After going through all the work stuff, we started chatting about goals in general. A lot of the books I’ve read say you need to set specific goals and a deadline to achieve them by – I’ve read this time and time again, and although I often eventually get to the target it is often more by luck than a systematic and motivated approach. Andy suggested to think about goals differently – sure you need to know where you want to get to, but once you have that target decided figure out the process that will get you there and make the ‘doing of the process’ itself the actual goal. The common problem with setting target goals and sticking with just that is they often have outside influences attached that are out of your control. The one thing you can control is the process or action you can do to get there. Here’s a couple of examples to help explain this.

Goal 1 – Get my golf handicap down to 7 by December 31st

Golfers generally have a handicap number they want to get down to.

Outside control
I could put in all the hours of practice I can, get down to 7.7 by mid December and have one last competition round that I need to play well in to achieve a handicap of 7. Unfortunately the winter weather rolls in and tons of snow lands on the golf course closing it meaning the competition is called off. I can no-longer play in that last competition round so at 31st December my handicap will remain at 7.7 and I’ll have missed my goal.

Process Goal
Once the target is set, you can work out the process by which you mean to get there. For my target of a 7 handicap, I think it requires 3 hours per week of focused practice plus 2 rounds of golf. My process goal will be to do this each week until December 31st. If I do this each week until the deadline date I’ve achieved my process goal and can rewards myself (a new golf bag!). By sticking to this process and practicing well it’s very likely that my handicap will come down. Will I get to 7? Who knows – it might snow for the whole of December which I can’t control. But what I can control is making sure I do my alloted process and practice time each week.

The process will be enjoyable as well – as I practice more, I should improve. Where as if I left it down to just the target goal and reward, I may be lax with my practicing, play badly, and get disheartened and lose interest.

Goal 2 – Have 1000 unique visits to a web site each day by March 31st 2012

Everybody likes to see more people visiting their site and reading what they write or buying their products. More visitors means more readers and more potential customers!

Outside control
As part of increasing traffic you generally need to attack this from 2 different angles, writing new content and getting more links as part of a Search Engine Optimization strategy. If you write good content, the links should come naturally but it never hurts to reach out to people who may want to link to your articles or site. Although you write some new articles and ask for links, Google might be slower than you expect at indexing your new content, and the people who you expected to be able to link back aren’t replying to your emails. Either way by January you are only at 400 visits per day and dis-heartened you give up as your goal seems miles away.

Process Goal
Focusing on what we can control again – we can control the amount of articles we write, and the number of emails we send to introduce our articles to new contacts. A process goal for something like this could be to write 3 * 1,000 word articles, and send 10 emails to new contacts each week. These tasks are in your control, and I’m sure if you wrote 3 articles a week for 6 months you’d have a good chance of getting to your goal of 1,000 unique visitors in a month. If for example Google was a bit slower at indexing your new content and you missed this target by a few weeks – so what. You achieved the process goal from now until March and so reward yourself based on that.

An important aspect of setting a process goal is also that you must enjoy the process you choose to do. If you don’t enjoy golf practice, or writing articles each week – you have no chance of getting to where you hope to be. By focusing on the process, making sure it’s something you enjoy doing, and committing to the process, I think you have a much better chance of getting to where you want to be.

I’m excited about this, thanks Andy for introducing the idea. I went through and set my new goals and processes this morning. This article 979 words long, so I’ve nearly accomplished what I need to do today to achieve one process goal A productive day!

I’ve read tons of self help and productivity books. I do need help , but I also generally enjoy reading them as they are quite uplifting and motivating. Most books cover motivation and productivity at some point, and they all have their own productivity system name and method – may be so they can sell you extras such as productivity notepads and apps for your iPhone! I don’t think there is one system that fits all. People think and work in different ways, so finding something that works for you is important – but don’t then try to impress it on your organisation or others. Let each person find something that works for them.

Today I’m going to write about daily tasks and what you want to get done. With each task or action you set you should be considering what current goals you are working towards. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to define your goals/mission/legacy – I’ll post some thoughts on that soon.

