Author: admin

I, like many others, want my life and labor to have a positive impact on the world; and to feel fulfilled by and satisfied with the way I spend my time.  Time is a limited resource for all and for many of us, with the resources to read and write a blog like this, it is the resource that most constrains the positive impact we can make with our labor.  Everything we do takes time, and as such, the choices we make about how we spend our time will both enable and constrain the positive impact we have on our committees and the biosphere as a whole.  

My desire to have a positive impact and feel fulfilled led me to step into the circle at a personal growth workshop, and doing so opened my eyes, again, to the need to narrow the focus of my actions so that my work will have a meaningful impact and I will feel fulfilled.  I shared openly in the circle about the dilemma I face.  I am both interested in and capable of making a meaningful difference in many different areas, yet if I take on work in too many different areas simultaneously I will likely not have a significant impact on any and feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled. 

After sharing and doing some public exploration of this topic, several other participants came up to me letting me know that they too felt challenged by this issue.  They appreciated that I had brought the topic forward.  Understanding that I am not alone in this challenge it seemed appropriate that I share some of my learning and current thinking in this blog, a more public and less ephemeral forum. 

I came into this public exploration with an affirmation or “contract,” stating what I desired to be the truth of my future life and used this as the jumping off point.  I shared:  “I align my actions with my priorities and values, staying present, acting mindfully and engaging fully in collaboration with others.”  and after some public exploration, facilitated by the workshop leader, I arrived at a slightly shifted statement which will serve me as I chart my course forward. 

The key change was a shift from aligning my actions with my priorities and values…., to focusing my actions  …...  This change calls me to narrow the scope of my actions making it more possible to invest more time and mental energy in each.  With a limited scope of action I can have both an understanding of the territory and sufficient awareness of the particular situation to support true engagement.   My experience has been that when my time and mental focus is split among too many things, most of them receive insufficient focus to achieve engagement or to complete meaningful actions.  In such circumstances I have experienced dissatisfaction and frustration, while feeling distant from the projects in such a way that I lost interest, and I have not felt fulfilled. 

It is my intention to focus my actions on few enough things that I will be spending sufficient time on each that they will remain in my awareness and thus allow me to support the making of meaningful progress on each of the projects or areas that I take on, to do or support.

Breaking this down affirmation or “contract”: 

“I focus my actions on my priorities in alignment with my values, staying present, acting mindfully and engaging fully in collaboration with others.”

• “I” I am responsible for what I do.
• “focus”  I focus, making sharp and clear what I am doing helping me to not take on more than I can deliver in an effective and personally fulfilling way.
• “my actions on my priorities in alignment with my values” — I am in action
• “focus my actions on my priorities …. ”  I have priorities which help to guide the selection of actions I take.
• “in alignment with my values” I have core values and the actions I take will be in alignment with these values.
• “staying present” means that I attend to the reality in each situation (which is supported by my meditation practice)
• “acting mindfully” which suggests intentionality, consciousness and awareness about the actions I take including potential unintended consequences.
• “engaging fully” in what I am doing which allows me to be most effective and at times to enter a flow state leading to great work, and the personal intrinsic satisfaction that comes with being in a state of flow. 
• “collaborating with others” suggests both that I am doing things with others as well as that I am in collaboration, actively participating in creative and less creative work that is done. 

I look forward to developing and implementing a plan to make this “contract” or affirmation a reality:  

“I focus my actions on my priorities in alignment with my values, staying present, acting mindfully and engaging fully in collaboration with others.”

Paralyzed

Surprised and imbalanced

Unexpected occurrences
upending my understanding

A new reality

I am called to attend

Attend to reality

In reality I find balance

Balanced I proceed

Mindfully
……… in action.

How much time do we spend on our stuff or because of our stuff, and how does decluttering fit into this picture?

I hate to throw stuff out.  I have a prolific and creative mind for imagining how I might someday have a use for almost any item.  Getting things for free or at a great price has been attractive to me.  I have strong sentimental attachments to items linked to people or experiences, and feel that letting them go would be disrespectful and eliminate cues that help me recall the memories. I appreciate having the perfect tool for a task.   I am an expert at finding ways to store lots of stuff in a small space in a way that things can be found and accessed.  

