Recommended In Boxes
Post 3 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools
For your physical in box, I recommend the silver steel letter trays that you can get at Target or Amazon. I used to have the plastic black letter trays from Office Depot, but I’ve recently switched over to these because they look a bit better.
As far as you to make the best use of your in box, it’s pretty simple: Put one on the top of your desk.
Some people stack several together and use the lower ones to hold pending items like material to read. I don’t do that because I prefer to only create very short-term, ad hoc pending stacks that I deal with right away. Pending items that need to be held for longer periods of time go into a file drawer (which will be covered when I, finally, get to my posts on filing).
If you have a desk at work and home, then obviously I’d recommend an in box at each location. Since my desk at home is in the basement, I also have an in box upstairs that I can easily toss stuff into.
As far as location goes, I recommend putting your in box on the left side of your desk. This creates a workflow of left to right: stuff to process starts on the left; you process it in the center; stuff that needs to be distributed elsewhere gets put into an “out” pile on the right.
Last of all, the big question here is: Is it “in box,” “inbox,” or “in-box”? I’ve seen all three. But when I think about it, I don’t think I like the looks of “in box” — which is the form I used in this post. So going forward, I’m going to start writing “in-box.” (If you have an opinion, let me know!)
Posts in This Series
- Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
- The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
- Recommended In Boxes
- Recommended Capture Journals
- Recommended Pens
- Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
- Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
- Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
- Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
- Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
- Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
- Recommended Labelers and File Folders
- Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves
The Tools You need to Have (and Where to Keep Them)
Post 2 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools
While the right tools are important, the tools themselves won’t get you organized. You need to know how to think about your tools and where to keep them. Otherwise, getting the right tools will simply create clutter.
So before getting into the specific tools I recommend, I’m going to do two things. First, I’m going to outline the basic categories that everything you can possibly have at your desk falls into. Second, I’ll give a brief overview of all the tools that may be useful to have in your workspace and where they should go at your desk.
Understanding Workspace Setup
I posted some notes on workspace organization last week in anticipation of this series, so that may be worth looking at. The most relevant concept for our purposes here is that there are two kinds of things at your desk: permanent stuff and transient stuff.
Permanent Stuff
Permanent stuff falls into four categories: equipment, supplies, decoration, and reference.
Equipment goes on the desk if its used more than once per day, and in a drawer if not. Supplies go in a desk drawer in small amounts, with extras being kept in a cabinet or supply room. Decoration goes on the desk and walls, but should be kept limited. Reference items go in file cabinets and on bookshelves.
Transient Stuff
Transient stuff falls into three categories: input to be processed, action reminders, and project support materials.
Input to be processed goes in the in box. Action reminders will be in your task management software or, if you are paper-based, planner. Project support materials would be in electronic files and possibly some physical files.
The tools that we’ll be discussing in this series fall into the categories of equipment and supplies.
Core Tools and Their Locations
Here is an overview of the physical productivity tools you need to have and some brief words on where they go. My aim here is to provide you enough details on where to keep things to get you started; I’ll provide more details on desk setup in a future series.
The Desktop
On the top of your desk you should have your in box, computer monitor, any necessary computer peripherals, at least one pen, and maybe a pencil. If desired, you might maybe also want to have a desk lamp, a decoration or two, and a printer if you have one to yourself and there is room.
And that’s it.
The rest of the desktop is for working and just plain providing some breathing space. Any additional items will get in the way and, at least unconsciously, be a nuisance. The key principle is: keep your desktop as clear as possible.
Drawers
I’ll go into more detail on how to set up your drawers in my series on desk setup. But for the tools I’m covering here, two drawers are sufficient.
Drawer #1
In one of the drawers at your desk you should keep these items: pens, pencils, extra pencil lead, paper clips, scissors, a letter opener, and a unit of post-its. You might also want to have some rubber bands, super glue, twist-tie-things that come with the cords in neat new electronics gadgets, business cards, Advil, and maybe a few other things that fit and are useful (some permanent markers, a small ruler, etc.).
Don’t keep too many extra pens and pencils in this drawer; 5 of each is plenty. The point is to have a reserve to draw from if the one you are using on your desk runs out, you misplace it, or you just want to grab a few more for some reason. If you have any additional pens and pencils beyond the 5 or so, they go in a supply closet where you store extra supplies.
Regarding super glue and rubber bands: I admit that I hardly ever use these things. Having them around at all may be an old hold-over from when less stuff was computer based. Or maybe I just have rubber bands in there because I think it’s neat. The super glue is there because we have kids who sometimes break things. So, obviously, some things here are more or less relevant to each person’s specific situation.
Regarding the twist-tie-things: Whenever I get a new electronic gadget, I save those twist-ties the cords come tied up with. Or, I should say, I save them unless they are the flimsy kind. They really come in handy to tie up any cords that are longer than needed, so as to keep them from becoming unruly. I use them all the time.
Drawer #2
In another drawer you should have this equipment: stapler, staple remover, tape, and a labeler.
I admit that I hardly ever use the tape. But if I ever need it, I don’t want to have to go walking to find some. There’s space for it, so it’s easy enough to keep around.
The stapler I use about every other day or so. Whatever you do, do not keep your stapler on your desk. That just looks ugly. It goes in a drawer. So does the labeler.
I also keep a stack of blank CD-RWs in this drawer, some sleeves for the CDs, and a cloth to clean my screen.
Additional Drawers
If you have additional drawers, other stuff that you might want to keep in them include: chargers, extra batteries, Kleenex, and printer paper (if you have a printer at your desk). If you have a cubicle with a storage bin or a desk with some type of hutch on one part of it, these items also work well in there.
