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Weekend Project: Hō‘imi your Trusted System

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Preface: Hō‘imi means “look for better and best” and is defined here:
The 3 Secrets of Being Positive

Dip into the Talking Story archives, and you’re likely to find several posts on productivity studies which I had done within a learner’s obsession I’d had with GTD: David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach to stress-free performance.

Initially, GTD appealed to me as a great companion to my earlier learning of Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; it fortified and revitalised those lessons-learned for me with how habits can put us on auto-pilot in a good way.

Get lazy

I still refer to GTD often and with confidence, for there is a wealth of productivity “stuff” to be learned from David Allen, who amuses me in the way he will repeatedly say,

“I’m lazy and I don’t want to think about anything more than it deserves.”

How’s that for a statement perfectly in tune with weekend living? He recently repeated it as the opening line of his last newsletter. Allen goes on to explain,

“So my quest became to find the best and most efficient ways to think about things as little as possible. What I found was that by asking a few clarifying questions, and putting the answers in a trusted system, I was able to use my mind more creatively and more strategically for the kind of stuff that really did deserve my mental horsepower.”

Reflecting back on it, if I had to reduce everything I have learned from GTD into a single useful take-away statement, it would be that of which he speaks: GTD has taught me to capture my stress-free performance answers in a trusted system. My answers. My trusted system.

Strengthen your trusted system

What does this have to do with our current-to-February theme? (February’s Strengthening. We know it as Love.)

When you have a trusted system for your own personal productivity, a system which perpetuates what works best for you, and which discards everything else, you are strengthening your system of self care.

You can work on the goals which set your heart on fire (and express your spirit of Aloha), because you’ve already done your very best work on the most important project of all: You, and how you operate —your strengths, your values, and your trusted systems of well-being.

Consider what falls within ‘discarding everything else’

I devoted part of yesterday to working within my own trusted system, capturing my answers, and discarding everything else: It was a day I had calendared in my Strong Week Plan for reviewing my Project List for 2010.

I tumbled the brain-writing captured in the table below at one point of my review, as a reflection on my Mahalo, the Hawaiian value of thankfulness. (To any of you GTDers reading, think of brain-writing as a contextual mind-sweep.) I was appreciating what I have managed to do right thus far in 2010, instead of beating myself up over what I still needed to improve upon. In other words, I captured some of my answers:

A TRUSTED SYSTEM EVERYTHING ELSE
Accomplishment Busy-work
Chic, custom-fit design One-size fits all (which usually doesn’t, and is never very flattering)
Useful bits Irrelevant bits
Essentials only Extras and clutter
Captures your needed attention Sources of procrastination
Batches work Scatters work, or needlessly duplicates it
Creates “flow” Conducive to interruption
When auto-pilot = learned When auto-pilot = consumed
Designed to work efficiently Designed to work “pretty” or riddled with “should-ing”
A blend of low-tech and digital Stubborn about “system purity”
Conducive to thinking Conducive to distraction
Energy-efficient or even energy-exponential Drains your energy or wastes it
Cheap (i.e. inexpensive) Costly (in numerous ways)
Your “burning YES” What you haven’t said “NO” to yet

Oooh…
and I MUST point this out as a connection to The 3 Secrets of Being Positive:

I am evangelizing batching work more and more every day. Batching is the only work-around I know of, where we can successfully apply our “multi-thinking” to our “multi-tasking.” A good way to tackle more batching is to separate the tasks within your work into low-tech, mid-tech, and high-tech (own it as  your tech: Comfy with My-Tech GTD).

Messes can be pretty

‘Ike loa: Look over that list again from the viewpoint of how much you learn when your trusted system becomes one of your Wow Projects!

“We all need systems installed into our days to ensure consistency of results, order and superb outcomes.

Success doesn’t just occur: It’s a project that is worked on each day.”

—Robin Sharma, author of the book I reached for most over the last year (besides Managing with Aloha :) The Greatness Guide

One of the things I learned in my trusted system, was to embrace my messiness when looks messy actually means I can see everything better. For instance, I no longer use liquid paper in my check register or personal journal, because I want to see what I crossed out, and/or quickly recall why I changed my mind. Strikeouts have become my friend;  so much so that I even use them digitally now! Used to be, I wanted everything to be pristine clean and match; now I realize how useful it is to see my dog-eared, annotated pages, doodling and all, and the ink color-coding which looks like pre-school play to the untrained eye.

