Time

10-10:30 (30 mins.): Antayan at kamustahan

10:30-11:00 (30 mins.): Check-in question - “What has been your greatest struggle in terms of information knowledgement?” (8 mins. each)

11:00-11:20 (20 mins.): Short presentation on life management system

11:20-12:00 (40 mins.): Sharing of reflections, insights, questions, problems, and supportive tips

Outline

[S2]

Humans act.

A refutation of this statement is itself an action.

[S3]

Life is just made up of many individual actions.

[S4]

But what is action?

[S5]

Action is behaviour with intention that intervenes in your status quo and results in an end state that may or may not approximate the original intention.

Action has several parts:

1. Intention
2. Means
3. End state
4. Review

[S6]

If the end state “approximates” the intention, then we can say that the action “succeeded”. Actions that succeed tend to get repeated. Actions that get repeated become habits.

[S7]

Do you need to succeed for it to be called an action?

Intention is what separates action from non-action.

An end state does not have to satisfy an intention for an action to occur. The most important part of an action is the intention. Without intention, the behaviour is not purposeful. As long as you have a conscious intention, then you acted, whether you succeeded or not. If you fail, you review what happened and learn from it.

This process is automatic. It is simply a description of what the brain does.

[S8]

An example of an action is “throwing a dart.”

• Your intention is to hit the bull’s eye.
• Your means to satisfy that intention is to throw the dart.
• The end state is whatever happens after you throw the dart.
• The review is when you realize you didn’t hit the bull’s eye.

[S9]

All actions rely on knowledge.

[S10]

When you set an intention, you use knowledge about what you want, which could be influenced by past knowledge about many other things.

When you choose a means to achieve an intention, you use knowledge about the options you have, which comes from research of past experiences.

When you review whether or not an end state approximates an intention, you use knowledge from the experience you just had of using the means to satisfy an intention.

[S11]

Individual actions use fewer knowledge.

When you throw a dart, you know that your intention is to hit the bull's eye and your means to satisfy that intention is to throw the dart towards the direction of the target because that is what you know about how people play the game. Based from that knowledge, you also know that you failed if you didn’t hit the bull’s eye.

It’s easier to remember knowledge you need to do individual actions.

[S12]

But things only get complicated because of this:

Human beings tend to set intentions that require multiple actions to satisfy.

[S13]

A set of actions is called a project.

[S14] A project has one overarching intention, which requires multiple actions under it. Each of these actions have their individual intentions.

[S15]

For example, a project could have the following intention: “I want to get married on 2022.” This project could have smaller intentions under it like “I want to find the best gown” or “I want to raise Php 100,000 for the wedding,” all of which are also projects by themselves.

[S16]

A life is a big project with smaller projects within it.

If you have a single life purpose, then that is your life’s intention.

To satisfy that life purpose, you will have to do multiple projects, all of which have individual intentions. Each of these projects could require massive amounts of information.

[S17]

Projects require more complex information than individual actions.

When setting a project’s intention, you might need to do more research or more reflection.

When you are choosing the best means—or the different means—that would satisfy a project’s intention, you will need lots of information.

A large project loop only closes when you are able to compare its end state with its intention. For such reviews to even be possible, you need knowledge about your intention, the means you took, and the end state. All these information can be overwhelming.

Multiple action loops require lots of knowledge, which your brain cannot always remember and track by itself.

[S18]

To manage projects effectively, you need to externalize some of the information associated with them to a system outside your brain.

This is where you need an external system outside your mind and brain—a personal knowledge management system.

Since your life is also a project by itself, which contains many more projects, you will need a personal knowledge management system not just for a single project but for your entire life.

[S19]

A personal knowledge management system is also a life management system.

When you manage your knowledge and the information that comes into your life, you are essentially managing your life.

You can only truly control the contents of your mind, not things outside of it.

You cannot manage a task. You can only do a task. What you can manage is the information about the task. For example, the to-do item, “Throw the garbage” is not the task itself. It is simply a statement—an information—about the task. This information is what you externalize (i.e., write down or record somewhere) so that you can remember it later when you are ready to do the task.

