The Done List

I have struggled with procrastination for most of my life. I am still struggling now, as it so happens. I was outside taking a smoke break, after narrowly avoiding starting another game of Starcraft, when I started thinking about strategies for dealing with my procrastination.

Life and Logistics
The Oxford Dictionary defines logistics as: the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. I can assure you, Life is a complex operation. The more we desire (desire to do, desire to be) the more complex it gets. It seems that resource management skills are vital to our success in this complex operation, and that makes life a logistics problem.

Thinking on how to tackle my procrastination from a logistics viewpoint made think of doing some research into time management techniques. As I did not feel the urge to start doing so right away (procrastination vs. hey, I am in the planning stages), I thought about adding time management research to my to do list.

From To Do to Done

This got me thinking about to do lists, and how often in the past I have tried to use them for the same purpose with poor results. The thought of adding time management research to my to do list seemed like work. The time management research seemed like work. I never really look forward to doing work. That might be why to do  lists have never really done anything for me.

So, I asked myself "what would I look forward to?"

Being Done.

The supposed magic that makes a to do list works is the warm and tingly sense of accomplishment you get when you cross something off the list. That's what I was after. I am not looking forward to a long to do list. What excites me is the prospect of having a nice long list of things I have done. 

I have decided to make a Done list rather than a to do list.  See, a to do list is meant to be full of things that are not yet done. That is its natural state of being. If you have a to do list with everything crossed off, there is something wrong with it. It is a needful thing, that needs you to add things to do in order to function. A Done list on the other hand, is designed to be completed. If there are uncompleted tasks on it, there is something wrong with universe. 

Adding a task to a Done list throws the universe out of balance. Then, I can do something to bring balance to the universe. This will work for me. Look, it already is:

Write Today

Mirror Neuron/Global Consciousness Experiment

In some places, it's already 12.21. That's relatively irrelevant, because this post is from a scientific perspective. However, there are most that believe in nothing, some that believe it's the end of the world, and some that believe it is the dawning of a new age. Those are the conditions in which the experiment is to take place, and for that reason the date may be relevant.

Information regarding the the Mirror Neuron aspect of the experiment can be found here:

starting at about 50 seconds in.

Information regarding the Global Consciousness part of the experiment can be found at Princeton's Global Consciousness Project, and is also neatly explained here:


The Experiment
Based on mirror neurons as explained in the first video, it seems reasonable that observing joy will create joy within our brains, as a function of mirror neurons. If the Global Consciousness Project can detect major variations in our thought, and we all experience as much joy as possible over the next 24 hours, there should be a spike in the data the GCP records.

So, to participate in the experiment, simply experience and cause as much joy as possible for as many of the next 24 hours you can. We can come back in a few days and see if our efforts were detected by the GCP. Worst case scenario, we have a joyful end of the world.

For me, watching this causes Joy - probably because of mirror neurons. So this is what I'm doing to try and make the world more joyful for the next 24 hours. Even watching this video would be participation in the experiment. 

Thanks for reading, it means a lot to me.

Genesis

Imagine, if you will, it is a dark and stormy night. Not too stormy. No lightning or heavy raining, but it's definitely raining and a little bit windy. Kind of like it is outside in the Pacific Northwest right now.

Now Imagine a guy in trenchcoat and hat out in the dark and stormy night. Imagine the wind blowing his jacket back as he walks along the street. What color is the jacket? Is the hat a fedora or something else? Don't worry, there are no wrong answers. What do you see?

Now keep watching. Watch him until he does something. Let your conscious mind just sit back and observe. He's walking in the dark, and wind, and rain. Just watch, don't think. Observe, experience.

How many of you not only did as I asked, but also did so while reading? That is the amazing power of your consciousness. It can separate. We live in a tiny little box of ego that has convinced us that it's the biggest and most important part of what defines us. That's it's job.

The ego is a portion of your conscious mind that you've tasked with sorting through the evidence and constructing a sense of self. Being the bright person you are, you used the truth create your separation. You separated a portion of your consciousness and called it ego. Ego then did the same thing, and you can watch it like looking into a mirror of a mirror, the same thing over and over again towards infinity.

YOU, the you that you consider you on a daily basis - the you pouring the coffee, the you taking a shower, the you sitting in front of a computer. Everything that makes up all of that - is just your ego. To you, it looks like just a little piece of your mind - because you are inside of it, and it has a scale representation in there that is truth, one dimension removed.



So. Let's check up on the man in the trench coat. Let's keep him in real time to keep things simple. That means he's been up to stuff while you did whatever you did since the last time you were watching him. Where's he at now? Is in is a private eye's office? (He is in mine).

What's he been up to? The possibilities are infinite when you don't observe. Was he acting on his own free will? If you flip through some of those possibilities and pick one, you can make his reality, shape the rest of his surrounds to have been affected by whatever he chose to do. You can know what he chose to do, or you can choose not to know.

Alright, this next part is going to be heavy. I hope you're sitting down. Watch the guy for a while. Give him a little nudge if you have to, shape his circumstances (but hands off watching as much as possible) in such a manner that he ends up in an interrogation room. Imagine the interrogation room anyway you like. Fix on some mesh of all the interrogation rooms you've seen on bad television over the years - but pick details. See the room, decide what it smells like.

Have old whatever you imagine his name is come into the room, fold his jacket over the back of a chair, and tilt his hat forward to hide his eyes. Have him sit down and have him prepare himself to have a serious discussion with him.

Now rip the entire room out of the building, letting everything fall away. Just the interrogation room and ole whats-his-name. Such a tiny thing, isn't it? Surrounded by all this nothing.

Now imagine it getting larger and larger, until it surrounds you to scale. Imagine this computer screen and all of your surroundings giving way to the reality of this room. Look ole whats-is-name right in the eye.

Look into his mind. What does he think of this person sitting in front of him? How does this person in front of him affect his life, his job, his city, his state? Does he even know that you created him? Does his mind work like yours? Did you create him in your own image?

I think you should tell him. He's probably got a lot of questions for you. He'd probably really like to get to know you.