Thanks for a great 2009, plus, for 2010, The Word is... Open!

Though my posting frequency dropped this year (but increased during my write shorter, simpler, and more frequent blog posts experiment), due partly to creating new products [1] and a death in the family at the end, I wanted to finish the year with a hearty thank you. I sincerely appreciate your being here (which encourages me), your comments (which stimulate me), and your showing of support. Thank you. I'll finish the year with one of my occasional "The Word is ..." lists (see The Word Is ... "Law" and The Word Is... "Stick*" Notes, Girth, Laziness, And Pasta). Cheers!

I'm curious...

• How do you stay open, especially in the face of scary changes?



• What highlights (good news and lessons learned) were there in 2009 for you?



• How are you looking at 2010, given dreary economic times?

The word is... Open!

For the coming year, I'm thinking about how to stay open. To emotions, to relationships, to ideas, to change, to staying flexible, or to new data from your personal experiments [2]. To that end, some entries from my Big-Arse Text File:

• Open-ended questions: Good in networking and conversations, bad in email messages [3]. Check out Open Ended Questions build Rapport and Open-Ended Questions (interviewing techniques).



• Open to new inventions: From the interviews in Why Bad Times Nurture New Inventions, we're told that people become more open to new and efficient ways of doing things in bad economic times. How about you? Are there "out there" opportunities that need looking at?



• 
  Psychologically safe environments: A "wow" passage from The competitive imperative of learning:
  
  

  
  In psychologically safe environments, people are willing to offer up ideas, questions, concerns - they are even willing to fail - and when they do, they learn. In her studies, Dweck found that some children - those who early on were rewarded for effort and creativity more than for simply giving the right answer - see intelligence as something malleable that improves with attention and effort. Tasks are opportunities for learning; failure is just evidence they haven't mastered the task yet. Driven by curiosity about what will and will not work, they experiment. When things don't pan out, they don't give up or see themselves as inadequate. They pay attention to what went wrong and try something different next time. In adults, such a mind-set allows managers to strike the right tone of openness, humility, curiosity and humour in ways that encourage their teams to learn.
  

  
  



• Before ever opening your inbox...: ... establish the day's top priorities. (From Email is like laundry..., and central to my daily planning program - see A Daily Planning Experiment: Two Weeks Of Accountable Rigorous Action, which led to my Where the !@#% did my day go? guide.)



• 
  Good science: From the lovely Project 2061 ~ AAAS:
  
  

  
  Accurate record-keeping, openness, and replication are essential for maintaining an investigator's credibility with other scientists and society.
  

  The productivity spin: Keep good records - know your organization's retention policy and take solid notes from your meetings and conversations (requires skillful filing chops). My system: I put the date at the top, number the pages, and mark my new tasks and waiting for. (Related: Five Secret Filing Hacks From The Masters, Some Answers To "Should I Keep It?" When Filing, Two Little Joys And Sorrows Using My Filing System, and a reader's comment on how she marks action in Dealing With Meeting Notes - GTD To The Rescue!.)
  



• 
  The Open Door: Here's a quote from this book by Helen Keller (out of print, but may be in your library) that for some reason helps me calm down when I worry about the future:
  
  

  
  Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of man as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
  

  
  



• Surprise: In good science, be open to it! From a marvelous list [4] in the classic science talk, You and Your Research by Richard Hamming. (Long-time IdeaMatt reader and smart guy Brock Tice commented here on this piece, and shares an experiment he's doing: Dedicating Friday afternoons only to "Great Thoughts".)



• Desirable personal attributes: From How Do Scientists Use the Scientific Method?: Honesty, Flexible, Experimenter, Suspend Judgment, Attitude, Skeptical, Sensitivity, Knowledgeable, Motivated, Seek Truth, Communicator, Passion for Subject, Organized, Curiosity, Team Worker, Emotional Stability, Courage, Creative, Open-Minded, Logical Reasoner.



