Category: Efficiency & Productivity

Temptation Bundling – A Way to Get Things Done

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One of the biggest struggles in our lives is wanting to do things we enjoy versus the doing the things we resist but are good for us. Some days it feels like we have the proverbial angel on one shoulder and devil on the other. Is there any way to get past this struggle?

In a recent newsletter, Charles Duhigg pointed to a research study titled: “Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym.” Beneath the playful framing is a serious idea with powerful implications. The study explores a concept called temptation bundling. The study authors define it this way:

“Temptation bundling involves the coupling of instantly gratifying ‘want’ activities… with engagement in a ‘should’ behavior that provides long-term benefits but requires the exertion of willpower.”

The researchers tested this concept at a university gym. Study participants were given access to high quality audiobooks, but only while physically at the gym. If they wanted to hear the next chapter, they had to show up to the gym and exercise

The result? Gym attendance jumped dramatically compared to the control group. Even more telling was that when the experiment ended, a majority of participants were willing to pay to keep the restriction in place. The study points to an intriguing finding. We often frame productivity challenges as moral ones: “I need to be more focused.” “I need to stop procrastinating.” But temptation bundling suggests a different framing. Instead of trying to suppress the “want,” we can strategically attach it to the “should.” Packaging the reward and chore together will maximize results.

The key is exclusivity. The temptation has to be contingent on the productive behavior. If you can binge the audiobook anywhere, the gym loses its leverage. Temptation bundling isn’t about tricking yourself. It’s about acknowledging how motivation actually works and building systems that cooperate with human nature rather than fight it.

Although it is written in a scholarly style that doesn’t make for easy reading, I invite you to view the full article to learn more. Then go ahead and figure out how to use temptation bundling in your own life.

Upcoming Webinars

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I’m excited to share information on three upcoming webinars that I’m presenting over the next two weeks. Registration for all of them are open now. This is your chance to get more comfortable with public speaking, be more productive, and became a better supervisor.

Thank you to the Florida Library Association and the American Library Association for sponsoring these webinars.

Florida Library Association Webinar
The Art of Public Speaking
Thurs. Feb. 19, 1 pm EST

In this webinar, you will learn the art and science of public speaking based on the Toastmasters approach. Free to FLA members. $20 for non-members.

ALA Webinars
A Plan for Personal Productivity for Library Staff: From Inbox to Completion
Wed. February 18, 2:30 pm EST

Is your inbox overflowing? Is your work spilling onto every available surface? Do you want to get more stuff done in less time while looking effortless in the process? In this energizing webinar, you will learn methods for workflow management based on the internationally recognized Getting Things Done (GTD) system. These practices work in any type of library and at any level of employment. With many libraries seeing record vacancies, mastering workflow is vital for peace of mind and completing valuable tasks. ALA Member Price: $80.10; Non Member Price: $89.00; Student Member Price: $44.50

ALA Webinars
Managing Employee Performance Using the SBI Method
Wed. February 25, 2:30 pm EST

The success of any project or plan relies on the work of your staff. All too often, library managers rely on employee assessment that feels like nothing more than a pointless exercise in filling out forms for both manager and employee. How can we manage library employee performance without stress, without unnecessary conflict, without busywork, but with positive results? In this webinar, learn a simple and widely tested approach to interacting with your employees that takes some of the stress out of the process. Using the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) Model, supervisors can speak with staff in a way that is direct, yet supportive, while keeping the conversation on the topic at hand. SBI can be used to address poor performance or acknowledge great work. ALA Member Price: $80.10; Non Member Price: $89.00; Student Member Price: $44.50

Please note that all proceeds from these webinars go to the sponsoring organizations. Sign up for the webinars through the links provided.

Boundary Intelligence: The New Smart

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Have you ever misplaced an important document and felt less smart because of it?

Whether it is a computer file or a piece of paper, items that we have to invest time searching for limit our ability to make effective use of that information. Contrast this to files that are readily available at our fingertips or through an easy computer search. That information can be retrieved at a moment’s notice and is therefore much more useful. This distinction forms the basis of a new approach to understanding how we process information, known as boundary intelligence.

In a recent article on his website called Boundary Intelligence: Why What You Can Access Matters More Than What You Know, Tiago explores why boundary intelligence is a vital concept to understand, especially in the age of AI. He starts by referencing another writer, Venkatesh Rao.

