My men@pause interview is up, plus an invitation to a four-square-o-rama!

I had the pleasure of speaking with my new friend Matthew Scott, who puts on the men@pause seminars (I love the name :-) My episode is up, and you can listen to it at Productivity Expert for Entrepreneurs. While you're there, you might want to browse through some of the other interviews, including ones with Jason Fried of 37signals, and Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art. Thanks, Matthew!

On a completely different topic, I've been having fun collecting ideas for those two-by-two "four square" matrices. You know, two binary dimensions with names for each cell. Of course in the productivity realm, the classic is Covey's Urgent vs. Important (see this diagram, for example).

I've written about a half-dozen or so before, and I find coming up with them is entertaining, and can actually provide some insight. So just for kicks I'm hosting a little challenge: Send me one of your favorites and I'll post a collection of them. Any topic about living is fair game, e.g., Happy vs. Correct, or Dangerous vs. Exciting - in patented ASCII-Vision(TM):

               Dangerous         Safe
            +-------------+----------------+
   Exciting | Sky Diving  | Roller Coaster |
            +-------------+----------------+
     Boring | Cell + Car  |   Dilbert      |
            +-------------+----------------+

Email them to me at 2x2@matthewcornell.org. Cheers!

---

Matthew Cornell is a former NASA engineer and one of the few consultants in New England specializing in modern personal productivity techniques. His blog (subscribe via RSS or email) is a popular resource for original ideas on productivity and personal development. Matthew is available for desk-side consultations, workshops, and presentations. Contact him at matthewcornell.org/contact.html

Add, subtract, multiply, divide: Productivity lessons from basic math

In the recent Harvard Business Review article "The Science of Thinking Smarter" [1], molecular biologist John Medina discussed stress implications of neuroscience research, especially the impact on learning. When I read that stressed people do poorly at math, the NASA engineer in me asked what productivity insights we could learn from the those four familiar operations. For a bit of variety, I'm keeping this short (!), so please contribute your insights. Happy calculating!

Addition

"Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." -- Arthur Conan Doyle

We want it all - information, opportunities, and results. Unfortunately, we are deluged with requests for our attention, and each time we say yes we're adding work to our already overloaded future selves. And because deep down we know how much work we have, each one increases stress. So should think very carefully before pressing the "+" key. Try this: For each request, ask whether it leads directly to completing an important project or furthering a major goal. If not, bite the bullet and say no. This has implications for information overload. Thinking of subscribing to a blog or podcast? Great! What are you going to give up for it? Or for filing: Is it really worth keeping this? It's likely you can find it again, that is, if you end up needing it all (usually unlikely).

Summary: Be careful when you add information or commitments to your life, and if you do, try to remove something else in exchange.

Subtraction

"Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets." -- Nido Qubein

"+"'s twin is a powerful productivity tool. Shedding things from your life not only frees energy for other work, but opens up space for unexpected opportunities. Following are a few recycling bin candidates. First, boost energy and productivity by going on a media diet by cutting out TV and news. TV is mostly crap (sorry!) and news is rarely important or durable. Try this: Remove all news from your life for a week - radio, TV, papers, and web sites. I'd wager that very little of what you missed is still important now. And relax: You'll find out about big things from your people. Second, look for things on your To-Do list you could let go of with little impact. Ideal candidates are those stale ones you've been avoiding. Finally, remove distractions from work. When you sit down, clear your desk's "180" (the space in your field of vision), quit all the programs you can (email, IM, browser), put up your "Do Not Disturb" sign and dig in, one project at a time.

Summary: Look at the information and commitments you can remove from your life, and let them go. You might find that once you start throwing out "empty calories" from your life you'll get some welcome relief and makes physical or mental space for that which is more important, valuable, and richer.

Multiplication

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized." -- Sun Tzu

Multiplying is all about bang for the buck. Read Koch's "The 80-20 principle" to learn that most results come from a vital few activities, not the trivial many as expected. To multiply your work, automate (that is, multiply yourself) and eliminate (see above) so you can focus on the highest payoff work. Note that you'll have to analyze previous results to identify contributions. Other implications: For email, every message you send multiplies by attracting responses so send fewer. For clutter, anything you leave out will multiply like rabbits, so have a system to manage workflow. For your computer, every keystroke takes time, so use macros and shortcuts.

