Let’s talk about email management – a topic no knowledge worker ever gets any coaching on. That is quite strange considering that email-related tasks take up about 25% of someone’s day at the office (source). It’s very difficult to be at your best when you are drowned in emails each day. This time can be greatly reduced and used for more lucrative and joyful projects. Do you want to know the magic trick of getting rid of unnecessary emails and to spend less time on processing emails? Then you have to know what the Email Boomerang Effect is.

Quick Summary

• Most emails do not have to be sent at all.
• Email is not always the best medium.
• Send fewer emails, get fewer emails.
• Below are examples of common scenarios that show you when to send or not to send emails.

The Email Boomerang Effect

YOU have control of the number of emails you get each day in your inbox. Here is the magical trick: send less emails.

That’s it. End of article.

Believe it or not, I get paid to give this advice to companies and professionals.

If it only was that simple to implement – that is another beast. The truth remains the same – the fewer emails you send, the fewer emails you receive in your inbox. I call it the Email Boomerang Effect. When you throw a boomerang, most of the time it will come back to you. The same applies to email. Whenever you send out an email, chances are you will get a response. From my experience and observations, for every five emails you send, you get around 3 emails back.

With some quick Asian Efficient math, that means that if you send a hundred emails a week (which is very conservative) and you reduce your outreach by 20% – you will have 12 less emails to process every week. Let’s say on average each emails takes about 4 minutes to process – that means you will save 48 minutes each week. Over the course of a year that’s a lot of time saved. And this doesn’t take into account the time you save on the recipients’ end. Within a big organization, the savings could run into the millions of dollars of employees’ time.

And the great thing is – it is really easy to do. Before you send any email, ask yourself these two questions:

1. Is this email ABSOLUTELY necessary?
2. Is email the best medium?

If you answer yes to both questions, feel free to send out that email.

In most cases, you really have to think twice about these questions. Let’s dissect them more closely.

Is this email ABSOLUTELY necessary?

This can a tough question to answer but nonetheless you have to ask yourself this crucial question. Does this person really need this email to function and do his or her job?

Later on in this post I will share some examples to show which types of emails usually don’t pass this test. Not surprisingly, most emails don’t pass this test. When you go over your list of recently sent emails and you ask yourself this question for every email sent, you will quickly realize most emails were unnecessary.

Is email the best medium?

Assuming your email passed the first test, the next question makes you think if email is really the best way to communicate. We have written before about the best mediums of communication for specific situations, and I highly suggest you read that post. You have to realize that email is not always the best medium to communicate information.

Sometimes you need a synchronous discussion. In other words, you need live feedback and people interacting back and forth in real time. Email is a horrible medium for this, but a face-to-face meeting or instant messaging is much more suitable. If you need to have fast responses to your emails, consider calling or texting that person.

Again, read this post on which medium to use for various situations. It will make the rest of the post much more digestible.

Real World Examples

To show you how these two simple but effective questions can be applied, I will show some examples of emails that will go through that simple 2-step checklist. See if you can relate to these by going over your own list of emails you have recently sent. I’ve broken it down in different types of emails that get sent regularly and let’s start with the first one: thank you emails.

Thank You

Scenario: Your co-worker prepared and delivered a weekly report to you. You want to thank her for it by sending her an email with “thank you”.

Question 1 – is this email ABSOLUTELY necessary? No. We need to stop sending trivial thank you emails to people – especially if it’s something routine. Reserve them for extraordinary efforts or save it for the time you see him or her in person. A sincere thank you face-to-face is much better too.

Since this email didn’t pass the first test – this automatically means you don’t have to proceed to the second question.

Carbon Copy

Scenario: You are sending a report to someone of your team but you think maybe three other people in different departments might find this report useful, so you CC them on your email.

Question 1 – is this email ABSOLUTELY necessary? No. The email itself is fine except for the part where you include other people who might find this report useful. People often think that it is better to over-communicate via email but in reality it is not. The CC feature of email is often abused because people simply don’t know when they should include other people or shouldn’t.

Only CC people who truly need this information. When you are in doubt if someone needs to be copied, it’s a telltale sign that the person doesn’t need to be included.

Reply-to-all

Scenario: You want to send a bunch of ideas in an email on how to improve a product for its next release. It goes out to a distribution list that more than 15 people are on.

Question 1 – is this email ABSOLUTELY necessary? No. This sort of broadcast can lead to disjointed discussions as people will asynchronously use the reply-to-all feature to respond to different points and people. Have you ever read an email discussion where you couldn’t follow anymore which emails referred to which person? In this case, you should have handled it differently.

If you just wants the input of people, you need to instruct people to not to use the reply-to-all function. A simple line at the end of the email will do:

“To save time, only respond to me. Do not use reply-to-all. Thank you.”

This magical line will reduce your overload by a lot. Give it a try.

Don't be like this guy.

Question 2 – is email the best medium? Depends.

If you just want to get people’s input and you instruct people to not to use the reply-to-all feature, then email is a viable medium. However, if the intent is to create a discussion – it would not pass this test.

For discussions, it’s more effective to have a live meeting – whether that is in person or over a conference call. This will avoid email overload by leaps and bounds. The bigger the recipient list, the more time you will save across the board when you avoid this discussion email.

FYI (For Your Information)

Scenario: You have some pop culture news to share with your coworkers, and you will email everyone you think might find this interesting.

Question 1 – is this email ABSOLUTELY necessary? No. Try to avoid sending non-work related emails during office hours. This will help decrease the burden on others but also for yourself. Remember, the fewer emails you send, the fewer emails you will get. A lot of people also (strongly) dislike receiving these types of emails on their work email address. Not to mention it is very unprofessional in certain organizations and you might get reprimanded for it.

However, there also tons of examples where FYI emails are work related. You might want to remind people of a meeting coming up or let your team know that will be coming in late. There is an effective way of sending such emails by using special abbreviations.

