My friend, Tom Dixon, guest posts today. I think you will come away with new understanding, motivation, and tools for achieving your goals as I did. Please visit his excellent blog, Monday is Good.
I’ve been trying to lose weight for years. Around the first of each new year, I’d set lofty goals around how many pounds I’d drop. I’d track everything I ate and how much I exercised.
However, instead of getting thinner, I’ve ended every year for the last 20 heavier than I started. Those big goals in January were forgotten by March.
That is, up until last year.
I still have more to go, but I ended 2013 a little more than 35 pounds lighter. That’s just the part the scale says. What feels even better is:
I’m completely off my asthma medication, and am taking half the dosage of another prescription
I actually own articles of clothing that say “medium”
I went from a 42″ jean size to a 36″ – I haven’t been in a 36 since high school!
I can jog for 30 minutes (up from 30 seconds) and plan to do a 5k in the Spring
I have seventy-five times the energy I’ve ever had
So, what was different?
I got some help.
That’s it. I recognized that I didn’t have the necessary skills or knowledge to accomplish my goal. Fortunately for me, I found someone who did. That was the big difference. In the past I’ve always gone at it alone, but this time I started working with a personal trainer.
I’m not sharing this because you care about my weight loss. I’m quite sure you don’t. I’m not trying to get everyone to hire a personal trainer. However, I am asking you to identify that one goal you keep chasing.
What do you keep trying to do, but can’t quite get done?
Get out of debt or control your spending
Change careers or get a promotion
Lose weight
Improve relationships with your spouse or children
Manage your time better
I coach people to identify the “why” behind their goals. It’s only when you understand the reason behind what you want to achieve that you stand a chance of succeeding. Assuming that piece is in place, the quickest way to accomplish any of these common goals is to find someone succeeding in that area.
For me, that was a 23-year-old punk at the Y. For you, it may be a career coach or marriage counselor. You’re looking for someone who can:
Tell you what to do, and when. I didn’t have the time or inclination to learn about strength training. In fact, there was no place I felt any less comfortable than at the gym. When you get help, you skip the learning curve and go right into solution mode.
Help you set goals. This is critical to make sure you are both on the same page. I’m working on being able to bench press 135lbs, do a pull-up (yes, just one), and run a 5k in less than 30 minutes. The work I do with my trainer is to support these specific goals.
Keep you accountable. I probably would have quit about 12 times already if I didn’t know I had to show up at 8PM on Tuesday night to workout. If I slack off on my diet or don’t do my homework, then I’m going to struggle.
Take your money. Seriously – you want the kind of help you pay for. When you pay for something it becomes a priority. Free advice is okay, but generally won’t move you forward. Both sides need some skin in the game.
I’m hoping you have already set some solid goals for 2014. If not, check out my goal setting guide(which includes a worksheet) to get you going.
Who are you going to ask for help in 2014? Do it.
Tom Dixon, CPIM, is a demand planning expert and experienced career coach. He is passionate about building processes and teams to accomplish great things. Tom founded Monday Is Good to leverage his “in the trenches” experience with career transition to help others look forward to Monday. He believes that work should be fulfilling, energizing, and a source of joy in your life.
Francis Wade is guest posting today. I was a fan of his time-management novel and he became a fan of A Year of Living Productively. If you’re a busy person, I think you’ll be rewarded by reading.
Top college students and CEO’s share a few things in common. They both lead time-starved lives which are filled with short-term deliverables. Furthermore, in both professions, the penalties for failure are high. A meeting with a shareholder that is forgotten can cost a CEO his/her job, while a college student can flunk out of school by handing in a term paper only five minutes late.
Some other symptoms these very hard-working people share are:
– a tendency to give up personal time to do work
– a need to be available 24×7 to respond to emergencies
– the real likelihood of skipping meals, sometimes without realizing it
– having the experience of moving from one thing to another without having time to breathe
– finding they have not time to “do nothing”
– a restless feeling when, after graduation or retirement, the number of time demands is radically reduced
– a willingness to work at extreme hours, either late at night or early in the morning
– a difficulty in maintaining a balanced life
Obviously, this kind of life isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Nor should it be. Those who choose to live this way are part of an exclusive club whose members place results at the forefront, while everything else follows behind. The demands they place on themselves are tremendous.
What are the techniques they use to cope with the pressures they face each day? My research shows that their primary tool is their personal calendar as shown by the following video which shows a student building her weekly schedule in real time.
Notice how packed her schedule is with activity, and the care she takes to include items like eating and bathing that she’s likely to forget. She obviously takes her college success seriously and isn’t willing to leave her schedule to chance.
