"Aw $#~+!"

You know those moments when you say, “Aw, crap!” except you don’t exactly use the word “crap?” Well, my wife and I had one of those moments when she found my cell phone at the bottom of the washing machine after a full cycle. It was still powered on and the screen indicated it was in “repair mode,” clearly signifying something was wrong. I was amazed it still functioned at all. I immediately turned it off and removed the battery (as the repair screen suggested) and proceeded to bake the phone at 170 degrees for short periods. I probably could have left it in the oven for four hours or more, but I kept checking it to find that it exhibited different behavioral issues each time. After three attempts, each longer than the last, it was completely dry and only one telltale sign of its ordeal remained… one side of the keypad doesn’t light up. Please don’t try this at home (or use a microwave!) as I have a degree in Electrical Engineering and a magic washer, oven and phone. [smirk]

I know there’s an endless stream of jokes in that bit, my favorite being something to do with too many “dirty conversations,” but it got me thinking about how I manage information. While my wife was the one that put the pants with the cell phone in the washer, I was the one that put them in the hamper with my cell phone in them. Sure, checking the pockets is a reasonable safety measure… but so is removing your cell phone when you disrobe! It was clear to me that I wasn’t paying attention at that moment and voila, clean phone!

One of the struggles I’ve had with the book is how to manage the amount of information I’m trying to condense. I’ll be the first to admit that the style of book I’m attempting is above my grade level as a first-time author. I’ve also felt there might be a reason I don’t see too many books formatted the way I envision mine. At first I thought it was just a readability issue, with too much information being condensed the reader might get overwhelmed. Whether or not that’s true, it is certainly true that it’s also very difficult to arrange that much information and give it any kind of cohesion. Sure, I could make it sound like 15 book reports, all loosely related to each other, but that doesn’t make for very good reading does it? Well, not it my mind it doesn’t anyway.

My classical training in engineering and professional time in project management (and some inherent part of my personality) have always led me to break large problems into smaller parts. I have a book outline and chapter outlines and points of foreshadowing and reinforcement, but I struggle with keeping it all in my head. Without too much trouble I could tell you each chapter’s title and premise, but I can’t recall with accuracy what each subsection of each chapter is. It’s not that I’ve attempted to memorize these things, but I started to see the problem in not being able to maintain that level of recall when working in specific sections. If I can’t remember what’s been written earlier or is coming later, I’m liable to duplicate material that’s already there or intended for another location. Then if the flow gets disrupted by this and I have to omit or relocate something, there’s plenty of rework to fix it all.

I seem to be breaking down between the sub-outline and actual writing step. A lot of what I write (that's passable as writing anyway) comes with at least a little inspiration. It doesn’t necessarily come from looking at a sub-outline and realizing, “okay, here’s what I’m going to write in this exact planned location.” So sometimes I let it flow with no regard for what’s intended and the results are usually decent. Sometimes I can just modify the outline to match the output, but other times it’s clear that while what I wrote is interesting it often transitions too fast. Tying two ideas together quickly might work in a blog but perhaps not so well in a book (like jumping from washing cell phones to information management.) So in an effort to shrink my problem, I detailed each paragraph within a sub-outline to see how it flows without having to read multiple pages. This also made it easier to “keep it in my head” and may ultimately serve as the tool for me to actually memorize and visualize exactly how each chapter is going to flow. For as long as this is taking, I should have the entire thing committed to memory word-for-word when I’m done!

This all got me thinking about information in general. In our current age of information, we have access to more details than ever before. What seemed like science fiction when I was a child becomes reality with each passing year. Today you can literally hold access to more books in the palm of your hand than they have assembled in any single physical library… and I’m not talking about a fistful of library cards. I’m talking about e-readers that can access and download over 800,000 titles, with over a million on the horizon. While that may be driven by fictional writing, there’s an enormous amount of technical and scientific information available as well. While I can recall a lot of things I’ve learned about gathering and parsing details, I don’t remember classical training on disregarding information based on relevance. I’m sure there was some, but I still get the feeling that “learning to prioritize” is more a life lesson than something we bother to teach formally. And why is that?! I’m sure whatever it was that was bouncing around in my head when I left my phone in my pocket was less valuable than the cost of having to replace my cell phone. Call me crazy. It’s easy to say, “Focus on what you’re doing” but unless we’re really taught how and practice that learning, “Aw craps” are bound to happen.

It all seems like too much to manage, right? Well, you can’t make this up. Here’s the quote I received this morning from my “Quote a Day” service:

• The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else -- we are the busiest people in the world. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

Now I’m off to do what I ought to do.

Be well!