I’m lucky to be part of a small group of brilliant women who found each other organically and now regularly theorize about the state of everything over email and sometimes sushi. Yesterday political and leadership mastermind Shannon, a GenXer, sent a link to the this article: 5 ways young professionals want to be led. She asked the millennials among us whether this is on point, and furthermore, why GenXer and Jonesers (those sandwiched between GenX and Boomers) are consistently left out of the conversation.

Dialogue is beginning to ensue. (Thank goodness for Gmail’s threaded conversations.) After spouting off my reaction to the post, I thought I might also share it here for safekeeping and further noodling:

I’m excited for the day when the conversation shifts from generational generalizations to a true sense of urgency and a shared march to a better future for all of us. How utopian of me. 

I suppose what I’m saying/asking is: at the end of the day, do these generational quirks and profiles matter if we are not all on the same page about where we are headed and why we are headed there? To say that the problem is that boomers do not understand millennials is to have the conversation in a vacuum, one where the assumption is the world is staying the same and it’s just a matter of a new generation trying to work in it.

In reality, the world is shifting in big ways, and we all need to push it further. This is a world that no one has seen before. The problem may not be so much generationally-related as it is a cultural issue of fear of change, fear of being vulnerable to envision a wildly different future, etc. Yes, these fears may be more pronounced in certain generations or they be more embraced by certain generations, but at the core, everyone is working in a new gray space. 

Maybe if we all began with acknowledging that, we’d find more empathy for each other (on a generational level) and give each other the space and permission to explore possibilities (on a society level). And if we started from that place, every generation would inherently be part of the picture.

When you begin with the boxes, the solutions you create will always be boxes. When you start without edges, everything is included and anything is possible.

And that is my sermon for the day. Amen. :)

I confess that I really do know the secret (for me). And it’s decidedly simple:

1. Sign up for the most well-designed to do list ever: Teux Deux. Get the iPhone app while you’re at it. 

2. Marvel at the beauty of dragging and dropping your to do list items and prioritizing your life with a swipe of your precious little fingertip. 

3. Discover that you keep most emails in your inbox because you have to *do* something with them… inevitably you are always two or three steps away from simply replying, which in turn (somehow) equates to always being 385 emails away from inbox zero.

4. Start adding those reply steps/projects to Teux Deux and booting them out of your inbox. If a client sends you content for a brochure you’re writing, it does not belong in your inbox. It’s an asset that can be found later. (This is the trick: thinking of your inbox as a magical library where people submit new stories and content every single day.)

5. Archive the associated email. (Assuming you’ve already discovered the power of Gmail.)

6. Watch your inbox count dwindle. And thanks to Teux Deux’s ability to effortlessly add and shift line items around, you will brainhack your way to email activity that is a tool for *making stuff happen* instead of creating more emails. Suddenly you’ll manage your responses and email activity based on your actual capacity and the actual priority of the project. The “just power through” emailpalooza lunch break disappears.

7. When an item on Teux Deux does relate to an email, search your Gmail archives, find related email (like looking up the resource you need in a library), and as the cool kids say, “Git er done.” 

And that, my friends, is how I’ve been at inbox zero for almost a week.

America is changing how it works. As more people start their own entrepreneurial businesses out of their bedrooms, is it time to rethink how we divide work and living? This new home design makes space for both. (via LiveWork: The Future Of Living Where You Work And Working Where You Live | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation)

Love this idea. Carl and I have discussed the possibility of someday buying land or a building that would have live/work flexibility. More and more I need less space for living and want more interesting spaces for creating and connecting.