Summary: Focus on the few inputs that generate the most output, and cut down on things that generate negative work.

Division

"Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs." -- Henry Ford

To get productive with division, think slices and boundaries. To beat procrastination, break big jobs into small tasks - five minute ones if you're really stuck. To manage focus, carve your day into uninterrupted blocks of time (approximately one hour chunks), and concentrate on one project during them without multitasking. To leverage staff, outsource or delegate important tasks that you're not good at or don't enjoy. Finally, a major productivity opportunity is to divide your overall workflow into stages - Gather incoming into inboxes, Empty them to extract action, Plan your day and week, and Act on the plan.

Summary: Divide work and time into chunks, delegate as much as possible, and adopt a method to control your workflow.

References

• [1] The Science of Thinking Smarter: A Conversation with Brain Expert John J. Medina. Find his executive summary here.

The real reasons for the modern productivity movement

(Sidebar: I know I'm a late adopter, but I've been playing with Twitter. If you want to join in my experiment, I'm matthewcornell.)

The last five years has seen a surge in interest in personal productivity, with the publishing of David Allen's 2001 book Getting Things Done being a watershed. Want more proof? Trying searching blogs for productivity (13,713,538 hits) or time management (833,569) and you'll find discussion of every aspect of getting our work together. Amazon's Health, Mind & Body > Self-Help > Success category lists over 79,000 books (bestsellers here).

Some have argued that it's a cult for the information age, but I disagree. Look at mega sites like Lifehacker, Lifehack, 43 Folders and you'll see a tremendous following by a wide range of people. (You, dear readers, are a good example - executives, in-house family workers, pastors, actors, comedians, programmers, trainers, professors, musicians, historians, and a ton of fellow bloggers. Neat!) Clearly some large subset of us is fascinated (obsessed?) with being "more productive" [1]. Why is this?

After a bit of thought I decided it's a perfect storm of 1) a really good best-selling book (Allen's), 2) an urgent need for meaning in our lives, and 3) the explosion of blogs. Mix in the scientific method and the human capacity for self-experimentation, and you've got something remarkable. Let me try to tease these apart.

Purpose

Productivity is neither a cult nor a fad. It's a search for meaning. -- (me :-)

Since the advent of the scientific method we've had to face regular breakthrough discoveries about how the world works, and about how our bodies and minds interact with and interpret it. This is like a punch to the gut to our rather irrational belief engines [2]. From the article Why We Believe What We Believe:

The greatest invention of the human mind is not fire, or agriculture, or iron, or the steam engine, or even the splitting of the atom. From the perspective of understanding the physical world, the greatest invention of the human mind is the scientific method--the systematic, skeptical approach to claims about the way the world works.

I believe this new perspective has caused many of us to redefine what our purpose on the planet is. Add a large dose of cognitive dissonance resulting from our species' unsustainable behaviors (e.g., global warming and peak oil) and the stress of our Olympic-paced worklives, and you have a crisis of purpose.

In that sense, could modern productivity techniques be the technical age's equivalent of tools for spiritual quests? Are they a way to get personal control of ourselves, much like science has given us unprecedented control of our world? Could it be we crave a replacement of the human rituals that were formerly integral to our daily lives, such as meditation or chanting? I ask because these methods seem to offer a way to obtain equanimity - what my meditation teachers might have called "getting centered" [3].

Blogs and self-experimentation

The phenomenal growth of blogs during this same period [4] means a large subset of us (the same one as above?) has a voice that can potentially reach thousands of readers using relatively simple tools. That means it's easy for us share what we think and experience. Now combine this with:

• our uniquely human ability to consciously evolve our behavior (and know it),
  
• our love of feeling important,
  
• our need to make acknowledged contributions, and
  
• our urge to help others.
  

I think these factors, along with the rigorous observational tools of science applied to the personal level (you do have capture tools, right?), are what's caused the explosion of blogs on self-improvement. The final piece is that the challenges to modern living seem to be large and universal (who doesn't experience procrastination?), but there's no uniform training of how to manage ourselves. This means each of us has had to experiment on ourselves to rediscover things that work, and therefore we each have something unique to say.

