How to Learn a Productivity System Part 6: Making it Work

Is your work enjoyable?

If it is, then you might be more amenable to call everything you do at home and at the office work.  If not, let’s reframe for a second.

Work = Effort toward a Goal

If the equation holds true, then what you do at home (home maintenance, vacations, personal finance, raising kids, plans of the future, health fitness and hobbies) is also WORK.

What’s interesting about calling all of our life activity ‘work’ is the sense that work is something that you do with purpose.  You want a result for your effort.

The business mind is focused on achieving the business goals, the revenue, the growth, and the sustainability of business.  

The personal mind is focused on seeing how to prepare kids for life in the future, enjoying a vacation, re-training for another career, reducing the stress in life, spending more time with your spouse, changing ingrained habits or starting on a bucket list item.

The business mind has a natural craving to design and execute goals. The rewards are very tactile.  When you do a good job for a customer you might get a thank you, and of course you get paid.  

For salaried folks, you might not see the transaction so vividly, but we want to get the project or tasks done and often we are measured during the year for achieving specific goals.  Achieving goals results in a better review and potential earnings growth, maybe a promotion with more scope.

The personal mind requires a lot more proactive behavior to create the goal.  Personal goals are not laid out by the leadership of the business, they are created through personal leadership.



For specific steps on how to employ personal leadership see the prior articles on “How to Learn a Productivity System.”  Part 3, 4, and 5 are focused almost completely on personal leadership.  Parts 1 and 2 are focused on tactical ways that you can create time in your day so you can spend more hours doing the strategic tasks needed to increase your personal leadership.

How to Learn a Productivity System Part 1: Capture

How to Learn a Productivity System Part 2: Actions

How to Learn a Productivity System Part 3: Planning

How to Learn a Productivity System Part 4: Goals

How to Learn a Productivity System Part 5: Evaluate Life Dreams

Which is more important, business mind or personal mind?

That is a tough question.

The business mind provides the How-the monetary sustenance.  

The personal mind provides the Why-the Character and the Motivations.

The answer: They are both important.  They both impact each other.  

A personal example of interleaving the personal and business mind

In 2005 I took a role as a “Team Lead/Scrum Master.” My leadership style was centered around high volume and persuasive intimidation.

In 2008, I was promoted to department manager and I WAS SCARED SPIT-LESS. I had engaged in numerous technical and political battles with my peers over the years, and now I was taking over leadership of a team that knew my reputation as loud, overbearing, manipulative person. I had created animosity with a couple of the most senior and respected individuals by forceful getting my way using pushy tactics.

Answering the wakeup call

Faced with managing a team that saw me as an antagonist rather than a helpful resource, I realized I needed to drastically alter course.

In the months and years that followed my promotion, I studied hard to change my mindset and my behaviors (and I still study hard to this day). I read book after book and listened to people in the organization that showed management skills coincident with what I was learning about effective personal and public leadership. I moved my personal style from directive-authoritative to servant-leader.

This personal study to improve character created a deep well of good behaviors and resulted in better quality of life in both my personal sphere and in the business arena.

People in my organizations gave me feedback that they had grown to respect me over time as I demonstrated consistent other-centered leadership.

Personal leadership has a broad impact

Isn’t it interesting that the personal mind has such a great impact everywhere?  It might be the more important mind after all.

The moral of the story is this: No matter if it’s personal or business it’s WORK.  And if it’s work, it needs a system to move toward the goal. 

One of my favorite authors, David Allen, has a great book on this very topic called, Making it All Work.  He provides an entire book dedicated to creating a unified productivity mindset around personal and business goals. David Allen’s previous book, Getting Things Done describes a comprehensive productivity system which is now known globally as GTD.

What is not working in your personal or business system?  Write a comment or send me an e-mail and let me know? 

How to Pick a Time Saving Strategy or System

Have you looked at the number of breakfast cereal choices at the grocery store? I get dizzy when I walk down that aisle. 

I almost prefer going to Costco to buy breakfast cereal because I they have at 1/10th of the selection.

Doesn’t it drive your brain crazy trying to pick out a strategy for saving time? There are so many choices.

And then when you try one, it feels like you are broken or the method is broken or something about the whole system doesn’t flow.

Have you had the experience where you adopt a system and immerse yourself in the system and get overwhelmed and then quit because it’s too hard to keep up. Ever had the feeling like you are a weakest link because the “system works” but you can’t make it work consistently for you.  


Wow. I let's take deep cleansing breath.

