Applied Research in a World of Increasing Time Demands
The Summit is on! This free gathering of subject matter experts is like nothing I have ever done, and I had a great time doing my pre-recorded session.
Registration is free, and my session will be held at 1:00pm Eastern on Thursday April 14th. Click here for details on the Productive Business Owner Summit.
By the way, Katie Gutierrez Miller has done a wonderful job in putting these summits together — she’s a name to watch!
I recently had an article published in the Trinidad Newsday that addressed a popular mis-conception that professionals in the Caribbean have… that time management skills are something we are born with rather than develop over time. (Of course, it also applies around the world.)
Here is the link to the article reprinted on the Guardian Life website.
Charlie Gilkey over at the Productive Flourishing blog makes some fine points in a recent post entitled: Why Working From Your Email Inbox Doesn’t Work.
It’s a great article, although you’ll see from the comments that I felt that he could have gone a bit further in his solutions to include higher Scheduling skills.
P.S. This link was broken – I finally fixed it so that it works.
This article from the McKinsey Quarterly is all about Recovering from Information Overload.
When McKinsey starts to pay attention to an issue, it indicates that it’s entering the mainstream and becoming an issue for executives. While the article itself says little that hasn’t been said elsewhere, it’s a good read.
Recovering from Information Overload by Derek Dean and Caroline Webb.
(In case you’re new to the blog, my position that the root of Information Overload is inappropriate habits.)
I spent a few minutes today setting up my first Blackberry… this after writing several articles about the way that the device is being abused by working professionals around the world.
It’s barely been a day, but I am coming to understand its addictive nature, and why people seem so engrossed by them, especially to those who are non-users.
#1: the screen and keyboards are very, very small compared to the usual freedom I have using a laptop with one or two screens and keyboards. It feels as if I’m threading a needle every time I pick it up, and my bifocals are finally getting the workout they deserve as I quint, furrow my brow and tune everything out in order to hit small key, teensy radio buttons with a slippery feeling trackball.
#2: as a practitioner of the Zero Inbox, push email drives me crazy. To the new user, this is crazy. My device, a not-so-new Curve 8320, does not allow me to turn off email. I must either disable every communication app off (the browser, email and even the phone) or keep them all on. This is awfully distracting, as it’s very hard to work with a single email while others are pouring in at the same time. Isn’t there an app for that?
All in all, I appreciate the convenience of mobile email, but so far it’s not a game-changer in productivity terms. Maybe I need to find the games that have fast become the most popular items used… but where are they?
I just found an article that I think most would find unsurprising.
CFO’s are unconcerned about work-life balance, but state that their #1 issue is time management (followed by keeping up with technology, and staying abreast of accounting regulations.)
Here on 2Time I advocate the idea that one can move from one level of skill in time management to another, once the pathway is known.
I also add that it’s fine to decide to stay exactly where one is at the moment, and not have any interest in improvement.
However, I’m not sure that I support the idea of getting stuck at any one level because comfort is one’s goal in life.
This interesting article clarifies something that’s bugged more for some time… ever since a friend of mine told me many years ago that is goal in life was “comfort.”
What do you think: “Why Comfort is a Productivity Killer.”
It reminds me of that passage in one of my favorite books; The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran.
On Houses
Then a mason came forth and said, “Speak to us of Houses.”
And he answered and said:
Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop?
Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.
In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.
And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master?
Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh. It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.
I received an interesting email from a reader of 2Time site who felt a bit put off at my comments about paper systems.
She mentioned that in my video on “Permanently Fixing the Weekly Review” I said (in passing) that paper systems are from the 1950’s. Well, of course, all paper systems are from the pre-1990s, because that’s just about all we had back then to work with!
But I have never addressed the main point she’s inquiring into — can a paper-based system be every bit as good as one that’s electronic? Her last question was the most pointed:
If we truly believe in the “know the basics and make it your own” philosophy, then we must allow people to use the tools that speak to who they are. There cannot be a wrong way.
I humbly agree! In fact, I do all my manual capturing on paper. I also use a Palm PDA – they sit beside each other in a portable wallet that I carry everywhere.
However, using the 11 Habits as a tool for analyzing a time management system that uses only paper reveals that there is a limit to the number of time demands that can be handled using only paper. Let’s look at each of the fundamentals and see why a paper system prevents a user from reaching the higher belts in some disciplines, and why.
(As you read this, bear in mind that the 2Time belt system is just something I made up… it’s not written in stone anyplace. If you’d like to see a short summary of each of the fundamentals, simply do a search on this blog for the relevant keywords in bold and you’ll find my very first definitions.)
Capturing: At the moment I prefer to use paper because it has the following characteristics…
On the other hand, it also offers no backup capabilities, which actually helps me because it leads me to Empty more frequently.
When it comes to automatic capture points, however, those that are electronic win hands-down. For example, at some point soon, letters and bills will be replaced by email entirely.
In the future, I fully expect that tools like LiveScribe will become easier to use, and that we’ll have paper and electronic combinations that give us some of the benefits of both media.
In 2Time terms, it’s possible to become a Green Belt in Capturing using either paper or electronic tools.
Emptying: I think it’s equally easy to empty a paper capture point as it is to empty an electronic capture point. However, there is something that feels good about crossing an item off my pad that deleting doesn’t quite match.
Apart from that, most professionals’ time demands arrive via email and having a paper capture point alongside an electronic email Inbox is a little cumbersome as one needs to move between two different media.
But these are minor differences. The act of Emptying can be mastered if only paper tools are used, so there is little difference between the two.
