Matt's Idea Blog

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

matt — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:06:25 -0500

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

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

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

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

Thanks to these folks, and to you for reading.

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

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

Cheers!

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

matt — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:57:37 -0500

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

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

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

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

On mentoring

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

On listening

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

On differences

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

On getting clients

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

On writing

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

On entrepreneur success

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

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

On discipline

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

On luck

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

On accomplishing so much in a short time

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

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

On learning from experience

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

On asking questions

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

On lessons learned

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

On the definition of productivity

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

On his media diet

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

On reading

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

On his productivity system

Scott says:

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

On priorities

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

On idea capture

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

Thanks, Scott!

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

matt — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:22:45 -0500

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

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

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

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

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

A tension sampler

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

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

How do we resolve them?

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

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

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

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

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

Future

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

References

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

IdeaLab 0624: Ice Cream, attitude, danger, and dishwashers

matt — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:23:49 -0500

A continuation of the ever-enlightening IdeaLab series from the patented IdeaMatt My Big-Arse Text File.

"Flight of six" ice cream: While walking with my daughter around town (it's summer here and I get to spend a lot of time parenting - very good stuff, but does cut back on work time [1]) we decided to enjoy some ice cream together [2]. Immediately two thoughts occurred to me. First, because here in the U.S. restaurant portions are ridiculously large [3], so a "regular" is two large scoops - must be 20 WeightWatchers points! This will make me fat and unhealthy. Second, I love trying many different flavors, rather than one huge helping of one flavor (variety, spice, life, etc.) So I hit on an idea: Why not have an option for a "flight of six" - instead of one large scoop, serve six small tastes of different flavors. So Katie and I headed out to try it - and our local ice cream cafe was happy to accommodate! Perfect. A nice presentation would be to serve it in a pretty glass scalloped dish with six separate scoops to keep the flavors from running together, something like six of these connected.

After a bit of research, it turns out that this option is common with alcohol, including beer, scotch, and tequila. I found only one mention of an ice cream version: The Phantom Gourmet Guide to Boston's Best Restaurants 2008 mentions ice cream "shooters" at Smith & Wollensky (I've never been there). What do you think? What else would this apply to?

2x2: Dangerous vs. Exciting: In patented ASCII-Vision(TM):

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

I'm not totally happy with the names. Thoughts?

Attitude self-coaching: Here's something I like to do before important interactions or events (e.g., consulting, sales calls, or workshops): I write out the top two or three positive attitudes I want to bring to the occasion. For example, if I'm nervous about a call regarding a possible problem I might go in Curious, >GraciousTransitions: A Secret Ingredient To Getting Things Done?) and has helped me a lot.
Productivity tips from my automated dishwasher: (With apologies to Jack Handey and the ever amazing Nicholas Bate):
- Like filing, does one prioritize ease of storage (just putting the dishes, cup, and cutlery willy nilly) or ease of retrieval (sorting likes together)?
- Clearing cleaned dishes (e.g., emptying the inbox) is a kind of a forced closed list: All the clean ones must be removed before putting new (dirty) items in. Implications for collection tools...?
- Emptying should require minimal thinking, which means batching likes (see above). This relates to the power of structure: Once we're in "plate mode," doing plates as a batch requires far less thinking than handling individual items. Implications for working your tasks list?
Less is more: A quote from one of my clients (they're always teaching me something):

Having less stuff on your list is not necessary selling yourself short.
Attracting life: While sitting in my kitchen I noticed something moving in the potted tree on our back deck. Surprise! It had attracted a Robin. So a nice test in life: Does what I'm doing attract life?
Matter, energy, and information: Is life all about inputs and outputs [4]? If so, implications: we can control the inputs (what we invite into our lives: people, media diet, thoughts), the process (e.g., the efficient turning of inputs into outputs - my specialty), and the outputs (what is valuable for us to do). Stimulated by this passage from Nicholas Carr's [5] book The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google:

All living systems, from amoebas to nation-states, sustain themselves through the processing of matter, energy, and information. They take in materials from their surroundings, and they use energy to transform those materials into various useful substances, discarding the waste. This continuous turning of inputs into outputs is controlled through the collection, interpretation, and manipulation of information. The process of control itself has two thrusts. It involves measurement - the comparison of the current state of a system to its desired state. And it involves two-way communication - the transmission of instructions and the collection of feedback on results.

