Archive for the ‘Efficiency Study’ Category

Today I’ve run through my Efficiency Study Life Experiment. Reading through the study provided me with insight in terms of common sticking points and recurring issues – something I was definitely looking forward to.

Why? Because now I can set some new habits in place to ensure that I manage my time and my life in ways that facilitate the experiences and achievements that I most want in my life. Fantastic.

Before recording a single day for this study, I determined that when I finished it, I would implement 10 changes into my life that would deal with the biggest issues I encountered.

Here they are in all their glory:

(You’ll notice the first 3 have to do with a sense of urgency and getting my life honed hard towards priorities [a big theme for me right now], while the last 7 are more in the category of general “best practice” for efficiency.)

1. Oscillate between periods of Achievement and Exploration: I noticed that most weeks I will work on some Achievement-oriented stuff like building presentations and making phone calls to set up meetings and writing material for coaching and making flyers, while other times I am involved in more Exploration-oriented stuff like reading, taking notes on audio programs, writing inquiries on topics in self-development, etc… I want to make a firm distinction between these two and keep them separated – this is the most important new habit I am going to implement! I will designate the last week of any given month to do the more Exploratory work, while I want to cram the rest of my life with activities that are bringing me towards concrete ends in Time Management Consulting, my Jiu Jitsu academy, making money, making and booking presentations, getting referrals, etc… Don’t get me wrong, the Exploration stuff is great, thats where I innovate new content and thats important to me BIG TIME. However, I want to get things done and focus most of my time on those activities that will get things done. If I have little slices of time I might do a little exploration here and there, but I know where I want most of my resources. I might change up the way I separate these two facets of my work, but I will definitely keep them separated.
2. Set firm weekly goals tied into my highest monthly / annual / life goals: I have been doing this for all of August, and I think it has kept me on track in a fantastic manner. Having concrete weekly goals makes it much harder to flounder time away, and it orients my resources towards my bigger life goals which seem abstract without the middle-man of a weekly goal list. This helps to bring urgency into the picture as well.
3. Purge my potential creative writing and Life Experiment list monthly: Each week, I come up with new ideas for Life Experiments and articles and inquiries. It is always the case that I come up with more ideas than I finish. Soooo many more ideas than I have time to tackle. This is a great thing, but it tends to backfire when I see huge lists of potential creative work. Some of it I’m not interested in anymore, some I have forgotten about. Now on the first of each month I will delete the potential writing that I’m no longer interested in working on.
4. Set time caps on potentially time consuming creative tasks: For instance, I could get stuck for 2 hours finding the best template and font to use for a flyer, or I could spend 20 minutes deciding which color to use for a border. Both of these seem way too long, and with little tasks like that, I think its best to just set a short timer and make a decision. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. This is what I do for research – I only allot a specific amount of time because I know I could spend all day doing research. Now I’ll apply it to small creative tasks that have the same potential to rob time.
5. Stack chores and do them before / after away from computer tasks: Here I want to take advantage of doing like activities with other like activities. For instance, instead of interrupting my creative work or my research a few times during the day to run laundry and clean my car and go to make copies at staples, I can stack these activities on top of one another. In doing so, I can get into “physical work” mode for a specific amount of time, and then go back to “mind work” mode fully. In addition, all of this physical work time gives me long stretches to listen to audio programs, instead of listening to 5-minute snippets while I do little tasks intermittently throughout the day. I must beware of “feeling productive” while listening to audio programs – I will keep a fast tempo and do all the chores swiftly so I can return to the other cool things I can do (see my good friends, go out at night, work on material I want to use in consulting, etc…).
6. Have a list of mindless physical tasks established: Sometimes I am too excited to be creative, my mind and body are alert and positive but in more of a bouncy, pumped-up way – and doing creative work doesn’t make much sense in these situations. So, I will have a log in my project list for random physical tasks that I can do when I have a lot of energy to release.
7. Designating times for the phone, especially in car: Barring some kind of impending emergency or big event on the horizon, I can avoid even noticing that my phone exists while I work on the important things in my life. So, while working on creative material, I can set my phone on silent and put it face down. Then when I break for lunch or I am getting ready to go out, I can make the calls / texts I want to make and the return calls I want to make. I can also save these calls and texts for when I’m in the car (going to a friend’s house, to a meeting, to class, etc…). Even if I’m waiting for a call, I can keep the volume down and only pick up if its a priority call.
8. Keeping track of wallet, phone, keys… : I can’t keep forgetting these things in random places, seriously. I’ve decided that when I’m out, I’ll have my wallet and keys in my left pocket and my phone in my right pocket. That way I keep a routine and nothing gets lost in the mix, its all habits. Also, when I am at home I only have specific, designate spaces where I allow myself to put my phone / wallet / keys down. So when I’m looking for them in my house they can really only be in one of a few counter tops or tables.
9. Check email and facebook every two or three days: I used to check this stuff daily, but honestly most of the time I don’t have a need to do so. Unless I have a pressing project or some very important contacts to make, I only need to look at it once every 2-3 days. If I look sooner, I will just check for the things I need to see and look at the rest on my designated “email and facebook” days.
10. Only relax while working for long enough to rest my neck and spine: When I sit and read / write for 6-8 hours strait, I end up having little pains in my neck and back that are alleviated by laying down or leaning far back. This is fine to do, but I notice that when I do this my body goes into sleep mode because I don’t sleep much. My answer is to only relax while working for long enough to get rid of the pain, get comfortable, and sit right back up to get alert and working. I will also permit no “long blinks” when I’m relaxing, they tend to want to turn into naps.