Just one no.5 Brush

I’ll bet you already have the makings of a trusted system within your personal productivity habits, and that you do know of your “good bones” in your success structures. Have you ever stopped to articulate them, and value them, so you capture your answers with the work you’ve done on a system which you continue to place your trust in?

That’s the weekend project I suggest you tackle if you haven’t other plans. You will find it a fabulous way to set a better course the rest of the year to come, and it might just become your passionate flare-up for February!

What can you share with the rest of our Ho‘ohana Community about your trusted system of personal productivity?

How is it connected to your feelings of well-being, and your ‘Imi ola, your best possible life?

How has your trusted system helped you give movement to your big ideas?

Footnote: If this doesn’t appeal to you, last weekend’s suggestion might!
Weekend Reading: Let’s go Blog Rolling

Small Wins Create Big Domino Effects

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In the first week of January I spent a good deal of my discretionary time on personal productivity projects (Open Loops, Tech Life Inventory) that will help me clean up my act in 2010.

You’ve had a few tastes of them here: Mantra and theme type encouragements about vocabulary and language of intention which will keep the focus where you want it to be – the “drink your Kool-aid” kind of stuff, which I do think is very important. Vocabulary, and the words you use are powerful, both with inspiring others as an Alaka‘i manager, and with your own self-talk.

What I am switching to now, is the next step: now that I feel better organized, I must engage with definitive action.

Is that where you are too?

Those who lead consistently set a great example, and if you want action from your team they need to see that you are leading the way: You’ve started.

My goal within my Strong Week Plan for January 11 through 15 (Monday through Friday) is that I will achieve a Small Win.

I know, that getting to action taken, and action resulting in achievement, is a good way to start my year off right, and that I must do so as early as possible. My Small Win can begin to create a positive expectancy for me for the whole year through: That’s the Big Domino Effect I am going for. Positive expectancy. Belonging with me, and within me.

A “Small Win” is not small as in insignificant.
It is small as in, you cannot fail unless you completely go lazy on me or get stuck in procrastination. (That was a sample of my self-talk, with “you” meaning me.)

And it IS a win, and a win that isn’t insignificant either. It’s an important win.

It’s a win which is meaningful in some way, and what would be GREAT, is if it is somehow connected to your Ho‘ohana and Alaka‘i intentions. (Okay, that “your” was about you.)

  • Ho‘ohana as being about the important work you do by choice,
    and for better feelings of personal well-being, and
  • Alaka‘i as being about the energies you create all around you and for others (by leading),
    and which you channel effectively (by managing well)

Mine are, and by the time you read this, I hope to be already done with one Small Win, and I will be seeing if I can get a second Small Win in since I’m already on a positive-expectancy roll with the first one I had in mind.

My dominoes will be falling!

So do you have something like that in mind for you too?

Let’s both get our Small Wins done.

January 15th we finish, and January 16 we celebrate. 2010 will be a fabulous year if all weekends are reserved for celebrating, don’t you think?

Photo Credit: Domino by Erica Marshall on Flickr

The Tech Life of a Manager, 2010 and Beyond

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What will it be?

I started thinking about this as I skimmed over Michael Arrington’s “Fifth Annual List Of The Tech Products I Love And Use Every Day.” He writes:

The scope of the list has changed over time. In 2006 it was just about websites. Now the list includes other web services, some desktop software and even a few gadgets.

These aren’t necessarily newly launched products… This is a simple list of the tech products that are an integral part of my day ”“ work or play. Some have withstood the test of time and I just can’t live without. Others are newcomers that have captured my imagination.

I use most of them every day, or nearly every day, and I would not be as productive or happy without all of them. There are now 24 products on the list.

Far as I can see, Arrington’s habits are definitely not the every day world of most managers unless they’re somehow crammed into their limited off-hours. And he is the founder and editor of TechCrunch. But let’s not dismiss this too quickly.

There has been a long-standing management ‘rule of perception’ that you must be “on the floor” or otherwise in the thick of things “where the action is” and resist being a desk jockey as much as you possibly can. This rule is pervasive, and spans nearly all industries. Conventional wisdom says that good managers roll-up their sleeves, for you can’t reach customers, and get good and dirty in a business operation or within the managing and leading of people if you’re stuck behind a desk.