References

[1] This figures into the estimate of time available in my daily planning regime (see A Daily Planning Experiment: Two Weeks Of Accountable Rigorous Action). Note: This approach really hit a nerve, and led to professional phone coaching and a new consulting service (site not updated yet).
[2] A decision I make pretty carefully - eating well and keeping the weight off is a challenge in our current lifestyle (not everyone has this choice, I realize). See What GTD And Weight Watchers Have In Common.
[3] Esp. compared to (sane) European standards. See Less is More and Survey: Restaurants dishing out extra-large portions.
[4] A favorite topic of mine. See When Inputs Exceed Your Workflow System's Capacity and The Productivity I/O Sweet Spot, Or Why Balance Is A Bad Thing.
[5] You might enjoy his article Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Heads up: Technical difficulties entering comments

matt — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:07:06 -0500

Just a heads up: The site is experiencing some issues as part of changing its design. Especially troublesome is a problem entering comments: The text is (using programming nomenclature) "squished." You can still type or use an external editor, but it's unreadable, at least on my machine. Sorry about that!

--matt

The productivity I/O sweet spot, or Why balance is a bad thing

matt — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:23:03 -0500

In my one of my conversations with Chris Crouch we talked about how hard we should be working for sustainable productivity. As I summarized in my interview with him (scroll to the section Personal workload capacity), Chris questioned the conventional (?) wisdom of working at or near our maximum. I took it as a smart way to be productive but not burn ourselves out. This is controversial: We are expected (by ourselves and others) to work harder - put in more hours, sacrifice time with loved ones, all to accomplish "more, better, faster." As Laura Stack [1] says in Leave the Office Earlier, most professionals have a backlog of 200 or more hours of uncompleted work. Whew!

As you may have read [2], I've been playing with the idea of how our inputs (things we've invited into our lives requiring our attention) balance with our outputs (conversion of intputs into work we do).

I love how Nicholas Carr frames it in The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google:

All living systems, from amoebas to nation-states, sustain themselves through the processing of matter, energy, and information. They take in materials from their surroundings, and they use energy to transform those materials into various useful substances, discarding the waste. This continuous turning of inputs into outputs is controlled through the collection, interpretation, and manipulation of information.

Cool.

After a bit of thinking I came up with a little surprise. Consider your rate of inputs ("I") vs. rate of outputs ("O"). We have these possibilities:

I >> O (far more coming in that going out)
I > O (a bit more coming in "")
I ~= O (approximately equal)
I < O (a little less coming in "")
I << O (far fewer incoming than outgoing)

Questions: Which is your most common state? and Which do you think is ideal? At first blush 3 or 4 seems best. But let's name each one and do a brief analysis:

Drowning and desperate. This is that "utterly out of control" feeling, the sense that you'll never, ever be able to catch up. This is the source of big backlogs of email and paper. Work is falling through the cracks, and you have a reputation of "Better follow up in person or it probably won't get done." Grievously unsustainable
Sinking (maybe slowly, maybe fast). This is the sense of "I just can't quite keep up," and leads to an overall anxiety about work. Your inboxes are increasing, with occasional "binge" emptying happening. Unsustainable
Steady state, but brittle. You're just able to keep up if it's "a good day," but the slightest lag in work means you start falling behind - a day or two, say. And vacation or a trip? You'd better block out a good chunk of time blocked out to pay your "vacation tax." Brittle (one of the 10 GTD "holes" I identified)
Smooth sailing. You've got some amount of buffer built in to your life. You can afford a few days of letting things pile up, and emptying is not usually a problem. Sustainable
Couch potato/proactive monster. You have plenty of buffer. You can take off a week or two, say, and catch up with no sweat. Coasting

