Life Management

Hey Sergio,

Thank you for responding.

I agree with the essence of your point. To expand on that, as our reason for being and existence is to experience and express ever-greater love, wellness and fulfillment, and given part of our nature is to perceive dualistically majority of the time, we are continuously generating 'Voids' to which we wish to fill or manifest. Therefore, a large portion of a human's existence is striving toward the ever-greater fillment of they're ever-greater personal hierarchy of voids. Ergo, a large portion of our input and allocation of resources is into and towards Personal Task Mgmt (PTM), Personal Knowledge Mgmt (PKM), Personal Void Mgmt (PVM) and Personal Void Portfolio Mgmt (PPVM).

As you use the term 'formality' I often use the spectrum between Adhoc - Systematic, between illogical - logical, unmasterful - masterful or unwise - wise.

I believe that which outputs us experiencing ever-greater love, wellness and fulfillment, can be defined and referred to as logical, wise, masterful and/or systematic. I see these terms as interchangeable.

Anything we can 'do', is a verb and as such it is inherently done somewhere along this spectrum. The aim here is to most and ever-more logically/wisely/masterfully/systematically 'Do' in terms of PPVM, PVM, PKM and PTM.

This is where the concept of a LMBOK, Life mgmt Professional (LMP), Life Operating System (LOS) come into picture.

If we are able to define the best processes and knowledge groups for any human to fill any void, much like we've already done for near a century for any human project managing and executing and project, and if we are able to collect data, share knowledge and refine over time, then we've begun a new science/field/ology - self/life Mastery or Human Living or Personal Life Mgmt.

Herein an educational institution would arise, namely the Life Mgmt Institute LMI.

I'm compiling a comprehensive list of the rebuttal perceptions or beliefs that hinder the above ideas and I'm attempting to answer them, in the hopes that we can begin asking empowering questions, directing resources and making progress within the field of Personal Life Mgmt scientifically.

Eager to hear your thoughts Sergio :)

Thanks
Josh

Hey Thomas,

Thank you for taking the time and replying in depth, much appreciated. Please find my responses in line below :)

ad 1 - even John Demartini says on his website that he shares the wisdom he gained. I do not believe in the philosophical division of matter and mind, or, dualism, nor in monism, when they are one, it just does not matter for me.
Your stated aims (love, wellness, fillment) are well reached by being wise, and impossible without wisdom. Other possible aims too. Wisdom for me is the capability to understand and master the pragmatics of life.


- Agreed, the more 'wise' one is, the more love, wellness and fulfillment one experiences as direct outputs. My current personal belief is the comprehensive list of desired human aims/outputs = experiencing and expressing the greatest and ever greater; gratitude, inspiration, enthusiasm, clarity, certainty, poise, presence, power, fulfillment, wellness and love.

We share a mutual definition herein of the word wisdom - the capability to live ever-more masterfully/wisely, therein yielding ever-greater (insert list of outputs above).

I believe a human is wise to the degree that they themselves
1. continuously deduce the universal why, what, how and human why, what, how and compare their Personal Logic to the best known Greatest Logic and refine either/or as they're intuition guides them, and
2. Then live ever-more-wisely through two main ways
2a. Ever-greatly perceiving monistically and
2b. Ever more wisely/logically filling an ever-greater quantity and quality of continuously evolving personally meaningful, unfulfilled voids.

The question - what is the most successful, effective, efficient and easy way for any, the average and the majority of humans to achieve and ever-greaterly experience their why, masterfully, approximately 80% time?

This I believe is the essential question at the heart of Personal Life Mgmt and I heartedly believe it is worth scientifically enquiring and investigating.



ad 2 increasing your emotional intelligence helps to build wisdom pragmatically (think alone empathy to understand other better


- Well spoken




ad 3 processes, ROI and other you mentioned are concepts of rationality. Rationality is a western mental model and not even agreed to what it is. A human may have a rational mind and it may be located in the pre-frontal cortex. As we know, all of the brain is involved in perception making and decisions, so no single decision is indeed purely rational. So beware of process oriented thinking.


- Good point. The aim of the Life Mgmt Institute as stated in response to ad1 is to ask the essential question scientifically and attempt to yield useful insights in regards to Personal Life Mgmt. Personal Life Mgmt in a nutshell is simply amalgamating the pre-existing theories and practices of Personal Task and Knowledge Mgmt, Project and Portfolio Project Mgmt and refining them so they adhere to both Universal Law and Human Nature, as best we humans are capable of.

I believe the wisest/most masterful human uses both intuition and an accurate, live report of their life score as well as other metrics, to empower them in making the informed executive decisions pertaining to their personal self and life. I believe the two; intrinsic intuition and extrinsic factual data between estimates and actuals, allows for greatest decisions to be made.



ad4 to be honest, no. I resist next best action suggestions and rely on my own wisdom.