Obviously there is probably a lot of other stuff some people keep in their desks. That’s fine, but my recommendation is to keep the amount of stuff you have around to a minimum. Have only the essentials, and a bit more if it doesn’t take up any needed space.
Keep things to a minimum so that it is easier to keep them organized. The aim is easy, finger-tip access so that your workspace functions like an effective cockpit.
Around Your Desk
Around your desk are chairs, wastebaskets, and maybe bookshelves.
Supply Room
Extra supplies go in a supply room. Keep at your desk what you use, and keep extras somewhere else to avoid clutter. For example, if you have a printer and keep printer paper around your desk, keep one unit around. Keep extra units in the supply room.
Portable
Kept portable and with you should be your capture journal.
Posts in This Series
- Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
- The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
- Recommended In Boxes
- Recommended Capture Journals
- Recommended Pens
- Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
- Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
- Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
- Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
- Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
- Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
- Recommended Labelers and File Folders
- Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves
Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
Post 1 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools
Posts in This Series
- Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
- The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
- Recommended In Boxes
- Recommended Capture Journals
- Recommended Pens
- Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
- Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
- Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
- Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
- Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
- Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
- Recommended Labelers and File Folders
- Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves
Today we’re starting a series on recommended productivity tools. I’m going to cover some basic tools that you need to have and point out which ones work best to make your work smoother, less frustrating, and more enjoyable.
I have in mind here physical tools, rather than electronic tools. Which leads right away to the question: What? Why care about physical productivity tools?
Why Care About Physical Productivity Tools?
There are two reasons to still care about physical productivity tools.
First, even though we live in an electronic age, we still need to do some physical things. Physical “stuff” will always be with us in some form or another. As long as there is a need to do physical stuff, there is also a need to have the physical tools that enable us to work as effectively as we can.
In fact, sometimes physical tools are preferable to electronic. For example, I often prefer capturing ideas and notes in my moleskine notebook over capturing them electronically. This is not always the case, but sometimes it is faster and simpler. This brings into play two physical tools: a capture journal and a pen.
Second, it’s worth giving some reflection to physical productivity tools because most attention is given to electronic tools. And that is just as it should be. But since we still need to use physical tools, someone needs to give some attention to which ones will serve you best.
The Value of Good Tools
My aim in this series is to point out which tools work well and which you will most likely to enjoy using. A fundamental assumption behind that purpose is that having good tools matters. There are at least three reasons for this.
First, if you have good tools, you often times want to use them. This in turn makes your work a bit more enjoyable, and this pays dividends for your productivity. David Allen makes a good point when he writes: “one of the best tricks for enhancing your personal productivity is having organizing tools that you love to use” (GTD, 96).
Second, bad tools get in the way. This creates unconscious resistance to getting things done.
Third, it is important to make your workspace in general a place you want to be. The tools you have at hand are part of that environment, and thus contribute to your overall sense of satisfaction with your work environment. If you have tools that you enjoy using, you are that much more likely to enjoy your workspace in general – which enhances your ability to get things done.
Note, however, that having good tools does not necessarily mean having expensive tools. David Allen rightly notes: “Often, on the low-tech side, the more ‘executive’ something looks, the more dysfunctional it really is” (Getting Things Done, 91). A good tool is a tool that works well and that you want to use.
In the next posts we’ll give a quick overview of the main kinds of physical tools you need to have. A corollary question is where you should keep these tools for optimal access (and minimal distraction), so we’ll cover that to. Then, I’ll cover each tool individually for the rest of the series.
>> Go to next post The Tools You Need to Have (and Where to Keep Them)
The Surprising Science of Motivation
A friend emailed me the link to this talk and said that it was definitely worth the 18 minute investment of time. He was right.
I highly recommend this TED talk by Dan Pink. Here’s the key point: “There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does” when it comes to human motivation.
And it is very interesting that, as he touches on at the end, the science of motivation naturally demonstrates the value of some of the more significant emerging workplace practices, such as a results-only-work-environment and 20% time.
(Although I acknowledge that 20% time isn’t necessarily new — it was practiced at 3M more than 50 years ago. Come to think of it, ROWE was also the basic operation of many people before the rise of the modern organization and the concept of an employee — a relatively recent occurrence. It is interesting how what is “new” is often actually “old.”)
(Final note: By pointing out the relatively recent occurrence of the concept of an employee, I am not implying that I think it is a bad concept. I do, however, think that many of the primary early practices for managing employees, which focused on control, were wrong-headed and we are still seeing their effects today. Employees deserve autonomy, not tight controls, and this leads to better results for organizations as well. This will be an interesting course of discussion for future blog posts.)
The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine
Wired has a good article on “The Good Enough Revolution.” Here’s the gist: “Entire markets have been transformed by products that trade power or fidelity for low price, flexibility, and convenience.”
No Legislation without Participation
Patrick Lencioni has a great article over at The Simple Wisdom Project on the problems that come from the fact that members of congress often do not have to live with the consequences of the laws they pass. Universal health care is the latest example.
Here’s a great quote:
As it stands today, Congress is considering legislation that would substantially change the way health care in America is paid for and delivered. And regardless of how one feels about that, one thing is certain: members of Congress won’t have to participate in it. The bill expressly states that they are exempt, and as we know, they have a much better, richer plan.
Regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, a liberal or a conservative, a teenager or a senior citizen, this just doesn’t make any sense. It gives one the impression that politicians are masters of the people rather than public servants, and that they see themselves as being more important than the people they are supposed to represent. Otherwise, why would they choose to exempt themselves but not firefighters or teachers or police officers or doctors?
