Category: Efficiency & Productivity

Can ChatGPT Write a Speech Better Than a Toastmaster?

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Just say you need to give an important speech, but only have a few minutes notice. Can an AI chat service bail you out?

For my upcoming Toastmasters meeting, I was challenged to write a speech titled, “AI – Friend, Foe, or Tool?” As a fun experiment, I decided to see what ChatGPT would do with this topic. Would it be honest about its limits, share it deep dark secrets, or in the end just give me an okay speech.

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On the Efficient Librarian website, I wrote an article showing the prompts and output from this process. For reference I used a free ChatGPT account, which still provided enough access for delivery of a speech, but a few limitations on its output options. The whole process took less than five minutes from start to finish.

Overall, this quick dip into the AI waters showed that for all its versatility there are still some weaknesses. For example, I asked for a 5 to 7 minutes speech, but what was provided took only four minutes to speak. Also, it ran into some issues with suggestions that in the end I couldn’t do with the free service.

To see the entire process and read my other thoughts on this AI exercise, please read the article on the Efficient Librarian website.

The Death of Goals

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Have you recently created a set of clear, written goals?

Most career advice emphasizes the idea of writing down measurable goals that one then pursues with laser focus. This is said to be the key to success in work and life. However, is this advice sound?

In a post on his website, Tiago Forte pondered the idea that we have reached the Death of Goals. He starts by lamenting the continued assumption that SMART goals are the be all and end all of achievement.

Every time I bring up “SMART goals,” I can see the light go out in my students’ eyes. An unmistakable feeling of dread and aversion fills the room, and the decline in energy and enthusiasm is palpable. They know they should set goals that way, but they don’t want to.

The SMART framework was developed 44 years ago by a director of corporate planning at an electric and natural gas utility – not exactly a paragon of modern business in the information age.

I knew traditional goals were an outdated relic of a bygone era, but I hadn’t figured out what to replace them with. After all, they seem like such a load-bearing pillar of modern society: you set an objective, you make a plan, and then you follow the steps to get there. 

To Tiago, a possible solution lies in the book, Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, by Kenneth O. O. Stanley and Joel Lehman. For the authors, goals are fine when the project is about incremental improvement or completing rote tasks. However, the value of goals collapses when the scope of possibilities grows larger.

The problem arises when we try to scale up this modest strategy to greater achievements – those that involve true ambition, novel invention, innovative breakthroughs, or pushing the frontier.

These are the kinds of pursuits in which goals lose their power, and can actually become counterproductive and lead you in the opposite direction of progress.

To understand why, it’s helpful to think of achievement not as creating something completely new from scratch, but as searching a space of possibilities.

Tiago believes that goals work best when the environment is well defined. The problem comes when we encounter undefined and unknown conditions. As technology and society advances in unexpected directions, a reliance on goals can be a dead end.

For the most interesting, exciting, impactful achievements, goals are a false compass, distracting you from the highest potential directions. They induce a narrow tunnel vision, eliminating the serendipitous discovery, unorthodox creativity, and breakthrough innovation that are most valuable.

In other words, the best path through the vast hall of possibilities is not a straight one; it’s a twisty turny wild ride of daring leaps and hairpin pivots that would seem positively crazy to any outside observer.

The article ends with Tiago’s six steps to think outside of goals. These steps allow people to appreciate the value of interesting problems and expand their realm of thinking to a broader range of possibilities for success.

Read the full article to learn more about the limitation of goals and a possible alternative for progress.

So, what is your non-goal?

Who Should Attend?

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Have you ever attended a meeting and wondered why you are there?

Sometimes people send out meeting invites across the entire organization on the assumption that many heads are best. However, more attendees often make a meeting less productive. An article from Flowtrace indicated that 35% of survey respondents believed that limited the number of people in the room was important for meeting success.

When participants start to believe the meeting is a waste of time, their engagement slips. This can lead to mildly disruptive behavior, such as looking at phones or side-conversations. At worst, it can rise to active disruption in the form of pointless argumentation or snide comments.

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A cardinal rule of meetings is to invite as few people as possible, but enough to make the meeting effective. How should a meeting planner determine whom to invite? Here are a few parameters:

  • Does the meeting topic directly affect a potential attendee’s core job functions?
  • Are they directly responsible, or part of the team responsible, for the item discussed?
  • Will they carry out actions resulting from decisions made at the meeting?
  • Do they have specific expertise relating to the topic of the meeting?
  • Could a team leader attend in place of the whole team and report back?

For example, an early high level meeting to discuss the allocation of the materials selection budget could be attended by the division leaders, including collections, finance, and administration. A future meeting where the discussion reaches branch level allocations could be expanded to include the branch division head and specific managers who oversee special collections.

In addition, keep in mind that not all participants need to stay for the entire meeting. When someone is done with their portion of the meeting, allow them to exit if feasible. To that end, it is helpful to organize the meeting agenda to enable participants with limited roles to have their items discussed early so they can leave to resume their regular duties.

