IdeaLab 0729: A little GTD heresy, willpower, jealousy, and straight talk

A continuation of the strange mashup known as the IdeaLab - odditites from the patented IdeaMatt My Big-Arse Text File.

• Listen up!: Did something you read, heard, or thought ring true for you today? Pay attention to that and make sure you capture it! This awareness was kicked off when a scientist friend told me about his data "speaking to him." Neat. So for the last few months I've been collecting phrases I like or might find useful, including

  Clerical workers use information - about, say, customer orders - to aid the smooth working of the company. Knowledge workers use information to change themselves.

  (From The marks are on the knowledge worker via In praise of clutter.) Also:

  "We are hunter-gatherers at the core. We open e-mail and hit 'send and receive' to see if something interesting has come in." - Tony Wright, CEO of RescueTime

  Related: What To Do When An Excited Person Person Is Waving Something At You
  
  
• Beware the large To Do list: A common complaint for people practicing a rigorous self-management system like GTD is that too many tasks accumulate, i.e., they have too much to do. You only have two possibilities work faster or commit to less. However, having this many should be a warning sign - why is there so much on your plate? This is especially true if you're a manager. Going higher up the ladder doesn't mean you should be working harder than ever. In fact, the opposite could be argued - less routine business, more innovative thinking. From Beware the Busy Manager:

  GreatQuote: Managers are not paid to make the inevitable happen. In most organizations, the ordinary routines of business chug along without much managerial oversight. The job of managers, therefore, is to make the business do more than chug -- to move it forward in innovative, surprising ways.

  (Related: Got The Email Blues? Only Three Things You Can Do: Get Fewer, Get Faster, Get Control.)
  
  
• The absurdity of the two minute rule: Related to above, the common idea of not spending too much time dispatching individual items while emptying inboxes can become absurd. Don't get me wrong, the intuition behind it is solid. As Len Merson puts it in The Instant Productivity Toolkit:

  The idea is that you don't want to be filling your Turtle stack [To Do list] with nit picky work items if you can take care of them quickly and immediately, one at a time. If you perform the task immediately, it might take you only a minute; if you wait and accumulate twenty such tasks, they will seem overwhelming and add to your stress.

  But two minutes (or one or three) is on the edge of being too short, I'm coming to think. As one client puts it, we start resisting creating "too much work for our future selves."
  
  
• From the "please pass the mustard" department: Courtesy question: In a crowded theater is it better to unwrap a noisy piece of candy slow or fast? I.e., are you "patient and quiet" or "loud but fast?" Hey - a 2xw matrix! :-)
  
  
• Cat tip: Flushing clumping cat litter down the toilet is a Bad Idea. A housemate did this once and we've never had the same flow state since.
  
  
• Willpower boot camp?: From Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind, it appears willpower can grow in the long term. "Like a muscle, willpower seems to become stronger with use. The idea of exercising willpower is seen in military boot camp, where recruits are trained to overcome one challenge after another." What are the implications for productivity? E.g., do one extra task when you don't feel like it?
  
  
• Being present ... remotely: Simulated by the BBC NEWS article Searching for a new virtual life via this post, I wonder if we could use Virtual Reality to improve productivity? I've already used screen sharing to work remotely with clients (sharing calendars and lists, and setting up and working tools), but what would a more immersive system allow?
  
  
• I wish *I'd* said that!: Feeling some professional jealousy? I sometimes do, which I'm not happy about. For example, this pops up as I continue my interview series with the best and brightest. Recently two things hit me. First, because I'm comparing myself to people who excel at what I do (or want to do), there's an opportunity to learn from them. In fact, it's one of my motivators for *doing* those interviews in the first place! Second, having this feeling is an indication that you're comparing yourself to someone really good. And everyone agrees that a major success factor is surrounding yourself with people like this. As Chad puts it, try to be the worst musician in the band. In other words, it's good you're aiming high. (Related links: Green Is Not Your Color: Professional Jealousy and the Professional Writer, MEAN PEOPLE SUCK #2a: Professional Jealousy Part Deux, and On friends, colleagues and jealousy.)
  
  
• Why is being productive so frickin tough?: Why is it hard to adopt new (and better) productivity methods? It goes to the more general question of why it's hard to make lasting changes. To that end I came across this goodie in HBR: The Real Reason People Won't Change (thanks for the pointer, Marilyn!) The authors describe a a three-stage process to help organizations figure out what's getting in the way of change, which makes me think I've some learning to do when teaching clients. Process summary:
  
  
  
  1. Managers guide employees through a set of questions designed to uncover competing commitments,
     
  2. employees examine these commitments to determine the underlying assumptions at their core, and
     
  3. employees start the process of changing their behavior.
     