I know I’m going to have fun implementing these new habits, and I’m sure that’ll bring me to make even more distinctions in this area. 

Stay tuned.

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Took a little longer than expected, but the efficiency study is complete.

Over the last few weeks I’ve done 5-10 minutes of writing about my own efficiency to do what I want to do in my life – whether thats finding time to do my best writing or fitting in social events with the rest of my schedule.

This is going to be cool for me because I’m going to be able to read over all my notes on this project, which I have not done as of yet. Here goes:

Aug 4th-

Designating specifics for specific times, blocking out my day with time slots for individual activities. This is a good thing.

Research and building my GEMs (files where I record “keepers” from the material I read) / Archives takes less mental sharpness than it does to work on one of my speeches. Taking out most of the creative element allows me to still get things done in terms of finding new cool distinctions and extracting them. (I can calibrate my activity to my level of mental acuity, and work to get my acuity level up so that I can work on whatever I please… my options are limited as my faculties are limited)

^This means that when I’m tired I can work on less mentally straining stuff like research or GEMs or housework.

Always carry the iPod. Another 15 minutes of listening to productive audio while I eat breakfast or walk around the house doing chores is only a good thing.

Find the best use of discretionary time in terms of what needed to get done that day anyways. I spent some time surfing psychology on the web when I could have worked to build my GEMs.

Aug 5th-

I was on a roll with the stuff I had drawn up for myself. I had time slots and a nice variety of awesome projects.

One thing I’m noticing now is that I can’t write these things when I’m dead tired. I’ll have to include LATE last night into the daily efficiency studies.

Part of me yearns for more sense of real urgency in my life, for more PUSH towards something that must necessarily happen. Though its nice to have free reign to read and write as I desire, I want to have a bunch on my horizon that I have to chase hard. I will do this with my consulting and presentations at URI for tomorrow. I want to set dates I want things done by and I want to set goals for how much I can do with this (and tweak it given what the market can bear).

Eating food at night tends to be a time waster downstairs. I should prepare foods quickly – and preferably have something portable and workable while doing other work – like a granola bar or something.

I managed calls and texts today very well, putting the phone on silent and honing into fulfilling work. Sometimes you will have interruptions every 30 seconds, and you must learn to do activities that can be interrupted – and usually get done with those phone conversations or text conversations so that you can hone into working more deeply.

Aug 6th-

Most notable comment – keep the cell on silent when working. It makes a massive difference.

However, what do you do when you’re already in a conversation via txt with 3 people, and you’re having them rain down on you?

It seems like these times should be matched with car times, because in the car I have nothing better to do but call and txt. Then again txting a driving isn’t very safe.

It seems like I should align these times for before or after my productive blocks. I can use them like a breather and at the same time I can run through info to build my GEMs files (right now I’m working on Lifehacker and 43 Folders). I could also check facebook, email, analytics, phone / cc bills, etc… I can do anything that can be intermittently interrupted without detriment to the process.

