While I was writing the article about cat deliberate living, I caught my dog looking at me sadly. A beagle, she has mastered the whole “puppy dog sorrowful look.” That’s actually why I have a dog right now, but that’s another story for another time. Our dog was an older beagle, adopted as an adult from a rescue, we think about 9 or 10. She is sweet, loving, and generally happy.

My dog looked at me for inclusion. She wanted to be on the interwebs too! But no one would ever accuse my dog of being productive. She was a beagle. For those who don’t know beagles, they aren’t the brightest dogs in the world. In fact, Stanley Coren lists them at the bottom of the list for intelligence.

Still, my dog had things that she can teach me. She had few needs, few desires. Her life was peaceful and simple.

So here is the Beagle’s Guide to Simplicity.

What Are My Needs?

My dog had very simple needs: food, water, a comfy place to sleep, walks, and pets. Everything else is extraneous. She didn’t seek out toys, she would sleep anywhere, she would eat anything put in front of her (and some things not put in front of her). She met her needs in the most straightforward way possible, and was fine with that.

Human application: do we really need the gadget with all the extra features? Do we even need the gadget? Example: my fancy coffee pot broke just a little over a year after purchase. Since coffee is a need for me, I purchased a very simple model and put it on an appliance timer.

Simple Communication

My beagle was abused before we got her. We weren’t been able to piece together her whole story, but we knew that she would not bark unless there was a person in the house (and usually not until they are well into the house — see the intelligence comment above). This means that she would not bark to communicate her needs.

However, she had other ways of communicating. If she wanted companionship, she would lay down at my feet. If she wanted to be petted, she would nudge my hand. If she needed to go outside, she would jump up and put her forepaws on me. There was no guessing. There was no subtlety. She was very direct.

Human application: can you cut the fluff out of your communication? Can you answer every email in 3 sentences or less? Can you be direct and not beat around the bush? Example: if I have a single message to communicate, such as my time sheet is ready to approve, I put that in the subject line and put “– end of message –” at the end of the subject line. I leave the body blank, and the recipient knows he doesn’t have to read anything more.

Taking Things As They Come

My dog was never stressed, except at the vet. She didn’t care if we go camping on a weekend, or stay home, as long as she was with her “pack”. She went with the flow and never had trouble sleeping.

Human application: don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s all small stuff. If you ask yourself if this is going to matter next week or next year, and the answer is “no”, let it go.

Making Do

My dog wasn’t fussy. Particularly about where she slept. She could sleep on the floor, in a chair, on the sofa, on a pillow, in her crate, on my bed or in her dog bed. When we went camping, she just found a soft spot and went to sleep. When we’re traveling, she curled up on the seat. She made do with whatever is available wherever she is. She accepted what she has and used it.

Human application: we all have expectations. But what would happen if instead of wanting things different we just accepted what they are? Example: my husband works three hours away and is gone during the week. I could complain and be grumpy about it, but instead I take the extra time to knock things off my project list.

Unbridled Enthusiasm

One of the most amazing things I have learned about dogs is that they are enthusiastic. My dog didn’t hold herself back when she was excited. If you’ve ever seen Snoopy dancing for dinner in the Peanuts cartoons, let me tell you that is real. Beagles dance for dinner. Mine also danced as soon as she saw me putting on my shoes and coat. When she did something it was with full focus and energy. There was no partial attention for her.

Human application: when we focus on the thing we are doing, we can fully immerse ourselves in it and enjoy it. We don’t have to be distracted by other thoughts and worries. Example: when I am eating, if I am thinking of other things, I will overeat because I am not tasting my food. By focusing on a meal, I taste my food and register when I feel full.

Canines are the master of simplicity. We can learn a lot from them.

One of the ways to get things done faster is to set a tight deadline…and then pare down the task at hand to the bare essentials.

The setting of tight deadlines is known as time compression, and it can spur creativity. But if you set a close deadline, it is essential that you also get rid of the non-essential parts to the task.  Here’s why:

There are three basic elements in any item that needs to be done:

• how many people are doing it
• the time allotted
• the amount of stuff to do

Think of it this way: you have a piece of string. You make a knot in the string to form a loop, then pin the knot to your desk. This represents the people; in this case, you. Now put take two fingers and put them on the inside of the loop so that they pull the string into a triangle.

