“My job is to be on email,” Jane continued, “How can I avoid getting hooked?”

In my recent post Coping With Email Overload, I suggested that it’s better to bulk process email at scheduled times during the day than to read each email when it comes in.

At first, Jane — like most lawyers and many other people I know — felt like she had to be on email all the time. But after thinking about it, she admitted that no one would notice if she wasn’t. Taking hour-long email breaks throughout the day would be a good way to free herself up to do other, more thoughtful work.

But Jane needed a way to get through email efficiently. I’ve experimented with the following process and want to share it along with a few rules and commonplace tools that help me stay productive, meaningful, and efficient in my email exchanges. The first time you do this, it could take several hours since you may have a lot of clean up to do. But after the initial work, you’ll be able to move quickly. Typically I schedule 30 minutes in the morning, at mid-day, and in the afternoon to do email. Here’s how I use that time:

1. Send: I start my timer and begin by writing emails I had planned to send. This often includes follow-ups to meetings, thank-you notes, questions, and scheduling and other requests. I do this first so that if someone gets back to me immediately I have time to respond while I’m still in my 30-minute email period.

2. Delete: Next, I quickly glance through the “subject” and “from” lines on the emails in my inbox and immediately delete the ones I know I don’t want to waste time reading, including marketing emails and impersonal blasts I haven’t requested. This step just takes a few seconds but drastically reduces my email bulk.

3. Respond: I do my best to answer every single email that comes directly to me, even if it means just writing “Thank you.” Since picking through emails to choose which to answer first wastes time, I start with the most recent and work my way down. At this point I don’t click on any links in emails and I don’t read lengthy articles; I save that for step 5 below.

4. File: Once I open an email, I don’t leave it in my inbox. I found that when I did leave emails in my inbox, I’d re-read them repeatedly each time I opened my email, and each time I’d waste more time trying to decide how to handle it. So I either delete it or move it to another folder I’ve set up — waiting, read, someday, travel, client-specific. Every time I go through my email, my goal is to empty my inbox.

5. Read and follow up: In whatever time I have left before my timer goes off, I go through my non-inbox folders, reading through newsletters, clicking on links, and following up on emails in my “waiting” file.

End: When my countdown timer sounds, I close out my email program. Once I’m done, I don’t return to my email — on any device — until my next scheduled session.

As I go through this process, I try not to use email to give someone negative feedback, and I rarely respond to negative feedback over email. Email is a great tool for transactional conversations (Where should we have lunch?), sharing information (Here’s that file, there’s someone I want you to meet), or showing appreciation (You spoke powerfully in that meeting, I’m touched by your support — thank you). For anything else, you’re better off calling or talking to someone face to face. I also do my best never to go back and forth with someone on email about something more than two or three times. If it’s gone that far, it’s usually a better idea to pick up the phone.

There are a few commonplace tools I use that I have found helpful in moving through emails quickly:

Signatures: Most email programs have the capability to create multiple signatures that you can choose to appear at the bottom of an email. I have customized several signatures that I use as responses to common emails I receive. For example, I have a pre-written reply to people who ask about joining my company, want me to review their book, express appreciation for something I’ve written, etc. I often customize those emails based on the sender, but the bulk of my response is already written.

Rules: Most email programs also have rules in which you can automatically send emails that fit certain criteria directly to other folders. For example, when I send out my weekly email linking people to a new article I’ve written, I receive several “out of office” replies. I set up a rule that sends any email with “out of office” in the subject line directly to trash. That way I don’t have to spend any time processing it.

Timer: This is essential to staying within my 30-minute time frame. When I didn’t use a timer it was too easy to just keep going.

If you’re like me and Jane — if you find that email has the capacity to suck away your time and productivity — try experimenting with this process, customizing it until it works for you. A little structure might be the only difference between email being a useful tool . . .or a wasteful one.

*Name changed

When I was on the board, the money I gave to the organization each year represented my largest charitable donation for the year. But I’m off the board now and I haven’t given much. I was feeling guilty even before I received Jared’s note. When I read it I felt even worse.

His note reminded me that he took over from me as president when I left, making it easier for me to leave. He wrote that the dinner was honoring a fellow board member, and that, as a former president, it would look good for me to attend and be a sponsor.

Jared is right on all counts. He’s a good guy and was not, in any way, putting undue pressure on me or trying to make me feel guilty. He was simply making a reasonable request.

Which is what made it so hard to say no.

It’s not that I disapprove of the organization or its leadership; I’m supportive of both. It’s just that when my wife Eleanor and I reviewed our calendars and our planned giving for the year, this wasn’t something that fit in. It’s not that we couldn’t go or give the money. It’s just that given all our competing obligations, we didn’t want to.

Which didn’t feel like a good enough reason to say no. It obviously wasn’t physically hard to say no. It was emotionally hard. It made me feel bad. So I delayed responding. And each time I opened my email, Jared’s note stared me down.