• Open door policy: The idea that being readily accessible to employees is compelling, but a strict implementation can hurt your productivity. Instead of literally having your door always open, consider creating time slots for availability. During these times, which you share with everyone, you make yourself free to be interrupted. For other times, people need to make an appointment, unless urgent. (If folks have trouble adapting to this, contact me for some ideas.) The article Be Accessible, Not Open-Door goes into this further.



• 
  Open systems: From Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (via Are You Organized For Failure?):
  
  

  
  In traditional organizations, trying anything is expensive, even if just in staff time to discuss the idea, so someone must make some attempt to filter the successes from the failures in advance. In open systems, the cost of trying something is so low that handicapping the likelihood of success is often an unnecessary distraction... Open systems, by reducing the cost of failure, enable their participants to fail like crazy, building on successes as they go.
  

  
  

Happy New Year!

References

• [1] My two products (more in 2010!) are Where the !@#% did my day go? The ultimate guide to making every day a great workday and You Did WHAT? 99 Playful experiments to live a healthier and happier life. (Side note: Creating these was a big experiment for me, and the results have been fantastic. Thanks a ton to my customers :-)



• 
  [2] Check out recent experiments (and especially the comments) from Edison, the Think, Try, Learn experimenter's workbook:
  
  
  
  
  • Edison - Extreme Batching - Intentionally Creating a Weekly "Vacation Tax"
  
  
  
  • Edison - Change the Conversation
  
  
  
  • Edison - Lose 20 Pounds In One Month
  
  
  
  • Edison - Dress better in public
  
  
  
  • Edison - Improve Sleep Hygeine
  
  
  
  • Edison - Attempting the "Geek to Freak" muscle-building technique
  
  
  
  • Edison - Work, Relationship, Fun Balance
  
  
  
  • Edison - Try the "It isn't cancer" mind hack
  
  
  
  • Edison - Vitamin D3 to Prevent Flu and Colds
  
  
  
  • Edison - Will my homies start playing Akoha?
  
  
  
  



• [3] The tip is to minimize e-mail ping pong by making suggestions ("Should we meet at 10?") rather than asking open-ended questions ("When should we meet?"). From Death by Information Overload, by Paul Hemp (HBR summary here).



• 
  [4] I love this quote from the article: "The essence of science is cumulative. By changing a problem slightly you can often do great work rather than merely good work. Instead of attacking isolated problems, I made the resolution that I would never again solve an isolated problem except as characteristic of a class." Here's the list:
  
  
  
  
  • Hard work (study, work, learn), thinking
  
  
  
  • Courage
  
  
  
  • Confidence (early success)
  
  
  
  • Stay free (e.g., from committees)
  
  
  
  • Stick w/small problems -> larger ones
  
  
  
  • See opportunity in problems or trivial assignments (defect -> asset)
  
  
  
  • Have drive
  
  
  
  • Solid steady work
  
  
  
  • Directed
  
  
  
  • Tolerate ambiguity
  
  
  
  • Belief balanced w/doubt
  
  
  
  • Do good science - track contradictions to theory
  
  
  
  • Complete commitment
  
  
  
  • Focus only on the problem (starves subconscious)
  
  
  
  • Mix w/diverse thinkers
  
  
  
  • Work on an important problem (solvable)
  
  
  
  • Plant seeds in different areas (diversify)
  
  
  
  • Be open to surprise (don't be too safe)
  
  
  
  • Allocate time for bigger-picture thinking (where field's going, opportunities, importance)
  
  
  
  • Jump on opportunities
  
  
  
  • Open door (diverse inputs -> ideas)
  
  
  
  • Attack more general problem (change problem slightly) - solve general class
  
  
  
  • Educate your bosses
  
  
  
  • Work (don't fight) the system - you can either reform it or do great work
  
  
  
  • Control anger
  
  
  
  • Commit to something (ego will force to do, even if hard) - corner self
  
  
  
  • Great work is stressful
  
  
  
  

Simulating the Future to be in the Present

I was thinking about ways we can remind ourselves to enjoy life, specifically, how we can appreciate the things we have in our lives right now? It's easy for us to take things for granted when we have them over time without change [1]. Relationships, in particular, come to mind. The idea is that it's too late to treasure (and act on) a wonderful person or circumstances until afterwards. This thinking is captured by expressions like "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and "You don't know what you've got till it's gone" (from Big Yellow Taxi, a song before my time, but which I find meaningful).