  
  
  
• Attention duration + staying power: I've been contemplating how long something holds our attention vs. how long it stays with us. I'm not sure what to do with this, but... Low attention: A simple toy or TV show. 2 minutes. Middle: A good movie: 2 hours; a good puzzle: 2 days. A college course or study group: 2 months. High: Reading, a vocation: Lifetime. Thoughts?
  
  
• Self experiment suggestion: In the honorable spirit of trying things out on ourselves (one of my themes here - A Daily Planning Experiment or Tracking "lessons Learned" for example) I'm considering this one: To overcome procrastination and lack of inertia, try breaking *every* action into a maximum 5 minute chunks. It's OK to work longer of course, but nothing over. Be prepared - you're projects list will grow. Try for two weeks and report back. Any takers?
  
  
• In the "Plain Language" department: A workshop client came up with an expression I love. When we were talking about agendas (separate "to discuss" lists for meetings - individual or group - that are regularly scheduled), she said "Oh yea, save-up lists." I love the homey way she put it. A nice discussion about straight talk comes from Beyond Buzz, where the author encourages us to "Talk like you talk."
  
  
• TV - Is it only me?: I've recently noticed (in my part of the US, at least) television's insidious spread to almost every possible venue. We take it for granted in airports, bus stops, etc. But lately it's made inroads into restaurants, supermarkets, clothing stores, and doctors' offices. As an avid "TV plain sucks" person, this bugs the hell out of me. After a few conversations with managers at those places, I've found I'm apparently in a very small minority, which shocks me. Are we so starved for stimulation that we need the near-constant (and face it - pretty low brow) distraction TV offers, even for a two minute errand? I must have the wrong attitude. Maybe it's a welcome comfort and respite from a hard day's work and a worrisome economic climate. Or is it that we are simply not taught how to be prepared to wait productively. (That's easy to fix. 1) Have a steady stream of high-value inputs. 2) Print or clip them. 3) Put them into a portable "To Read" folder. 4) Carry it with you when you're out. Easy!) (And yes, I *really* have a problem with TV in schools. Ick!)
  
  
• The world's shortest productivity FAQ: While I don't write about basic ideas that are covered well and broadly elsewhere, I'll share a few trinkets here:
  
  
  
  • Myth: Too little time (the real problem: poor choices)
    
  • Myth: The quick fix (all the "25 ways to..." and "7 tips for..." lists won't solve underlying problems like "no system" and "working on the wrong thing.")
    
  • Whiteboards: "Do not erase" is a bad sign! Use them for transient brainstorming and planning, then capture and erase. Acceptable use: List tool (Projects, Actions, Waiting For).
    
  • Desk layout: "U" is best, then "L," then parallel.
    
  • Tickler file: Don't need it. Use "Calendar + holding file" instead.
    
  • Record retention: Ask: 1) Do I need this for my work, or for tax, legal, documentation, or other archival reasons? 2) Do I foresee a *specific* need for it? 3) Does a copy of this item exist somewhere else that's easily accessible? Still can't decide? Rule of thumb: When in doubt, throw it out. (OK, this is covered many places, but what the heck!)
    
  
  
  

Cheers!

Honors, Mac tips, plus (apparently) a iCal-GTD-Quicksilver mini-tutorial

I apologize for the delayed posting these last two weeks. This was due to a vacation, and consulting momentum continuing to pick up. So this week an abbreviated post: Recent honors for this blog, plus some tips for my Macintosh readers, including a mini "GTD in iCal" tutorial.

First, a big thanks to Dustin Wax for including me on his 50+ Personal Productivity Blogs You've Never Heard of Before (and about a dozen you probably have). In addition to the usual suspects, there are some previously undiscovered gems. I'm in great company.

Second, a round of thanks to the super successful Leo Babauta and his post The List to Beat All Lists: Top 20 Productivity Lists to Rock Your Tasks. What I like about Leo's post is that he links to specific articles he found useful. For mine he liked 10 GTD "holes" (and How To Plug Them). (Side note: Speaking of good company, Dustin, Leo, and I are listed as contributors to Tatsuya Nakagawa's (et al.) Overcoming Inventoritis: The Silent Killer of Innovation, along with Steve Wozniak, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki. I'm thinking of having a get-together ;-)

A few others: MikePierre called me the "Brainiac Dad" of productivity in The Productivity Family Tree and I was listed in the College Degree.com Top 100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs.

