Frame Shifting

Dateline:  December 22, 2015

On this date, I had to do some serious FRAME SHIFTING: I found I was having an acute bout of foot-dragging when it came time to wrap Christmas presents.  Wrapping Christmas presents isn’t on the usual list of things I’m accustomed to doing.  My inclination had to be changed.  I not only had to “Gear Up”, I had to “Center Down” and my entire FRAME OF REFERENCE had to be shifted.  [It didn’t help that my customary present-wrapping workspace in the basement had been hijacked for other purposes!]

A similar frame-shifting conundrum also happens every Spring when it’s time to start mowing the lawn and digging up the garden.  And it happens when I have to replace posts and rails on the split-rail fence.  But perhaps, most of all, it happens when I have to haul out the extension ladder and face up to scraping, sanding, priming and painting the house, in which case I have to rearrange the entire workspace in the garage. 

Confutational Forestalling is a technique I have used successfully in such circumstances to overcome – more like to subvert – the frame-shifting hurdle.  The way CF works is that I first declare I am unequivocally NOT going to do NOW … or in the immediately foreseeable future … what I am, ultimately, going to be compelled to do.  Thus, I declare with absolute resolve that I am explicitly NOT going to paint the house!  However, that doesn’t prevent me from putting on my “By God Armorall Coveralls”, or from checking out my paint scrapers, sanders and brushes, or from rearranging the garage, or from surveying exactly WHAT needs to be painted, or from assessing how much paint and primer I have on hand … It also doesn’t mitigate against my taking multiple surveillance trips to both Lowe’s and Home Depot to scout out the newest accessories for painting … i.e., in the event that I ever were to have a need for such accessories!

In addition to all of the above, I’ve found it doesn’t hinder the grand plan to do a modest test check on some of the smallest imperfections – or perhaps some of the largest … just to determine whether outside contractors might be needed, for example.

What has happened during this process, you see, is that the FRAME OF REFERENCE has slowly but dramatically shifted while I’m definitively NOT engaged in painting the house.  In fact, the Frame Of Reference has changed to a point that the house, itself, is now ready to accept BEING painted!

It’s a rather involved process, but it works for big stuff!

NOTE: This process illustrates a deliberate operational disconnect between Executive Function and Workforce Execution.  The CF declaration allows unimpeded/unencumbered surveillance, planning and preparation for work someone else is actually going to DO ... up to the point that that “someone else” happens to be ME! (It’s also a means of becoming “engagingly unengaged”.) 

More generally, things have to happen much faster, with more moment-to-moment transitioning between projects and proceedings, and we often get caught up in the “in between” spaces.  There’s a particular problem with NOW: This very moment – NOW – just happens to be in between everything that came before it and anything and everything that will follow.  So NOW creates its own off-the-clock space and lasts indefinitely until imposed upon by the sheer force of the NEXT necessity.  Somehow, we have to get beyond NOW, because NEXT is coming quickly.

Unpleasantries are especially challenging.  I was finding the microbiological “bloom” in the shower increasingly annoying, but not yet annoying enough to actually do anything about it.  So I decided to invent something worse … the Devil’s Alternative – Exercise!  Here’s how it worked: I could continue to avoid cleaning the shower ONLY if I completed a full round of exercises before taking a shower – OR – I would have to clean the shower.  The exercise alternative worked for about a week.  I got some excellent exercise, I lost a few pounds, and the shower got worse ... worse enough – finally – to force the issue.  Meanwhile, you know what happened: All the time the Devil’s Alternative was in play, I was figuring out just exactly HOW I was going to go about cleaning the shower … if, and/or when it ever came time to clean the shower.  In the end, it was much less of a hassle DOING it than it was AVOIDING it.

Sometimes, you just have to get creative:

Making a LIST

Besides being creative, “Jazzing things up”, and having an extra shot or two of rum in reserve, having a LIST helps in two ways: 1) It keeps us appraised of “What’s Next” … thus continuously planting future Frame of Reference seeds; and 2) It helps us anticipate, plan and build helpful transitioning bridges.

An important third thing a list does is that it provides an essential backdrop for serendipity, synchronicity and “Flow”.  Coincidental opportunities are coming at us all the time and it helps to be able to “plug in” the relevant elements from our list as seamlessly as possible when they show up.  A strategically developed LIST is a plan virtually in motion. 

“ … chance favors only the prepared mind.”

Louis Pasteur 

So let’s get our LIST in order [our 'surrogate brain”], and let’s work on being agile at “Frame-Shifting” to take best advantage of both NOW and what’s NEXT.  One can’t prime a pump with an empty bucket. 

Finally, when all else fails, simply GET TOIT and DOIT!   Nobody ever said we had to feel “warm and fuzzy” – or correctly “framed” – about doing “right” and necessary things.  The “good” feelings generally come after the deed is done … “framed” or not!  Just DOIT!  Quartermaster