A few days after receiving the solicitation, I happened to bump into Linda, another former board member a few years my senior. Her response to my quandary?

“Just say no. And don’t worry,” she added, “it gets easier as you get older.”

I asked her why and she came up with a list of reasons: As you get older, you don’t worry as much what other people think. And, after getting hooked into enough things, you learn that while it’s painful to say no, it’s more painful not to. And, the more you say no, the better you get at saying it.

It’s her last point that struck me as the most powerful. That’s when I got an idea for my new practice: One emotional challenge a day.

Each day since my conversation with Linda, I’ve done at least one thing that’s emotionally hard for me to do. Something I know is worthwhile but find myself resisting.

One day I reached out to a friend of mine whom I treated poorly, and apologized. Another day I asked a client for a referral. One day, I canceled an important business lunch to attend an event at my daughter’s school. Another day I told a group of people how much I cared about them. Just today I told someone I didn’t want to continue working with her.

Try it. Once a day, pick something you’re a little scared to do or say and then follow through with it. Take the blame for something if it was your fault. Ask for a raise. Point out something to your manager that’s getting in the way of your success. Go to dinner and leave your cell phone at home. Your emotional challenge is personal to you because what’s challenging to you is particular to you; it doesn’t matter if others are challenged by it.

I have one rule for this practice other than doing it: Speak and act honestly and compassionately. In other words, I can’t lie to avoid a dinner and if I’m going to deliver bad news to someone I am sensitive to how they feel. That doesn’t mean I sugarcoat my actions, it just means I do my best to be respectful and caring in the process. I work hard at communicating thoughtfully and skillfully.

One emotional challenge a day is powerful because it flexes and strengthens the muscle that encourages us to act with integrity–to say the things we feel and believe–even when those things contradict the prevailing culture. It makes us stronger, more powerful actors in the world.

To follow through with one emotional challenge a day, we need to overcome our natural fear that taking this action or saying that thing will have a negative consequence. Maybe people won’t like us. Maybe they’ll talk behind our backs. Maybe we’ll be hurt in some way. Maybe we’ll hurt someone else.

Those things are a risk, which is why it’s an emotional challenge. But so far, it hasn’t backfired. I am happier and more effective, making better choices, and far less prone to procrastination. And I like myself more; I feel more honest and straightforward.

Linda was right: Each day it’s getting easier to follow through on my emotional challenge; I am getting stronger.

Eventually, I wrote Jared an email back telling him that Eleanor and I looked at our planned giving for the year and that sponsoring the dinner didn’t fit in. I told him I was sorry about it; that I knew it was disappointing. But I did offer another amount we would donate.

Jared’s response was generous: “I am appreciative!”

*Names changed

When I got to the office and checked my computer, I had hundreds of email messages waiting for me. I took a deep breath and started in on them. Three hours later, my inbox — a week’s worth of messages — was empty.

Contrast that with my experience the next day, and each day after that, when I’ve spent well more than three hours each day on email. Some of that time involved back-and-forth emailing, but still, the difference is dramatic.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I use email to distract myself. Whenever I feel the least bit uneasy, I check my email. Stuck while writing an article? Bored on a phone call? Standing in an elevator, frustrated in a meeting, anxious about an interaction? Might as well check email. It’s an ever-present, easy-access way to avoid my feelings of discomfort.

What makes it so compelling is that it’s so compelling. I wonder what’s waiting for me in my inbox? It’s scintillating.

It also feels legitimate, even responsible. I’m working. I need to make sure I don’t miss an important message or fail to respond in a timely fashion.

But it’s become a serious problem. When we don’t control our email habit, we are controlled by it. Everyone I know complains about email overload.

Email pours in, with no break to its flow. And like addicts, we check it incessantly, drawing ourselves away from meetings, conversations, personal time, or whatever is right in front of us.

But it’s not just the abundance of email that’s our problem — it’s the inefficiency in how we deal with it. Each time we check our email on the fly, we lose time pulling out our phones, loading the email, reading new emails without taking action on them, and re-reading those to which we haven’t yet responded. Then, back at our computers, we re-read them again.

It’s rattling us. According to USA Today the number of lawsuits filed by employees claiming unfair overtime is up 32% since 2008. The major reason for the increase? Email on devices like smartphones is intruding on our personal time.

The solution, I believe, is hidden in my post-vacation email experience.

Instead of checking email continuously and from multiple devices, schedule specific email time during the day while you are at your computer. All other time is email vacation time.

We are most efficient when we answer email in bulk at our computers. We move faster, can access files when we need them, and link more quickly and easily to other programs like our calendars. Also, when we sit down for the express purpose of doing emails, we have our email heads on. We are more focused, more driven, wasting no time in transition from one activity to another.