Tossing: There are only some minor differences between Tossing using paper or electronic tools. Green Belts are achievable regardless of the medium.
Acting Now: Once again, there are very minor differences between the two media in this particular fundamental.
Storing: The discipline/fundamental of storing is defined as indexing information that’s needed in the future so that it’s easy to find at the precise moment of need. This is one fundamental that paper proves to be a limiting factor.
Important information that most professionals need in the future include:
The problem with using a paper storage system is that it’s
In 2Time terms, it’s not possible to progress to the Green Belt stage without using electronic tools. To put it another way, someone who uses electronic tools can effectively executive this fundamental for a greater number of items.
For example, trying to store passwords is a problem for anyone who has a great number of them, and tries to manage them using paper only. Once they upgrade to an electronic storage system with automatic backups, and master the new habits needed, they become more effective.
Scheduling: This fundamental is one that clearly separates paper from electronic users in terms of the number of scheduled items they are able to manage.
A quick glance at the detailed posts on Scheduling reveals that it’s not possible to manage a complex, dynamic schedule on paper. Again, this is strictly a matter of volume.
Users that want to manage a great number of time demands have greater success using a complete and dynamic schedule, alongside short lists. This isn’t a problem at White and Yellow belts, where the number of time demands is low. However, as the number increases, and it becomes harder to handle a mental schedule, then the techniques at Orange and Green Belt levels become necessary.
A dynamic schedule, by the way, is one that can be changed on the fly, when needed. The power of portable electronic PDA’s and smartphones is that a schedule can be carried and accessed quickly. Laptops aren’t quite as accessible, of course.
An electronic schedule can also be duplicated and synchronized in real time across multiple platforms, which makes it easy to recover from a catastrophic event.
Listing: The problems with paper-based Scheduling are similar to those of paper-based Listing. With electronic lists come the safety of having good backups, easy updates from any geographic location plus platform synchronization.
At the White and Yellow Belt levels, where Listing is a prominent activity, using paper lists is risky because of the lack of backups.
Interrupting, Switching, Warning and Reviewing: These Advanced fundamentals are tool independent — they don’t have much to do with using paper or something electronic.
As I performed the above analysis for the first time for this article, I realized that I should reinforce some of the important ideas behind Time Management 2.0, to explain why I created a system that requires electronic tools at the higher Belts.
There is a common belief that a time management system should be tool-neutral. I think that a modern system includes one’s “choice” of:
Each person assembles a system that matches their life needs, and as such, the choice of gadget (which might range from a Franklin Planner to an Android) is very important. I certainly am dealing with this issue as I plan my next upgrade to a Blackberry, as it will make some habits harder to execute, and others easier, simply because of its design.
Bottom Line: as we upgrade and tinker with our time management systems we are free to use what we will, but there are “hard” consequences to our choices that we must account for, and simply can’t ignore.
P.S. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. The great thing about writing a blog is that I’m not stuck with what I created even last week!
I have a suggestion for the designers of Microsoft Outlook, which I have thought for some time, but was recently enhanced when I saw that it was actually implemented by the Smart Diary Suite.
There are an increasing number of Outlook users who are upgrading their Scheduling and Listing skills, and working directly with their calendars. In prior posts, I spoke about this upgrade and how it allows professionals to deal with a greater number of time demands.
When you work directly with an Outlook Calendar, the Reminder function becomes quite useful as a tool for Interrupting. You can set the reminder to go off a the moment a task is supposed to start, or for some time period before it’s due to commence.
However, Outlook only gives you a few methods of disposing of a Reminder. It pops up in a list, and you can ignore the pop-up altogether and continue what you were doing. To dispose of it, however, you need to either
a) click on Dismiss, which removes the reminder and leaves the item in your calendar, never to return to your awareness
b) delay the reminder for a few minutes
c) open the reminder and reschedule the task for a later time
What it doesn’t do that it should is allow you to mark the item as “completed.”
There should be an extra box that allows this option, much in the same way that it does in the Smart Diary Suite. If the item could be marked as completed, it could then be crossed out in Outlook, showing that it was successfully done.
This would be a benefit in a few ways:
1. there’s a psychological boost that we get by crossing out items that are complete. It simply feels good, and looking over a calendar of completed items that are crossed out would also feel good, as you can see in the diagram above
2. it would provide a record of what actually got completed, which would help people like me who keep track of their time each week. If it also kept a record of when the item was marked as complete, that would be even better.
This would represent a small programming change, but as I have said before, this kind of upgrade is not simply a matter of adding another feature. The truth is that Outlook, Gmail and every other email/calendar program is built around an underlying philosophy of time management, which is nothing more than an assumption about how people manage their time (or should manage their time.)
When the philosophy is not clear, then the features follow suit. These programs have some nice doo-dahs, but they aren’t built around the fundamentals of time management, so they don’t fit the time management needs of many professionals. Check out my series on articles on Outlook’s shortcomings, or do a search on the keyword Outlook for more.
A interesting article over at the LifeHacker website.
Penelope Trunk is a great writer and in this article she talks about the power of creating a balanced schedule and sticking to it. Also, she talks about the difference between working lots and lots of hours, and instead trying to put in high quality work at all time.
This is the very opposite of jumping to answer your cell-phone whenever it rings or checking email whenever it beeps because it just might be something more important than what you happen to doing at the moment (like reading my blog.)
Click here to read: Find Time Your Personal and Get a Handle on Your Out-of-Control Work Schedule.”