Here on the Psychowith6 blog, Melanie did a monumental job in 2013 of trying out new time management techniques and sharing the results. In week 11 she wrote a post about her experience using a daily calendar entitled “Could Scheduling Tasks Help You Get More Done?“
Her positive findings echo those discovered in academic research performed by separate researchers such as Dezhi Wu, Christine Bartholomew and E.J. Masicampo/Roy Baumeister. Their separate studies have shown that maintaining a schedule of activity results in greater productivity; notably, the first two researchers did their work with college students.
Furthermore, there is anecdotal evidence gathered by Mark Horstman at manager-tools.com that the vast majority of executives he’s worked with use detailed calendars such as the one developed in the video. He has completed a number of podcasts on time management which can be found here, repeating this finding in a number of episodes.
All the evidence, however, doesn’t mean that you should use this technique. There are other alternatives.
Another very popular approach is to place most tasks on a list, while only using the calendar for appointments. (The only other alternative – to use memory – is widely held to be ineffective.) Incidentally, Melanie has also experimented with using a To-Do list and found that it was difficult to be effective without one.
The key here is to understand that there are benefits to each approach and that there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all. You are the only one who can decide how best to proceed. Here are some guidelines.
1) Never rely on memory
Both list and schedule-based approaches are built on the philosophy that trying to use your memory to manage the demands on your time is a poor practice. While it may work for a teenager, it fails miserably when the teen becomes an adult with a wide range of responsibilities. When the adult enters middle-age and his/her ability to recall short-term memories diminishes, the problem only gets worse, making the use of memory the least effective technique (although perhaps the most common.)
2) Start by making lists
If you are making the transition from using memory, it’s best to start by learning to use a single list. It’s a relatively easy new habit to learn, although it might become hard to manage as you get busier. This happens because lists require constant checking throughout the day, and when they grow past a certain length, this routine becomes tedious.
The remedy is to find a way to avoid having to look at the entire list, and instead focus on a subset. There are a number of techniques that one can use, but the first approach that people try is to tag or categorize each task in some way, and then use the tag as a way to filter the list.
There are any number of tags that can be used, but some popular categories include physical location (e.g. home vs. office,) person (e.g. spouse, boss, coach) and equipment required (e.g. desktop computer, printer, scanner.) The choice of tags is up to each person – there is no perfect system. In general, however, people choose tags that represent their scarcest resources.
3) Upgrade to a single calendar
If, like a CEO or college student, you are time-starved, then you might consider a major upgrade: using your calendar instead of lists.
A calendar of tasks differs from a list of tasks in two important ways. When we use a calendar we are adding three pieces of information, in a single step. By placing a task on a calendar we are giving it a start time/date and an expected duration. We also show, in graphic form, the relationship of that task to all the others around it. A calendar is a rich source of information.
For CEO’s, college students and other time-starved professionals, this information is critical to have in front of them as they attempt to make the most of their scarcest resource – time. Their calendars are usually electronic and mobile, synchronized between several platforms including the cloud.
For them, their calendar is their central point of control and they only use lists in conjunction with their calendar in the cases where it’s a practical add-on: such as a grocery list, or agenda.
To repeat the point – this particular approach isn’t for everyone. It’s not easy to learn and it requires constant practice and a high degree of discipline. New, fancy technology can make the learning curve a bit easier, but the underlying practices to be mastered remain the same.
This challenge reinforces the point – one size simply doesn’t fit all. Each of us must choose the approach that fits our particular needs and consists of habits that we can learn successfully. The decision to use one approach or another is up to you, and hopefully you can use these insights to make a choice that allows you to live a life that’s as productive as it can be.
Francis Wade is the author of Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure, (http://perfect.mytimedesign.com) and a consultant who started Framework Consulting Inc., after leaving AT&T Bell Labs in 1993. Today, he lives in Jamaica, inspired by the differences he’s discovered between productivity in the Caribbean and North America. It’s led him to continue the learning he started as a student at Cornell University, where he completed Bachelors and Masters degrees in the discipline of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering. He’s been a proponent of Time Management 2.0, a robust set of ideas that are challenging the conventional wisdom in the area of time-based productivity. When he is not working, Francis is an enthusiastic triathlete.
This week (and weeks prior) I tested whether delegating tasks to my family could help me get more done. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for more on the concept.
How Delegating Saved My Sanity This Week
Allowed me to really rest. I am still stunned that my children did all of the clean-up after our Thanksgiving dinner last month. I was really able to sit and relax after a busy day of cooking. No, that’s never happened before! My son who has his driver’s license ran to the grocery store for me. My second oldest put together my daughter’s new bookcase. My husband did more cooking and errands for me than he has, too. I had the kids doing a lot of Christmas tasks I normally handle myself. It was great timing, because as I mentioned last week, I’ve been a little burned out.
