Resources on Productivity

Black Belt Productivity has an interview with Dave Crenshaw, author of The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done.

Of special note is Crenshaw’s answer to the first question, where he summarizes why multitasking is less efficient. In a nutshell, because it creates switching costs:

I like to use an economics and finance term to describe the waste of time; the term is switching cost. Switching cost usually refers to the cost and time and money of switching from one provider to another. In the case of multitasking, people feel that they are doing multiple things at the same time, but they are not. The brain is incapable of focusing on multiple tasks at the same time. When people attempt to multitask, what they are really doing is switching rapidly back and forth between tasks. Because of this, I prefer to refer to multitasking as switchtasking. It is because of these switches that people lose time in the switching cost. In this way, switchtasking causes us to be exponentially less productive.

Yes, productivity extends to driving!

At some point in the last few years — which I am reluctant to admit! — I forgot the protocol on what to do if you arrive at a 4-way stop at the same time as another vehicle. The result was a few occasions of awkward confusion for all drivers at hand. So I finally decided to look this up in my MN Driver’s Manual.

Here’s the protocol:

If each car arrived at a different time, then they leave in the order in which they arrived. To repeat: Leave in the order in which you got there.

If two vehicles arrive at the same time, the driver on the left defers to the driver on the right. In other words: The driver on the right goes first.

If two vehicles arrive at the same time and one of them is signaling a turn across the path of the other, then the one who is not turning has right of way.

If you had to wait in a line at the intersection to get to the stop sign, this does not change anything. Each car stops and then follows the above rules as if no one else had been in line before him. (In other words, you can’t conclude that you were there before the person at the other intersection just because the car in front of you was there before him or her.)

If you are at a T-intersection with a 3-way stop, the vehicle that does not have to turn has right of way.

Also of note: Stop lights that are blinking red or not working at all should be treated as 4-way stops.

Finally, here’s another summary at E-How, and then a humorous one which came up at the top of the results when I just now googled this.

Audible.com has the audiobook of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey available for free for a limited time.

(HT: JS)

When you start practicing GTD, you usually end up rather quickly with about 70 projects on your list. That is fairly typical for most people, and it is a genuine reflection of the digital and dynamic environments that most of us find ourselves in.

Here’s the problem: Nobody can manage 70 projects at once. You shouldn’t even try. Just as multitasking in the day-to-day dilutes your effectiveness, so also improper multitasking at the project level (10,000 feet) dilutes your effectiveness.

This is actually a pretty serious problem, because it truly has significant potential to diminish your effectiveness. Listen to Peter Drucker on this:

The answer to the question “What needs to be done?” almost always contains more than one urgent task. But effective executives do not splinter themselves. They concentrate on one task if at all possible. If they are among those people — a sizable minority — who work best with a change of pace in their working day, they pick two tasks. I have never encountered an executive who remains effective while tackling more than two tasks at a time. (The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, page xii).

Wow — Drucker has never seen an executive [= knowledge worker, basically] remain effective while tackling two or more tasks at once. Yet most of us, myself included, have typically been trying to battle against 70. I long ago concluded that this was a battle I could not win. But it has taken me years to figure out the solution because the GTD approach itself can actually end up fighting against you.

To be sure, I think Drucker is primarily talking here about a horizon that is even higher than the 10,000 foot project level — probably the 30,000 foot level of major goals — while also touching on the day-to-day. Yet the principle remains valid at the project level: Trying to do too many projects at once will kill your effectiveness.

So in this post we are going to do three things:

1. Look at this problem of 10,000 foot multitasking in more detail
2. Outline the solution
3. Answer a few questions on how this relates to the broader GTD approach

The Problem: Dilution of Your Efforts

The book Never Check E-Mail In the Morning tells the story of a woman who was very hard working, but never seemed to get anything done. It was to the point where they were going to have to consider letting her go.

Then someone took a look at how she did her work, and they realized that she was working on about 30 projects at once. Over the course of a week, she would do about 1-2 things on each of those 30 projects, instead of working on one to completion, moving on to the next and completing it, and so forth.

As a result, she was indeed accomplishing quite a few tasks. But her efforts were diffused over so many projects that it never seemed like she was ever getting anything done or making clear progress.

This is a form of multitasking run amok. It is overdone multitasking at the 10,000 foot level — instead of doing multiple things at once in the day-to-day, she was trying to keep so many projects moving at once that her ability to move each one forward slowed down to a crawl.

Far better to focus your efforts on a few things, get them done, then move on to the next thing.

It is as though the number of projects you try to keep moving at once is inversely proportional to the speed at which you can move them forward. The less projects you have going on at once, the more quickly you will be able to move them forward. The more projects you have going on at once, the more slowly you will be able to move each forward.