Thanks to these folks, and to you for reading.


Finally, since my switch to the Mac I've been collecting (in classic IdeaMatt capture fashion) tips for the the OS. Following are a few, just for fun.

• Spotlight results: command-down (and -up) to jump to the first result in each category.
  
• Spotlight results: command-return reveals the selected item in the Finder.
  
• Finder: To get the full path of a file, drag it into the Spotlight text area. This requires a bit of multi-step keyboard-fu: Start dragging the file and while dragging invoke Spotlight (command-space by default) and drop the file into the search text area that pops up. (You'll see the green plus cursor when you're on target). Then, (because this adds to the last search text) immediately cut via command-x.
  
• Any standard text area (e.g., Spotlight or Safari): Some Emacs-like edit keystrokes work, including control-a, control-e, control-f, control-b, and control-k. Unfortunately, option-f and option-b insert special characters instead of what I'd love: forward and back a word. Instead you have to use option-left and option-right.
  
• Finder: command-shift-open does a slo-mo version. (More of an Easter egg than a use-it-daily item, but fun.)
  
• iCal: For a super-easy (and very workable) GTD-inspired implementation, create four calendars: "Projects", "Actions", "Waiting For", plus a general "Calendar" one at the top. Select the "Calendar" calendar so that it's the default for new date-related action and reminders, and new To Do items. Use the latter as your quick-capture inbox via command-k. Later you can drag these into the appropriate calendar to categorize. Make sure to select "Show To Do List" to see them, and to possibly print your daily Plan.
  
• iCal: To really leverage the previous GTD setup use Quicksilver as a rapid entry front end: Invoke Quicksilver (control-space by default), type a period for text entry, type your To Do item, type tab, invoke "Create iCal To-Do" (I type "t"), and type return. This creates an entry in the selected calendar, which should always be "Calendar" (see above). This sounds complex, but it becomes send nature and is very efficient. I wrote a bit more detail about this here. (Bonuses: You can use these same Quicksilver keystrokes to put appointments right into the calendar with date/time text parsing. It's a bit wonky, but usable.)
  
• Almost any app: Type command-shift-/ to open the help menu, type part of a menu item name, and use the up and down arrows to choose a result. What's cool is the animated blue arrow showing the item (and its associated shortcut). Neat.
  
• Firefox: When in find mode (command-f), command-return highlights all matches.
  
• Firefox: Space pages down, shift-space pages up, and delete goes back.
  

Cheers!

An interview with Scott Ginsberg, author of "Hello, My Name is Scott"

Starting week I'm extending my interview series with the top experts in the field by sharing productivity insights and stories from people who are influential and successful, i.e, highly productive. I'll start with highlights from my recent coversation with Scott Ginsberg (site, blog).

I found out about Scott via his book Hello, My Name is Scott, which takes an happy accident (leaving his nametag on after an event) and extends it to a unique perspective of the world, one of my absolute favorite topics. (It's why I got into productivity consulting in the first place.)

Rather than a story format, I'll take a cue from the list master himself. Thus I present: 18 highlights from my conversation with Scott Ginsberg.

On mentoring

The key is mentors plural - many of them. Also, Scott identified three types: direct mentor (e.g., his high school English teacher), indirect mentor, (e.g., someone whose books you love to read, say Seth Godin), and a distant mentor: when an experienced or an encounter or just a random person you meet just mentors you. (Scott didn't have an exact term for this last type.) I really love this idea of being open to learning from any interaction. Very rich.

On listening

Scott says wearing a nametag has helped make him a good listener. His strategy? "Just shut up, sort of end it right there, and let the other person talk and just listen and be open." He says it's cool, fun, and beautiful. Check out his 17 Behaviors to Avoid for Effective Listening.

On differences

Scott says he uses the nametag as a reminder to respect people who are different, e.g., different appearance or religion. With that he tossed out this sweet little idea: "I think everybody can paint themselves into a good corner in their own way." (Note: I've been having a blast collecting potentially useful phrases in my My Big-Arse Text File - more on capture systems below!)

On getting clients

Scott says his growing success comes from great ideas + hard work (he publishes a lot and spends plenty of time on the road meeting people and presenting). (If you're into formulae check out Some Tasty Morsels From The Ideamatt Self Help Formulary.)