- Here it is not the notion of a next best actionable action being 'resisted' but the method in which said action was determined, if I'm understanding you correctly Herein people like David Allen from GTD have expounded in depth the relationship between capturing all actionable actions, prioritizing them systematically and then relying on the human's conscious mind and intuition in determing the most-intuitive priority for them given their situational context.



ad5 wish you luck with an exocortex, I opt out. Though I admit that digitalization and ubiquitous networking have an impact as input to our brains. Some perceive this as VUCA and negative. I rather see it as interesting. But my value of autonomy (freedom) prevents me from outsourcing decision making.


- Perhaps herein our difference of opinion exists due to the difference in our definitions of terms, rather than our viewpoint on said terms. According to me, Exocortex refers simply to computational power actioning tasks on a human's behalf without using a humans conscious minds computational power. In such, almost all technology is a form of an Exocortex. When we direct our smart phones to set alarms for us to wake up every day, we are relying on external computational force to complete actions given to them. We already use to-do lists, tasks lists, categorization lists, personal task mgmt, collaborative work and project mgmt systems and tools. The purpose and aim of having 1 centralized, single source of truth, is that we can login, and view our Personal Lives in they're entirety, within one system, that is pushing and pulling data from all the other silo systems and apps we commonly use. Similar to how many executives utilize the summarative-powers of apps like Power BI to amalgamate and converge silo-system-data into a centralized-operating systems summarative view to empower their decision making. We are seeking to provide a Life Operating System side by side with the existing Work Operation Systems we have today.



ad6 the wish to predict the future is understandable, but the ability to handle any future means wisdom, and eliminates the need for this wish.


- Interesting viewpoint, I think this applies not only to the pursuit of scientifically defining and providing a LMBOK, LMP and LOS, but to any and all fields and sciences. Planning one's forecasted future life in terms of portfolio of personal voids, differs in no respect, from a project manager forecasting the future of a portfolio or program of projects they are managing. Therefore, PM, PMBOK, PMP and PM systems exist, so why not their Personal-Life-equivalent?



Maybe not the right forum to discuss philosophy


- PMI - PMBOK, PMP, PM systems are all grounded on PM theory / philosophy over the past near-century.

Similarly if we are to scientifically define and ongoingly refine personal life mgmt best practise, we must first define the LMBOK and maybe even the ISO of Personal Human Living at a later date, to be able to create the LMP and the LOS.


This dialect was intellectually enjoyable. Eagerly awaiting any additional responses.

I do hope that in the future we can utilize a more effective and efficient medium through which to conduct these dialects.

Thank you

Josh

Hey Rachel,

Thank you for responding and partaking in this discussion :)

This is fantastic :) To the degree that utilizing a systematic approach to managing your personal life yields a positive ROI to yourself and your collaborators (go the enthusiastic husband!)

This sounds to me like you have learned PM formally and adhocly assimilated a 'Lite' version of PM to follow theoretically and PM practical systems and tools like Team Gantt, to practically apply.

This herein proves PM theory can be used for the management and execution of any type of project, be it personal or non-personal in nature.

However, we cannot simply swap the word Project for Life and use the existing PMBOK to manage our personal lives, nor can being qualified a PMP, ensure we are 100% proficient and capable of managing our personal Lives (Personal Life Mgmt PLM). Why not?

Well because managing a non-personal project as a project manager and managing a personal project as a life manager, while they share a large portion of similarity and overlap (I estimate approximately 80%), they are not identical.

For example, in PM, we generally manage finite projects, in LM, we generally manage continuous projects like personal health, fulfilling relationships etc.

In PM, the Project Manager is not 1 and the same, not do they generally comprise 80%-100% of the project's workforce, in LM the Life Manager does.

From my personal research conducted so far in the past 2 years, Life Mgmt theory has roughly 20% that is unique and not found in PM due to their different natures.

As PM's we wish to utilize Lessons Learned, maintain our proficiency with continuous learning and upskilling, define best theory and practical systems, tools and techniques through mutual consensus in PMBOK and PM ISO 21500 and other bodies, and yet in life, we begin living so we are proficient at surviving but are we inherently proficient and masterful at thriving? At defining, initiating, planning, executing, closing-out, templating, sharing and guiding each other in Personal Living and Life Mgmt?

So far I've found dozens of benefits to the systematic and scientific approach and definition of Personal Human Life Mgmt, including the LMBOK, LMP and LOS and we haven't even truly begun.

PMI is where it is today after nearly a century, thousands and thousands of volunteers, millions and billions in funding, research, publication, advocacy etc... What would the average human's life look like if through their mandatory schooling years, when they graduated, they graduated with the Life Mgmt Professional qualification among their other skills? What skill is more fundamental other than literacy, numeracy and the like, than PLM?

The benefits are clear when one thinks about them deeply for a moment. the more challenging questions lie within not can it be defined, but ethically and morally, how can it be defined adhering to human nature wherein people are individually unique? Among about a dozen other good intellectually challenging points. But that's the point of any science - to research answers to these questions, implement them in action and refine through the data and lessons learned.