Now, in the example above that person would eventually finish all 30 projects, just as the person who works largely one by one will. But the difference will be this: The person whose efforts are diffused will generally be finishing his or her projects a long ways out and “in bulk,” with little sense of accomplishment and momentum carrying her along. But the person who goes about those same projects largely one by one will have a continual record of progress all along the way — plus growing momentum and the satisfaction of actually getting somewhere.

Here’s the thing: GTD unintentionally can lead you to work like the person whose efforts are diffused over too many things. Because GTD so heavily emphasizes capturing what you should be doing without asking the question of whether you should be doing those things at all, your list of current outcomes (projects) can quickly rise to a level of 50, 70, or more. Such a structure naturally leads you — without even trying — to do some of everything, and thus little with concentrated focus.

Your system, in other words, subtly but significant directs the way you approach your work. Having 70 projects on your list naturally inclines you to diffuse your efforts over far too many things rather than focus on a few, most important things.

The Solution: Create an “Upcoming” Category in Your Project List

What’s the solution? It’s actually pretty simple. Divide your projects list into two categories:

Current Projects

Upcoming Projects

Keep your “current projects” category well-pruned and very short. Put the stuff that you need to do, but don’t have to be working on at the present time, in your upcoming category. As you complete items on the current projects list, transfer things up from the upcoming list.

You can let the upcoming list get up to 70 or 100 or more. It doesn’t matter there, because you aren’t giving your efforts to that list. And when you do move items up from it onto the current list, you can see the big picture and make sure you are picking what is truly most important to do next.

If you like, you can even turn your upcoming projects list into a schedule. You can give start dates and due dates in there so that you start the projects at the right times and keep things moving at the pace you need — although if you do that, also make sure to keep some projects “free” and without due dates so that you don’t become overly driven by that schedule.

Now, make note of this: Whenever it is time to activate more upcoming projects, you should re-evaluate your whole list to see if your priorities remain the same. Then activate the 1-2 items on that upcoming list which now most reflect what your priorities are. This is a fundamental for the effective knowledge worker. As Peter Drucker notes:

After completing the original top-priority task, the executive resets priorities rather than moving on to number two from the original list. He asks, ‘What must be done now?’ This generally results in new and different priorities.” (The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, xiii.)

Questions

Can You Still Have Multiple Projects Active at Once?

Now, don’t we have to be able to do some projects simultaneously? Yes, we do. I’m not saying that you should only have one project on your current list. You might have 5 or even 10.

In your actual day-to-day execution of tasks, literally do one thing at a time when it comes to things that require focus. At the 10,000 foot level concerning what larger outcomes you are keeping in play, there is room for some legitimate multitasking — that is, keeping more than one project in play at once.

But, what I’m saying is that there is a limit to how many projects you can do simultaneously. Abide by that limit — and, in order to do this, you need to make your project list reflect it. And if you ever have any free time, you can always work ahead on that “upcoming” list.

How Does This Relate to the Someday/Maybe List?

Last of all, someone might say: But isn’t that “upcoming” category really what the someday/maybe list is for? I’ve found that not to be sufficient. I have, I think, about 2,000 things on my someday maybe lists. I actually had to create about 75 different someday maybe lists to keep this from getting unwieldy (books to read, household projects to do, movies to see, things to see and do, blog posts to write, things to grill, etc.).

I know I’ve probably overdone that a bit, but I think the principle is valid that we need something in between “someday maybe” and “current projects.” Hence, “upcoming projects.”

The difference between upcoming projects and someday/maybe is that upcoming projects are things that you really have to do — just not yet. Someday/maybe items are things that you don’t have to do, but might want to do at some point. I don’t want projects that I have to do in the future (just not now) getting lost in the mix of things I might want to do in the future but don’t have to.

Here is a quick example: Our digital camera is on the fritz. We need a new one. But I don’t have time to do that yet. So, I put that on my “upcoming projects” list. I’ll move it up to current when I have the time to deal with that. This is not someday/maybe — I really need to do it. But I don’t need to be doing it now, either.

There are a whole bunch of interesting tricks you can implement with an upcoming list. As I mentioned above, you can even create a schedule of upcoming projects if you so desire — sort of a 10,000 foot tickler file. You also need to become adept at utilizing your higher-level goals and priorities (20,000 foot level and above) to help you decide which projects are most important right now. But I will leave those things for another time.

I’m beginning to think more and more that being able to view my actions by area of responsibility (parenting, learning, community, household, etc.) is far more important to me than being able to view them by context (at home, at office, at computer, etc.).

Here’s why: It’s easier to make sure that you are doing the right things.

For when you have your actions grouped by context, you don’t see what purpose they serve. Let’s say you have have 25 “@computer” actions, 18 of which involve your “learning” responsibility because a few friends had a field day sending you interesting articles all week that got deferred onto your action list. (I actually rarely defer online reading to action lists, but it was the clearest example that came to mind.) The by context view would not illuminate the fact that maybe you’re doing enough learning this week, and need to have a higher mix of actions pertaining to other areas in your plan.