On writing

Write every day and read a lot. And Scott loves Julia Cameron's work, including her "filling the bathtub" metaphor (keep things flowing until the good stuff comes, then start capturing) and her morning pages exercise, which he calls "the greatest thing I have ever done." Scott said he'd send to my readers his piece about how to do morning pages - just email him. her book is The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. And yes, it's in my candidates library.

On entrepreneur success

Do not be stopped by not knowing how. For me (having started my own company) this was very welcome advice. I love how Scott put it: "I have had my company now for six years, I am still not sure I know what the hell I am doing." :-)

I firmly believe in the concept of just go, just start. All that matters initially is the what, and then just go and just go and just learn and ask questions and make mistakes and screw up and read lots of books, and eventually the how will come to you.

On discipline

Scott says this is (not surprisingly) crucial, esp. for solopreneurs - there is nobody down your neck, and there is nobody waking you up and getting you out of bed to go to work.

On luck

He does not believe in luck, and says he never has. "I have always believed that luck is an acronym that stands for working your ass off." (You will definitely want to read How to Attract Good Luck, one of those few "wow" books.)

On accomplishing so much in a short time

Scott says he's asked frequently how he's done this, e.g., "Scott, you are only 28 years, how do you explain your knowledge on this topic." You'll love his answer: "I am a genius." He continues:

There is no reason to think that age is a barrier. I mean, I read five books a week. I write five hours a day. I ask a lot of questions. I have got a bunch of mentors. I mean, I am a lifelong learner, and I think that there is lot of stuff you can do, especially the young entrepreneur can make the learning curve nonexistent.

On learning from experience

Scott and I agree on another favorite topic of mine - how to lead a life of curiosity with an experimental attitude. (BTW, stay tuned for news on book on the topic I'm coauthoring - very exciting.) He says he's an expert at learning from his experiences. As Scott puts it: "It's one thing to say, oh yeah, I wore a nametag, it is cool, it is fun, it is another thing to say, yeah, okay, I did that, here is 500 lessons I learned, and here are how those lessons can help other people have a better life." Neat. (Reader question: What other books fall into this "apparent gimmick to insight" class? One that comes to mind is The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.)

On asking questions

And yet another topic Scott and I see eye to eye on, the value of asking good questions (the "ask, don't tell principle"). (In fact, I'm considering structuring one of my talks entirely this way :-) He says he keeps a running list of what he call leverage questions - over 5,000 in his database. When you experience something, it's a big opportunity to reflect and learn (i.e., leverage it) via questions like, "What wisdom have I gleaned from these hardships?" "How could this mentor me?" "What are 101 lessons I just learned?" "What is another use for this failure?" "How could this be used as a marketing tool?"

On lessons learned

I mentioned my practice of tracking Lessons Learned and, not surprisingly, he does the same. Scott writes them in his journal every morning - things he learned the day before. And not all necessarily about business - it can be general. (Recent examples from mine: *Always* use FedEx to send proposals, and letting go of personal agendas during conversations can be much more fun.) Importantly, he reviews them regularly (including at the end of the year) to make sure they stick.

On the definition of productivity

In response to the question I always ask, Scott pointed out that activity is not always progress. We can keep ourselves busy and doing stuff, but that does not make it productive. This is that classic point of effective vs. efficient. For the latter, he uses ideas from GTD, and is a fan of Lakein's Question ("What's the best use of my time right now?") Scott also has a list of (well expressed) goals which his productivity aligns with.

On his media diet

He doesn't read the news "because the news is crap." Yes! he doesn't read many because there are so many - Seth Godin's blog (and Scott's girlfriend's blog) is an exception.

On reading

He spends the majority of his time and money staying up to date on books. (Check out Reading Gone Wild! How To Read Five Books A Week and How To Read A Lot Of Books In A Short Time.) He talked about his "success library," meaning books earn you money, earning comes from learning, so cherish your books. Scott buys used, marks them up, highlights, makes notes in them, and uses them for reference. He also transcribes his notes into his computer (see The 4-hour Workweek Applied: How I Spent $100, Saved Hours, And Boosted My Reading Workflow) - his "portable success library." He also blocks out time for reading, and slips it in while traveling. Finally, like Leveen, he has no compunctions stopping a book early if it's not valuable.

On his productivity system

Scott says:

I still use a handwritten planner, believe it or not. I cannot go digital. So I have, one of my mentors taught me this, I think sort of in terms of the month and the week. My little to-do list, if you will, is caught up into five different areas. I have things to do, people to see, people to contact or call or email, things to read, things to write. So I fill up those five boxes and hopefully I will get everything done.