And aren’t tech products just the fancy new toys of the desk jockey?

Not necessarily.

Conventional desk resistance is wise in theory, for it’s meant to coach managers into working with people more and “pushing paper” less. But here is the important question (as any overwhelmed manager will quickly point out): What was on the paper, and can it be so easily dismissed? Isn’t “real work” much more complex than simply saying it is about being with your people and your customers?

I know that my own tech habits have changed dramatically since I was working in the corporate world full time and not coaching (I made the switch in 2003.) I still consider myself a manager, managing and leading a small team, and were I managing a larger one, not only am I very confident that many of my every day tech tools would be instantly integrated into my work, I am also sure I’d be adding more of them (such as Yammer, an internal version of Twitter, and everything offered by 37signals).

We talked about it a bit before in this post: The Digitally Savvy Workplace. My IT team would be techies who love to teach, and they would be instructed to give everyone in the company internet access (yes, EVERYONE), and get everything we do off hard drives and “into the cloud.” After decades opening Windows to the digital world, I am now learning to use a MacBook Pro, and I would expect my managers to be fluent in both platforms.

Just for fun, this was my own break-down of Arrington’s list, with a few additions of my own. At first I thought, “24! Is he kidding me?” but then I saw I am not that far off. What about you?

On my every day list: MacBookPro, Gmail, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, WordPress for blogging, Tumblr for aggregating, Twitter (Helped by HootSuite), and my iPhone (we won’t go into the apps…)

On my weekly/ often daily list: Skype, Digital Camera, Flickr, BlogLines, LinkedIn, Basecamp, TripIt, Delicious

Use it, but honestly not an everyday necessity: Pandora, Audible

Craving: Apple Magic Mouse, Kindle – which I was surprised Arrington did not include

Should be using it much more, must get with it: Ruzuku, Kodak Zi8

Want to learn, and soon: Animoto, Diigo (to replace Delicious), Google Voice, Skitch, Docstoc and Scribd

Would definitely use it if back in the corporate world: Yammer, all of 37signals, YouTube

Very curious, but doing fine without them: Dropbox, Evernote, Hulu

Not yet remotely interested: Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla, TechMeme

Have vehemently rejected as a time sink I cannot afford: Facebook

Greek to me, had to look them up: MOG, Spotify

As little as a year ago, I was very tolerant of managers telling me, “I don’t have time for tech” because I did see that they could survive relatively well without much of it. Today, I am much more assertive about tech learning being part of our managerial core competency.

The evidence is overwhelmingly clear to me that being more tech savvy helps you in three significant ways:

1. Tech tools CAN boost your productivity significantly when you choose the right tool for the right job, and not as a new “toy.” Match up tech features to work you do individually versus within a team. Their new “wow” factor is a dud if not aligned with the work you actually do (or want to do).

2. What the (two most-mainstream) forces of blogging and social media have brought to tech isn’t simply about digital programming (blog platforms) or ninja-networking outside your company (social media) though those two things are great fringe benefits.  Tech has enhanced the way we communicate, making every workplace a more mobile, and thus more nimble one.

3. Tech tools and their updates foster lifelong learning, making learning much more cool and sexy in today’s world. In the process, tech is helping us bridge generation gaps as well, changing that way we communicate and helping us to better share life experiences with each other.

So managers, don’t snub your nose at tech tools. Get with the program, and improve the quality and efficiency of your life and your work. Bring advances and progress to the workplace as a means of culture turbo-boosting.

And whatever we choose, don’t we all want this? Arrington says, “I would not be as productive or happy without all of them.” and I must say, I doubt I would be as happy without my tech stable of goodies either.

Photo Credit: midnight flickring by ugglan on Flickr
Yep, I’m still into red :)

More tech from the archives:

Comfy with My-Tech GTD

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Preface: If you are just joining us, this article is part three and the final installment I have planned for my October 2006 ho‘ohana of “Nalu it!” a la GTD, Getting Things Done by David Allen. (February 2010: Link updating in process.)

