Aug 11, 2009
Posted by Mohammed Ali in GTD and Productivity | 1 comment
photo credit: be OH be
No matter what productivity methodology you use to be productive (GTD, ZTD etc), all of them involve making to-do lists. How well you make your to-do list is directly proportional to your productivity levels. Here are 2 key principles you need to know:
1. In in the task, identify the next action clearly.
I had a tendency to add Projects to my To-Do lists, as a result I would face a lot of resistance in taking that project forward. I had to learn to keep my Projects on a separate list, and only have Next Actions on my To-Do list. There’s a certain magic and a feeling of lightness that comes when you identify clearly in each task what the Next Action is to take. So ensure that you do not have any projects listed on your to-do list, but you have the next visible next action listed. If your project is “Prepare the report on impact of carbon emission on the environment”, your next action would be something like “Search Google for the latest news on Carbon emission”.
2. Always start the task with a ‘Verb’. Read, Email, Call etc
By starting the task with a verb it forces you to clearly define what you need to do to perform the next action. The more clearly you’re able to visualize the next action, the easier it will become to perform it.
Conclusion
Once of the main reasons why we procrastinate on our projects is because of the high resistance we face when confronted with huge projects to work on. But the reality is that we never work on the project, we always work on “Next Actions”. Any project that we work on, it’s always about making a phone call, drafting an email, meeting a person, installing software. Once the next action is clearly defined, it fizzles away the resistance allowing you to move forward on the project.
May 31, 2009
Posted by arif in GTD and Productivity, Personal, Reviews | 1 comment
Other than blogs and podcasts that I read/listen, there are quite a few enewsletters that I am subscribed to. Most are free, some are not. Below are the ones that I get most value out of and have survived my ruthless email filters and unsubscribing-trigger-friendly finger.
Business:
McKinsey Quarterly Top Ten Newsletter
The McKinsey quarterly emails me the best/most popular articles of McKinsey consulting for the past quarter. It’s something that I’ve subscribed to just so that I’m some what in touch with the best practices in the Corporate Circle. I have not got tremendous value from it yet. But since the newsletters are just once a quarter, it’s not that much clutter that I need to unsubscribe to it.
Verne’s Insights
I’ve found more handy information from Verne Harnish’s weekly newsletters. They’re shorter, punchy and let me know of what are the cool useful things that Corporates around the world are up to and if there’s anything that I can implement at Vakil Housing immediately.
Metaphor Minute
Some people are born with the Metaphor gene. The can put their point across to you in mere moments by explaining you what they mean with the most appropriate Metaphor or Similie. It’s a skill I have long envied. Anne Miller has written this brilliant book called Metaphorically Selling where she explains a methodology on how to come up with a Metaphor on the fly. I have read it and highly recommend it. In her monthly newsletters, Anne gives really good examples of metaphors that you can use and prods you to keep your eye open for them. This newsletter is probably one of my favourites and can be subscribed to here.
Entertainment:
Go Comics
It’s the Comics and the TV pages that enticed me as a schoolboy to begin reading newspapers. Unfortuantely the comics I enjoy do not always appear in the newspapers I read today. I have recently renewed my subscribtion to Ucomics, by paying $11.95 for the year. Now Everyday I get emailed to me the latest Calvin & Hobbes’s imaginative world, or Jason’s latest tiffs with Paige in FoxTrot or Diane make obvious the nonsense of the political world in Non-Sequitur.
Personal Development
GTD Connect
GTD Connect is premium membership service where one can get access to a whole range of Audio, Video, Text material to help enhance your personal GTD process. Click here to learn more about GTD. Being such a busy bee that I am, I don’t get much time to hand around the GTD Forums to see what conversations are taking place or what’s the latest Audio/Video material on GTD that’s out there. However, being a member of GTD Connect, I get an email of what’s the latest out there in the GTD World. If you are serious about implementing GTD, I highly recommend becoming a member of Connect, even if it’s just for a month or two. Give it a try, sample the Audio material that they have in store, specially the Tele-seminars by David Allen. It’s been worth my investment.
