A Manifesto of Human-Centered Work

forteIn the past I have pointed to the work of Tiago Forte who is a serious thinker around cutting edge ideas of productivity in the workplace and life.  While his web site this past year went largely behind a subscription pay wall, he recently freely posted his Manifesto for Human-Centered Work, which is well worth the read.  Below is one of his beliefs:

I believe productivity is an excellent sandbox for life.

Anything worth doing, and especially anything we have to do, is worth doing well. Productivity makes an excellent sandbox because it operates according to the same principles found in any other area of life.

And it leaks — success in productivity is easily translated to success elsewhere. If we want to free up time and energy to pursue what matters to us, it’s a good idea to start by streamlining the boring but necessary activities we have to do to get by.

Read the full Manifesto at: https://praxis.fortelabs.co/a-manifesto-of-human-centered-work-76060e51d0c8

Speed Up – Slow Down

davidallenAs we pursue greater efficiency in our work lives, some paradoxes may appear that seem to define common sense.  For many years I taught and practiced yoga, which emphasized the need for relaxation or effort as a tool to go deeper.  In a recent blog post, David Allen highlights the art of speeding up by slowing down.

“One of the greatest lessons I have learned and continually must practice is that in order to really be in control, I must surrender. In the martial arts things must be held lightly. Grabbing too tight, whether it’s my muscles, my ego, my trowel, or my lists of projects and actions, can be dangerous and ultimately ineffective. I must at a moment’s notice be ready to let go, walk away from it all, and do nothing. Nothing at all.”

Read the full blog entry at: http://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/06/speeding-up-by-slowing-down

Searching vs. Sorting

Question – where should reference emails be stored?  Many people follow a strategy derived from paper filing by creating a large number of subject based folders into which they sort their messages.  Another strategy is to have only one reference folder for everything and power search it.  Is either approach better than the other?

algorithmsAccording to the book, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions, there is an answer to this question.  On page 72 of the paperback copy, they explain the dynamic at work:

“And one of the most central tradeoffs is between sorting and searching.  The basic principle is this: the effort expanded on sorting materials is just a preemptive strike against the effort it’ll take to search through them later.”

On page 73 they state:

“Filing messages by hand into folders takes the same amount of time as filing physical papers in the real world, but emails can be searched much more efficiently than their physical counterparts.  As the cost of searching drops, sorting becomes less valuable.”

Therefore, the advice is to get by with as few email reference folders as possible.  Save the time you would have spent sorting emails for something more useful, like watching adorable kitten videos on YouTube …

GTD Milan Keynote

gtdcoverHow would you like to hear a succinct, yet detailed overview of the whole Getting Things Done methodology as told by the man himself, David Allen?

In a recent two part podcast on the Getting Things Done web site you can listen to David give a keynote address.  As the podcast advertises:

“David Allen shares an in-depth, sweeping overview of GTD® to an audience in Milan, Italy.  Learn best practices, as well as what you can expect to have happen in your life once you start applying them.”

Part one is available here: http://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/05/episode-29-david-allen-gtd-keynote-in-milan-part-one/

Part two is available here: http://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/05/episode-30-david-allen-gtd-keynote-in-milan-part-two/

Making SMART Goals

Why are professional sports so popular?  Aside from the enjoyment of watching top athletes perform, people enjoy watching a sporting event to see who wins.  Every competitive sport has a scoreboard to clearly show which team or person has won the game.  It makes for a clean and clear finish.

smarter-faster-betterUnfortunately, our regular jobs rarely come with scoreboards.  Lacking that immediate feedback, it can be challenging to know if you daily work is making a difference.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a scoreboard of your own to measure progress?  There is a way to create one – write down SMART Goals.

SMART Goals are a tool that helps people get real with their work.  SMART is an acronym for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timeline (or Timely).  In his book, Smarter Faster Better, Charles Duhigg shares the story about how GE adopted SMART goals to dynamically grow the company.  They succeeded so well because they gave solid guidance and measures to employees that allowed them to move forward confidently with their daily work.

A good web site to learn how to create your own SMART Goals can be found at MindTools.com.

Managing Work on a Vacation

beachwithchairsGiven how much time we spend at work every week, it is natural to dream about our next vacation.  However, vacations can quickly turn into a work week experienced outside the office if not careful.  On the Getting Things Done blog, a person recently submitted the following question:

QUESTION: While on vacation, how do you juggle work and play? How much time should you allot each day of your vacation to reading business email, checking up on projects, etc.? What’s the best balance of work and play? When is the best time of the day to spend on work? What organizational tools should you always bring along on your vacation?

Read David Allen’s answer at: http://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/05/managing-work-on-a-vacation/

10 Tips for Success

gtd-logoAre you new to productivity and efficiency work and need help getting started?  Or perhaps you have worked at this process in the past, but need new inspiration to keep going?  The Getting Things Done blog recently posted ten great tips for success with their methodology.

1. Start Small

There is a lot that makes up the Getting Things Done methodology. But that doesn’t mean you need to learn or master it all, all at once. Start with the master moves, like:

  • Write down everything that grabs your attention when it shows up (supporting the idea that your mind is better used to have ideas, not hold them).
  • Try the Two-Minute Rule, which would mean handling things that take less than two minutes to finish when they show up.
  • Make sure you really understand the 5 steps to mastering workflow—those are the keys to how everything gets done in your life and are the backbone to GTD.

Read the other nine at: http://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/04/10-tips-for-success-with-gtd/

Interrupting Interruptions

Think back to the last time you were hard at work on a project that required your full attention.  What happened when someone unexpectedly showed up at the door or called on the phone to interrupt your concentration?  How did you react?

I am sometimes asked how to handle interruptions.  This is not a trivial question.  According to a New York Times article, “Gloria Mark of the University of California, Irvine, found that a typical office worker gets only 11 minutes between each interruption, while it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to the original task after an interruption.”  Interruptions are a fact of life, so what is the best way to handle them effectively?  I see the solution as a series of executive decisions.

The first decision is to identify if the interruption is an emergency.  If so, handle it.

The next decision is whether the interruption will take less than two minutes to resolve (2 minute rule).  If so, clear it out of the way.

The third decision is the trickiest.  Does the interruption carry more value to your work world than the item you are engaged in right now?  If so, follow the interruption.  If not, ask the interrupter to schedule a time to meet later in the day or week to address the issue.  You can sooth any sore feelings by stating that scheduling a time to speak will allow you to give their item your full attention.

Interruptions are a fact of life.  How we handle them is the art of work.

Making Use of Weird Windows of Time

wierdwindowsMany time management systems instruct people to set up priorities.  The catch is that our top priorities may take longer than the small spaces of time that open up to us during the day.  In his most recent blog post, David Allen discusses how to most effectively use the weird windows of opportunity we have every day to get things done.

“Most everyone I come across in my clients’ organizations are up to their eyeballs in work, and feel overwhelmed. Strategy and triage are indeed required to address that, but at least as important is the requirement for people to set up their lives to get a lot more efficient about getting a lot more done in a day.

To steal from a Motorola strategy from many years ago, we need to “mine the bandwidth.” They developed technology utilizing the more discreet areas “between the lines” in the radio frequencies already in place. Similarly we need to be ready for, and take advantage of, the weird uneven time and energy spaces we find ourselves in.”

Read the rest of David Allen’s post on the Getting Things Done web site.