So, if loss leads to appreciation, can we simulate it mentally and be more fulfilled when we return? The technique might be like so: Pick someone you are failing to appreciate - just a tiny bit, maybe, like your spouse - and imagine your world without him. Taste it, experience your feelings, and really visualize how your life would be different. Then bring yourself back to the present. Has your perspective changed? Are you more likely to practice active gratitude?

Actually, we have something that plays this role: Art. Watching a tear-jerker, reading about someone else's loss, or drinking in a beautiful painting helps us to appreciate the riches in our lives. These things take us out of our lives for a moment, putting us into an alternative state/reality that gives us a datapoint for comparison to our lives. I'm an engineer and scientist at heart, so this insight about art gave me a big shift about priorities, esp. in school. (I got zero exposure to culture when getting my B.S. in Electrical Engineering.)

Finally, in addition to making us thankful, it is a coin in the regret prevention piggy bank.

Here are some examples to try:

• the death of a loved one



• inclimate weather (if it's warm where you live, pretend it's winter then step outside and be surprised!)



• life without electricity



• being deathly sick

I'm curious:

• Have you used this technique? On what?



• How has it changed your perspective?



• What things in our lives do this in a different form? (E.g., having a bad dream.)



• In what settings should we not apply this? (Think self-pity, depression, or denial.)

References

• [1] Maybe this is related to our brains ability to tune out that which becomes static. This is obviously evolutionarily advantageous - things that aren't changing don't need our precious attention. Movement in particular deserves scrutiny. (Please: Share the name and good references for this!)

Lessons Learned for 2009. Unfinished Business, Only the Best, and You Never Know

For the last few years I've done an end-of-the-year exercise where I review the lessons I've learned over the year, and reflect on how I've (hopefully!) improved as a result. I humbly submit a few you might like. Related posts: Personal Lessons Learned In 2008 - The Intersection Of Past, Present, And Future, Some Thoughts From Tracking "lessons Learned" For A Year, and Did, Doing, To Do: Why Your Past, Present, And Future Selves Need To Chat. (An aside: I suggest every experiment you try - I mentioned our Edison tool for tracking them - should end with a list of what you learned.)

Questions for you

• Which lessons did you learn in 2009?



• Do you explicitly track your lessons? If so, how?



• What process/tools help remind you to apply them?

Some Personal Lessons From 2009

• Work: Don't be afraid to experiment. The idea has negative connotations for some people, but I use it in the positive "What the hell, let's just give it a try" sense. In my consulting I readily admit to bringing new ideas into play. It's one of the reasons people come to me - to get a broader set of ideas around productivity, instead of "one size fits all." In addition, when a group wants help with fire-fighting, motivation, or delegation, it can be more successful to try small, non-threatening changes instead of overarching ones.



• Productivity: Work the checklist! Like many folks, I make liberal use of the venerable idea of a listing out standard steps you repeat for certain activities. Ones for travel are common, for example: things to pack, utilities to check, pets to take care of, agendas and files to bring, etc. Almost worse than having no checklist, however, is having one and forgetting to use it. I've found myself doing this a few times this year on a trip and a proposal. Fortunately they were small things that didn't impact success (I was able to borrow deodorant :-), but they were a wake-up call.



