Bringing It All Together - Focused Productivity

I don't recommend getting into this position, but I have a shed load of work to do.  I have a very viable business idea that needs some cash and some effort to get it going.   And to fund it and to live while I am at it I have a reasonable consulting business operating.  So my problem is clocking up the billable hours while also keeping up pressure on the more lucrative in the long run project.

Productivity Porn Procrastination

If there is one bad habit I just can't seem to overcome it is what I call productivity porn procrastination.  I love to spend time on sites like Lifehacker looking for ways to improve my productivity.  Now, this is not a total time waster.  I do from time to time come up with tips that save me a lot of time.  For example I am writing this blog post using the Most Dangerous Writing App.  This is something I found on Lifehacker which is greatly increasing the amount of writing I get done and also improving the quality of my writing and speeding up my typing.

Mission Creep

I was working yesterday on a quality audit at a small manufacturing company. If you have ever wondered what the sign  'ISO9000' means on a brochure or a company website, it means that the company works to a defined quality system and has been audited against it by an independent inspector. Impressive stuff!

Getting Back On The Wagon After Failing To Meet Your Goals

Well yesterday I had one of those days which just didn't live up to my expectations of it. I had some practical work to do but had an accident.  This burnt up an hour in clearing up the mess. Then what should have been a straight forward job of sending out a package turned into an epic struggle to work out how to print labels. I was even googling alternative word processors at one stage.

Systematising My Life

One of the most successful things I ever did was set up a database that handles formulations and raw materials. I started it some time early in 2000 and after various iterations and false starts, created the version that I use now in 2004.

Writing a blog post in 15 minutes - the sequel

Some time ago I wrote a blog post about writing a blog post in fifteen minutes. I didn't really ever get into the habit I had pondered of actually writing a blog post every morning in 15 minutes and publishing it. For a start I found that writing a blog post in fifteen minutes wasn't that easy in reality, and the results were not all that brilliant when I did.

Lessons from Time Monitoring

When I had a job I would often have what felt like a highly productive day.  I would get to about 4.00pm and look back on hours of solid effort. I would feel rather pleased with myself and reward myself with half an hour of tidying up and tackling those enjoyable jobs that you don't mind doing and leave for home bang on time and with a smug look on my face.

Giving Up Social Media for a Month

Are social media good or bad for you? I have been pondering this for a while now.  I really enjoy social media, and Twitter in particular.  I often find myself checking Twitter at more or less any time of the day.  If I think of 'bon mot' my first reaction is to tweet it. I enjoy all the great stuff other people stick up as well.  It is also a great way to keep abreast of the news and other interesting things.  I am not a huge fan of Facebook and rarely spend huge amounts of time on it, but even so I still visit it nearly every day to see what is going on.  I also read comments on articles if the article itself is interesting.  I also make comments - it is obviously important to make my own position clear over quite range of areas.  Needless to say I will check back to see if anyone has commented on my comments.

Jazz Notes

View image | gettyimages.com

I came across an idea a while back called Morning Pages.  The idea is aimed at creative writers and is rather prescriptive. You have to write three pages of free form prose first thing every morning.  I liked the idea but for me it wasn't free form enough.  So I have adapted it.  I try and do it fairly early in the morning but I already have other things I want to do first.  So I might leave it to lunchtime. I also don't have a set time allocated to it or a set amount I need to write.  So I have taken the free form but and really run with it.  In light of this I call them my Jazz Notes.  Basically, once a day I just sit down with a reporters pad and pencil and jam.

Can You Write A Book Without Even Noticing?

My last blog post was on the 7th of June, where I pondered whether writing a book on the management was a good way of keeping my focus on managing my time well.  Two weeks isn't long enough to make a definitive judgement, though it certainly isn't doing any harm. I think the 10 to 15 minutes I spend on it every morning before is returned in increased productivity, but I will keep an open mind on it for while.

Is Writing A Book On Time Management A Good Way To Manage Your Time?

I am, as always, struggling with time management.  Epictetus said that no man is free unless he is a master of himself.  This is very true, and nowhere more so than in making sure you are spending the little time you have wisely.

Why I Am Avoiding The News

A habit I keep slipping into is spending way too much time following the news.  It is easy to lose track of just how much of the day vanishes into reading newspaper articles and catching the next news bulletin.  But there is also a hidden cost of wasting brain time trying to solve the world's problems.   The reasons for not doing this are obvious - but let's list them.

1.  You can almost never take any action  to solve problems raised by the news.

2. The news concentrates on the negative and talks up problems and conflict.

3. The news deliberately distorts the agenda in favour of the rich and powerful.

4. They get a lot of facts wrong anyway.

So basically the whole thing is more or less guaranteed to give you a false picture and one that is not going to do you any good.  

