When Two or More Are Responsible for Something

"When two or more are responsible for something, usually nobody is. . . . Everybody sort of feels responsible for it, but no one really owns it. So it doesn’t happen." - David Allen

Warm Up with Quick, Easy Tasks

Another good one from HBR, this time about "completion bias." Completing tasks, however small, gives us pleasure, so we tend to do simple and sometimes meaningless tasks rather than complicated and perhaps far more meaningful tasks.

So is the answer to avoid those simple tasks? Actually, no, because "finishing immediate, mundane tasks actually improves your ability to tackle tougher, important things." So the article suggests planning out your most important work for the day, but then cranking out a few (not too many!) small tasks to get into the groove before tackling your more demanding work.

To that suggestion, I'd add that it's even better if your quick tasks at the beginning of the day are high leverage. Here's a small example. Two days ago, I received an email asking me to approve the design for a sign that we had ordered. Before tackling the important work of the day (it happened to be a long bike ride with my son, but that's beside the point), I sent a quick reply approving the design. Our designer was able to get the sign printed, built and installed today, three days ahead of schedule!

Examen

A former Jesuit seminarian, later a finance guy, recommends the practice of examen. This is a habit I want to develop. It looks like it would prevent how-in-the-world-did-my-day-get-so-out-of-control syndrome.

The English word examine roughly conveys the concept: to examine your day and take stock. With apologies to my spiritual father Ignatius, I often refer to it more colloquially as a "mental pit stop." I recommend two of them daily — one at midday, for example, and one at the end of the day — completely dedicating at least five minutes to each one. (Sorry, multi-taskers — listening to sports radio, texting, or listening to cell phone messages would not qualify for completely dedicated.)

During those few minutes, do three things. First, remind yourself why you are grateful as a human being. Second, lift your horizon for a moment. Call to mind some crucial personal objective, or your deepest sense of purpose, or the values you stand for. Third, mentally review the last few hours and extract some insight that might help in the next few hours. If you were agitated, what was going on inside you? If you were distracted and unproductive, why? Those who are spiritually inclined might also reflect on how God (or a higher power) was present in the people and challenges you encountered over the last few hours.

 Read the rest.

Beware New Year's Resolutions

by SarahFranco CC2.0

Not to put a damper on New Year's aspirations, but a book I'm reading suggests a good test when deciding whether to make a new commitment:

1. Is this activity worth my time?


2. What will I have to eliminate to make room for it?


3. What will its impact be on my family life?

The book I'm reading is called Help for the Harried Homeschooler: A Practical Guide to Balancing Your Child's Education with the Rest of Your Life by Christine M. Field. It's a good book; I may write more about it later. She actually gets the test from James Dobson's pamphlet, "Fatigue and the Homemaker."

Beware New Clothes

In this season of New Year's resolutions, I came across a timely quote from Thoreau's Walden.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. (via 43 Folders)

My "new clothes" tend to be organization systems: software, gadgets, and even paper calenders and such. This year is the first time in quite a while that I sticking with the same system, a pocket calendar/notebook for personal things and an online calendar/task list for work. Maybe I'll spend less time "getting organized" and more time doing real stuff. Here's hoping anyway.

What kind of "new clothes" lure you?

Buzan on Mind Mapping

Tony Buzan, "Mr. Mind Map," has a video on YouTube in which he concisely introduces key mind-mapping concepts and the research behind them. For example, he discusses why a branch should have only one word on it and the benefits of using color. Mind mapping is a great way to brainstorm, to see the relationships between ideas, and to get ideas out of the brain and onto paper or pixels. I think paper is generally the way to go but for mind maps that need to be shared, archived or heavily edited, software can be appropriate. I use FreeMind because it's free and fairly easy to learn. Buzan has recently released his own iMindMap which is expensive but "official" (whatever that's worth). Anyway, here's the YouTube video.



Edit: I just realized that I didn't explain well what mind mapping is. There's a decent entry in Wikipedia. Here is an excerpt from it:

Tony Buzan suggests using the following foundation structures for Mind Mapping:

1. Start in the centre with an image of the topic, using at least 3 colours.
2. Use images, symbols, codes and dimensions throughout your Mind Map.
3. Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters.
4. Each word/image must be alone and sitting on its own line.
5. The lines must be connected, starting from the central image. The central lines are thicker, organic and flowing, becoming thinner as they radiate out from the centre.
6. Make the lines the same length as the word/image.
7. Use colours – your own code – throughout the Mind Map.
8. Develop your own personal style of Mind Mapping.
9. Use emphasis and show associations in your Mind Map.
10. Keep the Mind Map clear by using radial hierarchy, numerical order or outlines to embrace your branches.

An idea map is similar to a mind map but does not adhere to the above guidelines. Rules are constantly broken based on the purpose and application of the map.

