Exercising the choice muscle

In my recent article Taking the Easy Choice I suggested that the ability to make difficult choices was something that could be improved by training.

So I’d like to hear suggestions for exercises that would strengthen our ability to do this.

There’s one in my book Get Everything Done. You nominate one task you are going to do the next day. It can be something you need to do anyway, or it can be something completely arbitrary. Start with something easy. If you succeed in doing it, then you choose something a little bit more difficult for the following day. And so on day by day, getting a little bit harder each time. Whenever you fail to do the day’s task (no excuses are accepted), you have to reduce the difficulty of the task for the next day. The idea is that you build yourself up to the point where you can rely on yourself to do even the most difficult tasks when you say you are going to do them.

Can anyone think up some more exercises which would be as effective or even more effective? Answers in the Comments.

New Menu Item: Articles

I have added a new menu item for Articles. This accesses the blog category Articles, which shows the contents of the blog with all the minor posts removed, such as administrative messages, news items and passing thoughts or queries.

So by using this tab you can quickly get to the important stuff on the website. Try it and see.

Taking the Easy Choice

You have to make a very difficult call to an unsatisfied customer. Do you:

a) make the call?

b) tidy your desk?

c) play a game on your iPhone/computer?

If your normal response to a situation like this is a) then you don’t need to read this post, except perhaps to wonder what on earth the problem is supposed to be.

If you normally go for b) then you usually take the easy choice, and it would be a good idea to learn to strengthen your choice muscle.

If c) would be your reaction, then you are not just taking the easy choice - you are withdrawing from the game altogether. You badly need to make stronger choices.

One of the most common characteristics of bad time managers is that they have a definite tendency to take the easy choice.

Taking the easy choice results in things like:

• Reluctance to go outside one’s comfort zone
• Procrastination
• Proliferation of busy work
• Difficulty in taking decisions where there is no easy choice
• Making excuses
• Falling into the activity trap

This is something that can improve with training. And it’s well-worth doing. Strengthening one’s ability to take the more difficult choice will make a lot of difference in life.

Organizing a waste of time?

There’s an interesting article in Business Insider called Guess What? You’re Wasting Your Time If You Organize by Michael Scrage of the Harvard Business Review.

Do you agree with him?

Books

I’ve now added Books as a tab in the main menu. Do have a look at it. You can buy my books Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play and Do It Tomorrow there, plus my recommendations for other books on the subject of “time management and personal organization”. I have interpreted that quite loosely, so you will find books like The E-Myth Revisited and What Color Is Your Parachute there. Basically most of them are the books that I have found most helpful in my life and work, plus a few highly recommended by colleagues and clients (or even written by them). There are also links provided by Amazon to similar books which are well worth exploring.

Re-design

If you’ve been to this website before, you will have noticed that there has been a major redesign of the website today.

My aim has been to reduce the clutter on the pages and to make it easier to read the text without distractions. This is important as this is very much a text-based website. As part of this re-design I’ve removed the left-hand margin and combined the contents with the right-hand margin. In the process I’ve got rid of some of the margin items.

At the same time I have made the blog the Home page since it is the main vehicle for new writing. I’ve renamed the old static Home page as “About”, and I intend to do a major re-write of that page in the near future.

I also intend to make “Books” a main menu item.

Be prepared for more changes after I’ve lived with the new design for a while.

Consistency - 2

Some people seem to have misunderstood my post about consistency yesterday to be about using some system or method consistently, rather than jumping from one to another. Perhaps I didn’t make it as clear as I should have, but what I was actually writing about was producing consistent results.

Of course jumping from one method to another is a good way of ensuring that you won’t produce consistent results, just as jumping from one network marketing scheme to another is a good way of ensuring that you’ll never make any money from network marketing. But the method we use isn’t what I was concerned about. What I wanted to make as my point was that the test of any time management method is that it delivers consistent results.

That is why I followed up the post about consistency yesterday with one about “What to look out for” in respect of my new time management system. What that post was saying is that you will know when I have really succeeded in finalizing the system because I will start to produce consistent results as a result of using it. I gave several indicators of the type of consistent results to watch out for.