Visualize this on a graph. The y-axis is (negative) time, or the time closest to the pinned point is the furthest away in true time; and x-axis is the amount that can be done. If time is very far away from today (low on the y-axis), the amount that can be accomplished is greater (Fig. 1). If you move time far up the y-axis, or require something to be done sooner, the amount that can be done must be reduced. (Fig. 2)

Figure 1

Figure 2

So it follows that if you need to get something done quicker, you need to eliminate things from what needs to be done.

Fixing the second point of amount to be done does not allow you to move the time frame. Conversely, if you don’t eliminate things from the task at hand, part of you will be resisting the task from the belief that there is too much to do in the short time span.

]]> http://gqkzq9xu.lauraearnest.com.dream.website/how-to-spot-and-stop-scope-creep/ Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.simpleproductivityblog.com/?p=3388 Scope creep is when you are asked to add things into a job to get it to done. It means that "done" becomes a moving target, and can cause things go be in a perpetual state of work.]]>

Scope creep is when you are asked to add things into a job to get it to done. It means that “done” becomes a moving target, and can cause things go be in a perpetual state of work.

Along with feature creep, scope creep is the next horrifying thing I see in my job. Wikipedia defines scope creep as “Scope creep in project management refers to uncontrolled changes in a project’s scope.”

It’s horrifying to programmers because someone inevitably slides something in and doesn’t consider the impact it will have on the ongoing programming effort, deadlines or testing.

Scope Creep In Real Life

It isn’t limited to programming, though. Scope creep happens in our daily lives.

Like when you know it’s late and you want to get to bed, but you just want to get a few more things done.

Or when you start to straighten a dresser drawer and the next thing you know all the drawers and the closet are dumped on the floor, waiting for you to go through.

Or an example from my own recent life: a menu planning session that went four hours because I ended up upgrading software, redesigning a recipe card printout, and entering recipes.

How To Limit Scope Creep

The key to limiting this expansion is vigilance. If you are tempted to do just a bit more, or your attention veers off, know that you are in danger of expanding your scope.

You also have to be very clear about what you are trying to do in order to recognize what is additional.

The Sure Fire Way to Get Past Scope Creep

The way I get past expanding projects is I write down whatever else I want to do.

For example, if I am straightening a drawer, and I see that another drawer needs to be done, I write the second drawer down on a piece of paper. Then I complete my first task. This allows me to keep track of what I would like to do, without expanding the time of what I am doing.

Keeping your focus on what you are doing in the moment and letting everything else go will get you to “done”.

]]> http://gqkzq9xu.lauraearnest.com.dream.website/feature-creep/ Mon, 10 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.simpleproductivityblog.com/?p=3386 Feature creep is not just something that happens in software. The over-complication of devices that we use can lead to a near constant level of feature creep with every area of our lives.]]>

Feature creep is not just something that happens in software. The over-complication of devices that we use can lead to a near constant level of feature creep with every area of our lives.

What is Feature Creep?

From Wikipedia: “Feature creep is the ongoing expansion or addition of new features [that] go beyond the basic function of the product and so can result in over-complication, or ‘featuritis’, rather than simple design.”

It’s something I dread hearing during software testing: “It’s wonderful. But could you add…” Inevitably it means I am going to be adding things into a piece of software that are not in the original agreed-upon idea.

Why Is It Bad? Aren’t Extras Good?

In terms of software, it means that a simple piece of software, written to do something, has now become diluted with other features. Inevitably, this can lead to breakages because the other features were tacked on and never designed into the original product.

A prime example of feature creep would be a corkscrew I saw recently. It was attached to the handle of a manual can opener. While you might think it’s not a really bad idea, adding a corkscrew is unnecessary to the purpose of the original device (opening cans). The example I saw would also leave you with the point of the corkscrew embedded in your hand if it weren’t perfectly tucked into the opening provided.

So What?

You’re probably wondering why I bring this up. The thing is, we often let things creep into our lives that are not necessary and complicate what we are trying to do.