Where are you with your productivity system

• happy with where you are (which means either you reached a level of productivity that is meeting you goals or you don’t know if the investment in a productivity systems is worth the effort, so your good with where you are)
• frustrated with where you are (which could mean you want to pick a better system, or just want to go on vacation for the rest of your life)
• optimistic that you can find better ways (which means you probably found a system, but are looking for some tweaks)

First let’s be real about learning stuff.  It takes time.  We are engrossed in a  world that wraps up difficult murder cases in 1 hour or creates massive inter-personal conflict then resolves the issue into forever-love in 1 1/2 hours or even 30 minutes for really good plots. There is an expectation that good things can be embraced and achieved in a short time window.

This is mostly a big fat lie.

So let’s reach back into some ancient philosophy to get a glimpse of how people really work.  This is in stark contrast to modern media.  Please enjoy this as if it were a breath of fresh air.

Shu-Ha-Ri

Shu-Ha-Ri is a concept from Japanese martial arts describing the stages from ’leaner’ to 'master’.  And it is directly applicable to developing personal habits and mastering productivity systems.
The short summary of this is as follows…

• Shu (shoo) - leaner - do everything in wrote fashion without too much analysis.
• Ha (hah) - practitioner - understand the theory and tweak the systems based on reflections, analysis and experience.
• Ri (ree) - master - innovate and create, potentially breaking with previous systems.

The the cycle of failed productivity systems that I described earlier in this article is really part of the Shu experience - a natural part of learning.  But how do we move to the next level.

I’m going to let that question hang in the air for now and I’ll talk more about that in a future article.  Right now, we need to pick a method to start with so we can begin the journey at Shu.

Here is a productivity system short pick list

• Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen
• Zen To Done (ZTD) by Leo Babauta http://leobabauta.com/
• Promodoro Technique http://pomodorotechnique.com/

In order to “Save a Million Seconds in a Year” or "Save a Million Minutes Minutes in Your Life Time" you’ll need some consistency in your time savings methodologies.

Please leave a comment on your latest experience in working with a productivity system.  How did it go? 

P.S. for some serious depth read this article “Shu-Ha-Ri"

How to Save a Million Days of Time in a Lifetime

Yes, this does raise the bar quite a bit.

There are 1440 minutes in a day.  

                    Saving one million days x 1440 minutes = 1.4 billion minutes.

In order to save that kind of time I’m going to need a small army of people.  So how big is the army?  It’s about 2,000 people.  For military folks I think thats about the size of a regiment.  

The maneuvers of this army are unlike a traditional army.  This small army is rather autonomous.  Each person can act independently to achieve the goal of my previous article, “How To Save a Million Seconds This Year".  I’m using 40 years for the lifetime because it represents the median years of the average person’s remaining life expectancy.  

1.4 billion minutes / (40 years * 365 days per year) / 2000 people is about 49 minutes per day per person.  Let’s round down to 45 minutes per day per person.

Saving (investing) 45 minutes per day is pretty achievable for most of us.  Remember from my previous article, “How to Save a Million Milliseconds per Day”, that saving time is impossible, but what we really want to do is invest our time in things that matter.  

Why do you care about saving a million days of time in a lifetime? In the previous article, “How to Save a Million Hours of Time in a Century,” you were pretty stunned that I asked you to save a million hours of time in a century and that goal was impossible to achieve without enlisting 25 friends and family.

Saving a million days of time in a lifetime is a goal I have for myself.  It requires that I help 2,000 people save an average of 45 minutes a day during their lifetime.   This is a personal mission. 

If you would like to help me, please share this article with your family and friends.

Perhaps even ask if they would like to sign up to receive future articles.  But only do that if you feel you are getting value from these articles.

Here’s a couple practical things that can help you save 45 or more minutes of time in your day.

A Goal

Let’s say you want to work on physical fitness (this category is probably one of the most tangle).  A goal might be to run a 5k race.  Consider picking a local race…and there are so many to choose from.  Sign up.  Now you have a goal.  If you take this option, be sure to give yourself about 3-4 months if you are starting from scratch.

A weight reduction goal might also be very tangle.  There are a zillion ways to approach this, but perhaps a practical way to approach this is targeting a 5 or 10 lbs in 30 days.

Another way to slice this goal would be a goal to workout a certain number of days in the week.  Workouts might include yoga, weights at the gym or running.  Let’s say you wanted to start with 2 days per week. You might find a class at the YMCA or Local Gym that could help.  If you want to spend little or no money, you can easily grab a yoga mat and use YouTube as your instructor.