In an important post, Jose asked why there's a raft of anecdotal writing around productivity, but little empirical study. I can't answer the latter (young scientists - get busy!) but I think the above considerations go to explaining why we're driven to share our personal discoveries, and that they might help. After all, you have probably discovered something I don't know but could use. (Actually, in answer to the first part, is it possible we haven't gathered enough data to formulate the laws of work? I found doing so difficult when I took a stab at it.) That also explains the complaint about there being a lot of trivial or useless content on productivity: One woman's trash is another's treasure. (Or, It's all relative.)

Thinking our way to happiness

A final piece of this (admittedly poorly-defined) puzzle is our ability to change our thinking so that we're happier. That's a mind blower. A common idea in self-help circles is that it's just as biochemically easy to have a negative thought or interpretation as a positive one. How to do that is of course the hard part. I don't think this has been solved yet, but there's hope. Check out the wonderful current crop of books on the topic, including The How of Happiness, Learned Optimism, and Stumbling on Happiness.

Laws of living and wrap-up

I suspect that because there's not yet a "scientific method of happiness" (don't worry, I'm writing the book on it) we're left in the meantime with exploring it on our own. Thankfully, we have an extensive resource in the productivity blogging realm for helping each other. Yes the sheer number of sources makes 80-20 difficult (e.g., finding the small number of thinkers who give us the biggest return - see my post on Blogruptcy and Information Overload) but I think the search is worth it. That's also why I hold my readers in such high regard.

Lest you think I don't respect the efforts of religion through the years, let me finish with this discovery from my pickle jar: "Hey - Methodists were named for their spiritual routine - METHOD-ists!" I offer the Wikipedia entry as food for thought:

The movement focused on Bible study and a methodical approach to scriptures and Christian living. The term "Methodism" was a pejorative term given to a small society of students at Oxford who met together between 1729 and 1735 for the purpose of mutual improvement. They were accustomed to receiving communion every week, fasting regularly, and abstaining from most forms of amusement and luxury. They also frequently visited the sick and the poor, as well as prisoners.

Happy happiness hunting!

References

• [1] What's the definition of "productive?" It's one of the first questions I ask top productivity thinkers in my continuing interview series. I've had a range of answers, including insights from Marilyn Paul (making work meaningful and valuable - doing what we care about), Laura Stack (output per hour per worker - the value that's created with all of your work), and Sally McGhee (performance without sacrificing work/life balance). Another perspective was passed along by reader Dan Markovitz, who recalled Merlin Mann's definition of being able to focus on "the creative work that only you can do." My current take: Productivity is exerting the least amount of effort doing the most important work and leading the life you want. I'd love to year your definition.
  
• [2] See Why We Believe What We Believe, Belief Engine (Skeptical Inquirer May 1995), and Science vs. the Belief Engine. Great stuff!
  
• [3] Side note: I've studied yoga and meditation, and by far the biggest mental relief I've experienced came from the methods I practice and teach. It's partly why I took the risk of changing careers.
  
• [4] See The State of the Live Web, April 2007.
  

Productivity lessons from mountain biking. Or, what sports can teach us about doing

I'm reading The Inner Game of Tennis, and the first page sounds like a how-to for becoming more effective. From "The Inner Game of Tennis" is Genius:

The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard. He aims at the kind of spontaneous performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hand-ups of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win which unlocks all his energy and which is never discourages by losing.

Sound familiar?

This made me wonder if we substitute "work" for "tennis" we'd get something readily transferable. And this happened while mountain biking [1], so I thought I'd play with connections between it and being productive. I've made the following light-hearted observations, which I hope you'll find valuable.

• Steady beats sprinting: Steady, consistent pedalling beats sprinting for efficiently covering ground. But a mixture is natural, and sprints are important for hard sections. Interpretation: Avoid "binge" work, e.g., putting off something until a big chunk of time is available, then focusing on it long and deeply. It doesn't work because those chunks don't show up anymore. Much better to break big tasks into bite-sized pieces - something you can do in one sitting, say an hour or less - and tackle them one at a time. For particularly hard tasks, consider sprints (AKA "dashes" [2]) to unstick them.
  
• Exercise is good for you: Not a breakthrough thought here, but it's good to tie in health when talking about making progress on the things you care about. I've found that exercise helps me relax and take my mind off work, which opens up my brain to receiving ideas. And while I might disagree with Pressfield in The War of Art (buy it!) about where they come from, I'm not about to lose them. Interpretation: Staying healthy is important.
  