Productivity Principles Newsletter
For those who are not ready to be members of GTD Connect, but still want to gain traction on your practice of GTD, you may subscribe to the newsletter of David Allen himself called Productivity Principles, where he writes tips and reminders for all to stay strong in the GTD Wagon.
Emails by Vital Smarts
Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations are two brilliant books by the Vital Smarts team. Infact I’d say they almost the next best thing after GTD (and you all know how much I love GTD). One of my personal challenges in life is to be able to hold a Crucial Conversation and/or Confrontation with skill so that both parties come out as winners. What’s a Crucial Conversation? Well, common examples are possibly when there’s something you need to tell your collegue but he’s highly sensative about it, or you have a difference of opinion on an important business issue, or possibly even dealing with a customer complaint. etc.
In all the above conversations the common elements are that:
- Both parties have conflicting opinions/interest
- Emotions run high
- Stakes are high.
Observe yourself it’s when these three elements are in place that you get a crucial conversation. When faced with a Crucial Conversation, there is a roadmap on how to get from tongue-tied, raging emotions scenario to a cool, slick, dialogue smart situation. The Roadmap is long, and that’s the topic for another blog post, however, to get started you may subscribe to the newsletter by Vital Smarts Team. In each edition they address they demonstrate how one can talk one’s way through seemingly impossible highly sensitive topics. Examples of Crucial Conversations addressed in their newsletters are:
- Conversation with an employee over mediocre Performance
- Conversation of a Parent with her daughter on being overweight
- Conversation with a sibling on a difference of opinion on a certain matter in their family business
You can access the above and further past newsletters in their archive here.
Continuing Education:
Learn Out Loud free resource of the day email
It’s been a really long time that I was meaning to blog on the excellent material that Learn Out Loud has. Do browse this website. There is amazing education I have got from many of their Audio programs. In addition to those, you may also subscribe to their daily newsletter where they are continuously scanning the web to find inspirational/motivational/educational audio/video content.
BBC Breaking news alert and Documentaries:
BBC, is the best International news site there is. Period. They hit you with just facts, no exaggeration, as less biased as they can be, and provide you with sufficient analysis and history so that you can make your own opinion. To stay upto date on the latest breaking headlines round the world, I’ve found the BBC Breaking news alert really handy.
Furthermore BBC’s documentaries are also the most insightful in the world. To stay abreast of the documentaries coming up on BBC World in the coming fortnight I’ve subscrived to their BBC World New enewsletter here
Quotes by Dr. Mardy
I’ve recently subscribed to this quotation service, by Dr. Mardy. I’m generally quite conscioius of the number of emails I receive and if a newsletter I’m subscribed to doesn’t really add value to the subjects/topics I’m interested in, I’m quick to unsubscribe to it. The weekly quotes that I receive from Dr. Mardy have held my attention for the last couple of weeks. I admit I don’t read every single email I receive from Dr. Mardy. The days I have my inbox flooded, I am quick to delete the email without giving it a second glance. But the days that I have the time, I’m glad I have I subscribed to Dr. Mardy’s service. Here is an excerpt from his weekly email for the week ending 2 May 2009:
“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die,
for the harder I work the more I live.
I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment;
and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible
before handing it on to future generations.”
George Bernard Shaw, in a 1907 lecture
“I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”
Jack London, a remark made to friends in 1916
Misc.
Baby Centre
As soon as my Sunshine gave me the “good news“, I began scouring all over the net for books, websites on pregnancy, babies etc, till I came across Baby Center. Baby Center provides this terrific service with their weekly updates, that let you know just the information that we needed throughout the pregnancy. Which was emailed to us just in time. It really saved me immense amount of time in researching the same online or in books. Furthermore the service continues till date guiding fledgling parents on the little nuances in bringing up children. I highly recommend parents and parents to be to subscribe to this service. The best part is that this service is also personalised for India, so get tips specific to the Indian context.
