A Blast from the past & A little shout out

Apologies for the delayed post - I've been out of town on personal and business trips, I'm preparing for up-coming workshops and one-on-one work, plus continuing my switch to the Mac (!), so a short post this week.

A few blasts from the past

For my new readers, here are a few past posts you may not have seen:

• Using "Follow the energy" to refine your personal development experiments
  
• Use Gmail's "star" to highlight your good news
  
• Living in the moment, preventing regret, and appreciating life
  
• Camera Phones and Ten Cent Augmented Reality
  
• Photo Blogs, Wikis, and Memories for Life
  
• Debbie Downer and the Six Thinking Hats
  
• When inputs exceed your workflow system's capacity
  
• And just to keep it light: Top 10 things people are Getting, in addition to 'Things Done', 12 Wild Things people are visualizing, in addition to "Success", and How to Make The Ultimate Cup of Hot Chocolate.

Lots of GTD-related posts

Some GTD-related articles you might not have seen:

• Are daily to-do lists and GTD compatible?
  
• Best practices for GTD and administrative assistants
  
• Dealing with Meeting Notes - GTD to the Rescue!
  
• Depressurize your email with a 24 hour response time
  
• Reading Books The GTD Way
  
• Some GTD warning signs
  
• Some answers to "Should I keep it?" when filing
  
• Some common GTD questions, with answers
  
• What's your maximum response time?
  
• Transitions: A secret ingredient to Getting Things Done?
  
• Is GTD the "Extreme Programming" of Time Management?
  
• Plus a few fun ones: A GTD WorkFlow tool: The five stages on a business card cube and Personal Productivity Playing Cards!

Shout Out

I always enjoy hearing success stories and good news from friends and readers, so here's a little tip of the hat.

• Photographer and buddy Steven Vote continues to take great pictures.
  
• The great folks at Rokenbok showed what customer service means when I lost a part. Hey - How can a former engineer resist these toys?
  
• I connected with the other Matthew Cornell not too long ago. Him: Painter, Me: helper of successful, overloaded, smarties. (Question: A while back I believe I came across a book about a person's quest to meet everyone on the web with his name. Took a year or so, IIRC. Anyone know the book?)
  
• I recently received a surprise copy of Heidi Roizen's Skinny Songs - upbeat music that encourages keeping the pounds off. Great idea, and timely - check out What GTD and Weight Watchers have in common.
  
• Pam's "Escape from Cubicle Nation" book is real, and coming!
  
• Colleague Taco Oosterkamp has released his book on using Outlook productively.
  
• Kudos to Tracy Welsh and her company's super-useful program WebDrive - I used it for years before switching to the Mac.
  
• Tatsuya Nakagawa and friends have come out with their book Overcoming Inventoritis: The Silent Killer of Innovation
  
• Andrew Flusche has a nice "crash course" on copyright fair use.
  
• Ted Vickey's book 101 Fitness Games for Kids at Camp is out.
  
• Bob Walsh's marketing and selling ebook MicroISV Sites that Sell is out, and it's a great value.
  
• Michael Sampson wrote a whitepaper The 7 Pillars of IT-Enabled Team Productivity: The Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Analysis
  
• Peter Radizeski's written SELLECOM: 101 Ideas for Marketing in the Telecom Jungle
  
• And finally, thanks to Alvin Soon, Nicholas Bate, Steve Spalding, and everyone else who's reminded me how important it is to give public acknowledgement.

Have some recent good news of your own to share? Let me know!

Three indecisiveness phrases, and when (not) to use them

I'd like to tell you about three phrases you and I use that actually mean the opposite, and, when used improperly, hurt productivity and weaken your mind (Gasp!) Fear not, I'll also share the only times they are OK to use. And I'll start with a biggie.

"Let me think about it"

This is a classic in being indecisive. Situation: Have you ever been asked for something or had an offer made to you and you answered "Let me think about it"? Typically what this answer really means is "The answer is no, but I don't want to disappoint you so I'm going to pretend to think about it." Implied in this is "...and I hope you forget to bring it up again." Nasty!

In this case, you're is using the phrase as a crutch, and it has a cost:

1. It's going to dog you until it's resolved.
2. You're misleading someone and wasting their time; it's disrespectful.
3. You're training yourself to be indirect and less decisive.

