This is a Google+ Hangout with Jason Cobb about a Fast Company article about how Joss Whedon gets stuff done. This intrigued me because I’m a David Allen/GTD follower and I used to make movies (not like these movies). This movie talks a little about that and how life’s journey has a way of taking you were you were going to go anyway, even if you take another path to get there.
Tag: GTD
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7 Ways to Grow the Action Habit
People at the top of every profession share one quality — they get things done. This ability supercedes intelligence, talent, and connections in determining the size of your salary and the speed of your advancement.
Despite the simplicity of this concept there is a perpetual shortage of people who excel at getting results. The action habit — the habit of putting ideas into action now — is essential to getting things done. Here are 7 ways you can grow the action habit:
1. Don’t wait until conditions are perfect – If you’re waiting to start until conditions are perfect, you probably never will. There will always be something that isn’t quite right. Either the timing is off, the market is down, or there’s too much competition. In the real world there is no perfect time to start. You have to take action and deal with problems as they arise. The best time to start was last year. The second best time is right now.2. Be a doer – Practice doing things rather than thinking about them. Do you want to start exercising? Do you have a great idea to pitch your boss? Do it today. The longer an idea sits in your head without being acted on, the weaker it becomes. After a few days the details gets hazy. After a week it’s forgotten completely. By becoming a doer you’ll get more done and stimulate new ideas in the process.
3. Remember that ideas alone don’t bring success – Ideas are important, but they’re only valuable after they’ve been implemented. One average idea that’s been put into action is more valuable than a dozen brilliant ideas that you’re saving for “some other day” or the “right opportunity”. If you have an idea the you really believe in, do something about it. Unless you take action it will never go anywhere.
4. Use action to cure fear – Have you ever noticed that the most difficult part of public speaking is waiting for your turn to speak? Even professional speakers and actors experience pre-performance anxiety. Once they get started the fear disappears. Action is the best cure for fear. The most difficult time to take action is the very first time. After the ball is rolling, you’ll build confidence and things will keep getting easier. Kill fear by taking action and build on that confidence.5. Start your creative engine mechanically – One of the biggest misconceptions about creative work is that it can only be done when inspiration strikes. If you wait for inspiration to slap you in the face, your work sessions will be few and far between. Instead of waiting, start your creative motor mechanically. If you need to write something, force yourself to sit down and write. Put pen to paper. Brainstorm. Doodle. By moving your hands you’ll stimulate the flow of ideas and inspire yourself.
6. Think in terms of now – Focus on what you can do in the present moment. Don’t worry about what you should have done last week or what you might be able to do tomorrow. The only time you can affect is the present. If you speculate too much about the past or the future you won’t get anything done. Tomorrow or next week frequently turns into never. As Ben Franklin said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”7. Get down to business immediately – It’s common practice for people to socialize and make small talk at the beginning of meetings. The same is true for individual workers. How often do you check email or RSS feeds before doing any real work? These distractions will cost you serious time if you don’t bypass them and get down to business immediately. By becoming someone who gets to the point you’ll be more productive and people will look to you as a leader.
It takes courage to take action without instructions from the person in charge. Perhaps that’s why initiative is a rare quality that’s coveted by managers and executives everywhere. Seize the initiative. Be a crusader. When you have a good idea, start implementing it without being told. Once people see you’re serious about getting things done they’ll want to join in. The people at the top don’t have anyone telling them what to do. If you want to join them, you should get used to acting independently.
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Review of a Self-Help Dropout
It’s as if Chris Hardwick asked WIRED, “Is there anything I can do to re-inspire confidence in your magazine with Jason Cobb? He’s been reading your magazine since your covers featured tight-fisted EFF logos, even before Marc Andreesen launched Netscape. He’s the rebellious teenage hacker whose grown up to work in an office everyday, but still yearns for the fancifulness that only WIRED can bring. Let me bring it to him. Let me be the one.” And so, we get “Diary of a Self-Help Dropout” by Chris Hardwick, freelance writer, comedian, and musician.
Its a review of three self-help books including Allen’s Getting things Done, a feature favorite and life changer for Jason Cobb and millions of others around the globe. I busted out laughing on page 75 when he summarized Allen’s system for prioritization, “Explode my individual tasks into a philosophical framework incorporating my life’s ultimate purpose. Oh, OK. That’s all I have to do.” I’ve often felt the same way. One more quote that just reeks of Jason is on page 77 when Hardwick says of menial tasks, “You might as well write a check to ‘Failure’.” I think that if Jason just gives this issue a chance he might come to love WIRED again.
Best “Crash” Ever?