I bulk process my email three times a day in 30-minute increments, once in the morning, once mid-day, and once before shutting down my computer for the day. I use a timer and when it beeps, I close my email program.

Outside my designated email times I don’t access my email — from any device — until my next scheduled email session. I no longer use my phone for email unless I’m away from my computer all day.

When the urge to check arises — and it arises often — I take a deep breath and feel whatever feelings come up. And then I focus on whatever I’m doing, even if what I’m doing is waiting. I let my mind relax.

Here’s what I’ve found: I don’t miss a thing.

In fact, it’s the opposite. I gain presence throughout my day. I am focused on what’s around me in the moment, without distraction. I listen more attentively, notice people’s subtle reactions I would otherwise overlook, and come up with more ideas as my mind wanders. I’m more productive, more sensitive, more creative, and happier.

I’m also going through my email faster and with more attention than before. I don’t make those I’m-moving-too-fast mistakes like copying the wrong person or sending an email before finishing it or saying something hurtful. So I’m also more efficient.

But what if someone needs an immediate response? Worrying about that is precisely the kind of misguided rationalization that reinforces our addiction. I haven’t angered anyone with my new process. In fact, I don’t think anyone has noticed my mini email vacations because responding to an email within a few hours is perfectly reasonable. And, in the off chance that they need a response within minutes, they’ll find another way to reach me, either by texting or calling.

Email is no longer an overwhelming burden to me. I’m spending an hour and a half a day on it, which for me is the right amount. You may need more or less time per day. Experiment and then schedule the appropriate time slots.

The hardest part is resisting the temptation to check during your off-email hours. My advice? When you have the urge to check your email, check yourself instead. What’s going on for you? What are you feeling? Take a deep breath and relax into an undistracted moment.

For a brief moment in the middle of a hectic workday, it just might feel like you’re on vacation.

Originally published at Harvard Business Review

It was the third night of Hanukkah and my wife Eleanor, our three young children, and I had just come home from a holiday party.

“Didn’t you guys get enough presents at the party?” I asked. Dumb question.

“OK,” I relented. “Go ahead.”

They ripped through the wrapping paper to expose their gifts. Little fairy-tale lanterns.

As they began to play with their lanterns, one of my daughters began to notice some differences between her lantern and her sister’s. She began to cry.

“My lantern door doesn’t open. And it doesn’t play music.”

How ungrateful, I thought and took a deep breath to stave off my angry response. I immediately regretted letting her stay up so late, eat so much sugar at the party, and open that last gift.

As she began to fall apart, I shifted from anger to reason. I told her that both gifts were nice and she should feel happy about getting so many presents.

“I know, Daddy, I’m sorry. I usually love my gifts. But this time…I don’t know. Why doesn’t my door open?”

She wasn’t angry, she was sad, and that softened me enough to hear Eleanor’s voice in my head:Just validate. Repeat back what you’re hearing. Be a mirror. I slid from reason to compassion.

“I’m sorry you feel so disappointed with the gift you got. You usually feel good about your gifts but not this time. You’re sad the door doesn’t open like your sister’s.”

She kept crying. But to my utter amazement, what she was crying about abruptly changed.

“I was teaching everyone to make origami and everything was fine but then Tammy* started to teach them and I grabbed the origami from Tammy. I don’t know why I did it. I couldn’t control it. I lost my temper and then they didn’t want to me to teach them. They didn’t want to play with me.”

“Are you talking about the party, sweetie?”

“Yes,” she said between sobs, “at the party. I don’t know why I did it. And then they made a band but didn’t want me to join but I really wanted to.”

Now I was crying with her. She wanted so badly to have friends and she tried so hard but it was tough for her.

That was why she cried when she received the present. It wasn’t about the present. She’d been working hard all night to keep it together and she just couldn’t do it anymore.

I used to wonder why my daughter would often break down at home – what are we doing wrong? But what I’ve come to realize is that she might be breaking down because of something we’re doing right.

The world can be a punishing place. It can feel unsafe to expose our feelings to others. Home — with Eleanor, with me — is a safe place for her to feel. To fall apart, take a deep breath, and rebuild. To have her feelings met with love, acceptance, and understanding.

This is a story about my home and my child, but it’s also a story about your workplace and your employees, manager, colleagues, and clients.

Love, acceptance, and understanding in the workplace? Really? What’s that got to do with performance?

Everything.

An organization performs best when the people in the organization know they can trust and depend on each other. Then they break out of silos. They take accountability for their own mistakes instead of blaming each other. They surface problems before they become major obstacles

But if people spend their energy hiding their feelings, that energy will leak out in negative and insidious ways, sabotaging your efforts and theirs.

If I’d stayed with reason instead of understanding, my daughter would have felt worse about herself. We never would have gotten to her sadness about the party, and I wouldn’t have been able to help her with her real issue, namely, how she was getting along with her friends.