You can send FYI emails with the subject line as the full body of the email and end it with NRN (No Reply Needed). You will have to be clear with every recipient what this abbreviation means because not everyone will know. However, it can be a very effective way of broadcasting information when everyone is aware of what NRN means. Then you can simply send emails with subject lines such as The coffee machine is broken. Get your coffee fix downstairs. NRN or Reminder: staff meeting today at 3pm. NRN.

A slight variation of this abbreviation is EOM (End Of Message). Just like NRN, you can use this to have the main message in your subject line like Reminder: No work tomorrow. EOM or My office hours are 2-3pm TODAY. EOM. The difference between EOM and NRN is that EOM can imply that you can send a reply whereas with NRN it’s explicit that no reply is required. Both abbreviations are a great way to boost your email productivity as it allows you and your peers to scan emails and manage them in batches.

Question 2 – is email the best medium? Yes. Assuming you use the abbreviations, email is the best medium. It’s cheap and effective. A runner-up would be texting but only if the level of urgency is higher.

Incomplete

Scenario: You are in a coffee shop waiting for your coffee and you see on your phone an email that you need to reply to. You are considering sending a short email on your phone to acknowledge the person and to let him or her know that a more comprehensive email will follow shortly when you are back at your computer.

Question 1 – is this email ABSOLUTELY necessary? No. This is another form of email abuse by unnecessarily overloading your peers with more emails.

Email is arguably the worst medium for emergency cases or situations where you need a prompt response. There are better ways to reach out to someone such as calling or texting.

A better strategy is to simply wait till you are back at your computer and then to reply. Mark the email as unread on your smart phone so that you know you will need to process that email when you are at your desk. If want to do it Asian Efficiency style (assuming you have your task manager synced through the cloud), you will immediately create a task, put it on your list and process that later on.

Next Actions

You can greatly reduce your flood of emails by sending less emails. Not only will you help yourself, but you will also help your peers. In reality, for others to be just as effective you and your team need to be on the same page on how email is used for communication. As we have said before, a big part of effective communication is knowing which medium to use. Lead by example by sending less emails and if you can help and educate your peers on effectively using email, everyone will be better off.

If you are looking for group coaching on email management for your team or organization – please contact us and perhaps we can be of service.

Remember: Send less, get less. You don’t always need to throw a boomerang. Sometimes a frisbee is more efficient.

Photos by CarbonNYC, ehnmark and Esparta.

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Outcomes and goals are key to everything that we do, but few people set them properly. This article is about setting better outcomes in the context of daily outcomes within Agile Results, but the principles can be applied to any productivity system or goal setting methodology.

Most people fail to set outcomes correctly, simply because they have never been shown how. That’s about to change.

Quick Summary

• Structure your outcomes with a name, a why, a how and a set of defined results.
• Set 2 – maybe 3 – outcomes at a time.
• Make your outcomes focussed on one thing, not many things.
• Add more outcomes as you complete outcomes.
• Record your outcomes and how they went, regardless of if you completed them or not.

Structuring Outcomes

We’ve covered the proper structuring of outcomes a number of times here at Asian Efficiency, but because it’s important, I’ll reiterate.

All your outcomes need:

1. A name.
2. A why.
3. A how, or process.
4. A set of defined results, or a benchmark to meet.

Outcome Name

All outcomes need a proper name. Usually, this should be an action-oriented description for the outcome. It should involve you doing something.

A good outcome name would be “Summarize Copywriting book”. A bad outcome name would be “Copywriting book”.

Why

All outcomes must have a reason why. Ideally, your whys will link back to larger outcomes (at a weekly, monthly or annual level), but reasons why can also cover other things.

Some examples include:

• It’s 1 of 4 books I’m reading this week.
• My boss wants it tomorrow!
• It’s Friday.
• It’s step 52(c) in project 2783 plan 1(a) subsection 4.

How and Process

Every outcome should have a mini-plan for how it will be completed. This is absolutely crucial, and it will help you when you’re actioning the outcome. You may have to sit and think about this for a few seconds, but it’s well worth writing down.

Here’s an example for the outcome “Summarize Copywriting book”:

1. Photoread book.
2. Read through book and create mindmap as I go.
3. Reorganize mindmap to make sense.
4. Create implementation notes to circulate to team.

Results and Benchmark

This part of our outcome structure describes what the outcome looks like when it’s done. Note that there will be some overlap between the how/process, and the results/benchmark.

Using the same example above, the results would be: “Notes circulated to team members.”

You’ll notice that the results have a built-in presupposition of everything in the plan being completed first. You’ll also notice that in writing a defined result, you can often cut unnecessary stages out of your how/process/plan.

Limiting the Number of Outcomes

This is probably the most common mistake people make when setting outcomes over a defined timeframe. As human beings, we tend to overestimate what we’re able to achieve in a timespan, and lean on the side of more rather than less.

Through our consulting work and teaching at Asian Efficiency, we’ve learned that less is more when it comes to outcomes.

We highly recommend starting with setting 2 outcomes per day, and adding more as you complete them.

What you want to do is set outcomes that are easily achievable, then go about achieving them, collecting a nice dopamine reward, then stacking forward into more outcomes (also known as momentum). We’ve also found that setting 2-3 outcomes for the day tells you when you need to take a break during the day.

If you combine this idea of starting with 2 outcomes and the next suggestion (singular focus), you’ll get nuclear-powered productivity. Using these ideas together, most people will be able to clear 5-6 solid outcomes each day – but only if they start with 2-3 in the morning.

Single Focus

All your outcomes should have one focus and one focus only.

This actually goes hand-in-hand with naming your outcomes properly – if you define the names of your outcomes well, it’s impossible to have an outcome with more than one focus.

The reason we want to have a singular focus per outcome, is to prevent the creation of all-encompassing outcomes that are unsuitable for a given timeframe.

Here are some examples of multi-focus outcomes (bad):

• Write content x, y and z. This should really be 3 separate outcomes.
• Work on “X” project. With no defined boundaries, this outcome gets you nowhere and can drag on indefinitely.