It also seems like I should run these text-a-thons all at the same time so that its one flood for one period, and not a big trickle that chops up by day.

Also, when I’m feeling low on energy and working on anything (especially my most creative work, such as my speeches), I’ve gotta get up and snap out of it. I can walk downstairs, pace back and forth, and generally convey that high intensity and energy that I carry in me, I have to wake it up. I can run some internal dialogue about how pumped I am to be working on what I’m working on.

There is no reason not to be listening to productive audio when eating. I do it during all chores, why not all logistical things where I am not engaging my brain with other things.

I’ve moved checking email and facebook to once every 2 days. Good move. I have to now find designated times to check out the psychology forum. I never daddle their all day, but sometimes I will check it a few times throughout the day and I feel like one time is idea. I will from now on only check it in the morning, and I’ll plan to check is once every 2 days.

Aug 7th-

I have a new term: accordion activities. These are activities that can be short or long depending on variables.

For instance, today I was in limbo as to when I was going to the beach with my friends. It was one of those “could be any second, could be an hour from now” situations. No use just sitting on edge until the call comes in. Instead I worked on doing a book review (I like to read and record the GEMS of various books or content-oriented websites). This is something that can be interrupted by texts without real detriment. It can also be done for 5 minutes or 5 hours. Writing articles and speeches is not like that, those are creative activities that require blocked away spans of uninterrupted time.

It occurred to me that if we know we must be somewhere or do something later in a day, we should get our stuff together and prepare ourselves fully WAY before the time comes, be it the day before or a few hours before. That way there are no variables for having to find things or change cloths or gather materials. Hence, if I’m going to Jiu Jitsu I already have a water bottle filled, some fruit packed for a snack, and my grappling cloths ready. Then I can literally leave and know almost exactly when I’ll get there, as opposed to rushing last minute (a very human tendency).

On another note (and this is something I’ve mentioned before), doing logistical things at a fast pace pays off. In this instance, I use “logistical” in terms of anything that is not creative or necessarily meaningful or desired, such as walking to a club, making lunch, taking a shower, etc… I lot of time can be flittered away on those things. Its funny, but I notice that when I have a clear idea of my purpose in a given context, to as to where I’m going and what I’m going, I have a very fast tempo (because I am driven by the compelling things I want to accomplish).

I keep forgetting to bring my ipod inside when I walk inside. Then when I’m making a sandwich or something I can still be jamming out to some productive audio on philosophy or psychology.

Started a hotkeys text document. Definitely a good idea for reference if I want to be captain speedy in the mac environment.

Aug 8th-

I have noticed that when I am pumped on something, when I am really excited about something – it becomes difficult to sit, focus, and hone into work. If I come home from an awesome day at the beach or an intensely fun event, the tendency is for me to want to “bask” in that emotional state some more. It makes me want to play music that resonates with that state (high energy, fun music). I noticed that even in the car ride home from such an event, I want to crank tunes instead of doing what I usually do and listen to audio programs.

In terms of efficiency, is my objective to bask in that state or to settle into working? Of course this depends, for work without joy probably is not very good, and joy without work doesn’t facilitate my highest goals.

The next time this happens, I’ll aim to either keep the tunes on and occupy myself with mindless tasks like room / car cleaning or other grunt work, or I’ll take some deep breaths, channel my excitement into a functional work state, and get to pounding away on speeches, inquiries and articles.

In an interview with David Allen (author of “Getting Things Done”), I heard him quote a book called “The War of Art,” where he said something like: “We resist what comes forth from our soul, because we must draw it from there.” I resonate with this insight. I find that often what we are most excited to express tends to want to hide, there is an antsy-ness to its coming forth.

This may be why I am rarely in a peak state when I write, there is some resistance in drawing content from within myself. The answer here seems to be pushing through and expressing it anyway.

During the night I spent a bit too much time on a tedious, relatively mindless task: looking for a photo in my records. I was sifting through and poking around for 20 minutes or so.

This instance made me realize that such tedious tasks should either be coupled with productive audio (since I wasn’t occupying much cognitive energy during this task), and that such tasks aught to also have time limits. Obviously I could spend 30 minutes picking the right font to use on a flyer, but that would be a waste – 5 minutes tops would do the trick almost as well and would move me on to bigger things.