Thoughts on How to Schedule Your Week
I’ve advocated in previous posts that, when planning your week, you should proactively choose several “big rocks” to accomplish that week. These are the most important tasks that you can do that week, and they should stem from your values, goals, roles, and/or major projects.
Here’s what I haven’t said before: I think it may work best to keep the number of big rocks down to about 5. If you can accomplish one big rock per day, you will be making huge progress.
But if you try to put much more than that on your agenda for the week, one of two things will likely happen. First, might not feel the freedom or time to address situations that come up — many of which are important, even though they could not have been foreseen. Or, second, if you do give yourself the freedom to turn your attention to them, you will feel frustrated by the inability to accomplish your plans. And so you will feel behind.
I’m writing this because that’s how I feel right now! I tried to schedule too many priorities into my week. If I had scheduled less, maybe I’d even feel about done right now, with everything else I do for the week being gravy. That would be nice — and maybe would result in more getting done, not less. Or, it would result in the ability to say “finished for now,” which I think is something that is extra hard these days but which we all need more of.
The concept of big rocks is from Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He advocates about 2-3 big rocks per role, which would end up giving you around 15 or so per week. He doesn’t give that as any hard and fast rule, but it does set up your expectations. Sticking down at 5 is a bit counter-intuitive, but I think it may be about right.
But we’ll see. That’s why I’ve called this post “thoughts on how to schedule your week.” In many ways, effectiveness is an ongoing experiment. You create hypotheses, test them, adapt, and repeat.
The National Debt Road Trip
This is a fantastic visualization of how the deficit spending projected by Obama compares to past presidencies.
Really incredible. This video converts the deficit spending since 1900 into miles per hour. Bush was going 63 mph, the fastest yet. Obama’s own projections put him at 173 mph for the next eight years.
The video is well worth watching.
(HT: Steve Orris)
If It Is Not Necessary to Do Something, It Is Necessary Not To Do It
That can be taken too far, but the point is: the things that are truly necessary are so important that you do not want to be distracted from them by the pursuit of less important things.
John Piper on Spiritual Leadership
John Piper has a very helpful but often overlooked article from 1995 called The Marks of a Spiritual Leader. I highly recommend it. Here are three things that stand out from the article.
First, Piper gives a very helpful definition of spiritual leadership, which differs in some ways from leadership in general:
I define spiritual leadership as knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative to use God’s methods to get them there in reliance on God’s power. The answer to where God wants people to be is in a spiritual condition and in a lifestyle that display his glory and honor his name. Therefore, the goal of spiritual leadership is that people come to know God and to glorify him in all that they do. Spiritual leadership is aimed not so much at directing people as it is at changing people. If we would be the kind of leaders we ought to be, we must make it our aim to develop persons rather than dictate plans. You can get people to do what you want, but if they don’t change in their heart you have not led them spiritually. You have not taken them to where God wants them to be.
Second, Piper spends the rest of the paper outlining the characteristics a person must have in order to be a spiritual leader “who excels both in the quality of his direction and the numbers of people who follow him.” He divides these characteristics into an inner circle and an outer circle:
The inner circle of spiritual leadership is that sequence of events in the human soul that must happen if anyone is to get to first base in spiritual leadership. These are the absolute bare essentials. They are things that all Christians must attain in some degree, and when they are attained with high fervor and deep conviction they very often lead one into strong leadership. In the outer circle are qualities that characterize both spiritual and non-spiritual leaders.
Third, and among other things, Piper has a great discussion of the outer circle characteristics. Below is the list of characteristics he discusses. I especially love the emphasis on optimism, energy, hard thinking, dreaming, and decisiveness.
- Restless
- Optimistic
- Intense
- Self-controlled
- Thick-skinned
- Energetic
- A hard thinker
- Articulate
- Able to teach
- A good judge of character
- Tactful
- Theologically oriented
- A dreamer
- Organized and efficient
- Decisive
- Perseverant
- A lover
- Restful
How GTD Can Help Keep Your Basement From Flooding
Last Thursday or so, we had about four inches of rain. I was in my basement Friday morning and didn’t notice anything. On Saturday morning, however, I went down there to get something, only to find that the carpet was saturated with water. It turns out that our sump pump had failed, creating a big mess.
Could GTD have helped keep this from happening? Well, it provides a critical tool I’m going to use to help keep this from happening again.
Before this happened, I never gave much thought to the life expectancy of a sump pump. And our sump pump gave out earlier than would have been expected, anyway. But the reality is, every sump pump will eventually fail. The thing is, you don’t want to wait for it to fail to find out, because that means a basement full of water.
So it makes sense to replace your sump pump on a regular basis. For me, there’s a big insight right there: If you have a sump pump, you need to have it on your agenda to replace that sump pump when it starts to get old. That’s a simple concept, but it had simply never occurred to me before.
But how do you remember to do that? That’s the challenge. You could just trust your brain to somehow randomly bring it to mind every few years or so that it’s time to change your sump pump.
But I don’t really want my sump pump to take up even that much thought. I don’t want to have to program it into my head to pause every few years and say to myself, “is my sump pump getting to old?” I’d rather automate everything I can. It’s also less likely that I’ll totally blank it out since, after all, 7 years is a long time. And the consequences of forgetting can be large.
Enter the tickler file (or “action calendar,” which I call it because I keep it electronically). An action calendar is simply a list of repeating tasks that you keep in your task management software (whether Outlook, OmniFocus, Things, Remember the Milk, or whatever). You set each task to repeat at whatever interval you need. Every day or week (depending on how many tasks you have in there), you review it to see what needs to be taken care of.
In my action calendar I’m just going to create a repeating task for every 7 years to replace my sump pump. That way, before the pump gets to the point of failure (unless it breaks before it’s time — which is entirely possible!), it will be replaced. And I don’t have to think about it otherwise, because the reminder will come up automatically when it’s time.