Examples of Life Feature Creep

Here are some things that might ring a bell:

• A cell phone that has so many features that you find it difficult to make a call
• A calculator meant to handle every type of calculation — plus graphing — when you need a simple arithmetic machine
• A printer that scans, faxes, copies and hooks up to a camera but requires five screens to produce a printout
• A coffee pot that requires consulting a manual every time the power goes out
• An alarm clock that releases aromatherapy with no way to turn it off
• An automatic shower cleaner that requires you to remove everything from the shower before it is used
• A travel toothbrush case that sanitizes a toothbrush by plugging in for 2 hours

Anything sound familiar?

How To Spot Feature Creep

The best way to spot feature creep in your life is to look at what something is needed to do, and compare that to what it can do. In the example above, the calculator where you need arithmetic is overly complicated by graphing, business functions and statistics.

When something meets its intended purpose, but sacrifices simplicity to the extra features that are not needed, that is an example of feature creep.

Not All Features Are Bad

I just want to take a moment to make a point here: not all features are bad. After all, if you use them, they are useful to you. But if you don’t use them, they are clutter, and can impede your productivity.

If you use all the applications on your phone, then the device is suited to you. However, if all you ever do is call home from your phone, why have a smart phone at all?

Feature Creep In Productivity

Sadly, many productivity systems have feature creep built into them. Just about every major print planner out there has additional “pages” for you to track things. Now it’s all well and good if you use them — but many of us, looking for a better way to do things, will buy/print them, and try to use them, thereby complicating our lives.

If you need an hourly calendar, use an hourly calendar. If you have two appointments a month, don’t try to use an appointment calendar. You’ll be putting in too much effort.

How To Eliminate Feature Creep

The best way, after finding feature creep, is to do away with the features you don’t need and that are complicating your life.

If your aroma-therapy alarm clock causes you to wake up sneezing, trade it in for one that is less odoriferous. If all you need to do is print from your computer, opt for a printer model that does just that.

Match the features to your needs, and not on all the things it can do that you might someday possibly find useful.

I make a conscious effort to stop feature creep from happening at work, because experience has shown me that they just cause headaches down the line.

I’m getting better and recognizing feature creep in my life as well.

What about you? Can you think of anything in your life that has suffered feature creep?

I’ve talked about the 80/20 principle before. Formally known as the Pareto principle, it says that 80% of the results will come from 20% of your effort. Today I want to apply this rule to housecleaning.

Pareto and Housecleaning

It’s a fact of life that our living spaces get dirty. There are many ways to figure out how to measure the effort of housecleaning, from 0% (as seen in some of my college friends) to obsessively clean (my grandmother, who mopped the garage floor weekly).

If we look at the Pareto principle, this means that 20% of our efforts will take care of 80% of the dirt.

So the question becomes how much is 20% effort? And is 80% clean “enough”?

Not Everything All The Time

One of the things that really frustrated me about Flylady is that you had a list for each Zone and you were supposed to do that Zone every month. So that would leave me washing the windows 12 times a year, as well as pulling out heavy furniture to vacuum behind it.

I don’t believe things need to be done that way. I think a system can be a little bit more flexible.

Finding the Balance

Using Pareto doesn’t mean that you consistently skip over the details. For if enough dust builds up in the corners, no amount of clean elsewhere will make up for it.

What it means is that you have to find the balance between your ongoing cleaning and the deeper cleaning that you do less frequently. For my mother, this was spring cleaning. For me, it is quarterly cleaning, since I don’t like the difficulty of doing the heavy stuff once a year.

This does not mean waiting until something looks dirty to clean it. It’s definitely been my experience that if I wait until something looks really dirty, I’m going to spend a lot more time cleaning it. Example: if the shower floor looks dirty, I’m going to spend 30 minutes scrubbing. If I do it every week, it takes five minutes.

Applying Pareto Around the House

Mirrors and Windows

For some reason, the mirrors and windows in my house attract fingerprints. I swear elves come out in the middle of the night and jab at them, because no one in the family will ‘fess up. Rather than cleaning the windows and mirrors completely every week, I wipe away the obvious smudges. That is enough to keep them looking presentable, and I thoroughly clean them four times a year.

Floors

My kitchen floor needs to be swept almost daily in warm weather, and mopped at least once a week. The main entrance hall (which is not our main entrance) needs to be swept once a week to keep the furballs at bay, but doesn’t need to be mopped every week. My formal dining room (rarely used) and the music room don’t need to be vacuumed every week, but my bedroom, where the fur babies hang out, needs vacuuming twice weekly to make it livable.