Here are some examples of single focus outcomes (good):

• Clear Inbox. This is a good outcome as the focus is on clearing your inbox – and your inbox only.
• Read and mindmap Copywriting book. This is a good outcome because you know where the start and end of the outcome is, and the focus is solely on reading and mind mapping the information within the book.

Here are the guidelines we use for creating outcomes with a singular focus:

• Don’t stack multiple tasks within each outcome. Each of these tasks should be its own outcome.
• I personally like outcomes that can be completed in multiples of 30 minutes (pomodoro segments). I’ll split up larger outcomes if necessary. For example, “Clear Inbox” = 30 minutes. “Create ideation workflow” = 60 minutes.
• Double check that there really is only 1 focus per outcome.
• The easier an outcome seems at the outset, the better. Why make things hard for yourself?

Adding More Outcomes

When you’re done with the 2-3 outcomes you set in the morning, be sure to set more. Take a break if you like (it’ll be around lunchtime anyway), but don’t just cruise the rest of the day because you cleared 2 outcomes.

Go back to your journal/outcome log and write more.

This is how you get more than 3 outcomes done per day, while most people struggle to complete one.

Recording Outcomes

When you’re done with an outcome, be sure to record its status and to comment on why/how/what was done.

Here is the format that I use for my own outcomes:

• Color Code. I tag outcomes as green, red or pink. Green means done, red means not done. Pink means I tried to complete it but could not for external reasons (e.g., waiting on something from someone).
• Mindset. This is the mindset that helped me get it done/not. It can be an external technique such as pomodoros, or it can be something internal like “Sat down, plugged earphones in, loaded up Social Network soundtrack and started typing”.
• Notes. These are any other details I may want to record for future outcomes. For example, if I just completed “Write AE article on better outcomes”, I may write down “Should write a future AE article on journal software”.

You want to make a record of your outcomes as you finish each outcome – it gives you a sense of accomplishment. You’ll also want to record outcomes at the end of the day, to tie up any incomplete outcomes. Regardless of when, the key is to remember to do it.

In Closing

Quite a few people tell me that they don’t like setting daily outcomes (or outcomes at all) because “it takes too much time”. Realistically, it takes about 10 minutes maximum to set outcomes properly. The way I see it, it’s a nice transition from what you were doing before into getting going for the day.

For example:

• Commute 1 hour to get to work –> set outcomes –> work.
• Eat breakfast –> set outcomes –> work.

Having a record of properly set outcomes will change your life – if you keep up the habit.

Simple, and immediately actionable. I’m off to record this one as done!

Photo by: ElPablo!

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Mind mapping is a great way to brainstorm ideas and to subsequently structure ideas into something that makes sense. It’s a great way to start off with dumping your thoughts in a graphical way and you can let your imagination run wild as you populate your mind map. However, most people who use mind mapping for brainstorm sessions do it the wrong way – here is how you effectively brainstorm with mind maps.

Quick Summary

• There are two phases to brainstorming: divergent and convergent thinking.
• Common mistake is to start brainstorming with convergent thinking.
• How to use Mindjet MindManager for effective brainstorming.

Two Phases to Brainstorming

We have showcased a lot of mind maps before and informed you that they are great for storing specific information. Before you can actually create a mind map, you have first have to know the basics. Only then can you learn how to brainstorm with mind maps. Fortunately, it’s actually quite easy and very effective.

To get the most out of brainstorming sessions you have to be aware that there are two phases to it. The first phase of brainstorming is coming up with the ideas and topics you want to cover. This is also known as divergent thinking – it’s when you are free flowing and you are not thinking about what is good, bad or semantically correct. There are no relationships or connections between your thoughts. They are just there – you are simply dumping your thoughts without any judgement. It’s when you are thinking outside the box and you are not confined to a set of rules or framework. Think of it as being a little kid that doesn’t understand how the world works – it will just do whatever it is thinking without any limits and that is exactly how you want to think.

The second phase of effective brainstorming is when you are convergent thinking – you have set of rules and you are trying to find the best solution(s) with what you have. Unlike divergent thinking, where you are thinking outside the box, convergent thinking is like thinking inside the box – you work with what you have. This is the phase where you start to organize your thoughts, structure them and you work on finding a solution with the tangibles that you have. To finish the kid analogy, this phase is where you have grown up to become an adult, you have learned the rules and you now start to play with what you have within a set of rules and regulations.

Here’s a simple way to remember this. The first phase (divergent thinking) is about quantity over quality. Spurt as many thoughts as you can and capture them in a mind map. The second phase (convergent thinking) is about quality over quantity. This is where you deal with the thoughts created previously, remove the thoughts that you think are not relevant and organize what is remaining to work towards your outcome.

The Number One Mistake

The common mistake people make when they try to brainstorm with mind maps is that they start off thinking within a framework (convergent thinking). They start at phase two where they should have started with phase one.

This is to blame with not knowing how to use mind maps for brainstorming – especially if you are used to mind mapping with software. They start to create a branch of the main topic and then spurt out ideas. However, as soon as you start creating a branch, you already start to have an association and you start thinking in a convergent mode – not divergent where it is free flowing.

Let me illustrate this with a simple example. Let’s say you want to brainstorm on where you should go on your next summer vacation. Your main topic in the mind map will be something like the illustration below.

Central topic is a summer vacation.

So far so good. Now comes the part where people start to make this common mistake I mentioned earlier. They create a branch and then use that to trigger subsequent thoughts. For example, you might create a branch Europe and then populate it with thoughts.

The mistake here for brainstorming is to create a branch. It forces you to think within the box!

The problem with this approach is that you are now confined to thinking of all the spots you want to visit in Europe. You are now limiting yourself to where your thoughts might wander off to as you are creatively thinking about where to go. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad approach, but it’s not the best approach.