What to look out for

I’ve posted several times that I am nearing completion of the development of the Final Version, and each time further problems have surfaced and the completion has been put off. This hasn’t been a question of procrastination - simply of getting it right.

So rather than post yet again to say that I feel I’m nearly there, I thought I’d give you some indicators so that you can tell for yourself how near I’m getting.

Watch out for these:

• Daily blog posts
• Revival and reorganization of my newsletter
• A reduction in my personal activity on the Discussion Forum.
• Changes to the website
• A new programme of seminars
• New initiatives (such as videos, teleconferences, partnerships, etc)
• An increase in external interest

I’m not saying that all of these will necessarily happen, but when you see several of these signs then you will know that the day is nigh!

Until you do, you can be pretty sure that it isn’t.

Consistency

One of the characteristics of poor time managers (and I’m speaking from bitter experience) is a lack of consistency. We start things off and don’t finish them. We bring in new working practices which make a great deal of difference for a short while and then we drift back to the old ways. We are creatures of a thousand and one brilliant ideas and nothing to show for them.

This is very bad news - not just because we don’t produce the goods at the end of the day, but also because all the effort we put in to stopping and starting is wasted. People who produce great results often work extremely hard, but it’s not unknown for poor time managers to be working even harder - but without producing the good results.

In fact one could make an argument about time management being about nothing else other than consistency. It’s consistency that delivers the goods.

One of my favourite sayings at the moment is:

What you haven’t done is the price you paid for what you have done.

Life ends at 45?

Life ends at 45… Study reveals when our mental powers start to diminish

Huge survey carried out on Whitehall civil servants shows our brains peak earlier than we think

So cry the headlines in The Independent.

But as Disraeli famously said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Does this study really prove something completely different: that ten years working as a civil servant in Whitehall is a very effective way of reducing whatever mental powers you had to start off with?

(I speak as someone who worked in Whitehall for only two years and has never been the same since!)

Key Principles of the New System III: Getting Stuff Done

As you may have guessed from the silence since I last posted I’ve run into some problems with the “perfect version”. 

Basically there have been two problems which I’ve been endeavouring to overcome

The first is that there is always a tendency for important or difficult tasks to get shunted to one side. The new system needs to avoid this and, while keeping a modicum of flexibility, strictly enforce selection neutrality. However hard one tries to design a system which is procrastination-proof, procrastination always seems to find a way in.

This brings up the second problem which I have been struggling with. This has been to find the best possible way of getting stuff done once it has been started. It is very difficult to stop this being a slow process - whether or not the tasks are split down into smaller chunks. It’s very inefficient to start stuff and then not finish it. Apart from anything else, it wastes the time we spend on it before tailing off. But most important, we are crying out for results and not getting results impacts our lives and work.

As I’ve said before, projects are like houseplants. They need regular watering or they dry up and eventually die. So what I’ve been concentrating on is to make sure that the new system ensures that everything is finished once it’s started - quickly.

So what it all boils down to is: 

1. Get stuff started
   and
2. Get it finished

Interview with Mark Forster

There’s an interview with me just published on the Great Printable Calendars website.

Evernote Clearly

A great new tool has just been published by Evernote for use (at present) with the Google Chrome browser only. You do not need an Evernote account to use it. 

What it does is to remove all the clutter from articles on the internet and present them in a reader-friendly format. 

For instance here are the instructions for SuperFocus in Clearly format, followed by the normal view. Click on the images to see full size:

Get Evernote Clearly from the Chrome Store (Make sure you are using Google Chrome when you do so)

The Personal MBA

A quote from Josh Kaufman’s new book “The Personal MBA”:

To keep yourself from feeling overwhelmed, track your projects and tasks separately. Here’s what I do: I always carry around a notebook that contains a 3 x 5 index card. The card contains a short list of my active projects. The notebook contains my to-do list: the next actions that will move my projects forward, which I process using a system called “Autofocus”, which was created by Mark Forster. The system helps me use my intuition to identify what I can do right now to make progress.

Holiday

I’m going to be away for the next twelve days, so I will not be approving blog posts or applications for forum registration during that time.