Jan 2009’s WIRED magazine sees more bells and whistles than ever before. There are more things going on, each page filled with sub-boxes, clues to guide you through the choose-your-own adventure that editor Chris Anderson wants every issue to be. The first article to stick out to me was by Scott Brown on page 66 entitled “Best Crash Ever.” What caught my eye was a reference to “The Great Facebook Panic!”. Okay, Scott, you have my attention. Go on. He does. The premise of the story is to imagine what the new depression, which starts in 2008 will look like now that we are in the digital age, but around half-way through the article, something started sounding familiar. The dystopian mix of technology and hard-times sounded like a sequel to Snow Crash and then it hit me. Why not have a sequel to Snow Crash set in today’s “metaverse” and economic slowdown. When the only thing we are good at as a nation is programming and pizza delivery, it pays to have tight wheels, friends you can trust, and a fast connection – even if it means living in a U-Stor-It.
I emailed Scott Brown this message:
Great story in the Jan 2009 issue. Wondered if “Crash” was a wink to Stephenson’s Snow Crash? I didn’t think about this until about half-way through when I realized how your article could be construed as a premise for a sequel to Neal’s epic.
And he replied a little over a month later:
Oh dude. I wish!
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The Art of Gardening
While pulling weeds in my garden this afternoon, which I am accustomed to doing after church on Sundays throughout the summer, I began consciously trying to free my mind from everything outside of the relationship between me and my garden. And the moment my mind was free, I was able to find the answer I was looking for.
In the recent past I have been viewing my life in sections, what you might call roles. I am a business analyst by day, a business consultant by night, a blogger, an entrepreneur, a father, and a husband (and yes, I fear I prioritize in that order, but that is a subject not covered in this blog post). I preferred calling the roles “sections” because I could better categorize in my mind how to act in each area, while remembering my character – who I am makes up a large part of how I act in each section. A value I set on myself, the whole of all those sections, was to prioritize things that are revenue generating over those that are not, least most being cost-centers (expense generators). And since my biggest client was my day job as a business analyst, that gets highest priority. In the same way, my family is a cost-center so they get lowest priority. My wife costs more than my children so she is ranked lowest.
However, I have a garden. I chose to plant a garden last fall and actively have been working on it since. This garden is roughly 200 square feet, of which half is corn and the other half made up of strawberries, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, and sunflowers (subconsciously I even listed the plants in the order which are most expense-saving to aesthetic-only). In the fall I turned over shovels of weeds. In the spring, I brought over compost-rich soil, and a neighbor helped me plow and till. My wife bought seeds and my daughter helped me plant them. At least once a week I go out, get on my hands and knees, and pull weeds. It takes about 5 minutes per corn stalk because the weeds are so thick. Each corn stalk will create roughly 80 cents worth of corn – if any corn comes at all. There is no fence around my garden so there is also a risk that some one or thing will harvest it first. I’m thinking all of these things while pulling weeds and then this question hits me, “How can I put so much effort into something non-revenue generating?” to which I intuitively knew the answer, “Because it’s exactly like starting a business, which you love to do.”
The Art of the Start
Starting a business usually involves many hours of preparation and toil for little or no return – all in hopes for the big payoff at the end, the harvest. Buying the seeds is easy and clean. Preparing the bed is a little harder, but at least the weeds aren’t growing then and you can ride the results of your preparation for a while. Planting is not so much difficult as mentally challenging and sometimes stressful. It’s no longer just churning up dirt, you’re dealing directly with product development now. Plant too deep or space to unevenly and you’ll get waste. There is no way to know how the decisions you’re making now will affect the harvest, but they will – tremendously. You water the seeds through promotion and pull weeds by dealing with all the little problems until the harvest comes in. But if you don’t stay on top of the problems, the problems keep growing. Just because you ignore the problems doesn’t mean they stop growing. The funny thing about weeds is, individually they are easy to pull. The problem is in their magnitude.
Like in Getting Things Done or any other personal productivity program you can think of, the key to projects or problem solving is defining the next step and taking action. Projects can sometimes seem like what author Jim Collins calls “big hairy audacious goals”, but if you break them down into “next steps,” big goals can seem manageable. Author Jack Canfield tells an allegory about driving to California from New York at night: you don’t have to see all the way to California, you only need to see the next 200 feet in front of you. So if your project is 200 square feet or 200 feet, define the next step, but of equally importance: take action. The weeds, or problems, will not stop coming. You must develop a system for dealing with them, stay on top of them, and you just might enjoy a bountiful harvest.
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How to Have a Happy New Year
How to have a happy new year:
1. Tell yourself you are going to have a good year. Give up on the thinking that for every good thing that happens there will be something bad. It doesn’t have to work that way, but will if you want it to. Say you are going to have a good year and that it doesn’t have to be offset by bad. Then write it down and speak it out loud.
2. Ask yourself what you want. Be specific. Narrow it down by using actions and places. What do you want to accomplish at home? What do you want to accomplish in your business life? What things would you like to own? Where might you want to go to see or show someone? Write down your answers, then speak them out loud.