Remember, employees work time is valuable. Don’t waste their contributions by obligating them to attend unnecessary meetings. They will appreciate it.

The Secret to Success – Take Time Off

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When was the last time you took a vacation from work? I mean a true vacation where you unplugged completely from the office, not even peeking at your email once.

There is a mindset that we need to keep working to succeed. Breaks and vacations are seen as distractions from accomplishing goals. However, is this true or simply a recipe for burnout?

In an article on his website, Darius Foroux suggests that taking time off is actually vital to completing your goals. In fact, time off not only is good for your physical and mental well-being, but it also a way to increase creativity and focus. To start, he chastises the idea that taking time off is for wimps.

People who never take time off to do nothing are short-term focused. “I want to reach my goals! NOW!”

But as always, short-term thinking harms your long-term development and growth. What happens when you power through work and burn yourself out? In most instances, your results suffer, and you become less productive.

In some cases, you even become depressed — which will set you back even longer. 

His solution is to embrace time off from work. Whether it is deliberate breaks during the day or taking an unplugged vacation, time off has many benefits. One of the primary reasons breaks are important is that they give us time to think and process.

All ideas require processing. Are the ideas any good? Do I really want to do those things?

Again, that’s a thinking process. When you go from idea to execution, without processing, you often waste your time in hindsight.

Of course, you can never entirely prevent that. But by taking the time to process your ideas, you can prevent your future self a lot of pain, worry, and even money.

Read the full article on Foroux’s website to learn more benefits of taking time off.

Success Tips for Virtual Meetings

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It was five years ago that the world had to adjust quickly from in person meetings to computer bound conversations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual meetings became a necessity. Replacing the old conference call systems with tools like Zoom or WebEx allowed for face-to-face interaction between participants across the globe. However, it also led to a lot of confusion on protocols and etiquette.

Now that we have more experience with online meetings, it is easier to identify the specific components required in order to be successful. Yet, even after all this forced experience, people still commit avoidable mistakes. Follow through on these tips and your meetings will get off to a good start.

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  • Platform – Ensure the virtual platform is accessible by all participants. Meetings stall quickly if someone does not have the right software loaded on their computer or phone.
  • Test the Technology – Hold a pre-meeting to test out features of the virtual platform. For example, do sound checks to ensure mics work and practice screen sharing before the session to avoid embarrassment later. Also, if special features are being used, such as polling or pushing documents, test those as well.
  • Check Camera Angles – Participants should frame themselves in the webcam before starting the meeting. Being too close to the camera, too far from it, sitting off center or having an odd angle on the camera view distracts the other participants. Be careful about back lighting to prevent shadowy conditions. Also, take heed of the background to avoid inappropriate personal items from showing up on screen. If you use a virtual background, make sure it doesn’t interfere with your own image. For example, having a green shirt on while in front of a green background.
  • Double-Check Start Times – Virtual meetings are ideal for bringing people together from across the globe. However, this means the organizers must pay closer attention to the participant’s time zones. An 8 am start time in Boston is a 5 am start time in Seattle. Do not ask participants to take part in meetings outside of their time zone’s normal business hours. Double check invitation start times to ensure they are not accidentally set up for a different time zone.
  • Camera On or Off? – For smaller meetings, having the camera on creates a sense of engagement amongst the participants. It allows for non-verbal communication, such as facial expressions or hand gestures that we normally rely on during in person meetings. For larger meetings, especially presentations, keeping audience cameras off helps participants focus on the speaker. Keeping cameras off may be needed when bandwidth is limited to prevent the system from slowing down or crashing. Participants turn their cameras on only when speaking.

Using these tips should help get a virtual meeting off to a strong start.

Do You Measure Your Wealth in Money or Time?

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When people consider the idea of success, often they equate dollar signs as the measure. The belief is that having more money in the bank account equals greater satisfaction. However, one can have an abundance of dollars, but it is worthless when there is no time to enjoy it. Therefore, is it more accurate to say that a person should be measured by how much time freedom they have?

In a recent article on Lifehacker, writer Jeff Somers explores how control over one’s time rather than monetary wealth may be the best sign of success. He writes:

Time affluence—the feeling that you have enough time to accomplish everything you want to get done—is a crucial aspect of our happiness and sense of personal satisfaction. Time poverty is the opposite—that stressful feeling you get when there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. Between commuting to and from our jobs, the time spent working, then the chores at home, many of us barely have time to eat some dinner and maybe stream a show before collapsing into bed—and starting the process over again the next day.

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Later in the article he offers some time hacks that can free up valuable space in the day. The first method he discusses is organizing and prioritizing.

