Whale Lines

This article is the first of three concerning my ‘Personal Management’ process. It’s also part six of a series about ‘Personal Leadership and Management.’ In case you missed it, Part V detailed where we came from—Personal Leadership (Parts I-IV)—and where we are going next—Personal Management.

My process is organic and has changed over the years as my jobs, priorities, and responsibilities have. It has fluctuated from simple to complex to simple again. While some potent and complex personal management systems exist (OmniFocus comes to mind), I’ve learned the simpler the system, the more I get done and the less time I spend maintaining it.

The simplicity of David Allen’s Getting Things Done works best for me. For nearly 25 years, I have used some form of the process and system he describes in his book. When I first read the book, I discovered I was already doing some of what he prescribes but not consistently or in as systematic a way. I was missing a few critical pieces—like a weekly review—and didn’t trust my system, so I was holding onto too much in my head.

This means that what he describes seems to fit my nature. I’ll admit upfront that your mileage may vary. That said, give this process a try. You may find some diamonds in the rough by the end.

Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

Bruce Lee

I’m going to assume you do not have a system set up. This assumption on my part assures I don’t miss the details on parts that are nearly automatic for me. If I skipped over these details, you may be left with uncrossable concept gaps, causing you to abandon the whole project. I’ll do my best to avoid that outcome.

Methods are many. Principles are few. Methods may change, but principles never do.

Apocrypha

First, we will talk about principles. Then, we will go through the basic process. Next, we will do deeper dives on each step. That’s when I’ll show you my variations and modifications. Throughout, I will mention the tools I currently use and some of the tools I have used or tried before.

I won’t go into much detail about things I haven’t much use for. For example, Microsoft Outlook. I haven’t used that since retirement, and when I was working, I found trying to integrate it into my process too burdensome. If that is something you use, and you want to ‘GTD’ with it, there’s tons of information on the internet. Try one of these links:

• Outlook 2013/2016
• Microsoft Outlook 2018

Basics

At its core, the GTD system is just context-based lists of next actions, including calendared (scheduled) lists and a five-stage method for managing workflow. The principle is “dealing effectively with internal commitments.” Allen explains that much of our stress in life results from inappropriately managed commitments we make or accept.

We’re allowing in huge amounts of information and communication from the outer world and generating an equally large volume of ideas and agreements with ourselves and others from our inner world. And we haven’t been well equipped to deal with this huge number of internal and external commitments.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

The workflow then is (1) capturing all the incompletes or “open loops,” (2) processing them, (3) organizing them, (4) reviewing them consistently, and finally, (5) doing them. One reason this works so well for me is it maps perfectly with Colonel John Boyd’s “OODA loop” (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

Capturing comes from Observing your internal and external environments and recognizing the incompletes. Processing is Orienting to what was captured—what does this mean to me, or what am I committing to? Organizing then is Deciding—do I delete, delegate (and to whom), or defer (and to when or in what context)? Reviewing consistently is responding to changes, feedback, and the unfolding interaction with the environment so you can reorient to new data and make intuitive decisions about what to do. Doing then is, of course, Boyd’s “Act.”

One thing I do differently is blurring the line between Processing and Organizing. It takes minimal time and energy to process—that is, deciding what something means—and organizing it into my system. Even larger projects that need to be fleshed out can be quickly placed on my projects list with a note “needs more thought.”

Two key objectives thread through the workflow and the system we are creating. First, we are capturing everything that needs to get done into a trusted system—out of your head and off your mind. Second, we make front-end decisions about commitments so that you always have a plan you can implement or renegotiate at any moment.

The Basic Requirements for Managing Commitments
• First, if it’s on your mind your mind isn’t clear … [the commitment] must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind … that you know you’ll come back to regularly.
• Second, you must clarify exactly what your commitment is and decide what you have to do, if anything, to make progress toward fulfilling it.
• Third, once you’ve decided on all the actions you need to take, you must keep reminders of them organized in a system you review regularly.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Deeper Dives

Now, let’s take each step one by one, adding flesh to the bare bones structure above.

Capture

To ensure success, (1) every “open loop” must be out of your head and in your collection baskets, (2) you must have as few collection baskets as you can get by with, and (3) you must empty them regularly. The goal of the capture step is to capture everything. Every niggling thing—big, small, grand, or simple.

The first activity is to search your physical environment for anything that does not belong where it is, the way it is, permanently, and put it into your in-basket… things that are incomplete, things that have some decisions or potential action tied to them. They all go into ‘in,’ so they’ll be available for later processing.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

It’s helpful here to understand the definitions of ‘work’ and ‘project.’ Work is anything that needs to be done that isn’t complete yet. A project is work that takes more than one action step to complete. Both of these have implicit commitments to yourself or others.

There are two more things to capture: ‘stuff’ and ‘reference material.’ ‘Stuff’ is anything you’ve allowed into your world that doesn’t belong where it is but for which you haven’t determined the desired outcome and the next step to resolution. ‘Reference materials’ have no immediate use but might in the future, so you have to have a management system for that with clean edges. We will address this in detail in Part IX. For now, know that most ‘piles’ of reference materials probably have undetermined actions buried within, so they need to be collected and processed.

“Feed the dog” is work. If you are out of dog food, “Feed the Dog” is a project. Phone numbers on scrap paper, receipts, old tissues, and the stickie note that says “research gym,” all found in your purse, pockets, or briefcase, fall into the latter categories. All these things belong in your inbox (except the old tissues; you can throw those away).

Yes. You must have an inbox or in-tray. Another option—but more dangerous because of vague edges—is ‘your spot’ or area close to your processing center. If you don’t have an In Box or designated area, everywhere becomes your In Box. For many, this becomes the first horizontal surface you arrive at when entering your home or office.

Other collection tools may include notepads and something to write with. I use a legal pad to record my mind sweeps, tasks, and actions throughout the day. Allen would advise against this saying it is a ‘to-do list’ with unprocessed stuff on it. I trust it as a capture tool because I treat it and process it like an in-basket.

Sometimes I have projects pop into my head. I write these down on a half sheet of scrap paper—only one per sheet. If there is any ‘why, how, what’ sort of thinking happening, then I record that too so it’s not lost. This half-sheet gives me a starting point for brainstorming later. That gets tossed in the inbox.

Some people use audio recorders or notes on their smartphones. I used to use 3×5 cards at work for small bits of information at traffic stops and a reporter’s notebook for initial investigations. Now, I use the reporter’s notebook in the car to record information from podcasts and the like. I carry 3×5 cards in my EDC bag and/or jacket breast pocket for notes when out to dinner or events.

I use composition notebooks to take notes from my reading and studies. I also recently started a composition notebook for our new house purchase—notes about the inspection, the loan closing information, and any future house projects.

The key here is to remember all of these are capture tools. They are not organizers. All of the information and implicit commitments are yet to be processed.

Once you feel you’ve collected all the physical things in your environment that need processing, you’ll want to collect anything else that may be residing in your ‘psychic RAM.’ What has your attention that isn’t represented by something already in your in-basket?

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Lastly, you need to get everything out of your head. The mind sweep, or for some, the ‘mind dump, is next. For me, this step never ends. Hence, the capture tool is a constant companion. You’re going for quantity here. We will deal with quality later. If it comes to mind, put it down on paper. It’s as simple as that. What do you do with that paper? You guessed it; put it in the in-basket.

Processing

Now that everything is collected, it’s time to process. When I was working, I had a half day set aside for processing and organizing—usually on my ‘Friday.’ Then, I also set aside two to four hours on my ‘Monday’ for planning. As I said before, I merged Processing and Organizing, but for now, we will focus on each individually.

‘First In, First Out’ or ‘Last In, First Out?’ It doesn’t matter, especially if it’s the first time. You’re going to process it all anyway. Scanning through the basket for something ‘important’ isn’t processing. That’s emergency scanning. Instead, we’re Processing everything Collected and making front-end, proactive decisions.

Some basic tools would be helpful in processing. You’ll want to have handy the following:

• Paper-holding trays
• A stack of plain, letter-sized paper
• Pens or pencils and markers
• Paper clips, binder clips, and a stapler
• An automatic labeler
• File folders
• A calendar
• Trash and recycling bins

Processing then involves a series of questions for each thing you pull out of the collection basket. The first is, “Is this actionable?” Assuming it is, the next questions are (a) “What project or outcome have you committed to?” and (b) “What’s the next action required?”

The flip side is it’s not actionable. Then, the questions are, “Is this trash, or is this ‘incubating’?” (‘Incubating’ means it’s not actionable now, but maybe later.) Or, “Is it potentially useful information that might be needed for something later?” That’s ‘reference’ or ‘project support’ material.

You have a few options with the actionable items. Do it, delegate it, or defer it.

The Two-Minute Rule: If something will take less than two minutes, don’t put it on a list. Get it out of the way immediately.

Roy Baumeister, Willpower

If a task can be completed in less than five minutes, then do it immediately.

Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

The two- or five-minute rule is why I immediately organize while processing. You could mark each item with a stickie note that says “schedule and date” or “read and review” or whatever the action may be. Then put that in a paper tray to organize into a list later (I’ll describe these lists in the next section).

What I do instead is immediately put it on the appropriate list and, if necessary—say, a new project, or I need the paper for later—I make a file for it. In the ‘Organize’ section, I’ll detail the lists and connect them to this processing step.

Getting ‘in’ to empty doesn’t mean actually doing all the actions and projects that you’ve collected. It just means identifying each item and deciding what it is, what it means, and what you’re going to do with it.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Having fully processed your in baskets, you will not have ‘done’ everything. Instead, you will have deleted or dumped everything you don’t need into the trash. You will have knocked out any two- or five-minute actions. Further, you will have delegated to others—up, down, or across the organization. You will have sorted reminders of actions that require more than two minutes in your organization system. Most importantly, you will have identified larger commitments or projects you now have, based on this input.

Let’s look at the Organizing step as Allen describes it. Then we will dig into my ‘in-basket’ as an example of both Processing and Organizing.

Organizing

If you have thoroughly processed everything, you’ll likely begin to see an organizational structure emerging naturally. As previously mentioned, non-actionable items are either trash, incubation, or reference materials. Trash should be thrown away, of course. ‘Incubation’ we will discuss soon. Reference materials will be discussed in Part IIX.

What about the actionable stuff? To manage these you need a calendar, separate lists of projects, reminders of ‘next actions,’ and things you are waiting for. Lastly, you’ll also need storage for project plans and support materials.

The key ingredients of relaxed control are (1) clearly defined outcomes (projects) and the next actions required to move them toward closure, and (2) reminders placed in a trusted system that is reviewed regularly.
…You need a good system that can keep track of as many of [these activities in which you are involved] as possible, supply required information about them on demand, and allow you to shift your focus from one thing to the next quickly and easily.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Calendar

You should have no more than three things on your calendar. You should have day-specific actions, time-specific actions, and day-specific information.

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Time-specific actions are meetings and appointments scheduled for specific time slots on that day. Day-specific actions are those that can be done any time that day but not on any other day. There are consequences if these are not handled on that specific day.

Time-specific information is just helpful things to know on that day. Like your spouse will be out of town or your boss is on vacation and so-and-so is acting. Also, birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, of course.

Project List

This list is just as simple as it sounds—just a list of your active projects. Don’t complicate matters by trying to organize it further—say by ‘priority’ or due dates. I used to add the very next identified action to each. Even this over-complicated the list. In the platform I currently use (Apple Notes app), it is easy enough to have a list of projects and a folder for each project. For some small projects, you may choose parent and child lists, but I’ve found even this to be more trouble than it is worth. I prefer the clean, simplicity of a single list.

Lists can be managed simply in a low-tech way, as pieces of paper kept in a file folder…, or they can be arranged in a more ‘mid-tech’ fashion, in loose-leaf notebooks or planners… Or they can be high-tech, digital versions of paper lists…
…Once you know what to put on the lists, and how to use them, the medium doesn’t matter.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Next-Action Lists

I like Allen’s idea of sorting action reminders into context-based lists. Allen makes the point that if you don’t have a phone and you are trying to figure out what action to take, a list cluttered with phone calls to make is not helpful. Instead, it hinders rapid decision-making. On the other hand, this list makes it easier to batch tasks like calls if that’s your way.