And, I have reached a point where the space in our modest home has become a constraint on bringing in more stuff.  Along with this constraint I am experiencing a shift in my outlook on life, in particular I am questioning myself:  On what do I choose to spend my limited time?  I now recognize more deeply the reality of having a limited number of years, weeks and hours left to enjoy and to spend on important things in my life.   

In this context I recently committed to a “decluttering” project.  I am spending not less than 3 hours every week reducing the clutter in the physical and digital spaces of my life.   Doing this effort I am becoming more and more conscious of the ways that I have over the years brought stuff into my world and how much time the stuff has and continues to cost me.  I would like to spend less of my time focused on my stuff, yet I have had habits contrary to this desire.  

To get a better understanding of this picture in a time efficient way I asked Google: “How many discretionary hours do we have to spend in our adult lives? and how much of this is related to the “stuff” in our lives, including obtaining stuff, arranging stuff, and deciding what to do with stuff and getting rid of stuff?”  The bottom line of the AI assisted reply I received is that 10-20% of our discretionary time goes to managing “stuff”, including: acquiring, organizing, and decluttering.

Examining these from my own situation and I have identified a few ways that I could reduce the amount of time I spend on stuff.  

1. Consider whether I really need or want something before deciding to get it.
2. Reduce the time spent choosing stuff.
3. Consider time spent returning stuff as time spent on stuff.
4. Reduce the number of places an item may be stored.
5. Always hold the possibility of getting rid of stuff.
6. Use a system for getting rid of stuff that minimizes decision time.
7. Use methods of getting rid of stuff that consider time required. 

I am happy to discuss any of this and to learn from others.

One year after the October 7th Hamas invasion, as measured by the Jewish calendar (22 Tishrei), I found myself in a deep heartfelt political conversation with a Palestinian man from Gaza.   I was out canvassing for Kamala Harris and as I walked away from the last door on my list, having left a piece of campaign literature, the door opened.  I returned down the walk to the door where I was greeted by a man close to my age.  We introduced ourselves and he came out of his home and motioned me to join him at some chairs in his front yard.  We sat down.

He told me that he was from Gaza, and was dismayed that the US was supplying bombs to Israel that are being used to destroy Gaza.  He grew up in Rafah in Gaza.  As a young man he traveled to Israel to work, and during those years worked in many places in Israel.  Eventually he had sufficient success in business that he was able to build a 5 story home in another location in Gaza.  When I met him he owned a home and did business in Philadelphia and was very clear about paying a considerable amount in taxes.  

Israel’s bombing Gaza has destroyed his 5 story home and killed members of his extended family.  There is no property insurance in Gaza.  Lives lost are lost forever.  

I heard from him his perspective that voting for the party in power that has sent the bombs to Israel that destroyed his home is not an action he wants to take.  I thought he was suggesting he would therefore vote for Trump, but as our conversation continued it was clear that he understood that a Trump government would not make decisions better for the Palestinians’ future.  He totally understood this and yet voting for Kamala Harris, part of the Biden government who sent bombs to Israel, may not be something he can do.

In our conversation I shared with him some of my history as a Zionist and living in Israel not far from Gaza, and that I grew up with others as “peaceniks” who truly wanted to live side by side in peace and equality with the Palestinians.  He and I then spoke in Hebrew for a while.  We agreed with each other that there could be space for both Palestinians and Israelis on the land.  We agreed that we would like to see a path followed that would lead to living in peace, our peoples together.   We both wanted the war to stop and for Israelis and the Palestinians to live in peace.  Neither of us were able to articulate how we get onto a path toward peace.

