Keep small things small

How to keep little annoyances in perspective

It’s easy to get annoyed when things don’t go as they should. Maybe your neighbor leaves his garbage bins on the curb for days. Maybe your workplace sends pointless newsletters that you can’t unsubscribe from.

I’m guessing that if you read this newsletter, you aim to find solutions to various woes that vex you and others, and that’s generally a good thing. Sometimes, though, our attempts to find “solutions” can cost more than the “problems” they’re trying to solve. So in life, you might try adopting this philosophy: keep small things small.

Try a time warp

The first step to doing this is to recognize when things are small. Ask yourself how much any given thing truly affects your life.

Sometimes the answer will be “not much.” These are occasions to practice patience. You can smile after someone cuts in front of you on the highway. Maybe the person is a thoughtless jerk. Maybe it’s tourist in a rental car who had no idea that’s where the exit was. In any case, you know that you will still get to work on time at your high-paying job where you do challenging, meaningful work alongside clever colleagues. I mean, really, what does it matter to you?

If you’re not sure whether you’re dealing with a “small thing,” try what Richard Carlson, author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, calls a “time warp.” Imagine yourself a year from now. How much does the issue matter? Most likely you won’t remember your commute one day from now, let alone a year from now. Or you can ask yourself “Whose issue is this anyway?” It might be nice if your colleague didn’t use double exclamation points in all his e-mails, but this hardly reflects on you.

Picture the conversation

If you are thinking you might want to bring something up, it’s probably wise to take a minute to visualize the conversation before you have it. It’s possible that you might be able to have a respectful conversation that keeps things in context. “Bob, great work on landing that million dollar project! You know it might be good if you just used one exclamation point at a time in your emails.”

But if you can’t imagine having this conversation without it sounding petty, then better just to keep small things small. You can focus your energy on things that really matter.