Another type of goal would be to read a book to improve your personal or professional skills.  Breaking this down into a daily reading goal is potentially a good way to decompose into bite size morsels. Here’s a couple of my favorite if you need a starter list

• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey (my foundation for a purposeful and productive life)

• Getting Things Done by David Allen (this is a system for executing a purposeful and productive life)

• The 80/20 Principle by David Koch (a framework for determine the best ways to apply time and energy)

• The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan (a very specific system for applying the 80/20 Principle)

Along this same line, a family based goal would be to play 1 family game in a week with your entire crew.  Or perhaps have breakfast with everyone in attendance twice a week. 

Perhaps you are ambitious on this front and want to have dinner together every weekday.

A Calendar

You probably have a calendar app or perhaps you use Google Calendar or Apple Calendar or Outlook Calendar.  If you have a goal of doing a time saving activity such as personal growth or health or time with family or professional certification or personal activity, step 1 is to schedule the time in your calendar.  

Seriously, if you want to do that morning jog or yoga or breakfast with family, put it in the calendar.  Whether at home or at the office, we typically respect our calendar and do what it says.  So take the proactive step and put your ambitious plans on your calendar. 

A Buddy

I love to do things with my friends and family and you might feel the same way. It’s fun to go to the movies with a group or friend or spouse or son or daughter.  When you go out to dinner It’s more fun to share a meal with someone rather than sit alone at a table.  

This is also true for many of the aspirations that we have.  Enjoying solo success is seldom fulfilling.  Think about events like swimming or track where an individual competes alone. When he or she wins the race, the celebration is shared by coaches and family and not just one person. 

I had the ambition of running a marathon, and I shared it with a friend and we both began to dream and plan.  We both ended up running marathons within 12 months of each other.  Our plan to run together didn’t workout, but we achieved our dream and shared in each others the success.

Please leave a comment about the goal that you are trying achieve and your biggest challenge with reaching it.

-Steve.

On the Journey of Productivity and Excellence

It was my junior year in college.  I will never forget the lesson.

I did something that solidified one of my life principles: Leverage.

At Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado I took an algorithms class and the major assignment was to create visualizations of sorting routines as they ran.   The idea was to start with a list of few hundred names and then create a plot on the screen that showed how they moved from chaos to order during every step of the process.

As a visual person I loved seeing the graphics on the screen move as each piece of the puzzle fell into place.  It was like Neo in The Matrix … seeing the patterns and knowing that they made sense.

Every few class periods the professor would assign a new algorithm to the process.  Near the end of semester, the professor assigned the grand finale:

Pull all the sort algorithms together and create a single application so that you can upload a single set of data and interactively select any algorithm and watch it run.  The application should return to the main menu and allow a person to again select another algorithm and watch it run.  Rinse and repeat.

There was lots of groaning throughout the class.  Many people anticipated weeks of spaghetti code combined into one big pasta dish that would turn out looking like ten different Italian dishes run through a blender.

Earlier in the semester I figured out I could design a common interface for all the algorithm projects and reuse it for each subsequent assignment.  After all, I’d have to test all the projects, so why not use a common interface and automate the test.

The final project was completed in a few days and it took me very little effort.
A few hours of good design resulted in an easy semester of programming and an even easier final project.  

The professor pulled me aside after he finished grading the final project and he said, “I really liked how you wrote that project.  If I were a software company, I would hire you.”  I thought that was pretty cool.
Putting my 20 year-old elation aside, the real lesson I learned was how to maximize my Leverage.  

Thoroughly understanding the problem creates Leverage.

Good planning creates Leverage.  

Leverage allows you to do something once and have it work for you over and over.

It’s perhaps a little cliche, but Archimedes said it right, 

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

Leverage is a tool available to everyone.  Like any craftsman, you must explore and practice to find the one that works for you. Here are my Productivity levers…

• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey (my foundation for a purposeful and productive life)

• Getting Things Done by David Allen (this is a system for executing a purposeful and productive life)

• The 80/20 Principle by David Koch (a framework for determine the best ways to apply my time and energy)

• The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan (a very specific system for applying the 80/20 Principle)

Every year I re-read or re-listen to these books to refresh myself on the concepts and practical tips for a successful life.  Like a ship constantly adjusting its course on a long journey, the principles and practices found in these books help me navigate the ocean of life and reach islands of success throughout my journey.