Uncovering the real issue happens when people feel safe enough to be vulnerable.

How do you do it? It’s actually very easy. Take a deep breath and just validate. Repeat back what you’re hearing. Be a mirror.

If it’s easy, why don’t we all do it all the time? Because there’s a hard part too: Managing your own discomfort. Can you be OK with the feelings of others? Can you listen without judging? Can you listen even though you might feel threatened?

As I was putting my daughter to bed she asked me to lie down with her and talk, which we did for a while. She apologized for her response to the gift even though, she told me, she still wished her door opened.

“I know you do, sweetie. I’m sorry it doesn’t open. And I’m also sorry you had a hard time at the party.”

She turned over to face the wall and shut her eyes. There was a moment of silence as she was beginning to drift off to sleep. Then she reached behind her and took my hand, hugging it to her chest.

“I love you dad.”

“I love you too.”

And, as we both feel asleep, her final gift of the night — acceptance — had become my gift too.

*Names and some details changed

So when Michael Newcombe, the new general manager of the Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village in LA, invited me to get an executive physical at the adjoining California Health & Longevity Institute (CHLI), one of the top ten executive health programs in the United States, I jumped at the chance.

I’ve written about Michael and the Four Seasons twice: The Real Secret of Thoroughly Excellent Companies and If You Want to Be Original, Start from a Different Box. I have tremendous respect for Michael as a leader and for the Four Seasons as a brand.

And Michael made me a pitch that I already believe in: Get yourself checked out because if you feel better, you’ll work better, and your performance will improve.

I extended an upcoming trip to Los Angeles by a few days and started filling out paperwork: consent forms, an extremely detailed health history, and a food log.

Once I arrived they took 16 vials of blood, had me breathe into a machine for 20 minutes, and otherwise poked, prodded, and explored me. I met with nurse who evaluated me, a doctor who spent over an hour extracting my medical history, a trainer who reviewed my workout, a nutritionist who consulted with me, and a chef who taught me how to cook.

It was a great experience and reinforced for me a basic belief I have about what makes a business successful.

The facilities were terrific. The equipment was cool. But that wasn’t it.

Their process of assessing me from so many different angles to get a full picture of my health was flawless. And they did a great job of making it a one-stop shop and walking me through each step. But that wasn’t it.

They collected reams of great data about me that went into a comprehensive report about my health, risk factors, and a summary of recommendations. It was accurate and useful and more than I had ever received before, but that wasn’t it either.

All of that contributed to the experience, but none of it made it. So what did make it?

The people.

It wasn’t just that they were nice, helpful, empathic, and professional. It’s that they were experts. And not simply experts in their areas of knowledge, but experts in applying their knowledge to me. That made all the difference.

Every company touts their people as their greatest asset but very few actually believe it. Or act like it. Most spend the majority of their effort designing processes, tools, and methodology they hope are foolproof and then scale their operations by hiring poorly trained people to follow their flawless system.

That creates mediocre results at best.

Several years ago I went to a fancy ski boot company that touted a process for the perfect fit. The person fitting me knew very little about boots and almost nothing about feet. He didn’t need to; it was about the process. Not only did I end up in the wrong boots, but they were painful for years.

This year I went a different route. I went to my local ski shop at Windham Mountain where they hired a master boot fitter, Marc Stewart. Marc looked at my feet for a long while, holding them in his hands, feeling their structure, and listened to me describe how I skied. Then he picked out a pair of boots and, over a few days of skiing, made some alterations. I’ve never been more comfortable in a pair of ski boots and it transformed my skiing.

I experienced the same thing with my own company. Many years ago when my goal was to grow Bregman Partners into a big company I hired close to a hundred consultants. In order to ensure consistency, I trained them all in the same methodology and created a process for them to follow. Any client who hired a Bregman Partners consultant would have a predictable outcome.

Only it didn’t work that way. Each business’s problems were different and a single process couldn’t reliably solve all of them. Our quality declined. Maybe our process wasn’t strong enough?

No, the problem was the opposite: our process was too strong. Because processes don’t create powerful solutions: people do. Experts. Thoughtful masters of a craft. Just the kind of people who will be frustrated by a foolproof process. Now we barely have a process at all. Every intervention is unique. And our outcomes are far stronger.

That was what made my experience at CHLI so remarkable. The big fat compendium of reports I received is still sitting on my desk. That didn’t change me.

But the little pieces of advice I received from each expert — the pieces of advice that aren’t worth sharing here because they apply specifically to me — those pieces of advice changed me.

It’s been a month since I returned from LA, and my diet has subtly changed. Nothing huge, but enough to lose a few pounds and feel healthier. More importantly, all the tests I took have reduced my anxiety about my health. And my performance at work — my focus, my energy, my discipline — has noticeably improved.