Here’s the interesting thing: There are all sorts of things like this you need to keep track of as an adult, and they occur on both short-term and very long-term intervals. Things like: refill the salt in the water softener, change the furnace filter, change smoke detector batteries, keep up with the kids’ immunizations, renew your tetanus shot (every 10 years), renew your passport (every 10 years), and so forth.
I used to think that there was some big mystery to remembering these things. That you just had to trust that they would come to mind at the right time. But there is no mystery to it. If you have a tickler file (action calendar), remembering when you need to change the furnace filter or update your tetanus shot or change your sump pump simply becomes a matter of creating a repeating task. That gets it off your mind, and you can trust that you’ll see it when you need to.
And it could save you a lot of hassle, also.
Shifting into Surge Mode
I agree entirely with the following section from Time Tactics of Very Successful People:
High achievers from many different fields speak of being able to regulate their intensity — of being able to phase in and out of an intense state. Some people call this intense state the “surge mode.”
Using the surge mode is a bit like using a passing gear in a car. Normally, when you’re driving, you don’t give a lot of conscious thought to putting your foot on the accelerator or on the brake. But sometimes you require an extra burst of power to get out of one lane and into another Then you need extra power, and you floor it. That’s what surge mode is.
There are may illustrations of high achievers using the surge mode. Mozart preferred to write music for an hour or so every morning when he got up. But when a piece was demanded, he would work day and night without sleep, sometimes seemingly mesmerized by the task.
Isaac Newton made three of his greatest discoveries during two years of virtually uninterrupted thought, study, and experimentation. Mark Twain wrote six of his best books — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Rough It, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Life on the Mississippi, and The Prince and the Pauper – during only two summers. He would write an entire day at a time, day after day. His daughter, Claire, remembers that he would come out in a white linen suit, with a pile of pads of paper under his arm. He would joke with his family and then head off toward the study. There he would spend the entire day, sometimes eating only one meal.
The surge mode is especially important among creative people, such as scientists, writers musicians, and designers. They will gather all the parts of the project together — the notes, the rough ideas, the books the research, the sketches — and spread it all before them on a desk or table. Then they dive in and don’t stop until a major part or sometimes all of the project is done.
It is really much more efficient to do huge chunks of work at a time than it is to start and stop a hundred times. The quality of the finished product is better too because it is more cohesive and has fewer seems.
This is spot on, in my view. I have found that shifting into a period of surge mode has been critical to every large endeavor I’ve sought to accomplish. I recognize that this concept may not be for everyone. But if you are among those who incline to this approach when you have high-impact, large, and important initiatives, you have a very powerful tool at your disposal. Use it.
Notes on Workspace Organization
These are my notes from a few years ago on organizing your workspace. They reflect a combination of points from Organizing for Dummies, Getting Things Done, and my own thoughts.
More detail could be given, but in the meantime they outline the big picture. I especially find helpful the observation that all of the permanent stuff you might have at your desk falls into four categories: supplies, equipment, reference, and decoration.
After that, the concept of centers is especially useful (although I currently do things a bit differently than what is represented in these notes).
Stuff At Your Desk
Permanent Stuff:
- Supplies: In drawers. Small stocks (only what need). Extras in supply room.
- Reference: File cabinets, bookshelves.
- Decoration: On desk, walls; keep limited.
- Equipment: On desk if used more than once per day; else, drawers.
Transient Stuff:
- Input to be processed: In box
- Current work items
- [If not electronic] Action reminders: Calendar, next action lists, project lists
- [If desired; I think these go best in a file drawer at your desk] Project support materials: Active projects file; planner.
Work Centers At Your Desk
Desktop centers:
- Phone center
- Computer center
- Capture tool center or planner center [if you use a paper tool for either]
- Work center
Drawer centers:
- Pen/pencil/related supplies center
- Mailing/finance center (if needed)
- Stapler/filing center
File Centers [in file drawers]:
- Pending
- Projects
- Operations
- Reference
- Archive
Basic Principles
- Like with like. One spot for all books. All filing cabinets together. Create centers for different tasks by grouping everything necessary for them together.
- Purge. All things that are unused or ill-suited should be tossed.
- Access. Goal is fingertip management. Use an L, U, or parallel shape for your desk. U is best, as it allows easiest access to the most desk space and equipment. Move infrequently used equipment, reference materials, and supplies to another room.
- Contain: Keep files in cabinets, books on shelves, and supplies in drawers.
- Evaluate: How do you feel? Does the work flow?
- The desk is a place to do work. Use REMOVE to reduce clutter and arrange desk properly.
- Reduce distractions.
- Everyday use (if not, drawers).
- Preferred side (all things go on right side if you are right handed; phone is one exception–it goes on opposite side).
- Organize together: Create work centers for phone, computer, time, etc. Phone center should include phone, message pad, pen nearby. Good for capturing thoughts and tossing into in-box as well.
- Empty the center (so you can work).
- Supplies are for the drawers. Group like things together. Turn each drawer into a work center: Central is pen/pencil; others are mailing/finance and stapler/filing.
Good Urgency vs. Bad Urgency
John Kotter, author of the recent book A Sense of Urgency, has a good interview discussing good urgency vs. bad urgency and how to lead in a recession.
The Paradox of Choice and the Meaning of Freedom
My wife has been enjoying the book The Paradox of Choice and I’m looking forward to reading it as well. The concept is simple: having more choices doesn’t always lead to more happiness. Often, it leads to paralyzed decision-making and discontent.
