Information Diets and NPCs

I still prac­tice the con­cept of Zero-Inbox, which is the prac­tice of hav­ing zero emails. Along with the prac­tice of zero-inbox, I also main­tain a strict infor­ma­tion diet and work dili­gent­ly to elim­i­nate the Non-Playable Char­ac­ters (NPC) from my dai­ly life. Below is how I main­tain my data diet that allows me the nec­es­sary free time for my hob­bies of read­ing, cook­ing, and studying.

Zero-Inbox Practice

My imple­men­ta­tion of Zero-Inbox fol­lows a strict rule set. If some­thing is emailed direct­ly to and if it is deemed impor­tant, it becomes a check­list item with a due date with a fixed due date to com­plete. If it is emailed direct­ly to me, but I am not inter­est­ed, I fol­low up with the per­son stat­ing that I am not inter­est­ed. If some­thing is not emailed direct­ly to me, and the email’s head­line does­n’t spark inter­est, it gets delet­ed imme­di­ate­ly. If I get the same email mul­ti­ple times on a sub­ject I am not inter­est­ed in; I will cre­ate an email rule that moves it direct­ly to “Spam.” 

At any giv­en time, I have two to three emails in my inbox, which remind me to com­plete the nec­es­sary task or to have the infor­ma­tion eas­i­ly avail­able to com­plete a task that is not asso­ci­at­ed with my inbox. My prac­tice of Zero-Inbox has been ben­e­fi­cial because it elim­i­nates exces­sive noise that deters from the core mis­sion to either grow the busi­ness I am work­ing for or my interests. 

Website Reading

I am old school and still use RSS feeds for the web­sites I am inter­est­ed in. My cur­rent set­up uses Syn­ol­o­gy NAS, Dock­er, FreshRSS, and Read­er. This set­up allows me to parse mul­ti­ple web­sites quick­ly. If a top­ic or head­ing inter­ests me, I save the arti­cle for fur­ther read­ing on the week­end. This approach allows me to parse through ten web­sites in thir­ty min­utes while hav­ing cof­fee in the morn­ing. The Reed­er fea­ture of Bion­ic Read­ing allows me to digest infor­ma­tion quick­er than I would normally. 

Elimination of NPCs within Work

If you are unfa­mil­iar with the term, Non-play­er char­ac­ters (NPCs) are char­ac­ters in role-play­ing or video games whose actions are not con­trolled by a play­er. They can be allies, bystanders, or com­peti­tors to the play­er char­ac­ter. In the game of life, I have learned that com­pa­nies are filled with NPCs that don’t direct­ly impact the projects I work on. Because they do not have a direct impact, I elim­i­nate them from my “game.”  

This approach seems harsh, but I have the rules to han­dle this. If I get an email or call say­ing that I did not fol­low a “process,” I ask for the process in writ­ing. If the process is not doc­u­ment­ed, it is not a process.  This presents a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for the NPCs to update their process, and if it con­tin­ues not to be doc­u­ment­ed, then it indi­cates that this is a per­son­al­i­ty-dri­ven deci­sion. At this time, I will bypass the NPC until they either become a block­er in the “hero’s jour­ney.”  More often than not, the NPC goes back to their NPC existence. 

For the ones that become a “Block­er,” I have enough doc­u­men­ta­tion to demon­strate that this NPC is not fol­low­ing a doc­u­ment­ed process. Then the deci­sion is per­son­al­i­ty-dri­ven with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.  This is where the fun begins.  I will work dili­gent­ly to remove the block­er from the game.  If I can not remove the block­er from the game, I am updat­ing my resume because the game is no longer log­i­cal.  Why play a game when rules are set against you?  I rather play anoth­er game that I can win. 

Elimination of NPCs within Life

The same NPC rules go for social media and indi­vid­u­als. If I am not watch­ing pos­i­tive news, work­ing or fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als mak­ing an impact, and not try­ing to change things for the pos­i­tive, I will block, unfol­low, or delete them. How­ev­er, this does not lim­it me from not con­sum­ing or lis­ten­ing to oppos­ing views. I see this as an inter­est. If I am inter­est­ed enough, I will read or watch a doc­u­men­tary to bet­ter under­stand than lis­ten to a “talk­ing head.” 

Life is Too Short

Life is too short not to have strict fil­ters in place to keep your­self men­tal­ly fit. As I get old­er, I have become more con­scious of my lim­it­ed time and have start­ed elim­i­nat­ing exces­sive noise. My strict method­ol­o­gy for my emails and being con­scious about what I read and how I deal with peo­ple allows me to focus on the goals I care about.  It is also impor­tant to sur­round your­self with like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als to make the game more fun.