• Be ready for inspiration: When those ideas hit you, always be ready to capture them. My riding buddy uses Jott, but I just carry a small pad of paper and pen. Disadvantage of paper: Reading notes later (the pages go into the inbox like anything else) is a challenge because the writing is all jerky and scribbly. I guess it's an occupational hazard in sports involving sweat, adrenaline, and bears. Interpretation: Always have a note-taking tool with you. For work I love my legal pad during meetings, client sessions, and reading, but anything will do. Avoid a PDA, though - too slow. Another tip: When you're having a hard conversation - such as a dispute with the phone company - record the facts then file them in a "problem folder." If you have to follow up (and you probably will) your case will be much more compelling when you can rattle off who you talked to, when, and what they promised.
  
• Notice when making mistakes. In the productivity blogosphere you can find a lot about making mistakes. They're good, you're not making them if you're not doing anything, "good" ones are those you learn from, etc. And I agree. When biking I find I make them when my judgement is off, esp. when I'm tired. If I try to push through I get hurt. It's better to slow down, take a break, or switch it up (e.g., hike-a-bike for a minute). Don't let that get in the way of happy accidents, though. I've been delighted more than once discovering a new trail or running into another biker. Interpretation: Be aware of your energy level, monitor errors and flow, and don't be afraid to take breaks. It's not a sign of weakness.
  
• Sometimes going faster is safer: This is counterintuitive and requires trust, but there are times when it's best to push through something faster than you're used to or comfortable with. On the trails there are rocky sections that, when taken slowly, feel like you're hydroplaning on gravel. But if you speed up, your shocks start taking over and you can fly. It's like breaking through the sound barrier, except you're on a bike instead of a jet, and you're going a hundred times slower. Interpretation: Control your perfectionism by being a bit less careful and pushing for faster progress. Use Parkinson's law to limit how much time you allocate to the task, and stick to it. Also, consider lowering your standards. It's not a bad thing in this case. (See Great Time Management Ideas From The World Of Improv Wisdom, esp. the fifth maxim: Be Average.)
  
• Always wear a helmet: When you're doing something that's risky (i.e., involves costly potential mistakes) it's foolish not to have protection [3]. Interpretation: Have a safety net. For example, back up your To Dos using your calendar: In addition to putting the item on your actions list, create an all-day event that identifies the deadline for doing it (if it has one) or an informational "__ days until __" or "it's been __ days since __" entry. (There are some subtleties with using the calendar effectively. Start with "Do On" or "Due By?") Another example: Make sure you have regular automated backups of your computer. (I learned about triple redundancy as a NASA employee [4].) When I mention this to my individual clients I often get a big "THANK YOU!"
  
• Try biking with friends: While I enjoy soloing, I really love sharing the trails with people. It's more fun, I get to learn from them, and we're there for each other in case of a spill. Interpretation: If you work on your own, consider scheduling a work date, either in person or by phone. Also, consider the value of asking for help. Sometimes a second opinion can get us un-stuck or give us some needed perspective.
  
• Pick a good line: Identifying and carefully choosing your path can mean the difference between sailing and grinding. But there's a time for both. When I'm climbing a steep hill I sometimes choose an easy one because if I stop I'll have trouble getting started again. But there are times when I want to challenge myself by taking the hard way. In either case, it's better to find some way to get up rather than stopping to think too much. Interpretation: Plan as much as necessary, but error on the lesser side, and stay flexible. Also, if you're working on a problem, play with possible solutions before jumping in. But again, as my painter friends say, "Don't over-work the piece."
  
• Know what trail you're on: Going fast, but on the wrong trail, leads to frustration and backtracking. It's better to pay attention and have a map as backup when riding new trails. Interpretation: Keep your larger vision in mind. When you pick your next action, factor in which of them will move you towards your higher goals. If you're not doing at least one of those every day, you have some thinking to do. Also: If you're trying something new, tap into the experience of others and learn how they did it. History, repeating mistakes, etc.
  
• Buy a good bike...: No question about it, when I'm out there I depend on my bike. The trails are rough, and lower-quality equipment literally slows me down. It's also more vulnerable to failure. Interpretation: Your equipment and tools are essential to your work, so invest a bit in quality ones. A powerful computer, multiple monitors, and good filing cabinets. Ditto for your desk chair [5].
  