The context-based categories I use are:

• Calls or @Phone
• @Computer
• @Errands
• @Office
• @Home
• Agendas (for meetings and people)
• Read and Review
• Waiting For (I’m waiting for someone else to take action)

On the ‘@Phone’ list, I’ll put who, the phone number, and just a few words as to why or what about. For ‘@Errands,’ I have sub-lists that are location-specific, for example, a grocery list or things I need from the hardware store.

I don’t maintain a Read and Review list. If, while processing, I find something that takes more than two minutes to read, I put a stickie note on it that says “R&R” and then put it in a basket of other Read and Review items. If you need to read, review, edit, and forward it to someone else, I would not do it my way; something important might get composted on the bottom.

Back here, I mentioned “incubating.” As Allen says, “There’s nothing to do on this now, but there might be later.” This is my longest list. It may also be my most powerful list for creativity. This list isn’t context-based. It’s more akin to the Projects list, and I have it nested there along with a ‘Someday/Maybe’ list.

Incubating is like the pot simmering on the back of the stove. The ‘Someday/Maybe’ list contains all sorts of things I might want to do someday or, if I travel somewhere, things I might want to see or do, restaurants I might want to try, hobbies to consider, and writing ideas.

Some incubating items might go into a “tickler file.” For example, something I may want to buy or recipes I might want to make. The point is, I want to be reminded of these at a certain date. You can do this a few different ways—such as an analog file system or a note on your calendar.

To better illustrate the workflow, let’s process some of my collection baskets. We will start with the legal pad.

Notice first that some of the list has been struck out with various colored markers. Black means I have already done it. Red is something I deleted. Green for things I’ve already processed (moved to action lists or calendared). Orange are things I’m waiting for, in this case, I’m waiting for my mom to reply to my inquiry about some DVDs.

The first thing I recognize is a few things I’ve completed but not crossed off yet. After crossing all of that off, there’s nothing left to do! That was some easy processing. Now we can dive into the in-box.

I’m going to work from top to bottom. Don’t get nervous, I’m not going to narrate through the whole basket. That would take me too long and bore you to tears. Instead, as I get to good examples, I’ll stop processing and write about the process of Processing.

Right off the top are three half-sheets of scrap paper with bold marker labels:

• “Research full-service car wash nearby”
• “Research projection television for living room”
• “Research ‘best’ professional non-stick pans

These are mini-research projects that I can do on the computer. So they go on my “@Computer” list. I then put the paper in a file folder labeled the same. When I do the research I’ll have the half-sheet to start taking notes and brainstorming.

Side note: you should consider plastic folders for these sorts of things because they will last much longer and take more abuse.

Next is a letter from the Officer of Voter Access containing important information for Tuesday, November 5th. I put the information into my calendar and recycle the paper. If you were using an analog tickler file, you could put that paper in the file folder marked for that month and day.

Now, to an article I found. This article will take more than two minutes to read and glean any important information (otherwise, I would have read it already). I put an “R&R” stickie note on it and add it to my stack (or folder) of “Read and Review” material. I’m using a plastic folder for this, so I can carry it around with me to read whenever I get a little time. When I was working in traffic, I would read this kind of stuff while running stationary RADAR. Now I read the stuff at the gym between heavy sets.

Here we have another half-sheet mini-research project. I’ve already decided thereon to buy a certain product and I ‘know’ that purchasing the product is the next action step. I pull out the iPad, open the Amazon app for a quick search, and add the item to my cart—a less than two-minute action—done. Recycle the paper and move on. The arrival of the product will serve as the trigger for the next action: clean and condition the leather chair.

Further along, we have a bundle of papers clipped together. A quick scan jogs my memory: it’s a bunch of menu ideas for a Christmas Dinner Party. Essentially, these are project support and reference materials. I pulled out a folder and labeled it “Christmas Dinner Party.” All but the top sheet goes in that, and it will be filed in my file cabinet. I’ll also put “Christmas Dinner Part” on my Someday/Maybe list, as I know I won’t be doing that this year, but I hope to next year.

The top sheet however is a project in itself—“Make Dinner Party Planning Checklist.” I put “Draft Dinner Party Planning Checklist” on my project list and dropped the paper into another properly labeled file folder.

There you have it. I’ve Processed the inbox. At the same time, I Organized actions onto context-based lists (if not trashed it, delegated it to someone else, or filed it as project support and general reference). We will discuss the Weekly Review in Part VII. What’s next? Doing everything, of course!

You can do anything, but not everything.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Now that you have all these next actions organized onto lists, how do you know what to do in the moment? We’ve arrived at the purpose of the prior workflow steps—to facilitate good choices about what to do at any point in time. At any one moment, there are three things you could be doing:

1. Pre-defined work off your ’Next-Actions’ list
2. Doing ad hoc work as it shows up
3. Defining your work

None of us can avoid ad hoc, unforeseen work handed to us by bosses or the universe. The choice is not always up to us. In Part VII, about Reviewing and Planning, and Part IIX about Project Management, we will discuss “defining your work.” Right now, I want to focus on our known commitments—the pre-defined work on your Next Actions list.

Four criteria apply to these lists for choosing what to do at the moment. First, the context—do you have the specific tool (phone, computer), or are you in the right location (home, office, etc.) that facilitates the actions? Next, how much time is available to you? An hour or more may be suitable for some deep work. Only five minutes? Then Maybe a phone call is all you can accomplish.

Secret #1: Time is your most valuable resource. How would your life change if each and every day you truly felt your 1440 minutes?

Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

Now consider—and this is of great importance—how much mental, physical, or emotional energy you have to apply to the actions. Running on empty may mean all you can do is fill the stapler or water the plants. (I would suggest you do some energy renewal rituals, but that is for a later article.

Secret #15: Productivity is about energy and focus, not time.
… You can’t manage time—no matter what you do, you will have the same 24 hours tomorrow that you had today. When people talk about ‘time management,’ what they really want is to get more stuff done with less stress. And the real secret behind this is that you need to maximize your energy.

Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

Lastly, what are your current priorities? What action will give you the highest payoff within your context and allotted time and energy? To help with this decision, Allen presents an “aerospace analogy” to describe levels of perspective about your priorities.

If you have your priorities, roles, and goals figured out and drafted, and you review them frequently, then this will come naturally. You will quickly intuit the next right thing you should do. On that note, I can’t help but think of this:

…if you want to go your individual way, it is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance, and which simply comes into being of itself when you put one foot in front of the other. If you always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and surefootedly along the path prescribed by your unconscious. … But if you do with conviction the next and most necessary thing you are always doing something meaningful and intended by fate.

C.G. Jung, letter to “Frau V.”

You may have noticed in the pictures above that I am working completely in an analog manner, except for my Calendar. That’s on purpose. I am currently transitioning from Evernote to all native Apple applications. Why? Stable, easy to use, fully integrated across platforms thanks to iCloud, and free. More details in Part IX.

That, however, shouldn’t matter. The workflow principles can work on any platform—analog or digital. Before iCloud, I used “T-Cards” and a T-Card portfolio to maintain my lists. K.I.S.S. I suggest starting in analog and once you have a grasp of the workflow, deciding if you want to move into the digital space.

In the next part of this series—Part VII—we will return to the Review step that I intentionally skipped herein. Contrary to Allen, as I mentioned before, I Process and Organize at the same time. I also Process and Organize on the same day I Review. Further, because it’s the next logical step for me, I Plan in accordance with Stephen Covey’s “Roles” and “Role-Based Goals.”

David Allen’s system is designed to allow intuitive decisions at the moment. I like the flâneure-like freedom this allows. But, without some proactive planning around my Roles and Areas of Responsibility, I find that self-care and relationships, usually in that order, get dismissed for the sake of productivity. I don’t want to do that.

Personal Management is putting first things first; personal leadership is deciding what the first things are.

Stephen Covey, First Things First

We have finally arrived at the transition from ‘leadership’ to ‘management.’ Back in parts I-IV we talked about ‘Personal Leadership.’ That was all about your Ultimate Mission and Grand Strategy, Roles or Identities, “Sharpening the Saw,” and finding your purpose, values, character strengths, principles, and virtues.

• Part I: From Management to Leadership With Your Personal Credo
• Part II: Exercises and Practices
• Part III: Roles and Identities
• Part IV: The Ultimate Mission and Grand Strategy

So parts one through four are all the high-level strategy, purpose, and meaning stuff: are we climbing the right mountain? Are we on the right road to the right goals for our Ultimate Purpose?

Personal Management is all about day-to-day actions taken to accomplish your high-level strategies—the actions in service to your purpose. What you want to be is all for naught if you don’t work on it consistently.

Wish in one hand and shit in the other; see which one fills up first.

Jack Cagle

Put a different way:

A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. A vision and a task are the hope of the world.

Inscription on a church wall in Sussex England, c. 1730

Strategies or Tactics? Both, Actually

The terms ’strategy’ and ‘tactics’ come from military terminology as far back as Sun Tzu’s Art of War. They’ve been adapted to fit different usages such as business strategy.

Have you ever gone to the grocery store without a list or plan? Then tried to fix meals for the next week with a random assortment of groceries? There were probably things you needed but forgot to get, and maybe things you didn’t need that went to waste later that week. Meal planning and a grocery list is a strategy; shopping is the tactic.

Strategy

A strategy is an action plan that you will take in the future to achieve an end. These help you define your long-term goals and how you will achieve a goal. Strategy is the big-picture thinking.

Tactics

Tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you where the strategy—the action plan or leader’s intent—wants you to go. Tactics zoom in on the nitty-gritty, dealing with the day-to-day operational and short-term objectives. They encompass concrete steps—the how-to steps to turn your overall plan into reality.

All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Sun Tzu illustrates that while tactics are more concrete and easier to see, an overarching strategy is equally important. The question should not be strategy versus tactics, but strategy and tactics. These are two sides of the same coin—both are necessary.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before the defeat.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The point is, before getting deep into the tactical weeds, clarify our strategy.

If you’ve been following along in parts I through IV, you will have developed your Grand Strategy and Domain Strategies. Strategy for projects and training missions are similar. Furthermore, these should be in alignment with your domain and grand strategy.

With strategy in place, you can learn, develop, or adopt tactics to achieve the leader’s (your) intent. These become your best practices to accomplish your strategic goal. You are using tactics when conducting actions on ‘the target’—your strategic goal. When in doubt as to the next actions or priorities, return to your strategies. From there re-orient, and re-engage. More specifics about this to follow in Parts VI and VII.

What Else?

One of the reasons I have delayed so long in drafting this second half—Personal Management—is that my methods have recently changed. Somewhat drastically. I wasn’t certain that my past or current methods would be useful to my audience. I decided that while specific methods may or may not be useful, the principles could be.

Methods are many. Principles are few. Methods may change, but principles never do.

Apocrypha

Therefore, we will talk a lot about principles and some about ‘best practices.’ Somewhat less about methods. I’ll use my own situation to explain my changes. In due course, I’ll also illustrate old and new methods that you may (or may not) find useful.

Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

Bruce Lee

There are many ‘ways’ that might fit your needs and personality and many that might not. Beyond the principles, this workflow should be organic—evolving to your idiosyncrasies.

Starting with Part VI, I’ll walk through my current system with a focus on principles. That is, why my system is my way. I’ll talk also about my current methods. Furthermore, I’ll pepper in past methods you may find helpful, and explain why they worked ‘then’ and why they don’t work ‘now.’

In Part VI we will start with an overview of David Allen’s Getting Things Done. For all of its simplicity, and despite all of its critics, it has been at the core of my system for 20-plus years. When I first stumbled upon it, it just fit. We will take a deeper dive into some of the particulars: “collect,” “process,” “organize,” and “review.” I’ll clarify as best I can my spin on these core principles.