For daily tasks I use the ‘Most Important Tasks’ method. I’d say this has come from many sources, but the two I can remember most recently mentioning it are ZenHabits.net and the book Eat That Frog (highly recommended). Here are a few things I consider each day when putting together my Most Important Tasks.

Each task needs to be achievable that day
I love crossing things out when they’ve been done – something very satisfying about that. Each Most Important Task must be achievable in a day. If it will take longer than a day, break it down into sub tasks and choose one of those sub tasks as your MIT. Having a task listed that is not achievable in a day will often give you the mindset of “well it can’t be finished today so I won’t bother starting it”.

Plan Most Important Tasks the night before
You need to hit the ground running as soon as you sit at your desk and are ready to start work. Planning your Most Important Tasks first thing in the morning is actually a distraction and an obstacle to you getting going – so make sure you plan your MITs the day before, either just before you finish working or just before bed.

Pick one
Start with just a single Most Important Task. If you got nothing done the next day apart from this single task you would consider it a productive day. Make sure this single task moves you in the right direction in terms of your goals.

Then pick another two – Never more than 3
It may well be that the single task is enough for a whole day. But if you feel you can get it done and have time to spare, pick another couple of important tasks that move you towards your weekly, monthly or lifetime goal. 3 Most Important Tasks is the limit I set on myself though. Anymore than 3 and it will seem like a normal todo list or you will have too many MIT’s to choose to do, so you’ll end up doing none of them. Remember these are the tasks that are important to you achieving your goals so you do not want to get them mixed up with ‘buy cat food’ etc…

Work on MIT #1 until it’s done
Main tip picked up from ‘Eat That Frog’. Work on Most Important Task #1 until it is completed. This should be the most important thing you need to get done each day and so should take absolute priority. This may mean you need to block out time in your calendar each morning to stop others from arranging meetings for you early each day. Whatever it takes – do it.

Remember life is not about being busy (answering emails, attending meetings,  browsing the web, etc), it’s about making progress towards your goals. Finish MIT #1 and you will be closer to your goal.

Remove distractions
When working on a task, remove yourself from distractions. Other things will pop up that’ll make you feel like you are being busy again – but will stop you being productive and working towards completing your MIT’s. Here are a few tips:
- move to somewhere quiet
- disconnect from the Internet
- close email
- sign out from instant messaging applications
- turn your mobile off

The good news is if you disconnect from the Internet you kill 3 of those things above!

What are your productivity tips – and how do you make sure you get things done?

Getting an email before bed is never a good thing. From just being ready to turn the light off and get some sleep, I’m instantly turned back onto work and thinking about that particular email and also all the other things I need to do tomorrow.

Checking email just before sleep is bad, but it gets worse!

I try really hard to get into the practice of planning my next work day as the last task of the current day. This means I can get up and when I’m ready to start doing stuff I can just get on with the first job rather than think about what it is I have to try to do today. Although these tasks are often planned, what I find myself doing is waking up – sitting up in bed, and checking my emails again! This could even happen before saying good morning to my girlfriend! Usually more emails will be there waiting for me, and this inevitably means the first thing I do each day at my laptop is get going with emails instead of working on the first task I set last night.

I have an iPad and an iPhone. I realised something had to change to help me sleep better at night, be more productive in the morning, and generally feel happier.

Step 1 – Turn off push notifications

Rather than have the phone buzz each time you get an email, if you desperately need to have access to your email via your phone or tablet just sync it up manually when you need to. This allows you to check and reply to emails on your terms rather than being constantly interrupted throughout the day.

Step 2 – Delete your email accounts from mobile devices

This is the step I’ve just ended up taking – and it feels great. No longer can I check emails just before bed and as soon as I wake up! I’ve been sleeping better and also start each day better. If something is amazingly important people can text me or even call my mobile to speak to me!

Our lives shouldn’t be ruled by email. Too many days have gone by where all I have done is spend the day staring at Outlook. By deleting email on my mobile devices it’s helping me get email under control and only check and answer when I want to.