• Consulting: Network effectively. In consulting, forming strong win-win connections is valuable. Here are some tips: 1) Put yourself out there. While obvious, it can take an effort to overcome stay-at-home inertia. Make a monthly goal (two events, say) that you review weekly. In my case I searched for Boston-area events, started attending, and got up my courage to say a few words to the group when the opportunity came up. As a result, I met someone who's become a valuable acquaintance. 2) Be curious. This requires great listening skills and a willingness to do some detective work to figure out what they're excited about. (My theory is everyone has something that gets them going, but some are closer to it than others.) Don't overdo it, though - feeling like you're being quizzed is uncomfortable. 3) Practice "you never know." Both in my life and my consulting I've been open to meeting folks I might not have thought would be interesting, with plenty of surprises. This reminds me of a quote attributed to Warren Buffett: When asked what his strategy was, answered "Answer the phone. The best deals are the ones you don't plan for." 4) Finally, put your energy into meeting the right people. Is this in conflict with #3? No, but use balance - you have limited resources for meeting folks. (There's also Dunbar's Number to consider - the theoretical limit on the number of individuals whom you can follow closely, pegged at ~150.)



• Health: Get enough sleep. This is mentioned regularly in productivity circles, but until recently I hadn't appreciated it enough. However, when I experimented with melatonin and started getting more rest (maybe they're related) I found wide-ranging improvements, including mental performance and mood. I still use other tricks, including night-time capture of ideas (see A Few Thoughts On Capture), avoiding alcohol and caffeine, and hitting the sack as soon as I feel tired instead of pushing through it. (Side note: Jerry Seinfeld has a great bit about the finger on your remote control being the last part of your body to fall asleep see Jerry Seinfeld Live on Broadway: I'm Telling You for the Last Time ;-)



• Living: Be generous with your "I love you's." It's something we might feel uncomfortable saying, but I put it in the "healthy impulse" category. If you feel like saying it, take the risk.



• Presentations: Try some technology. I (finally) experimented with using PowerPoint's presenter view feature instead of working from a printed version, and I loved it! However, I got a rude suprise at one venue when I found the cable was too short to reach my laptop. I considered carrying a long cable, but instead I added it to the facility requirements document I send to clients. (Related: The short comment thread at Lisa's Using notes pages in PowerPoint.) A wireless control is a really good idea too.



• Living: Eat only the best. I'm always conscious of what I eat, for both health and weight. But, like everyone, I enjoy the occassional cake or ice cream. However, when visiting home recently I found myself eating low quality ice cream, then regretting it later. So, New rule: For luxury foods, Only Eat The Good Stuff. A key is having been exposed to a wide range of quality, in this case some superior locally-made stuff. Importantly, don't be afraid to throw it away if you don't like it. This can be tricky when you're a guest for dinner, but the solution is also health: Take a tiny portion. If you like it, ask for more - hosts always appreciate compliments. This assumes you're in the right quality-vs-quantity 2x2 matrix, though. Related: What GTD And Weight Watchers Have In Common.



• Productivity: Always ask "When do you need this by?" I learned this because of a miscommunication where I made an assumption about someone's timeline that turned out to be incorrect. This resulted in my having to scramble to make a surprise deadline. It worked out OK, thankfully, but was a rude reminder of something I've done in the past. In execution, clarity is king.



• Living: Leave well enough alone. Also known as "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" or "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", I've been bit a few times when I might have known better. For example, my mountain bike's brake lever was a bit soft but still working, and the perfectionist engineer in me couldn't live with it. After I took it in to be repaired the symptom was better, but now it pulled much closer to the bar - which was more bothersome to me than the original problem! To give myself credit, I didn't know this would be the outcome, but I'll be more thoughtful next time. More generally, this relates to perfectionism, where you spend significant additional effort for very little improvement. Just remember, "Good enough" ain't bad.



