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2 Easy Ergonomics Tips for Your Computer

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I just got a stand to set my laptop on while it’s on my desk and connected to my other monitor. The user’s guide had two helpful ergonomics tips in it:

  1. Center your external keyboard with your screen.
  2. Put your screen at eye level and arm distance.

The idea of putting your monitor at arm distance was new to me, and is already proving incredibly helpful. First, it’s probably better on my eyes. Second, I find that I simply enjoy using my computer more when my monitor is farther away.

That’s a simple change that I’ve found to have significant results.

Stop Interrupting Yourself

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Interruptions are not necessarily things other people do to you. The biggest type of interruption is what you do to yourself by constantly switching gears from one unrelated task to another.

Chunk your time by focusing on important tasks in large segments, and grouping similar tasks together, to prevent this.

The Better You Get, the Better You'd Better Get

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David Allen’s second book, Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life, has a lot of helpful points.

One chapter in there is called “the better you get, the better you’d better get.” Very provocative, and very true.

His point is that as you become more efficient and effective and produce more with less effort, “it graduates your responsibilities and your attraction to bigger problems and opportunities — automatically. Hang on. Increasing your effectiveness is not the easy path, though it is by far the most rewarding” (p. 124).

In other words, as you become more effective, more room is created to do things and so you automatically start to take on more and tackle more difficult opportunities. So, in turn, you have to become even more effective to handle those.

That is so interesting and could be pondered in great detail. It echoes a principle that exists in many areas. For example, a few years ago I was reading a book on energy, The Bottomless Well. It made the point that increased energy efficiency has not decreased energy usage but rather increased it.

For example, as computers become more energy efficient, we don’t keep using them to do the same amount of work we did before. Rather, over time we begin to do more with them, thus using more energy overall. “Efficiency increases consumption. It makes what we ultimately consume cheaper, and lower price almost always increases consumption. To curb energy consumption, you have to lower efficiency, not raise it. But nobody, it seems, is in favor of that. [And rightly so!]” (p. 123).

So this is the interesting paradox: If you want to do less, you should actually become less efficient and less effective. But that’s clearly not the right path. That is the path of lethargy, and it is not virtuous. (And you’ll only be doing “less” in the sense of less output — your effort to get that smaller output will be much higher.)

Instead, as you become more effective, you need to in turn increase your effectiveness even more in order to handle the greater responsibilities that you will naturally be tackling. And you will need to become even better at prioritizing and determining what, out of all the new opportunities before you, is best to focus on. As Allen writes, “this is not the easy path. But it is the most rewarding.”

Effective Communication Requires Both Advocacy and Inquiry

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A great point made by Patrick Lencioni in his latest email newsletter that is worth remembering:

Chris Argyris, a professor at Harvard, came up with the idea years ago that people need to engage in both ‘advocacy’ and ‘inquiry’ in order to communicate effectively. Advocacy amounts to stating an opinion or an idea, while inquiry is the act of asking questions or seeking clarity about someone else’s opinion or idea. Frankly, one part advocacy and two parts inquiry is a mix I like to see on teams.

Very insightful. This has implications not only for communication (and teams, the direction Lencioni takes it), but also learning. When I think about how I learn best, this really gets to the heart of things. You learn by inquiring, and you also learn by advocating.

Advocating, in other words, has value not simply as a means of convincing others to your point of view. It is also a means of learning in itself. By having a position on a matter and advocating for it, we come to understand the issues better.

Key lesson: Don’t think you are doing people favors by remaining neutral. That’s boring, anyway. Have a point of view. That is far more interesting and will lead to much greater understanding on all sides. Don’t worry that this might “create controversy.” As long as you are polite and respectful, people appreciate (and benefit from) someone with a point of view.

Quickly Switching Between Tabs in Firefox and IE

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When you have multiple tabs open in Firefox or IE, you can switch between them quickly using control + tab.

Everyone knows that you can quickly switch between programs (for example, Firefox and Word) using command + tab (in a Mac) and alt + tab (in Windows). But it used to bug me that I couldn’t switch between tabs within my web browser with similar efficiency.

Turns out I just didn’t know how. Finally, the other day I discovered this by mistake. Probably most of you already knew this — it’s a bit humbling to acknowledge that I didn’t know that already! But for any of you who, like me, hadn’t yet figured out that control + tab switches between tabs, hopefully this can save you some time.

When to Break the Rules with Email, 2: Email Vacations

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As I discuss in my series of posts on email, one of the best practices for email management is to process your email inbox to zero every day. This is both doable and fundamental to effective workflow.

But there are times when your overall workflow is best served by taking a few days off from email — by taking an email vacation, even though you continue to do your other work during that time.

Why Email Vacations Can Be Helpful

Why would you need to take an email vacation? Well, sometimes you might have a project that is so large that it deserves concentrated focus for a period of several days. Checking your email during this period can disrupt your flow and take you out of the zone, thus diminishing your effectiveness and extending the time the project takes. Plus, email could open up a long rabbit trail that will take you away from the project entirely.