Here is the author’s presentation recently at TED, which gives a great summary of his key concepts:
I have one disagreement with Barry Schwartz in the video. He states at the beginning that maximizing individual freedom is a central tenet of western civilization, and that “the way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice. The more choice that they have, the more freedom they have, and the more freedom they have, the more welfare they have.”
I agree that maximizing individual freedom is a central tenet of Western civilization, but I think he has slightly misstated things thing when he says that this entails the idea that “the way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice.”
Many people believe that, probably. But that kind of freedom is not at the heart of Western civilization.
For example, the founders of this nation serve as a good representation, I would contend, of what the tenet of freedom means when it comes to the guiding principles of Western thought. And I don’t think that they saw the essence of freedom as maximizing choice.
The essence of freedom that was captured in the American Revolution and which, I would argue, is at the heart of Western society is rather the right to make your own decisions. The number of choices that you have is not ultimately relevant here. The main idea is that you get to choose, not the government or someone else.
You don’t need someone to provide you with a lot of options in order to be “free” in this sense. It’s about choosing your own path and making your own decision — and, if you think you don’t have enough options, finding a way and possibly creating more options yourself.
That’s the view of freedom that is at the heart of Western society. Schwartz is taking aim at another view of freedom — a very common one, and perhaps one that is pervasive and dominant at this current juncture in history and going back a generation or two, but not one that should be characterized as central to Western civilization per se.
The view of freedom that Schwartz is taking aim at here, which so values maximizing options, is in part behind a recent mutation of the original Western view of freedom. This mutation holds that if you don’t have health care, you aren’t free, or that if you don’t earn a “living wage,” you aren’t free, because both things limit your options. It is then implied that the government ought to provide these things for people, “in the name of freedom.”
Schwartz of course isn’t discussing that mutation on the concept of freedom. But I think it goes to show the importance of getting this term correct.
To conclude: I’m not against having lots of options; I just want to point out that the value of maximizing individual freedom does not depend upon the number of options you have. And it certain does not entail that we have a duty to maximize people’s options. Rather, it simply entails that we let people make their own decisions. This includes, of course, the decision to generate more options — as well as the decision, which Schwartz does a good job contending for, not to always seek out a wide range of options.
Doubling Your Time
A few years ago I heard someone say: “Every hour of sleep before midnight is worth two, and every hour of work before noon is worth two.”
That’s a pretty good principle in general. It would need to be nuanced, of course, when it comes to those who are naturally most productive late at night. But as a general statement, it points to the high productive value of making the most of the morning.
Although maybe you could have the best of both worlds. If you went to bed at 9 pm, you’d have six hours of sleep by midnight and could then get up, ready to attack the day…
Resolutions and the New Testament
John Piper had a great article the other day called Let’s Make Some Autumn Resolutions.
A resolve — such as a New Year’s resolution or, in the case of Piper’s article, an “autumn resolution” — is essentially something you intend to do, change, or become more of. It can be initiated by a change in the calendar (new year, new fall), but it doesn’t have to be. A resolve is anything you intend for good.
In other words, a resolve is basically a goal. Which brings it right into the scope of what we are talking about when we discuss productivity.
It might be a small goal of something you want to accomplish over the next week, which in GTD terminology would be called a “project.” Or it might be a larger goal of something you intend or aim to accomplish over a longer period, which in GTD terminology would would be called a “long-term goal.” And it can range in content from “become more kind” (something you want to become) to “start a new business” (something you want to do) to “become an early riser” (a habit you want to install).
The interesting thing, then, is that a “resolve” is not some foreign concept that is different from what we are talking about when we talk about productivity, plans, and goals. Planning, goal-setting, and implementing are all simply different kinds of resolves.
And so it is very interesting to note that the New Testament actually speaks of resolves. Which leads us to Piper’s article. Here are some of the high points.
To begin, Piper refers to 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, where Paul writes about resolves:
To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
He then points out from this text that resolves (that is, aims/intentions/goals) are good:
I find this extremely encouraging. Paul prays for us-and I pray for you even as I write this-that God will “fulfill every resolve for good” that we have. This means that it is good to have resolves. God approves of it.
But, we are not able to accomplish our resolves without God’s enabling:
It also means that our resolving is important, but that God’s enabling us to “fulfill” the resolves is crucial. Paul wouldn’t pray if God’s help weren’t needed. “The heart of man plans [resolves!] his way, but the Lord establishes [fulfills!] his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).
Further, how we resolve matters immensely:
When Paul says, “every resolve for good and every work of faith,” he is not describing two different acts. He is describing one act in two ways. It is a “resolve for good” because we will it. It is a “work of faith” because we depend on Jesus to give us power to fulfill it. That’s how we resolve-by faith in Jesus.
So Paul says that the fulfilling of the resolve is “by his power.” That’s what we are depending on. That’s what we are looking for when we resolve. We are looking to Jesus who promised to be with us and help us. “I know that through . . . the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance” (Philippians 1:19).
This explains the words “so that” in Paul’s prayer: “…so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you.” When you resolve something good and trust in the power of Jesus to help you do it, then “the name of our Lord Jesus is glorified.” If you depend on your willpower, your name will be glorified.
Piper expands on this point further in a sermon called God Glorified in Good Resolves:
Do you see the difference between morality and Christianity? Do you see why I say so often that there is a godless immorality and a godless morality? Well, here it is right here. Paul says, don’t make good resolves godlessly. And what makes a good resolve godless? Not depending on God’s power for its fulfillment, and not giving God the glory for its fulfillment.
So, what should we do in light of these things? Make resolves. And do it in God’s power:
So pause sometime soon. Pause and examine your life this autumn. Examine what is missing that should be there. What is there that should be removed? What new dreams for ministry might you venture? What new habits do you want to build into your Fall schedule?
