Year: 2009

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Converting Email into Scheduled Items

Ever since I learned that I could take an email and immediately transform it to an item in my schedule with its own start and end time, I have engaged in the habit almost daily.

In Outlook 2007 it’s a simple matter of dragging the item to the day in the calendar.  Outlook automatically opens up a new appointment on the given day, and from there it’s a simple matter of entering the appropriate times.

In other applications, the task is a much more difficult one to undertake.

In Gmail, doing this simple task is no mean feat — in fact, I’m not sure how to do it at all.  Google calendar is a different but related program that opens into a different window altogether (I’d love a reader to answer the question of to convert a Gmail item into an appointment for me.)

In like manner, stand-alone calendars might by useful but their lack of connection to daily email is a big no-no.

Good software should mimic the way a user processes items that enter their time management systems, but they seem to be thinking about each function in isolation, which leads to good software for calendars (e.g. Leader Task) and good software for email(e.g. Gmail) and only Outlook that even attempts to link the two… in a clumsy way that seems to have been added as an afterthought.

The new internet PDA’s such as the iPhone and Blackberry seem to be great at email, but weak at the full suite of 11 practices that make up a time management system,and especially “Scheduling.”  (I can’t admit to knowing a lot about either PDA, and am willing to be educated by reader who can let me know if I’m wrong.)

Hopefully the day will come when someone builds an integrated system starting with the 11 Fundamentals.  I think it could be quite powerful.

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Falling off the Wagon

wagon.jpgFrom time to time, a user of a time management system may find themselves “falling off the wagon,” neglecting to perform one or more of the critical habits that underlie the 2Time approach.

For example, they might forgo manual capturing, and instead try to remember everything  without writing anything down.

Or, they  might allow their capture points, such as their email inbox or voicemail box, to become full, or heavy with time demands.

They couldt even forget about scheduling altogether and just try to use their memory as their guide to tell them what to work on next.

In any case, their time managment system starts to fail under the weight of a practice that is not being undertaken.

In my experience the short-term solution is to set time aside to correct the error.  The more permanent fix is to take a good hard look at the underlying habit, and to use it as a learning moment.

There is some reason why the practice has not become a habit, and there are usually some supports to put in place in order to help solidify the practice.  For example, in order to remember to floss at least twice per week, I learned to tie my floss-er to the razor I use to shave my head.  Because I shave my head twice a week, it means that I cannot fail to remember to floss, as it is impossible for me to start shaving without separating the two instruments, and therefore remembering.

This worked for me, but the point is not that everyone should start tying different objects together in order to remember to use them.

Instead, I have discovered that for MY habit-pattern, this approach works, and now flossing has become irrevocably linked to shaving in my regular practices, much to the satisfaction of my dentist.

When we fall off the wagon, it’s a signal from the universe that our habits aren’t working, and that we don’t understand ourselves well enough to succeed at changing habits.  It’s simply a call to further self-development and self-knowledge, and an opportunity to learn how to “work on ourselves.”
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Blackberry Slavery Article

I wrote a post as a guest-writer the Stepcase LifeHack website entitled “Blackberry Slavery” that was published today.In the article, I describe how PDA’s armed with real-time email are allowing companies to take advantage of employees’ fears of losing their jobs.All this, while HR department move much too move slowly to  protect employee down-time, and ultimately the productivity of thier most valuable resource: human beings.The article can entitled “Blackberry Slavery” can be accessed here.  

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Following the Rhythms of Life

Now and again, I come across an article that I don’t quite know what to do with.
To be sure, I like the idea of setting a daily schedule that takes into account one’s daily rhythm.
This article, however, takes the idea to another level, as you’ll see.
(It’s taken from a comment made to a blog post I mentioned earlier.)
 
#1 | Nicholas Powiull | 2/16/2009 at 6:02 am

I have experienced this many times.

I did a Polyphasic Sleep experiment. I sleep only 1.5 hours in a 24 hour period. I slept 6 times around the clock. Every four hours I would take a 15 min nap. I did this for 273 days straight. Now I am only sleeping 45 minutes in every 24 hour period (I call it Powiull sleep, because nobody else has ever been documented sleeping this little for this long) and I still am experiencing the same positive effects:

1. In the first 48 hour, my intuition heightened, the mental chatter cleared (like that of a mediation state), and I begin to realize how to live in the moment rather than by a day and night schedule. I begin at once writing what I was receiving from within.