I don't want to go to another Life Coach, psychologist, psychiatrist, philosopher or other. I want to log into a system that fosters, facilitates, empowers and guides me in;

getting trained and becoming proficient in using that system, deducing my own Personal Logic of Human Why, What and How, comparing that to the best known logic in existance to date, refining as I desire to my PL, balancing all my lopsided perceptions through monistically perceiving, listening to and heeding my heart's definition of my current portfolio of personally meaningful, unfulfilled voids and masterfully initiating, planning, manifesting, closing, templating, sharing and guiding other people,

therein personally and collectively experiencing and expressing the greatest and ever-greater degrees of; gratitude, inspiration, enthusiam, clarity, certainty, poise, presence, power, fulfillment, wellness and love.

I truly believe scientific, systematic, masterful, wise, logical Personal Life Mgmt can and should be the next era of 'Personal Productivity / Personal Development / Self-Help / Spirituality / Personal Task Mgmt, Personal Work Mgmt and also collaborative Work Mgmt'.

Let me be the truly proficient and empowered executive, manager and operator of my Self and my Life, ever-greaterly, scientifically.

I've attempted to paint a picture and provide supporting evidence in one response to one point in one discussion thread. Such cannot be proficiently done. If you desire to dialect deeper the fundamental beliefs/viewpoints on the topics of PLM, LMBOK, LMP and LOS, I couldn't be happier. Better it take place live, either in-person or online though.

Rachel, I know I went a billion light years beyond the essence of your points which I truly do admire and appreciate. I just feel it's time we stop adhocing life and integrate systematic and adhoc, scientific and unscientific together, not solely rely on gun-hoeing it solo, majority or completely adhocly. In the essence of cringe - we are all in this together, so why doesn't it feel like it?

Thanks

Eagerly awaiting any responses you have to the above or other :)

Josh

Heyya Stephane,

Thanks for jumping in with your thoughts :)


Given most of us have personal goals, it makes sense to think of achieved goals as deliverables part of a project.

- Agreed, so far the structure I have deduced is Human Why, Human What and Human How and within Human How - the ultimate aim/deliverable - love/wellness/fulfillment/happiness - whichever terminology works best for the individual, then the next layer is personal portfolio of voids, then personal voids, then tasks

I'm not sure love is as much the ultimate goal, as happiness is. To me, love is not an emotion but a choice. When we "love", we choose someone else's happiness over our own.

- Interesting viewpoint and definition. It's interesting how there exists so many similar yet distinct definitions of such a primordial node and part of our living and being; 'love'. To date, the greatest perspective and definition on the word and act of love/loving, that I've personally come across, is from John Demartini - The Breakthrough Experience.

To be honest, I use as little project management in my life as I can get away with. While I have done project management for decades, I don't want it to define me. I am more than just a project manager. There are other tools I use to "manage" my life: meditation, sports, reading, workouts, etc.

- Interesting... My beliefe here is that given part of human nature of is to continuously perceive, seek and manifest/fill personally meaningful voids, we are all 'managing/executing/operating ourselves and our lives all the time, along a spectrum of subconscious-conscious. I believe a proficient 'manager' or 'operator' of one's life, empowers them and facilitates their greater clarity, certainty, inspiration, poise, presence, power and thus ultimately outputting greater effort, fulfillment and wellness, than their counterpart who does not take such ownership, accountability and responsibility and does not have the visibility, clarity and empowerment on their personal why, why and how. Whether they rely solely on intuition/internal-wisdom or a combination of intuition and actual data that is up to their proficiency and their choice.

Don't get me wrong, I do use tools to track my goals, tasks and progress. They are simply distinct from my project management tools. (Believe me, I tried to use project management tools before and found it cumbersome and unwieldy.)

- That's nailing the issue on the head. Approximately 80% of any and all humans managing their personal portfolio of voids is the same as a project manager managing their portfolio of projects, with the remainder 20% being distinct in terms of theory/method/standard/guidline/process etc.. And yet we may be masterful project managers and likely unproficient life managers... The bridge between the two fields/sciences/ologies hasn't been bridged proficiently.

I've condensed and defined my personal definition of the Life/Living, Void Portfolio Mgmt, Void Mgmt and Task mgmt workflows and am in attempts to systematize them inside one single 'PMS' / Life Operating System. I then hope as more people do this through time, we compare side-by-side our LM theory/workflow and refine to make both the theory and the practical most and ever more; successful, logical, effective, efficient and easy. I believe this is the same as asking and answering what I believe to be the quintessential question at the heart of the Personal Life Mgmt science; "What is the most successful, logical, effective, efficient and easy way any/all humans can experience and express the greatest and ever greater individual and collective; gratitute, inspiration, enthusiasm, clarity, certainty, poise, presence, powerful, fulfillment, wellness and love/wholeness/oneness? throughout the entirety of their lives?"

Keen to hear your thoughts on the above viewpoints/beliefs :)

Thank you
Josh