by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Time, Tools
Links to other parts of the miniseries:
Be Awesomely Effective Part 1: Embodied cognition
Be Awesomely Effective Part 3: Mental Energy
Be Awesomely Effective Part 4: Stop fighting distractions
Be Awesomely Effective Part 5: Mind-body connection
Be Awesomely Effective Part 6: Workspace
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 44 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Be Awesomely Effective Part 2: Decision points
— From Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done by Josh Davis, Ph.D.
In yesterday’s Part 1 we left off with Josh Davis, Ph.D., the author, saying that the key to being truly productive is to “ditch efficiency and create, instead, the conditions for two awesome hours of effectiveness each day.”
However, it’s important to note that there’s nothing special about two hours. Davis recommends it because it’s “both attainable and sufficient for getting to enough of what matters each day,” but the specific number of hours of peak mental functioning is not critical. You can suit the time to the needs of your day, say, four hours or ten minutes.
Davis is not suggesting either that you set aside the same 2 hours each day (for example, from 9-11 am), because you can’t always control when things need to get done. And while you won’t be able to finish all our work in two hours, “when you are mentally effective, you can accomplish whatever matters most to you at that moment, with pride in your work and inspiration to do more.”
Further, “the rest of your day you can devote to those tasks that don’t require much strategic or creative thinking,” such as sifting email, filling forms, managing schedules, paying bills, planning travel, and returning phone calls. Since you’ll be thinking more effectively, you can determine which of those tasks you can let go, delegate, outsource, etc.
Having explained all this, it is now time to move on to the first simple strategy to master your productivity.
Decision Points
Our habits and our unconscious competence get us through most tasks on autopilot. That’s actually a very good thing, as we don’t have to remember how to hold our toothbrush, how to tie our shoelaces or how to step on the brake when we’re driving. Davis says, “Our habits are mental energy savers.” However, that also means that when we are working on many tasks, it’s hard to snap out of autopilot because we’re operating under neural routines. That’s why we intend to check email for 15 minutes and, 2 hours later, we are still doing it.
Introducing our new friends, the decision points. Davis explains, “The first strategy is to learn to recognize the few moments during each day when you have the opportunity and ability to choose how to spend your time. Decision points are the moments “when routine ends (e.g. when you finish flossing your teeth or reading the report) or is interrupted by someone or something (e.g. when a colleague interrupts)… [and] self-awareness ramps up. […] It is in that moment that you get to decide how your next chunk of time will be best used.” Being intentional is the key as you choose your next task.
For the most part, we don’t give any thought to our decision points, and we rush through them to get back to tasks that feel productive. But, Davis continues, “Hurrying through one decision point… might save five minutes. Starting on the wrong task may cost an hour.”
What to do?
The Thinker. Sculpture by August Rodin
Savor each decision point. They don’t come too often, so it’s important to recognize them when they happen and seize them. “Decision points can give you [psychological] ‘distance,’ [and this] leads to high-level thinking.” That way, minor, immediate concerns will be seen in the appropriate light and we can examine the big picture instead.
Plan your decision points in advance. Since we can’t avoid interruptions and distractions, we should plan ahead how we will respond to them. This is called an implementation intention: “a plan to implement certain action if a relevant cue arises.” This is an if-then approach to take. So next time your colleague pops in with “just a quick question,” make sure you have plans to know what comes next. But beware: “[it] does not work to ‘plan’ to use willpower in the moment and fight an urge… [and ] planning not to do something tends to fail.” Plan to take action, even if that action is mentally recognizing that you have reached a decision point.
Don’t start a new task without consciously deciding it’s the right one. As soon as you finish a task, “label this moment as a decision point.” Davis literally says to himself, “This is a decision point,” and that’s enough of a trigger to make him pause and think about his next move. You can mentally acknowledge the moment as well, or do something physical too: stand up, stretch, walk around, drink water, etc. The important thing here is that you know that you will be intentionally deciding what action to take next.
As you see, it’s easy to get lost in the trance of work if we don’t pay attention. By recognizing our decision points throughout the day, we can make sure that we are focusing our time on effectiveness and productivity. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s strategy to be awesomely effective.
ACTION
TODAY: Make a conscious effort to notice your decision points throughout the day. When you run into one of them, consciously and intentionally decide what to do next, even if it means going back to the task you were doing because that is where your time is best spent now (and you need to finish it).