Using “Organize” to segue, in Part VII we will return to Stephen Covey—his “role-based goals.” With these we will develop a “weekly attack plan” and daily planning. Here, too, we will discuss context- and time- (calendar) based lists, and how these merge into the weekly planning.

Next, in Part VIII, we will talk about projects and David Allen’s “Natural Planning Model.” The name is his, but he readily admits he didn’t invent the method. He merely details how the brain naturally works and scales that up. Part VIII is where we will also talk about “Training Missions” and the benefits of a “Personal Lab Notebook.”

Lastly, in Part IX, I’ll explain how I use Tiago Forte’s “second brain” system for my reference and project files. Finally, I’ll also describe any tools—analog and digital—that I haven’t elsewhere described. Some people get hung up on tools and bounce from one shiny new app to another. Truth is, once you know the principles, any tool will work.

That should be enough to map out our way forward. See you soon for Part VI.

On July 18th I, like other members of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, received an electronic mail message titled “Navigating Emotional Challenges as a Federal Law Enforcement Officer.” No author was credited, but it came from FLEOA’s Office of Mental Health and Peer Support Services. As I’ve done before, I decided to expand on the ideas in that e-mail. The e-mail presents five “Immediate” and five “Long-Term strategies” for emotional resilience.

These ten strategies are more properly called tactics, so before we get into those let’s define strategy versus tactics, agree on some strategy, and then flesh out the ten tactics.

Strategy Versus Tactics

The terms ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’ come from military terminology as far back as Sun Tzu’s Art of War. They’ve been adapted to fit different usages such as business strategy.

Have you ever gone to the grocery store without a list or plan? Then tried to fix meals for the next week with a random assortment of groceries? There were probably things you needed but forgot to get, and maybe things you didn’t need that went to waste later that week. Meal planning and a grocery list is a strategy; shopping is the tactic.

Strategy

A strategy is an action plan that you will take in the future to achieve an end. These help you define your long-term goals and how you will achieve a goal. Strategy is the big-picture thinking.

Tactics

Tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you where the strategy—the action plan or leader’s intent—wants you to go. Tactics zoom in on the nitty-gritty, dealing with the day-to-day operational and short-term objectives. They encompass concrete steps—the how-to steps to turn your overall plan into reality.

All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Sun Tzu illustrates that while tactics are more concrete and easier to see, an overarching strategy is equally important. The question should not be strategy versus tactics, but strategy and tactics. These are two sides of the same coin—both are necessary.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before the defeat.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The Point Is?

Before we get deep into the tactical weeds, we should clarify our strategy. Why are we learning, training, and practicing these tactics? We need to make sure the tactics are suitable for the strategy. So, strategy first.

Fortunately, there’s some strategy in the email.

Being a federal law enforcement officer is a challenging and often thankless job. You can be hailed as a hero one moment and criticized harshly the next. Facing keyboard warriors, Monday morning quarterbacks, and those who have never walked in your shoes can take a significant emotional toll.
Navigating the emotional challenges of being a federal law enforcement officer requires resilience, support, and a strong sense of purpose.

FLEOA Office of Mental Health & Peer Support Services

If we want to be a federal law enforcement officer we should know it can be emotionally challenging. Facing these challenges requires “resilience, support, and a strong sense of purpose.” Part of our strategy then is to develop resilience, build support, and find a strong sense of purpose. Furthermore, we need career-length resilience, and the ability to tap into our resilience in the immediate face of stress and emotional adversity.

Stress

Emotional adversity, and challenge is ‘stress’. In 1936 Hans Selye defined stress as “non-specific responses from a variety of different kinds of stimuli.”

It is not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.

Hans Selye

Stress can be classified as acute, chronic, or episodic. Sources of law enforcement stress can be ‘operational,’ ‘organizational,’ or ‘critical incident.’ These are on top of the daily stress of living that everyone experiences.

Organizational stress is the stress generated by the organization—shifting priorities, changes in policy and procedure, audits, and inquiries—any time the employee perceives the agency is negatively affecting the attainment of basic needs.

Critical incident stress stems from being involved in a critical incident or ‘moral injury’. Moral injury refers to an injury to an individual’s moral conscience and values resulting from an act (of omission or commission) of perceived moral transgression. This produces profound emotional guilt and shame, and in some cases also a sense of betrayal, anger, and profound ‘moral disorientation.’

Operational stress is the idea of day-to-day stress of being in unknown dangerous or hazardous situations as a part of the “routine” of the job.

But stress is also information. From evolution theories and physical science laws, we know that adding or tolerating some noise in the system is how adaptation occurs. This is seen as annealing, catalysis, or genetic mutation. Perfect fidelity—a flat baseline—would disallow evolution or genetic shift. Noise, that is ‘information’ or ‘mutation,’ allows the organism to explore the full evolutionary spectrum or landscape.

Adopting the right attitude can change a negative stress into a positive one.

Hans Selye

Think of stress as a performance-enhancing drug. Eustress is good, has positive hormetic effects, and is performance enhancing. With proper dosing and recovery, your tolerance improves, your capacity increases, and you develop more resiliency. Distress is the wrong dose—too much at once or chronic use without recovery—and leads to psychological and physiological side effects.

Your vagus nerve extends from your brain stem through your neck into your chest and abdomen and connects your brain, heart, and gut. It helps to regulate your heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, digestion, and emotional state among other functions. If you are experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, fatigue, or any emotional health symptoms, it may mean that you have a poor vagal tone, and your vagus nerve needs some care.

Your body sends more information to your brain (afferent signals) than your brain does to your body (efferent signals). Your brain is constantly processing this information to determine responses—regulatory for homeostasis, and to fight, flee or collapse. A good vagal tone is important for:

• Lowering blood pressure and heart rate
• Managing stress and anxiety
• Regulating mood
• Decreasing inflammation or pain
• Delivering information between the brain and the gut
• Providing sensory information from the throat, lungs, and heart
• Regulating swallowing and speech

Symptoms of poor vagal tone may include:

• Anxiety/Depression/Poor emotional regulation
• High stress
• Being in constant flight-or-fight mode
• Lowered attention span
• Increased inflammation 
• Pain

‘Heart Rate Variability’ is an indicator of vagal tone. HRV is where the amount of time between your heartbeats fluctuates slightly. These normal variations are small, adding or subtracting a fraction of a second between beats. It may seem counterintuitive, but more variability is a good sign, indicating parasympathetic dominance and good vagal tone.

Another strategy, therefore, is to improve our vagal tone and heart rate variability through parasympathetic dominance. A balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic is what we are seeking. Most of us, especially LEOs, spend too much time in sympathetic dominance. We need to learn to relax and recover. Those are parasympathetic states.

The mind must be given [rest]—it will rise improved and sharper after a good break. Just as rich fields must not be forced—for they will quickly lose their fertility if never given a break—so constant work on the anvil will fracture the force of the mind. But it regains its powers if it is set free and relaxed for a while. Constant work gives rise to a certain kind of dullness and feebleness in the rational soul.

Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind

Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to prepare for, adapt to, and recover from stress, trauma, adversity, or challenge. By building greater ‘surge capacity’ you can face greater allostatic load—better prepared with greater emotional flexibility, make smarter decisions, and keep a cool head in challenging situations.

Resilience is not the absence of stress. At the core of resilience is the belief that in the very nature of crisis lies an opportunity for growth. Law enforcement officers accumulate the effects of chronic stress. It’s important to reflect on current stressors and habits and consider new tactics to incorporate into daily living that counter the negative outcomes of living with stress.

We have a capacity for energy. We expend this energy at every step. We can and must renew this energy as often as possible. Strategic and tactical recovery is the key. Recovery and a sense of control or agency are the difference between post-traumatic stress disorder and post-traumatic growth.

Rather than a fixed characteristic, resilience is a capacity that we potentiate with life-long practice. Trusting we have both internal and external resources, resilience represents our ability to meet the challenges we encounter each day, with the least amount of negative consequences to our bodies, hearts, and minds.

We have to work to build our resilience. We have to work on it regularly. Our bodies innately hold the potential for resilience. We need only train and practice tapping into that innate potential by learning how to work respectfully and in partnership with our physiology.

Coherence

The trick here is to develop tactics that prepare us, help us to adapt by shifting and resetting energy, and allow us to sustain energy throughout the day. We need energy management techniques to prepare, adapt, recover, and sustain our physiology in a state of coherence.

A key to building resilience, coherence is not equivalent to relaxation. Coherence is a state of optimal functioning in which your physical systems are in sync and balanced, and your heart, mind, and emotions are working together in a coordinated manner. Coherence adds energy to the system. It conserves energy and is a state of self-regulation where you have greater control of your reactions.

Coherence is top-down and bottom-up balance. As Bassel van der Kolk wrote, it is being able to “hover calmly over your thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and then taking your time to respond allowing the executive brain to inhibit, organize, and modulate the hard-wired automatic reactions preprogrammed into the emotional brain.” Bottom-up we can apply the parasympathetic break and reduce hyper-arousal, fine-tuning the alarm system with just a few intentional and atentional breaths.

Strategies

To summarize, “Being a federal law enforcement officer is emotionally challenging. Navigating the emotional challenges … requires resilience, support, and a strong sense of purpose.” To that end, we will learn, train, and practice (1) developing resilience through improved vagal tone and heart rate variability, (2) energy management techniques toward synchronicity and balance—coherence—of our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, (3) building and maintaining support systems, and (4) connecting with our strong sense of purpose.

The Tactics

The original e-mail divides these into short- and long-term. I will follow suit with a caveat: by short-term I mean in the moment of the emotional dis-regulation. All of the tactics should be practiced, or set up, ‘long-term’ so they are accessible ‘short-term’. ‘In the long-term’ I mean tactics to deploy regularly. Often practicing the long-term tactics regularly—deep breathing techniques for example—allows access to the tactical benefits in the short term—quickly gaining coherence between the initial contact and the closure with just a few deep breaths. With that in mind, I will reverse the order of the e-mail and start with long-term tactics.

Long-Term Tactics

The email lists five “Long-Term [Tactics] for Sustained Resilience”:

1. Build a Strong Support Network
2. Develop a Healthy Outlet
3. Practice Mindfulness and Meditation
4. Reflect on Your Motivation and Purpose
5. Seek Professional Help if Needed

Let’s take each of these in turn, reviewing what the email recommends, and build on that.

Build a Strong Support Network

Cultivate relationships with peers and mentors who can provide guidance, support, and a listening ear. Being part of a supportive community can help you navigate difficult times.

FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail

Notice this says “support,” not ‘social’ network. The depth of your relationships far outweighs the breadth of your ‘followers,’ ‘likes,’ or ‘friends’ on social media platforms.

Research indicates that social isolation increases the likelihood of mortality by about 30%, but strong relationships have a protective effect and increase survival by 50%. By providing a social forum for voluntarily expressing emotions, struggles, fears, and life challenges, peer support combats this loneliness, which is often associated with chronic physical and mental health conditions, leading to a downward spiral with each exacerbating the other.

While our core values emphasize serving others, we often don’t seek help when our health is at risk. While we may be able to endure hardships without complaints, we may not be aware of our early warning signs of distress. While we strive to perform perfectly in high-stakes environments, we can feel ashamed when we can’t do it all, make mistakes, or slow down to care for ourselves. Recognizing the signs of severe and persistent distress in oneself or a fellow officer and taking steps to lessen the severity is critically important. Practicing self-care or helping connect a fellow officer with a trusted source of support may help prevent stress reactions from progressing into clinical mental health conditions, physical health conditions, or significant life impairment.

Peer support can be identified as a form of help offered by a peer (or group of peers) who have gone through similar situations. This can be social, practical, or emotional. More importantly, this support is mutually provided and reciprocated, thus allowing, everyone to benefit. The type of assistance provided can be more of a friendship or more like mentoring or informal coaching. Regardless of the form of support provided, the lived experiences of the peer group supporter are the most essential part of the service.