3. Take inventory of your assets and liabilities. Surround yourself with family and team member who share your positive outlook on life and eliminate or narrow your exposure to those who are constantly negative. Cut out things in your life that are busy work or that are uncessary. Ask yourself why you are doing something. If you don’t know the answer, stop.
4. Take a step towards one of your goals each day. Action cures fear. A goal like debt reduction or quitting your job can be scary and seem insurmountable. It is probably impossible to do in one step so don’t. Figure out the next action, then write it down. Speak the action out loud and set a deadline of accomplishing this action within the next 8 hours.
5. Develop a system to manage your thoughts or ideas. If you’ve followed these steps you have been writing things down. They may be on the back of an envelope, on a receipt in your car, or in an email or text message. USe whatever you feel comfortable with to collect these musings into one cohesive place. Only use a calendar for hard and fast dates, not for action items. Try to avoid using email as your method of choice if possible.
6. Relax. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Take time to smell the roses and the aftershave. Unplug. Check your email less often. Read the news less. Take more walks. Lay down outside. Feel the ground. Decompress. Take a deep breath at least once a day. Laugh. Forgive. Love. Visit your mother wherever she is. Don’t make lists, take actions. Conquer fear.
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5 Ways to Stay Alert and Focused
How to Avoid the Afternoon Loss of Energy
If you’re like me, you get tired in the afternoon just after lunch and just want to lay down. Most employers discourage this (although some encourage it) and for those who want to fight off this feeling and get more done, here are five things I have found to help me keep going longer.
Change what you eat.
Drink more water, which fights fatigue and helps keep you fuller, longer. When you do eat, choose foods high in protein, which slows the absorption of carbohydrates which can cause fatigue when they wear off, but in all things moderation. Foods high in protein are usually also high in tryptophan which can cause sleepiness. One way to combat this seeming contradiction is to eat a high protein breakfast when you are most rested, then eat less protein at each meal throughout the day, eating the least amount at supper.
Learn your circadian rhythm.
Every living creature has its own circadian rhythm, but each person also has their own intricacies which can be learned and used to your advantage. Start by going to bed at the same time each day and waking up at the same time each day for a week. If you’re not getting enough rest, move one of the times so that you get more sleep. If you’re waking up too early, move the going-to-sleep time back until you find your optimal sleep time. But here’s the key – when you find your optimal sleep time, its only effective if you stick to it. Your body will know that it can run full steam all day long if it “knows” its going to bed at a certain time no matter what. Otherwise, its just protecting itself from your erratic behavior.
Cut back on caffeine.
This sounds counter intuitive, I know, but caffeine only speeds up your heart temporarily, leaving you more tired afterward. I sometimes even drink coffee at night timing the crash for when I want to fall asleep. If you use a lot of sugar in your coffee or drink sugared colas, the crash is double as your heart slows down and your body crashes from the sugar drop. If you can’t give up caffeine completely, try switching to a green tea, which has less caffeine or saving your caffeinated drink as a “secret weapon” for when you need it the most. It takes about a half hour to kick in so if you have to, drink it at your desk a half hour after lunch to propel you through the afternoon.
Change up your environment.
Sometimes its nothing to do with the chemicals inside your body, sometimes its your surroundings that are lulling you to sleep. Take a break to get some perspective on life. Step outside and take a deep breath. If you can’t get outside, find a window. If you don’t have a window, close your eyes, lean your head back and take a deep breath. Force yourself to smile. The muscle movement will elect a feeling on your body forcefully. If you’re a scrooge, you might not like this feeling so use with caution. Also, if music is allowed where you work, it can both pump you up and take you to another place, giving you perspective on your current activities.
Rest when you can.
On the seventh day, God rested. This was a good example for us humans, but we seldom do it. If you can find the time during a weekend to rest, take a nap. Yes, you are allowed. If you work seven days a week, a power nap can work wonders, just don’t fall into too deep of a sleep or you will feel worse after waking up. Limit yourself to less than twenty minutes. This ensures you won’t fall into REM sleep, but your body will still feel rested. If you can get out to your car, go and set an alarm or find a coworker you trust to wake you up. I have found that I can put a “request ticket” out to my subconscious that asks to be woken up when slipping between stage 1 and 2 of sleep. Not everyone can do this though.
Give yourself something to look forward to.
In life and everything else, we all need incentives. Its how the world works. You’re probably not working for someone else for free and you shouldn’t have to. We just need to harness that same mentality to help us get through the day. Create mini-goals and rewards throughout the day. Everyone is working for the weekend, but that happens once a week and starts on Friday. What do we do on Monday to stay motivated? This might be the hardest task of all, but if you can master it, you’re well on your way to being more productive and alert during the afternoon – and time may just fly by a little faster.
Summary
Above all, use common sense. If you’re too tired to stay awake during the day, you probably need more sleep at night. Before taking any advice you read here or anywhere else, see your doctor to make sure these things are right for you. I’d love to hear how you stay alert during the day in the comments below. Need more advice? Here is a complete website on how to stay alert.