I know that it is not GTD orthodoxy, at present, to explicitly bring areas of responsibility to bear on the day-to-day. The approach is rather to let your intuition bring this on its own, if needed, and to review an areas of responsibility trigger list maybe once a month. However, this has never satisfied me. It has never overcome my sense that something is missing when we organize actions by context.

So my hypothesis for the last while has been that what is missing is this wider connection to our roles. Plugging away at 23 “@computer” actions typically leaves me feeling aimless. Sure, I did a bunch of “computer” stuff, but what did I really get done?

This is where the focus on the higher altitudes that Covey’s perspective in The 7 Habits can be a good supplement to the GTD methodology. There is a way to relate actions to roles that complicates, for sure, but there is also a way to do this right. More to come down the road…

It is an interesting phenomenon: Doing work doesn’t always result in less work to be done. Sometimes it results in more work.

For when you complete task A, at least two things might happen. First, you might be freed up to then do the next step on something — which might even be bigger. Second, you might notice that there is something else that needs to be done that you couldn’t see before.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. But it does mean that we shouldn’t necessarily think that the way to “get on top of things” is to do more work, in the elusive quest to ahead of the game on all fronts.

Now, I do believe that there is a way to get ahead on all fronts, if we define that accurately. But the path is probably more counter-intuitive than we initially realize. The one thing I do know is that it takes something other than simply working through our tasks to get there.

I think Stephen Covey starts to get at the heart of this when he says in First Things First (and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) that the key is “to not prioritize what’s on your schedule [or action lists], but to schedule your priorities.”

In other words, we should not simply be “doing” our work. We should also be asking if this is the work we should really be doing. We should not simply do something because it ended up on our list — even if we are the ones who put it there.

In addition to making decisions about what’s already on our list, we also need to ask what things are truly a priority to us, but are not reflected on our current action or project list. Then we need to make those our top tasks.

There are a few ways to do that. One way is to actually schedule them on your calendar (which I know is not in line with the GTD approach in general). There are other ways as well, but that’s for another post.

Fast Company has a helpful interview on interruptions with Gloria Mark, an informatics professor at the University of California, Irvine. She talks about “When is interruption is helpful? Why can’t most of us stay on task for more than three minutes? Is the best way to achieve flow to just unplug?”

Here are some key points:

Interruptions are bad for innovation and flow:

I argue that when people are switching contexts every 10 and half minutes they can’t possibly be thinking deeply. There’s no way people can achieve flow. When I write a research article, it takes me a couple of hours before I can even begin to think creatively. If I was switching every 10 and half minutes, there’s just no way I’d be able to think deeply about what I’m doing. This is really bad for innovation. When you’re on the treadmill like this, it’s just not possible to achieve flow.

But not all interruptions are bad:

If an interruption matches the topic of the current task at hand, then it’s beneficial. If you’re working on task A and somebody comes in and interrupts you about exactly that task people report that’s very positive and helps them think about task A.

There’s been a lot of research into the psychology of problem solving that says if you let problems incubate, sometimes it helps in solving them. A good example would be a software developer who just can’t trace a bug so they put it aside and let it incubate. The answer may come back to the software developer later while he or she is working on another task. This is an example of how switching tasks may be beneficial.

The worst kind of interruptions are those that make you switch topics:

It’s generally counterproductive if you’re working on one task and you’re interrupted on a completely different topic. People have to shift their cognitive resources, or attentional resources, to a completely different topic. You have to completely shift your thinking, it takes you a while to get into it and it takes you a while to get back and remember where you were.

The ROWE Blog has a helpful take on this article that illustrates in a very concrete way the cost we pay when interrupted all the time.

The distraction that interruptions create is not the full story, however (as the interview itself discusses).  While we should seek to minimize interruptions, they are also opportunities to do good for others and be of use. You can’t — and shouldn’t — eliminate the possibility of all interruptions (at least as a constant way of life). Interruptions should be looked at as a chance to do good.

In fact, after two decades of interacting with a wide variety of senior executives, the author of the book Organized for Success has noted that “successful executives turn one key time management rule upside down: rather than closing the door on interruptions, they extract genuine value from them” (p. 10).

In fact, listen to this perspective of one senior executive:

What you are calling “interruptions” is my work. From the beginning of my career, I have seen my job as being able to facilitate, troubleshoot, run ideas by, solve problems, and just be a presence. If I had an urgent deadline, I would go into a conference room and shut the door. But that rarely happens.

Very interesting.

Here’s my take: We need to both carve out time for focused work, and then also weave into our days the flexibility to be freely available such that we can recognize “interruptions” as opportunities for productive interaction.

There is a both/and here: Minimize interruptions. And realize that there is a way to make use of interruptions for maximum effectiveness.

The best way I know to do this is to start your day early so you can segment it into a period of focused work for a few hours, followed by a time when you are more freely available.

I’m still working on this. But the most important thing to realize is that the biggest interruptions are those that we do to ourselves.