One of the reasons mind maps are great for brainstorming is that it is in alignment with how the brain functions when it spurts out ideas. You trigger one thought, that will trigger another thought which in return triggers another thought that might have nothing to do with the original thought. You might be thinking of visiting Rome for its ancient history, think of its amazing pasta, visualize the smell of that Thai pasta you tried the other day, tinker about how you never visited Asia before, and before you know it you wonder if you should visit Rio de Janeiro because you know there are a lot of Japanese/Brazilian mixed people out there that peaked your curiosity. And it all started when you thought of Rome…

As you can see, when it comes to brainstorming, rarely does your brain stay linear – it goes all over the place and that is exactly how your initial mind map should look like. Instead of constricting yourself to a specific branch, you first start off with capturing your floating ideas the correct way. The next section will show you how.

How to Use MindManager for Brainstorming

Okay so up to this point you have grasped the main idea on how to use mind maps for brainstorm sessions: start off with generating a lot of ideas (divergent thinking) and end with filtering and finding solution(s) (convergent thinking).

I will show how to do all this with MindManager, our favorite mind mapping software. It’s available on both Mac and Windows, and there is a free trial available so you can try it out.

To illustrate how to brainstorm with MindManager, I’ll showcase it by using the example of our recent newsletter on dealing with information overload (sign up for our newsletter if you want to receive more exclusive content not found on the blog).

First you start off with your main topic, in this case it is dealing with information overload.

The central topic is how to manage information overload.

The next step is to start adding ideas surrounding your topic. Remember, do not create a branch because it will force you thinking in convergent mode. Instead, we want to start free flowing and dumping thoughts without being tied to any framework (divergent mode). You do this in MindManager by using floating topics.

You have to set it up first. Go to MindManager > Preferences (or press CMD + ,) and make sure to tick the box for single click to insert floating topic.

This setting will make brainstorming a lot easier. Just point, click, and type your keywords to get started.

Now anytime you click anywhere on your mind map you can create a floating topic by just typing your keywords. This mimics the flow of how you would do it with pen and paper – you just add keywords all over your paper surrounding your idea. We want to do the same on our mind map. Below you will see an example of how this looks like where an example of phase one of brainstorming took place.

When you first start brainstorming, populate it with as many floating topics as needed.

The idea is that you want to capture as many thoughts as possible. Don’t worry about semantics or if your thought makes any sense – just note it down in a floating topic.

NOTE: When you try to move a floating topic around, you will see that MindManager will try to create a branch. To avoid this, hold down SHIFT when you move around a floating topic.

After you are done coming up with ideas, it’s time to organize your mind map. This is the second phase of brainstorming where you try to make sense of your mind map. As you go through each floating topic you will ask yourself if this is relevant or not. You can remove the ones that are not useful or relevant so you end up with only a few floating topics. Simply select your topic and press Delete.

This might be really time consuming and not as effective when you have generated a lot of ideas. Here is a simple trick. As you go through each mind map, flag the topics with a green flag (yes). When you open the Inspector (press OPTION+CMD+I or Window > Show Inspector), collapse the Flags section to get the green flag.

The Inspector in MindManager. Use the green flag / marker for selecting the topics you want to keep.

Don’t flag the topics you want to remove. Once you have flagged the floating topics you want to keep, your mind map might look something like this.

Topics that are considered for further use are flagged.

Now I will show you a cool feature of MindManager: the Filter feature. If you have done any filtering in Excel, MindManager has something very similar that allows you to filter data in a mind map. By flagging the topics we want to keep, we can setup a filter so only topics are left that are not flagged. We then select those all at once and then remove them.

To setup a filter, we first need to make sure you have the Filter button in your toolbar. Go to View > Customize Toolbar (or right click anywhere in your toolbar and select Customize Toolbar) and make sure to drag the filter icon to your toolbar.

The Filter feature in MindManager is really useful.

The next step is to setup a filter rule. Go to Select > Edit Rules and a new small window pop up. If you have never used filters before this window looks empty. Click on the plus button on the bottom left corner to add a new rule.

The MindManager rules window. It's empty when you have never used it before. Click on the plus icon to create new filters.

Now we can create our rule. The rule should filter out all the floating topics that do not have a green flag. Here’s how that looks like.

• Rule name: No green flags
• Match: all
• Markers do not contain yes

MindManager filter rule for finding topics that have no green mark / flag. Those are the ones that will get deleted.

Now that you have the filter set up, it’s time to apply it. Go to Select > No Green Flags (your filter name) and you should see that all floating topics are selected. Now simply press Delete and all your floating topics are deleted!

To go back to your normal view (unfiltered), simply click on the Filter button on your toolbar and select Show All. Now you are left with your floating topics that you will organize and elaborate on.

An example of what a mind map might look like once everything is filtered.

I find the best way to organize this is to start grouping floating topics together under a branch. What I like to do is I create three branches, named B1, B2, and B3, and then group floating topics. The next step is to group your floating topics and rename your branches accordingly. From this point on, you will be able to expand your mind map and finish it. You have successfully brainstormed using mind maps!

What the final mind map might look like after brainstorming, filtering and organizing it.

Next Actions

All of our mind maps (illustrated in this post) are created by Mindjet MindManager and to get the best out of brainstorming sessions we highly advice you to use this software. The filter feature shown here is really amazing but we just showed you one way of using it. In a future post we will go more in depth and show you some advanced filters. If you want take your mindmapping skills to the next level, don’t forget to bookmark our mind mapping page where also all of our mindmapping articles can be found.

Are you using mind maps for brainstorming? Let us know in the comments below how you do it.

Photo by 10ch.

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If there is one book we would recommend for any intermediate and advanced Asian Efficiency nerds, it would be The Power of Full Engagement. Written by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr, the authors have studied many professional athletes over the years to figure out what caused some of them to excel at the highest level. What they have found is that the top athletes perform at their best when certain controllable factors in their body and life are in the right place (I will touch on those below). Interestingly enough, they also found that many of their findings also apply to people who want to do well in life and be more productive. Below are some of the core ideas explained that you can use.

Paradigm shift: Energy is the New Currency

The key to personal productivity is not about how you manage your time but how you manage your energy. The book introduces many new paradigms that make you view time management in a very different, but positive, way. Everyone has 1440 minutes each day but the energy you use and put out each day is variable – that is exactly where you can optimize your life to improve your effectiveness and personal productivity.