If a thorough checkup can improve one person’s performance, and if you believe that people are a business’s most important asset, imagine what it can do for an entire organization.

But when my plane from New York landed in Austin, Texas for South By Southwest, the music, film, and interactive conference, I was excited. I was speaking on a panel and, since everyone told me SXSW is a blast, I had given myself an extra day to explore the conference.

But it didn’t play out like I had hoped. I arrived just in time for my panel, then I did a book signing for 18 Minutes and then, well, then I was at a conference. I went to a conference party and just stood there, shy, embarrassed, and reluctant to reach out and meet people.

I was annoyed with myself. What’s my deal?

I was about to leave when I thought, instead of judging myself, why not take this as an opportunity to explore an uncomfortable emotion? So I stood there and felt what awkward felt like.

It felt awkward. But, soon, I recognized something deeper behind my shyness, something more pernicious.

Once I finished the panel, I had no role and no purpose. I realized that when I’m not accomplishing something, I’m not sure who I am. I was having a conference-generated identity crisis.

My sense of self is dangerously close to my sense of role. I’m a writer, a speaker, a consultant, a father, a husband, a skier, etc. But who am I when I’m not actively being those things? Who am I’m without my accomplishments — past, present, or future?

Just me. Which, it turns out, was unsettling.

I don’t think I’m alone. It’s why, within a minute of meeting someone, we begin to define ourselves by our roles, our status, and our relationships to others. We think it’s because other people need that information to know us.

But standing alone at that party I realized I’d been fooling myself. Other people don’t need that information to know me. I need that information to know myself.

Once I understood the source of my discomfort, I resisted the urge to drop a name or tell people I had just given a talk or written a book or something else to identify a solid role for myself that would make me look and feel good.

Instead, I paid attention to what it felt like to be without any identity other than my presence. I noticed my desire to be noticed and my feelings of insecurity. But I also noticed my feeling of strength, and of trust in my observations and in myself. I began to relax and, once I did, I didn’t feel nearly as insecure.

Then something funny happened. People started to approach me.

Out of the blue, a woman walked over and introduced herself to me and we started talking. Then she waved a colleague over. They didn’t know me and weren’t looking for anything from me, nor I from them. We were just three people connecting. As soon as we parted, a man came over. Again, I introduced myself by name but not by role. Again, we had a great conversation and a nice, human connection.

I didn’t tell people that I’m a writer or that I run a consulting company or any other role-defining facts. I just met them as Peter. And they met me as themselves.

It took some getting used to, especially at a conference where we tend to define ourselves by our roles and people talk to each other while looking around to see if there’s someone more useful to talk to.

But it’s a mistake to launch in to your business plan when you meet someone new — even at a conference where the point is to peddle your business plan. People invest in you first, then your plan. So show them you first, then your plan.

That’s precisely why shedding our roles — at least initially — even at a conference and even if there is something we want from others, is such a good idea.

People will trust you if you trust yourself. And to trust yourself you have to step out from behind the curtain. You have to expose yourself, free of titles and status. When you allow people to see you — as impressive and vulnerable as you are — then they will trust you. Because they will know you.

So how, at a conference when you don’t know anyone, can you engage in a conversation without identifying your role? It’s not easy. You’ll be fighting against the tide. But try asking open-ended questions and try getting personal. Eventually you’ll find out more about your fellow conference-goers and they’ll find out more about you.

A conference is just a bunch of human beings bumping into other human beings. Most of whom feel awkward about it. Most of whom, more than anything, would love to be seen for who they are, not just the roles they represent. We can give that to each other.

It might be awkward at first. But I think it’s our best shot at having a meaningful experience in a situation that often leaves us feeling shallow. That’s clearly good for us. And it might just be good for business too.

“We’ve got another lawsuit,” my friend and client Lana* told me over the phone.

“Really?” I was honestly surprised. “What about all that diversity training everyone went through?”

“Well, apparently we need to do it again.”

Lana was the head of Human Resources for Bedia, a company in the media industry that felt, at times, like an old boy’s network. Diversity wasn’t just a professional issue for her; she cared about it personally.

Over the years, there had been a number of incidents at Bedia in which individuals had felt misunderstood, mistreated, or disrespected. Eventually, someone sued.

In the most recent situation, someone used a word in a letter that felt derogatory to a number of African Americans. Before that, someone sent a sexist joke around the office and a female co-worker was offended. There were other incidents too.

Bedia had tried to address the issue in a diversity training that carefully outlined what people were allowed to say, and what they weren’t.

They also tried diversity training that brought groups of people into a room and asked them to separate into categories. Some of the categories were more self-evident like gender, age, and ethnicity. Other categories were more subtle, like experiences they’d had, likes and dislikes, and beliefs. Each group was asked to share a little about how they saw themselves as an attempt to educate the others.

Still, the problem persisted. The organization was tense and the CEO worried that, eventually, Bedia would end up in another lawsuit.

