Category: Efficiency & Productivity

Team Knowledge Management

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What is the best way to share knowledge within an organization?

Most organizations have never thought about this problem. Those that have often use solutions such as virtual discussion forums or open office spaces that they hope will naturally bring people together. However, these attempts seem to rarely create the sharing synergy needed to move the organization forward. What can be done about this?

Tiago Forte has studied this challenge and believes his PARA system can be used to address it. In a recent posting on the Forte Labs website, he shares that a bottom-up approach is more likely to succeed.

All of this leads to my conclusion that modern organizations need to take a “bottom-up” approach to knowledge management instead of a top-down one. It can’t be about “extracting” knowledge from their people; it has to be about empowering them to do their absolute best work.

He then shares five recommendations on how to create this team knowledge management environment. The first step is getting clear on the organization’s flavor of PARA.

Even if you’ve decided you’re going to follow my advice to the letter, there is always a “flavor” of PARA that makes sense for your culture. This can include decisions such as:

  • What is our definition of a “project,” “area of responsibility,” “resource” and “archive”?
  • What needs to happen when we kick off a new project for it to be considered “active”?
  • What needs to happen when a project gets completed, put on hold, or canceled (for it to be considered “inactive”)?
  • Who is responsible for maintaining the standard for each shared area of responsibility?
  • What are the officially supported platforms on which PARA will be used?
  • What are the strict rules, softer “rules of thumb,” dos and don’ts, and cultural norms that govern how people will use PARA?
  • Who will be the “PARA Champion” who oversees its implementation and makes sure the guidelines are being followed?

Learn the other four recommendations at the Forte Labs website.

Choosing What To Do

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It’s Monday morning – how are you going to start your week? What is the most useful task to get done first? How will you ensure the most important parts of your upcoming projects will be done? Also, how will you ensure that nothing is missed along the way?

Following the core concepts of GTD can help anyone prioritize their day. In a recent blog post, the folks at Getting Things Done shared the five fundamental steps to successful workflow. They also took time to explain the limiting factors affecting the abilty to engage. Below is an excerpt from their article.

The five steps of GTD workflow are Capture, Clarify, Organize, Reflect, and Engage. When it’s time to Engage, people often ask how to choose from what may be long lists of tasks to do. That’s when it’s helpful to use the criteria for choosing:

Context – What place, tool, or person will the action require? This is the first limitation for choosing–it has to be. If you’re not in the right place, don’t have the right tool, or access to the required person, you can’t take the action.

Time available – How much time do you have to take the action? If you have 20 minutes, only consider actions that you think will take less than 20 minutes.

Resources – What is your energy like to take the action? Have you been in back-to-back meetings all day and you’re tired? Or are you just finishing your morning coffee and feeling alert and enthusiastic? You’re probably already considering this more than you realize when you choose what to do.

Priorities – What’s the most important one to choose based on your roles, goals, long-term strategy, and purpose?

Read the whole post and learn more about how the Horizons of Focus can be a great guide to engage effectively.

How to Get to Inbox Zero

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Text of a talk given at the PLA 2022 National Conference on the “How To” Stage.

How many emails do you have in your inbox right now, read or unread? 

In my informal polling, most people have anywhere from dozens to hundreds or even thousands of messages. Keep in mind that a 2019 study by DMR estimated that the average person received 121 emails a day. Without a fast and efficient system to dispatch these messages, inbox backlog will slow down work and increases stress. While one could declare email bankruptcy by deleting the entire contents of the inbox, this is hardly practical. Instead, with the application of a few simple best practices the stress of email management can be vanquished.

Photo by Torsten Dettlaff on Pexels.com

David Allen, author of the bestselling book, Getting Things Done, has thought deeply about workflow. He developed a system of best practices that revolve around managing workflow in an efficient manner. This approach can be used by any level of knowledge worker. It starts with a basic premise, so please repeat after me:

My inbox is not a storage location. It is a processing station.

Learn more by reading the rest in the articles section of this website.

The PARA Method – Projects and Areas

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Before you read further, please take a few moments to either grab, or write out, your current list of projects. Don’t worry, I’ll wait …

Very good – now look down the list. Do you see broad subjects like Hiring, Strategic Plan, Scheduling, or Direct Reports? If so, you don’t have a project list, you have an area list. Don’t understand the difference? In a recent post on his blog, Tiago Forte shares his PARA method of organization, in which he spends time discussing the difference between and area and a project.

