (if you are)
sometimes people request things without fully thinking through other things you might be working on. this technique often works when handling competing demands on your time from different people in similar positions. for example, when dealing with students, it can be helpful to respond to a request with something like this:
hey, i appreciate that you’re reaching out for help and feedback on your assignment. i’m working with six other students who reached out earlier this week and i’m not sure that i can get back to you by the deadline. [insert how they could maybe get help from another student or reach out earlier next time…]
sometimes you just have to say no
sometimes the best thing to do is to just say no. there are many reasons for this (some of which i’ve laid out before), but one important one is systemic. when people around you know that they can come to you last minute with requests and you’ll drop what you’re doing to accommodate them, they treat you and your capacity as on-demand. this means they don’t learn to plan their work such that it doesn’t come to you last minute. saying no encourages people around you to know that if they want your time, they need to plan for it.
over time, build the capacity of the system to handle emergencies
the final part of the response in the above section is exactly what this tip is about.
laying out ground rules for how someone can successfully get your time and energy can be incredibly helpful. example:
hey simon, i’ve noticed that often catering orders coming from you are very close to the time of the events. sometimes i’m in the middle of something and can’t stop what i’m doing to place them. it would be much easier for me to place the orders if you could get them to me 24 hours or more from the time of the event. can you do that to help me out?
things like this build the capacity of the system to handle situations in such a way that keeps those things from becoming emergencies. in the long run, this is good for everyone in the system and the system itself.
donald trump and the explicit resurgence of white nationalism (previously known as white supremacy), imo, are in large part the reaction to the cultural de-centering of straight, cis-gendered, white, christian, able-bodied men. i know many people voted trump who don’t fit those identities, but the leaders of the backlash i believe are feeling the pain of being de-centered. and they’re being real strategic about dragging the whole system down/in reverse with them.Â
and it’s painful. as ta-nehisi coates brilliantly laid out in between the world and me, can you imagine how pissed you’d be at someone waking you up from the most pleasant dream? this except from a counterpunch article frames the section well…
“…The Dream of whiteness:
I have seen that dream all of my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake.
You can just hear the cries emanating from the Fox News studios: “What’s wrong with having a nice lawn? What’s wrong with cookouts and Cub Scouts? I love strawberry shortcake and I refuse to apologize for that!”
But Coates won’t play this game. He immediately explains that what is wrong is that “the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies…”
now, obviously, being de-centered is worlds less pain than being intentionally, systemically, and strategically oppressed for centuries or longer. there is no equating the two. the pain of being de-centered is obviously less than the pain of being oppressed (raped, having your identity, land, culture, peace, love stolen.Â
but not acknowledging that pain, i fear, is only going to make the situation in the country (and the world) worse. pretending like the pain can just be ignored seems just makes the backlash worse, hydra-style.
in general, i think we all need to be doing more listening. i also think that everyone needs to be real clear about what role they play in our society and, consequently, what work is theirs to do. combining those things, i think we all need to be doing more listening, but we definitely don’t all need to be listening to everyone. everyone deserves to be heard, 100%, but that doesn’t mean everyone needs to listen to everyone speak their pain.
example: when male friends tell me they feel discriminated against because a job application mentions they’re prioritizing women for a position, i’m more than happy to listen to them complain and then explain how centuries of sexism have kept women out of power in myriad ways. i would never want any of my friends who are women to be subjected to that same false equivalency and complaining.
that analogy carries across all sorts of things, including the pain of being de-centered. am i thinking everyone needs to listen to white supremacists be sad about whiteness no longer being the cultural center? hell no. am i saying that someone needs to help those folks who have lived in a false reality for centuries process their pain? absolutely. but only because i fear that ignorance of that pain fundamentally undermines forward movement for all of us.
i dunno. maybe i’m wrong. but until whiteness becomes no longer desirable, we’ll be stuck at this impasse just like we have been before.Â
the other day a friend (can’t remember who) reminded me of one of my favorite lines from harry potter. cedric diggory and harry are in the maze hunting for the goblet of fire (book 4) and it becomes clear very quickly that he and harry are about to have to enter a wizarding fight. cedric looks over and says to harry “wands out, d'you reckon?”
i’m really feeling that idea right now. like… the idea of getting your wand out because… well… you’re gonna need it and soon. and it’s not the first time either of them had needed their wands during their time in the maze, but cedric had identified that a moment was coming that harry seemed not to be ready for.
there are a couple of other things floating around for me that also make the “wands out” phrasing interesting, mostly in relation to how important imagination is to the future. i really love the work of intelligent mischief and a tagline for one of their projects: “when reality becomes absurd, it’s time to get surreal.” i also really like bayard rustin and one of my favorite quotes of his is on my website: “i believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.” finally, for a while i was really into simone campbell’s idea of holy mischief.
anyway, over the weekend i had something like six or seven different meetings (some physical, some virtual) with friends and different groups. i’ve also been collecting different resources, some old, some new (i may or may not have thought about myself as preparing for my o.w.l.s… >_>).
here’s some stuff i gathered, but i’m curious what other people are learning and getting skilled up by…