To catch up and for best context, you’ll get the whole series this way:

  1. Our Ho‘ohana for October, 2006: Nalu it!
  2. GTD? Nalu it!
  3. GTD and a Story of Sequential Learning
  4. You’re in the right place! Keep reading :-)

When I think about the way my work habits have changed over the years, the last few of them are startlingly dramatic; any of my recollections about how I worked a scant three years ago often seem like ancient history. My personal journey with better productivity has been all about embracing change, our ever-flatter world, and new technology.

However, I believe in a balance of forward-thinking change and great-value constants. Through-out it all, my constancy has been Managing with Aloha; the MWA movement has given me a real-life, mission-critical focus of the good stuff I’ve wanted to consistently apply my productivity practices to.

Another undeniable factor in this short stretch between my now and ancient history, has been that I made a gargantuan leap from corporate life to that of entrepreneurship and self-employment in 2003. Ah! Sweet, sweet freedom. A seemingly never-ending supply of Christmas presents under a glowing tree of proactive personal choice. Some self-employment struggles? Sure. But relatively short-lived, and oh so gloriously worth it.

That’s my Context for this article.

For those of you still interested, this is my here and now of GTD application. I write this for those who know of and are practicing GTD in some form; from this point on, this posting is one filled with GTD jargon. If you never heard of it, you probably won’t want to keep reading ” take a look at the blog sidebar for other suggestions.

You still with me, and still have a need to know? Okay, two things:

a) These are the bones of my Trusted System (New update for 2010: Weekend Project: Hō‘imi your Trusted System). I say “the bones” because I’m still tweaking, still seeking to pare it down to the barest essentials, and there’s no sense in writing about the stuff I’m working to eliminate, right?

b) There are parts of this which could quite easily be spun off into a series of their own ”“ such as with email, that “big elephant you have to eat at one bite at a time.” We shall keep this as much to the highlights as possible, otherwise I may as well write another book ” this series has been long enough as it is!

Okay, here goes.

Low-Tech

I so agree that psychic RAM is a terrible office, and low-tech collect and capture is the way to keep in mind like water state so you are more perceptive to the great opportunities which present themselves to you. You want to be an interesting human being to others, and live in the moment; you don’t want to be a productivity-obsessed robot.

Job One: over note-take, and write everything down. Use the gear you love to use for their tactile goodness. I am a journaler, for writing things out is part of my feels-good thinking process. Journal entries become blog posts, become submitted articles, become potential white papers and books in the making.

My UCT (ubiquitous capture tool) is a 5×7 blank book kept with me at all times, and I don’t bother with tabs (tried that, organizational fanaticism set in); I just write front to back. When my journal is full, I inhale the heady scent of my writing pleasure so captured and reward myself by buying another blank book. Tucked inside are a few index cards ”“ whatever size is on sale when I need to restock. What I write on the cards is any info that I’ll later toss into my One Physical Inbox to then Process/Organize into the mid-tech or high-tech parts of my trusted system.

I love paper tools for their tactile pleasure, but I hate filing, and to that end (Begin with the End in Mind!) I seek to be as paperless in my business as possible. The best thing you can put in my Christmas stocking is another mega-memory flash drive.

Also in this Low-Tech category:

  • Tickler files via expanding pendaflex. Love ‘em, use all three types: A-Z, January-December, and 1-31. They keep reminders/reference I need not double-entry into my Outlook Calendar or any other Mid or High Tech Processing.
  • 3-Ring binders are a mainstay in the kind of work I do with my clients, they work way better for me than manila folders, and they include plastic, removable/portable and recyclable 3-punched portfolios (one thing I still use the Brother labeler for) and slant pockets.

Corporate life taught me the discipline of using trace dates, and plastic slant pockets are great movable Next Action holders from binder to tickler file, to nose-to-the-grindstone Project Work and every back-and-forth movement within the Project cycle. They slip out of my carry-on easily in all the traveling I do.

Mid-Tech

I’m a graduate of the Franklin-Covey calendar/paper planner system, and today, my mid-tech is Microsoft Office and my printer: Outlook Calendar, Contacts and for Email. I no longer use the rest of Outlook, but I do learn all the bells and whistles that come with those three applications so that I am quick as I can possibly get in using them.

Core to my mid-tech thinking: I am an incessant planner, and I cannot imagine life without a calendar —absolutely impossible! My Outlook Calendar is easily printable when I need it on paper and helps with my low-tech capture within time-specific windows: When the time it covers is over, and any notes added to it are processed, the paper version is shredded. If I process it correctly I don’t need to archive it.