Thoughts? I'm sure you can come up with better names, but clearly #5 is most interesting. I see two extremes. First ("couch potato") is the unchallenged case. Not much going on, possibly bored. The other end ("proactive monster") is (you guessed it) The 80/20 Principle applied. It's "kill your TV" and don't read the news (bustin' it 4HWW-style). You have no problem picking up the phone and talking to almost anyone you want, and finding time to read and write is not what's holding you back. You're a Hedgehog [3], and things are aligned in your life.

Living #5 goes against common wisdom of "working hard, very hard" being a top three success factor, and I want it. Naughty? Likely. Final questions: What do you think? Is this even possible in modern work, or as an employee/cubical dweller?

References

[1] See A Conversation With Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro.
[2] See When Inputs Exceed Your Workflow System's Capacity.
[3] From Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't:

Hedgehog Concept: When you align three intersecting circles that represent three pivotal questions: What can we be the best in the world at? What is the economic denominator that best drives our economic engine? And What are our core people deeply passionate about?

Reader request: Feed the IdeaMatt!

matt — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:52:33 -0500

Sorry for the delayed posting these last few weeks. I've been working on v1.2 of my workshop for an up-coming on-site series, and it's dimmed the lights (a term a favorite client came up with) on other projects.

(Sidebar: Why dimming the lights can be bad: While I recommend against this practice I've been drawn into it, and it stinks. Not only because it's stressful, but because the promise of "simultaneous progress on multiple projects" falls apart. Yes there's a dozen small - 5-15 minute - tasks on my list, and each one would not take much effort, but drat it's hard make them go when overshadowed by a big difficult project with a near term deadline. Makes one think of urgent/important, eh? And of course: Teaching this doesn't mean I'm perfect at practicing it myself. No mistake, I'm good at it, but "practice what you preach" is always good advice for me. How about you - do you dim the lights? What's the impact? And how do you avoid it?)

OK, so we interrupt the usual broadcast etc. to bring you a special request:

Send me good stuff!

I love to receive timely and relevant articles and news relating to productivity, and it helps my development of ideas here on this blog. Why am I asking you? Because you're a terrific resource: 1) you know what I like, 2) you're out there reading the best productivity sites (don't deny it - I attract what Pamela Slim called my "smartie productivity geeks" (paraphrasing here - sorry, Pam!), 3) you know I'll read and integrate it into my Big-Arse Text File, and 4) I'm lazy. And hey - If you want to help people you gotta' know what they want, right? :-)

Are you up for it? Email your goodies to brain@matthewcornell.org. Samples of things I loved getting:

Anything from the Harvard Business Review
The power of a note
How to dig out from the information avalanche
What would you do with an extra day?

Variation: Feel free to snail-mail things - contact information here.

So please: Feed the IdeaMatt! No job too big or small! We aim to please; your aim helps! (Further sidebar: I'm continuing to develop the idea of living an experimental lifestyle, and I'll be treating this request as such. Like my A Daily Planning Experiment, these results are fun to write about, they often influence my worldview, and sometimes inform my consulting practice - the daily plan is now a fundamental recommendation, for example. [sound of lab book opening...] Cheers!)

IdeaLab 0604: Giving, horse mouths, allergic cars, and a 2x2 matrix grab-bag

matt — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:32:03 -0500

(Note: Coming soon, a thought-provoking interview of Scott Ginsberg - a variation on my interview series. Stay tuned!)