Essentially it comes back to the idea of self-management. The better you take care of yourself, the more productive you will be. Most of us know this on a very basic level but the author goes in depth how you can excel (or achieve peak performance) when you have all the right components running at full speed in your life and in your body which can only happen when you are fully engaged at what you do. The title of the book alludes to the idea that full engagement is when you are focused, performing at your best and you have a strong boundaries between uptime and downtime. The latter is a very important part of the book because there is a very strong emphasis on the idea of renewal: taking time to recover. Most people view the idea of renewal as a waste of time but the authors make several good arguments why you should focus on renewal a lot more than you think.

Why would you take nap if you could work? Why aren’t you working 80 hours a week if you could? Vacations are overrated – real productive people don’t take any. All these questions, ideas and statements are addressed by teaching you how renewal works on the body. If you have read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People you already know how that renewal is one of the key habits (sharpening the saw), but this book goes in more detail in the whys and hows of renewal. There is a lot of science to back up the claims so it’s not a bunch of wish wash.

Energy Pyramid

A really great concept that is introduced in the book is the Energy Pyramid. We’ve touched on this briefly in our sleep post but it is greatly covered in the book. Below is the a simplified energy pyramid as how the book teaches it.

The Energy Pyramid of The Power of Full Engagement.

As you can see it’s divided in different layers: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. The basic idea behind the energy pyramid is that we have different levels of energy that we use to fuel. At the bottom of the pyramid is the physical energy we need to survive, such as food, sleep and exercise. It forms the foundation for the rest of the pyramid. The emotional part is about how you feel when you perform at your best. There are certain emotions you feel and go through when you are “in the zone”, and the book deconstructs what those are and how you obtain them. The mental layer is all about concentration and focus – the better the quality of those components, the more effective you will be. And the last layer is about spirituality. Not in a religious sense of some sorts but the it’s about the main idea behind your motivation to do work – it’s the connection of your core values and your purpose.

It’s important to understand that each layer is supported by the layer underneath it. When you miss one component, it weakens support for the rest of the pyramid. For example, if you are angry (emotional), it’s difficult to focus (mental). If you are tired (physical), it’s impossible to have a sense of enjoyment (emotional) and to concentrate (mental). Do you see how each layer supports each other and is interlinked?

The rest of the pyramid is covered greatly in depth and we will use a lot of these ideas (and have been) throughout the whole website, but read the whole book to get a better idea of how you can improve your own quality of life. The only thing that is really missing in the pyramid is the idea of sexual energy. We have said it many times before on the blog – sex is a huge force when it comes to personal productivity. Thus, we have setup a whole page about it here.

Recommendation

If you are sick and tired of reading books on time management that all discuss the same things, you want to read this book. The authors have a very different approach to time management and personal productivity that anyone who wants to kick ass at life will really enjoy reading. As you read you will keep nodding your head and ask yourself why no one else has been writing about these paradigm shifts, ideas and techniques for improving your personal productivity. Grab a copy here on Amazon.com.

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One of the best ways to learn something is to try to teach it to someone else. In this spirit, we’re going to show you how to get started with the basics of producing effective mind maps – and then ask you to teach the same basics to someone else.

Quick Summary

• Always have a central idea and purpose for your mindmap.
• Make your first tier thoughts count.
• Anything second and below are just details.
• Reorganize your mindmaps to suit how you think.
• Practice and learn over time.

Central Idea and Purpose

Every single mindmap starts with a central idea and purpose.

The central idea is the core topic of your mindmap. This could be:

• The title of the book you’re taking notes on.
• The title of the project.
• The title of the lecture.

Whatever it is, the core topic of the mindmap should be immediately obvious – it’s whatever the mindmap is about.

The purpose of the mindmap addresses the why of your mindmapping. Are you creating a mindmap to consolidate information? To brainstorm new ideas? To undergo a creative planning process?

Keep in mind that while mindmaps are pretty awesome for lots of things, they are not the optimal format of information storage.

Once you know the central idea and purpose of your mindmap, you can start with something like this:

June Vacation: Central Idea

FYI, this was created in Mindjet MindManager.

First Tier Thoughts

Once you have the central idea of your mindmap noted, it’s onto the first tier.

What we mean by “tier” is a system of hierarchical levels – with the first tier being below the central idea, and the second tier being below the first tier, ad infinitum.

As a general rule, it is best practice to limit your first tier to 12 nodes. If you’re mindmapping on paper, this should be obvious. If you’re using software like MindManager, you want to do this to keep your mindmaps neat and readable.

The first tier should be the “big ideas” about whatever you’re mindmapping about. A good question to ask is:

If you had to summarise X (central idea) in 12 words, what would they be?

Keep in mind also that the nodes in the first tier should be words or short phrases of no more than 5 words in length. They really should not be sentences, but they can be numbered.

The first tier is all about ideas, not details.

Continuing our example, with a first tier (and a bit of the second tier) our mindmap now looks like this:

June Vacation: First Tier

Second Tier and Below Details

The second tier and below is where you start to get into the details of the topic you’re mindmapping about.

Feel free to use as many second tier nodes as you need, but if you’re mindmap starts to look a bit unwieldy, consider consolidating some of the second tier nodes under a new first-tier node. I like to keep the number of my second tier nodes under 20.

You can go deeper than 2 tiers as well – we recommend a maximum of 4 tiers. If you need to go deeper than that, you probably want to be taking linear notes or wiki-style documentation, not creating a mindmap.

The thing to remember at second tier and below is that it’s all about your idea hierarchy. What this means is that you are taking concepts or information, and chunking up and down to different tiers. The ideas found in each tier should be a subset of the idea of the tier above.

For example, under the node “fruit”, you could have:

• Apples.
• Oranges.
• Watermelons.

Or under the node “criteria for goals”, you could have:

• Clear.
• Distinct.
• Actionable.

