Posts tagged Productivity
Back to ‘Getting Things Done’
Feb 2nd
Years ago, when I was working in libraries, I had the chance to read David Allen’s Getting Things Done. The impact of that book took a while to really sink in and combining that with Inbox Zero a few years later I was on my way to a GTD system. Unfortunately after a good year or so it began to fall apart for various reasons. Now that I’m back to a fresh start, here are some of the tools and tips I’m using to stay on top of things.
The Tools
- Outlook 2007 – Email & Calendar. Also syncing to my Blackberry, though I have been leaving my Blackberry on silent a lot lately.
- Remember the Milk (RTM) – This guy I sit next to uses it very effectively. Now I am using it too (not so effectively yet).
- White boards and camera phones. I don’t think we have put anything on a white board that did not end up in a picture that is translated to tasks, Visio diagrams, or a document.
The Process (For Now)
Everything goes to my inbox in Outlook. I try to read my email in dashes and clear out the junk, respond to the quick ones and defer the rest. Anything actionable from email goes to my inbox in RTM. Within RTM I’m trying to start weekly and daily reviews where I push tasks from the inbox to their respective lists (Home, Work, Store) and assign due dates. Each day I pick a few tasks from each list to complete. Currently the Home tasks seem to drag on longer than the work ones.
RTM has a host of keyboard shortcuts that make working with it fun. For instance, click on a task, press ‘d’ and start typing a new due date. Hit ‘c’ and mark it completed. In addition, the syntax in RTM is handy, typing “Call Mom Tomorrow #Home” in the task description adds a task to call mom, due tomorrow, to the home list. Very handy.
Other Thoughts
I find that working with a team on a focused iteration is really helping this process. Previous attempts would break down because of fire fighting or “emergencies” that would come up. Dealing with constant fires is a sign of several things (which we will not detail here) and really hampers your ability to guard your attention. Those environments require a lot more discipline to really execute a GTD system well.
A Lesson in Shedding
Oct 23rd
When you lead from the front you often have to be the jack of all trades. You got there because you were the best you could be at all the other jobs that make up what you do. Your coworkers come to you for guidance. Managers look to you for your opinion. You end up going to meetings one and two levels above your pay grade. Most of the time tackling tasks yourself seems faster than explaining it to someone and setting them on their way (which would require you to monitor their progress as well).
All this adds up to you not getting the real work done. You spend your days filtering questions, going to meetings, and tackling issues you shouldn’t be worried about; all the while your to-do list grows and nothing is being crossed off.
This is when it’s time to let go. Time to shed. Shedding will likely involve delegating something you really wanted to work on but you have to be honest with yourself: It’s just not possible to do it all. It may also involve casting something off as unimportant. Both are tough calls to make but in the end it will be necessary.
Forget about those things that are truly marginal. Do the stuff that only you can do and can do best. Let someone else do something that you don’t have time to be doing. They might be good at it too.
Attention Management, a Blackberry, and Back in the Office
Aug 16th
The new hot topic of the Internet is this attention management thing. Merlin Mann recently shared his "Who Moved My Brain?" presentation. I enjoyed it so much I passed it around the office but felt a little jerkish because the content is a in your face and the message it sends is clear. The whole idea of attention management means taking control of your time and when and how people can interrupt you. Doing so can make you feel "inaccessible" at times with the idea being you can do your work then and be accessible at other times.
Someone else asked this raised that issue and Merlin posted his reply. The presentation and his reply are great reads.
My wife and I recently picked up Blackberry PDAs through Verizon. This will be a good test to see if I can really leverage this attention management idea as the Blackberry will definitely make me more interruptible.
I’m also going to be back in the office for a bit. This will be interesting as it is definitely easier to control access to yourself when you are offsite. The results we achieved during the time out of the office were very good but that project is winding down to another phase. Without an office to close the door on I will have to try other strategies to allow me to focus on getting work done while giving coworkers access to the answers they need.
On Teleworking, Attention, and the Cost of Distraction
Aug 6th
I never really provided any closure to my three days of Telework posts. Those days were definitely the most productive days I’ve had as a developer in a long time. In my role I am often more than just a developer so shunning all responsibility to write code is not possible. The key to successful teleworking for me is still being reachable and responsive and I think I was able to achieve that during those three days. Over the next few weeks I’ll be continuing to work 3-4 days from home through the end of this current project.
Thus far we over-delivered on what we originally promised and found ourselves in good shape on the project. From the project manager’s perspective he was extremely happy with the results and is a supporter of project based teleworking (he already supports it on another project). One of the senior developers I worked with was also at home on a day or two and we were able to effectively work via e-mail and a few calls on land lines. Our tasks required lots of collaboration and we were very successful in that.
Which leads me to the real crux of why I would want to Telework at all. Yes, I like the people in my office and I do enjoy being there. But it is very difficult to control my environment and my attention. I do not have a door on my cube. I have not found a good hiding spot where I can take a laptop and disappear. Other than putting on headphones or hanging a sign, I cannot control access to my attention which leads to distractions.
