It’s The Ultimate Rush…

thelastminute

Imagine being inside a churning, curling, blue-green, foam-speckled wall of water, racing toward the beach on your fiberglass-and-foam board at almost 40 feet per second, hearing the roar of the collapsing wave behind you as you rocket towards the sunlight at the end of the wave.

Shoot, you don’t have to imagine it — you live it every day.

I’m not saying you’re Laird Hamilton’s surfing buddy or anything; your waves are made of electrons, not water. The churning wave you ride isn’t the one found off the shores of the world’s beaches… it’s the same one coming at each and every one of us through miles of digital cable, over satellite connections, and at WiFi hotspots at the local cafe.

Managing the flow of information in your life used to be easy. You sorted your mail by bills, magazines, and personal letters. If you missed a phone call, you didn’t even know about it, because answering machines hadn’t yet been invented (yes, I do remember those days…).

Those days are gone.

Email alone can drown an unsuspecting neophyte. Add to that RSS feeds, online video, mobile devices that make it possible for you to be inundated in bits and bytes 24/7, coupled with nearly unlimited storage space (which, ironically, only compounds the problem) and you can see how fast this picture can get really, really ugly.

Is it any wonder there are websites—nay, entire online communities—dedicated to helping each other manage it all? Time management gurus abound, organizational aids sell like life preservers on the Titanic to throngs of overwhelmed professionals, and everyone clamors to squeeze as much productive action into every waking moment as possible.

But here’s the thing no one’s telling you: it’s not about managing your time. Really. It’s not even about controlling the bits. Or negotiating the channels of information that stream your way every day. In truth, all those get handled when you focus on what’s most important: your thoughts.

Thought Management

Take it back to the surfer for a moment: a surfer doesn’t want to be thinking about their board, or their shorts, or their hair, when they’re in the middle of that wave. They want to be in the zone, flowing, responding naturally. Because when they do, they’re not only surfing their best, but they’re enjoying it the most.

Perhaps that’s why surfing has one of the most passionate "users" of any sport… complete and total absorption in the moment. It’s about as zen as you can get without shaving your head.

Surfers can’t wait to get back out in the water, and back into the waves (imagine if you felt that way about your work). Why? Because being in the middle of a wave is so all-encompassing, so completely absorbing, there’s no choice but to be in the moment. And when you’re in the moment, you’re flowing. You’re in the Now. It’s the ultimate merging of thought and action. It’s the thought-space of perfect harmony.

That’s where you want to be. This series is designed to help you get there.

1. Thought Management, and Simplifying Your Information Intake
2. Organizing Your Folder Structure
3. A Question of Structure: How Much Works For You?

Sony Pictures Animation/Columbia Pictures