He was right.

That’s when Lana called me. Would I do diversity training?

There are two reasons to do diversity training. One is to prevent lawsuits. The other is to create an inclusive environment in which each member of the community is valued, respected, and can fully contribute their talents. That includes reducing bias and increasing the diversity of the employee and management population.

Lana made it clear to me that Bedia was interested in the second reason, not just the first, and I agreed to investigate.

But after speaking with a number of people in the organization, it confirmed a feeling that had been pestering me for years:

Diversity training doesn’t extinguish prejudice. It promotes it.

At first glance, the first training — the one that outlined what people could and couldn’t say — didn’t seem to hurt. But on further inspection, it turns out it did.

The scenarios quickly became the butt of participant jokes. And, while the information was sound, it gave people a false sense of confidence since it couldn’t possibly cover every single situation.

The second training — the one that categorized people — was worse. Just like the first training, it was ridiculed, ironically in ways that clearly violated the recommendations from the first training. And rather than changing attitudes of prejudice and bias, it solidified them.

This organization’s experience is not an exception. It’s the norm.

A study of 829 companies over 31 years showed that diversity training had “no positive effects in the average workplace.” Millions of dollars a year were spent on the training resulting in, well, nothing. Attitudes — and the diversity of the organizations — remained the same.

It gets worse. The researchers — Frank Dobbin of Harvard, Alexandra Kalev of Berkeley, and Erin Kelly of the University of Minnesota — concluded that “In firms where training is mandatory or emphasizes the threat of lawsuits, training actually has negative effects on management diversity.”

Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, actually. Anybody who has ever been scolded is familiar with the tendency to rebel against the scolding.

But it’s deeper than that. When people divide into categories to illustrate the idea of diversity, it reinforces the idea of the categories.

Which, if you think about it, is the essential problem of prejudice in the first place. People aren’t prejudiced against real people; they’re prejudiced against categories. “Sure, John is gay,” they’ll say, “but he’s not like other gays.” Their problem isn’t with John, but with gay people in general.

Categories are dehumanizing. They simplify the complexity of a human being. So focusing people on the categories increases their prejudice.

The solution? Instead of seeing people as categories, we need to see people as people. Stop training people to be more accepting of diversity. It’s too conceptual, and it doesn’t work.

Instead, train them to do their work with a diverse set of individuals. Not categories of people. People.

Teach them how to have difficult conversations with a range of individuals. Teach them how to manage the variety of employees who report to them. Teach them how to develop the skills of their various employees.

And, while teaching them that, help them resist the urge to think about someone as a gay person, a white man, a black woman, or an Indian. Also help them to resist the urge to think about someone as “just like me” — that’s a mistake too.

Move beyond similarity and diversity to individuality. Help them see John, not as a gay white man, but as John. Yes, John may be gay and white and a man. But he’s so much more than that.

Don’t reinforce his labels, which only serve to stereotype him. Reveal his singularity. Don’t ask: What are the dreams of a gay white man. Ask: What are John’s dreams? What does he hate? What are his passions?

The antidote to the ineffectiveness of diversity training is the opposite of diversity training. If you want diversity, think about an individual, then another, then another.

“Please,” I said to Lana, “Don’t do diversity training again. It will only make things worse.”

“Then what should we do?” she asked.

We decided to put all managers through communication training. It still fulfilled the requirement of the lawsuit. But it did something more. People learned to listen and speak with each other — no matter the difference — which is the key to creating a vibrant and inclusive environment.

As it turns out, it’s also the key to preventing lawsuits. The communication trainings I led for Bedia were ten years ago and they haven’t been sued since.

*Names and some details changed

At 5 am I was lying in bed, awake, thinking. Actually, thinking is too generous a word for what I was doing. I was perseverating.

I was about to buy a new bicycle, and I couldn’t decide on the color. I tried to visualize the bike and imagine how I would feel riding it in each color. I weighed the options, hoping one would rise as the right choice.

I’d already gone online numerous times to look at the bike, even interrupting important work to do so, and I’d gone back to the bike store twice. I’d asked countless people which color they thought I should get, pulling out my iPhone to show them the options.

I’m embarrassed about this. I’m supposed to be efficient and productive. I’m supposed to be confident. But there I was, wasting time, asking other people to help me choose my favorite color. This is not who I want to be.

But, clearly, it is who I am. Much as I’d like to deny it, I am often indecisive and insecure.

That’s hard for me to admit, so I tried to avoid facing it.

I blamed others: Maybe it was my parent’s fault — they made so many decisions for me that I never learned to have confidence in my own choices. Or maybe it was the bike company’s fault for offering so many colors — there’s compelling research proving that the more alternatives we have, the harder it is to choose.

I minimized my struggle: I make lots of important decisions, so who cares if I can’t make the insignificant ones?