What you're really doing trading is clarity for a temporary reprieve in disappointing someone. It's a bad practice. If you know the answer, train yourself to be direct (but sensitive) and get closure right then. If you want to leave the bridge open, fine, but not if you really don't want to discuss the issue again.

That said, this phrase does have a few specific productive uses:

• You need to collect more information. However, ask yourself whether this is an excuse to put off deciding. It's frequently better to make a decision early on, with less than 100% of possible information, than to strive for perfection. Most decisions can be mitigated later.
• You need to clear or verify it with someone else. In this case, commit to a specific date to get back to them, no longer than a few days.
• Germination: You really might have to let it germinate. The blogosphere is rife with creativity stories around the subconscious, and hey - who am I to take away your productive shower time ;-) But be honest about whether you really need to sit on it.

Here are a few rules if you do decide to defer:

• Only one defer allowed per person. Think of it as a rare coupon you don't want to squander.
• Make your decision time bound: Limit how much you're willing to spend on it, and don't make it too big - one hour max, say.
• Commit to a decision by a specific date (no longer than a week), and tell it to them. Then keep your word.

"Let's get together sometime"

This really means "I'm not interested (or mildly interested), but not enough to follow through." The solution here is simple: Pick a date. I found myself weaseling out last week. I really did want to get together with a friend and peer, but I was having a weak moment and used the phrase. It felt weird. Thank goodness she called me on it and said "Let's set a date. how about next Monday at lunch time?"

A common variation: "We'll be in touch" - sadly not uncommon when applying for a job or sending an unwanted proposal. Please, put me out of my misery and get it over with! (I'm told companies sometimes get so inundated with resumes that they make it easier on themselves by not sending "sorry" letters. I don't respect this practice. Disclaimer: I've never been in the hiring role.)

"Interesting"

This is a true classic, and often means "That's really uninteresting" and/or "I disagree but don't want to get into it with you." To be fair, this can also mean "I don't understand or agree, but I'm willing to think about it." Also, it rally depends on the tone.

Instead of saying this, try getting into question asking mode and being genuinely curious. (For more, see How to help people, step 1.)

(An example: I once sent a resume to a company, waited a few weeks, heard nothing, then called the hiring person. She said "We got your resume. It was ... interesting." Her tone made me think "We thought your use of crayons for the resume was innovative." Not getting hired worked out much better, BTW.)

Others?

Do you have any favorites? A few others:

• "Send me a brochure" ("I'm not interested, but I won't say so.")
• "That's something" ("I have no idea what to do with this gift.")
• "She's not here right now" ("She's here, but she doesn't want to talk to you."
• "Thank you for sharing" ("That was wildly inappropriate. Save it for you psychiatrist."

What GTD and Weight Watchers have in common

One of the personal changes I was surprised by when adopting David Allen's work was how relatively efforlessly I lost 15 pounds [1]. In my case a simple engineering-based approach worked: Calories in < average calories burned. But keeping it off can be a challenge. What helped a lot was my wife's adopting the Weight Watcher's ("WW" from here on) program [2], which not only opened my eyes to how I thought about eating, but also kicked off some thinking about how WW and GTD are very much alike.

Following are some observations. As always, your thoughts and clarifications are very welcome.

Both are caused by a mismatch between abundance and old brains

Clearly we're not wired to to handle abundance - WW: Too much food available [3]. GTD: Too many demands and requests for our attention. As a result we make poor choices that impact our health and happiness. WW: We eat too many calories (and too many unhealthy ones), which overtaxes our bodies, causes self image problems, and cuts lifespan. GTD: We try to do it all, and don't do the highest impact work, which causes stress, hurts our lives outside of work, and can certainly cut lifespan.

The cause is our 100,000 year old brains, which aren't well prepared for these modern challenges. "Aha - here's some food. Better eat now while I have the chance! I know I'll store the unused bits for the lean times." (Filling up opportunistically doesn't apply to a full fridge.) "Gahh! Email, the phone, my Blackberry - I'm ready to tear my hair out!" (Fight or flight doesn't apply to a boardroom, a research lab, or your office.)