Chris Cagle, US Forest Service Law Enforcement & Investigations Peer Support briefing paper

Peer support has been identified as an effective approach to enhance emotional well-being. By adopting a common language, increasing social connectedness, and providing both emotional and tactical support for day-to-day stressors, peer support is a low-cost, effective service that can promote awareness among law enforcement officers, and reduce stigma merely by providing a platform for discussion. Peer support also provides opportunities for peers to assist others who are going through difficult situations. Many studies have shown that helping others, regardless of receiving any support in return, has great psychological benefits. For adults, giving to others through activities such as volunteering or providing emotional support improves well-being and reduces mortality.

Peer support leads to greater empowerment by providing hope, a sense of personal responsibility, and advocacy of self and community. In addition, good peer support fosters trust, acceptance, understanding, and compassion. The sense of belonging and access to a support network for both emotional support and tactical resources can help address some of the most debilitating and costly chronic mental and physical health conditions today. Moreover, peer support directly contributes to the protective factors for mental well-being by enhancing control, increasing resilience and community assets, facilitating participation, and promoting inclusion.

Develop a Healthy Outlet

Engage in activities that help you de-stress and decompress. Exercise, hobbies, and creative pursuits can provide a necessary release for pent-up emotions.

FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail

There is no better place to start than daily physical activity, sufficient sleep, and healthy eating. Recovery from stress is tantamount to both short- and long-term resilience. Review your daily and weekly routines, and make sure you focus on each of these components. Recovery is the most overlooked part of daily schedules—it can be as simple as a walk, meditating, breathing exercises, or a quiet hobby.

Creative pursuits abound: writing, painting, sculpting, modeling, and DIY projects. The primary goal is to disengage your mind from work and the stresses thereof. Engage it in something else that requires focus and concentration. Reading—fiction and non-fiction (outside of your career)—works here too. I tend to dig into philosophy, poetry, and ‘big’ fiction (like Moby Dick, of course).

Various ‘spiritual practices’—both theological and philosophical—can help you mentally and emotionally restore. These could include attending formal religious institutions and ceremonies, or private prayer and ritual. It could also be like those described by Pierre Hadot in Philosophy as a Way of Life and The Inner Citadel. Speaking of ‘spiritual exercises’…

Practice Mindfulness and Meditation

Incorporate mindfulness practices into your routine to help manage stress and maintain emotional balance. Techniques such as meditation, deep breathing, and mindfulness exercises can enhance your resilience.

FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail

First a few distinctions. ‘Mindfulness’ comes in two flavors: formal and informal. Washing the dishes ‘mindfully’ is an informal practice. Meditation is a formal practice. ‘Deep breathing’ exercises can be done ‘mindfully,’ and in formal meditation practice, your breath can be the focal point. Breathing techniques independent of meditation can also be practiced for various benefits similar to mindfulness.

Mindfulness means moment-to-moment, non-judgemental awareness. It can be cultivated by refining our capacity to pay attention, intentionally in the present moment and sustaining that attention over time as best we can. In the process, we become more in touch with our life as it is unfolding.

John Kabat Zin

Mindfulness as an informal practice helps our moment-to-moment perception, John Boyd’s ‘observation’ phase of the OODA loop.

[Regarding mindful perception] you have mistaken a coiled rope for a snake; with practice your awareness is such that the ‘snake’ will more rapidly collapse into the reality of ‘just rope’.

Sam Harris, Waking Up app

Let’s modify Harris’s metaphor to better illustrate its usefulness to federal law enforcement officers You have mistaken a cell phone for a gun… I think you can figure out the rest. Of course the opposite is just as dangerous.

Research suggests that meditation, or mindfulness, may protect the brain from the negative effects of stress by decreasing ruminative thoughts and distractions. Reducing rumination may decrease distress and may even promote compassion and altruism.

One mechanism by which meditation protects the brain is through the production of gamma waves – a sign of neuroplasticity, which is linked to a capacity to learn new things and change synapses as a consequence of new behaviors. Neuroplasticity makes your brain more resilient and slows cognitive aging.

Meditation also increases the brain’s gray matter – the area of the brain associated with working memory and executive decision-making. Gray matter is also where the omega­-3 fatty acid DHA is enriched. DHA protects the brain against cognitive decline. As we age, our brains atrophy and we lose some of that gray matter. However meditation may increase brain volume in areas of the brain related to learning, memory, neurotransmitter production, empathy, compassion, attention, and self-relevance, while decreasing the activity of the amygdala, the area of the brain involved in anxiety and fear.

Not only does meditation slow cognitive aging, but it also slows biological aging by slowing the shortening of telomeres, protecting your DNA. Studies by telomere experts Elizabeth Blackburn at UCSF and Elisa Epel show that meditation buffers the stress that shortens telomeres and activates the gene that encodes for the enzyme telomerase, which can extend the length of telomeres.

Let me connect the dots here. Meditation and the ability to maintain present-state awareness (aka ‘mindfulness’) that comes with the practice up-armors the brain, balances the mind both top-down and bottom-up, and—bonus force multiplier—is the ultimate situational-awareness performance-enhancing tool.

For me, the “breathing technologies” of HeartMath were a gateway to formal meditation. As a certified HeartMath coach and mentor, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention three of their strategies. “Prep” to set the tone and be more composed for the day or event; “Shift and Reset” as soon as possible after a stress reaction or challenging situation; “Sustain” your resilience throughout the day by establishing regular practices to refresh your composure between activities.

With these three strategies in hand, you will more effectively regulate your energy, replenish your surge capacity, and increase your resilience. A hallmark of the HeartMath self-regulation techniques is that you can use them rapidly on the go, which is the best time to plug energy leaks, recharge, and make more effective choices in challenging situations.

The value of “Prepping” cannot be overemphasized. The purpose is to ensure that before entering a challenging situation, you are in a more resilient and composed state. Then you can meet the challenge and respond optimally. Consider using one of the coherence tactics to practice the “Prep” strategy before the work shift starts or potentially stressful events such as ‘hot calls,’ tactical operations, entering dangerous environments, critical communications, traffic stops, or meetings.

“Shift and Reset” is for re-stabilizing your energy systems throughout the day. When we have stress reactions we are wasting energy. It benefits us greatly to shift and reset as quickly as possible. This saves a lot of energy and, in many situations, avoids prolonged stress and time loss. Do not underestimate how much of your resilience is affected by regularly occurring energy drain. When you find yourself challenged, use one of the tactics as soon as you can to shorten the time you are out of sync. By applying the parasympathetic break, you spend less time in the catabolic hyper-cortisolemic state. This helps reduce energy drains while restoring self-composure.

“Sustaining” coherence helps maintain your resilience throughout the day. Without a conscious effort to sustain coherence and reduce energy-draining emotions, we can automatically fall prey to feelings of irritation, anxiety, worry, frustration, judgement, and self-doubt. Our responses become automatic and mechanical and we act before the ‘watchtower’ (rational, prefrontal cortex) can intervene. Stay ahead of stress and the resulting depletion by recharging your inner batteries regularly throughout the day. Your capacity must exceed demand and since you can rarely predict demand, it’s a best practice to be as fully charged as possible.

Now the two techniques: “Heart-Focused Breathing” and “Quick Coherence Technique.”

“Heart-focused breathing” is an effective technique to take the charge out of a stress reaction and start shifting into a more coherent state. It’s a simple technique that helps turn down the volume of stress. Combining the simple act of focusing on the heart area, with a deeper and slower pace of breathing, helps draw energy away from your distressed thoughts and feelings. You interrupt your sympathetic nervous system and apply the acetylcholine break to become more parasympathetic dominant, which is reflected in more coherent heart rhythms (heart rate variability) and significantly improves your mental capacity.

The technique: Focus your attention on the area of the heart. Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area; breathe a little slower and deeper than usual – maybe a four-count inhalation and a five-count exhalation.

That’s it. Simple, right? But, you need to train with this technique and practice it in real situations, as often as possible, to make it second nature. Breathing is one of the few body functions that is under both conscious and autonomic control. Controlling breathing controls heart rate. Every exhale activates the parasympathetic break (top-down), slows the heart, and dials down the ‘smoke alarm’ (amygdala sensitivity). The longer the exhale, the more parasympathetic activation. Focussing attention on the heart may sound like ‘woo,’ but what you are doing is allowing the ‘watchtower’ to check in with the heart via the vagal nerve.

Let’s talk about the second technique: “Quick Coherence.” The next important step in replenishing your energy levels and resilience is to experience a higher ratio of regenerative feelings such as appreciation, compassion, courage, dignity, integrity, and other energy-renewing feelings.

Step one: Repeat the Heart-Focused Breathing technique. Step two: Make a sincere attempt to experience a regenerative feeling such as appreciation or care for someone or something in your life. As I breathe in I mentally repeat the words “Courage,” “Wisdom,” “Justice,” and “Moderation” because these are things I want to receive. As I breathe out I mentally repeat the words “Appreciation,” “Gratitude,” “Compassion,” and “Awareness,” because these are things I want to give or share.

With practice, you can do both steps in one breath cycle. Shift your focus to your heart as you inhale, and activate a positive feeling as you exhale. With more practice, you can reach a coherent state with three breath cycles. Use the Quick Coherence Technique whenever you recognize energy-draining moments, however subtle. Self-activating and renewing emotions leads to greater resilience.

Reflect on your Motivation and Purpose

Revisit the reason you chose this profession. Reflect on the impact you have made and the lives you have touched. This can reignite your sense of purpose and strengthen your resolve.

FLEOA OMH & PSS e-mail

To “reflect on your motivation and purpose” assumes you have a purpose and are aware of your motivations. Throughout my years of peer support and coaching, I have found that people have some vague ideas of their motivations and purpose, but don’t have them well articulated. This means, at the time of need, under some mental or emotional distress, your purpose is unavailable to help in decision-making. Without this foundation, we risk saying and doing things in violation of our deepest-held beliefs and values, and not in the direction of our ‘north star.’

People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

The scientific evidence indicates Eudaemonia, or ‘flourishing’, comes from a positive, self-determined, self-transcending purpose. We are teleological and purpose-driven. Our most potent, vigorous, and sustaining sense of purpose occurs when we transcend self-interest. We are nourished when the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ is intrinsic and other-centered.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life … Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s talk is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.

Viktor Frankl

For the purpose of, well, finding your purpose, the Human Performance Institute suggests you set aside time to ask yourself and answer the following questions:

1. What legacy do you want to leave behind? Or, how do you want to be remembered?
2. How do you want people to describe you?
3. Who do you want to be?
4. Who/what matters most to you?
5. What are your deepest values?
6. How would you define success in life?
7. What makes your life worth living?

Here are a few more:

1. How would you like to hear people eulogize you at your funeral?
2. What is worth denying for?
3. What one-sentence inscription would you like to see on your tombstone?

In answering these questions we can, as Viktor Frankl said, detect true rather than invent false missions.

That was the briefest of treatments; sorry. Any more than this is beyond the scope of this article. You could go here for more depth. What’s important is that you write this down. Then you can revisit it in daily or weekly journaling exercises. Over time this practice fortifies in the mind an ‘inner citadel’, protecting your core values and beliefs, allowing you access to your moral compass and guiding principles even in times of duress.

Seek Professional Help if Needed

Don’t hesitate to seek help from a mental health professional if the emotional toll becomes overwhelming. Therapy can provide valuable tools and strategies for managing stress and maintaining wellness.

FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail

I don’t have a lot to add here. I would offer, that you should not wait until “the emotional toll is overwhelming.” I know there are immediately available resources such as your agency EAP, but I believe it’s better to get established and comfortable with a therapist at any hint of need.

I can say this: I have been to several talk therapy sessions with a family therapist; I have participated in psychologist-led group therapy; I had eight Cognitive Behavioral Therapy sessions with another psychologist. I have also been through a battery of tests by a “neuro-psychologist” to determine if I have any signs of traumatic brain injury or neuro-degeneration like early onset Alzheimers. I’ve also been evaluated by a psychiatrist for post-traumatic stress disorder. None of these sessions were any more weird than the first time I got a full-body massage.