The US election is only a few days away.  The government in the US has power to influence but not to control what happens in Israel.  Many voters in the US are dissatisfied with what the US government has done in its support of Israel, and may because of this choose not to vote for the incumbent Democratic party candidate.  Voting from their heart.  I understand how people may make such a choice. ….. Yet. …..  Might we not end up with a better future by looking at the whole big picture and assessing which result from an election will likely lead to a path in the US and the entire world overall including Israel, that is closer to what we prefer, and voting to advance that path? 

I know I have too much stuff.  I have avoided getting rid of things while priding myself on being able to design and make marvelously efficient storage systems allowing us to store everything that came through the door in our modest home.  I’ve always preferred creative problem solving over making difficult decisions and as such resisted decluttering.  Why make difficult decisions that can be avoided with a new shelf or cabinet?

But…… I knew I needed to change my ways when I brought car loads of stuff into the house after my father passed away.  There was no more space to build more storage space to put the new things into the space along with the old.   Decluttering was finally needed.  

As an engineer and an ergonomist I appreciate and seek to understand systems and how we humans can play our most effective role and limit the errors we might make.  Decluttering includes multiple stages or system elements each with their own challenges and roadblocks that can and often do derail a decluttering project.

I have developed a tool to support the decision process of keeping or letting go of (Release) of a particular item.  As I continue my decluttering process, expect to revise this tool and I may find a need to develop additional tools. (Ideas and input are welcome.)

Below is an outline of high-level aspects of the decluttering process. The tool that I’ve developed applies to element 1a. and is described more below.

Elements:

1. Sort into “Keep” or “Release” (or toss)
   1. (a.) The keep or release decision has garnered a lot of attention in popular culture. Most notably Marie condos decision rule. Keep it if it Sparks Joy.  And this decision is often challenging, especially for those of us who have found ourselves to be prone to accumulating clutter. (See attached tool which I’ve developed to support this decision process.)
2. Disposition
   1. (2.a.) Keep: Display/Active Use or Store
      1. (2.a.1) Dispositioning into display or active use can involve decision making often in collaboration with others.
      2. (2.a.2) Storing requires an understanding of and often Improvement of available storage resources and may involve collaboration with others
   2. (2.b) Release: Trash/Recycle or Pass on
      1. (2.b.1) Get item into the appropriate stream of trash or recycling according to its properties, local resources including time available.
      2. (2.b.2Determine how to best pass on through what business or personal connection and set up the necessary logistics to accomplish

The Decluttering Keep/Release tool has 14 questions followed by a button line Keep / Release choice.  Each of the questions can be answered YES/NO/PARTIAL (or NA) The questions can be answered relatively easily and are mostly subjective.  In the prototype I have put the paper checklist in a steel pizza pan and used magnets to mark the answers.  

After answering as many of the 14 questions as you can or choose to answer, looking at the page and the sheet with all the magnet markers provides an easy way to see all the answers in one glance.  This is helpful and reduces the salience or subjective weight of the first and final questions that without the visual summary might have a greater subjective weight. 

What I present here is version one (v1) of a Decluttering decision making support tool to assist in the all important [KEEP] vs. [GET RID OF] decision.  Attached is a picture of it in use along with a link to a PDF of this version 1 document.   As I (or we) use this tool I expect there will be reasons to improve it V2 soon. 

This is my first “Decluttering” post in what I expect to be a series of posts in which I will explore aspects of my decluttering journey that I judge may be interesting or possibly helpful to others on a similar journey.   If you have thoughts on the matter and/or would like to enter into discussion, please do.  (I am new to the blogging thing and will figure out hoe to work with the comments/discussion.) 

DanGottesman@ergovation.com

Eight weeks ago was my father’s last day of life, and my last day having a parent I could see, touch and who could hear my words.  I have continued onward with my life, which included attending the funeral of another wonderful man I knew.  Without asking I have been given a repeat lesson and reminder of the ephemeral lives we live. 