Remember: God will be pleased with new resolves for good if you resolve by faith in Jesus. I am praying for you “that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.”
It is worth reading the whole thing, and also his earlier sermon on this text that I also mentioned above, God Glorified in Good Resolves, where Piper states: “The doctrine that I would like to develop from these verses is this: IT IS THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANS TO SEEK GOD’S POWER TO FULFILL GOOD RESOLVES.”
The Hidden Cost of Debt (and a rule of thumb on when to use it)
There is a good article at the Personal MBA blog on the nefarious hidden cost of debt.
And, although not the point of the article, there is a good section on when debt can sometimes be beneficial. This is often overlooked by those hitting (rightly) the note on the dangers of debt and needs to be kept in mind. Here’s the section (with a very good rule of thumb on when to use debt in the last paragraph):
Debt can be beneficial in the same way that fire is beneficial – it can be a useful tool, but you’ll get burned if you’re not careful.
Here’s an example: I used a credit card to purchase the laptop I’m using right now. It’s the primary tool I use in my work – I use it to write, manage this website, communicate with clients, and finish projects. Having a good computer makes it much easier to do my work, so I took on a reasonable amount of debt to obtain a good one.
Taking on a small amount of debt gave me access to a very useful tool 2-3 months before I’d be able to save enough money to purchase one with cash, and actually having the computer gave me the capability to pay it off a month later. That was a good investment, and a good use of debt.
Small revolving debts usually won’t get you in trouble. Debt becomes destructive as the amount gets bigger, either through large investments or the accumulation of small purchases.
The easiest way to stay out of debt is to avoid taking it on in the first place. Here’s a useful rule of thumb that’ll keep you out of trouble: if it’s not going to help you make more money within the next 3 months, don’t take on debt to buy it. That goes for everything from household goods to movie tickets.
When Tactics Drown Out Strategy
Seth Godin had an excellent post a few days ago on tactics drowning out strategy. I find it especially relevant because (1) my role is “director of strategy” and (2) I’m spending the entire day today on strategy (which, at this point at least, I try to do every Thursday — and as a result have to say no to a lot of good tactical stuff.)
New media creates a blizzard of tactical opportunities for marketers, and many of them cost nothing but time, which means you don’t need as much approval and support to launch them.
As a result, marketers are like kids at Rita’s candy shoppe, gazing at all the pretty opportunities.
Most of us are afraid of strategy, because we don’t feel confident outlining one unless we’re sure it’s going to work. And the ‘work’ part is all tactical, so we focus on that. (Tactics are easy to outline, because we say, “I’m going to post this.” If we post it, we succeed. Strategy is scary to outline, because we describe results, not actions, and that means opportunity for failure.)
“Building a permission asset so we can grow our influence with our best customers over time” is a strategy. Using email, twitter or RSS along with newsletters, contests and a human voice are all tactics. In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy… and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place.
The next time you find yourself spending 8 hours on tactics and five minutes refining your strategy, you’ll understand what’s going on.
A lot of people don’t get this. The pressure is to simply “perform,” and time spent on strategy is looked at as slowing you down and wasting your time.
Others think that strategy just comes naturally if there are smart people on your team, so it should never take more than a few minutes of thought. Whenever someone says “why can’t you see that? It’s obvious!” it’s often an indication that, no matter how smart they are, they don’t have a clue. There’s always a twist. Almost always, that is.
Perhaps most significantly, there is the false idea out there that thinking you should have a strategy somehow implies that you also think you can somehow know the future. But it doesn’t imply that. In large measure, you are strategizing for the unknown. Strategizing because of the unknown.
Thoughts on Daily To Do Lists
An interesting dilemma in blogging (at least for me) is the balance between posts that reflect a more settled position on things and posts that capture my in-process, very-much-in-development, top-of-mind reflections on various things. I think most of my posts fall into the former category.
This one falls into the latter category: a few random thoughts on daily to-do lists that aren’t necessarily settled positions, but reflect some tentative observations. So, take it in that light.
Here’s the issue: In Getting Things Done, David Allen says that GTD means “no more daily to-do lists.” (Since these are just rough thoughts, I won’t look up the page number.) Instead, you manage your day from an inventory of all of your next actions, most of which have “as soon as possible” status but which also includes “even the most time-sensitive actions.”
An inventory of non-scheduled, “as soon as possible” stuff is fine. But I have found that not having a daily list in addition to that is fantastically frustrating and unworkable for me. (I’d like to put that in stronger terms, but might regret it.)
As you know, I highly recommend Getting Things Done and find Allen’s approach very helpful and worthwhile. But I do think that some aspects of the approach need to be tweaked a bit, at least for me (and I think, probably, others).
Allen’s mindset on these things seems to be “if that works for you, go for it.” So, while there is an important core to GTD, it is also very adaptable and flexible. Thus, although my thoughts here are probably outside of conventional GTD wisdom, I don’t think that they are contrary to the spirit of the approach.
With that in mind: Some reasons I find it unworkable not to have some type of a daily to-do list are as follows.
Pacing
I find it impossible to pace myself without some version of a daily to-do list. I have found that there is no way to know when I am “done” for the day without some type of daily list, given that there are always more actions you can do.
Deadlines
I find it more complicated than it needs to be to keep up with deadlines without some version of a daily-to-do list. This is a corollary to not being able to pace myself without one.
The fact is that if I have 4 larger projects that need to be done over the next two weeks, I will not be able to focus my progress on those projects if I just let their next actions remain in a set of “as soon as possible” next actions. Keeping them in that kind of list gives them equal weight with the less time-sensitive actions. But they don’t have equal weight.