2. My logical mind dulled while my creative imaginative mind accelerated giving me a child-like sense of everything being exciting, new, fun and perfectly fine. Unlocking this part of my mind again allowed me to understand the power of the imagination to solve any problem from within (the key of life) using the engine to creative power and see many more choices that my logic couldn’t imagine by putting limiting beliefs on Self.

3. Time became non-realistic in all terms that time can be perceived since I am up for 23 hours and 15 minutes in a 24 hour period. I came to understand time as non-existent because there is so much of it. When people refer to yesterday, I can not place when one moment to a next moment was yesterday. It is all a continuous streaming reality with no approach or separation between days and nights to me. I notice the shift from day to night but I do not shift with it in form of a schedule. Instead I listen to my physical, emotional and mental bodies in the moment to signal me when it is time to do something, you would be surprised by how much you do things based on habit of a night/ day cycle.

4. During the process of adopting this sleeping pattern all my five senses dulled and when all the five senses returned, they were much sharper, aware, alert, alive and clear. As if I were in a dream all my life and just waking up to a new world that is much more vibrate and vivid.

5. I felt the elevation of my consciousness to higher states of awareness. I also feel a connection to myself, to everyone else and everything around me. This connection has made my conversations with people much more meaningful and helpful in developing and growing conscious states.

6. My dreams are more vivid, intense, and real. I often have lucid dreams and I remember my dreams quite easily, which is very helpful in consciousness advancement since dreams are a reflection of reality.

7. The ability to remember things (on a short-term and long-term span) has increased dramatically, the motivation I have has improved, and my concentration as well. I literally feel like a much more intelligent person, as if my brain waves are more active. Rather that is the case or not, it is very self-reassuring and builds confidence to a higher focus.

8. After every nap I feel refreshed, energized, wide-awake, with no feelings of tiredness, drowsiness or grogginess. Even when my naps times come around I still do not feel tired, drowsy or groggy. These feelings are non-existent to me ever since I adopted this sleeping pattern. When a naptime is close (15-20 minutes) my body gives me a signal by making my eyes slightly heavier and relaxing my body a bit more. Nothing too intense, just enough to let me know that naptime is close and every nap feels like an eight hour restful sleep.

9. All activities of stress, worry, depression, negative thoughts and seeing things as problems have vanished. The mind is the corporate that leads to all these things. The mental noise in the background that is in continuous struggle trying to make things better and always questioning with “what if” dilemmas. This sleeping pattern puts that mind chatter to rest and opens up a new way of thinking.

10. Jet lag is the result of the circadian rhythm being unbalanced. Circadian rhythm is a natural rhythm that the body adopts based on day and night schedules. When you adopt the polyphasic sleeping pattern then the circadian rhythm is replaced since you will no longer have a day and night schedule, making the experience of jet lag nonexistent.

Including clearer thoughts, feeling more awake, adjusted, aware, alive, vibrant, and energized. Also a growth in intuition, a unique scenery perception, happier with life on every level, no negative thoughts or feelings of depression, more aware to the world around me, answers to any questions I was seeking, more insight, seeing more inner knowledge, experiencing more wisdom, feeling more peaceful, and more of everything that I define myself to be.

If that is not flow, then I am not sure what is ;) and the good news is I didn’t have to practice 10,000 hours, I just had to stay mentally focused to get through the adoption period.

 

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Improving Time Management Over the Years

led_digital_watch_red_70s_type_display.jpgI just read an interesting article from the New York Times exploring the reasons why free-throw shooting in basketball has not improved over the years.

Apparently, the success-rate of free-throws in the NBA and college basketball has remained unchanged at approximately 69% since the mid 1960’s.  The authors of the piece make the case that not enough has changed over the years to cause the overall average to shift, and in particular they point out some areas in which little or nothing has changed.

Here is an excerpt:

Ray Stefani, a professor emeritus at California State University, Long Beach, is an expert in the statistical analysis of sports. Widespread improvement over time in any sport, he said, depends on a combination of four factors: physiology (the size and fitness of athletes, perhaps aided by performance-enhancing drugs), technology or innovation (things like the advent of rowing machines to train rowers, and the Fosbury Flop in high jumping), coaching (changes in strategy) and equipment (like the clap skate in speedskating or fiberglass poles in pole vaulting).