Life's more interesting at the boundaries: That's why getting out of the comfort zone can be so rewarding. For example, gifts: The once with the greatest possible impact (read surprise + delight) require being on the "I love it!"/"Hmmm. Interesting" boundary. Giving a good one requires knowing the recipient well, plus taking a chance. But there's a risk! It might spectacularly fall flat.
What do we always have to give?: Compassion, love, attention, quality listening, a positive attitude, inspiration, support (for being courageous/making change). Others? My friend Samantha Bennett says "Our identity and our ability to choose." Wow.
Some accidental mashups of folk wisdom:
- Don't bite a gift horse in the mouth.
- "This package been pampered with" (from my seven year old daughter :-)
- Too many griddles on the skillet.
- A bird in the hand gathers no moss
Is it all about prioritizing and reminding?: I think first about this from Nicholas Bate, and was reminded when reading Constant, Constant, Multi-tasking Craziness:

Because frequent interruptions are expected we noticed that some of our subjects use special artifacts that help them to PRIORITIZE and MAINTAIN [ed: my emphasis] their attention over their working spheres. These artifacts function like containers in that they hold information about central working spheres. The information included in the artifact plays the role of a REMINDER and, as pointed out by Miyata and Norman [8], it both SIGNALS the working sphere to be attended to and DESCRIBES with some detail what has to be remembered. The artifact is often updated across the day with results when work within a sphere has to be postponed.
Energy doesn't scale: In consulting and business, if you have to put more energy into something to generate income each time, it's not going to allow scalable growth. The opposite is products (information, software, atoms, etc): Yes there's a large up-front expenditure of energy, but it pays off after that with very low (or now) additional work on your part. (From my very good friend Liza's Power of One Blog: The Secret of Scalable Business.)
Two questions to ask when inviting something into your life: "Does it change the way I think, or make me smile?" Or maybe: "Does this help me professionally (do my job) or personally (give joy)?" Stimulated partly by VII Pillars Of Productivity:

A basic principle of information economics is that information has no economic value if it doesn't change a decision.
Make cars allergic to people: My daughter and I came up with this when reflecting on the insanity of allowing these dangerous machines (fast, heavy, relatively uncontrolled, polluting) near where people walk. The idea is to mandate all autos come with a human proximity sensor governor. when. This would force cars to slow down (or completely stop!) when around people. Wouldn't this incentive drive people to take routes that avoid high pedestrian areas? Imagine!
The 2x2 matrix: In Value-Based Fees Alan Weiss says "I can prove anything on a double-axis chart." This little tool [1] is lots of fun, though, and can lead to insights. A few examples follow (cell names are definitely beta).
2x2: Thought About vs. Decided:
- No thought, No decision: Stuck?
- No thought, Decision: Loose cannon?
- Thought, No decision: Procrastinating sufferer?
- Thought, Decision: Wow!
2x2: Style vs. Talent:
- No style, No talent: Stuck?
- No style, Talent: Competent?
- Style, No talent: Flamboyant?
- Style, Talent: wow!
2x2...blog?: From What If You......started a blog on a very tiny topic? How about a 2x2matrix blog? I'd be pretty surprised if someone hasn't done one yet... I'd be fun, though.
2x2...?: What are your favorites?
"Crusty jugglers": From a hilariously odd scene in Hot Fuzz. A video
Ohrwurm (eyewurm?) for me. (Related: Check out Mathematician Has Popular Equation Stuck In Head All Day.)
So now you want to know me!: Here's a networking test: Are you thinking of re-connecting with someone who you didn't take the time to get to know in the past, but whom you realize could now be of use to you? Bad news: It's pretty much irreversible with these folks. Good news: Change the way you look at people in your life now. Importantly: Practice palm upnetworking.
When does incremental processing not make sense?: That is, when is it better to let work collect and do it as a batch? Examples of when incremental wins: Small tasks that, individually are simple and fast to enter. For example, entering business receipts, processing business cards, shredding papers, daily checkbook balancing (if possible). Thoughts?
Why you never heard "I lost three hours surfing my microwave": One problem with modern work: A general purpose desktop computer is too general for humans to maintain focus. Because this one machine makes so much is possible, we get distracted and drawn in. Similar: TV. Unlike years ago when one artifact did pretty much one thing. Books are different of course - worlds unto themselves. Libraries are an interesting example. Bad if you're trying to work on one things ("yum! soooo many nice books..."), but great if you're open to happy accidents as a side effect of the shelving algorithm. Compare this to a mixer/blender. Biggest choices: grind, frazzle, explode... ?
How to use your IM status message for productivity: The default iChat choices for status include the expected ones like "Available," "Away," and "Out to lunch." I tried changing mine to match the workflow phases I teach - Gathering, Emptying, Planning, and Acting, and I found it helped me be clearer about what I'm doing in the moment. It also helped me stay focused when temptations arrived. What about adding non-productive ones like "wasting time" or "multitasking?" You could use Twitter the same way too. Related: A GTD WorkFlow Tool: The Five Stages On A Business Card Cube.

