A Book to Answer the Question, "Why Isn't This Working?"

I am guessing that, at some point in your life (and maybe daily), you have been troubled by the question: Why isn’t this working?

This question can take many forms and the problems can be of any size at all. It’s the roadblock that you finally see when you’ve tried the same dysfunctional route too many times without success. There is a quote, of debatable attribution, that claims “the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. If this is true, then we are most likely all insane.

More likely, it is just a mundane human characteristic: the tendency to repeat patterns. I would even suggest that the more often a pattern is repeated, the deeper the rut is carved, and the more likely you will fall into that rut again.

Case in Point

For decades I repeated a pattern of Not Habitually Putting Things Away in Their Proper Places. Sure, I would put things away sometimes - I was never a total slob (some family members might take issue with this claim) - but the horizontal surfaces of my living spaces were all fair game to be used as landing spots for the etcetera of life. Floor included.

The pattern proceeded thus:

• I assumed that I had better things to do then “put something away”

• so I would put it down to be dealt with later

• once I had put enough things down and enough time had elapsed that they were gathering dust and I started to wheeze, that was my “cleaning trigger”

• I would put everything away and clean all surfaces

• this would last up until the next time I put an object down on a horizontal surface (typically, less than 24-hours)

• at that moment, all bets were off and the cycle repeated

This pattern lasted for many years, probably because I didn’t see it as a “problem”. I simply took it for granted that my personal cleaning method gave me a clean house six days a year, and all sorts of free time to do other things for the remaining 359.

The problem began not with a husband, or houses, or children, but with animals. Over a period of 20 years, an increasing number of animals were added to the mix: dog; dog + cat; dog + cat + cat and (for the past two years) dog + cat + cat + dog. And as a result of this, pet dander cleaned my house.

With each new animal there was the additional accumulation of animal hair and dander, which interfered with my breathing and pressed my cleaning trigger more regularly. This provoked me to clean more regularly and to read Mari Kondō’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, which taught me (in particular) how to go about purging unnecessary items. My mitigation techniques rose to meet the level of pet dander. The cleaning/accumulation cycle shortened from bi-monthly (no animals) to every 6-weeks (one dog) to every four weeks (dog+cat) to every three weeks (dog+cat+cat) to every two weeks…

This was the point that I finally realized that I was stuck in a pattern loop - the point that I finally noticed the road block. Even though I was getting gradually better at cleaning and organizing, my methods weren’t solving the root cause of the problem: not putting things away in the first place. Once that (seemingly obvious) realization finally sunk in, I was able to restructure the root pattern that was leading to the roadblock, and create a new pattern that I could practice and maintain - in this case:

• purging what I didn’t need (the Mari Kondō method)

• creating “homes” for everything to be put away into - conveniently and immediately

• cleaning every weekday (weekends optional) for half an hour

The pattern had repeated for over twenty years, and once I identified it as a problem, it still took me over a year to figure out how to solve it.

Welcome to Business World

As a side effect of researching more effective ways to organize and clean, I became acquainted with Business World, filled with strange rituals and esoteric devices such as “kanban boards” and “assumption mapping” and dances choreographed by “agile design” and “the OHIO method”. The techniques are various, but since in Business World

TIME = MONEY

all share the goal of solving problems as quickly as possible.

The Self-Help Book That You Write Yourself

There are methods out there for using notebooks to apply business-think to personal problem solving and to use journalling as a way to surprise insights (Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method and Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way are two very popular examples). My method is built from what I have gleaned from the insights of others, combined with my own “on the job” lessons learned over time.

What I have developed is a Portable Home Office: a notebook (but also a pocket book) to be used in a structured way which gives you a manager/coach/therapist (yourself), workmates/teammates/friends (yourself), clients/dependents/audience (yourself)… you are probably seeing a pattern by now? Essentially, it is a means to

• honestly assess your situation

• dispassionately reflect upon it

• envision what you hope to accomplish

• apply business and design techniques to structure a plan

• (again) apply business and design techniques to enact that plan

• (once more) apply business and design techniques to achieve results and/or restructure and reenact an alternate plan (generative design)

This is a method to see the roadblocks more quickly and clearly, and to test out what works and what doesn’t work in order to avoid habitually falling into the same rut. Next week, I will outline the process in more detail.

It only took me two dogs, two cats and several chickens to arrive here - but I don’t think that many animals are strictly necessary. (Though some might disagree.)