I will add, that when in doubt return to long-term tactic number one. Engage your support network. Call up a peer support team member. Peer support can be your first step, a bridge, to professional psychotherapy.

Long-term benefits of therapy include:

1. Practical coping mechanisms to manage stress and problem-solving
2. Development of self-support systems
3. Improved mental health—increased mood and reduced anxiety
4. Identification of and insight into negative thought patterns, allowing for the development of a more positive, realistic life outlook
5. According to the American Psychological Association, up to 80% improvement in mental health symptoms

Short-Term Tactics

In case I didn’t make it clear before, long-term tactics should be practiced consistently.

That’s why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should.

Epictetus, Discourses

But, in consistently practicing, you set yourself up to access and implement your “immediate” tactics “to maintain your mental wellness, stay motivated, and continue to serve with dedication and integrity.”

The email lists five “Immediate [Tactics] for Emotional Resilience:”

1. Acknowledge Your Feelings
2. Pause and Breathe
3. Maintain Perspective
4. Seek Support
5. Focus on the Facts

As before we will look at each, one at a time, reviewing what the email suggests, and build on that. We will also connect these tactics to the long-term tactics as appropriate, to show how they support each other.

Acknowledge Your Feelings

Recognize and accept your emotions. It’s normal to feel hurt, frustrated, or angry when facing unwarranted criticism. Denying these feelings can lead to more significant issues down the line.

FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail

Even the most stoic of Stoics did not counsel students to suppress emotions. They taught that often emotions—first impressions, as Epictetus called them—are impossible to suppress. Recognizing this then we are challenged to decide which and to what degree we assent to the emotions.

Make it your practice to confront every strong impression with the words, “You are but an impression, and not the source of the impression.” Then test and assess it with your criteria; and first by this—the chief test of all—“Is this something that is or is not in my control?”

Epictetus, Discourses

Emotions color our thoughts. These thoughts though—tainted as they are by mood, nutrition and hydration, past experiences, media, and a host of other internal and external factors—are not facts. Thoughts and emotions are just mental events that come and go like clouds in the sky.

Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.

Viktor Frankl

Recognizing, acknowledging, and naming your emotions helps you to manage them better. By acknowledging that you have emotions, and not judging yourself harshly for it, you are better set to maintain perspective, rather than succumb to ruminating, negative thought patterns.

The long-term tactics of mindfulness meditation, and therapy (especially Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) are a force multiplier here. Mindfulness meditation cultivates an awareness of your thoughts and emotions, reducing biased thinking and promoting a balanced perception of reality. With practice, moment-to-moment mindfulness is more the norm, giving you the ability to step back from automatic reactions and check reality leading to improved mental clarity and better orientation—better OODA looping.

One of the most powerful tools I earned in my eight CBT sessions is the application of the “ABC model” for building self-awareness. ABC is an acronym for “Antecedents” (or activating event, aka ‘trigger’), “Behavior” (and/or beliefs), and “Consequences” (of the belief or behavior). You start by writing these down as they come up. I was told to either write them down when I thought of them or to make them part of my evening journal practice.

Next, you add the letters “D” and “E” which stand for “Disputing” and “Exchanging” (or effects). You ‘dispute’ the automatic emotions, beliefs, and thought patterns—as Epictetus says “test and assess with your criteria.” Then you ‘exchange’ the irrational, false, or unhelpful with new balanced thoughts and beliefs. Now answer, “What are the ‘effects’ of the exchange?”

This is a process you should practice daily. That said (and I know I sound like a broken record here), with consistent practice, it becomes a tactic you can access and apply quickly as your recognized and named activating events arise.

Pause and Breathe

Take a moment to breathe deeply and center yourself. This can help reduce the immediate emotional impact and prevent rash reactions.

FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail

Remember back in long-term tactic number three, where I mentioned HeartMath breathing techniques? Here’s where the practice of “Heart-Focused Breathing” and “Quick Coherence” comes in handy to “Shift and Reset.” As I previously wrote, with consistent practice you can shift and reset to a state of coherence in just a few breaths.

So what can we add? You can use the acronym “W.I.N.”—“What’s Important Now?” If you are feeling overwhelmed first, take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and try to inhale deeper. Now exhale slow and long—really long—until you bottom out. Now breathe normally and make a list of the things that are within your control right now. This is effectively what Jocko Willink calls “Detach”—by dumping all the CO2 out of your lungs with a long exhale, you are more parasympathetic dominate and can think clearer, rising above the “problem” to look around at the whole scene. Next, consciously commit to focusing and acting on those things, rather than the ones beyond your total control — which if it helps, you can also list. Extra points if you can recognize some things on that list you can influence, or some things outside of your control that you can perceive and thus make contingencies for.

Now, as Jocko would suggest, “Prioritize and Execute.” Complete the OODA Loop—decide and act. Take an action, however small. Just a five-minute action is all it takes to feel in control, to feel you have agency. A five-minute action is something very small; it’s an action—something you do; it’s something that feels easy and simple; it moves you in the direction you want to go.

Have more time? Wipe the slate clean with ‘Self-Compassion’ with a R.A.I.N. Meditation. “R.A.I.N.” is an acronym for Recognize what is happening right now—name it; Allow the experience without judgement—it is not good or bad it just is; Investigate with interest and care—how does the experience make you feel; Nurture yourself with self-compassion as to not identify with the emotions—I feel angry, rather than I am angry. With that, you can wipe the slate clean—each moment is fresh. Whatever happened yesterday or one hour ago is irrelevant to your ‘now’.

Maintain Perspective

Remind yourself that criticism often comes from those who lack a full understanding of your job and the complexities you face. Their judgements do not define your worth or competence.

FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail

I heard somewhere, a podcast perhaps, that someone else’s opinion of me is none of my business. As Marcuse Aurelius wrote, “The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” As the email says, the critiques are from “those who lack full understanding.”

When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside, and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Sticking with the lessons from Stoicism (and from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), I found this well-articulated example:

Consider a common example: someone insults you, possibly with intent to hurt you. There are several things you should contemplate on such occasions. First off, was the ‘insult’ actually a valid criticism? In that case, you should accept it gratefully and attempt to do better. Was the criticism false? Then the joke’s on the other guy, since he is uttering something demonstrably wrong.
“Second, are you positive that the intent was to hurt you? Maybe the other person said what he said in good faith, or without thinking carefully, or based on the premise that he had a right to say it. Unless you are sure about his motives, giving him the benefit of the doubt is going to go a long way toward defusing the situation.
“Finally, what if the fellow really wanted to hurt you? It follows from the dichotomy of control that the attempt is up to him, but the outcome is actually up to you. Only if you react in a way to show that you are, indeed, offended, will the barb have achieved its goal, the arrow hit its target. But as Epictetus tells his students: “Remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves—that is, our opinions do. What for instance does it mean to be insulted? Stand by a rock and insult it, and what have you accomplished? If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?

Massimo Pigliucci, How to Live a Good Life, chapter 5: Stoicism

Seek Support

“Reach out to trusted colleagues, friends, or family members who understand your challenges. Sharing your experiences can provide relief and perspective.” —FLEOA OMH & PSS email

This tactic, of course, goes back to the long-term tactics of building a strong support network and seeking professional help if needed. Seeking support is easier to do if you have a strong support network already in place.

This tactic adds another level of support, recommending family members and friends. I strongly believe in the benefits of friends (and hobbies) outside of your agency, even outside the confines of your profession. This provides a double buffer from sources of stress and a more biased ear—that is, biased in your favor—but also untainted by coworkers, supervisors, etcetera.

Focus on the Facts

Stay grounded in the reality of your actions and decisions. Reflect on the facts of the situation rather than the emotional tone of the criticism.

FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail

Here we can drop back to things we discussed in the “Acknowledge Your Feelings” tactic. Specifically the ABCDE model from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Also informal mindfulness and formal meditation help here. We can also consider adding prosoché—Stoic mindfulness—as another practice.

Mindfulness is intentional, non-judgemental attention in the present moment. Prosoché is an ancient Greek word for ‘focused attention’. The word was used by the Stoics to describe having a present moment, focused attention on virtue and what is under our control or ‘up to us’.

Instead of living focused on the past—regret—or on the unknown future—anxiety—we should focus on facts of the present moment, and determine what is within our control. What can you take action on right now? Jocko Willink would say now all you have to do is prioritize and execute the actions. Focus on the facts rather than the emotional tone, then proactively do what you can within your spheres of control and influence.

Is That All?

I know all that sounds like a lot to do or think about. Fortunately, you don’t have to do all of them to see benefits. Any small step you take towards emotional flexibility and balance will help you to feel better and more in control. You’ll be more resilient. Also, these tactics cross over and support one another. Learn one and the others come easier.

As the philosophers say, first learn. Then train for proficiency. Then consistently practice every day.

The flâneur, a captivating emblem of urban experience and modernity, originating from the lively streets of 19th-century Paris encapsulates a distinctive way of engaging with the cityscape. From the literal translation of “stroller,” “lounger,” and “loafer,” the term evolved to denote a philosophical stance toward life and the metropolitan environment.

What’s this then about an ‘anxious’ flâneur? That’s what this article is all about. I believe that embracing a modern flâneur mindset or philosophy in this new (to me) city is just what the doctor ordered. No, really, I think my therapist would approve. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s go back to nineteenth-century Paris to see where this all started, and work our way forward from there.

Flâneur is from the Old Norse verb flana—to wander with no purpose. The word flânerie dates back to the 16th or 17th century, meaning “to stroll or idle,” that is, “to waste time walking aimlessly.” It was in the 19th century that the word began to take on more depth of meaning. Several authors added a rich constellation of meanings and associations to its first recorded definition in 1872 as a stroller, lounger, saunterer, or loafer.

Sainte-Beuve wrote flânerie “is the very opposite of doing nothing,” and Honré de Balzac likened flânerie to “the gastronomy of the eye.” Earlier in 1867, in What One Sees in the Streets of Paris, Victor Fournel called flânerie an art—a way of understanding the rich variety of the city landscape.

The poet Charles Baudelaire advanced Fournel’s ideas in an essay titled The Painter of Modern Life (1863). Therein he describes the “perfect flâneur…the passionate spectator…to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the center of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world.” Baudelaire described the flâneur as a gentleman stroller and passionate wanderer of city streets. Further, he was an avid observer and connoisseur of the urban experience, able to find beauty in life’s transient, fugacious aspects.

In an analysis of the poetry of Baudelaire, and extracting from Fournel, Walter Benjamin described the flâneur as an amateur detective and investigator of the city. Here, we see the flâneur as an anonymous figure who navigates the city with a detached yet observant demeanor. Invisible amidst the urban crowds, they can witness the ebb and flow of city life without direct engagement or influence. With a thoughtful synthesis of active engagement with the urban environment and a detached observation of society, the flâneur traverses the city with no more purpose than to soak in the nuances of urban life.

According to Susan Sontag (1977), the flâneur can observe and report thanks to the development of handheld cameras.

The [street] photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world ‘picturesque’.

Susan Sontag

A more recent addition to the nuanced definition comes from Nassim Taleb. In his 2012 book Antifragile, he introduces the idea of a “rational flâneur” who seeks optionality and freedom through opportunism. Since you can’t predict the future, he says, you stand to gain more by keeping your options open rather than rigid planning. His flâneur is a self-learner and experimenter who is never the prisoner of a plan.

Flâneur Moderne

From all of this, we can distill some characteristics of a modern flâneur which I can ‘practice’ as part of my practical philosophy.

A flâneur moderne is a peripatetic wanderer.

Peripatetic: of, relating to, or given to walking. Remember that white feather in Forest Gump? Remember Forest Gump’s seemingly accidental involvement in all sorts of history? That’s the freedom of wandering ‘aimlessly’ the modern flâneur seeks. Their atelic meandering differs in one way from Gump’s. They are highly aware that the best things in life happen as a matter of chance.