What is your #1 productivity lever? Please leave a comment about either your biggest productivity challenge or your biggest productivity lever?

http://www.steveteske.com

Harness Siri to Capture Your Thoughts and Seamlessly Put Them Into Your GTD System

If you experiment with Siri you will find her both super helpful and terribly insufficient.  I both love and hate Siri for a number of reasons.  Let’s talk about the Siri love.

What I love about Siri for my GTD Productive Lifestyle

As a highly mobile person, I need someone to follow me around, sit in my car while I drive, walk beside me while stroll along, run beside me while I jog and basically capture and transcribe my shallow thoughts and deep thoughts throughout my daily routine.

No one in my house has volunteer for this job and I believe the salary that I’d need to pay someone to be my personal assistant is beyond my current budget constraints.  Therefore I have found Siri to be suitable pseudo personal assistant (in part).

Siri and the First Step of Getting Things Done: Capture Everything

Searching the web to find the perfect Getting Things Done capture application for the mobile device is a simple task because there are many to choose from.  But the daunting task is find the right one that really works for a particular user and routine.

As a busy professional I want technology to be my seamless and effortless servant in my Getting Things Done process architecture.  For the majority of GTD implementers the biggest challenge with Getting Things Done architecture is the Review step.  The second biggest issue is capturing the content in as few inboxes as possible so that you don’t wear yourself out trying to find all the things that you’ve captured.  The intention of making capture seamless and creating fewer inboxes is to make Review easier. 

Therefore GTD implementation would ultimately be easier from start to finish by automating capture as much as possible.  You know that every little simplification in life creates a little space for breathing, so let’s save a little time and reduce complexity in capture.

Siri and Simplification

This is where Siri comes in.  She does an OK job at capturing voice and turning that voice into text for future processing in your Getting Things Done implementation.

Remember that David Allen says the calendar is golden and should always be followed rigorously. your calendar is your highest priority list, so this list will always be a pillar in your system.  So the “Create Appointment” command to Siri is the pathway to organize your time sensitive events.  I often mix capture with process when it comes to the calendar.  In other words, when I realize I have something to schedule, I do it right then and there.  The alternative is to add an item to your inbox so that you will then add an event to your calendar later. I'll use paper when I'm in a meeting, but I use voice commands when walking, running or driving.

If you don’t instantly add something to your calendar in a capture/process moment, then you’ll just want to capture for future processing. Future processing might occur in the next 15 minutes or next 24 hours, but the important thing is to capture seamlessly and Siri does this through “Take Note” command or “Reminder me" command.

Prior to iOS 9.0 IO was a big fan iOS notes because I could combine it with IFTTT to synchronize my personal notes into one single tool.   Notes were great because you could dictate to Siri to capture a note and then an IFTTT rule would run to synchronize the notes with Evernote or Trello or a variety of other tools.  Here’s the weird part. After iOS 9.0, the synchronization only works with hand typed notes but does not work with dictated notes.  Wow that is frustrating.  In iOS 9.0 apple made Notes similar to Evernote by allowing notes to include fancy fonts and pictures, but apple broke the most effective tool that I know which is synchronizing with a GTD inbox such as Evernote or Trello or OmniFocus.

Reminders to the Rescue

As a technology aficionado and mobile app early adopter, I would not give up easily on the voice capture feature because I desperately needed to take notes with voice while on the run or driving.

Through some experimentation I determined that iOS Reminders work almost exactly like Notes.  In some cases even better than notes for my GTD implementation.  Here’s how it work.

Instead of “Take Note…” say “Make Reminder…” or “Remind me to check out Smart Passive Income podcast episode 172” (BTW, that's my current favorite episode).  Siri creates the reminder.  That’s OK, but it’s not in my GTD workflow system (e.g. Evernote, Trello, Omnifocus, etc).  What we need is a mechanism to put every captured thought or action into our regular system.  Let’s say the system we use is Trello (my favorite at this time).  You need an assistant to seamless transfer items from Reminders to Trello, Evernote or something else.

IF THIS THEN THAT Completes the Loop

If This Then That (IFTTT) is an incredible service that can help you connect various systems in your life. Technology has not aspired to the level of Star Trek where I can ask the computer to create an entire life management system and connect all the pieces together, but IFTTT is a serious step forward.  A core component of IFTTT is the recipe and within these recipes a person can literally plug together an amazing amount of disparate systems.  IFTTT is truly amazing in terms of the permutations of functionality that is achievable.

