For a fleeting moment I was a member of an exclusive club that I’ve long aspired to be a member of.
It wasn’t social club.
It wasn’t a country club or beach club.
It was the Zero Inbox Club. The moment I responded to that last unread email, I felt like Charlie when he finds Willy Wonka’s golden ticket.
I’ve gotten close before – down to one or two. But there I was at zero. And I felt pretty darn good about myself.
How did I do? I flew on a Sunday afternoon for work and then waited in the lobby for two hours before my room was ready. There’s only so much doom scrolling you can do, so I powered through a couple of dozen emails that had been the harder ones to respond to.
And the I went to dinner and felt pretty great for the night. In fact, I felt great until the morning – when new emails that required thoughtful responses were right back in my inbox.
That unread number is back up now. I came home to more important things – most importantly, my wife, daughters and three dogs. (They all missed me but none with the unabashed joy of my daughter’s miniature Schnauzer.)
The moment of Zero Inbox Clarity was gone but its memory got me thinking of something an early advisor to The Company of Dads stressed but which I haven’t always been good at implementing.
He stressed conceiving of our time as a mason jar and then dividing tasks into rocks, pebbles and sand. How we put those tasks into the jar would determine how much we could get done in a day, week or month.
Fill it up with sand and pebbles first, and there may not be room for the rock.
Put the rock in first, layer the pebbles on top of it, and let the sand fill in around everything else, and you’re going to accomplish a lot.
For me, this system also determines how happy and fulfilled I feel.
Tasks like emails are your sand – so too is organizing your home.
Your job is the pebbles; your hobbies, too.
But as a Lead Dad or Working Mom, your family is the rock, the big object that needs to go into the jar first. Another rock for me is a big project that I’ll unveil in the new year. That’s where my mental energy needs to be the most focused.
So why did I fret so long over the emails? Why did I focus so much on the sand over the pebbles? Human nature. Dopamine. That number within the red icon. Some compulsion to be responsive. All of the above.
Going away for a few days can offer moments of clarity. This was that kind of trip – a mix of work, some fun, and more sleep than usual.
But now my challenge to myself is to retain that focus on the two rocks – and to be okay when the sand isn’t in the jar.
How do you organize the tasks you have to do, the tasks that burden you and the tasks that inspire you at home and at work? Let me know.