So while the walk is atelic, there is a goal. It opens up an infinite number of new chance encounters. In searching for what it is they do not know, they are forced to see beyond their worldview. It is through not seeking that the flâneur moderne finds.

A Flâneur Moderne is an observer.

Every person encountered conceals a story. Every sight you see hides an insight. Modern flâneurs are passionate observers with a discerning gaze and high observational skills. The flâneur moderne goes through life seeing the world as if for the first time. Or, at least trying to.

A Flâneur Moderne is a documentarian.

One way for them to be useful is to document their experience. Knowledge, ideas, reviews, and insights from the journey can be a boon to others. Like a documentarian, the flâneur moderne can return with inspiration, images, thoughts, memories, and experiences for posterity or future creative endeavors. By recording their journey, they can share their learning and failures.

A Flâneur Moderne is an experimenter.

Discovery and growth are found on the other side of fear and beyond the comfort zone. As Nassim Taleb writes, it is through experimentation, “rational but undirected trial-and-error-based research,” while staying opportunistic, that the flâneur finds and maintains freedom.

It is through hardship and failure that we become more robust. It is through seeking randomness that life becomes vital and quickening.

A Flâneur Moderne focuses on the present.

Burdened by, as Baudelaire put it, “the tyranny of circumstance,” the flâneur thrives on the present moment. When wandering purposelessly in foreign environments, thinking about long-term personal goals takes a back seat to the present-moment cacophony of experience. Granted, the occasional epiphany may arise, but ’schedules,’ ‘systems,’ and ‘productivity’ are set aside.

Mindfulness has been described as “watching the traffic go by without getting hit by it”—so too flânerie. The focus is on observation, orientation, and in-the-moment decision-making.

A Flâneur Moderne seeks meaning.

They probe the unknown, beyond the comfort of the ‘normal world’, in search of what makes them better. And on the occasion a dragon is slain and the magic elixir won, they seek to bring that back for all to benefit.

Flânerie then transcends aimless wandering or idleness. It becomes, rather, a search for what resonates deeply, for that which speaks to the soul. While trying to remain attuned to the true essence of things, the flâneur moderne comes to better understand themselves in the world.

Flâneur Inquiet?

Inquiet is the French word for anxious. I don’t consider myself an anxious person—I don’t worry much at all. I do, however, have some negative beliefs and a fear accompanying that worldview. These lend to thoughts, behaviors, and actions that are sometimes protective, but more often not. All that together gets me a diagnosis of “general anxiety disorder.” Given my retirement, the quotidian parts of life dominate, making those thoughts, behaviors, and actions more often a hindrance.

Two ways I have previously dealt with my anxiety and fear are avoidance of anxiety-provoking events or environments, and “safety props.”

Safety Props

Let’s talk safety props first. Think of these as the Boy Scouts’ “ten essentials” on steroids. Flashlights, lighters, knives, first aid kits, gunshot wound trauma kits, emergency bivy, extra clothes, fire starters… As you can see this list can quickly get out of control. Add to this the idea that “two is one and one is none,” and this can quickly become an unmanageable load.

Once you get all this kit together, you still risk private businesses or events giving a hard “no” to any of that on their premises. The easiest example is air travel and its TSA gatekeepers.

The cognitive behavioral therapy answer to this is two-fold. First, learn to be comfortable with the discomfort of leaving that stuff behind. Or, slowly over time (though I guess you could try the cold turkey approach), reduce your load by asking, “Is the reason I’m carrying this factual?” and “What is the probability of real need?”

At the outset, life is almost as inert as matter; … But life was not content with this stay-at-home existence of the plant; always its advances have been away from security towards freedom; away from carapaces, scales, and hides, and other burdensome protections, to the ease and perilous liberty of the bird. “So the heavy Hoplite was supplanted by the legionary; the knight, clad in armor, had to give place to the light free-moving infantryman; and in a general way, in the evolution of life, just as in the evolution of human societies and of the individual destinies, the greatest successes have been for those who accepted the heaviest risks.” (Heri Bergson, Creative Evolution, 1907). So, too, man has ceased to evolve new organs on his body; he makes tools and weapons instead, and lays them aside when they are not needed, rather than carry all his armament at every step, like those gigantic fortresses, the mastodon and the megatherium, whose heavy security lost them the mastery of the globe. Life may be impeded, as well as aided, by its instruments.

Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

I will always carry some version of the ten essentials, however, in a metropolitan environment, I recognize (and this was hard at first) that I can greatly reduce my burden and become more approachable. Being more approachable and comfortable with a reduced load has several benefits to flânerie. More ease of movement for one. Better engagement with others more importantly.

Avoidance

The most reliable way of overcoming anxiety and situational avoidance is the maxim: FEAR—Face Everything And Recover. Supported by numerous clinical trials, the principle of facing your fears until your anxiety reduces is one of the cornerstones of CBT.

The key here is dosage control. Or, in physical fitness terms, how many repetitions per set, how many sets, and how much total load? The answer is “it depends.”

My therapist put it this way: expose yourself to the situation or environment for as long as it takes for your stress response to subside, then (and only then), withdraw. Return and do it again. You may notice that it takes less time for your stress to subside with each exposure.

During these ‘confrontations’, aim for ‘manageable exposure’. That way you can successfully experience facing your fears and mastering them. Too easy and you won’t progress. Too hard and you may resort to escape, avoidance, or safety behaviors.

It is with instincts as with organs; they are the tools of the mind; and like all organs that are attached and permanent, they become burdens when the environment that needed them has disappeared. Instinct comes ready-made, and gives decisive—and usually successful—responses to stereotyped and ancestral situations; but it does not adapt to organism change, it does not enable man to meet the fluid complexities of modern life. It is the vehicle of security, while intellect is the organ of an adventurous liberty. It is life taking on the blind obedience of the machine.

Will Durrant, The Story of Philosophy

How to Flânerie for the Flâneur Moderne et Inquiet

Or more correctly, how I will try and some discussion as to why I will do it a certain way.

You have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Friedrich Nietzsche

First, let’s review the beginning of this article and flesh out a mindset or philosophy. We should have a clear ‘Why’ before we proceed to the ‘hows’ and ‘whats’. In essence, a flâneur moderne synthesizes a slower pace of life, a keen interest in their surroundings, and a curious outlook.

“Curiosity and Interest” is one of my character strengths, so I’ll lean into that. It’s about the journey, not the destination.

Flânerie is about immersion, observing, and embracing the unexpected. Curiosity is my compass as I delve into the city, savoring its details, and appreciating its nuances and complexities. Add to that the ability to report my findings.

Now, how? To follow are several strategies and tactics that I’ll use for my flânerie.

(1) Reduce my kit. I’m purchasing a smaller bag for everyday carry (EDC), which will require me to reduce my EDC load. I’m also getting something less ‘tactical’ or military (my wife’s main complaint).

(2) Walk, don’t rush. I am not in a hurry.

(3) Research but don’t overplan. What does this look like? For example, I recently went to an area called “Coventry Village” because I needed to go to a store there (BLICK Art, for my highlighter fix). I looked at Apple Maps and found Mayfield Cemetary to be across the street. This runs into Lakeview Cemetary. The Garfield Memorial is there (as in the often forgotten but very important to Cleveland, President Garfield). According to another app, there are several historical sites in the area as well. That’s it. That’s all the research I did.

(4) Speaking of research, use technology wisely. Technology—smartphones, and apps are handy for navigation, information, documentation, and even emergencies, but don’t let them make decisions for you or hinder the adventure.

(5) Document the journey. I’ll record journeys and review my findings here at Whale Lines.

(6) Stay flexible and maintain a positive, open-minded attitude.

(7) I can connect flânerie to a destination such as a specific store (as in the example above), or even to a historical or cultural destination, but not to a series. A series of destinations isn’t flânerie; it’s errands. That tends to create a sense of urgency in the day and is a barrier to optionality and exploration.

There was no where to go but everywhere.

Jack Kerouac

As a kid, I tended to be wide-eyed and curious roaming freely and unburdened by life’s responsibilities. But as for most, life became increasingly rushed, pre-planned, and devoid of randomness.

Today we are constantly connected, over-informed (sometimes falsely), never open to boredom, and stuck in the predictable. We’ve become addicted to bite-sized information and allergic to contemplative thought.

I am going to push back through unhurried exploration, embracing chance encounters, celebrating uncertainty and diversity, and taking more rational risks.

The way of the Flâneur Moderne et Inquiet promotes prosochê (Greek – attention, diligence, Stoic mindfulness) and a sharpening of perception. This in turn opens you up to a sense of awe and wonder within the complexities of the metropolis or the simplest of neighborhoods.

In case you missed it in Part III of this series, we fleshed out our identities and roles. We stopped short then of drafting your mission statement. I find it easier to walk backward from our concrete roles and identities into our abstract values and mission. These are easier to understand and articulate if you’ve thought about how you want them to affect the various spheres of your life and the specific actions you need to take.

I was also delaying, as much as possible, giving you examples of others’ mission statements. That is to not tempt you to copy others. This is about writing YOUR script in alignment with YOUR values. We are blindly accepting the scripts given to us by culture. This is about pushing back and analyzing before accepting and creating your own idiosyncratic creed.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Friedrich Nietzsche

This mission statement should focus your energies and resources, and prevent distraction by giving you a sense of orientation and purpose. If you draft your own you’ll be more self-directed.

If you want to win the war for attention, don’t try to say ’no’ to the trivial distractions you find on the information smorgasbord; try to say ‘yes’ to the subject that arouses a terrifying longing, and let the terrifying longing crowd out everything else.

David Brooks, The Art of Focus

Now, all that said, here are two short ones from persons you may know:

My mission in life is not not to merely survive but to thrive, to do so with some passion, compassion, humor, and style.

Maya Angelou

I shall
not fear anyone on earth.
fear only God.
not bear ill will toward anyone.
not submit to injustice from anyone.
conquer untruth with truth.
and in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

Gandhi

And an anonymous one I plagiarized from the inter-webs:

I will…
Be kind and proactive in developing and sustaining connections with family and friends, to be regarded as a successful spouse, father, son, brother, uncle, and friend.
Always behave with integrity and never compromise on honesty.
Intend to approach life with a curious mind.
Take care of my health by frequently exercising, eating healthily, and avoiding anything that may damage my body.
Remember when things get rough, there are so many things for which I am grateful. I will give back to the community through donations and volunteering.

Anonymous

Remember, this doesn’t have to be perfect. Just get started. You can refine and modify it over time—in fact, you should review it daily for at least 30 days, and weekly for 120 days. As previously stated, the process is as important as the product.

Personal leadership is not a singular experience. It doesn’t begin and end with the writing of a personal mission statement. It is, rather, the ongoing process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important things.

Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Your Grand Strategy

Let’s begin by putting the title at the top: “My Ultimate Strategy,” or something like that. Next a subheading: “Ultimate Purpose.” Then your statement of that. For example, “to actualize my potential in service of my wife, family, friends, and sphere of influence.”

Creed

The next subheading is “Personal Creed.” Here’s where you can flesh out the ‘why’ above with some ‘how’ and ‘what’. Here (at least in mine) you may start to see influences from others. This also begins to seem like your own philosophy. Not only is that okay, but it’s actually the point. A ‘creed’ is essentially a statement of philosophy. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a creed is “a set of beliefs that influences the way you live.” According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a creed is “a system of beliefs, principles, or opinions,” and “any summary of principles or opinions professed or adhered to.”

Note, this is not so specific as to say, “In five years I will…” Those are plans or long-term goals. This instead is deep and wide, meant to guide decisions about goals. It’s not about the ‘what’, it’s about the ‘why’ and some guidance as to the ‘how’. We will address the ‘what’ and ‘how’—goals, commitments, and planning—later in the article.

