One of the best parts about blogging is meeting people I would never meet in real life. Often, this means psychopaths, who use the C word in my comments section. But the best times, the people I meet are like Tony Morgan. He is a pastor and chief strategy officer at NewSpring Church, based in North Carolina.
This is not the kind of guy I usually seek out. But I clicked to his blog, and when I realized that he mixes careers and church like I mix careers and sex, I was hooked.
My conversations with Tony are always about what matters; he approaches this topic from a church perspective, but honestly, careers would not keep me interested if I didn't talk about it from that what-is-the-meaning-of-life perspective.
Tony combines his religion and his work in a social-media, grassroots, new millennium way. I think that on some level, we'd all like to do what he does: take something with deep meaning to us and add a layer of hipster, what's-new-and-cool exploration.
In Tony's new book, Killing Cockroaches, he tells the story of when he was a city manager, and he was in the middle of running a meeting, an he heard a woman down the hall scream about a cockroach. So he got up from the meeting and killed the cockroach. He talks about the dichotomy between wanting to make big-picture impact on the world and being drawn to the smaller, but louder, more immediate issues in front of us.
Really, all time management discussion is about this: How to know when to kill cockroaches and when not to. It's about why we spend time doing small, stupid stuff that crawling around in front of us instead of the stuff that makes life meaningful. Here is my discussion with Tony about the issue (which is also published in the book):
Tony: Tell me about an instance when you found yourself "killing cockroaches".
Me: I kill cockroaches every day because it's easier than doing the hard stuff on my to do list. I get up in the morning, and my to-do list is organized with the most important stuff written on top and the other non-threatening stuff on the bottom, and I so frequently spend my time on the bottom, on the stuff that is small and squishable with just one stomp.
Tony: What are some of the strategies you've implemented to avoid it?
Me: I try to checking with myself emotionally. if I'm not doing the hard stuff, I ask myself why. Sometimes I'm feeling anxious or I'm premenstrual or I just yelled at my kids and I think I've ruined their lives (for the millionth time) and I need to just let myself wander up and down my to-do list doing easy stuff. I need a break. But sometimes I look at what I'm doing and I say, "I have more strength right now. Don't squander it." And I go to the top of the list and do the hardest thing.
Sometimes I need a warm up. Like right now. answering these questions is not the toughest thing I have to do today, but it's harder than, say, answering the emails whee people tell me they loved my last post and I'm great. So I picked this task because I knew I'd feel accomplished at the end because it's challenging but it's not so challenging that I couldn't face it. It is my bridge to the hard stuff today.
Tony: What have you learned form some of these experiences?
Me: If I spend too much time on the stuff that doesn't matter, I feel like I did nothing. Killing one cockroach is okay because maybe you are helping someone else (after all, the woman in your office that day was screaming.) And sometimes you are helping yourself. (We each having times when we are silently screaming.) But killing cockroaches all day feels dirty. (Yes, I know cockroaches are the cleanest insects around.) We feel dirty because it is actually squandering our passion and energy to spend a day doing nothing to promote our vision for what our work is about. The big picture, though, stuff that we keep an eye on is what makes us feel good about our work, I think.
Tony: How do you help your team avoid "killing cockroaches".
Me: I hire great people so that they think as hard about this stuff as I do. It's nearly impossible to really know what we are supposed to be doing with our days to make life matter. But I love being around people who are asking themselves this question every day.
A team of people like this means that everyone is trying to do some of the hard stuff everyday — without me telling them to. So then my job is to show people how I'm trying to do it every day. I get inspired by this set of questions right here. We can inspire each other with an honest struggle to have meaningful days. But only if we surround ourselves with people who are engaged in asking good questions. So thanks for asking good questions, Tony.