Applying Pareto to your house is going to be an individual thing. It depends on your tolerance for dirt and who (and what) shares the space.

Want a better way to get a list of tasks that need to be done around the house on your terms and frequencies? Check out my Chore Grid.

I have a tendency to make the same recipes frequently. I know the steps to make the food, but not necessarily the exact proportions. Yes, I could look them up, but just having a list with my bare-bones information was all I really needed.

To help me with this, I have put together a recipe cheat sheet.

A recipe cheat sheet is simple a shortcut for recipes that I make frequently. It’s not intended to be a full recipe listing, merely a jog for my memory.

I created this sheet because I was pulling the same recipes out of my box over and over. My memory isn’t the greatest, and quite frankly, while some cooking can be flexible, if you leave the sugar out of a batch of brownies you will know. This sheet hangs inside my recipe cupboard door and is there whenever I need it.

Creating a cheat sheet was very easy. My recipes are already on the computer, so it was just a matter of pulling out those I use frequently. A bit of formatting, and I was ready to go. The sheet is kept in a sheet protector to make it easy to hang, and easy to clean.

There are a few other cheat resources for the kitchen. The mat I use to roll things out on has recipes for biscuits and pie crusts printed on it. I also ran across a wonderful resource for fruit pies over at Martha Stewart’s site. (see Martha Stewart’s Pie Chart)

Having the recipe cheat sheet has saved me quite a bit of time in the kitchen.

]]> http://gqkzq9xu.lauraearnest.com.dream.website/living-on-one-income/ Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.simpleproductivityblog.com/strategies-for-living-on-one-income/ With the economy tanking, and people facing job loss at record levels, I thought I would share what I learned from my three months of unemployment.]]>

It’s funny – I wrote this article in 2009, when we were suddenly faced with my job laying me off. It’s interesting that so many people are facing the same thing so many years later.

With the economy tanking, and people facing job loss at record levels, I thought I would share what I learned from my three months of unemployment. Note: I was not eligible for unemployment compensation, because I was a part-time worker, and in my state you much be a full-time worker seeking full time work in order to get unemployment compensation.

This brought us down to one income. It took some doing, but we made the adjustments. Now that I am back at work, we are still living on one income, and putting my full income into savings. There are many sites out there that will give you the basics of money management: budgeting, expense reduction, debt reduction. But we implemented some specific strategies that saved us a lot of money:

Shopping for Myself

For the years prior to the layoff, I had hired out things I didn’t want to do myself, particularly errands and shopping. With more time than money, I started to do these tasks myself. I found that by doing the grocery shopping myself, not only did I save the service charges and delivery fee, but our grocery bills went way down, simply because I was able to adjust ingredients as I was shopping. For example, I routinely bought jarred pizza sauce for $1.79. I substituted tomato sauce at $0.28 a can, and used spices I had at home. Substitutions like that cut our grocery bill down by over $60 a week.

This has only changed in the recent years by taking advantage of the free grocery drive up service. I get the bulk of my groceries pulled for me, and shop for the incidentals at the Lidl near my home, which has fewer products, but same or better quality at much lower prices.

Cooking At Home

With more time on my hands, I was more likely to cook good meals. More meals at home meant less going out, which is better for our health and budget. Sure, I have backups on hand, but the meals were generally from scratch and healthy. In fact, my husband exclaimed after one meal: “If I can eat like this all the time, you don’t have to get a job!”

I’ve learned to use my pressure cooker and slow cooker, which allow me to cook cheaper ingredients into great tasting meals. Dried legumes and cheaper cuts of meat come out tender and delicious when cooked under pressure or cooked for a long time.

Brand Substitution

I did some experimenting with our “favorites” during the layoff. For example, I tried an off-brand of peanut butter from the grocery store, and a much cheaper brand of coffee instead of our Starbucks beans. The peanut butter didn’t go over well, but we found that we liked the taste of the cheaper coffee as well as the Starbucks…and save about $20 a month. Many of the “favorites” were changed to cheaper alternatives. As long as I was up front about the substitution and elicited feedback, my family was happy to make the changes. We don’t buy the cheapest of everything, but we like what we buy.

I continue to do this, particularly with the brands from Lidl. Some are great, and others we go back to what we enjoy.

