Get Everything Done

michael:

That's a very interesting article and resonates with me in many ways.

I've always hated guided tours because they whisk you from one "sight" to another with the guide talking the whole time. While what I really want is not information but to get the feel of the place - then but only then will the information make sense.

So for instance may years ago I went round the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam three times in three days. I looked at each painting in turn until I felt it speak to me. By the end of those three days, I felt I really knew van Gogh and everything I have subsequently read about him (or by him - he was a prolific letter writer) has fitted into that knowing.

I used a similar method with church groups to get ideas. I would get the whole group (usually about 10-15 people) to sit in silence for 30 minutes and write down any ideas they had as the ideas came to them. The effect of sitting on the same question for 30 minutes is that usually they wrote quite a bit at the start, then dried up, but towards the end they got a burst of creativity, and often the best ideas came out of that end burst. It was noticeable though that some people, often the most vocal, simply couldn't do the exercise. Sitting quietly for 30 minutes was impossible for them.

Once I used an exercise with a group of young executives to show them how long time really was. We were supposed to start at 10 a.m. and at 10 a.m I said "We're about to start" but made no effort to stop them chattering. At 10.05 I stopped them and said "That's was five minutes, now I'm going to show you how long five minutes really is. I'm setting this timer for five minutes and I want you to sit where you are without talking, without reading, doing nothing." Most of them found it really uncomfortable because it seemed to go on for so long.