Other times, you may have just had enough and need a break. This is OK. In fact, sometimes you can find yourself in a vicious cycle where accomplishing email-related work is simply creating more work. You feel like you aren’t getting anywhere because completing things is just opening up way more loops that need to be addressed. Sometimes the best way to address that situation is to step away from email for a day or two and let things settle out.

Being productive is not about gutting out your email regardless of how you feel or what your situation is. Rather, being productive is precisely what enables you to take the time to step back, gain perspective, and take a day or two away from email. In fact, this is not only made possible by being productive, but is probably a necessary part of the foundation for remaining productive.

As I write this, this idea is beginning to feel more radical than I first thought, even though I have done this off and on for many years. It feels very strange to say “take a day or two away from email if you need.” That feels risky. And if you did it arbitrarily, it would be. So let me give you an example and then a few principles.

An Example

Here’s an example. We just moved into a new house, and so we have had all of the unpacking and organizing and various stuff that goes along with a move. So I just took a five day email vacation to finish this up as quickly as possible. (By the way, for anyone wondering from my earlier comment whether there could be any type of project that doesn’t require email, this is one example!)

The open loops involved in needing to get your house put away and office setup are the kind that create drag on your life if not dealt with quickly. So I decided it would be most effective to shut email off and get the remaining things done in 5 days rather than also do all my regular email and online stuff during that time and extend the project to 8 days or more. Also, I like being able to focus like this.

It just so happened that these last 5 days fell over the Thanksgiving holiday. So, one could object that this really wasn’t an email holiday — most people had a long weekend. But that gets to one of the key principles in all this: you need to time your email vacations strategically. I intentionally put my “email vacation” during a time when it would have minimal impact on my ongoing responsibilities. (Plus, I normally would have kept up with email at least 3 out of those 5 days, so this was a real email vacation.)

Another thing I wanted to do over the holiday was relax, and the email break served that as well. Finishing all the move-in stuff, plus keeping up with my email, would have likely meant that email would have actually taken the place of the time I needed to spend relaxing with my family.

Now, because I took 5 days away from email, I’m in a much better place to keep up with my email and ongoing responsibilities this week with minimal drag (not having all the move-in stuff hanging over my head and diverting my focus). By segmenting the last part of my move-in project from email, rather than doing both currently, both are actually accomplished more quickly.

So this email vacation was not contrary to being effective with email, but actually served that cause. And it is not contrary to the fundamental principle of processing your email to zero every day, but rather is one of the primary benefits of keeping up with email.

What Makes Email Vacations Possible

In other words, processing email to zero every day is precisely what makes email vacations possible. First, if you are current with your email, you don’t need to worry that you are forgetting about some huge task buried in your inbox. Second, because you know you’ll be getting your email right back to zero in a few days and be right back on top of things.

Best Practices for Email Vacations

Last, let me suggest a few best practices for taking email vacations. First, I already mentioned that you should time them strategically. Don’t take them arbitrarily (although sometimes you will spontaneously need to take one, which is just fine), but seek to place them in spots that will create minimal disruption.

Second, remain available by other means for important matters that are highly urgent. For example, the people you work with should know they can reach you by phone or text message whenever there is an immediate need.

Third, if you are taking more than a one-day email vacation and its during the work-week, it’s probably the best idea to create an auto response saying you’ll be away from email. I didn’t do this (sorry) because I forgot, but the fact that my 5-day email vacation was over a holiday weekend reduced the need for that.

Have a Great Thanksgiving

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I hope that everyone reading this blog has a great Thanksgiving.

I think the blog is off to a great start, and I really appreciate your readership. Incredibly, we’re already at 1,000 subscribers!

If I get the chance, I’ll still do a few posts over the long weekend. Mostly we’ve been focusing on getting unpacked, arranging furniture, and things like that since we just moved a little over a week ago. I hope to get most of that behind us over the weekend.

However you’ll be spending the holiday weekend, I hope you enjoy it and have a meaningful Thanksgiving. And thank you for reading this blog!

The Five Horizons of Workflow

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David Allen talks about viewing your work both horizontally and vertically.

The horizontal perspective is the process for actually carrying out your work — the five stages for executing your workflow. The vertical perspective pertains to how you define your work.

Allen uses an aerospace analogy to illustrate the six horizons from which to view our work. He defines them in this way (see Getting Things Done, page 51):

  1. Runway: Current actions.
  2. 10,000 feet: Current projects.
  3. 20,000 feet: Areas of responsibility.
  4. 30,000 feet: One- to two- year goals.
  5. 40,000 feet: Three- to five- year vision.
  6. 50,000 feet: Life (mission/long-term vision/values)

Each horizon “drives” the items at the level beneath. In other words, if you want to know where most of your next actions are coming from, there is probably a project (multi-step outcome) at the level above creating them. Likewise, if you want to know where your projects are coming from, there is probably an area of responsibility or larger goal at the level above creating most of them.

I have some nuances to bring to the exact way we should define these horizons, and a new horizon to introduce (the concept of operations, which fits in one way or another within areas of responsibility), but for now it is simply helpful to observe that we need to think of our work in terms of multiple horizons.