[S20]

To manage your life, manage the information that comes in and out of your life.

So the million-dollar question is: “How do we establish a life management system?

[S21]

Every human being has a life management system.

But each individual can make their life management system more efficient.

[S22]

What makes an efficint life management system?

A life management system should:

1. Help you take purposeful actions.
2. Help you be present while performing your actions.
3. Help you be at peace with your choice of actions.

[S23]

This state is called by David Allen as a “mind like water”.

“Mind like water”

“In karate there is an image that’s used to define the position of perfect readiness: “mind like water.” Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact.”

“Clearing the mind to being open and appropriately responsive is the key.

“Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does. Responding inappropriately to your e-mail, your thoughts about what you need to do, your children, or your boss will lead to less effective results than you’d like. Most people give either more or less attention to things than they deserve, simply because they don’t operate with a mind like water.”

You should be able to manage your personal knowledge to the point where you don’t get distracted by it and you do what you do best—create, have fun, and enjoy life.

[S24]

How do we build a life management system that allows us to have a “mind like water”?

Build a life management system that follows and extends the natural processes of the brain.

[S25]

How does the brain engage with information naturally?

1. Information always has a source. The source can be external or internal.
2. Our conscious mind becomes aware of the information and collects it in our memory.
3. Whenever we are ready, we retrieve that information and clarify what it is.
4. After making sense of the information, we organize it between actionable and non-actionable and put it back to our memory.
5. When we need the information, our conscious mind retrieves it back from our memory. Usually, it is the actionable information that is easier to remember. The non-actionable information is left in the memory, where it is slowly lost.
6. We then use the actionable information to perform our actions. We engage with it.
7. After we perform our actions, we review them along with the information we used.

This process can happen almost instantaneously when we come across a piece of information, or it could happen in a prolonged period of time.

[S26]

A life management system targets the weakest link in the brain’s natural process: memory

How does a life management system target memory?

It does not necessarily enhance memory. It is where we outsource it so we use less of it. When we use less memory, we can use most of our mental energy to the things we are good at: insight generation, creativity, being in the moment, and enjoying life.

[S27]

How do we setup a life management system?

An effective life management system has three parts

1. Some understanding of your interests and priorities.
   • Use your priorities to filter information flowing into your life and organize it.
   • Use the Richard Feynman question: “What are your 12 favorite problems?”
2. A set of workflows and mental processes composed of habits.
   • Your workflows are the backbone of your life management system.
   • They are the linchpin. They are perhaps the most difficult thing to nail, but they are the most important.
3. A set of tools appropriate to your unique situation
   • a life management system is not all about the tools. Tools are just 1/3 of the equation.

[S29]

How does information flow into a life management system?

1. Information always has a source (external or internal).
2. We become aware of information through our conscious mind.
3. We intentionally choose what to put into our inbox. Here we use a filter (like the 12 problems framework) so that we don’t overwhelm the inbox with unnecessary information.
4. We schedule a regular workflow to process the contents of the inbox by clarifying each item.
5. For each item, we ask, “Is it actionable or not?”
6. If it is actionable, we put it into a separate subsystem of actionable items, which has its own tools and workflows, which all help you identify, remember, and do the actions you need to take.
7. If it is non-actionable, you put it into a separate subsystem of non-actionable items, where you either trash it, incubate it, or put it in a reference management system like zettelkasten, which also has its own workflow.
8. Whatever information is stored in your actionable and non-actionable subsystems, you retrieve whenever you need them. Because they are well-organized, it is easier to retrieve the information you need when you need it.
9. Once retrieved, you engage with the information to achieve the intentions you set for yourself.
10. Lastly, you conduct different kinds of reviews in different intervals to check whether your life management system is still working for you and whether the information you stored there is helping you achieve your intentions and a mind like water.

This is just a brief overview of what a life management system does. There are more specific details to the story and a discussion on best practices vis a vis bad practices is necessary.