Allowed me to let things go. When I saw that the world didn’t come to an end when I delegated, I also realized that there were some things I planned on doing that just didn’t need to be done or at least not now.
How Delegating Made Me Crazy This Week
Made me confront my anxiety. In allowing my children to do more, I realized how uptight I get about the silliest little things. I am just sure that the kids are going to knock the glass bowl off the counter when they’re mixing ingredients or will burn themselves on the oven. I’m not sure where this is coming from, but this is a productivity series of posts, not psychoanalysis. 🙂
Demonstrated the need to plan ahead. If you save tasks for the last minute, you can’t afford to teach a child how to do them or even have a husband pick up the wrong things from the store. Even though I have taught my kids to do a lot, I realized that this is why I haven’t taught them to do everything I could.
Did Delegating Help Me Get More Done?
Yes.And I received no complaints. On the contrary, everyone seemed happy to help. I think it’s possible that I am this tornado whizzing by and when I stopped long enough to teach, share responsibilities, and explain what I needed, everyone was relieved. My intention is to continue delegating because it prepares my kids for adulthood, while at the same time giving me some downtime.
**UPDATE**
Delegating is still helping me get more done. I aspire to do more in this area, because I know it’s such a powerful strategy.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for the Rest of the Year
The concept. Many of us dream of writing a book, but we struggle to find the time. I have seen and read a number of these formulaic write-a-book-in-x-days books, but I’ve never actually tested them out. Because I want to summarize my findings over the past year in a Kindle ebook, I thought this would be a perfect test to round out the year.
I have so enjoyed writing this series, but I have more to say than the post format allows. For example, I have had a change of heart about many of the various approaches I’ve tried and also have some ideas about how to bring the best ideas together in a way that works for me. When I am back in February, I hope to have a book on Amazon for you that will share that information. The book will be free in the short-term as a thank you to my readers who have made this such a rewarding year.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Buy and read How to Read a Nonfiction eBook in 21 Days (It’s just $2.99 on Kindle). Do the tasks according to the schedule. I would love to hear if you have a book in February!
To see how writing a nonfiction book in 21 Days went, click here.
Be sure to check here each week in January for a fantastic guest post. I’m very excited about the writers who have agreed to share on topics I haven’t been able to delve into.
This week I tested whether going without a list for all but the tasks that I would otherwise forget, which were added to Google Calendar, could help me get more done. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for more on the concept.
How Working Without a To-Do List Saved My Sanity This Week
Gave me true free time. Because I didn’t even really know what I was supposed to be doing (besides the obvious), I felt free to play games with my kids. Even my oldest asked me to play video games with him and shockingly enough, I said yes. I think they saw me wandering aimlessly and didn’t want to miss an opportunity.
Helped me realize how few things are crucial. I didn’t do many of the things I fully intended to do (make homemade gifts and goodies, for example). I’m astonished to report that the world didn’t come to an end.
I took care of more things in the moment. There was no option to “do it later,” so much of the time if I thought about doing something, I just did it.
How Working Without a To-Do List Made Me Crazy This Week
I felt depressed. I was suffering from burnout last week, but having a discreet list of things to do was helpful in that regard. This week, I noticed I had no interest in recreational activities. Perhaps the feeling was coincidental with the weather, my health, and other circumstances, however.
I felt lost. I wasn’t interested in processing my email because I knew I couldn’t add any of them to a task list. When I thought of something I wanted or needed to do, it drove me nuts not to add it to my ToDoist list.
I didn’t get much done. Because I wasn’t working from a to-do list, I seemed to shift into vacation mode. I thought it was funny when I caught myself thinking, “I’ll do this next week when I can be done with this silly no-list experiment.” I got the critical things done and spent some enjoyable down time with my kids, but that was really about it.
Did Working Without a To-Do List Help Me Get More Done?
No.And I’m really surprised. Years ago when I did this, my conclusion was just the opposite. Breaking free of a traditional to-do list then helped me find the want-to in my work.
One of the things that is different this time is I already have the want-to. I can’t wait to get back to my To-Doist Little and Often approach. I really prefer putting most tasks off until tomorrow so I can work them efficiently (similar tasks together). I love having a true deadline of 3 days past due to motivate me to take some action. The problem that I ran into is the approach works TOO WELL at motivating me. I found myself working longer and longer hours to move tasks along so they wouldn’t get deleted. The point of the impending deletion of tasks isn’t to expand work hours, but to eliminate tasks from your list that you either don’t have time for or are putting off. My solution from here on out will be to stop working at 9 p.m. Anything not done by then that is 3 days past due is gone. I’ll regain my evening free time and have a more realistic to-do list.