And I tried to follow a process: First eliminate the obvious no’s, then if it’s still unclear, they all must be fine and I’ll just choose any one of the remaining colors.

None of this worked. A week later, I had still not decided.

One night as I lay awake feeling the shame of my ineptitude, I began to think about my daughter. She can have difficulty controlling her impulses and she falls quickly into conflicts with friends. How often have I scolded her or given her unsolicited pushy advice, annoyed that she acted the way she did?

I’d assumed that, if she wanted to, she would change. But, from the vantage of my own struggle, I realized how wrong I’d been. My daughter is doing the absolute best she can. And my judgement of her behavior — of her — only makes her feel and behave worse.

That’s when it really hit me: My expectations of everyone, including myself, are counter-productively high.

High expectations can have a positive effect; people need a high bar to stretch towards. But I think many of us take it too far. We slip so easily into criticisms of ourselves and those around us — family, friends, coworkers, public figures — that we no longer expect people to be human beings. And when we shame ourselves and others for failing, we make things worse. We contribute to pain while nurturing impotence.

When we face weakness — ours or someone else’s — it doesn’t help to blame someone or something, pretend it’s not important, or simply decide to change. And it’s not sufficient to identify a three-step process to fix the problem. So what does help?

Here’s the best I’ve come up with: compassion.

As far as I can tell, for advice to be useful at all, it needs to be preceded by compassion. Yes my daughter needs support, guidance, instruction, and advice. But she needs compassion first. As the saying goes: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. That certainly includes me. And, I’m betting, you. Being compassionate will probably make us better, more effective people. If not, at least it will reduce the suffering that accompanies weakness. And it will most certainly make us nicer to each other and to ourselves.

Eventually, I bought a bike. I rode it home. Then, the next day, I woke up at five in the morning again, second-guessing my decision, thinking I should have bought a different color. I berated myself momentarily and then I remembered: This is who I am. It’s not perfect. I don’t even like myself sometimes. But it’s the best I can do. Hopefully, it’s good enough.

I wanted to write one last year, but other work took more time than I expected, and I kept pushing “write screenplay” off my to-do list.

I know I’m not alone in struggling to make incremental progress on long-term projects or goals. How do you get started when you have “all the time in the world”?

Maybe you have a project with no deadline, like my screenplay. Or maybe you have a deadline that’s months away — like preparing a speech, developing a business plan, or designing a training program. Perhaps you have a habit of procrastinating on projects with generous schedules until “next month” is “next week” and suddenly your long-term project has morphed into a panicky, short-term stress-inducing nightmare?

Doing something big and important is rarely as simple as just getting it done. Often we don’t know how to start and, even when we do, we rarely already have all the knowledge and capability we need to see it through. Also, we almost always have more urgent things to do and so we push off long-term goals.

I know the basic advice: break the work into smaller, more manageable chunks, focus on the next small step that will move you forward, set intermediate deadlines.

It’s good advice. But, in my experience, it’s not enough.

Because, ultimately, the reason we procrastinate on a big, long-term project isn’t just because we have too much time or don’t know where to start. And it’s certainly not because we think it’s not important. In fact, it’s the opposite.

We procrastinate on that big project precisely because it’s important. So important, in fact, that we’re too scared to work on it.

I’ve never written a screenplay. I don’t know how to format it. I don’t know how to structure the story. I don’t even know the story I want to tell.

I’m afraid. Afraid that I’ll fail. That I’ll spend a lot of time on it — while other more immediate things don’t get done — and it will be terrible, anyway.

I’m also afraid of the opposite: That I’ll just dream about it but never actually work on it. Which, paradoxically, discourages me from starting it. If I’m never going to get it done, why start?

My screenplay isn’t just mundane work; it’s work I care deeply about. Almost all big projects fit into that category — even the report your boss asked for that you might think you don’t care about. That’s because a big project is a mirror. It reflects your thoughts and effort and even character. It has your signature on it. Failure in a long-term project isn’t just a work issue; it’s an identity issue. Is it any wonder that we procrastinate?

So what’s the antidote?

Don’t ignore your fear. Acknowledge it. As soon as you know you’re going to give that speech or design that training program, take a quiet moment and experience the fear that comes with the importance of the project. Maybe you’re afraid of getting up in front of all those people to give your speech. Maybe you’re afraid of failing in your new business. Maybe you’re afraid that your training design will expose how much you don’t know. Maybe you’re afraid of letting other people down.

Resist the temptation to minimize your anxiety. That’s a false macho response and it lacks courage. It’s also counterproductive; it gives power to the fear, almost guaranteeing that it will haunt you and prevent your progress.

Here’s why acknowledging your fear works: You’re scared because you expect a lot from yourself and you’re afraid you’ll underperform. When you acknowledge that fear, you’re acknowledging that you might not have all that it takes to meet your expectations; you might not have all the tools, information, skills, etc. Admitting that, in turn, reduces your expectation of getting it perfect right off the bat.