Rao proposes a new definition of intelligence in the age of AI: intelligence is defined by what information can be accessed under constraints of cost, availability, and time.

The reality is that storage is now cheap. Computation is even cheaper. What’s expensive is short-term memory access – the ability to keep the relevant details “in mind” for a given problem.

You might think that the amazing computational power of AI would render this a meaningless problem. However, Tiago believes even the fastest computers run into trouble with deciding what information is important to keep close at hand.

Thus, a computer’s “intelligence” is now constrained not by the power of its processor, but by its ability to keep the right fragments of the past (and the imagined future) close enough to inform the present. In other words, the bottleneck of a system’s intelligence is how cheaply it can remember.

If you look at how modern computers perform, you can see this principle at work. A CPU can perform billions of operations per second, but is often stuck waiting for the right information to arrive from memory. Storage is cheap and computing is abundant, but what remains tremendously expensive is getting the right data to the right place at the right time.

It’s not the price of knowing that limits intelligence now, but the price of remembering.

This brings Tiago to the definition of boundary intelligence.

Rao calls this “boundary intelligence” – the ability to make good decisions at the boundary about what information becomes “knowable” at any given time.

How does this end up working practice, whether it is a person or AI model? In the end, it often comes down to practicality.

They are not retrieving the ideal memory; they’re retrieving the affordable one. Intelligence in this view isn’t about optimizing across all known information, but optimizing for accessible information under constraints.

A deeper study of boundary intelligence leads Tiago to an interesting understanding. He believes intelligence is no longer about what one single person or computers knows or has in storage. Instead, it is about knowing where to get the information at in the right time, no matter if you are a person or an AI model.

This means that boundary intelligence is fundamentally social. It isn’t just about what to retrieve, but from where and from whom. You have to know who to trust, what information or resources they possess, on what terms you can acquire it, and what is expected of you in return.

How can one use the power of social intelligence to improve their boundary intelligence? Read the full article at the Forte Labs website to learn more.

How People are Really Using ChatGPT

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Are you concerned that AI is coming for your job?

Since it exploded onto the scene in 2022, ChatGPT and its AI cousins have created a sensation. Aspects of knowledge work that were always assumed to be the province of humans can now be done in mere moments with the proper prompt. This has led many prognosticators to assume that AI will take over all white-collar work. After three years of these AI tools, what is the actual truth?

A recent post from Daniel Pfeiffer on the website Choice360 sheds light on what people are actually doing with ChatGPT. In a review of a study of 1 million conversations, Pfeiffer discovered that the assumed absorption of knowledge work by AI tools is not what it seems. For starters, more people are using ChatGPT outside of work than at the office.

One of the key takeaways from this report is that, though work-related usages of ChatGPT continue to grow, they are wildly outpaced by nonwork-related usages, which have grown from 53 to 73 percent of all ChatGPT messages. This finding raises two important questions: Given its ostensible economic promises, why isn’t work-related usage growing faster, and why is nonwork usage growing so much? 

Pfeiffer speculates that the clean AI interface has become preferable for regular searching than the messier Google page. The results are also easier for the average person to interpret, saving them time previously used to click through to other websites.

Another assumption is that most people are using ChatGPT to write the original copy of documents. However, actual use appears to be different.

Given the prized role of writing in educational environments, many academics might assume that when people use ChatGPT “for writing,” they’re using it specifically to generate new text from scratch—hence, the return of blue books. What this report finds, however, is that about two-thirds of all writing tasks have ChatGPT modify existing text, e.g., editing it for errors, adjusting the tone, or offering critiques, rather than generating new text. 

On closer inspection, Pfeifer wonders if this finding holds for all types of users.

As we await more data, I think it behooves us to keep in mind that “writing” encompasses a range of activities. While we might imagine that students are asking ChatGPT to “write a seven-page essay on the Civil War,” for instance, they might well be using it to “make this email sound more professional.” 

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A third issue considered in the study is the economic impact of generative AI on workers. The media discussion often assumes that AI will take away jobs, especially lower-level knowledge work. Again, that may not be the case yet.