On priorities

He prioritizes his lists, and keeps five criticals that, if he does nothing during a week, as long as those five things got done, on Friday afternoon he'd feel satisfied. (You might enjoy the section "deciding what constitutes a 'good workday'" in A Daily Planning Experiment: Two Weeks Of Accountable Rigorous Action.)

On idea capture

I told Scott about my pickle jar and asked what he uses to track all the ideas, lessons, questions, etc. that come to him. I was surprised to learn he has an entire concept management system he's been developing for the past six years. We didn't go into much detail, but it's essentially a hypertext system with independent chunks ("modules") he ties together as needed. There are other ways of categorizing. This flexibility prevents what he calls "Premature Cognitive Commitment." (Love that phrase!) He also points out that when we name something we immediately limit its possibilities. He estimates there are 10,000 items in his system. (Wow! I'm at ~4,500.) Like me, he thinks of it a major empowering tool.


Thanks, Scott!

The Path of Maximum Productivity: Seven tensions, and how to resolve them

In What Are The Laws Of Work? I made a humble stab at defining the first principles that might inform designing a productivity method from scratch. The discussion was stimulating and led to more thinking, in particuarl how might we structure our environments for success, hopefully tying in Fritz's work in Path of Least Resistance.

One big idea (lots of wows in the book) is tension/resolution systems, which got me thinking about the connection between the productivity "laws" and the tensions we face doing our work. Paraphrasing Fritz,

Tensions seeks resolution is a basic principle found throughout nature, and also applies to human events. For example, during a conversation the question, "Did Martha go with you to the dinner?" creates a tension (waiting for a response), and the resolution is the answer "Yes."

This made me think of the tension of everyday actions [1]. For example, when I know I need to do something, I feel an internal mental tension that can literally feel physical.

So: What are the tensions of productivity? Is there a finite set? How do we get resolution? And what can we generalize from this? Today I'll just list the ones I came up with, and ask what you think.

A tension sampler

Here are a few work-related tension sources I came up with. Care to generalize or add your own?

• Things undone (unfinished work). (Some tension parameters that raise/lower it: complexity, interest, ...)
  
• Things not found
  
• Needing to be somewhere
  
• Waiting for a response
  
• Unknowns
  
• Things undecided
  
• Untrused delegations (including promises made by ourselves or others)
  

How do we resolve them?

Given that we have these tensions in our lives, and that they cause some level of mental stress, how do we resolve them? There are two possibilities: Eliminate the source, or structure them so as to feel as if they're eliminated. Examples:

• Say no (e.g., get choosier taking on new ones)
  
• Change your mind (e.g., go on a media diet or renegotiate)
  
• give it to someone else [2]
  
• Take care of the thing yourself ("Just do it" [3])
  
• Stop caring (e.g., lower your standards
  

Careful with the last; it only works if you really can stop thinking about it.

What's particularly interesting is the "feel as if" case. For productivity, this means rigorously tracking these somewhere, that is, "To Do" lists [4]. I got this insight ("good lists relieve mental burdens") from the folks over at Mission Control, though it's not uncommon among the different approaches.

Is all this sounding familiar? It should; we've just teased out Delete, Delegate, Do, and Defer. Hey - we also got Deter! A satisfying convergence [5].

Future

Interestingly, Fritz describes sample tension/resolution systems, and says the path of least resistance oscillates in some structures and resolves in others. If it is an oscillating structure, you will experience a recurring pattern. This leads me to ask whether there's a non-oscillating way to be productive... Thoughts?

References

• [1] A crazy micro example: Copying something to your PC's clipboard creates tension: You're "carrying" it and you might lose it before you use it. Of course the resolution is: Paste! And yes, I do realize thinking about clipboard stress is rather batty.
  
• [2] Be careful, though; see Why *my* NUTs Should Not Be *your* NUTs!
  
• [3] A search for this phrase yielded the expected Nike advertising hits, but also turned up Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!) Has anyone read this? Sounds like useful fun.
  
• [4] And I mean the good kind of To Do items: Atomic, specific, and independent.
  
• Interestingly, I couldn't find much on design convergence. I turned up this lecture by Kara Bartelt (a USC architecture professor) and this Wikipedia article on Convergent evolution. What I couldn't find was detail on a story told to me by one of my NASA clients. (Hey - these folks love cool hardware.) He said that Ford independently researched and developed a hybrid powertrain, then realized they had basically re-invented the Toyota one. So they were forced to buy a license to produce it! Closest I could find: Ford to Use Toyota's Hybrid Technology. Do you know anything about this?