Dealing with excitement before an event can also involve doing mindless work. This is why its important to have a list of simple physical tasks, so that in the bit of time before something exciting (a tournament, a big trip, whatever), we can still get things done.

Aug 9th-

Today I successfully switched activities to something less cognitively involved when I felt tired. I got up and moved around because I noticed I was dozing off, and then I regrouped with another priority task that involved less thinking and creativity.

We tend to flounder time when we get antsy about something. When your mind goes into the land of potentials and it imagines desirable and undesirable consequences, you end up floundering mental faculties and unless you have some low-involvement activity to get into, you’ll wind up floundering your time, too.

Locked my keys in my car like a rocket scientist. I still do not have the flawless habit of checking for my wallet, phone, and keys before transitioning between different contexts. I still find myself running into the house after I leave and realize my keys are inside somewhere. My “spaces like offices” project should help with this, but its not fully integrated. I’m totally going to get sneaky and attach a key somewhere under my car.

Food is plain logistics to me. I can appreciate good food, but in my day-to-day life, food is just fuel for my body and mind to strive in fulfilling directions. Thats it. Period. It serves no other real purpose for me during most days. I have found that I can mix a meal with conversation and make the event worthwhile. Normally I just want something fast, something I can eat while I type or read. However, if I am eating more of a real meal with utensils and all, engaging people I care about (parents, friends, brother) in conversation makes the event have some value outside “fuel.”

Aug 10th-

Napping is not an ideal in my opinion. Although sleeping 2.5 hours at night and taking a 1 hour nap during the day does allow me to feel more awake throughout the day than a 3.5 hour sleep at night, napping tends to interrupt potential creative time. Getting into and out of bed, getting into and out of the semi-groggy state that sleep involves… these are both factors that discourage naps in my opinion.

Got lost taking the back roads to my house. Granted I had productive audio to listen to, but this could be a big waste of time. When in doubt, GPS (might as well USE the thing).

Setting firm daily and weekly objectives and blocking out other projects seems to be a very effective way to channel oneself totally into priority tasks and make “free time” (which I am lucky to have this summer) into ideally productive times, too.

Today I’m setting a morning objective to take more notes on the “LifeHack” book I got online. Lets see if this morning objective gets things going correctly (IE: pop out of bed and pound into material).

Do not permit “long blinks.” When you sleep as little as I do, your body will do all that it can to slip in some shut-eye. This same rule can apply anywhere: do not permit short periods of anything that you don’t deem to be in line with your ideals in the first place. If I need sleep I’ll get it, but when I’m working I don’t want to doze off – so I won’t permit any of it.

I am pretty good at focusing on one task, but what I want to become proficient with is dedicating to work on only project Y until it is done, then only project X, then only project Z. This is a kind of discipline I know I would benefit from. I will do this tomorrow and see how it works out…!

Aug 11th-

Didn’t set my computer alarm, just my phone alarm for 4:30. Even if I get a good amount of sleep, I find that such times usually just get blown over in a sleepy haze. I shut off my phone alarm and didn’t get up for a second. Which turned into two hours. I am awoken to realize I’m late for a casual meeting. AAAAH out the door I go.

Worked exclusively on my speech today for 3-4 hours. In the beginning there were a lot of txt interruptions, but I got them handled, put the phone on silent and faced it down. Working strait through was a bit of a challenge for only one topic, and I did have to battle through sleepy eyes from time to time. During this time when something else came to mind I wrote it down like a mind-sweep, and forgot about it in order to keep working. Overall this resulted in some very big progress on the project in general.

Towards the end of my project focus, I picked up the phone and sent out a few texts

which was a bad idea. I ended up now having more interruptions while working. They weren’t terrible ones, its just that I could have waited until I was in the phone to contact those people (when I have less priority stuff competing with it).

Aug 12th-

There are some activities (such as washing the car or doing laundry) than cannot be coupled with creative writing or even with the computer at all. During these activities I usually will listen to cool music (which I find gives me a good pace during these activities and makes them enjoyable) or I listen to come kind of productive audio about psychology / philosophy.