**UPDATE**
Although there was a time in my life when working without a to-do list worked beautifully for me, it no longer does. I suspect that is because so many of my to-do’s are related to email now. I could just leave them in my inbox and work with them by memory, but I have more peace of mind when I process my emails using ToDoist for Gmail.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 46 & What to Expect
This week I’ll be testing delegating. I will finish a month-long test of delegating work by training my children to do more and asking my husband to share some of the responsibilities he is open to sharing.
The concept. You don’t have to be into traditional productivity stuff to understand the need to delegate. The importance of delegating is preached to the office worker and homeschool mom alike. I read Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Work Week years ago. Moms NEVER work 4-hour weeks. Sorry, Tim. I will admit to fantasizing about having a virtual assistant though. Having someone order my groceries that would be delivered to my door? Divine. Someone to research material for my latest book project? Fab. More recently, the idea of having a social media person is even more appealing!
But I have never breathed a word of my fantasy to my practical husband who would have a very good laugh over it. Considering how much money I do NOT make from my extra-familial pursuits, I couldn’t justify hiring anyone. But the older my children have gotten, the more I’ve come to understand that I have a whole staff of people I can “hire” to help me. Don’t get me wrong. My children already do chores. It’s just that I don’t often think of them as an extra resource for getting things done. Why? It’s time-consuming. And that’s what makes training kids very similar to delegating work in a traditional work environment. All delegating takes time and when you’re already in a rush, it’s easy to procrastinate on delegating.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Decide who you could delegate to. It could be a paid helper, family member, or colleague. Get your helper to buy in. What advantages are there to your family for pitching in? Discuss those. Could you trade jobs with someone? Then every time you start doing something that you know you should delegate, either start training them or plan to train them as soon as possible. You’re unlikely to have results after just a week, so this may be a longer term proposition.
To find out how delegating worked for me, click here.
What can you expect from Psychowith6 in the coming weeks?
I will report on my results with delegating next week. I will also announce a multi-week test of something I’m very excited about. In the Christmas spirit, I won’t tell you what it is until then. 🙂 While I am devoting time to that test, I will continue to rely on delegation by having some superb bloggers guest post on some productivity topics I haven’t been able to address in this series. Thank you for making this such a rewarding process for me. You’re the best!
Here are the links to the productivity hacks I’ve tried so far:
This week I tested whether time tracking could help me get more done, although I did more routine tracking than true time. Scroll to the end of last week’s post for an explanation.
How Time Tracking Saved My Sanity This Week
Helped me recognize I am trying to do too much. In my excitement about becoming more and more efficient, I started trying to structure more and more of my time. I wasn’t actually doing most of my planned routine, so it was too much.
Demonstrated how variable my days are. One of the frustrations in creating a schedule or routine is the interruptions to the usual. The past two weeks have been very unusual. If I am going to expect to “stay on schedule,” I will be nothing but frustrated. Good to know so I won’t be perfectionistic about my routine.
How Time Tracking Made Me Crazy This Week
I resisted it. As I deleted more and more of my routine because I wasn’t actually using it, I resisted even tracking my routine. I knew it would be more of the same the second week: funerals, holiday events, and weather-related schedule changes that wouldn’t be the case next week. I wondered why I should even waste my time writing it down.
I rebelled. I not only resisted tracking my schedule after a while, but I stopped doing routine things that actually work for me. I think I’ve reached my limit on maximizing my time. I just want to have time to do whatever I feel like doing even if it’s not “moving me forward” or making me more “productive.”
Did Time Tracking Help Me Get More Done?
Heavens no!I finished some big, time-consuming projects, but otherwise did less than ever this week. I don’t think that means time tracking is useless. I do wonder if I really need to formally track my time. It might have worked much better to just observe when I tend to do certain activities and give myself permission to do them then. Scheduling them gave my inner rebel fits: too many rules. The other problem I have had is burnout. I have been working really hard lately. I don’t want to be told what to do constantly, even by myself. I’ve recognized for a long time that the best reward for me is a day that I am free to use as I wish. I am very structured for school because it works. But apart from that, I’d like less structure, thank you.
**UPDATE**
I still don’t like time tracking. It’s too legalistic and gets my resistance going. I know when I’m slacking. It works better for me to schedule lots of free time into my day and week.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 45
This week I’ll be testing No List. I will only refer to a list of tasks that are urgent that I would otherwise forget to do. All other lists will be abandoned this week.