On our example mindmap, here’s an expansion of the “destination” node:

June Vacation: Second Tier

Reorganizing For You

Once you’ve created your mindmap, you’ll probably realize that some things are out of place. Rarely will the first run-through of a mindmap be the way you want it.

One of the advantages of a mindmap (especially with software) is that it is fairly easy to reorganize the information. If you plan on reviewing the mindmap later, we definitely recommend reorganizing the nodes so that they suit you.

Common examples where reorganizing is recommended:

• When taking book notes where the chapter headings are your first tier ideas. Most of the time, the author will have a different way of grouping concepts to you, so reorganize for it to make sense to you.
• Lecture notes at university/college. Most lecturers are hodge-podge in their presentation of ideas. Reorganize to make sense to you (and every other student).

Our example mindmap can be rearranged to a final layout as such:

June Vacation: Reorganized

Practicing and Learning

The more you use mindmaps the better you’ll become at creating them.

Over time, you’ll learn to see when your mindmaps are too big and need to be divided into smaller mindmaps.

The thing to remember is to keep practicing – and to teach this to someone else.

We suggest picking on software package (MindManager is our favorite) and sticking with it, learning the ins and outs.

Next Actions

• Start using mind mapping on your own.
• When you get a chance, sit down and teach these basics to someone else.
• Keep practicing and using mindmaps – they’ll become second nature in no time!
• Keep an eye on our Mind Mapping page for future articles about advanced mind mapping.

Photo by: net_efekt

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At the request of some of our long-time readers, we have made the decision to take our newsletter archive offline at the end of the week. Our newsletters are packed with cutting-edge not-safe-for-public-consumption content, and we want to reward readers who are on our mailing list by making it exclusive to them.

This is a last chance to grab old issues while they’re still up – over at:
http://www.asianefficiency.com/newsletters/

You can also sign up for new newsletters on that page.

After this week, there will be no requesting past issues of newsletters – you’ll have to be on the mailing list to receive as they are released, each month.

- Aaron and Thanh

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Jailbreaking is the process where you bypass the limitation within iOS that Apple has set and it allows you to fully customize your iPhone (or iTouch/iPad). There are a lot of apps available in Cydia, the Appstore equivalent of jailbroken iPhones, that are not found in the Appstore because of the limitations within iOS. However, a lot of them are really useful and with this post we want to share a list of apps and extensions that are must-have for anyone who has jailbroken their iPhone.

Installation instructions

In case you don’t know what jailbreaking is and you want jailbreak your iPhone, check out the Lifehacker guide to jailbreaking. Jailbreaking in the US is legal but you will void your warranty if an Apple employee deals with jailbroken iPhone.

With all that said, there is one more thing I want you to know before we cover the apps. All the apps mentioned in this article can be found in Cydia. There are some you have to pay for, but a lot of them are free. To find an app or extension, launch Cydia and then in the Search tab (bottom right) look for your app or extension. It’s that simple.

Now let’s get to the essential Cydia apps!

Sbsettings

Almost anyone who has jailbroken their iPhone has this app, but in case you haven’t – now you will. Sbsettings is a great nifty app that you trigger by swiping from left to right in the area where your clock is (in middle of the top of your screen). From there you can adjust many settings like toggling 3G (save battery life), WiFi, Bluetooth, Location services, and more. It’s a lot faster than going to Settings and then turning off a feature. Sbsettings has a lot more features as you can see in the screenshot below. Definitely one of the top apps for jailbroken iPhones.

Here is what Sbsettings looks like.

Springtomize 2

Springtomize 2 allows you to customize Springboard. In case you don’t know, Springboard is iOS’s name for the (invisible) application that manages the look and feel of your iPhone. It also serves a lot of other functions such as launching settings of apps, positioning of apps on your screen and much more. There are no settings that you can change within iOS for Springboard but if you do want to change some things under the hood you want to install Springtomize 2. This app allows you to customize almost anything within iOS and any hardcore iPhone lover will like this app.

Bitesms

Bitesms is like iOS’s Messages app but on steroids. It has much more features such as scheduled texts (one of our favorite features), text templates, signatures, iMessage support and much more. It will also integrate within a lot of places within iOS, like the notication center, where it allows you to quickly compose text messages. This app is a must-have for anyone who does a lot of texting.

Mywi

There are restrictions on the tether features of your iPhone (mainly depending on which telecom provider you use) but you can circumvent that with MyWi. While not cheap, it’s the best app out there that allows you to tether your data connection. We especially like it for when travelling (zero-hassle tethering worldwide).

Protube

The native YouTube app is lacking a lot of features – especially if you are a YouTube power user. Fortunately, Protube is a great alternative that is packed with features such as being able to watch videos offline, converting (parts of) videos into mp3 and it gets rid of the advertisements. This app makes watching YouTube on your iPhone a lot more fun and efficient. Just be cautious that you might end up wasting a lot of time!

Lockinfo

One big feature iOS is currently missing is having the option to have app data show on your lock screen. Right now you mostly just have a wallpaper there and that’s it. With Lockscreen, you can have all sorts of information on your lock screen like missed calls, text messages, new emails, the current weather status and much more.

Example of lockscreen with Lockinfo.

Action Menu

Whenever you hold your finger on the screen, you get an action menu with a few options such as select all, cut, copy and paste. With the Action Menu extension in Cydia you can have more options in your action menu. My favorite is the clipboard history but you can also dial a number, add text to your favorites lists, Google Map an address and much more.

Anylockapp

Since iOS 5 you now have the Camera app on the bottom right corner of your lock screen. This is great for situations where you quickly need to take a picture. Unfortunately, you can’t swap the Camera app for another app that you would like to have at the bottom right of your lock screen. That’s where Anylockapp can help you. Install this extension and then you will be able to pick any app. Here are some ideas for apps to place there:

• Camera+ (better app than the native Camera app)
• Tweetbot (or your other favorite Twitter app)
• Messages (or Bitesms)
• Facebook (you must be a real FB addict if you pick this option!)