At the end of the day my "job" is to ensure that we deliver quality software that works for our customers. During a real time crunch, thorough documentation and other process items may get left in the dust because the end result is a system that works for our customers. Some things can be documented after the release. Late software is not useful for customers.
In order for a developer to effectively deliver quality software it requires a lot of attention. Programming itself requires extensive use of short-term memory. Disrupting that is like clearing the ram on your PC, its lost and it will take time to get it back (hang on while I load Lotus Notes again). Large uninterrupted blocks of time are a valuable resource to developers. When those are attained productivity can easily double or more. 4 uninterrupted hours is easily equivalent to 8 hours at the office with distractions.
While these thoughts were floating around in my head Merlin Mann posted this gem about author Neal Stephenson. Stephenson is admittedly a bad corresponder when it comes to answering fan mail. Merlin’s commentary sums up what is at issue here and that is access to a person’s attention. If Neal Stephenson answered all his fan mail, he would never write another novel.
When you can control access to your attention I believe you can achieve more faster but still allow time to people who need your attention. How you do that will make all the difference in the perception of your responsiveness which is the real key to making this successful.
By teleworking I am controlling access to my attention, letting me focus solely on deliverables. Part of my balancing act will continue to be maintaining a level of responsiveness to satisfy even the most demanding of my attention (like my two-year-old daughter).
The Multitasking Virus
Jun 19th
For the record, I believe that multitasking is the biggest fraud we have deluded ourselves with.
Multitasking is the product of a busy culture that has convinced itself being mediocre at many things is more ‘productive’ than excelling at a few. This is exacerbated by our hyper connected society and the overuse of any communication medium (from person to person to IM). This is amplified by bosses who just assign you more and more each day.
Communication is key to all success and what I am not advocating is the cessation of communication. We absolutely must communicate. What I do advocate is controlling the amount and nature of the communication and ensure you have adequate disruption free time to get the real work done.
In some of my recent reading points made by Tim Ferris in Four Hour Work Week really resonated with me. There are cases in which "emergencies" can cease to happen the moment you execute control over how and when people contact you or you empower those people to handle situations they would normally come to you for. I think in most business Tim is absolutely correct. Very few businesses encounter major emergencies in day-to-day operations. Most emergencies involve people who need (or think they need) answers on items and don’t want to wait or don’t have the latitude to actually make a decision (or both).
What we’re contrasting here is efficiency and effectiveness. Being in IT I will address this from a pretty simple analogy. When I architect a system if I can make it process 100 requests at a time instead of just 1 I have made it efficient. But what happens if when I do that the time it takes to fulfill a request becomes so long that the data is of no use to the user? (I work with Law Enforcement so speed & accuracy of data is critical) In trying to be efficient – getting more done with the same amount of resources – I have just become ineffective. My system response is mediocre instead of great and in my situation I could actually jeopardize the safety of an officer or the public.
Multitasking is like that system. You are trying to do more with the same amount of attention, the same amount of hours in the day and you still believe you are just as effective? You may have answered those hundred emails but if that is all you did today did you really accomplish what you should have? Do you even know what you needed to accomplish or did you let your inbox turn into a to-do list?
I digress a little here but all of this is related – the amount of "messages" and number of mediums we communicate on, our ability to organize and execute what really needs to be done, and our ability to delegate tasks or acknowledge that some things are truly not important.
Strategies to kill the multitasking virus:
Know what you’re good at doing and focus on that (making sure it is vital to your organization!). If you’re not good at something and don’t have the time to be find someone who is and has the time – delegate or collaborate. Make sure people know what you’re good at and help them when they come to you for those skills.
Take control of your time. Unless you are an emergency first responder there are not that many true emergencies that you must drop everything for. Block off time for processing your email and voicemail. Use the 2-minute rule and a trusted system so you are responsive and do not lose issues that need your attention. Create distraction free time and really give things your full attention. When doing this as part of a team make sure the team understands and respects that and allow them the same courtesies.
Don’t let the "I can do it alls" make you feel guilty. I know people who are convinced multitasking is the only way to go. These same people are the ones I do not go to when I need specialized things taken care of because I know they will only give it 10-20% attention when it needs 100% (at least for a short-time). Shedding is a lesson I won’t lecture about in this post but it is related. Deciding you are not effective at things does not make you a failure. Sometimes to be most effective we have to give up things we aren’t good at. That is good common sense but somehow our multitasking infections make us feel rotten about it.
Be effective. Create your multitasking antidote and set an example for others. Results matter and when you are creating results while still holding the trust and respect of your team people will notice. They will also notice that your work stands above the eternal to-do list chasers.
Ask your boss what’s important. Not sure what you should really focus on? Ask. If your boss isn’t sure then he should ask his boss. If no one is sure that you should focus on something it can probably be dropped.
A few resources:
David Allen’s Getting Things Done – Best book I can recommend on being truly effective. Build your own GTD system and start eliminating items from your to-do list. See also Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero.
Tim Ferris and the Four Hour Work Week – A catchy title that you can take a lot out of even if you don’t outsource your personal assistants and disappear from the office. The book is about taking control of your life, your time, and your attention. The principles apply to cube-dwellers and world-traveling entrepreneurs alike.