Yesterday, while taking care of some end-of-life admin tasks such as canceling auto-renewing memberships, I found my way into my dad’s email and Facebook page.  Now, after his death I am seeing more of him than I knew while he was alive.  I was impressed and moved seeing the content he posted, most of which I missed when he shared it, as I rarely took the time to look in on what my dad was sharing online.  I missed a lot.  Friends and family had told me on multiple occasions that they appreciated my dad’s Facebook contributions.   Now that he is gone this at least is one aspect of him I can still see.  (Is it really necessary, for security reasons, to delete his Facebook or can we keep it visible as a memorial?  “….  you don’t know what you’ve got Till it’s gone.”*

I sent a few messages from my dad’s email to myself, resulting in me receiving new messages from my father in my inbox with his google profile picture, there for me to see.  Odd.  I’m glad to see his name and image in my email again, postponing the time that I will never see it again.  Yet, seeing his name in the “from:” column reminds me that although the 67 years of receiving directly from him have come to an end, what I have received from him lives within me, continuing his gifts to me.

10/10/2024

Using time wisely has long been a major concern of mine.  I’m sure I am not unique.  Time is for many of us our most limited resource, blessed as some of us are with sufficient resources to live our lives well. Time is a fixed resource for all.

One thing I have made time for in my life in recent years is participating in the accountability group “Whatever It Takes”.  Doing so has helped me in doing what I say that I want to do, and much of this is related to making conscious choices about what I do with my limited time.  

As part of my participation I adopted an affirmation that I speak at least once a day.  I chose as my affirmation: “….. I use my time wisely”, hoping that by repeating this affirmation daily, I will indeed use my time wisely.  This has proved true. 

As I speak out loud or imagine my affirmation: “I use my time wisely”, I refocus my energy and my awareness of what I am doing and what choices I have the opportunity to make that could allow me to align my life with my core value of using my time wisely.  

Some aspects of using time wisely are quite clear such as limiting or eliminating scrolling through Facebook or other social media, as sent to me by an algorithm.  And, I still do these things, for short durations.  If I continue scrolling, my affirmation at some point drifts into my awareness and I stop.  I realign what I am doing with what I see as important and “wise” to be doing.  

I am not a big fan of frequent check-ins with a to-do list, nor with abdicating my personal choice to a prioritized list. Though, I admit to spending considerable time most weeks immersed in my Todoist to-do list, even as this time often feels like an unwise use of my time.  I am fully aware that choices that I make may never be perfect.  

I am an improviser, or one with a strong bias toward improvisation.  Holding the mantra of “using my time wisely” puts a driver deep in my awareness that influences my improvisational impulse to at least be somewhat aware of the choices I am making of what to do.  This goes a bit contrary to my improviser self, yet, I am finding a balance between following my momentum and improvisational impulse with deliberately choosing what to do.  This is now part of the way I dance through my days, and I like it. 

My clear impression or judgment is that since I have been using the affirmation: “…. I use my time wisely”, is that the choices I am making of how to use my time have become “better”.   What I choose to do and what I choose to let go of, or postpone, are more aligned with my core values and priorities, than they have been in the past when I was not holding this simple phrase in my awareness.  “I use my time wisely.”

Guerrilla Usability: The act of providing usability advice without being asked and without compensation, especially when done to advance a worthy cause.   (Allied with Guerrilla Ergonomics)  

The term Guerrilla Usability was inspired by “Guerrilla Marketing” which has as a core element acting in ways that surprise and are unexpected.  People don’t expect others to offer and volunteer their help. By doing so we may get the attention needed to open eyes and minds to possibilities for change.

Targets of Guerrilla Usability tend to be aligned with one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as addressing climate change and providing clean water to those without.  Usability professionals with values contrary to the SDGs could also engage in Guerrilla Usability, in support of their contrary values, however it is unusual to find usability professionals with such contrary life values, who also would choose to give away their professional service.

Guerrilla Usability activists tend to have a grounding in Usability, Ergonomics or Human Factors (HFE) and believe that making a positive impact on the world is more important than making a profit.  They are motivated by a desire to support the target of their focus to become more successful.   We, Guerrilla Usability practitioners, focus on operations that have an important mission that could be advanced more effectively by addressing the usability of their platform. 