• ...but the rider matters more: Buying a new bike or getting upgraded parts is fun, and you might see a performance boost while still novel, but it's still about the rider, not the bike. Interpretation: Don't fall into the tool trap. Changing tools is easy, but changing metawork habits is hard. Keep in mind, the method I teach just uses a calendar and three lists.
  
• Try visualizing: Sometimes stopping to visualize your path is helpful, especially on new and difficult sections. For me, following a line with my eyes and imagining myself riding at each point makes a big difference. But after one or two mental "runs," it's time to give it shot. Interpretation: Try visualizing for motivation (e.g., seeing finished projects), results (e.g., fantasizing phenomenal success), or courage (e.g., dealing with possible scenarios).
  
• Avoid backtracking: I've noticed that when planning a ride no one likes backtracking. We seem to naturally prefer loops instead. Maybe this has an evolutionary origin. As hunter-gatherers, staying in same place probably posed a risk - we could use up the resources, become prey, or get fat and lazy. Interpretation: Challenge yourself and try doing things a new way. Also, look for opportunities to automate. Use checklists to make regular work routine and to reduce unnecessary attention sinks. Remember Matt's Law of the Routine: If you're repeating work, it's a waste after the third time [6]. (OK, I just made that up.)
  
• Stay back from your edge most of the time: For a long time I rode at my edge, both in terms of of endurance and skill. This was partly due to ego, and partly due to wanting to improve my performance. Then I had a conversation with Chris Crouch, which changed my perspective on the relationship between it and maximum productivity. Check out The Productivity I/O Sweet Spot, Or Why Balance Is A Bad Thing, but the take-away was to back well off of the edge, at least most of the time. For riding this meant taking more breaks and being more respectful of difficult sections of the trail. And guess what? I had more fun and performed a lot better. Surprise! Interpretation: Pick smaller tasks (be more granular in breaking projects down) and take frequent short (micro) breaks.
  
• Talking's talking, and riding's riding: When it comes down to it, putting your butt in the seat and pedalling is what gets things done. Interpretation: Work takes seat time. As Don Aslett writes in How to Have a 48-Hour Day [7], the biggest secret of accomplishment is time on the job (what he calls "banging things out"). I love how he puts it: "It's amazing how much of a time management expert this will make you."
  

How about you? How does your favorite non-work activity improve your personal productivity? How has it changed how you look at your work? Any take-ways for us?

References

• [1]I love mountain biking. I ride a couple times a week during the season, and here in New England we've a bunch of fantastic trails [1]. Is it dangerous? Somewhat. Is it painful? Sometimes. But it is a heck of a lot of fun.
  
• [2] A reader asked recently what I thought "about the whole 'work in dashes' concept." I replied that it's a useful technique. Merlin describes it in Kick procrastination's ass: Run a dash. I call it time blocking and work chunking, but it's the same idea: Break work down into a fixed segment (preferably small) and focus. It leverages the idea that getting started is hard, and that momentum builds once we dive in. Mann also has a formula to get started: Break an hour into 5 10-minute segments, with a 2 minute break between - (10+2)*5. (Speaking of formulae, you might enjoy my Some Tasty Morsels From The Ideamatt Self Help Formulary.)
  
• [3] Jeez - I sound like a condom commercial.
  
• [4] Check out this article from my old stomping grounds: Public Lessons Learned Entry: 0659. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I'm not the only one getting value from tracking lessons learned.
  
• [5] A surprising tip from How to save money running a startup: "Buy cheap tables and expensive chairs. Tables are a complete rip off. We buy stainless steel restaurant tables that are $100 and $600 Areon chairs. Total cost per workstation? $700. Compare that to buying a $500-$1,500 cube/designer workstation. The chair is the only thing that matters... invest in it."
  
• [6] The first time it's new. The second time might be spurious. But after the third time you've probably seen enough instances to form a pattern. You might resist taking the time out to automate, but take it from a former programmer: It's always better to write a subroutine than to copy and paste. :-)
  
• [7] This book was controversial. For example, his take on workaholism: A cop out for not having guts (NB: that's my interpretation). And on being present: Busy is the best way to smell the flowers. Here's a good one on work and play: "If Martians arrived and our activities weren't labeled work or play, how would they know the difference?"