Top 5 ads from Adforum.com
Advertising. An old crush of mine. I used to be a subscribed member of Adcritic and keenly track the latest TV spots being released all over the world. Now I quench myself with the Top 5 Adforum weekly email that email me the most popular 5 TV ads over the week.
*Phew* that’s one hell of a long list.
I had no idea I was subscribed to so many enewsletters till I began compiling them. Any of the above enewsletters that you are glad you got to know about? Is there something else that you are subscribed to which you think I and other fellow blog readers would enjoy and look forward to. Do leave a note in the comments if so. Happy reading.
May 8, 2009
Posted by arif in GTD and Productivity | 4 comments
Note: This post has many references to jargons that would be familiar mainly to implementers of David Allen’s system of productivity called Getting Things Done or GTD. To Learn more about GTD, you may read this post, 5 Steps to Begin Learning GTD – A Guaranteed way to Save Hours from your Workday.
What made Einstein an Einstein or a Newton a Newton. It was their amazing capability to look at what everybody is looking at, but see at something different. The world sees an Apple falling from a tree, but Newton notices there’s something greater at work here, it’s Gravity. The world sees sunrise, sunset and umpteen other relationships with time and light throughout the day. But Einstein looks and realises that hey it’s not time that’s a contstant, but it’s the speed of light. Similarly the whole world is involved is busy getting stuff done anyway, but David Allen sees through the clutter and comes up with best-practices called GTD.
Below I’ve made a list of some amazing observations that give GTD it’s chutzpah. The brilliant thing about all these observations is that everyone one of us were coming across this at least several times every single day of our lives and any one of us could have figured it out. Be it psychologists with PHd degrees, masters in other fields but nobody noticed the below peculiarities. However David Allen did and gosh how life changing they have been.
The Next Action:
What an remarkable observation. That to move forward on any item, all you need is a Next Action. That’s it. One can only do a Next Action. We have no choice, we can only make Calls (@Calls), Complete Errands (@Errands), Speak to people (@Agenda), Do stuff on our computer (@Computer) etc. and all through our lives we’ve always been doing Next Actions only, but never figured out to think in terms of Next Actions.
Furthermore David takes his observation further. The fact that Next Actions can most be categorised in approximately 5 categories or so is an amazing piece of insight. And top it all off to notice also that there are so many Next Actions that don’t take longer 2 minutes, is pure genius.
(Note: David has often given the credit of the Next Action thinking to Dean Acheson.)
There is stress as soon as we commit to do something:
You can’t see it it’s so very subtle, but it’s there. As soon as an email, voicemail or a piece of paper (even if it’s a cute little greeting card) enters my life, so does stress. And I never noticed it. Ever. It’s when I began practising GTD and began either completing or renegotating my commitments that I realised oh the burden I was under . I always had it. Hey, c’mon we all always had it. But never noticed it. But thank God David did and man life has been rosier since.
Writing down stuff, gives instant relief:
So how do you get rid of stress in life by the various commitments. Is it by doing them? Not necessariy. Why take all that trouble. Just write it down. That’s it. Imagine that. Just by writing down you begin to feel so much better. Once again through out lives we have at some point or the other have written stuff down and immediately felt that instant relief, but never questioned why that happened. David did, and realised that stress comes because of our agreements with ourselves (another brilliant observation) and the simple act of writing it down we’re actually renegotiating our agreement with our self and that’s the key to eliminating stress from our lives.
Priorities are at six different levels, three fold nature of work and the limiting criteria:
Finally since we the day we have been hungry or felt the need to poop we have been prioirtising, whether it’s sleep we want now or milk. Ofcourse our needs got more complex, but our prioritising system never changed. We kept on putting one task over another
There are probably more gems in GTD that I’ve missed. Have you noticed something in GTD that is so simple and obvious that anyone could have figured out, but hasn’t and David Allen has. Do mention it in comments below.