Character Strengths

The next subtitle or heading I like to list is “Character Strengths.” Here you can list your character strengths from the University of Pennsylvania test. I also write out their definitions as provided at Authentic Happiness.

For example: “Love of Learning—I love learning new things, whether in class or on my own. I have always loved travel, school, reading, and museums—anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn.”

My other top character strengths are Gratitude and Compassion, Bravery and Valor, Curiosity and Interest in the World, and Awe.

This list can help me make decisions about what to do monthly, weekly, and even daily. Remember, positive psychologists have proved that people who actualize their character strengths daily are happier at work and play. “Should I take this job?” becomes “Does this opportunity lead to eudaemonia and fulfillment by allowing me to use my character strengths?”

The second advantage to knowing and reviewing this list is seeking opportunities to grow in areas of weakness. To take some proactive steps to improve your character. Using this reference, I can set up “training missions” for improvement or ‘exposures’ for incremental growth.

Maxims & Operating Principles

My next two sub-headings are “Maxims” and “Operating Principles.” Maxims are succinct formulations of a fundamental principle, a condensed proposition of important practical truth, a rule of conduct, or an axiom of practical wisdom.

As previously discussed, principles allow you to live a life consistent with your values—they operationalize your values.

Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that get you what you want in your life. They can be applied again and again in similar situations to help you achieve your goals.

Ray Dalio, Principles of Life and Work

Maxims and Principles then are like time-tested heuristics. You can develop your own, or modify, through experience, those of others. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations can be seen as his private spiritual practice of copying and then reformatting the thoughts and teachings of the Stoic Philosopher Epictetus.

My Maxims (principles I found important enough to tattoo on my wrists) are: “Always Be Orienting” and “Prepared and Active.”

The first is a quote from John Boyd, of “OODA Loop” fame. The second is a distillation of Seneca’s wisdom:

Let Fate find us prepared and active. Here is the great soul—the one who surrenders to Fate. The opposite is the weak and degenerate one who struggles with and has a poor regard for the order of the world and seeks to correct the faults of the gods rather than their own.

Seneca, Moral Letters, 107.12

I won’t bore you with my full list of Principles. It’s a list that needs some culling and reformatting, anyway. But for examples, here are a few:

• Internal Locus of Focus–I take “Extreme Ownership.” I focus all of my energy within my spheres of control and influence. I do not concern myself or worry about things over which I have no control.
• Stress is information.
• Growth resist entropy.
• What’s Important Now (WIN)?–detach, observe, and [re]orient, then prioritize and execute.
• Always stay a student.
• I move toward the resistance, out of my comfort zone, as it is on the edges that you will learn and grow.
• I train for hardship and pain.
• I seek the narrow path–the middle way.

Domain Strategies

Now, lastly, under the subtitle “Domain Strategies,” I list high-level strategies for each of the identities of “Self” (or “Energy”), “Vocation” (or “Work”), and “Love” (or “Relationships”). Under the “Self” identity I have an over-arching domain strategy and strategies for each valence (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual).

These can all be drafted much in the same way detailed in Part III. Step one is to block out time for undisturbed deep work. Step two is to ensure you have defined and prioritized your identities and roles. You need to know and define them. This helps to guide long-term, short-term, and even moment-to-moment goals and decisions.

Step three is defining your purpose for each role and identity. Roles tend to be other-focused (relationships and vocation), therefore, as previously mentioned, we also need to establish goals and commitments for ourselves in each valence.

Next, step four, is to look at each identity, role, and life where you have established personal goals and, being brutally honest, define your current reality. Change and growth can only begin with honesty.

In step five, you establish specific action steps—commitments—for each goal.

We will use my Physical Valence as an example: “Train every day with mission-specific purpose, to be strong, durable, and useful. Some commitments are to “program for the year and your ‘Centenarian Decathlon’.” This covers the “Energy” or “Self” identity.

You can’t achieve primary greatness by neglecting yourself—your health, your mind, your emotional and spiritual life. Each of these vital areas of your life needs constant, even daily, renewal. Pushing the lever a bit every day can offset a slow or even catastrophic downward decline in your personal energy and even save your life.

Stephen Covey, Primary Greatness

Now you do the same for your Relationships and Vocation identities. Feel free to flesh these out as much as you want, but remember this is your Grand Strategy. It is meant to provide high-level guidance to your later decisions about daily, weekly, and monthly plans. Think of it this way: the Grand Strategy is the marrow and bone. You’ll add the flesh and muscle later.

My pre-retirement Vocation can serve as an example here. “I am a professional Law Enforcement Officer. I am a scholar, statesman, and guardian. I commit to lifelong learning. I will engage the communities I serve. I will honor my Oath, perform my duties to the best of my ability, and actively pursue my potential. I will prepare to be someone’s hope in their time of need.” I plagiarized this from “VALOR for Blue” after attending their train-the-trainer program.

Note the way the above is formatted. They are first a vision—”Professional Law Enforcement Officer”—defined—”Scholar, Statesman, Guardian”—as I would want people to speak of me at my funeral. Then there are several ‘commitments.’ These commitments are what I believe will achieve the legacy or vision. Why commitments and not goals?

Commitments: the Bridge Between Vision & Goals

Vision is a broad, all-encompassing, and open-ended conceptualization of how you want your life to be ‘in the future’. A vision allows for adaptability as reality changes, applying OODA looping to your personal development, and reorienting with new knowledge of yourself and the environment.

Lacking the deeper meaning found in a vision, goals are specific, measurable, and time-bound objectives a person aims to achieve. They provide a focal point for your resources, actions, and decisions. Goals are more concrete than intentions but are often outcome-based, rather than behavior-based.

While we need goals—we are teleological as Socrates says—there is a psychological phenomenon known as ‘goal lock’. Goal-lock is a self-defeating single-mindedness that can lead to depression and anxiety, even if you do achieve the goal. Stories abound of Olympians having won gold and sunk into the depression of “now what?”

So visions provide purpose and goals provide a target. How do we get from here to there? Commitments. A goal is something you want to do: I want to lose 20 pounds in six months.” A commitment imports that goal, becoming something you have to do.

As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control, and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods. -Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People

“My vision is to lose weight in six months to look and feel good” and “My goal is to exercise every day and lose 20 pounds in six months.” Therefore, “I commit to walking 10,000 steps every day; to doing 100 kettlebell swings and 10 get-ups every day; to doing power yoga every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.” Now, I can’t guarantee those specific commitments will accomplish your vision (you can’t outwork a bad diet), but I think you get my point.

Commitments should describe only a minimal necessary amount of the behavior you want to do in support of your goals. Commitments can be about what you will do or get to do generating a positive emotion. They can also be ‘bright line’ don’t dos. These are most helpful in the face of peer pressure: “I don’t drink alcohol on work nights,” or “I don’t eat that.” These types of commitments make it easier to act in accordance with your identity, vision, and goals.

A last word about commitments. ‘Commitment devices’ are any techniques that help people commit to a behavior. These could include contracts or pledges, and even accountability buddies. From the study of human behavior and habits, we also have “Odysseus Contracts,” aka “pre-commitments.”

The Odysseus Contract is a commitment device that allows us to make a choice in the present that binds us to an action or a decision in the future. A simple example is sometimes referred to as using your willpower on offense, rather than defense. That is, don’t buy junk food at the store, and then you won’t have it on hand at the house when your willpower is weak.

Now you have a complete first draft. Therefore it’s time for the final and most important step: Evaluation and editing. Stephen Covey offers a series of questions well suited to this evaluation process:

1) Is my mission based on timeless, proven principles? Which ones?
2) Do I feel this represents the best that is within me?
3) During my best moments, do I feel good about what this represents?
4) Do I feel direction, purpose, challenge, and motivation when I review this statement?
5) Am I aware of the strategies and skills that will help me accomplish what I have written?
6) What do I need to start doing now to be where I want to be tomorrow?
7) Does this statement inspire me?

Stephen Covey, Primary Greatness

If this is your first time drafting a mission statement or grand strategy, I’d recommend visiting this evaluation and editing process every day for at least 30 days. When we start talking about ‘personal management’, you will learn the benefit of reviewing this once a week as part of your weekly review and planning. That’s for making sure your weekly plans are in alignment. The first thirty days are for embedding the Ultimate Mission and Grand Strategy into your psyche.

I’d also suggest having this “ready at hand”—in your phone or a pocket notebook—so you can refer to it in the moment of decision-making.

And that completes the first half of this series. In parts I through IV we covered Personal Leadership. Stay tuned for further installments where we will shit to Personal Management.

In this part three of the series, let’s start with a thought experiment that distills down the most important takeaways from part two. Think about traveling forward in time, arriving at your funeral. Imagine now witnessing your funeral. Family, friends, and former and current co-workers are all there; they each give a eulogy about you.

Really ‘feel into’ the scene. Where is it? What does it look like? What’s the weather like? Is there music? Write down who is in attendance: wife, husband, kids? Your boss? Former trainees? Friends and co-workers? Now write down what they are saying about you.

Returning to the present, consider those statements. Can you boil them down to single words or phrases representing the values and virtues you aim for, your character strengths and principles? Finally, are you currently living in alignment with those ideals? If the words of your eulogy are your legacy, are you doing, right now, those things that will build that legacy?

If the answer is “no,” then stick around for further installments of this series, where we will talk about ‘training missions.’

Recently I’ve been thinking about the difference between the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues, The résumé virtues are the ones you list on your résumé, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being—whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.

David Brooks, The Road to Character

Before we carry on with our main topic—defining our roles and drafting our mission statement—consider another question: “Who are you when you have been at your best? What did you do? And what did you not do?”

Hell is where the person you are meets the person you could have become, moments before your death.

Apocryphal

Roles

As you make an honest assessment of your answers to the questions, with deep reflection and self-examination, you may begin to identify and define the many roles or areas of responsibility you have.

Remember those persons at your imagined funeral who bore witness to your legacy? Some of these roles pertain to them. Are you a life partner, or parent? Maybe you are a teacher or field training officer, or a supervisor or mentor.

Here’s my long list:

• Husband
• Brother
• Son-in-law
• Brother-in-law (seven times over)
• Uncle (five times over)
• Homeowner, oops, apartment tenant
• Retired Law Enforcement Officer
• Coach/Trainer
• Philosopher (though I know I’m supposed to keep that a secret)
• Writer
• Teacher
• Website manager

We can now discern two broad categories: Relationships and Vocation.

Love and work…work and love, that’s all there is.

Sigmund Freud

Poet David Whyte, in his book The Three Marriages, describes a triumvirate of marriage-like commitments we should maintain for wholeness: marriage to our vocation, marriage to another (something or someone beyond ourselves), and marriage to ourselves. Brian Johnson, borrowing from Freud and Jim Loehr concurs. We have three ‘identities’ Johnson says: Energy (self), Work (our vocation), and Love (our relationships).

I encourage you to define these identities by name and description. Within these identities, you can consolidate or categorize your roles. Here are my current ones: “Hero in Training,” “Jedi Master” (very long story I’ll tell you someday over a beer), and “Heroic Husband.”

Understand these are not rigid or set in stone. They can and should be flexible enough to change with time. As you enter different phases of life you drop old commitments, and pick up new ones; relationships come and go.

Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.

Sigmund Freud

Work and Love. Two fundamental aspects of human existence. Freud’s two statements above encapsulate the significance of these two interdependent elements of our identity and purpose.

Love

Love in its various forms, plays a central role in the human experience. Encompassing romantic relationships, familial bonds, friendships, and even the casual wave to a neighbor or smile to the barista, love represents the emotional connection and support we seek and provide.

It is through love that we build connections, experience joy, and find comfort. It nurtures us, creating a safe space where we can be vulnerable. It shapes our relationships allowing us to form deep connections that foster growth.

Vocation

Without love, life might lack meaning and purpose. Work on the other hand represents the practical aspects of our lives. Through our vocations, we express our skills, contribute to society, and fulfill our ambitions.