To close the loop I used IFTTT to synchronize my iOS reminders with a specific Trello Board and specific list.  If you were using Evernote, you would select a specific folder to drop in new reminders.

IFTTT runs in the background as intervals you decide and collects your Reminders into the target application.  In the meantime, you can continue to use Evernote to capture typed notes or you can convert all your typing and dictation to Reminders and only use Evernote for picture capture.  I find Evernote to be couple taps longer than Reminders, so I just use Reminders for everything except photo capture.

Review Your Inbox

After fixing up the IFTTT recipe and capturing your notes verbally or hand typed, you have a collection of things to process. This collection of stuff is in one place instead of possibly two or three.

Please try Reminders audio capture and let me know your experience?

Please subscribe to this blog and keep productivity improvements flowing into your life.

How to Grow Your Personal Productivity

In 2014 at age 44 I ran the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington, DC. It was my first Marathon (I made a goal to run a Marathon before I was 45 ... achieved!!!). But this was not something that happened overnight. In fact it was a long process that started 4 years earlier.

In 2010, I started a couch-to-5k running program and successfully ran my first 5k about 4 months later. Between 2010 and 2014 there was a lot of running and some injuries and some time off and then lots more running.  Running is very similar to learning productivity frameworks and tips, it takes time and it's not always easy

Let's discuss the basics of a productivity road map.

1. Awareness

There is the need to be aware of your surroundings and your personal behavior.  That means that you must know that you crave change and you are willing to see some of the ugly underside of your current situation.

If you start to forget something important or you have a constant sense of stress in your gut, this is an alarm bell that something is going on that is disturbing the normal operation of your life. You have choices.

• You can ignore it (this only work for a little while).
• You can numb it (e.g. TV or drink; this will defer but not solve the situation)
• You can analyze it (this would be the recommendation of this article)

2. Sense of Control

Once you have an awareness, you need to know that YOU can do something about the situation.  This is where a change in thinking is required.  And it really is more a mindset change than a change in your title or your capabilities or your status in life.

If you were to go to a party at a friends house and your friend was busy meeting and greeting guests and you sat in the corner and played with your iPhone and felt lonely. Who's fault would that be?  One mindset believes it's your friend's fault because he or she didn't spend time with you.  Another mindset would suggest that this is your fault because could make different choices.

What was the difference in those two mindsets.  The first mindset was a sense of no control and the result was inaction.  The second mindset suggests that you had control but chose inaction.  If the second mindset is true, then you actually had control of the situation.  In which case, you could now turn the lonely evening into an opportunity to meet new people or help your friend.

The power of your mindset  is incredibly strong and will give you the sense of control to attack situations with an outlook of control and confidence.

3. Be Proactive and Plan

Now that we understand the power of our mindset, we can do things differently in life. This notion of control of self is a muscle that needs exercise in the form of being proactive.  In the party situation above, being proactive would be to say hi to a stranger or perhaps ask your friend if he or she needs help.

In the larger scheme of a busy life, being proactive is taking time to analyze and understand your commitments and then put things in place to get your commits done a little earlier or set up things in life so you can make less decisions on the fly because you've done a little planning.

The best example I can think of is morning exercise. Here's how the proactive part fits into this.  The act of putting shoes, running shorts, running shirt, watch, heart rate band, iPhone airband and headlamp in a pile in my bathroom the night before enabled me to overcome the friction of sleep and lethargy.  It's a small act that took 5 minutes or less, but it made all the difference because I primed my mind for exercise through the preparation and I removed friction when I tired and weak willed in the morning.

Being proactive is the action you take or the thinking you do that precedes an outcome you want to change.  The results of being proactive is usually removing friction to do something or a smoother outcome for you and those around you. 


Another example of changing an outcome would be meeting preparation. If you create a goal and agenda for a meeting, you can more easily keep people on track and you are much more likely to achieve the expected outcome.

The cycle of Awareness, Sense of Control and Proactivity & Planning will continually feed itself.  There are so many more steps to take in the game of productivity.  And so many additional frameworks and tactical approaches.  A good starting point is 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.  This is book covers mindset and many practical approaches.

Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen is one of the most well known and effective frameworks.  Unlike the 7 Habits, GTD is very tactical and can be directly applied.  The 7 Habits is actually a meta-framework and is a useful philosophical framework no matter what choices you make in daily life.

For those who love to read and can consume information with unbelievable speed, check out the 50 best productivity blogs.

Please let me know what your greatest struggle is when adopting a productivity philosophy and framework?  Send an email or comment below.

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