Two sentences

How likely are you to try to follow this advice? How likely are you to stick to it?

These guys also have three, four, and five sentences to make it a gradual transition from the cluttered way you're emailing today. If you have hard time, try changing your habit in a Zend way.

I don't think following a 2 sentence rule all the time every time makes sense, but uncluttering your emails sure does. And it starts not with how long you let your emails grow, not with the way you organize and manage your inbox. It starts with how often you decide to write and send an email (actually, it all starts with how often you decide to read your email but that's a different story).

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With more exposure comes more visibility, more involvement, more open doors, more communication. Your common sense is awake at least as much as you are, an urge to jump in on all ridiculous stuff that's flowing through your inbox is irresistible. Your opinion matters. Your input is essential. Or so it feels. Oh, and everybody around you is an idiot. Ok. Rewind the last one.

Your opinion matters when you were asked to express it - it's a lot more likely to generate a meaningful action as somebody is tuned in listening.

Your input is essential when it brings in something valuable, something new, something undiscovered, something unique. It's even more essential when it brings fuel to the decision process. And it's even more essential when it connects people, makes two idle substances diffuse and react.

But what matters the most is your action, your contribution. Sending an email is not an action, it's a mere illusion of acting. So don't. Do not send it until it brings value. Do something instead and delete the email you just wrote unless you can prove to yourself it matters.

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Try the "two sentences" and learn with me to unlove the Send button, then move on to unlove the Reply All.

p.s. true jedis know how to unlove starting their mornings with reading emails from their iPhone. I am not a true jedi yet.

Learn to be great at what you do

Do you like what you do for a living? do you love it? Does it matter?

A middle aged guy at the counter in a grocery store carefully carries his broken hand immobilized in a plaster. I see him there almost every time I shop. He smiles, talks to me about something irrelevant, does a decent job bagging with one hand. I help him out. He notices a nice new dress on my baby daughter, lets her push all buttons on the credit card terminal. We all enjoy the experience... I don't know if he loves his job but I am sure he is enjoying it when he's at it.

A guy in his mid 20th is a sensei teaching karate class that my older son goes to. Today there are 8 younglings split into 4 pairs to master their front, round, and side kicks. They alternate. He changes the setup every 5 or so minutes, lets them jump, run, learn new combination, manages to give each kid the attention they deserve, wouldn't let a mistake go unnoticed. The room has glass windows and a door always open so that parents can watch and hear the class. Sensei explains every little thing he does, cracks jokes, looks up at parents every minute or so to engage them more. As a rule he would walk out at the end of each and every class to chat with the parents, say hello and tell how great their kids did in class for those who dropped the kids off and came to pick them up. All while next class is getting ready. Kids, parents, and he himself - everybody enjoys the experience... I don't know if he loves his job but I am sure he is enjoying it when he's at it.

A guy in his 30th is a software architect. Unlike the two guys above he makes a decent money, works flexible hours, enjoys fiber optic internet, can listen to his favorite music all day long. He is not happy, he is arrogant, he does not like his employer, every so often checks his profile on careers.stackoverflow.com, pushes back, plays devil advocate, dictate his rules, everybody around him knows he believes he deserves better. He thinks he loves his job.

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You love your job not when you pamper or indulge it. You truly love it when you enjoy being at it and when you and everybody who you work with have great experience about it. It’s the extent to which you do it and the sincerity with which you do it that makes the difference. Do you love your family or your significant other or do you love them?

You have got to truly love your job to one day become great at it, no matter what you do. And if you're stuck or don't like the setup you ended up in - you change it or move on once you made up your mind. But you never drop the ball in loving your job or you close the door to once become great at it.

Learn to be great at what you do by learning how to love it.

Don't wait

Today I took them off.

I got it to the point when I started liking them.

It feels weird and different and sad and yet great not to have them.

Braces. Today I took them off. It was time.

:)

Having your braces done when you're thirty must be different to experiencing it as a teenager. I am sure I would not have appreciated the end result as much.

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Reflecting on having them on and the whole story that led to putting them on made me think about two things: the value of commitment and the value of time.

Braces took the whole 2 years. It's 2 years of different eating habits, 2 years of brushing after every meal, 2 years of sore mouth, 2 years of seeing the doctor every 6 weeks, 2 years of smiling the metal to the world. And yet I've enjoyed having them on since day one...

4 years to decide I needed them had built strong enough commitment. After 4 years of thinking I had figured I'd better had them on for 2 years and be done with it than keep mentally struggling every time I wanted to smile. People who know me know that I smile a lot. It was hard to keep it up. I simply knew that if I had endured 4 years of deliberation I could endure another two of having them on. It worked out pretty good.

I wish I could generate same commitment without double wait time :) Though, it's not exactly a x2. It will soon be much less. Now, after I have them off, I will wear retainers. It's another year of some appliance in your mouth full time followed by a night wear ... forever. Or as long as I am concerned not to give my teeth even a little chance to go back where they were.

The thing is, once you build a foundation - you feel very connected, very afraid to lose it, very sorry to even think to have to start over. I have another one like this. I quit smoking 7 years ago, used to smoke a pack a day and stopped one day. Just like that. The only thing that kept me from smoking again was the fear to have to start quitting over. Literally. I still have that motivation with me.

The question is, why it is so hard to commit to do other things? Spend an hour a day studying or reading or writing or painting or exercising and just keep doing it for 2 years? I bet the foundation built would not be less sorry to lose than that of a better looking smile or not smoking.

I will tell you in 2 years.

Time flies by. 5 or so years ago, when my son was 2, I mentioned to my mom about how I noticed the time went faster. I said something about the time passing by in weeks, not days as it used to. And she said: wait, it will soon be years. I did not give it much thoughts until recently when I felt it's definitely months. It was the braces check up appointments that made me realize. The constant schedule of having one each 6 weeks soon became a routine, a metronome of life.

2 years will pass fast. I am not going to lose it waiting. And neither should you.

Change

It's this time of the year again when people commit to their New Year resolutions and some teach others how to stick to it. Is there something great in Mondays to put starting a new life off to it? You tell me, but the idea of an extra opportunity to change is thrilling. If nothing else - start of a new year is.

Reflections on the last year and the last decade are all over the place. How could one resist a so prominent feeling of a better, unknown, everything-is-possible, I-could-be-the-one, I-will-change tomorrow? It's oozing from everywhere, it fills you up and boom!! the next thing you know you dream about change.

I. want. things. changed.

Is that right?

I. want. to. change. things.

better...

I. am. changing. things. starting. tomorrow now.

Great. Wish me luck.