References

[1] Apparently I'm not alone in my love for these things. Check out: 2x2 matrix illuminates strategies and An Infamous 2X2 Matrix. There's even a book of ~50 great ones from business: The Power of the 2 x 2 Matrix: Using 2x2 Thinking to Solve Business Problems and Make Better Decisions.

What are the laws of work?

matt — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:15:04 -0500

This comment by JP on my post 10 GTD "holes" (and How To Plug Them) got me thinking about whether there's a set of laws (JP more correctly called them postulates) of how we (i.e., "knowledge workers") manage ourselves (i.e., "work") in our CrazyBusy (i.e., "insane") lives.

Here I'd like to play with the idea and to ask you: Is there a small set of axioms that fully describe the challenges we face? Huge question, but my hope is we can reason from first principles to create (or validate) methods for metawork [1]. Stimulated by JP's comment I started with four categories: Time, Attention, and Environment, and tossed in some ideas for each.

What do you think? I'm shooting for something here that's good enough to criticize.

Time

Time has special properties. For example, it is irreversible, it can't be invested, and is limited in supply. The article 169 Time Management Tips has a nice section on this: 12 Important Characteristics of Time:

It is an economic resource
It cannot be expanded or contracted
It is irrecoverable and irreplaceable
It is expensive and precious
It is highly perishable
Most of what is called 'cost' is the cost of time
It is a flow from past to present to future in the context of experience
It is a flow from future to present to past in the context of planning
The flow is one way and irreversible
It is quantifiable (seconds, days, years)
All processes that we manage are time processes
Time is the dimension in which change takes place (space is the dimension in which motion takes place)

Attention

As a function of how our brains work, we should be able to tap into brain research to infer some axioms. For example, attention seems to have a fragile quality, and it can be very sensitive to attention requests (internal and external). Other aspects of mind: They risk perfectionism, avoid fear, and form habits (or not).

The Secret Pulse of Time has some useful thoughts, including:

Experimental evidence that our attention is automatically directed inward when there is little else to occupy. The author calls it Banal Banter.
Attention is porous.
The three main stages of the executive function are working memory, attention and self control.
Fear and anxiety [themes] grab people's attention.

Another possibility: Does the Yerkes-Dodson Law apply? From Aiming for the Brain's Sweet Spot:

The Yerkes-Dodson Law pieces together two distinct dynamics: The downward curve of the inverted U shows the negative effects of stress on thinking and learning, or performance in general. The upward part reflects the energizing effect of arousal and interest.

Environment

Our modern environments overlay constraints. What are they? A few thoughts:

Interruptions are unpredictable, frequent, and central. Two types: internal (see attention above) and external (e.g., email, people). (Question: Is it all about attention requests?)
There will always be more work to do than is possible (at least for most of us).
Work arrives disorganized.
Not all work is important (the Trivial Many vs. Vital Few).
What's the role of Parkinson's law and productivity?
Artifacts naturally spread themselves out.

Future

I'd like to develop this to a point where we can create a methodology (or adapt current ones) that are consistent with it. Questions:

How do goals and values fit in?

How can we structure our environments for success? Fritz's Path of Least Resistance should play a big role here.