The concept. Those of you who have known me from Mark Forster’s forum or have read my productivity posts for a while will remember that I have used this approach in the past. I had just come off a very difficult time in my life and I needed the peace of having no list. For list lovers, it sounds like anything BUT peaceful. It was what I needed at the time, however, and I’m surprised to say I feel I need it again.
I’m always pursuing excellence. That’s a good thing if at the same time I recognize that I’m excellent just as I am. Practically speaking, I tend to think more is always better. If I write a blog post that does well, I need to write more of them. If I’m doing well on Pinterest, I need to pick it up on Google+. These things can become–not just nice goals to aim for–but must-do’s. Whereas some people find themselves constantly putting out fires and never pursuing the bigger dreams, I tend to label multiple goals and the day-to-day must do’s “fires.” Thus, I experience burnout.
I want to get a balanced perspective by only looking at the true must-do’s and trusting my instincts about everything else that should be done. If you are wondering if I’ve given up on Little and Often, I haven’t at all. I’ve discovered a problem with it that I will address with you at a later date, however.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Read this post where I describe my use of my no list. Decide on a way of keeping track of your must-do, must-list-or-you’ll-forget tasks. I’m going to add mine to Google Calendar. Simple, simple. If you’re interested in knowing my plans for A Year of Living Productively for the end of year, be sure to read next week!
To see how working without a to-do list worked for me, click here.
Does the idea of going list-free freak you out?
Here are the links to the productivity hacks I’ve tried so far:
This week I tested whether a Resistance List could help me make better use of my time when I didn’t feel like working. I used Laza Lists to track tasks. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for a full explanation.
How a Resistance List Saved My Sanity This Week
Made me feel like less obvious tasks would get done. I enjoyed thinking of tasks to add to this list, beyond reading and internet stuff. I imagined that I would actually do them once they were written done, and I felt great about that.
How a Resistance List Made Me Crazy This Week
I didn’t use it. And that isn’t because I didn’t experience resistance. I had a LOT of it this week. It’s just that when I’m resistant, I resist lists, period. I gravitated toward all the activities I had intentionally not put on my resistance list: reading and internet stuff and chatting.
I didn’t need it. I realized that I already have a resistance list built into my ToDoist list. For example, a friend suggested I check out a website today. I added that to tomorrow’s list. When I resist doing important tasks, I will naturally seek to check that task off. It will be easy, quick, and fun, yet will keep me working in my to-do list.
Did a Resistance List Help Me Get More Done?
Not at all.I think even the idea that I needed it threw me off course. The comments I received to last week’s post suggested this would happen. At least I know that my low-resistance tasks have to be a part of my main list.
**UPDATE**
I’ve never even considered using this again.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 44
This week I’ll be testing time tracking. I have used a number of different apps to meticulously track my time over the years with marginal benefit. If you’ve never tracked your time, it’s a good place to start. This week I’ll be moving on to tracking time in terms of routine using the HomeRoutines app. But scroll down for some other great options.
The concept. Even though I know better, I tend to try to make numerous habit changes at once. Despite FLYLady‘s warning to me years ago to start with just one habit at a time (shining your sink), I tried to perform her whole evening routine. I wasn’t even content to get that down before I tried to take on her morning and weekly routines, too.
Research suggests that one reason we fail to create multiple new habits at once is that we run out of willpower. If I don’t have the habit of getting up early, for example, and think I will also start working out first thing and skipping soda in the afternoon, I’m very likely to fail and forget about all three habits because I just don’t have the will to carry through. Much better to establish one new habit such that it requires no willpower at all.
Since it makes sense to take on one new habit at a time, it also makes sense to see what I’m actually doing now. Tracking my time minute by minute honestly drove me nuts. I invariably forgot to switch activities and I would end up with a timer showing that I’d been in the bathroom for ten hours. Even when I did a reasonable job of tracking my time, I didn’t know what to make of the results. Was I really spending too much time online when that’s a big part of what I do as a blogger and even as a family member and friend?
The House That Cleans Itself taught me the important principle of working with what you’re already doing. So did heatmapping. I would like to know what I’m actually doing as a part of my routine, so I can make one small change at a time or simply rearrange activities to where they fit better. I decided to track for two weeks since unusual circumstances could skew my results. Next week will be my second week.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Watch this Quantified Self video on using Google Calendar to track time. Decide if you’ll use a digital or paper method to track your time. You could just use a notebook to write down what you do. I’m not as concerned with how much time I spend doing things as the order I do them in, but you might be. Just observe your behavior without trying to change it.
Click here to see how time tracking worked for me.
I look forward to hearing what you learn about how you’re spending time.
Here are the links to the productivity hacks I’ve tried so far:
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