I have several email addresses for different reasons, and they all get channeled into my one Outlook Inbox. The two-minute rule gets applied to my email inbox, and I get it to zero by the end of the day when possible, and in my next Weekly Review without fail (including ruthless purge and delete.)

Outlook email folders work exceptionally well for my customer, community, and relationship correspondence because I use email so much. When people leave me voicemails, I’ll often transcribe their message as part of an email string we had already started.

My Sent box in Outlook is my GTD @Waitingfor; Sent is like “Tag, you’re it!” for me. If my sent message is the end of something I delete it right away; any needing a response stay there until I get one or send a reminder, and I check it regularly, seeking to get to zero, same as my Inbox.

High-Tech

It may be different for you, but I think of high-tech as

  • my cell phone
  • my laptop
  • my blogs and web-presence
  • Microsoft Word for long documents (and most of my writing)
  • Excel for spreadsheets AND for Lists of all kinds
  • and any web-based tools I use. Examples of these are Constant Contact as my e-letter editor, Basecamp for my clients’ project management, Skype just recently, and Gmail/Google Groups functionality for the Ho‘ohana Community. Love Del.icio.us tagging as my online reference manager.

I optimize my use of my cell phone and laptop in all they offer ”“ and only those two pieces of equipment-type tools. As I’ve said before, no PDA for me. (2010: Things do change! I am now a mac-user, and loving my iPhone apps :)

I have been an Excel user for a long time, and as far as I’m concerned it remains the best List Manager ever. No Excel macro knowledge is needed; macros are complexity gravy. I have an Excel File simply named “Task” that is a constant open window and/or printable file for me. I make good use of the Auto Filter (which also Sorts by alpha). Collect/Process/Organize all within the two minute rule is an easy given for me using Excel.

As an example, these are the columns I filter in this Excel Task file:

  • Column A: Tag A Context (Think Category)
  • Column B: Tag B Context (I use Columns A and B like del.icio.us tagging of the Column G entries.)
  • Column C: Start Date (A long-lasting first-in/first out discipline, another procrastination killer)
  • Column D: Last Worked Date (Clues me into notes kept in my Outlook Appointment notes section.)
  • Column E: Due Date (Invoke the Discipline of Deadlines!)
  • Column F: Event Date (Will correspond to my Outlook Calendar Appointments)
  • Column G: The Task/Project
  • Column H: The Next Action
  • Column I: Other Notes

You can do the same thing for other Lists.

These are the other GTDisms and ROSAisms which have shaped my Trusted System; they are concepts I remind myself of all the time because they’ve “come true” for me.

  • Form should follow Function, and function is about Focus. I like light (I’m small), and virtual with as few gadgets as possible.
  • Focus with Allen’s 2 Basic Questions: What’s the successful outcome, and What’s the Next Action?
  • Neat and organized is not the same thing. More purge and delete = less need to clean or organize.
  • Productivity enables good living, it does not rule over it! The 5 Stages of Mastering Workflow must take as little time and effort as possible, and they must evolve into intuitive, best-life habit magic.
  • Took me a while to wean myself from my mouse, but I’ve learned to use my speed keys. Seems like sa small thing, but it does make an amazing difference.
  • How do I Nalu it, and re-group when I am surprised, get thrown a curve ball, or hunger for a new opportunity? The answer has to be supported by my trusted system.
  • Honoring the hard landscape of your calendar is critical.

The Weekly Review is critical.

  • Learn to Say No, and Learn to Let Go. Do not take on more Responsibility than you can handle WELL.
  • Develop a sense of urgency with taking Next Actions. Make more room in your life with Do it already! Purge and Delete. ‘ÅŒpala ‘ole: do without the clutter which weighs you down.
  • Have fun. Chores are least likely to get done.

Whew! I think this is quite enough talking about Getting Things Done. Let’s get back to doing it, shall we?

GTD is a great philosophy, and I think David Allen is pretty brilliant; I am very grateful for what he has taught me. There is much, much more we can talk about, but I think it becomes too much writing and not enough doing for me today. Time to turn to my own Next Action; probably for you too.

Thank you for the time you took to read this far.

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