And the reality is that my intuition does not function to make me always pick those time-sensitive actions out of the mix of all the others at the right time. Instead, I find that my tendency is to want to get rid of the smaller actions because they feel like they are “clogging things up.” Then more smaller things come up (I think Merlin Mann calls these “mosquito tasks”), creating a cycle of frustration.
Hence, because of the role that systems play in influencing behavior even contrary to the best intentions, I’ve found that I need to bake it right into my productivity system to focus my attention on the most important and/or time-sensitive actions.
The Ambiguity in Truly Defining What Must Be Done Today
David Allen writes that “if there’s something on a daily to-do list that doesn’t absolutely have to get done that day, it will dilute the emphasis on the things that truly do.”
It seems to me this concept, however, very quickly runs into unhelpful ambiguity: How do you define what truly has to be done today?
Is it defined by what your boss tells you that you have to do? By deadlines others have set and want you to comply with? By contextual realities (Fred is going out of town Saturday, so you have to call him on Friday)?
I think the reality is that there are very few things that absolutely have to be done on any given day. But there are many things which, if not done this week, will simply make your life a lot more complicated and put you behind on your projects. Hence, if you only put on your calendar (or a daily to-do list) things that absolutely have to get done that day, you will get out of step with things. And you might find that all of a sudden, you have a large number of actions that “suddenly” need to get done today — but now you don’t have enough space in the day to do them.
Further, if it is OK to regard action A as something that has to be done today because someone else (such as your boss or manager) said it needs to be done by that time, why isn’t the fact that you yourself simply want something done today enough of a reason as well?
In other words, I think that more important than deadlines other people give us are the time frames that we want to meet simply because we want to. Or, to put it differently, the mere fact that you think it will work best to get action A done today is sufficient reason to make it a “have to do today” item. And without a daily section of your next action list, the decision to do that item today will not be reflected in your list, and so it will be easy to end up overlooking.
List, Not Calendar
Some people block off time on their calendar to do very important tasks. I think that is a great practice. It does not scale to every important or time sensitive action you have, however.
The reason it doesn’t scale is that there may be, for example, five 10-minute actions that you need to get done today. Add those to your calendar would be cumbersome. Slotting them into specific times would assume greater precision than is likely possible. But creating them as “all day events” in your calendar program also quickly gets cumbersome as well. Calendar programs are not designed for holding a bunch of all-day events — it quickly starts to feel cluttered.
Hence, while I do recommend blocking off time on your calendar for sizable tasks, an actual list is still necessary when you have multiple smaller actions that you need to accomplish in a day.
But What About Re-Writing?
The idea that those who create daily to-do lists always end up having to recopy a ton of items that they didn’t get done to the next day is, in my view, an incorrect stereotype. Sure, that may be the case for some people. But it doesn’t have to be the case.
First, many people have the discipline to actually do what they decide they will do. You can develop this discipline. Second, it’s really a matter of being realistic with yourself and not over-scheduling. Third, in the age of copy and paste, it is not hard if you do have to revise things every day, even significantly.
Fourth, if you do find yourself having to carry over a bunch of items from one day to the next, regard that as a learning process. That is showing you that you are over estimating what you are able to do. So stop planning so many things for your day. This realization is one of the central uses of doing this — it forces you to start being realistic about what you can get done, so that you can then become more selective in deciding what you really will do, and what should be eliminated because, while nice, it’s less important and needs to give way.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, this concept is not as foreign to GTD as may at first seem. For Allen does say in Getting Things Done that “having a working game plan as a reference point is always useful, but it must be able to be renegotiated at any moment.”
That’s really what I’m advocating here: creating a working game plan for your day. I just see this as implying a bit more than what seems to be contemplated in the standard GTD approach.
A key to making this work is to remain flexible. This doesn’t mean regarding the items on the list as mere “hopes” of what you will do that day. Rather, it means not outlining literally everything you will do that day. Keep it as basic as possible and to the most important things. Two hours of work is probably enough. Preserve lots of time for being able to do things not on your list that fit the flow of the day, and for being able to meet the needs of others that arise.
Five Freedoms We’d Lose Under Obama’s Health Care Plan
A good article from CNN Money.
(HT: JT)
Small Things Add Up. And:
A lot of productivity books give advice like this: “If cleaning out your garage (or closet, or some other organizing task) seems overwhelming to you, just do it for ten minutes a day. That way it’s not overwhelming, and since small things add up, after a few weeks it will be all done.”
It’s not likely that I’ll give that kind of advice very often.
I agree very much that small things add up. We should absolutely maximize that concept in our lives. For example, exercising just 30 minutes a day adds up and pretty soon you’re in shape and maintaining pretty good health. Reading 30 minutes every night before bed adds up and pretty soon you’ll find that you’re getting through almost two books a month. Being a decent person, day after day, makes a difference.
So small things, done consistently, make a big difference.
But you have to be very selective in applying that idea to things like organizing your garage or getting that closet cleaned out.
The reason is that things like trying to clean out your garage a little each day create a productivity complexity. When are you going to do it? How are you going to remember to do it? It’s hard enough to protect sufficient time to play with the kids after work. And you’re going to remember to spend 10 minutes cleaning out the garage every day as well. Really?
Maybe you would. The problem is this: Small things add up, and you can only have so many small things going on at once.
Many of the productivity books fail to take the second part of that truth into account, and as a result they start suggesting that you apply this principle to all sorts of non-routine projects. Are your files disorganized? Purge a little every day. Hate that closet? Do something to improve it every day. Desk cluttered? Find ways to improve the organization every day. Sock drawer messy? Fix it a bit every day. Pretty soon, you’ve got a thousand “small things” that you are trying to do every day.