You have projects you’re actively working on – short-term efforts (in your work or personal life) that you take on with a certain goal in mind.

You have areas of responsibility – important parts of your work and life that require ongoing attention. 

In short, projects are finite, with a beginning, middle, and end. Areas are ongoing. So long as you are responsible for them, they never end.

This means when we organize our work, especially in a digital environment, Tiago recommends using the PARA Method. We just learned what the first two letters in the acronym mean. Here are the explanations for the remaining two letters.

Then you have resources on a range of topics you’re interested in and learning about.

Finally, you have archives, which include anything from the previous three categories that is no longer active, but you might want to save for future reference.

This simple formatting system allows people to organize their work landscape. In fact, the order of the letters in PARA are an indication of how Tiago views the primary driver of work – our projects.

Instead of organizing information according to broad subjects like in school, I advise you to organize it according to the projects and goals you are committed to right now. This is what it means to “organize by actionability,” a mantra I will return to again and again.

Read more about the PARA Method, with detailed examples, on his blog at Forte Labs.

How Managers Can Help Their Team Focus

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Have you ever been on a team that lost its focus? You and your teammates may have wasted time wandering down dead ends, getting caught up arguing over trivial items, or had assumed next actions lie incomplete due to a lack of delegation? While there are many contributing factors to such failures, a good manager can make or break a team.

In an increasingly distracted world, one skill that can elevate managers is the ability to focus their team on the priorities. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, GTD founder David Allen and Justin Hale break down seven ways that managers can help their teams focus on work. Not surprisingly, the ideas are born out the GTD principles. This first suggestion is to inventory tasks and projects.

This is a discipline where common sense is not common practice. If your people don’t have a complete list of their commitments and projects, they can’t realistically prioritize. As a leader, hold people accountable for keeping current to-do lists and give them time each week to do a full weekly review of these commitments so they can stay in control.

Another way managers can help their employees focus is to make meetings meaningful.

Most people’s workdays are monopolized by meetings. Help employees stay focused by allowing them to decline meaningless meetings. To improve meeting efficacy, one manager we coached set a bold precedent. He said, “If someone invites you to a meeting without a clear agenda and reasons why you’re vital to the success of the meeting, you have my permission to decline it.” This manager put the onus back on the meeting creator (which was often himself) to show greater respect for others’ time. It also put employees in control of their days so they could focus on high-priority work.

Read the other five suggestions at the Harvard Business Review website.

Productivity Propaganda?

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At first glance it would seem that productivity is a good thing. After all, who doesn’t want to get more done in less time? However, what happens if the push for increased productivity comes at the expense of enjoyment of life? Does it matter if you get more done if that which is being done is of little value?

Digital anthropologist and author Rahaf Harfoush recently explored this topic in a book called Hustle & Float: Reclaim Your Creativity and Thrive in a World Obsessed With Work. In her book she explored workplace burnout and how to avoid it. Bloomberg Businessweek interviewed her during the COVID pandemic to learn more about how to balance work and life in the era or work-from-home.

This isn’t a normal time, so it shouldn’t be treated as normal work-from-home time. The lines between home and work, personal and professional, are blurred with an additional pressure to be productive since the thinking is that we all suddenly have more available time. This isn’t the case, and furthermore, working nonstop simply doesn’t work. We have turned busyness into a coping mechanism. Now, people are applying that to their personal time while sheltering at home, filling it with back-to-back Zoom calls, baking, workouts, and more activity. It’s important to use some of this time to process our emotions and reflect on the discomfort from all this productivity propaganda. Operating as usual will not only negatively affect your work but could compromise your health.

The interview ended with a warning for those who work around the clock.

If you’re a high performer and recovery isn’t an intentional and strategic part of your time and workflow, you’re only damaging your output in the long run.

Read the whole interview online.

Efficient Librarian In-Person Workshops and Webinars Announced for Early 2023

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This year I will be back on the road doing in-person classes in New Orleans and across Florida, along with several virtual offerings.

Most of the trainings listed below are sponsored by a Florida Library Cooperative and are free of charge to Florida library staff. Non-Florida library staff may register for a reasonable fee. The January 29th session is part of the LibLearnX Conference and is free of charge to registered attendees.