Bye, Bye Credit Card

For several years, we had put all expenses on the credit card, with the intention of paying it off every month. That never seemed to happen, and every time we paid the balance off, it went right back up again. During my layoff, we paid off the credit card, and both of us surrendered our credit cards. They are kept out of our wallets, and we have to ask the other before using the credit card. We still have one expense going onto the credit card. My Kindle Unlimited gets charged every month, and we pay it off. This keeps the credit card “in use” without real usage.

Replacing the Bookstore

Bookstores are a dangerous place for me. During my layoff I had to give up my hugely expensive bookstore habit. I began to use the library more often.

Now, I still use the library, but it is usually to check out electronic books. I pay a $20 yearly subscription to Fairfax VA to access their much bigger category of e-books. And I subscribe to Kindle Unlimited for less than $10 a month. I have all the books I want to read, and I don’t spend at the bookstore anymore.  While $140 a year seems excessive, I read all the time. And I had been spending over $300 a month at the bookstore. No more.

In fact, these days when I am at the bookstore, I am busy checking out books from the library and searching on Kindle Unlimited.

30 Day List

Anything that we feel compelled to buy is put on a 30 day list. In 30 days, if we can still see the justification for buying it, we do. 80% of the time the thing that seemed so important doesn’t get purchased.

This tells me that 80% of the time I am falling for marketing, packaging or instant gratification urges.

During the layoff, it cut impulse buying. We still use it to this day, and I often look at the items on the list and wonder what I was thinking!

At-Home Entertainment

While we have never been a big “go out” family, we really made an effort to entertain ourselves at home. Every Friday night we watch an online movie as a family. Every Saturday we play a game together. It gave us great family time together.

We cut cable and subscribe to a few services: Netflix, Disney+ and BritBox. Between those three and YouTube we can always find something to watch.

No Stockpiling

I realized that I had been stockpiling things because I had convinced myself that it would save me time. What I found is that I could put off a lot of expenses by not stockpiling, and evening out the budget. For example, I buy paper towels in bulk. When I was down to my last three rolls, I thought I should buy more. It’s been three months now, and I am finally using that last roll. I will be able to purchase them on a week when the household expenses are lower. Likewise, instead of buying pet food just because I was at the pet store, I wait until I am almost out.

Eliminate Impulse Purchases With The List

One of my local department stores has “bargain” stuff at the front. I would wander in to buy one thing and end up with a bag full of stuff. What I learned to do was to employ the same strategy I use for grocery shopping: if it isn’t on the list, it doesn’t get bought. This saved me from buying a lot of “nice-to-haves” or non-essentials.

These nine strategies have saved us a lot of money over the months I was unemployed, and continue to do so years later.

It doesn’t matter which system you look at: Daytimer, Filofax, 7 Habits, GTD, Do It Tomorrow, Bullet Journal…every system insists that you write things down. Each system differs on how and where you should write them down, but they all want you to get it down on paper (or electrons).

In this part of “The Whys of Productivity” we will look at a fundamental concept that goes through every system out there: writing things down.

Why Write Things Down?

There are a number of reasons for writing things down. Here are a few of them:

Brains Don’t Remember Everything

Our poor little human brains are leaky. I don’t know if I forget things, or if I just can’t recall what I want, but the end result is the same: if I rely on my brain alone, I will misplace things.

By writing things down, in whatever format, you will have a record of the item that is physically accessible and you won’t have to remember.

Writing Things Down Will Get Them Out Of Your Head

By talking to people, I know I’m not the only one who experiences this: if I try to remember things, they will pop back into my head at the most inopportune times. The example of this was the time I was presenting in a meeting, and I kept thinking about having to replenish toilet paper in a bathroom at home. Needless to say, it was distracting.

Writing things down, especially if you are confident you will see the written note, will allow you to forget things…to get them out of your head.

Writing Things Down Makes Them Concrete

Writing a nebulous thought down turns it from intangible into concrete. That’s why so many people who spout the “create your goals/mission statement/purpose” make you write them down.

When you write things down, they become more real to our brains, and we can then take appropriate action.

Writing Things Down

It doesn’t matter how you write things down, but the act of writing what you need to accomplish down will form the basis of any productivity system.