The big story at the moment is the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  The bones of this story are straight forward.  A group of people from Europe turned up in Palestine in the forties and started seizing control by force.  They have succeeded in creating a state there, but have infuriated the original inhabitants.  It is a blindingly simple problem, and the solution is equally simple.  The Israelis have to either return what they have taken or adequately compensate their victims.  Otherwise the conflict will continue.

But the news story never portrays it in this light.  While there is undoubtedly some pro-Israeli bias in the reporting, the bigger problem is pro-sensationalism bias.  The big horror stories dominate the narrative.  The attack on the athletes in Munich by the Palestinians; the massacres of Palestinian Refugees in Sabra and Shatila and the current attack on Gaza are all big and spectacular examples of man's inhumanity.  They get huge coverage.   They wind up your emotions.  But they don't help understand the problem.

I have wasted numerous hours over the last couple of weeks postulating imaginary scenarios whereby the two sides could be persuaded to stop killing one another.    Nobody is going to listen to my ideas, still less implement them.

This isn't to say that current affairs are unimportant or that actions we take are meaningless.  It is just that the news is a distorting lens through which to view the world.  So I have stopped watching and reading.


Photo credit: Lee Jordan via photopin cc

Time Management Good, Project Management Better

It is well said that life is a project and you are the manager.  We don't use such blunt language in these enlightened times, but the fact is you are not going to have a great life if you are lazy and disorganised.  Laziness is just short hand for poor time management skills and being disorganised is just another way of describing poor project management.

Getting The Most Done With Your Time Part 5 - Affirmations

One of the factors my experiment into working practices is looking at is affirmations.   This is the idea that continually repeating a mantra throughout the day leads you on to greater achievement.  This is the factor I have the least confidence in.  It smacks a bit of woo and nonsense like the Law of Attraction.  Surely our brains are too complex to be manipulated so easily by such a low effort trick?

Getting The Most Done With Your Time Part 4 - Metrics

This blog used to get no readers at all.  Since I started promoting it on Twitter a bit, it has started to get a few viewers and is now getting the odd referral from Google.  Hi guys.  You are still a small, select group.  But I hope you are enjoying it and finding it useful.  I don't plan on optimising this blog to get as many readers as possible or seeking out compelling content to build traffic or anything like that.  However, I think it only fair to keep the handful of running stories going so that I don't leave things hanging.  To which end, the working methods experiment I am working on has developed a bit since I last wrote about it, so here is an update.

Getting the Most Done With Your Time Part 2

This first day of my experiment is easing myself into it gently by looking at one of the easiest factors.  Do regular breaks help?   I haven't worked out the details of my experimental design yet so the idea is that this should work as a stand alone experiment in its own right and will also form part of my larger experiment later.

Getting The Most Done With Your Time Part 1

Okay you've overcome procrastination, you've got a clear working environment avoiding distractions and you have your list of what you need to do prioritised so you know what is important.  What is the best way to work now?  I looked into the various gurus and advice available, and it turns out that there is nobody with any credibility in this field.  There are plenty of people who will give you all sorts of tips, quite likely good ones.  But I want hard data on actual productivity.  Well, I'm a scientist.  If there is no data out there I'll generate it myself. I will devise an experimental design to test the various factors that might be important and run tests on myself to see which ones work the best.

Blogging Against The Clock

Andy Warhol Said Everyone Would Be Famous for 15 minutes - And You Can Write A Blog Post in that time

I have blogged before about doing a blog post in 15 minutes.  This has developed into quite an interesting habit.  I now regularly write 15 minute blog posts for several of my blogs.  (Needless to say this is one such post).  While there are obviously lots of topics that simply can't be dealt with so quickly,  I have been surprised at just how much you can cram into writing and get online in a quarter of an hour.  This is how I do it -

Tidy Desk

When I was a lab manager one of my big struggles was keeping the lab tidy, or more particularly making sure other people kept the lab tidy.  There is a law of entropy that uniquely applies to ensure that no laboratory will ever stay tidy without eternal vigilance.  I was less concerned about my desk, but the habit seeped across by osmosis and I became an advocate of tidy desks as well.  Experience has convinced me that you can do your most productive work if where you are working is uncluttered.  This even applies to desktops on computers.  I always appreciate a programme with a full screen view.

My rules for keeping my desk tidy are -

Build Habits One Step At A Time

I am feeling a bit frustrated this morning.  Despite getting up on target and despite starting the day with a decent exercise routine, I am still procrastinating at getting started doing actual productive stuff.  My ideal is to be clearing important items off my todo list before 7.00 am and here I am only just getting going on my personal development blog - at just before.   These posts take me about 20 minutes so that is another target missed.