To get a more granular picture, researchers ran all the work-related messages through a different taxonomy based on common work activities, e.g., communicating with supervisors, scheduling events, and training others. They found that 57.9 percent of work-related messages fell into two broad categories “1) obtaining, documenting, and interpreting information; and 2) making decisions, giving advice, solving problems, and thinking creatively”. In other words, people are using ChatGPT less as a replacement worker and more as an advisor and research assistant. 

Reflecting on this finding, Pfieffer comes to this conclusion.

“ChatGPT likely improves worker output by providing decision support, which is especially important in knowledge-intensive jobs where productivity is increasing in the quality of decision-making.”  

Finally, Pfieffer speculates on the impact of hallucinations. As librarians have long complained, it is easy for people to believe what AI says rather than confirm that it is true. The study does not measure the effect of wrong information on people’s productivity and decisions.

The full blog post is worth a read. You can find it on the Choice360 website.

Do You Do Low-Value Work?

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Do you have more to do than you have time to do it in?

It is a common problem for knowledge workers to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of possible tasks and projects on the table. The challenge is determining which one of the many items are priorities, which would be nice to do, and which are really not worth the time. Is there a way to make this assessment?

A few years ago, Priscilla Claman tackled this problem in the Harvard Business Review with an article called Stop Doing Low-Value Work. She believes part of the problem is that knowledge workers tend to inherit tasks from other workers, especially when those people leave the organization.

Although the jobs went away, much of the work didn’t. Teachers ended up with more children in a classroom; customer service representatives ended up with more phone calls; and managers ended up with more people to manage as teams were consolidated. No matter the job, everyone ended up with a lot more work.

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Therefore, how can a knowledge worker identify and eliminate low-value work? One way is through automation. This is especially true with the new AI tools, although the article was written before the Chat GPT revolution.

Whether you are talking about scheduling, acknowledging, or making standard arrangements, there are probably existing applications that you could use. Just figure out what you want to do and find someone to help you do it.

She also suggests simply asking around to see if there are tasks that are now unnecessary. Then with that permission drop the items from your list.

Another approach is to ask your clients if you can not do something, just the way retail store clerks now ask people if they really want their receipts. The idea is simply to stop doing something that isn’t important, but to check first so that it doesn’t get you into trouble.

To learn more about how to eliminate low-value tasks from your lists, please read the rest of the article.

Systems Over People – The Key to Productivity?

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I have taught personal productivity skills for over twelve years. It is personally satisfying to see people finally understand the importance of clearing their inbox and getting clear on their next action. However, even the most productive people have to interact with those of lesser skill. Therefore, what is more important, teaching people to be productive on their own, or developing the systems that they work under?

According to Daniel Markovitz, writing for the Harvard Business Review, what the organization does is more important than individuals. In his article, Productivity Is About Your Systems, Not Your People, he argues that working on individual worker productivity alone is not going to solve the bigger problems.

The problem isn’t with the intrinsic logic of any of these approaches. It’s that they fail to account for the simple fact that most people don’t work in isolation. They work in complex organizations defined by interdependencies among people — and it’s often these interdependencies that have the greatest effect on personal productivity. You can be an email ninja, but with the explosion of email (not to mention instant messages, Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack, and countless other communication tools), you’ll never be fast enough to deal with all the incoming communication. Similarly, your personal urgent/important Eisenhower categories fall apart when the CEO asks you to do stop what you’re doing and handle something right away.

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Therefore, if it is more important to work on the systems, what can an organization do to better coordinate its workflows? Markovitz provides four strategies. The first is the tiered huddle.

Many highly productive organizations have instituted a system of tiered daily huddles, with a clear escalation sequence for all problems. The first huddle, consisting of front-line workers, begins at the start of the workday. The next huddle, consisting of supervisors, follows 30 minutes later. Managers meet 30 minutes after that, followed by directors, VPs, and finally the executive team. Problems are addressed at the lowest possible level. If a decision can’t be reached, the issue is escalated to the next level. This system improves the linkage between the C-suite and the front lines; it accelerates decision making; and perhaps most importantly, it improves productivity by reducing the number of scattershot emails about a variety of problems.

Anyhow, to learn the other three strategies for improving systems, click over to read the rest of the article.

So will I stop teaching personal productivity classes because of this article?