Sure, in another thousand or two generations we might have better brain structures to manage this (assuming no environmental changes - not likely), but that's no help to those of us suffering right now. Note: I would *love* to hear from you about minds and abundance, and recommended reading of leading theories.

Both address a huge gap: Self-management

This is the mind blower that got me into this work: Given the above mismatch, we're just plain not taught a principled method to manage these problems. And we're talking about two of the most fundamental things we do in life (eating and working). (Want another one: moving our bodies - see Reflections on Alexander Technique and personal productivity.)

So as I think of it, WW and GTD seek to provide systems, thinking, and tools to solve their respective problems.

Both are difficult, and not a silver bullet

The bad news? Quick fixes won't cut it. This includes fad diets that result in short-term gains (e.g., dehydrating) and tips and tricks to working better (e.g., a one-time office purge). Instead, changes like these require major habit adjustments, and those take time. It's a process of mastery (see George Leonard's great little book Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment).

So there's a heavy requirement for WW and GTD "users:"

1. Realize there's a problem (WW: overweight; GTD: overloaded).
   
2. Be exposed to a new and principled way of thinking.
   
3. Adopt principled ideas and tools for change.
   
4. Form habits via practice and support, using experiences of improvement and relief to build inertia.

Both come down to transparency, limits, and choice

Both methods help to address the problems in (at least) three ways.

First, they provide information about what we let into our lives, and concrete mechanisms for tracking. For WW, this is around "points" (a combination of calories and fiber content, as I understand it). Practitioners learn about the foods they eat and the associated points, which leads to making better choices. They're tracked using various tools. For example, I was surprised by the high impact of oils in cooking (including dressings). For GTD, we decide the work involved in everything entering our lives, and track it all in lists and our calendar.

By making this information explicit, there's a kind of transparency to our world: It's all up front, and allows our being aware of our behavior - something that wasn't possible before with such clarity.


Second, both systems acknowledge there are limits, which lets us make those important trade-offs (WW: diet; GTD: action). In WW this is captured via limiting points. There are different programs to structure this, but they all involve a reasonable budget, which you work to stay within. However, in GTD this is actually a rather significant limitation. The calendar has built-in limits, but there's nothing explicit to keep us from adding unlimited work to our lists. I talked about this some in Extreme GTD: How low can you go (or: Can we 80-20 GTD?), esp. Mark Forster's take on "closed lists" in Do It Tomorrow.

Finally, they both come down to choice: The actions we take result in consequences, so we must choose with care. Interestingly, choice has (at least) two implications:

1) Self-responsibility: Making conscious choices about our lives removes the excuse to be passive and then complain about it. Example: I might need to make an important but difficult conversation, but instead of biting the bullet and doing it I might put it off and complain about relationship.

Another example: When I'm teaching clients best practices for personal productivity [4], it's highly empowering - too much so for some people. (Not too many, thankfully - plunking down money tends to motivate commitment.) For example, if I really get my act together after adopting the work, I can no longer claim it's out of my hands, or it's somebody else's fault - I explicitly take responsibility. This is not necessarily comfortable (at least initially), and can be a big change.

2) Things not chosen. Mark makes this point: deciding to do something means you've decided not to do something else. For example, spending time watching TV means not spending time with my daughter and wife. Or eating that slice of cake means I've blown some big points, and will limit the rest of the day.

Wrap up

I admit my knowledge of WW is a bit sketchy, but I like thinking about the overlap. In fact, I can't stop thinking about these things, so hey!

What do you think? Any parallels you've drawn? Are you reminded of other programs?

References

• [1]"Missing: 15 pounds. Description: Heavy, yellowish in color. Distinguishing characteristics: Makes wet sucking sound when moving with curious rolling/oozing gait. Reward: None." ;-)
  
• [2] Check out the Wikipedia article and the official site.
  
• [3]I realize that many people in the world don't have enough food, and it breaks my heart. For something related that made me think, check out What the World Eats, Part I. I was really surprised by the big differences in how much/month different families spend, and how healthy the diets of the less industrialized families looked. Except for Chad, which didn't have enough.
  
• [4]As usual, I want to be very clear that I have no association with David Allen or his company. His work has been a huge influence, but I continue to combine the best practices from many sources (which I share here) into my work.