Next goal is to only check email twice a day!

Key Points:
The world has changed so a single person can be an entire software company
Tech/Software is the thing that’s changing the world right now
Think about ‘What tools do people need for this new world we are building?’
What can I build that’s going to be of value to others to help them be successful
Publishing industry can’t keep up with the rate of change in tech
Definitely a morning person – often starting at 4am!
GTD is a great way to manage inventory of things to do
Omni Focus – used to manage task inventory
Bad side of GTD is the infinite todo list
Each day note down (just on paper) 3 most important things to make sure you get done that day
What are the 3 things today that will make the most difference?
See how you can improve the repetitive tasks you have to do each day
You have to work in sprints

Books recommendations:
Do the work
Drive
Linchpin

Bobs links:
47 Hats
@BobWalsh

Key points:
Best strategy is to build a real and good company, true growth and profitability – self sustaining and gives you options. You can run as long as you want, hire more, outsource, take investment at better terms – you’re in the driving seat.

Like new challenges, startups are always new challenges.
Even starting the same company in a different period would throw up toally different challenges as technology and opportunities change.

Likes to work on one thing at a time, but isn’t always too good at this!

Likes working late, but knows this isn’t generally good as you end up working too late.

Getting Things Done helps meeting expectations and saying no to stuff.

With running a business you should be able to decide what you work on
- correct thing to do is stop writing code
- but what you wanna do is write the code!
- help developers by fixing bugs the devs don’t want to do! Keeps you in code.

When people all run one way and fund the same kinds of ideas, consider being like Warren Buffet and run the other way.

Plumbing of the internet, email, hosting – a lot of money to be made there.

Mobile, Social stuff – not too many people making real money.

Find what your thing is to set your self on a path to happiness. This also increases the chance of success.

Don’t read too many books/blogs on startups. A lot contradict themselves.
A lot of time spent reading means less time doing and learning for themselves.
Less reading, more doing.

Key points:
New book coming out : Self Promotion for Geeks
Started FeedDigest to serve personal need initially, then scaled into a business that sold after 2-3 years.
Code Snippets – Delicious for code. Also sold in 2007.
Started RubyInside.com to promote the Beginning Ruby book. Grown into one of the main Ruby community sites.
Income is spread out from many different sites and projects.
Doesn’t consider himself to be a productive person!
Peaks and dips of motivation – getting an office and schedule has helped.
List all ideas and thoughts – using pen and paper/whiteboard
Break tasks into smallest chunks when not feeling productive – even down to 60 second tasks
Focus comes naturally from the things you are interested in or get traction
Throw as many small things out as possible and see what sticks
Often the thing that takes off isn’t the thing you expected
Your pricing model will dictate whether you can employee others
Use gut instinct when deciding what to build or do
If you think you’ll be annoyed if someone else did what you were thinking – make sure you do it yourself!
Follow people who are always experimenting and trying new things
Put social capital in the bank by getting involved in community projects

Book recommendation : Ready, Fire, Aim

1, Where does your motivation come from?
I love creativity.  I love innovation.  I love innovators and entrepreneurs.  I am devoted to creative destruction.

2, When and where are you most productive?
On my bicycle pedaling through open countryside anywhere in the world; watching the ideas flow as I find that precious equiblibrium between body and mind.

3, How do you manage distractions? eg Twitter, email etc
I don’t use any social media – too intrusive.  I don’t answer my mobile phone – it is only for me to check when I feel the desire.  I like email because it is asynchronous – I am in control of when I read it and whether or not I will respond. I do not invite interruptions. When in doubt I delete rather than read.  I love the Web; but I control it, it does not control me.

4, What are your sleep patterns like, and how much do you exercise?
I sleep well.  I usually work in the evenings and read voraciously until I am tired.  If I wake in the middle of the night it is an opportune time to meditate. Otherwise I meditate as soon as I wake. I ride my bike between 150 and 200 miles a week and climb 12,000 to 15,00 feet, depending on the season. When I am not riding I am lifting to stay fit.  I am adamant about exercise, healthy eating, meditation and plenty of intellectual stimulation.