The upshot is this: If you want to get something accomplished, you need to break it down into its next-level components. For example, if you have a goal that you want to accomplish (30,000 foot level), you can’t just write it down somewhere and forget about it. Instead, you need to create a project or two (10,000 foot level) whose accomplishment will bring you closer to reaching your goal.

Likewise, when you have a project to accomplish (10,000 foot level), you need to determine what the next concrete actions are (runway level) that will bring you closer to completing your project.

Breaking things down to the next level beneath is a fundamental principle for getting things done.

How to Keep Track Of Websites You Need to Use a Lot, But Which Don't Have RSS

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I just got an email notifying me that a new account has been set up for me at a new Basecamp site we’re using to manage some projects.

Basecamp actually has an RSS feed you can subscribe to in order to stay up to date on your projects. Nice.

But a lot of sites that we need to use frequently in our work or regular life don’t have this. For example, to review and analyze our Google Analytics reports, I go to the actual site. Likewise with any agenda lists we keep online, financial sites, and other such stuff. Everybody has a bunch of stuff like this.

Here’s what I do when there is a site that I need to use frequently like this.

First, after I’ve created my account, I put the username and password in my passwords document. Even though Firefox (or IE if you use that) stores the passwords, sometimes the browser just won’t fill them in for me (this mostly happens with financial sites). This is also important for when the time comes that you switch computers, or browsers, and all that data doesn’t transfer in your browser.

My passwords document is a bit of a frustration because it is 16 pages, but it is simple. Each site is given a bold heading, then the username and password are underneath. There are some applications that seem to manage passwords well (like 1Password), but I haven’t taken the time yet to seriously compare how much time that would actually save me versus this document. (Also, don’t forget to password protect your password document!)

Second, I add the site to my bookmarks. The important thing here is to have your bookmarks organized well so that they are actually useful. If they aren’t organized well, they aren’t useful and you probably ignore them. See my previous post on how to organize your bookmarks for immediate access.

Third, this usually isn’t enough to remember to actually use the site. Often times the work itself contains natural reminders that will drive me to the site (as it is with Basecamp), and in those cases no further action is needed. But often times there needs to be some trigger reminding me to go check it.

For example, there is no natural trigger that sparks me to check our web stats every day. Some people are really good at just remembering the things they need (or want) to do every day. I’m not like that. When there are more than about 3 things I need to make sure and do every day or semi-frequently, I’m not going to remember to do them spontaneously. So I build them into my routine.

I have a daily routine that I go through every morning (with some exceptions) that contains the most basic things I want to make sure and do every day. One item in my routine is to process my email to zero. Another is to check our website reports (or, it used to be, until my role changed, although I should get back to doing that daily).

So if I’m going to need to review the site daily, I’ll put it in my daily routine. If less frequently, then I put it into my schedule for whatever frequency seems best (weekly, or whatever). And again, if other actions I take will naturally lead me to use the site (for example, paying bills each month naturally leads me to go to my credit card site), then it doesn’t need to go in the schedule, but having the site in your well-organized bookmarks is crucial.

The key principle here is: Don’t rely on your mind to remember to remember something, even your routines. Create a trigger. Sometimes the nature of your work will serve as the trigger, but when it doesn’t, put it in your schedule. Then use your mind for more important things than “remembering to remember,” like creativity and high-level planning and actual implementation.

When to Break the Rules With Email, #1

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No productivity approach or email approach can always be followed perfectly. A necessary element of any good approach is the ability to adapt even when things aren’t going smoothly and you have to break the rules.

As we’ve been discussing with email, I recommend totally clearing out the working folders (“answer,” “hold,” and “read”) at least once a day. The importance of this lies in the fact that if you don’t empty them regularly, they are just going to become another open loop that stays on your mind (and you’ll fall behind).

However, one of the values of these folders is that they enable you to easily adapt to the situation when you simply don’t have time to do much email for a series of days. This happens to all of us.

It happened to me just this week. I just moved last weekend, and then immediately had to head off to a conference on Tuesday. This has made time for email very scarce.

In times like this, it’s OK to go a few days without totally clearing out each of the folders. In fact, in these situations the folders become almost more valuable. They enable you to still keep you inbox at zero (since it doesn’t have to take too long to process your email into them), and then zero in on the ones that are most important. You can then deal with the most important ones so that they don’t fall through the cracks, and leave the rest for when you do have time.

The important thing is to not let this go on for too long and not to do it too often.

That is so important that I’m going to repeat it: It’s OK to let your working folders build up for a few days, but make sure to get them cleared out again as soon as possible. If you get in the habit of letting emails sit in those folders for extended periods of time, you lose a lot of the clarity and reduction in drag that this approach brings.

I’m sitting here at the airport getting my working folders cleared out right now. Unfortunately, I had a ridiculously early flight this morning and with everything else going on just said to myself “it’s not worth it.” But the next available flight was 4 hours later — more of a delay than I would have liked. But the good thing is that this just opened up a window of time to get those working folders cleared out so I can go into the weekend back to normal.