Not a chance, because it is still very useful for employees to have GTD skills. It is another piece of the puzzle to create a successful work environment.

How to Leave Work at Work

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How easily do you leave your work at work?

For many people, their job is an important part of their lives. In fact, they love it so much they donate a lot of unpaid hours to their employer every year. (For the record, that’s not a charitable approach I would ever suggest doing willingly.)

However, for employees who want to enjoy their downtime, but have trouble separating their work and personal lives, are their ways to disengage in the evenings and weekends?

Going through my files today I came across an article from 2019 that addresses this topic. Titled, 15 Tips for Leaving Work at Work, writer Marina Khidekel shared ideas from a slew of experts on how to successfully leave the office and enjoy life outside of it. One example is a classic approach to conclude a workday – tidy up!

“Something I began doing, almost unknowingly during my years as a teacher was straightening up my desk each day just before I left work for the day. Fifteen years later, now as a counselor I do the same thing. When my last client leaves, I come back into my office and straighten up my desk. It takes me no more than one minute and brings about closure to my day. When I return the next morning, I walk into an organized work space and that helps me think clearly and begin the new day. The habit is set and hardwired and I don’t take work home with me.”  

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Another idea is to set boundaries outside of the office. While this can be a challenge with our digital connectivity, it is possible to be clear with others about when you are checking email.

“I never check my work emails or phone over the weekend — my out of office response is turned on until 9 a.m. Monday morning. That way people know not to expect a response from me, and I don’t feel guilty about not getting back to them.”

Another option to create separation is to craft a ritual to empower the switch from work to home.

“To help transition my mindset from work-mode to relax-mode, I have a few rituals that allow me to leave work at work. For example, on my walk home, I will listen to a podcast about my interests outside of work like fitness, health, and well-being. With these rituals, I get to celebrate my hard work of the day and immerse myself in the other activities I enjoy to reground.”

To learn the other twelve suggestions to keep work at work, please read the rest of the article.

Can’t Focus – Try This!

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Let’s be honest, some days I find it hard to focus. In fact, I was almost too distracted to write these words!

However, in order to get things done we need to focus on the task at hand. Yet that ability can seem fleeting. What can be done to regain focus when it is lost?

Darius Foroux has struggled with a lack of focus and learned some lessons on how to restore it. He shares them in a post on his website called, “What I Do When I Can’t Focus.” He starts by identifying a prime impediment to focus, the dreaded distraction.

Focusing on a single thing is one of the hardest things at work.

There’s always something that interrupts you, right? …

Sure, you can blame those things — but that’s weak. You and I both know that those things can’t interrupt you without your permission.

That means every time you’re not focused; you’re giving someone or something permission to enter your mind.

Foroux goes on to provide his first strategy for getting focused. It involves elimination.

What did I do when I lacked focus? I asked myself this question:

“What thing(s) should I eliminate to make my life so simple that it’s easy to focus?”

In this case, I stopped focusing on YouTube. Elimination is a key strategy that I use for many aspects of my life.

We accumulate so much unnecessary baggage throughout the years that we consistently need to eliminate ideas, projects, work, objects, and so forth.

Read more about this strategy and Foroux’s second strategy on his website. Then it try it yourself and see if focus returns.

Upcoming Efficient Librarian Webinars

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I’m delighted to share that five Efficient Librarian webinars are scheduled through August and September. Over the course of the different webinars, I’ll be sharing tips and techniques on topics such as clearing your inbox, managing employees, and the rewards and challenges of leadership.

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To learn more about each webinar, please click through to the sponsoring organization. The great news is that the PLAN webinars are free to all Florida library staff.

August 21, 3 pm (EST)
Overcoming the Email Avalanche: Three Steps to an Empty Inbox
PLAN Webinar

September 3, 2:30 pm (EST)
Managing Employee Performance Using the SBI Method
ALA Webinars

September 4, 3 pm (EST)
Leadership: Challenges and Rewards
PLAN Webinar

September 17, 3 pm (EST)
Developing Motivated Cultures: Six Simple Factors that Shape Your Organization
PLAN Webinar

September 21, 3 pm (EST)
Managing Employee Performance: A Simple Formula for Talking with Staff
PLAN Webinar

A big thank you to PLAN and ALA for inviting me to present. I look forward to seeing you at the webinars.