We catch up with Ash to find out what Running Lean means, how to use the process to build products people want, and how he also used the process to write and self publish his own book!

Key points:
Motivated to build products people want
Started blogging about Lean Startups to help his own understanding
Listening to customers is important, but you need to know how to listen to them
Early on you’ve got to speak directly to customers – not through forums, email etc
Involve customers to increase motivation
Life’s too short to build stuff nobody wants
The most valuable asset we have isn’t money, it’s time
3 steps before building something:
1, Document full business model on something like Lean Canvas
2, Identify riskiest part of the model
3, Identify the right tactics to test the model
Use to be an night person, but kids changed him to a morning person!
Most productive work is early in the morning before kids wake up
Split day into Maker and Manager time. Morning – Maker time, Afternoon – Manager time
Read plenty of marketing books as well as technical books

1, Where does your motivation come from?
I’m motivated by curiosity. A lot of things are interesting to me, and I’m lucky enough to get paid to explore some of them. When I have to do “work” (something I’m no longer curious about), I try to identify a chain of causality to motivate me. In other words, I might not want to produce this TPS report, but if I see a connection that it’s going to help me get paid and ultimately feed my family, then I might be able to muscle through it for a while. I think it’s important to remember that I don’t HAVE to do anything – I have choices.

2, When and where are you most productive?
Right after my son is off to school and I’m home alone, about 9am. I recently discovered Paul Graham’s “Maker vs. Manager” distinction, and as long as I schedule Maker time first, I can keep going for the whole day. Once I start with Manager time, Maker time is over.

If I didn’t have a family, I’d probably work more, but I really enjoy spending evenings and weekends with my wife and son.

3, How do you manage distractions? eg Twitter, email etc
When I’m doing Maker activities, I just turn these things off and ignore them (phone, too). I scan email on my phone throughout the day, sometimes responding to urgent things. I empty my inbox (from Outlook) about once every three days and respond to as many issues as I can. I simply can’t keep up with all the email I have, so I finally stopped worrying about it. I just do the best I can.

I try to schedule social media and blogging time at the beginning of the day, but if I’m busy with other Maker activities or traveling, I don’t get to it.

4, What are your sleep patterns like, and how much do you exercise?
I need 7 hours or I’m cranky. I run 3 miles or so 3 or 4 times per week – more when I have time to train for a marathon or half-marathon (try to do one longer race per year). I like to sleep in on the weekends when possible (my wife is generous enough to let me sleep in whenever possible).

Related to all these questions – I’m constantly working to improve my productivity habits. I fail all the time, but I keep chipping away at all the things that keep me from being as successful as I could be. Sometimes the failures can seem debilitating, but I’ve tried to chill out a bit. Self-immolation doesn’t help. Focusing on making small positive changes while taking things one day at a time does help me.

1, Where does your motivation come from?
It’s a combination of things – I feel obligation to build a great company because I know that it’s something I can do, and it seems hard for many others. I also feel a great obligation to my family to do something remarkable because all of them have worked so hard to build a better life for each successive generation (my family roots are primarily Eastern European, Jewish immigrants).
I also have a strong desire to solve the problem at hand – to make it easier for people to share and spread their ideas on the web by building remarkable software and resources.

2, When and where are you most productive?
At home, on my computer, very late at night (11pm – 2am)

3, How do you manage distractions? eg Twitter, email etc
I’m an inbox 0 guy. My goal in life is to have nothing in my inbox, and no social media messages in need of a reply. This is hard

4, What are your sleep patterns like, and how much do you exercise?
I walk to work, which is basically my only exercise (other than some physical therapy exercises I do in the morning to strengthen my back). The walk is about 30 minutes each way, so I get ~1 hour of cardio each day at a relatively fast walking pace. It’s certainly not enough, but it’s all I can afford given my work schedule.