My recent idea is to try to stack these activities so that I knock them all off at once – which is more efficient. In addition, I would be able to listen to productive audio for a more extended period of time as opposed to random 5-minute blips of time when I do these “away from cpu” activities.

Forgot my wallet in my car when I went out tonight. Makes me think more about my “organize spaces like an office” idea. The premise is: what if in every context I had my things organized.

I have my car organized so that I know what is in what side door, what is in the glove, etc… and I have all of this written down. I did the same with my room.

What if I could make a point to always have my phone in the right pocket and the wallet in the left. What if I made THAT into a habit? I probably wouldn’t loose track of my stuff as much. I will be writing about this in a productivity post soon, this is an idea that I’m going to stick to.

Aug 13th-

Was in an awesome social state for a lot of today. When I am in these states I feel like just jamming to good music, dancing, and meeting people. This draws me away from yearnings to do much “productive work” in the traditional sense, though it sure feels good.

During these times it seems as though my best bet is to in fact go out and be super social and bouncy, or to settle down by doing something that doesn’t have to involve all my creative faculties. Something like taking notes on web articles or podcasts that I want to learn from.

Its funny, but it seems that positive emotions tend to trump “productivity” almost every time. Of course I recognize the value of producing good work, but at the same time if I feel really good doing something else that is in alignment with my values (meeting people, chicks, etc…) then I feel the strongest draw there. Its an art to know when to draw out of that and when to lean into it.

Today I was listening to a Merlin Mann audio recording, taking notes on it, and also surfing his site for content as well. When I heard something that clicked I’d write it, while in the meantime I was skimming his written stuff to see what I would want to refer to later. I found this to be a good use of my mental capacities.

Aug 14th-

First thing’s first. I had a tremendous amount of time today to get things done, and I totally focused on doing the highest priority tasks that I identified at the beginning of the week. I must say that using weekly goals as a guideline for priorities in the battlefield of real time… its daaaarn useful.

Tomorrow I will write more detailed monthly and future goals and be sure that all of them are aligned with me being who I want to be, and innovating / contributing / experiencing as much as I desire.

On short naps: it seems like they serve a place. I probably got 4 hours of sleep, then took about 40 minutes for a power nap and woke up feeling phenomenal. Its better than sleeping 4 hours and 40 minutes strait for the night.

I’ll make note to keep experimenting with this nap thing. It could be my body feeling lazy or it could be that these little blips of sleep have an awesome effect on my general alertness in the first place.

Why do we resist that which we know we want? Success barriers and other psychological factors involved are fun to bring in, but not so funny on a counter. Even when we know what is best for us, we will often hold ourselves back with silly fears that we will always regret 5 seconds later. It seems like the only mechanism to bypass this is to recognize it as a pattern and aim to change it.

Man I am tired… haha.

Aug 15th-

????? 

Aug 16th-

?????

Aug 17th-

?????

Aug 18th-

?????

Aug 19th-

Putting on the iPod while I walk around and do things in the house is a good idea – especially while eating, making the bed, doing laundry, and all those other activities that involve the body but no intellect.

The danger is, sometimes I will feel like I’m “being productive” while just listening to material and idling with menial house tasks – when in fact I would be best off to take advantage of my computer time and work on projects (I can jam to educational audio whenever I want).

When in a heightened state, the tendency is to perpetuate that state with music or related thoughts. When we feel “on” and excited and fun and social, we tend to want to stay in that good feeling.

For a while I have felt as though eating takes up more time than it has to. I find myself looking through pantries and grabbing a little something – then randomly idling around the same area and looking in same pantry for some stuff I just checked for and I know I don’t have – or I’ll sift through the fridge and do the same thing.

I think that coming up with some easy and ready-made, non-messy foods is a good idea. It seems like its also important that – if possible – to have some “to do while eating” tasks related to the task I’m working on when I get hungry. For instance, if I’m researching, I can bring up a bunch of websites I want to read and I can read them while I eat (since scrolling and clicking will be harder when I’m trying to eat food). Or for instance, if I’m doing some writing, I might do my read-through during the eating time so that I can get some editing in while I get fuel in my body.

It also seems important to eat only once. I find myself going in for small bites time and time again, when I’d likely save a lot of time by just putting a bunch on my plate and feeling satisfied afterwards.

