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You know those crisis weeks when everything comes to a head, and then you get whacked by some nasty - and urgent - surprises? Well I've had three weeks of those, which explains the slow post rate. I apologize for that.
So rather than my usual long, link-rich, in-depth, and rather dry article (the patented
Ideamatt style ;-) I'd like to tap into my
pickle jar [1] and ask you some questions around productivity and living. Any thoughts would definitely be welcome.
Living (and suffering) with grace
How do you cope with life's curve balls? Last week I got some nasty medical news
[2] that I'm having trouble coping with, and I'm looking for ideas. So far I've had great benefit from
Viktor Frankl's
Man's Search for Meaning. I'll also be re-studying
Full Catastrophe Living to ready myself for pain (you might enjoy
this interview with him).
Is it possible to live out of ... the inbox?
You've read a hundred times that
base 0 is a best practice for staying on top. However, that's not the only perspective. For example,
The Hamster Revolution talks about deciding an optimum number of emails you'd like to have in your Inbox, and it's easy to find systems that use email
flags to mark actionable messages. So is it possible to have a principled system based on the inbox? In my workshops I ask participants to list ways we use the inbox, and get answers like action reminding, reference, waiting for, even junk. So we'd need a system of tagging, I guess. Possibly related:
Noguchi Filing System (sorry the images are gone).
The quality-quantity time myth
I forget where this comes from, but the standard line of spending "quality time" with our loved ones is bunk. Instead, spend quality time at
work (go read Koch's
The 80/20 Principle [3]) and
quantity time with your family. Big idea. I wonder if the myth came about as a rationalization for working too much...
Dimming the lights
Do you notice cycles in your work - perhaps during an intense week - in which one big project overwhelms everything else? I know someone who calls this "dimming the lights," and it provides some really interesting challenges to staying on top. The main problem is other work gets sacrificed, creating crises, and work backlogs build so high that good productivity habits are at risk. Does this happen to you? How do you deal with it?
There is no "set and forget" in self-management
For other aspects of our lives, some habits are
set and forget - once they're adopted, they're rather self-sustaining. It seems to me that staying on top of our lives isn't like that. Rather, it's a process of mastery
[4]. But is there always a risk of falling back on old habits?
Desquamate your desktop
What can we learn about productivity from the medical profession? For example,
Triage and checklists (you might enjoy
The Checklist)...
William Morris and simplicity
What can we learn from the
Arts and Crafts movement about elegant self-management?
William Morris talked about values like craftsmanship, simplicity of expression, individuality, and usefulness in his designs. Anything we can learn?
Principled use of Selective Perception
In
The Achievement Factors, the authors talk about seeing clearly, and the idea of selective exposure - avoiding exposing ourselves to information with which we disagree. (Related: The process of
Selective Perception.) Seems there are two ways to use this. First, by only allowing into our minds those things that support our beliefs. A positive example: Visualizing the shape of your future. A negative example: Getting stuck in a worldview that's harmful to future goals
[5]. Do you actively use this in your life?
Do you know about "Po?"
Among some of the
great ideas in
Mind Performance Hacks is the that of "Po," from De Bono's book
Po: Beyond Yes and No. Suggested use is to interrupt mental interpretations of negative events. Anyone familiar with this?
The best gifts are either loved or hated
It seems that in-between gifts are almost not worth it. Do the best gifts take a chance? (Related:
How to help people.)
Productivity tips from Hibatchi chefs
While watching a
Hibachi chef, I was struck by parallels to our workspaces, including planning (collecting ingredients), focus (distraction = pain and bad food), and the diverge/converge cycle of mess during work. Any other cuisines we can learn from?
Don't throw away "bad" files
I've had files I didn't want to keep around due to negative mental associations, but I kept them anyway - for a sense of completeness, I suppose. Guess what? They really came in handy later. What's up with that?
Finally, how are you unconventional and eccentric?
From
The 80/20 Principle:
Be unconventional and eccentric in your use of time. In my continuing marketing thinking, there's a bunch of conventional ideas I'm throwing out - but isn't that dangerous? Darn right, and I'm taking some risks in my choices. But
eccentric...
That's an interesting one. Have you adopted either or both of these?
References
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