• Productivity: No last-minute emails. I once had a client cancel a face-to-face meeting about 45 minutes beforehand, which wouldn't have been terrible (the client's always right, right?) except that, instead of calling he sent an email. I was en route and didn't check my inbox, so I wasted time and experienced the usual stress during the trip.



• Living: Maybe you're not ready. I'm forming the base concepts for our Think, Try, Learn work, and have been wanting to get started writing my book since the year's start, but was unmotivated and stuck. In typical Matt fashion I criticized myself for it, and assumed that it was lack of discipline. Fortunately, an experienced colleague and writer of mine suggested the possibility that I might not be ready to write it. Aha! What a liberating thought. Following my ideas in Sometimes Laser, Sometimes Blind: How Natural Converge/diverge Cycles Explain Progress, I figured out that the material still needed gestation. In the meantime I'm collecting stories and experience through our on-line projects, which feels right. For now.



• Productivity: Don't zone out. I had at least three time zone miscommunications this year, which were irritating, but not catastrophic (I ended up calling early instead of late, thank god). My rule is now the nuclear option: list both their and my time zone, e.g., "I'll call you at 10a CT (11a ET my time) at 407-..." It's a bit more work for me to spell it out, but the clarity is worth it.



• Living: It's important to not leave personal business unfinished with the ones you love. You never know when you'll lose them, and you'll regret it when they're gone. In the case of my mom's recent death, I was grateful I had nothing important that went unsaid before she went.



• Work: Finally, a riddle: What do you call a project that generated lots of lessons learned? "Experience."

Announcing Edison v1.0 - The Think, Try, Learn Experimenter's Workbook!

After lots of hard work by the team [1], I'm tickled pink to announce - Ta Da! - Edison version 1.0, The Think, Try, Learn (TTL) Experimenter's Workbook. It's a social networking tool for tracking all the new things you're trying in your life. What do we mean by experiment? Anything you've never done before, that you're a little nervous about, or that you have no guidebook for. (See You Know You're Experimenting When... for more.)

Why should you try this? I've found that thinking of things this way has been a major help in being courageous, enjoying life, and having more fun. When you get into it, I'm sure you'll discover dozens of current experiments you're running in your life (whether you know it or now), including ways in which you're working to improve yourself - losing weight, eating better, or getting more productive (how about some of your GTD projects, or your productivity practice itself?) Check out How Do You Treat Life As An Experiment? for more.

How does it work? It's simple: You create a new experiment for each new thing you're trying [2], make observations while you're doing it, get helpful comments from other Edison users [3], then mark it completed when you're done. You can also participate in the community by making comments on others' experiments, such as giving encouragement or sharing your experiences on things you've tried and learned from.

To get started, simply click Join, type your name, email, and password, then start entering your experiments. (It's the holidays, so how about watching what you eat or keeping a positive attitude?) Or you can look around at some of the experiments our early adopters are running by browsing the main page or scanning the tag cloud. For ideas, check out the range of experiments in Stories From Edison: Lucid Dreaming, Dropping Twitter, Sleep, And Personal Medical Experiments.

It's early days yet, and we'd love to hear your feedback. Use the TTL form, or email me directly. And stay tuned for a little contest with prizes for master Edison-ites, such as people with most new experiments, the most comments or observations, the most positive contributor, and the most surprising, fascinating, or the strange ones :-)

Happy experimenting!

References

• [1] A huge thanks to the Think, Try, Learn team: Liza Cunningham (TTL partner, software entrepreneur, and web designer), Andy O'Shea (programmer extraordinaire and Ruby on Rails developer), and Graham Westerlund (web front-end guru, and HTML and CSS wizard).



• 
  [2] The system gets you thinking when you make an experiment by asking some questions from the TTL perspective:
  
  
  
  
  • What will you do?
  
  
  
  • How will you test your idea and measure success?
  
  
  
  • How will you know you are done?
  
  
  
  • How will you enjoy the journey?
  
  



• [3] If you've marked it as public, that is.