FUTURE: Train your brain to recognize your decision points throughout the day. Plan ahead how you will respond when you encounter a decision point, and seize it by consciously and intentionally determining which task you will tackle next.
Please share this miniseries with a friend or two, or twelve! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Over the next week I’m going to be taking a slightly different approach to the daily posts: so far, it’s been one idea per day from a different book, and while I have repeated a few books, the ideas are stand-alone, and it’s never been the same book back to back. Since the book that I’m reading now goes over five strategies on how to become more effective, and since we’re always looking at making the most out of our time and effort, I want to share all five ideas with you in sequence. Call this a miniseries of ideas, if you will. The miniseries will be coming to you in six posts: today’s plus the next five days. I hope you enjoy it and benefit from this, and I would love to hear from you on what you think of this miniseries approach!
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 23 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Be Awesomely Effective Part 1: Embodied cognition
— From Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done by Josh Davis, Ph.D.
In Two Awesome Hours, Josh Davis, Ph.D. says that we all fall into the efficiency trap one way or another. “Regardless of how high up the ladder we are, we typically respond to being overwhelmed by work in two ways. One is to force ourselves to stay on task without breaks in order to make the most efficient use of our days. The other is to work more hours…to make the most efficient use out of our weeks.”
The problem with that approach is that the underlying idea of “efficiency” doesn’t work. We’ve all tried to do more in less time and to forage for time by using any would-be down time to work (breaks, lunch, dinner with family, etc.). How has this worked for you? “Many of us feel stifled rather than accomplished at the end of the typical day,” says Davis.
The key to our productivity lies not in being efficient at doing more and to stop wasting time (seeing down time as a waste). What we need to do is understand how our brains and bodies work so as to become effective.
“Staying on task without a break and working longer hours are wonderful solutions for a computer or machine. [They] don’t get tired, so the quality of work is identical every time they are used.” We’re human, and a continual demand for one kind of work with a consistent level of effectiveness would be the equivalent or asking a runner to stay at the same speed under any circumstance: whether a sprint or a marathon, after pulling an all-nighter, after being hung-over, or after being well-fed and well-rested.
The idea that being biological creatures affects how we think and feel is called “embodied cognition.” (Cognition definition.) How many times have you felt tired and do not feel like working? Or how many times have you felt great and plowed through all your workload successfully with extra time at the end to go do something fun? That’s what embodied cognition means. Yes, your body influences your thoughts.
While we are not machines or computers and cannot sustain that level of efficiency, “each of us has a vast, untapped potential as a human that computers and machines do not have. And trying to be efficient all the time will block us from harnessing it.”
The author points to the example of doing ten thousand pushups. It would be a feat of Herculean strength to do them uninterrupted, but we’d have no problem doing a few pushups a day until we hit the 10K mark. My friend Josh Spodek has done more than 100,000 burpees since 2011 with his daily, ten-minute exercise routine!
“We may all be capable of impressive feats of comprehension, motivation, emotional control, problem solving, creativity and decision making when our biological systems are functioning optimally. But we can be terrible at those very same things when our biological systems are suboptimal. The amount of exercise and sleep we get and the food we eat can greatly influence these mental functions in the short term—even within hours.”
The key to being truly productive then, says Davis, is to “ditch efficiency and create, instead, the conditions for two awesome hours of effectiveness each day.”
Tomorrow I’ll share Davis’ first strategy to get this done.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of the many ways in which you have fallen into the “efficiency trap.” Do you go from task to task without breaks? Do you skip breakfast to leave in a hurry? Do you “fuel” your body with caffeine and sugar all day to keep you going? Where are you asking your brain and body to perform steadily and uninterrupted in an unrealistic way?
FUTURE: Keep reading this miniseries over the next few days to find out the five strategies that will help you create the environment for you to be awesomely effective!
If you know of someone who could benefit from reading this miniseries, please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 33 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Use your ultradian rhythm to favor your productivity
— From The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
We’ve all heard of the circadian rhythm, which is the 24-hour cycle or body clock that tells us when to eat, when to sleep, when to wake up, etc. But few of us have heard about the 90-to-120-minute ultradian rhythm, which is a period or cycle that is repeated during a 24-hour day.