Whether through an occupation, a hobby, or a passion project, engaging in work allows us to express ourselves, develop a sense of purpose, and feel a sense of accomplishment. Furthermore, vocation has the potential to enhance our self-esteem and provide financial stability. By investing our time and effort into a vocation, we also contribute to the collective progress of humanity.

The Dichotomy

In their symbiotic relationship, love and work interact and influence each other. Love can inspire and motivate us in our professional endeavors. Similarly, the fulfillment and satisfaction derived from our vocations can positively impact our relationships. When we find meaning and purpose in our vocation, we often bring a sense of contentment and stability to our love life.

Work-life balance is a myth. As with most dichotomies, there is a middle way, but it is not to be found in a balancing act. The phrase ‘work-life balance’ seems to imply that one is ‘good’ and the other ‘bad.’ But, work is part of life. It is more akin to Aristotle’s ‘golden mean.’ Too much and too little work is a vice. Same for life. Virtue then is found in the middle of both. Harmonizing the two promotes emotional and psychological well-being.

Often society places an overwhelming emphasis on work, equating success with professional achievements, material wealth, and recognition. This perspective can lead to a neglect of love and relationships. Similarly, an excessive focus on love without a sense of purpose or vocational fulfillment can also result in an unfulfilled existence. Finding an equilibrium then is essential for leading a meaningful and satisfying life.

By nurturing relationships and pursuing work that aligns with our passions and values, we cultivate a sense of fulfillment that permeates all aspects of our lives. This requires introspection and self-awareness. It involves understanding our priorities, values, and goals.

Energy of Self

How do we show up fully engaged in our relationships and vocation? As previously discussed, with full, positive energy. Energy management in four valences: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Covey details an energy renewal process he calls “Sharpen the Saw” in his 7 Habits book. He further recommends a one-hour “daily private victory” ritual in which you renew all four valences. Alternatively, you could scatter these throughout your week. I suggest you also have ‘rituals’ you can do to sustain your energy throughout the day and as an emergency bolus as needed at any time.

“Sharpen the Saw” tends to go by the term ‘self-care’ nowadays, and you may have heard witticisms such as “put your oxygen mask on first before helping others.” I like the older “an empty well draws no water.” Regardless the principle is the same: taking the time to renew the four valences makes us more effective in our life’s work and purpose.

Investing in self-care may seem indulgent on antithetical to productivity but it defends you against exhaustion and mental or emotional collapse. In addition, it increases your sense of agency, effectiveness, and competency.

We all have a moral obligation to the people who are important in our lives, as well as to ourselves, to learn and progress without ceasing.

Stephen Covey, Primary Greatness

We are going to discuss them individually but know that they are interconnected. One renewing action may indirectly impact more than just the valence that it directly targets. For example, exercise improves, intentionally, your physical valence, but also your emotional life.

Physical

Sharpening the saw physically—exercising, eating the right foods, getting adequate rest, avoiding harmful substances, having regular physical checkups—significantly increases the likelihood that we’ll make good choices in decision moments. It also increases our options, as good health becomes a resource from which we can do so much more. Our body is a fundamental stewardship; it’s the instrument through which we work to fulfill all other stewardships and responsibilities.

Stephen Covey, Primary Greatness

Most everyone is aware of the big three: exercise, nutrition, and sleep. These three do the heavy lifting of the physical valence. Begin with these and make them non-negotiable. Once you get these dialed in you can start experimenting:

• Naps
• Hot and/or cold therapies
• Massage and other bodywork
• Nutritional supplementation

We’re talking here about maintenance and renewal, not training for the Olympics. If a specific sport is your thing, great. Just remember, the mistake most amateur athletes make is not enough recovery. We will talk later about training specific to growing your physical energy. Right now we are just talking about optimizing your current physical energy level. Test and experiment until you find a protocol that makes you feel tip-top.

Mental

Meaningful mental renewal empowers us to transcend the limited wisdom of our environment in decision moments and keeps our minds sharp and clear and well-exercised for ready use.

Stephen Covey, Primary Greatness

If you are a knowledge worker (over 1 billion of us worldwide as of 2020) then you know the mental strain of the 8-10-12 hour workday. Many run this like an ultra-marathon. I would suggest instead a series of ‘sprints’ of no more than 90 minutes with a lengthy break (15 minutes?) before the next session. Another option is a version of the “Pomodoro” technique: 25 minutes on and 5 minutes off.

The key here is that you do anything but ‘work’ during the break period. No email, social media, texts, voicemail, Slack, or other messaging apps and services.

Probably one of the best things you could do for mental renewal during these breaks is something physical—a set of body weight exercises, quick up and down some flights of stairs, some sprints in the parking lot—“vigorous intermittent exercise activity,” aka: “exercise snacks.” Or take a walk, get some sun, drink some water, eat some protein, or a low glycemic index snack. Try five minutes of breathing exercises.

How about when you’re not at work? What are mentally renewing activities in those times? Here are some of my favorites, and, again, the idea is to stretch the mind, not flog it with more work:

• Read “great works” of fiction
• Read poetry
• Thought-provoking podcasts
• Study a new language
• Learn to play a musical instrument
• Take an online course
• Attend a lecture at a local college, library, or ‘town hall’
• Join a discussion group or book club
• Visit a museum
• Watch documentaries

Emotional

One of the best ways to educate our heart is to look at our interaction with other people, because our relationships with others are fundamentally a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.

When we don’t listen to or live by our conscience, we tend to blame and accuse other people in an attempt to justify our inner dissonance. If we have a sense of mission and principles to measure ourselves against, we benchmark against other people instead of our own potential. We’re into comparative thinking and win-lose mentality. We become self-centered and autobiographical. We impose our motives on the actions of others. We see their strengths and weaknesses in terms of how they affect us. We empower their weaknesses to control us.

Stephen Covey, Primary Greatness

Covey called this valence “Social/Emotional,” whereas the Corporate Athlete materials refer to “Emotional.” Call it what you will, without emotional balance, your social life will be difficult. When your emotional energy is high and positive, you seem to glide with an even keel despite storms or choppy seas.

Specific to positive emotional energy renewal, try:

• Meditation
• Gratitude journaling
• Reading books about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• See a therapist
• Practice deep breathing
• Practice self-compassion
• Learn how to be more resilient

Spiritual

Renewing activities in the spiritual dimension—meditation, prayer, formal religious activity, altruistic service, studying the wisdom and ‘sacred’ literature, memorizing and reviewing a personal mission statement—nurture the big picture context and the contribution focus of ‘true north.’ This renewal plays a vital role in the education of the heart. It’s the basis for deciding what ‘first things’ are. It gives us the passion and the power to subordinate the less important to the more important. It empowers us to transcend the powerful influences of urgency and expediency.

Stephen Covey, Primary Greatness

Your core, your why (Simon Sinek), your inner citadel (Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius), and that “old roll top desk where you really keep your stuff” (Vice Admiral James Stockdale)—the spiritual energy valence—gives rise to your sense of purpose in life. It’s the fertile soil to propagate your ultimate mission, and the well you draw from to water and grow your grand strategy.

‘Spirituality’—just as practical as any other valence—can be a force multiplier for your vocations and love, leading to a more purpose-driven and fulfilling life.

Only he who is capable of a genuine encounter with the other is capable of an authentic encounter with himself, and the converse is equally true… From this perspective, every spiritual exercise is a dialogue, insofar as it is an exercise of authentic presence, to oneself and to others.

Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life

The way to spiritual energy renewal and growth is through habits of spiritual disciplines and practices:

• Study scripture (what Covey calls “the great wisdom or sacred literature”)
• Study Philosophy
• Self-examination, a la Socrates
• Silence/Solitude
• Gratitude
• “Radical Compassion,” a la Tara Brach
• Prayer
• Meditation
• Nature and “forest bathing”
• Journaling
• Writing and reviewing your Ultimate Mission and Grand Strategy

Drafting Your Identities, Roles, & Mission Statement

By now you should have some idea of your roles and identities. From parts I and II of this series, you also should have some sense of your values, virtues, and character strengths. And don’t forget that thought experiment of visiting your funeral or the question “Who are you when you are at your best?”

All this is to say before you can live a meaningful life—pursuing eulogy virtues and flourishing—you need to know how you want people to talk about you so you can act now to make that scenario play out.

Following Covey’s advice we are not just making a list of ideals. Instead, he suggests a ‘constitution’ based on timeless and unchanging principles, virtues, and values that you want to embody.

Caveat Emptor

Two more things to remember: first, the end product isn’t as important as the process itself. It’s the journey, not the destination.

Writing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs.

Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The journey is the intentional thinking about what it means to you to live a good life. Furthermore, this is not a one-and-done. It’s a lifelong journey.

Which leads to caveat number two. For it to be useful you have to return to your ‘constitution’ over and over again. Both to check if your decision-making and actions are in alignment and as a spiritual practice for grounding the internal and external life.

Step 1: Set Aside Uninterrupted Time

As mentioned here you need blocks of uninterrupted time to do some ‘deep work.’ Two to four hours on a weekend—perhaps two on Saturday and two more on Sunday, or multiple Saturdays. Whatever best works for you.

If you don’t have ‘Walden Space’—quiet space at home—try a coffee shop, library, or natural park setting. Want to go deep? Check into a hotel room like Maya Angelou or J.K. Rowling.

Step 2: Identities & Roles

Covey recommends no more than six roles. We discussed the idea of three ‘marriages’ or identities (self, vocation, love). I tend to view this as a taxonomy of sorts. For example, the four valences are classified under ‘self’, husband under ‘love’, and writer under ‘work’.

Seen as a taxonomy, for some of my relationships, I can default to my love identity for decision-making. New projects or tasks? What does my vocation identity say? So for me, it starts looking something like this:

Work Identity: “Jedi Master”— Scholar/Teacher/Philosopher
Roles: retired law enforcement officer, website manager, coach/mentor, trainer

Step 3: Define the Why of Each Role

If you haven’t already, it’s time to define the high-level purpose of each identity and role. You may have some intrinsic sense of the purposes, but writing them out, and articulating them on paper, is therapeutic and results in a renewable, amendable document.

According to James Pennebaker, expressive writing allows you to openly acknowledge and accept emotions, being then able to give voice to blocked feelings, thereby constructing a meaningful story. Furthermore, you improve your ability to make causal links among life events and increase your capacity for introspection.

Write down the identity or role. One piece of paper for each role (or identity). Now think back to your funeral thought experiment. Write out the values, virtues, and character strengths—your best self—you want to embody in this role or identity. What do you want the people you affect in that role to say about you when you’re dead? Who are you when you are at your best in these roles? How do you embody these identities? What do you think? Say? Do?

Now take that and refine it, pair it down, and cut out any repetition. The more simple you can make these statements the better.

Step 4: Review Often & Amend as Needed

When to review? The most obvious time to review your mission statement is before any ‘big’ decisions and during any ‘major’ life change. The major life change can also prompt, or necessitate, amendment. Take retirement, for example. When I retired my vocational identity and roles changed in a major way. I needed to completely redefine my vocational identity and my roles.

Stephen Covey says to review your mission statement and purpose(s) once a week before determining your role-based goals and planning your weekly activities. The actions and tasks you prioritize that week then are in alignment, with your longer-term role-based goals, your identities and values, character strengths, principles, and virtues.

I used to follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) weekly review and processing, then review my Grand Strategy document before planning my week. I’ve noticed that post-retirement, I am not doing that weekly (part of the reason for this whole refresher process). How I use GTD, how you might (or might not), and role-based goals, are the topics for future articles.

Wrap Up

Now you should have ‘Identities’ and ‘Roles’ defined with their purpose statements drafted. You should have recorded your top five character strengths, and maybe another five you want to work on developing. So too, your values and virtues, and maybe some principles aligned with these and in support of your identities and roles.

In the next article of this series, we will drop in the last components of personal leadership: role-based goals and commitments. Then I’ll show you how I formatted all of this in a ‘Grand Strategy.’

Until then review and continue to refine your identities and roles, and maybe start to consider what goals you might have for each of those.