How can we use our perception of time? (See Perception of Time & Priorities: Polychronic vs. Monochronic, and the extensive entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

Can we apply work like Maeda's The Laws of Simplicity? Summary: 7 Tips to Manage and Use Your Attention Wisely:

Law 1: Reduce - The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
Law 2: Organize - Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
Law 3: Time - Savings in time feel like simplicity.
Law 4: Learn - Knowledge makes everything simpler.
Law 5: Differences - Simplicity and complexity need each other.
Law 6: Context - What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
Law 7: Emotion - More emotions are better than less.
Law 8: Trust - In simplicity we trust.
Law 9: Failure - Some things can never be made simple.
Law 10: The one - Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

References

[1] This comes from Constant, Constant, Multi-tasking Craziness, a paper by González and Mark at University of California, Irvine:

Individuals spend part of their day on a set of activities that is not connected with any specific working sphere but rather related to the management of all of them. We call these activities metawork. People periodically conduct metawork throughout the day, which involves coordination, checking activities, organizing email, organizing their desk at the start or end of a working day, and catching up with teammates on what they have missed.

What if you...

matt — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:56:25 -0500

...ignored people who said "You shouldn't..."?: What if it was new, risky, or uncertain? What if you invited those people out of your life?
...told yourself it's OK you made that embarrassing copy/paste error in an important email?: You might even generate a chuckle or two (at least from yourself). What if you're still ruminating about it on your death bed?
...refused to pay attention to conventional wisdom?: What if you don't want to do it, don't like doing it, or aren't good at it? What if it sounds reasonable. What if it's some "know you should be" advice?
...listened to yourself and did something you believe in?: Even if everyone else warned you off?
...decided not to ever catch up on your RSS backlog?: Would it really matter? Maybe you're probably already reading the important ones?
...had a conversation where you only listened and asked questions?: What if you don't get to make a point? What if you do this with someone you don't like or don't agree with?
...took a minute to ask about someone's life?: What if she carries your mail, picks up your garbage, or works in customer service? Would this change anything - for either of you?
...dropped that client who a) you don't like, and b) is pushing you to lower your rates?: What if you raised the rates you charge them?
...decided to expand your social network?: When's the last time you actively looked for new friends? What if someone says no?
...substituted wit for profanity and sarcasm?: What if it was hard to do?
...reflected for a few days on that compliment you received?: Is that a better use of your wetware than mulling the negative?
...always had three questions that apply to anyone in any social situation: How about "What do you do for a living?", "What do you love about your work?", or "What makes your job hard?"
...made a big effort to listen to someone's name when you're introduced?: People really like to hear their own names. And they do notice when you try to converse when you can't remember them.
...started a personal humor regime?: Kaizen it: Notice one little thing that surprised and delighted you each day.
...got more comfortable with not knowing where you're going?: Would it help you to better enjoy the ride?
...put "please" at the start of sentences instead of at the end?: Would "Would you please __" convey something different than "Would you __ please?"
...listened to that little "Maybe I should..." voice the moment you hear it?: How about when you think you recognize someone? Or when something attracts your attention, but you're afraid to go over because you'll attract a little attention.
...sent free books to people when they show interest during a conversation?: What if you didn't tell them? What if you did this with everyone?
...said yes even though it's a stretch?: What could you learn? What if you look bad or fail?
...started a blog on a very tiny topic?: What if each post was one sentence. What if it was funny? How about "Medical words you really don't to hear your doctor use" or "Funny things my kid said"? Would it change how you see the world?
...went one whole evening without turning on your laptop?: Or checking your Blackberry? Kaizen it: Just one night. What if instead you spent it with someone you love?
...called one of your competitors just to chat?: What if they said no? What if it was uncomfortable?
...lowered your standards and planned to do less tomorrow?: What if someone noticed? How would you feel after?
...tracked things you love doing during your workweek?: Kaizen it: Just one week. What if they were far less frequent that those you hate doing, or are no good at? What could you do about it?
...there was a name for all this?: "Experience?" "Maturing?" "Living?"