In this segment of “The Whys of Productivity”, we will look at why productivity systems all want us to keep things together in one place.

Every system out there, particularly those that are dependent on a specific format and/or planner, advocate putting everything in one place. Some systems insist that the only place to put things is in their product; GTD advocates a more realistic approach: minimizing how many places you put stuff.

Why Minimize the Number of Places You Put Things?

Looking at this from a practical standpoint, it makes sense that the fewer places you put things, the fewer places you have to keep track of.

If you have ever written something on a sticky note and then subsequently lost it, you can see the value of having a more permanent method of capturing things.

Or if you have ever written something down, just to enter it in the computer later, you can see the duplication of effort.

The reason systems have you minimize your input points is so that you have a finite amount of things to go through later.

Things To Consider: Minimizing Capturing Requires Awareness

Unless we have really thought about it, the places where we take in information can be hidden. If you want to minimize where you take things in, you need to know where all the places are.

Email Addresses

How many email addresses do you have? Do you really need them all? Can you funnel some into the others? The fewer email addresses you have, the fewer you have to check.

Calendars

Do you have a work calendar? A personal calendar? What about your partner and/or children? Are they all separate? Are some on paper and some electronic? Are some tucked away on pieces of paper handed out at an event? If you have all of the calendar information in one place, you only have to maintain and check one place.

Mail

How many places do you keep the paper that comes into your home? Is it in one designated place, or is mail mixed in with the various coupons, flyers, political ads and print media? Having one place to keep the various types of mail will save you tons of time looking for missing bills, notices and other important information.

Tasks

Do you have the list of things you need to do in one place, or do you have dozens of sticky notes and slips of paper hanging around? Do you have multiple task managers that could be consolidated? If you have only one, you only have to check one.

Notes

Do you keep your notes in many different places? Or do you keep them all together in one spot? Do you have paper notes and electronic notes? Do you know how to tell which one to check when you are looking for the information? Can you consolidate?

Other Information

If you’ve seriously thought about the types of information coming into your life with the help of this list, you might find other areas as well. Can you minimize those?

By minimizing where we capture information, we minimize where we have to look to find it again.

Throughout all the years that I have been writing about productivity and researching productivity, I see a lot of articles on the “how”.

But knowing how to do something isn’t enough if you want to expand on it.

As a math teacher, I know it isn’t enough to have students memorize formulas. They have to be able to understand why a formula works if they are to be able to apply it.

As I was considering this, I decided to revamp and expand a series on the “Whys of Productivity”. Over the next few weeks, I will look at the similar basics to several productivity systems and dig down into the “whys” behind each method.

My hope is that this series will help people figure out what works and what doesn’t work for them for any given system, and why, so that each may form a system hybrid that works, instead of getting caught of the trap of looking for the “perfect system”.

The Difference Between Theory and Practice

In theory, theory and practice are the same thing.

In practice, theory and practice are widely different.

We can only understand how to put something in practice if we understand the theory behind it.

If we are told that plants need water, theory would ask how much water to apply, and then go out and apply it. But in practice, we know that it’s not just enough to apply a certain amount of water. We also have to know to add or subtract the amount based on the moisture in the soil. We also need to know what time of day to water the plants to avoid attracting fungus.

In other words, we need to understand they why of adding water to the plant in order to be able to adjust the amount and get the best outcome.

A Foolish Consistency

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” — Emerson

I’ve seen many people’s productivity systems over the years. And I am always baffled by the majority of them. Each one of those systems that puzzles me has a section that either doesn’t get used or gets used in a way that is not helpful to the person maintaining the system.

I’ve started asking why people keep using systems that have parts that don’t work for them. “Why do you never fill out the schedule?” “Why are you storing your tasks in your calendar?”

The answers are always “because that’s what the system says to do.”

One of the reasons I maintain separate work and personal planner notebooks is because the types of information I track is different in both places. For work, I rarely have tasks that need to be done on a given day; my work is more project based. For personal, I need to track my tasks, but don’t have to track meeting decisions; rarely do I attend a meeting that is not strictly informative.

I use the parts of the Bullet Journal system that suit the information I am trying to track. Blindly following the suggestions in the book wouldn’t work for me in either place.

Do you understand enough about your procedures and systems to be able to truly adapt them? Or are you just following the instructions blindly?