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Software Managed Interruptions

As I mentioned in prior posts, it’s quite important for a user of the 2Time approach to appreciate the goal of getting into the Flow state as often as possible.

This requires a minimum of interruptions, and luckily for us, there are some companies that are thinking about ways to manage email so that only the most urgent messages are presented as interruptions to whatever task we are doing.  For example, I am writing this article and don’t want to be interrupted, unless an email comes in that tells me something that requires urgent attention.

(Although, honestly, it would have to be life-shattering to stop me from completing this task.)

This line of thinking is shared in the article I found at BusinessWeek entitled May We Have Your Attention Please?

Soon, however, the same kinds of social networking software and communications technologies that make it deliciously easy to lose concentration may start steering us back to the tasks at hand. Scientists at U.S. research labs are developing tools to help people prioritize the flood of information they face and fend off irrelevant info-bytes. New modes of e-mail and phone messaging can wait patiently for an opportune time to interrupt. One program allows senders to “whisper” something urgent via a pop-up on a screen.

Hmmm…. that sounds promising.

It sounds like a big challenge, and I think these scientists are headed in the right direction.  After all, they are implicitly acknowledging how important it is to preserve the state of flow, and are trying to find ways to preserve it as much as possible.

However, I don’t know it if it’s more valuable than teaching a user to be more disciplined, and all the reasons why.  After all, users need to understand why Flow is important, and that it’s more efficient to check email a few times each day rather than every few minutes.  An effort spent to teach discipline would probably do more than new software would, especially as a user can ruin all the benefit of this new software with bad personal habits.

In other words, software might fix a problem that users have in the future, but it’s better to focus one the fact that they don’t understand the problem they have now.
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Article: High Tech Time Management Tools

tecyhnology.jpgI often complain that there is too-little research into time management techniques, and that academics have failed to give humankind a workable set of principles, definitions and rules of thumb to work with in this area.The result is software that simply misses the mark.A recent article in BusinessWeek entitled High-Tech Time Management Tools seems to promise something that would help, but only hints at some work that is happening in different places that may or may not be useful. The article says:

Achieve, which Horvitz hasn’t demonstrated outside the company, takes initial input from a user, who might tell the software he needs eight hours to accomplish a set of reviews for his group, wants to finish as close to the specified deadline as possible, but doesn’t want to spend more than two hours a day on the task. The system locks up time on the user’s calendar so others can’t book it. When the work is at hand, the software warns the user his communications are about to be shut down so he can focus. If he’s not ready to start, Achieve looks for new time to book for the project. Eventually, Horvitz says the system could be the basis for a Microsoft “platform for time management” that other companies could use to develop software products that understand concepts of hard and soft deadlines, have access to users’ calendars, and understand what windows workers left open the last time they were working on a project so they can quickly resume when they pick up the work again.

It strikes me that  the focus on others booking time in a user’s calendar is missing a critical point — most people who use Outlook operate as what we call White Belts here in 2Time.  In other words, they use the calendar to schedule meetings and activities with other people only, the way a doctor would use his/her appointment book.

They have not developed the habit of scheduling their own activities into their calendar.

Perhaps Microsoft should start by designing its software to help users improve the way they schedule themselves, before they care too much about scheduling other people’s time.

I believe that there must simple ways to help users to use their Outlook calendar more effectively. I often think that one of the main problems that people who do research and develop software for time management have is that they spend a great deal of time solving the problems that other people have, before solving their own.  In other words, there is no way to get the necessary insight into personal productivity without going through a process of self-improvement.
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Outlook’s Shortcomings – Part 1

In prior posts on the blog, I have made the point that Microsoft Outlook’s design is one that is not meant for time management purposes, but instead appears to have been made by engineers who simply added feature after feature after feature.

Recently, a reader of the blog posted the following request in a comment in an earlier post:

Can you clarify your point about Outlook’s process being “clumsy” and like an “afterthought”? I’m curious about areas where it could be improved, as I’m sure the Outlook PMs would be as well. How would you suggest this procedure be made easier/simpler/more efficient? Any thoughts or feedback to help better understand this would be appreciated.

I compare Outlook to the design of Gmail, the Palm and the Apple iPhone (although I am not an expert in any.)

IMHO, they all suffer from the same approach — design a cool email program and then add on other interesting stuff such as appointment calendars, to-do lists, reminders, contacts and the like.

What if Outlook and all the others were designed as time management systems that were built around the fundamentals, rather than a collection of features that must be beaten into the shape that a user must suffer with in order to get it to do what they want?

Why is this even important?

The way Outlook, Gmail and others are designed actually shapes the way a user develops his/her habits.  The design has a powerful effect on the way they manage their time, because their time management systems are nothing more than a set of habits that they repeat.

Case in point:  Apple just announced the release of its iPod OS 3.0, which now allows a user to copy and paste a block of text from one place to another:  Next Up for the iPhone:  A Basic Left Out Before.

Now, a user can copy the contents from an email to an appointment calendar.

The only way that a piece of software could leave out this particular feature entirely is one that either isn’t focused on assisting the user with time management or one that doesn’t understand what a user needs as they move through the fundamentals.

I’d bet that it’s the former.  After all, music, video and camera functionality are much more sexy features than those related to time management.

Not that Outlook is much different.   Until I used an add-on which cost me almost $100 a few years ago, I couldn’t do something as simple as drag an email into my calendar to make an instant appointment.

It’s clear to me that the design of software shapes a user’s habits, and a design that makes dumb things easy, and easy things hard, is one that will get in the way of the natural flow of activity from one fundamental to another.

For example, it’s easy to make To-Do Lists in Outlook, even thought they often grow to be infinitely large, only to be abandoned by their creators.  Also, Outlook offers no statistics on how well someone is managing their time management system.  In other words, it offers absolutely no form of numeric assessment, even as it’s becoming clear among most users that there is something dangerous about having an inbox containing 3000 unread items and 5000 “read” items. ( A simple warning bell would be invaluable.)

The problem with these software systems starts from the point of conception.

A  brilliant article in a recent Harvard Business Review entitled Reinventing Your Business Model makes the point that the iPhone, Tata motor car and the Gillette Razor redefined the markets in which they operated, and did so by asking the following question: “What important job is the user trying to do?”

Outlook and its contemporaries — Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo et al — answered the question in the late 1990’s with: “Dealing with email effectively.”

I believe that asking that question today, in 2009, for the first time, would ultimately lead to a different design, and that today’s salient answer might be something like: “Managing my time to experience peace of mind.”

I think there’s room for a company to design a software system around this answer as a starting point, using the fundamentals of time management.  It would include email management, but that would not be its centerpiece.

Perhaps there will be a product for time management that is invented that plays the disruptive role of an Apple iPod, but I’m a bit doubtful that it will come from Microsoft.  After all, it has a major investment in Outlook, and the article makes it clear that it’s hard for established companies to turn their trusted and faithful business models on their heads.
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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.”