If you are registered for the forum make sure that you log-in if you want to make a blog comment. Otherwise your comment will not be published until my return.

Progress Report

Here’s how I got on last week with the projects mentioned in my previous post:

1) Writing the book, etc.

Not much progress on this, largely because I’ve wanted to get all my systems sorted out before I get properly down to work on it. Otherwise I would be constantly interrupted by routine things building up or going wrong. I think I’ve sorted these out enough now to start getting moving on this project this week.

2) Charity Walk, etc.

My attempts to get fit have been handicapped by my hurting my knee, so I’ve only been able to do a couple of fairly short walks (5-6 miles). However my knee seems to be getting better now so I hope to be able to get moving again properly over the next few days. I’ve continued to research, plan and gain support for the idea.

3) Fund raising

This is definitely going ahead now, and I was able to react quickly to developments last week.

4) Commitments to Organizations

I’ve kept these moving without any spectacular new developments or initiatives.

5) Brain Training

This is going really well, and the new system has kept me completely on top of the training.

6) Systems and Procedures

Some good progress here. Basically all my day-to-day procedures are working well, but there’s still plenty of longer term stuff to sort out. This is going to be a long-term project.

7) Keeping on Top of Routine Stuff

Email - clear

Phone - clear

Paper - clear

Household chores - clear

Summary

In summary the system is working extremely well. In those areas where there hasn’t been much progress this has not been the fault of the system - it’s been a case of a decision on my part or circumstances making it impossible.  Basically everything I’ve decided to do I’ve either done or made significant progress on.

Final Version - Perfect at last!

I think I’ve now got the Final Version time management system perfect - which is what I said my aim was before going any further with it. It’s taken longer than I expected, largely because of the number of possible options I had to test out, or rather the number of possible combinations of options. As I can only test out one set of options at a time, this has all taken time.

What I want to do now is to prove that this new system is not a way of churning trivialities but of being extremely productive. So I intend to report regularly on my progress over the next month. I’m going on holiday abroad on November 14th, so let’s see how much I can achieve by then.

What would I like to have achieved?

1. I want to make some serious progress on writing my book about the new methods, planning how to distribute it, spread the word about it and make some money out of it. This will include making decisions about my newsletter and implementing them.

2. I am planning a major charity walk to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the start of WW1 in 1914. This will involve me in a) getting extremely fit (not easy at my age!) b) improving my French c) getting practical support d) getting sponsorship e) and probably a lot else I haven’t thought of yet. This is obviously a long-term project, but I need to keep moving on it now.

3. I am likely to be leading a major fund raising exercise over the next year. It hasn’t yet been given the go-ahead, but I need to be able to react quickly to any developments.

4. I have commitments to various organizations which I want to carry out efficiently, and some of them are likely to expand in the near future.

5. I am testing out various brain training methods to see what is most effective. This requires a constant effort over a long period.

6. I want to get all my systems and procedures as finely-honed as possible so I am not held up by things not working properly. I intend to draw up a list of everything in my life that needs attention and tackle them progressively over time.

7. And just generally keep right on top of email, phone, paper, household chores, etc, etc.

I think that’s enough to be going on with!

My aim is to report once a week until I go on holiday, and possibly when I get back as well.

Day Zero Project

One of the readers of this blog has drawn my attention to the Day Zero Project. The idea is to identify 101 things to do within 1001 days. Sounds fun!

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple challenges such as New Year’s resolutions or a ‘Bucket List’. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips, study semesters, or outdoor activities.

Progress Report

As a result of my testing of the Final Version over the last four days, I’ve felt it necessary to make some changes. The main problem was that I wasn’t satisfied that unfinished tasks were being processed sufficiently often.

To combat this, I’ve slowed the overall rate of progress through the system so that more time can be spent on finishing.

I’ve also re-introduced “dismissal” into the system, which brings back its filtering capability, which was in danger of getting lost.

Speed Update: Day 4

I’ve now taken action on 253 tasks over four days, making a daily average of 63.25 tasks.

There are 63 unactioned tasks on my list, which means that the number of days’ work left in the system is 1.00 days - the slight increase each day continues.

The oldest tasks (twenty-five of them) on the list date from yesterday.