And lowering your expectation of getting it right is the key to getting it started.

Acknowledging your fear also serves another, crucial purpose: it informs you. By recognizing that you don’t have all the tools, information, skills, and support to see the project through, you’re identifying your next, manageable step in getting started: rounding up the tools, information, skills, and support.

Even if it’s not your choice (e.g., your boss committed you to do it) — commit yourself to it fully. Recognize that it will be a reflection of you and admit that you care about it. Even if you don’t care about the project, you do care about your work and, in this moment, your work is the project. Make it one of your top five priorities. When you make the project one of your top five priorities, you’re also — and just as importantly — choosing what’s not a priority. If you have too many important things on which to focus, you’ll never get to the big long term one. So slash your list until you’re left with only five.

I use a six-box to-do list — each box represents one of my top five priorities and the sixth box, labeled the other 5%, is for everything else. That last box shouldn’t take more than 5% of your time. One of my five boxes always represents a long-term priority, which, for this year, contains my screenplay.

Now you’re ready for the standard advice: Break the work into smaller chunks and make sure you know how to do the first chunk. Set an intermediate deadline. If you need other people involved, get them involved early, as commitments to others helps you take your deadlines seriously.

Finally, decide when and where you’re going to accomplish the first chunk and make an appointment with yourself in your calendar.

When you sit down to start your work, you may feel the resistance — fear — come up again. But now you know what it is. Acknowledge it and it’ll be easier to move into the work.

There’s one more thing. Share your fear. Some people may think you’re a wimp. But that hasn’t been my experience. Telling others you’re intimidated by something you have to do gives them permission to feel — and maybe express — their own fear. I find that people are gracious, supportive, and empathetic.

And that support, it turns out, helps us all get our most important work done.

The owner of her company noticed. And when the company’s president left, the owner tapped my friend for the job.

She had her doubts. In the job, she would be more disconnected from the design work she loved and she would be focused far more on finances and doing deals. More than anything, she would have to manage the owner who was temperamental. That wasn’t really her forte or interest.

On the other hand, what an opportunity! And honor! It would look amazing on her résumé, the money was great, and to be president at this young age? How could she turn it down?

So she took the job.

The first few months were grueling, but she expected that. What she didn’t expect is that it wouldn’t get better. She mastered the finances – and even enjoyed that part – but the politics of her relationship with the owner were sapping her energy. Things began to slip through the cracks. The designs began to sell less well. And the owner was becoming increasingly tense and erratic.

Within a few years, she left the job and the company.

If you think about it, the entire outcome was predictable.

We all have a sweet spot where everything seems to flow; where we feel happy, competent, in sync with everything around us, uniquely talented, and predictably successful. It feels like magic, but it’s not: It’s the intersection of our strengths, weaknesses, passions, and differences.

My friend, in taking the job, veered from her sweet spot.

The scenario is not uncommon. Of more than 10,000 people who have taken a productivity quiz on my website, a full 72% admit to doing work they neither excel at nor enjoy.

That’s a mistake. We should plan our work and our lives so that we operate in that intersection. Outside it? Chances are we’ll fail. We might succeed at first, but it won’t be sustainable.

So why do we ever leave our sweet spot? Sometimes, it’s because we want to learn. One of the reasons my friend took the position was to get experience running her own business.

But there’s another temptation at play: ego. A new job sounds impressive and the external rewards and recognition are significant, so we think we should take it, even when we might know in our gut it’s not the right fit.

A few years ago, I was asked to sit on the board of a non-profit. I was honored and I accepted. After a few meetings though, my enthusiasm started to wane. I liked the organization and I liked the people on the board, but I didn’t care enough to devote real time to it. It wasn’t something I was passionate enough about and it required that I be a strong fundraiser, definitely a weakness of mine. In other words, it failed two out of four of my sweet spot criteria.

Here’s the crazy thing: A year later, they asked me to be president of the board, and I accepted again. I lasted a year.

So, why did I accept? I’m embarrassed to say that, mostly, I liked the idea of being president of the board, even though the role took me out of my sweet spot.

At first glance, you might think the dilemma of seduction could be solved by being clear about what you want versus what other people what from you. That would be a fairly easy distinction to sort out.

But it’s more complicated than that. In fact, the dilemma is entirely within us: It’s between what we want and what we think we should want, which is hard to distinguish.

Still, in the midst of that complexity, there’s a simple way to assess an opportunity. Next time you’re given an “offer you can’t refuse,” ask yourself if it will place you squarely in your sweet spot. If it won’t, you know what to do.

As for my friend? She eventually started her own company. She works on the designs herself, which she loves, and is very close to the marketing, promotions and finances. And politics? Very little.

The company is successful, of course. She’s in her sweet spot.