If you are interested in having a workshop in your area, please reach out to me at efficientlibrarian@gmail.com. I look forward to seeing you at an upcoming workshop.

From Inbox to Completion: The Secrets to Successful Workflow
January 25, 2023, 2-3 pm (EST)
Webinar
Sponsored by SWFLN

Finding Your Leadership Pathway
January 29, 2023, 1 pm – 4 pm (CST)
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
LibLearnX Conference – New Orleans, LA

The Efficient Librarian
February 3, 2023, 9 am – 12:30 pm (EST)
Palm Beach County Library System – Hagen Ranch Road Branch
Sponsored by SEFLIN

Finding Your Leadership Pathway
March 3, 2023, 9 am – 12:30 pm (EST)
Palm Beach County Library System – West Boca Branch
Sponsored by SEFLIN

Managing Employee Performance: A Simple Formula for Talking with Staff
March 6, 2023, 2-3 pm (EST)
Webinar
Sponsored by SWFLN

Finding Your Leadership Pathway
March 7, 2023, 1 pm – 4:00 pm (EST)
NEFLIN HQ – Orange Park, FL
Sponsored by NEFLIN

The Efficient Librarian
March 9, 2023, 9 am – 12:30 pm (EST)
Leroy Collins, Leon County Library – Tallahassee
Sponsored by PLAN

Overcoming the Email Avalanche: Three Steps to an Empty Inbox
May 9, 2023, 2-3 pm (EST)
Webinar
Sponsored by SWFLN 

Avoiding Procrastination Regret

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Have you ever put off doing something? Of course, you have!

However, have you ever put off doing something for a long time, years even? Perhaps it is taking that dream vacation, or switching careers, making a commitment to exercise, or telling that special someone you love them? If we wait too long to try new things or take risks, this procrastination can lead to regret. How do we avoid it?

On his blog, Darious Foroux recently shared his thoughts on procrastination.

We all know that putting off our dreams for one week turns into a month, then into a year, and then into decades, and finally, we die with regret.

If that sounds harsh, it’s because it is harsh. When you keep procrastinating you become one of those people who never do what they say. 

How do we change our behavior to avoid regret? Foroux offers ten behaviors that challenge us to keep moving forward. The first one is stay curious.

Never stop getting excited about doing new things. If you let your curiosity drive you, you will never run out of motivation and inspiration.

Along with curiosity, he advises us to never stop learning.

Your curiosity will lead you to new topics, challenges, goals, and desires. To achieve those things, we need to learn more. When you do that every day, you keep making progress.

Review the other eight on his blog, then see if they can help you avoid the regret of prolonged procrastination.

When Was Your Last Weekly Review?

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Life comes at us quickly. As we deal with all the input and projects throughout the week, it is important to dedicate time to regaining a lay of the land. The best way to do so is the Weekly Review.

The Weekly Review is a GTD staple. In fact, David Allen has repeatedly stressed that the review is one of the most important things a knowledge worker can do to stay current and focused. To help practitioners, he had created a guided Weekly Review on his website. The video comes with the following note:

Experience what David Allen calls the “critical success factor” with GTD, by going through a complete GTD Weekly Review. You’ll get a taste of all 11 steps of the process, with helpful advice along the way. Please note that this recording has not been edited to remove the several minutes of silence for you to do each of the 11 parts of the review.

David has repeatedly stressed that the Weekly Review is a “critical success factor” to engrain a GTD practice. What does it involve? The first step is to Get Current:

GET CLEAR
COLLECT LOOSE PAPERS AND MATERIALS
Gather all accumulated business cards, receipts, and miscellaneous paper-based materials into your in-tray.
GET “IN” TO ZERO
Process completely all outstanding paper materials, journal and meeting notes, voicemails, dictation, and emails.
EMPTY YOUR HEAD
Put in writing and process any uncaptured new projects, action items, waiting fors, someday/maybes, etc.

Read the rest of the article to learn about the other two steps.

If you haven’t done a Weekly Review recently, I encourage you to do so at your earliest opportunity. The clarity that comes from a thorough examination of all your open loops and commitments is time well spent. The result will be more items accomplished with less stress. Now who wouldn’t want that?