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The Podcast of Personal Productivity Lessons in Two Minutes or Less
Episodes
Thursday Aug 29, 2013
Thursday Aug 29, 2013
Veteran social psychology researcher and professor at Florida State University, Roy F. Baumeister, with journalist John Tierney, joined forces to write Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength [ http://amzn.to/1eTrs7h ]. This is supposed to be a definitive guide on self-control, which many consider the heart of personal productivity. If you can control your self, then performance improvement potential is a sky's the limit proposition, right? Well, here are the most salient points that I lifted from Dr. Baumeister and Mr. Tierney's book, so you can make your own decision on the matter.
Willpower (or, self-control) undergoes something Professor Baumeister calls ego depletion, or the loss of self-control. Willpower is divided into four broad categories: control of thoughts, control of emotions, impulse control, and performance control. All willpower depletes from one reservoir for all tasks and is a finite source. And don't be overly confident in your willpower, as studies show it actually contributes to ego depletion. Front-load tasks that require high amounts of willpower. Things that replete and conserve willpower: sleep, foods with low glycemic indices, and making realistic goals.
What matters with self-control is the exertion, not the outcome. If you struggle with temptation and then give in, you’re still depleted because you struggled. Also note that giving in does not replenish the willpower you have already expended. The key is to concentrate on changing a habitual behavior. Building self-control in one area seemed to improve all areas of life.
Correction: In the episode, I mention incorrectly the subtitle as "Unlocking the Greatest Human Strength." It's on my Someday/Maybe list to go back and correct this episode!
Thursday Aug 22, 2013
Thursday Aug 22, 2013
Over the past decade I have heard people talk about their rising stress levels. More information, more responsibility and the same 24 hours a day to get it all in and done, respectively. What I don't see many people doing is distinguishing the unhealthy stress from the healthy stress. Much of what positively motivates us is stress not its absence. As Barry Lenson writes in his book, Good Stress, Bad Stress [ http://goo.gl/3zDTK0 ], there are two types of psychological stressors. He characterizes them as positive or negative using some practical criteria so I thought I'd share them.
- It stifles your creativity
- It distances you from dealing with conflict in a healthy manner
- It closes doors, metaphorically
- It saps you of emotional energy
- It makes sleeping feel less restful
- Opening communication lines and deepening relationships
- Increasing your capacity for compassion
- Converting conflicts to solutions
- Motivating you to action
- Refueling your mental, emotional energy stores
Thursday Aug 15, 2013
Thursday Aug 15, 2013
Most days I awake feeling gratitude for having another day to be alive and that alone is motivating to get my day going energetically! However, there are days when things just don't go well. You've probably had those days, and will in the future. The opera of family, professional and personal life mess with our productive and contented mindsets. Well, in this episode, I'd like to offer three steps to restarting your productivity day when things aren't going your way.
The most valuable aspect of resetting your day is to know when to do it. What is the criterion or the aspects of your current day that warrant your decision to hit the Day Reset button? If you know when the day needs to re-begin, whether that's because of distraction, procrastination or some other specific situation, it helps you put that list of conditions together so you know when to take action before the rest of your day is lost to inaction, worry or other unproductive, unhealthy paths.
So, how will you restart your day? You must have an action plan template. For me, as an example, I have a checklist dedicated to my Day Reset and when I realize that I am going to restart my day, I access the checklist, copy it to my Tasks list, and start doing the tasks. I start with a specific music playlist, read some of my favorite pieces of poetry and literature excerpts for about 5-15 minutes, and then do a mini-review of my new day. I move what isn't going to happen today forward to other days, and I alert interested parties of the change. Then, I figure out what is going to happen today and make sure that it makes sense. This gets me going on a well-worn path to success in any day, but especially on days like this.
At the end of your new day within a day, this is an important time to recognize the gratitude for your awareness to trigger your Day Reset, and to write down what caused you to initiate the Day Reset. With this information in hand, you can hopefully know what the standard operating procedure is for your life when this happens again. And, it will help you possibly know when to restart your day earlier or faster by knowing the telltale signs.
Thursday Aug 08, 2013
Thursday Aug 08, 2013
In this episode, I propose a three-phase approach to assessing our digital clutter…an initial step to understanding that just because we don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there and isn't affecting our personal productivity.
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In Episode 43, I talked about digital clutter, and the reality that we are compounding digital information about ourselves on our computers, laptops, mobile devices and the Web each and every day. So, what should we do about this digital clutter (some of which we don't even have control)? In this episode, I propose a three-phase approach to assessing our digital clutter…an initial step to understanding that just because we don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there and isn't affecting our productivity.
I. Assess where you currently have data. (storage and likely majority of it is reference)
First, you have digital information hanging out on several devices if you start to think about it For example, whatever device you're listening to this podcast, which may be your computer, laptop, mobile tablet, or smartphone, you have stored information about yourself. This includes passwords, profiles or personal metadata and files. Think about where you interact daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Visit your most often browsed websites, smartphone apps and electronics. Write them all down (or the ones with the most important information about you). You may want to write down next to them what information is stored and available to you.
II. Assess where you currently create data. (working memory type items)
Next, we need to assess where you currently create data. This may have begun in the first step as you realized that the places where you access information about you. However, you may have different applications at work and home that you regularly create data (think text documents, photos, video, and audio/music files). Don't stop there, though. If you volunteer, have a hobby, or work with analog data (vinyl records, microfiche, photo negatives and more), you may want to consider this part of your digital information. Also, don't leave out places that are temporary holding places for information, perhaps your desktop or in work-in-progress folders that may not be on backup drives or cloud storage accounts.
II. Assess where others are currently creating data for you. (inboxes)
Finally, applications, websites, financial institutions and more are collecting or collaterally making more and more information about you every day. This isn't to frighten you over privacy issues, but empower you to take control of that data, know where it is, and use it to your advantage should you desire. Review all the digital tools in your life and see whether or not they are creating information about you. If they are, take note of them and note if you can easily export or back up the data.
With your new current digital inventory, you will now have the knowledge to start purging, organizing and harnessing the power of your digital data.
In future episodes, I will talk about some strategies to reduce digital clutter.
Friday May 24, 2013
Friday May 24, 2013
You know the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would like have done unto you. Well, I think it needs an update for a modern era. Enter the Diamond Rule: do unto others as they would like done unto themselves.
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I frequently throughout my youth heard about the Golden Rule. This universal dictum that said to do unto others as you would have done unto you. Of course, this adage, also known as the "ethic of reciprocity" dates back to the Ancient Babylonians and likely even before that. Over the years, I've found the Golden Rule (and it's sister, the Silver Rule) to be missing an element, perhaps lacking empathy. So, I've come up with what I've coined the Diamond Rule: do unto others as they would like done unto themselves.
You see, in this day and age, it doesn't make sense to try and be so "me me me" about how to treat others. We can learn so much about others so quickly today. There's Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and, *gasp* asking the person how they'd like to actually be treated.
One example of how I apply the Diamond Rule is by tracking how people with whom I interact actually want to be communicated. Want to know how I know? I ask them!
It turns out that people appreciate not only being asked how best it is to communicate with them, but additionally when and how to best communicate certain types of information. For example, while I tend to write long email correspondence, I know that I best receive email messages in single-topic, bite-sized ones. If more people wanted to get responses from me, they would email me one email per topic. They'd make it easy for me to give a decision back to them with their question right at the beginning of the email. This way, I can be pondering what they want from me as I read through the supporting points in the email.
How do you best like to be communicated, and when, and in what format? How can you be a better communicator by making it a practice to ask others? Where else can you apply the Diamond Rule?