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The more things we “have” to do in a day, the less effective we become.

THE LESS-ERIZER

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THE “LESS-ERIZER”

Introduction

Our ability to achieve our goals and carry out our plans with peace and ease is directly and inversely related to how much stuff is on our plate. The more projects we have, the more stress we feel. The more things we “have” to do in a day, the less effective we become.

The Less-erizer is a tool I developed after doing coaching with my mentor, Philip McKernan and then reading the book “The Power of Less” by Leo Babauta (also the creator of the Zen Habits blog.) The intent of the Less-erizer is to take account of all the projects on your plate. ALL of them. And write them down. The first step is awareness, as most of us will have projects we’ve forgotten about, or are floating around in our heads consuming mental energy.

In order for us to be effective, we need to de-pressurize our lives and clear space for us to focus on the truly important things and complete them. You cannot do this when you’re multi-tasking and flitting about from project to project with continuous partial attention.

Let’s Get Started!

Instructions

Like Merlin’s List, this process is very simple and straightforward, yet immensely powerful and illuminating. Do this, and you will open the doors to limitless productivity through enhanced focus, and quality of work.

Open a notebook page, and draw a vertical line down the middle of the page creating two columns. In the left-hand column, write down a list of every project on your plate at the moment. Also write down ones that you have not yet begun, but are thinking about doing, or are coming up in the near future. Although these may not yet be consuming your physical energy, they are most certainly consuming your mental energy just by thinking about them.

Many people feel stress and overwhelm from being chronically disorganized and holding their various projects all in their head (like computer RAM) instead of in a system. This is something David Allen refers to as “open loops” in his book “Getting Things Done.” Just getting all your projects on paper can be a breath of fresh air.

Make sure you list ALL of them. Take 15 minutes minimum to do this, because often just when you think you’ve gotten them all, another one pops into your mind that you’d scarcely remembered. A project is something that takes you more than a single sitting to do.

Examples of projects:

• Do the mix down on my new song • Get my taxes done for last year • Complete the Creative Mastery course (hah! gotcha on that one right?) • Learn the new synth plugin I just bought • Plan my vacation • Book festivals & gigs for the summer • Set up my studio with acoustic treatment and acoustically test the room • Help my parents move • Apply for that new position at work • Research ways to invest my savings • Do _____ project at work (likely you will have a few in this category)

Once you have listed all of your projects, take another look over the list and make sure you’ve gotten everything. This is a complete brain dump here! Next, I want you to count them. How many do you have?

Reflect on the number of projects. Think of all the things you “must” do to complete them. Think about how much time you have. Likely you will feel something like a light bubbling of stress boiling up in your stomach, or perhaps you feel like vomiting and curling up into the fetal position. Let that feeling subside. Take a couple of breaths. Now, very honestly check in with yourself, and rate your level of happiness on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 being miserable, 10 being overjoyed.

In the past, when I’ve been a part of groups who’ve done this, happiness is directly and inversely related to the number of projects on one’s plate. In other words, the happiest people are the ones with the fewest projects.

Now, let’s get you depressurized with the Less-erizer!

Using the right-hand column, I want you to look over each project and write one of the following next to it:

• Delete • Defer • Reduce • Delegate • Keep

Delete means you are going to completely eradicate it and not do it. You’d be surprised how many projects you can do this with!

Defer means you are going to do it, but you’re not doing it now. Record it in your organizational system (a calendar, a to do list, project management software, your whiteboard, whatever you use). Set a future date for you to start on it, with a reminder, and FORGET about it for now.

Reduce means you are going to do it now, but you’re going to scale it back. You’re going to downsize that sucker! Do less.

Delegate means you are going to have someone else do it. This isn’t always an option, but you’d be surprised how many times it is. Hire someone, contract someone on e-Lance, get your partner to do it, assign it to an employee or co-worker, get creative.

Keep means you’re going to do it now and to the full extent. At any given time, you should have as few of these as possible. Ideally 3.

Be brutal. Be heavy handed. Be honest. You MUST in order to achieve balance and focus in your life.

The ones you’re going to keep or reduce and keep, do to COMPLETION. Start them and drive it home until every last bit is done. Don’t multi-task. Don’t work on it a bit here and there. Get that sucker DONE!

Repeat this process once a month, continuing to track your happiness related to the number of projects. You will notice your happiness improve drastically. Thank me later.

The “Less-erizer” Date: _____________________ Actions: Delete | Defer | Reduce | Delegate | Keep

Project Description Action

Total Projects

Happiness from 1 - 10

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Vespers is an Ableton Certified Trainer, entrepreneur and musician who’s chosen Ableton Live as a platform from which to generate his artistic works and career. Vespers’ courses focus on helping computer musicians make the transition from hobby to successful career artists.

As a producer, he’s currently signed to Adapted Records and Westwood Recordings, and actively releases electronic music.

Having a background as an acoustic musician has helped Vespers to explore and understand the recording, DJing and live performance aspects of Live. His experience includes 7 years of classical piano, 23 years of jazz saxophone, 17 years of DJing and 15 years of electronic music production.

Vespers is heavily engaged in HD, screencast video education with Live on his Youtube channel and video blog. His videos are routinely posted by some of the largest music education blogs in the world.

Having knowledge of the program that extends beyond just the studio has been an asset for Vespers. He uses Looper to integrate saxophone and Akai EWI wind synth overdubs into his live performances and uses sampling extensively to create innovative banks of sounds triggered via MIDI during shows. His most recent project, Warp Academy, brings the talents of many other Ableton Certified Trainers and industry experts all under one roof for the ultimate electronic music training experience.

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