译文:
怎样决定下一步该做什么
博客的最大好处就是可以结交很多朋友，而这些朋友我们在现实生活中并不会见面。当然也就意味着有些精神病患者在我的读者评论栏里使用C语言。 但最幸运的是我遇上了Tony Morgan 这个人。他在北卡罗来纳州，是一名牧师，也是一名NewSpring Church的首席策略官。
他不是我通常找的那种人。可是当我点击进入他的博客时发现他像我混淆事业与性别一样，他混淆事业与宗教，这让我对他立刻产生了兴趣。
我和托尼的谈话总是围绕一些问题； 他会从宗教的角度去分析处理这些问题，但说实话，如果不从人生的意义是什么这个角度出发，我对我的事业根本提不起兴趣。
托尼将他的宗教信仰与工作以一种社会化媒体，草根媒体和新世纪的方式结合在一起。 在某种程度上，我们会想做一些他做过的事情：做一些有意义的事情和成为一个赶时髦的人，这是一项新鲜而又酷毙了的探索。
在托尼的新书Killing Cockroaches中，他叙述了一个故事：当他还是市职行长的时候，在一次开会过程中他听见楼下大厅里传来女人的尖叫，尖叫对象是一只蟑螂。于是他离开会议室下去踩死了那只蟑螂。他叙述了关于想要做出对世界的巨大影响和摆在我们面前的使我们被迫变得更渺小，但是更高调，更有效的议题的两者之间的二分法，
真的，全时工作的管理讨论就是这样的：怎样知道什么时候要踩死一只蟑螂而什么时候不要这么做。这关于为什么我们宁愿花时间去做那些包围在我们周围的渺小愚蠢的事情，而不是那些让生活有意义的事情。以下便是我和托尼关于这个议题的讨论（书中也有记载）：
托尼：给我举出一个例子，你什么时候发现自己正在“踩死蟑螂”。
我 :我每天都踩死蟑螂，因为这件事比我执行表上列的要做的事情简单多了。早晨起床后我发现执行表上列在上头的都是最重要的事情，其他不重要的都列在底部，我经常会花时间去做那些列在底部的事情，比如就是一抬脚踏下去压碎一样小东西那么简单的事情。
托尼: 你都采用些什么措施来避免刚才那件事的发生？
我: 我尝试着感性地自我检讨一下，我扣心自问为什么不去做那些复杂的事情。有时候我会很焦虑，有经前紧张的情绪，或者我会对孩子们吼叫，因为我觉得自己毁了他们的生活（已经是第一百万次了）。我在执行单上不断的徘徊，然后选择那些简单的事情来做。我需要休息。但是有时我看着自己所做的事情说，“我现在已经有很大的压力了，不要再给我更多的压力。”然后我就看看执行单的上头，开始做那些最难做的事情。
有时我需要一个警告，就像现在。回答这些问题并不是今天我要做的最棘手的一件事，但是，相比起回复那些人们告诉我他们喜欢我的上封信的邮件，那已经是困难多了，但是我很喜欢。因此我接受了这项工作，因为我始终觉得自己是多才多艺的，尽管它很具挑战性，可也不是复杂到我无法面对的地步。这也是我为今天的困难事情所搭的桥。
托尼: 从这些经历中你学会了什么？
我: 如果我花太多时间去做那些无关紧要的事情，那么我会觉得自己一事无成。踩死一只蟑螂还过得去吧，因为也许你也帮助了别人（不管怎么说，那天你办公室里的那个女人在尖叫。）有时你也在帮助你自己。（我们每个人都有在心里默默尖叫的时候。） 但是一整天都在踩死蟑螂会觉得很脏。（是的，我知道蟑螂是附近最干净的昆虫。） 我们会觉得脏是因为那确实很浪费激情和精力，一整天下来都没有做任何有助于扩展我们工作视野和提高工作能力的事情。我认为重点就是那些我们予以重视的让我们感觉良好关于工作的事情。
托尼: 你如何帮助你的团队避免“踩死蟑螂”。
我: 我雇佣优秀的人才，因此他们会和我一样重视这些工作。正真了解究竟要怎样做才能让我们的生活充满意义，我认为这是不可能的。但是我却喜欢自己周围全是这种人，他们喜欢自问究竟怎样才能过有意义的生活。
一个团队的人喜欢这么做，意味着每个人每天都努力去做那些复杂的事情——不用我告诉他们做什么。因此我的工作就是去告诉别人我们每天是怎样努力做事情的。这里的问题启发了我。我们可以互相启发，付出真心的努力去过一个有意义的生活。但只能是我们周围的人都会问出这么有水平的问题。所以托尼，谢谢你问了我这些优秀的问题。