This made me wonder — what are the equivalent factors in the area of time management that would have to change in order for the average professional’s productivity to improve?

Here are some candidates for factors that have impacted personal productivity in the past 50 years:

Technology — the ability to transport the modern tools of communication and organization has unchained professionals from their desks, and that is a benefit.  However, the poor use of gadgets has helped to make some users more inefficient than they were before

Practice — the little codification that has occurred in books such as Getting Things Done and on the 2Time Management blog has brought some level of standardization to a haphazard field with no established standards, and little proper research

Coaching —  while there remains little or no standardized training for time management, many pick up a book or do an online course to learn how to improve their time management skills

Measurement — in the case of basketball and many other sports, it is easy to determine how effective a player is relative to his/her peers.  Not so time management, which unfortunately for most, remains in the dark ages when it comes to having simple, empirical measures of success that can be used to compare one user to another, or even to record simple changes that a user makes in their time management system.

Of these factors, I believe that a real breakthrough will come when a fool-proof method is derived for measuring personal productivity.

Here in the 2Time approach, I advocate the use of a personal test — “what does this do to my peace of mind?”  However,  this test is hardly empirical.

Until the day comes when a solid method of measurement is created,  it will be impossible to improve time management from year to year with any reliability.

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New York Times Article on the Empty Inbox

An article in the New York Times that reiterates some of the points that I have made in this blog can be found here:An Empty In-box or With Just a Few Email Messages.The writer shares the practices he uses to work his email down to zero, but unfortunately doesn’t address the fact that his set of habits can’t be picked up and used by many people, simply because they are  product of his own idiosyncracies.  Not that this is wrong – it’s just that people who want to achieve a Zero Inbox generally need more than a list of one person’s habits in order to achieve the goal.  In other words, they need to craft a set of practices that work for them, and them alone, and perhaps more importantly, a way to change their own habits reliably.Most people, however, are convinced that they need to just get less email, and that somehow throttling communication in some way is the right approach.The fact is that spam filters and email rules do help for  a while, but they don’t resolve the underlying problem that created trouble in the first place — personal habits that were never intended to handle the number of emails being received.Ultimately, only a smart change in habits will produce the desired end-result. 

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On Thoughts of Overwhelm

I have written before about how one free oneself from a sense of overwhelm, without actually doing anything time management related.

Instead, I have found a great deal of value from working on my thoughts.

The following article demonstrates the principle beautifully — it’s taken from the Radical Happiness blog and the article is entitled “Unnecessary Thoughts.”

Here is an excerpt:  Life is never actually overwhelming because there is only so much we can do in a moment. But the mind brings ideas into this moment about what you “have” to do, what you want to do, what you’ve done in the past, what others want you to do, doubts about doing it, and ideas about any number of other things unrelated to what you are doing or need to do, which confuse and stress you out.”

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Solving the Paper Problem

20070227overload.jpgThere are a number of ways that time demands can enter a user’s time management system, but those that enter on hard copy, or paper, are probably the most annoying for professionals.

Some people’s offices are visual testimonies to the fact that they have a problem.

Piles of magazines, letters, bills and memos lay in piles on any available horizontal surface, creating a clutter that is overwhelming to the occasional visitor.  In 2Time language, the problem might be one of Storing or Tossing, and the solution might involve the use of scanners, secretaries and dumpsters.

In most cases, however,  the piles are a symptom of an underlying problem of Emptying.

Emptying involves more than just the “cleaning out” of different capture points.   Instead, it also includes, perhaps, the most difficult practice to master in a user’s time management system — the point at which they must make a definitive decision about how best to handle a time demand.

To Empty well, a user must make time and space in their day to route each and every time demand to its proper destination in their system, and in many cases the decision is not a simple one.  Sometimes, a decision cannot be made in the moment because it involves other people.  In other cases, it requires research or deeper thinking.

When the time demand presents itself on paper, a different problem arises.  Paper is difficult to work with because of its sheer physicality.

It takes up space, and unless it is sorted and filed away, the information that is on paper in all the different forms mentioned before is likely to be hidden between the pages.  As a result, the information is difficult to find, plus time-consuming to recover.

