Monthly Archives: April 2007

Doing Less to Be More Productive?

Can you get away with doing less??

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits has written a guest posting for Scott H Young about the benefits of doing less to be more productive.

At first this looks like a vain promise of ‘More For Less’; but the article reads well and seems to make sense. Until, that is, I came upon this statement:

Cut back on the number of goals and tasks you have on your plate, so that you can focus on the most important ones.

I think that the vast majority of us are not in the position where we can arbitrarily decide we’re not going to do a whole rake of stuff. The company I work for mandates what needs to be done though the year and I don’t think I’d get a very good merit review if I decided I wasn’t going to do some of it.

If, on the other hand, you work for yourself or in a position where you make the rules then I would agree that if you can cut out some stuff and focus more then the quality of the finished product will probably be higher and the satisfaction and rewards greater.

Things I've Learnt Today

One of my major stressors is the gap between who or what I think I am and how I then behave.

For example I think I’m a good enough parent; but then have occasion to yell at my daughter then I get stressed. Or if I think I’m a caring husband and then have an argument with my wife I get stressed.

So I have to realize that I can be the one thing (good parent, caring husband) and still do the other thing.

Book Review: Do It Tomorrow by Mark Forster

I must admit that I first got hold of Mark Forster‘s book last September (2006) and only finished reading it just before Easter this year. This has less to do with the content of the book and more to do with the turmoil that was going on in my own life at the time. “Maybe if I’d read the book straight off there’d have been less turmoil?”, well that’s a possibility. The reason I mention this is because I can recall little about the first 50% of the book that I read piecemeal; but the rest is very fresh in my mind. Anyway, here goes the review.

The main thrust of Mark’s book seems to be concerned with handling the constant flow of incoming tasks that bombard us daily from email, telephone calls, colleagues, family and friends. How do we manage all these new pressures on our time? Mark’s premise is that anything that arrives today is to be done tomorrow (unless you’re working in an industry that requires an immediate response). This recognizes and respects that a day is a finite resource and that you can’t do more in a day than you have the time and resources to do. So anything new is for tomorrow.

So far I don’t think this is particularly radical as it appears to be what anyone doing GTD would be doing; anything new goes into an In-box unless it can be done in under 2 minutes. However where I feel Mark’s book adds value to GTD is with the suggestion of using a Closed List. Whereas GTD maintains a number of open ended action lists Mark suggests that these are counter productive because they are continually being added to; there’s never a chance of finishing a list and this can be demotivating. As you can only do a set amount in a day Mark suggests making a daily Closed List of the things that you are going to do that day. A heavy line is drawn under that list and (within reason) nothing is added above the line.

For me this is a very useful exercise. It means that every evening I have to review all the things I want to get done in the near future and make a conscious decision about which ones I’m going to do tomorrow. Then I start tomorrow knowing that I’ve a fixed amount to get through and not an open ended list of stuff. It gives me a great sense of achievement to complete my daily Closed List.

Finally I promise I will go back to Mark’s book and re-read it straight through to make sure I haven’t missed anything from the first half.

I award this book three stars: * * *

Those Bertie Posters

There’s been a fair bit of comment online recently about the Fianna Fail posters of our esteemed Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Personally I was furious about the posters! I mean they are so obviously falsified; do they think the electorate is so thick that they’d fall for such amateur photo editing?

Come on guys this is Ireland in the 21st Century. You simply can’t pull the wool over the voter’s eyes and expect to get away with it anymore. Will you ever cop on to the fact that your electorate is now a sophisticated and savvy group that know when it’s being sold short.

We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see if the election prospectus is also a patched together bunch of falsehoods.

Finally there is a lighter side to this story over on The Snackbox Diaries.

Back To Work Stress

Here I am, back from a week off work. The week away was great; but the return to the grind is less so.

I don’t imagine I’m the only person who suffers from the back-to-work blues; but my stress levels are off the scale today. It’s a bit like walking along enjoying the sunshine when BAM! You walk into a lamp post. Ouch!!

What is causing all this stress? Stress originated in the ‘flight or fight’ response system; we get stressed when we’re getting ready to either run away from a situation (flight), or to face it head on (fight). This was great when the situation was a wild animal; but these days is this an appropriate response to daily domestic or work situations? I don’t think so. OK, I agree that some stress is a useful thing; but often I get stressed over things that are inappropriate, or my stress level lasts longer than is appropriate.

If you do a search for stress related stuff you’ll find masses of it on the net. Trying to read all that would really get me stressed out. However there’s a few pointers that I’ve gleaned from an initial scan of some of the material:

  1. You can alleviate stress once you’ve got it by using relaxation techniques (I guess we all knew this) but…
  2. It’s better to learn not to get stressed out in the first place and so…
  3. I have to learn what my stressors are.

So this is one area of personal discovery for me; find out what causes me stress and learn how not to get stressed out. I’ll report back how I get on.

My Tool Box

One of the recurring themes of this blogs is going to be about productivity tools. What I find useful and why and what I don’t use and why. For me productivity is part tool and part method – tools are great but you’ve gotta know how to use them!

So what’s in the tool box this week? One of my favorites is Google Reader. I’ve tried a few feed readers over the last couple of years including:

OK, not a huge list, I’ll give you that. However none of these readers have inspired me enough to persist with feed reading like Google Reader has.

What do I like about it? One of its big pluses is that it’s right there in my browser – no need to launch another application. Also its simplicity of design and execution have made it very user friendly (to this user at any rate).

So that’s my number one tool for the moment and using it I’m discovering a huge amount about productivity, happiness and getting things done. If you think Google Reader sucks or if you have a strong leaning in another direction then share your preferences here.

Monday Mornings

I love Monday mornings! Honest, I do!

I used to listen to my colleagues at work complaining about Monday morning, how the weekend was over and there was another week of work ahead before the next one. Personally I love to look forward to what I’m going to achieve in the week ahead, the goals I’m going to accomplish and the opportunities the week will present.

Yes, Monday mornings for me are a great time for invigoration and renewal. After all I can’t do anything about the fact that I’ve 5 days work before the next weekend so I might as well accept the fact and get stuck in.

Reading Now

This is the first in a series of occasional posts about what I’m reading now and why. Books that is, if I started writing about the stuff I’m reading on the Internet I don’t know when I’d have time to sleep.

OK, two books I’ve got on the go at the moment. The first is Mind Maps At Work by Tony Buzan. I’ve been a fan of using mind maps in my job as a software engineer for a couple of years; but have never read anything from the man who really made the general public aware of them (in the UK at any rate) Tony Buzan. I’m about half way through the book and so far I’ve found some useful tips; but at the same time I’m not too comfortable with the way the book is written. I’m not going to comment further on this at the moment until I’ve read the whole thing.

The second book is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (don’t you just love the menus on his web site? Now how cool are those?). This book is Tolle’s best seller and, in my honest opinion, is a revolutionary work in spiritual and personal development. The book is next to my bed and I’m reading it slowly because there’s a lot to take in; but so far it has given me a great spiritual boost. Eckhart, you rock man.