Double At

How many times a day do you have to type in your email address on your iPhone? Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a shortcut for your email address? Fortunately there is. Install Double At and the next time you need to type in your email address all you have to type is @@ and it will automatically replace it with your email address. This extension will save you a lot of time!

Infinidock

Set as many apps in your dock as you want and make the dock scroll-able. A simple but effective extension.

Cascade

After you’ve installed Infinidock, if you want to have a cool cover flow effect (like when you are browing in iTunes or in the Music app) you definitely want to install Cascade. It gives your dock a nice style to it.

Once you have installed Cascade, it will suggest to install Infinidock as well.

Omnistat

Omnistat is a great widget for your Notification center that shows you some technical data like your IP address, memory usage, free hard drive space, and so on.

Pkgbackup

Backing up your iPhone is crucial. Anyone who has jailbroken their iPhone before and upgraded to a new version of iOS knows how much time it costs to install all the Cydia apps again. Not to mention all the data loss that goes with an iOS upgrade. Fortunately, with Pkgbackup you can backup all your Cydia apps and its data so a restore will have your iPhone back in its old state. And it has Dropbox support so you can store your backups in the cloud. It’s pretty damn awesome and it has already saved me a heart attack.

Datadeposit

Similar to Pkgbackup, you can make backups of app data with Datadeposit and store it on Dropbox as well.

Pull to Refresh for Mail

A lot of apps have the feature where when you pull down your screen, it will refresh the data, i.e. Facebook. Unfortunately the default Mail app doesn’t have this but it would make the app even better if it did. If you like to have this feature for the Mail app, just install the Pull to refresh for Mail extension.

Refresh your inbox by swiping.

Zephyr

Would you like to use a couple more gestures on your iPhone? Sure you do! With Zephyr you can switch apps by swiping your finger like you are browsing a book on your iPhone. Instead of pressing the Home button twice to switch apps, with Zephyr you can switch apps much quicker by just a horizontal swipe near the vertical edges of your iPhone.

Another great gesture is swiping upwards from the bottom of your screen to close an app. This gives the same effect as when you press the Home button to close an app. This gesture is really useful because the Home button has a limited lifetime – it becomes less responsive over time but this app will save your Home button.

Callbar

Whenever someone calls you, iOS immediately interrupts you and shows you who is calling in full screen. This can be really annoying when you’re in the middle of killing a bunch of zombies. With the Callbar app you get those subtle notifications at the top of your screen whenever someone is calling you – just like any app that is sending you a notification. This way you can continue killing zombies while your spouse is calling!

F.lux

We have covered F.lux before in our essential Mac apps guide and it is also available on your iPhone. Based on your current location, it will figure out when the sundown is and the app will dim your screen based on that. This will help you avoid bright screens in the dark which lessens the eye strain and it will help you you fall asleep faster because of the ambient lighting.

WeeKillBackground for Notification Center

When you notice that your iPhone starts to slow down, the best remedy is to close down a bunch of background apps. Now you can manually do this but if you want do this more efficiently you want to install WeeKillBackground for Notification Center. With just one tap all background apps will be closed down and you will have a fast iPhone again.

Editor’s note: some app developer friends have informed me that because of the way iOS manages apps, “background” apps appearing in the multitasking dock don’t actually slow down iOS. Well, I have no idea if that’s the case (every time I close apps my iPhone/iPad runs somewhat faster and shows as having more free memory), but another practical application would be if you’ve had someone playing games/checking out apps on your iPhone/iPad, and don’t want those apps in your dock.

Kill all background apps with one tap!

iFile

The best file browser on the iPhone. No need to say more.

No Bookmarks

Whenever you launch Safari with no tabs open, it will automatically show your screen with a list of bookmarks. This can be quite annoying when you just want to search something or type in an address. With the No Bookmarks extension it will stop Safari from launching your bookmarks upon a blank load.

3G Unrestrictor 5

Certain apps or features will only work when WiFi is enabled. This goes most notably for FaceTime. With the 3G Unrestrictor 5 app it will remove the restriction of WiFi-only features of apps. Be very careful with this if you have a monthly limit on your data plan as it becomes really easy to get over your monthly limit with the WiFi-restriction feature off.

Did we miss any must-have Cydia apps or extensions? Let us know some of your favorite Cydia apps in the comments below!

Photo by htaule93.

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We recently hosted a Mailplane giveaway here and we are proud to announce the winners. It definitely wasn’t easy selecting the winners because we received a lot of great tips, but there can only be three winners. Jeroen, Dave and Claire are the winners and they have been contacted with their Mailplane license.

We asked the participants to leave their best productivity tip and we want to highlight the winning tips because they are very good and we think everyone can benefit from them.

#1 Take Responsibility

The first one is from Jeroen:

Taking responsibility!

The biggest and single most important tip/realization for me has been to start taking full responsibility for everything that happens to me, good AND bad. I used to be “bounced around by externals”, being very reactive, never really setting my own path. The idea that I was responsible for my own choices, my own actions and my own outcomes quickly became very empowering.

Feeling (and being ;-) ) fully responsible forces you to take a good and honest look at what you want and what you are doing to get it. No one’s going to accomplish your dreams (or tick off your to do’s). If your inbox is always overflowing, find a way to manage it. If you never seem to “have” the time to do stuff you want, set aside time to do them. You are boss, make it happen.

I have found that feeling of proactivity (or self-efficacy or agency, etc.) extremely motivating. I’ve seen the concept in several articles & case-studies here on AE over the last year, which has definitely helped to keep me on track. Thanks!

We wholeheartedly agree with his tip. We have mentioned throughout the whole website (like here and our in case studies) how important taking full responsibility for everything is an empowering place to come from – especially when it comes to managing your life and time.

#2 Know, Do and then Be.

The next tip comes from Dave who harnesses the power of habits and awareness:

Momentum, Habits, Routines, Rituals. Whatever you call them, the best way to be “productive” is to be the kind of person that doesn’t need to force himself to be productive. We can do great work without tools, software, schedules, or tricks.