Each piece of paper in a pile on a desk, on the ground, in a book, on a bill, etc. represents a small decision by the user to “attend to this later.”  By making this decision, a user creates a time demand that essentially consumes a small piece of their future schedule.

At first, walking into an office with lots of paper in piles feel overwhelming, but many users train themselves to be immune to that feeling — they become numb.

Their productivity suffers  as their peace of mind dwindles.

Some believe that the solution lies in refusing to accept paper into their lives, but I think that this is a bit of a red herring.

So are other strategies like buying a filing cabinet, scanner or hiring a personal assistant.

Instead, the solution lies is becoming better at Emptying, perhaps by improving a Belt Level, and elevating the act of Emptying to a place of importance in a daily schedule.

Users that grant themselves time and space to make high quality decisions about paper that enters their lives simply don’t have the problem that paper causes most of us.

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Signs of a White Belt

white-belt.jpgIn 2Time, a While Belt has the honor of being the “lowest” belt, in the sense that a user at this level is just starting out on the journey of developing their own time management system, and still has the habit of trying to rely on their memory, versus using a conscious system.

Most of the professionals who have taken the NewHabits-NewGoals and MyTimeDesign programs based on 2Time discover that they are White Belts, due in part to the rigorous standard that must be accomplished to attain the higer belts.  In these programmes, there is an important idea — that each of 11 fundamental practices can be evaluated separately.  A composite picture can be created by pulling together the scores that a user gives himself in each discipline.

It’s not too different from looking at the composite scores of a baseball player who can be evaluated by their RBI’s, Home Runs, Batting Percentage, etc.  A batter might be great in one statistic but lousy in the others, reducing their overall effectiveness.
In 2Time, professionals are advised to give themselves the lowest belt level they find when they do their personal evaluation.

At the same time, there some easy ways to tell that a  professional is operating at a white belt, or novice level,
instead of analyzing the disciplines.

White Belts have one or more of the following: A high number of unread items in Email Inboxes

  1. Missed appointments
  2. Often having to say “Sorry, I didn’t remember”
  3. A Voice-mail Inbox that is consistently full
  4. Frequent mad scrambles to find lost information stored on paper
  5. Key information that is stored electronically is not consistently backed up

A White Belt is not someone who lacks for willpower or good intentions.  As a professional, they may have a simple job that
requires no more than White Belt skills.

However, White Belt users need to be aware that their skills may not allow them to progress to bigger projects, greater
responsibilities and promotions up the corporate ladder.  They might not have the capacity to start a business in their spare time or conduct an effective exercise program.

It’s not an indictment on them per se, but it is indicative of what is needed to accomplish higher performance.

After all, Little League baseball is not Major League baseball, and it shouldn’t be.  In like manner, time management for hourly workers is not the same as time management for executives, and anyone who aspires to high performance in their career will be faced with those moments when their time management system needs an upgrade.  For those who are successful, it will probably happen several times in their careers – an occasion that requires them to develop a new time management system  in order to accomplish their new goals.

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30 Days of MyTimeDesign for $1.00

The signs of the recession are everywhere, and there are many people who are without jobs and are looking for ways to cope.  After some thought, I think I have found a way to make it easier for anyone who comes to this blog to get their hands on great value, for only $1.00.

Starting next week, I am going to offer the first 30 days of MyTimeDesign to the public for only a buck.

What will a participant who registers receive?

I have found that the majority of people who take either my 12-week online program – MyTimeDesign  – or my 2 day  live program – NewHabits-NewGoals – get the most value from the first few topics that are covered.

While this isn’t true for all who have taken the course by any means, the first few concepts and practices that are learned are enough to change anyone’s time management system for a lifetime. During the first thirty days, participants come to grips with the fact that they have already designed and are using some kind of system, usually ad hoc, and are now entering the realm of consciously carving out a system they want.

They also cover practices such as Capturing, Tossing and Storing, which are some of the conerstones of all time management systems, and they fine-tune their own system to their own precise needs.

While MyTimeDesign is a 12 week program, the first 30 days are perhaps the most important to most users.

And, there are some who will not stop after 30 days, and will instead choose to complete the entire program.  The truth is, it depends on their particular needs.

So, stay tuned — for those who have been waiting for the right time to do MyTimeDesign, this just might be it!