Sep 6, 2008
Posted by arif in GTD and Productivity, Spirituality | 10 comments
Have you ever come across a quote, an inspiring saying or a Hadith, that you liked so very much you just had to take a printout and stick it up somewhere that you could see it everyday. Infact you may have a couple of these either around your office desk, or home, maybe in your car. If you haven’t done it yourself, you certainly know friends who have this quirky little habit.
I have done this a couple of times in the past too. And sure the first couple of times I read the quote, it does charge me up to either work harder, or be focused or more caring, loving etc. However, after a week or so, if I happen to read the quote, it makes no difference to me. Give it a fortnight, that quote becomes invisible. I don’t even look at the side where I’ve got that quote up. Infact even if I did, I would probably see right through it. There’s a psychological reason that if anything is seen or told at too often, one becomes completely immune to it. The technical term for this is: nagging. So what do you do to get the same impact again and again? So how can you see and read this advice regularly enough that it encourages you but not so often that it stops having an effect on you.
David Allen has this slick web-application called an Intention Journal, to help you do just that. Sadly it’s not free and you have to be a member of GTD-Connect to use it. However if you are a Microsoft Outlook user, you can setup your own personal Intention Journal.
7 Easy steps to setup your own personal Intention Journal:
1. Go to the Tasks Module of your Outlook, by clicking on Go->Tasks (or shortcut Crtl+F4)
2. Create a New Task, by clicking Crtl+N
3. Type into the Subject, the topic of the Quote
4. Copy & Paste or Type into the notes Section of the New Task Window, the entire quote
5. Click on Recurrence on the New Task Window. Or press Alt, H, E.
6. Choose how often would you like to see this quote, then click Okay. I generally would like to see my quotes to an obscure number like every 43 or 54 days or so. That makes it really random, thereby giving me the maximum impact each time I see the quote, as I would never be expecting it.
7. Save and Close, and you’re done! Now every so often you will have your selected quote show up as a daily task on your Outlook screen. I look at my daily tasks almost first thing every day, however if you would want it to pop-up, then just put an alarm/reminder too.
Here are a few quotes that I currently have randomly spread across in my Outlook Intention Journal:
On Ascetism:
Asceticism does not mean that you should own nothing. It means nothing should own you. – Imam Ali
On Valuing one’s youth:
”Oh. Soldier. Value your youth and worship God. The pleasure of worship is in your youth. When you get old, your heart will want to worship, but you will not have the health and strength to do so.” – Imam Khomenie
The Illusion:
You Are Nor Veiled From Allah By The Existence Of Something That exists with Him since there is nothing which exists with Him. You are veiled from Him by the illusion that something exists with Him. – Shaykh Abdal Qadir Gilani.
Charity:
Stop giving charity only after you either run out of money or run out of breath.
Desire & Expectation:
Truly, The Thing I Fear Most For My Community Is Illusionary desire and excessive expectation, for desire bars one from the truth and expectation makes one love the world.
Definition of Regret:
”What is regret but that we were not more fully present in a situation, or to be more ‘there’ in a relationship that we have now lost?” – from Tom Butler Bowden’s summary of, Eckhart Tolle’s, Power of Now in 50 spiritual classics.
On Work:
’Through work you express your love for those whoever will benefit from it, and satisfy your own need to create. Those who enjoy their work know that it is a secret to fulfillment, that we can be saved through what we do.” Khalil Jibran
If you liked this post, you may further benefit from the post: How I use my Tickler file to remind me of all the important and unimportant things in my life.
Jul 8, 2008
Posted by arif in GTD and Productivity | 5 comments
It’s because of Rules. We had them as School kids, there are Rules at office, then then there are traffic Rules. Rules Rules Rules everywhere. Who needs ‘em, Wouldn’t it be better if we just got rid of them? No, you know that it wouldn’t be. And that’s because, it’s these Rules that are in place to provide us with the freedom to do what we can, within limits.