When I wake up in the morning, I read a few notes that I’ve scribbled down and edited over the last couple of years. Just notes that ask the questions that I need to ask myself daily. The answers may change, but the questions remain constant.

“What do you want most? (You can only want one thing most)”
“What activities will give your life meaning today?”
“How will you make the right thing to do the easy thing to do?”

Nothing’s more crucial than to be mindful of who you are and what you are doing.

We really like this tip because it emphasizes how important the inner game aspect of productivity is (it is often overlooked by people and not mentioned a lot in the productivity space). It’s important once a while to zoom out and look at your life from 50,000 feet so you can see if you are heading in the right direction. Before you start your day, make sure to add this tip to your morning routine. It will make all the difference on how the rest of your day will look like.

#3 Self-management

Last but not least, Claire’s tip on self-management is of huge importance for improving your personal productivity:

What I’ve found most important in being productive is taking care of myself. Eating well, sleeping well, and exercising are not overrated! If I’m tired and hungry, there’s not much point in trying to get things done, because I just can’t focus or be efficient. I don’t exercise often, but I notice a huge difference in my motivation and mental energy when I manage to do even a bit of cardio for a few days… so yeah, I gotta do better at that!

The tip is simple but oh so true: the better you take care of yourself, the more productive you will be. We have mentioned before how important sleep and exercise are for your productivity, and in the near future we will be go more in depth how nutrition affects productivity. Spoiler: it’s equally important as sleep and exercise – they are all connected. However, for now you can take away that how well you eat is hugely important for productivity.

More giveaways

We will be hosting more giveaways in the near future. You will get a chance to win cool software, a consultation with one of us and a lot more. Stay subscribed to the blog (via RSS or email) and sign up for our newsletter to stay updated on the latest giveaways.

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Below is a 31 minute video of Tony Schwartz, a productivity expert that we have a lot of respect for, when he was talking at the 99% conference. He talks a lot about the myths of time management and how employees, especially creative people, are mismanaging their lives. If you have read Tony’s book, The Power of Full Engagement, you will see a lot of familiar concepts but he also has some new nuggets to share. Have fun watching!

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Here at Asian Efficiency, we’re a little obsessed with mind mapping.

Believe it or not, in my spare time I make mindmaps for a lot of things – processes, book summaries, consolidating information, vacation planning…

I often send these out to friends and contacts of mine, and one of the most common questions that I get is “well, it looks great… but how exactly do I read this thing?”

This short article is going to show you exactly how to do that – properly – and get the most out of reading mindmaps you’ve created, or that other people have given to you.

Quick Summary

• Mindmapping is NOT a right-brain-left-brain thing: it’s a just a skill set that can be learned.
• In general, start at 12 o’clock and go clockwise.
• Reading levels and meta data is a little more complex.
• Different people create mindmaps with their own idiosyncrasies.

For the purposes of this article I’m going to use a Mindmap that Thanh shared recently in our article on Asian Efficiency Mindmaps:

Click for larger image.

You can download the mindmap here. You’ll need MindManager to open it.

Skill Set, not Brain Type

Before we get into the details of reading a mind map, I want to make something very clear – mindmapping is little more than a skill, like learning to read or write.

Because of the way that mind mapping is taught to the general public (as some sort of mystic and rare ability), most people wrongly assume that you need to be a “right brainer” or “creative type” to use and read (and understand) mindmaps. The reality is far from this – most people who I know use mindmaps on a regular basis (including myself), are very much logical thinkers – it’s just a skill that we’ve developed over time.

The Simple Way of Reading Mindmaps

The easiest way to read a mind map is to start at 12 o’clock, and go clockwise.

The reason for this, is that when mind mapping is taught, most people are told to put their first node in the top-right, and work clockwise around. The vast majority of mind mapping software available on the market today, also defaults to creating the first node in that top-right position, working clockwise.

Taking the Leverage Points mindmap as an example, you would start with the “Defined” node, and work your way clockwise to “Finding Leverage Points”, “1. Wants”, “2. Strengths” and so on.

The Complex Way of Reading Mind Maps

Of course, there is more to it than just that – but that is the basic idea!

Let’s take the “Defined” node from the Leverage Points mindmap. In linear note form, it looks like this:
* intersect
—– high value activities
—– natural strengths
—– wants
* things that yield wide beneficial impact across your life
—– the sweet spot
* push you towards your goals
—– and happy while doing so
—– IME this is the extent of the “do what you’re passionate about and success will come” myth
—– sometimes from necessity though
———- sufficient reason is enough
* uses
—– do activities where you have optimal leverage
———- bigger impact and results
———- every single day
—– identify what aren’t leverage points and remove/outsource them

What this tells us is that mindmaps are very similar to bullet point notes, with multiple lower levels of information. In this case, we would start by reading the first tier of “Defined”, go to “intersect”, and then note the data attached to that – “high value activities”, “natural strengths” and “wants”. You’ll note that the latter 3 are child data related to “intersect”.

Once you’re done reading the information within “intersect”, you move onto “things that yield wide beneficial impact across your life”.

Click for larger image.

Now if a Mindmap contains a relationship or callout, you want to read those along with the nodes. For example, in this screen capture I’ve added a relationship between “high value activities” and “3. High Value Activities”:

What this indicates is that there is a relationship between the first bit of data, and the entire node of “3. High Value Activities”. It is really up to the reader as to whether they want to continue reading normally (clockwise), or to jump to the other location in the mindmap and take in the information there first and return later.

This also applies with any photos, images, diagrams, or meta data markers included on the mindmap.

Different Types of Mindmaps

The last thing to note about reading mindmaps effectively is that a lot of readability comes down to who designed and created the mindmap in the first place. We have a number of upcoming articles about effective mindmap usage and design, so we’ll explain more there.

It’s fairly difficult to make mindmaps complicated, so with that in mind, there is no reason whatsoever for not being able to learn or read from a mindmap, just because it’s in the mindmap format.

Next Actions

• Go forth and read mindmaps!

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