And for those who are more visual, here's a mind map of how to create a mind map (from the same Wikipedia entry linked to above):

Email Amnesty for the New Year

Yesterday morning I had several dozen emails in my "Read Me" folder. These are messages that weren't urgent or even very important, but that I wanted to take a look at when I had the chance. Some of them had been in there for several months. You know the type--newsletters, mailing list messages that might contain something interesting, "FW: FW: RE: funny story"--that kind of stuff. After a quick glance to make sure there wasn't anything I'd miss, I trashed them all. It feels great. I'll do the same thing with the "Read Me" stack of papers on my desk at home when I get back from vacation. What is a new year for if not a time for fresh starts?

A more drastic measure that you may need to consider if you're reeaally behind is to declare email bankruptcy like this guy did:

Lawrence Lessig hit upon a novel tactic after spending 80 hours trying to clear out his backlogged inbox: surrender. "Bankruptcy is now my only option," he wrote in a mass message to his correspondence creditors. Here's how Lessig erased his debts and turned over a new leaf.

1) Collect the email addresses of everyone you haven't replied to. Paste them into the BCC field of a new message you'll send to yourself.

2) Write a polite note explaining your predicament. Apologize profusely - Lessig managed five mea culpas in as many paragraphs - and promise to keep up with your email in the future. Try to sound credible.

3) Ask for a resend of anything particularly pressing, and offer to give such messages special attention.

How about you? Any fresh starts in the new year? Feel free to share in the comments.

Tasks for Google Calendar: A Stopgap Has Arrived

I'm a sucker for anything that promises to get me more organized and increase my productivity. Like many, I drooled over the announcements that Google would be coming out with a calendar. It arrived several months ago but with a gaping hole: no task lists. What's an organizer without a way to list tasks? Every time I log in and see the New Features link at the top of the page, I click it right away, just knowing it will be the task list. So far, I've been disappointed. Better integration with gmail was nice but who needs to see a little icon with the weather or be notified when there's a new google doodle? And now we can search public calendars and add events. Who cares? Just let me list up my to-dos!

It's rememberthemilk.com to the rescue! RTM is a darn good task managing site that I tried out several months ago but abandoned because they lacked calendering. But now they just implemented a way for users to get their task lists onto Google calendars. If you already have a google calendar, just sign up at rememberthemilk.com, click the google calendar link, allow google calendar to subscribe to the RTM feed and you're good to go. There will be a little check mark at the top of each day on your Google calendar. When you click on that check mark, you'll see your tasks for the day. You can mark them as completed, postpone them, edit them, delete them, and add new tasks right from your google calendar. Not quite as good as an integrated Google solution, but not so bad either.

Now I'm drooling over the impending release of scrybe. If it lives up to the hype it'll be awesome!

"Go to the Ant"

Via Joe's Blog, "Top Ten Reasons Why Ants Are better Goal Setters Than You" on Achieve-It.

The whole Achieve-It article is worth reading. The author took seriously King Solomon's words from a few thousand years ago and considered the ways of the ant.

1. Ants follow proven instruction.
   
2. Ants are determined.
3. Ants see defeat as only temporary.
4. Ants collaborate better than Wall Street executives.
5. Ants defend what they have and expand it.
6. Ants never let personalities get in the way.
7. Ants never spend their whole paycheck.
8. Ants expect more from themselves than should be possible.
9. Ants remain focused until they succeed.
10. Ants never give up.
    

[Photo Credit: Ant Party by tarotastic.]

Automate It

Just over a month ago, I started using a goal-tracking web site called Joe's Goals. It's great for keeping track of daily and weekly (but not long-term) goals. You pick as many goals as you want and check them off whenever you meet them. Who would have guessed that the prospect of an unbroken line of green checkmarks could be so motivating? You can add notes each day and even share goals and progress with others for more accountability. I use the notes feature a lot but as for sharing, I'll just do it here.

One of my goals is to read the Bible and pray every day. Another is doing push-ups and sit-ups. My routine every morning is to wake up, start the coffee, do calisthenics, and open my Bible. By the time I've read a few verses, the coffee is ready and I can complete my devotions with a double rush of exercise and caffeine. There hasn't been a blank day for these two goals in quite a while.

Another goal is to clean my desk every day. I don't have a set time to do that. The last time I checked off that goal was September 22 (although since then I have a note that says "almost" and one that says "pile is smaller.") I take care of very important matters or anything with a looming deadline, but papers that just need filing or a "someday" decision can float around for weeks.

So what have I learned from this? Looking back over the past month, I generally succeed in meeting the goals that are an automatic part of my day and pretty lousy with the things I can do any time. Now I just need to find more ways of making things automatic for myself without turning into too much of a robot.

Any ideas?