Since your time is limited, stop treating it like an amorphous, infinite resource you always have more of. Make lists of things you need or want to do and prioritize them. Then use time blocking to break each of those priorities into a fixed amount of time needed to accomplish them or at least move them toward completion. This avoids letting tasks pile up, which increases stress and that sense of not being in control of your time, and provides a visual guide to how your day will play out. And having clear times for specific activities to end will increase your efficiency.

Learn his other techniques for building up time affluence by reading the rest of the article.

Opening Up Your Personal Constraints

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Oftentimes personal development seems like a nebulous task. Since a lot of it takes place in our heads and hearts, it would seem that attempts at self-improvement are hard to quantify. However, could there be a way to use physical world productivity systems to produce inner growth?

On his YouTube channel, Tiago Forte recently explored using the Theory of Constraints to improve personal productivity and development. For those not familiar with the theory, it was developed decades ago to better understand how large-scale systems, especially factories, could function more effectively. A key focus of the process is identifying the bottleneck. The website Lean Production defines it this way:

The core concept of the Theory of Constraints is that every process has a single constraint and that total process throughput can only be improved when the constraint is improved. A very important corollary to this is that spending time optimizing non-constraints will not provide significant benefits; only improvements to the constraint will further the goal (achieving more profit).

Thus, TOC seeks to provide precise and sustained focus on improving the current constraint until it no longer limits throughput, at which point the focus moves to the next constraint. The underlying power of TOC flows from its ability to generate a tremendously strong focus towards a single goal (profit) and to removing the principal impediment (the constraint) to achieving more of that goal. In fact, Goldratt considers focus to be the essence of TOC.

Tiago believes that this theory can be applied to personal growth. In the video, he gives an example of how he uses it to improve his deep-thinking time for writing his next book. Since there is no physical bottleneck, what he explores is how his personal energy is the obstacle to his process. He then identifies ways to overcome it, such as blocking out time in the morning, exercising, eating healthy, and minimizing distractions. All these actions are ways to expand his capacity to think deeper.

The video is only five minutes long and easy to understand. I invite you to watch it and learn how the Theory of Constraints could improve your life.

Don’t Send that Email … Unless You Have To!

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Being careful when sending an email is something every knowledge worker must consider on a daily basis. Below is a section from my article, Effective Email Etiquette, to highlight when it is best to put something in an email and when it is not.

Don’t Send that Email … Unless You Have To!

One of the biggest challenges in effective communication is deciding the medium for the message. For many people, email is a common way to share information. In fact, it is often preferred, as implied by the saying, “this was another meeting that should have been an email.”  Yet it does have limits. Here are times when email is appropriate:

  1. Routine communication: Emails are suitable for routine updates, sharing information, and conveying non-urgent messages. If your message is not time-sensitive and allows for a delayed response, email is a suitable choice.
  2. Documentation: When you need a written record of communication, such as project updates, agreements, or decisions.
  3. Scheduling and coordination: For arranging meetings, confirming appointments, and coordinating schedules.
  4. Formal communication: In professional settings, emails are often appropriate for formal communication, such as job applications, official announcements, and business proposals.
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However, there are situations when hitting send on that message would cause trouble:

  1. Urgent matters: In situations requiring immediate attention or response, consider using a more direct and real-time communication method, such as phone calls or instant messaging.
  2. Sensitive or confidential information: Avoid sending sensitive or confidential information via email, especially if it involves personal or financial details. Use secure methods or direct communication for such matters. If your message involves emotional or sensitive topics, consider having a face-to-face conversation or using a more personal communication method to avoid misunderstandings.
  3. Complex issues: For complex or nuanced discussions that may benefit from real-time interaction and clarification, opt for a meeting or a phone call.
  4. Negative feedback: When providing constructive criticism or negative feedback, it’s often better to deliver it in person or over the phone to ensure clarity and understanding.

What to know more about how to do better emails? Read the entire article on Effective Email Etiquette.

Never Leave a Meeting Without Doing This

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Imagine a meeting where all the participants are active in the conversation. Great ideas are shared and built upon. Everyone feels excited about the goals discussed. Was that a successful meeting? It could be, so long as something important is done before the meeting is adjourned.

Many seemingly productive meetings end up being for naught if the follow-through is fumbled. To ensure it happens, follow this simple rule.

Never end a meeting without summarizing the decisions and assigning the next actions to move items forward.

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Prioritized next actions are the fruits of a successful meeting. When there is uncertainty over who is responsible to do tasks decided upon in the meeting, the risk of inaction is huge. Everyone attending the meeting should be clear on his or her responsibilities before adjournment.

Five key steps to remember:

  • Write down the specific next actions decided on in the meeting
  • Assign the task to participants and make them responsible for completing each action
  • Be clear on the deadlines for each action item
  • Have a means to share updates on each action completed with the rest of the group
  • Finally, decide when and where the next meeting will happen if needed

Follow these steps to ensure that your valuable meetings lead to success afterwards.