One of the great things about GTD is that it believes in making and following rules. GTD has a great set of Rules. These rules if one can adopt them as “Commandments” in one’s life that are never to be broken, it would save you from a lot of one of the most stressful and anxiety-ridden activities i.e. Decision-making. Having these rules in place, spares you from thinking through many things each time they crop up. You don’t need to make decisions any more, just follow the rules that have been set.
(Side note: There are many great GTD rules, (expressed as Best-Practices of the 5 Phases of Gaining Control), but in this post, I’ll be discussing the rules which are not strictly GTD Rules by the book. But have nonetheless helped me greatly in simply getting things done.)
2 minute rule
Okay, this is an official GTD Rule that all GTD practitioners know and love. If anything takes you two minutes or less to do the moment it has your attention, you do right then and there. Because it’s much more bothersome to defer it, track it, review it and do the next time round you think of it. Don’t think about it, Just do it. So if an email takes less than two minute to respond, do it then and there. If that call you going to make, can be done in two minutes or less, finish it right away. So, whenever there’s something that you need to do, and you feel like postponing it, first ask yourself will it take two minutes or less to do it. If the answer is yes, then simply just do it.
10 minute exercise rule
This is a great Rule that has immensely helped me. If there’s something really painful to do, like cleaning a cupboard, or making the first draft of a very difficult report, or plain exercising, have a rule that you would start doing it and spend just 10 minutes at it. When you break it down to that small a size, just 10 teeny weeny measly minutes, it gets much easier to handle. And after those 10 minutes up, you have three options:
i You can give yourself the option to stop doing the difficult task. If you really want to stop there, great, no problem.
ii However, 9 times out of 10, you would get so involved in the first 10 minutes that it would give you a greater sense of relief to complete the task or make significant progress on it.
iii Finally, if you’re not in the mood to continue on, but still dont’ want to give it up, treat yourself to a 2 minute break (it could be checking emails, web-surfing, or just a nice luxurious stretch) and can get back to the task for another 10 minutes and 10 minutes only.
6 month get-rid-of-it rule.
If you’re like me, you may have the habit of continously taking on more stuff to read than you can possibly complete. Web-pages that you’ve bookmarked to get back to, email forwards from friends that you said you’d read later, books lying around your bedside which you told yourself that you said you’re gonna complete someday. The 6 month get-rid-of-it rule, applies just not to reading material, but if there’s anything lying around that you said that you’d get back to, but haven’t been able to do so for 6 months or more, you’re better off just getting rid of it.
The logic is that each time you’ve passed by that pile (for eg. Reading material) you have subconsciously made the decision that what you are currently doing is of more importance that what is piled there. And you’ve been doing that for 6 whole months. Therefore, it could be that what’s in that pile is not really that important at all. And after all if there’s some information in there that you may need after some time, there’s always the internet. So for now you really can trash it. You don’t have to follow this rule religiously, but for the most part it does help get rid a lot of clutter and helps you focus on what really needs your attention.
3 minute email rule
Ever confused should you be sending an email to someone or if you’re better-off speaking to that person personally or over the phone. Well here’s where we introduce the 3 minute email rule. If it’s going to take you 3 minutes to draft and send the email then you might as well just send an email and do it then & there. However, if you’ve really got to think this through and the matter is not as simple as it sounds, then it most likely that an email would not resolve the matter and it’s something that needs to be discussed face to face.
Still Confused, have a rule to follow your intuition.
Not sure whether to buy this Printer or that one? Or if you should be taking part in some activity at all? Of there still something that you’re not able to decide over, don’t analyse too much, you’ve researched enough data on the internet already. Now, just close your eyes, breathe deeply, and follow your instinct. After that, put a reminder 3 or 6 months down the line to checkup on yourself. I put a note for myself in my Calendar or Tickler file reminding myself on the decision I had taken based on my gut-feel. So 6 months later it gives me a chance to relfect back and see whether the decision taken was a hit or a miss and if so then by how much.
Do you feel any of these would help you? Are there any rules that you have adopted that help you get more work done by the end of the day? Drop a note in the comments.