I’m going to experiment with the food thing tomorrow.

Aug 20th-

Food and work. Tried to combine them today.

During breakfast I read a book that I’ve been meaning to read (which only involves sight and cognition so I was able to do it continuously while eating). Later in the day I was eating lunch and I did the same thing: I read.

Using this time wisely seems only proper.

In addition, I did not spend time fumbling around and eating every few hours. I grabbed a bunch of food, sat down with a book and ate it while I read. Bam.

Later in the day I felt a bit tired while doing some writing work, and I took a nap. Granted, I haven’t slept much as of late, but I don’t know if a nap was called for. I aught to have gotten up and attempted to shake off the tired feeling with a little walking around or deep breathing or calisthenics.

As I write this on August 21st, I realize that I will probably be able to experiment more with this stuff today being as I slept for only about 2.5 hours last night. Thats why they call it a life experiment…

Aug 21st-

????? 

Aug 22nd-

?????

Aug 23rd-

I almost nodded off while writing today. Again. This often happens when I’m laying down to type (usually because my back starts to hurt after a while of doing this stuff – and by “stuff” I mean reading and writing and reading and writing).

I noticed the tell-tale “long blink” happen, and I knew I had to snap out of it – I couldn’t succumb – I had gotten enough sleep last night.

So I put on a song that I love, a real sick jam (Craig David’s “Can You Fill Me In”). I stood up, stretched out, and grooved all high-energy to the entire song.

After this I put the computer back on the desk and sat upright, feeling alive, awake, refreshed, and ready to type like a machine.

On a side note, I think its important not to stay laying down for very long. I find that all I need to rest my neck is about 10 minutes or so. Thats all I need because my likelihood of “feeling tired” Get back to the desk. Back strait. F***ing WORK.

I switched to less creative work later in the night as I become tired. I went into note-taking mode on some psychology / productivity stuff that I wanted to record and process big-time. This is a smart move being as I don’t want to butcher intellectual material when I’m not optimally capable of intellectual stuff.

Conversations and interactions can be hardcore time-drainers. This is why its important to have a relatively secluded workspace.

I love warm human contact, don’t get me wrong. Enriching relationships is one of the core pursuits in my life. However, I don’t want to stick around and chit chat when its time to sit down and produce content.

Its important to have the capacity to end conversations with things like “before I go downstairs to get back to work…” or “one last thing before I leave…” Its also important to have the capacity to leave social situations when you deem it best. Sometimes its easier to just ‘chill’ and stay, but if you know in your core that you have other things to do that you value higher at this time – then don’t restrain yourself. I leave my friends to read and write occasionally, its not a big deal.

I had a touch of “inactive state” today. Thats what I refer to as the state where you just feel tired and not ready to move forward on anything. I was at a BBQ and just felt like sitting down even though I knew I wanted to go home and work on content.

In these instances, taking actions and getting excited is optimally important.

14 days analyzed hard…

The finale post of this Experiment will involve identifying major themes and making 10 commitments to the way I work and organize my life so that I can make tangible increases in my degree of efficiency. 

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I’m Excited.

I’ve decided my next Life Experiment is going to involve studying my own efficiency in terms of achieving my desired outcomes.

I plan to sit down and break down where I was most and least effective during my day.

This isn’t a blind view towards some ideal in “productivity” in the sense of making and producing for the sake of doing so. I’d also like to be effective in my workouts, in my teaching style, in how I organize fun things with friends, etc…

Sure some of this involves my implementation of GDT. For the most part, though, I think that I have integrated the GDT system relatively fluently, and now I’m starting to move into other material and my own style (though GDT is still something I study and something I highly revere). 

The experiment involves:

• Critically evaluating my day-to-day efficiency 
• Writing about it for 10 – 15 minutes per night
• Recording my adventures in this experiment category
• Editing my way of going about things and making new distinctions in personal effectiveness
• Identifying the 10 biggest new distinctions and sticking to them! (While sharing them with you guys, of course)

Pretty cut and dry, I’m excited to figure out where my loopholes are and write them down so that I can consciously move past them and become more effective at achieving what I want to achieve and experiencing what I want to experience.

It starts today…

Look for the first week’s updates next Tuesday (August 11th 2009).

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