That’s why I don’t give advice like that. If your sock drawer needs organized, do it in one shot. If your garage needs organized, the mental gear-shifting it would take to do a little every day would be extremely inefficient, given all the factors involved. So block off 2 hours and do that in one shot.
I think, when it comes to organizational tasks like these, the reason they seem overwhelming is not that they are large, but because we don’t know how. If you don’t have any idea how to organize your garage, you won’t want to do it. So a better approach than doing a little bit every day when you still don’t know what you’re really doing is to first learn how (by looking at a book like Organizing for Dummies) and then block off the time to do it in one shot. And I would apply this to all those other projects that the organization books recommend doing “a little at a time.”
The result will be that you have less “moving parts” going on in your life, and you can then truly apply the “small things done consistently” principle to the things that matter most. Be gracious to people, every day, in the small things as well as the large. Exercise every day. Read at least 30 minutes every day.
And, once that garage is picked up, keep it from getting disorganized again by putting things back where they belong right away and straightening it up as soon as you notice something out of order.
Without Time to Think, You Will Not Get Very Far
From Time Tactics of Very Successful People:
Don’t confuse busyness with efficiency. An organization’s best people sometimes spend their most productive time seemingly daydreaming.
Busyness may, in fact, be counterproductive. “It is necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant,” says James D. Watson. He is a Nobel laureate who shared the prize with Francis Crick for successfully discovering the genetic code of DNA. The story of how underemployed they were — the stories of their meanderings and long weekends, parties, visits, and other diversions — is told delightfully in The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, a human-side-of-science classic.
Watson and Crick had the luxury of being able to study all sorts of ideas, interact with scientists in many fields, attend conferences all over the world. But most of all, Watson and Crick had time to think about what they were reading and hearing and seeing. That’s what Watson means when he praises underemployment.
If these two researchers had not received generous research grants, if they had needed to hold down two jobs in order to make ends meet, they probably would not have made the discovery that revolutionized biological research. Thanks to generous support plus the British university tradition that emphasizes contemplation, Watson and Crick were sufficiently underemployed to do something significant.
People on treadmills don’t get very far [emphasis added]. If you’re so busy working that you have no time to think about what you’re working at, you’ll be unable to make full use of your accomplishments.
Underemployment provides the time between activities to reflect on what you’ve just finished and think, “What does this mean?” “How can I exploit what I have done?” Underemployment provides the time to figure out other ways than the obvious to use what you’re producing. And it provides time to consider how what you’ve done fits with what’s already been done.
Old Media vs New Media Continued: What is a Platform?
From What Would Google Do? (pp. 32ff):
Networks are built atop platforms. The internet is a platform, as is Google, as are services such as photo site Flickr, blogging service WordPress.com, payment service PayPal, self-publishing company Lulu.com and business software company Salesforce.com A platform enables. It helps others build value.
Any company can be a platform. Home Depot is a platform for contractors and Continental Airlines is a platform for book tours. Platforms help users create products, businesses, communities, and networks of their own. If it is open and collaborative, those users may in turn add value to the platforms — as IBM does when it shares the improvements it makes in the open-source Linux operating system.
….
In the old architecture and language of centralized, controlling businesses, Google Maps would be a product that consumers may use, generating an audience that Google could sell to advertisers. That’s if Google wanted to stay in control.
Instead, Google handed over control to anyone. It opened up maps so others could build atop them. This openness has spawned no end of new applications known as “mashups.”
….
Opening Google Maps as a platform spawned not just neat applications but entire businesses. Mobile phone companies are building Google maps into their devices, which gets maps into the hands of new customers. Platial.com built an elegant user interface atop Google Maps that lets users place pins at any locations, showing the world anyone’s favorite restaurants or a family’s stops on vacation. Neighbors can collaborate and create a map pinpointing all the potholes in town. That map could, turn, be embedded on a blog or a newspaper page. News sites have used maps to have readers pinpoint their photos during big stories, such as floods in the U.K.
Thinking in terms of how to make your company a platform is a key to success in the new economy. So, some questions to ask yourself:
How can you act as a platform? What can others build on top of it? How can you add value? How little value can you extract? How big can the network atop your platform grow? How can the platform get better learning from users? How can you create open standards so even competitors will use and contribute to the network and you get a share of their value? It’s time to make your own virtuous circle.
If Google Thought Like an Old Media Company
This is instructive on the difference between old media and new media. From What Would Google Do?, by Jeff Jarvis:
[Old media companies] all want to control the internet because that is how they view their worlds. Listen to the rhetoric of corporate value: Companies own customers, control distribution, make exclusive deals, lock out competitors, keep trade secrets. The internet explodes all those points of control. It abhors centralization. It loves sea level and tears down barriers to entry. It despises secrecy and rewards openness. It favors collaboration over ownership. The once-powerful approach the internet with dread when they realize they cannot control it.
….
If Google thought like an old-media company — like, say, Time Inc. or Yahoo — it would have controlled content, built a wall around it, and tried to keep us inside. Instead, it opened up and put its ads anywhere, building an advertising network so vast and powerful that it is overtaking both the media and advertising industries even as it collaborates with and powers them online. There’s Google’s next virtuous circle: The more Google sends traffic to sites with its ads, the more money it makes; the more money those sites make the more content they can create for Google to organize. Google also helps those sites by giving them content and functionality: maps, widgets, search pages, YouTube videos. Google feeds the network to make the network grow.
I am surprised that old media companies have not tried to copy Google’s model — that is, creating open networks.
In sum, it comes down to create closed networks you try to control (old media), or creating and feeding open networks you don’t try to control.
About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Former director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
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