My journey along the Guerrilla Usability path began while I had a full time job, and during my non-work time I would encounter websites or apps that were purpose driven and had gross usability short-comings.  Then and now, as I use websites or apps, I sometimes recognize aspects of an interface or gaps in functionality that my Human Factors and Ergonomics professional usability perspective finds lacking.   The UI (user interface) may be deceptive or ambiguous, thus hard to figure out or frustrating to use.  

When I notice opportunities for improvement, I make notes documenting my experience and types of changes that may be helpful and grab a few screenshots.  I send a note to the team or creator of the platform sharing my observations, concerns and sometimes suggestions, offering to continue the exploration is a discussion.  

On some occasions they have reached out to me interested to learn more.  I have had email and text exchanges, phone calls and zoom meetings.  It’s fun!  These interactions are stimulating, and leave me with a feeling that I am contributing in a useful way to something valuable.  

There are cases when a practitioner may engage in Guerrilla Usability to achieve a personal desire, such as to improve the functionality of an app that they use or would like to use, but without alignment with an SDG, or other life positive value.  This type of application is a non-primary meaning of Guerrilla Usability. 

When doing Guerrilla Usability, I target platforms that I see as positive, and important for the world.  My targets are applications that serve the needs of people, life and the planet, rather than being primarily a method to line the pockets of investors.  The world today needs all the positive energy engagement that we can provide.

I encourage others to join me and engage in Guerrilla Usability.   Hashtag: #GuerrillaUsability

Is sharing what we know with others, and putting our effort into meaningful, good work important or desirable? ….. Yes!

Three years ago I left my corporate ergonomics job.  Officially, I was retiring. I knew that there was more work for me to do, yet, I did not know exactly what that work would be, or where I would do it. I knew I wanted to make a difference in areas that mattered.

Over the ensuing 3 years I stepped up into volunteer positions supporting Sustainability and Climate action.  I have made a contribution but don’t feel that my engagement level comes close to either my desire to be in action or has taken advantage of abilities.

Last Saturday I attended a wonderful community gathering.  There, I found myself in a discussion with the wife of a friend, a woman I had not met before.  She shared that she was considering retiring,  partially because the part of her work which required her to use a computer was impacting both her body and state of mind in negative ways.  My ears perked up as I recognized that the negative impacts on her from her work was likely related to ergonomics issues that I might be able to help her address.  I realized I could make a difference for her and thereby allow her to make a choice about her future work without being affected by negative impacts of her current work. 

I questioned her further about what it was that she felt were negative aspects of her current work and also shared with her that my profession was ergonomics and I might be able to help her.  In our brief conversation, I was able to share with her a few simple, easy to implement actions and strategies that would make a meaningful positive difference for her in her work. It felt great to again bring forward my ergonomics understanding in a focused conversation with another person helping them to both feel better and be able to contribute more with their work. 

This conversation has reminded me that I have the ability to contribute in ways that make a difference and that some of those ways are the result of my decades-long ergonomics career.  Additionally, I  am reminded how good it can feel to share, to be understood, be appreciated, and to make a meaningful and long lasting difference for others in the work that they are doing.  This was always part of my joy in practicing ergonomics.

Now that I have been reminded of my ability to contribute, as an ergonomist, and the satisfaction I get doing so, I feel a renewed desire to find a way to make my contributions in a meaningful way on a regular and ongoing basis.  My challenge is to develop and implement a strategy which will result in me contributing my ergonomics knowledge in ways that allow me to connect with others and make a difference in their lives and the work they do, while simultaneously contributing to what matters on a macro level in the world, sustainability and climate action. Challenge accepted.

Dan Gottesman, CPE
267-280-3505
DanGottesman@ergovation.com

If I speak they might hear me …
If I move they might see me …
……. in the forest …
Hikers, runners and walkers pass by …
……. their words easily understood. …
I sit, quiet and still, undiscovered …
……. only a few feet off the trail …
tracing a path with my stylus on the screen of my phone, …
……. barely moving, …
unseen and unheard, …
……. I create …
imagining others will see and hear me …
……. someday.