Throughout the day, your energy waxes and wanes, which is what Josh Kaufman calls Energy Cycles in his awesome book, The Personal MBA. “The implicit assumption of time management systems is that every hour is fungible—equivalent to any other. Nothing could be further from the truth: all people are created equal, but all hours are most definitely not. Throughout the day, your energy level naturally cycles up and down.”
Kaufman points to the ultradian rhythm as described in The Power of Full Engagement: managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal (yay, another addition to my reading list!) by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. “The ultradian rhythm influences bodily systems, controlling the flow of hormones throughout your body. When your energy is on an upswing, you’re capable of focusing deeply and getting a lot accomplished. When it’s on a downswing, all your mind and body want to do is rest and recover. There’s nothing abnormal about these changes in energy during the day, but we often act as though being on a downswing is somehow a problem that needs to be fixed.”
Most people resort to hacking a downswing with caffeine or sugar, but the truth is that taking a break is much better, and doing so is neither a sign or laziness or weakness, it’s simply human nature. Thus, Kaufman says that we need to pay attention and understand our natural Energy Cycles so that we can perform at our best in a consistent way over time.
In order to do this, he suggests four ways to work with our bodies instead of against them:
1. Learn Your Patterns. “Use a notebook or calendar to track how much energy you have during different parts of the day, as well as what you’re eating and drinking. If you do this for a few days, you’ll notice patterns in how your energy waxes and wanes, allowing you to plan your work accordingly.”
2. Maximize Your Peak Cycles. “When you’re in an up cycle, you’re capable of getting a lot accomplished, so plan your day to take advantage of that energy. […] Carve out a 3-4 hour block of [creative work… and] plan the most important meetings during the up cycle.”
3. Take a Break. “When you’re in a down cycle, it’s better to rest than attempt to power through it. Rest and recovery are not optional—if you don’t rest now, your body will force you to rest later, either by cycling down longer than usual or getting sick. During a down cycle, go for a walk, meditate, or take a 20-minute nap. Relaxing on the down cycle can restore your energy, allowing you to take full advantage of the next up cycle.”
4. Get Enough Sleep. “Sleep deprivation results in a prolonged down cycle, which gets in the way of getting things done.”
While none of these points are Earth-shattering and we somehow already were aware of them, Kaufman points on his webpage, “Useful advice often sounds boring, but acting on that advice can produce amazing results.”
So, let’s pay attention to our ultradian rhythms and get things done. You can read more about the energy cycles in Josh Kaufman’s The Personal MBA book page.
ACTION
TODAY: Carry a piece of paper with you all day and write down your energy levels. Notice the times you feel most energetic and the ones when you’re falling asleep or can’t concentrate. Notice the time(s) when you function best to tackle certain tasks.
FUTURE: Start adapting your schedule (if you are able to do so) to coincide with your ultradian rhythms. That way you’ll be as productive as possible during an upswing. And during a downswing you can fully rest and recover to be fully prepared and energetic to tackle on the next upswing.
Know someone who needs to learn about the ultradian rhythms? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Marketing, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 27 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 9 points to consider when creating and telling a great marketing story
— From All Marketers are Liars: The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works-and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All by Seth Godin
Seth Godin, marketing guru, talks about telling stories in his book All Marketers Are Liars Tell Stories. His premise is that “successful marketers are just the providers of stories that consumers choose to believe.” And he calls a story that a consumer believes a lie. Why? Because we tell ourselves stories about the things we want and we believe them. Otherwise, why would we pay top price, say hundreds of dollars, for a pair of sneakers or a smart phone or some other product that costs very little to make in China? Clearly, it’s the story we tell ourselves about said product, and it’s the same story we embellish and tell our family and friends afterwards.
If you have a story to tell, Godin points out 9 attributes of successful stories to capture your audience’s imagination. Please note that while the book has a tongue-in-cheek approach to lying, you must tell the truth and your story must be authentic to resonate with your audience. And this is a perfect segue into the first feature:
1. A great story is true. “Not true because it’s factual, but true because it is consistent and authentic. Consumers are too good at sniffing out inconsistencies for a marketer to get away with a story that’s just slapped on.”
2. Great stories make a promise. “They promise fun or money, safety or a shortcut. The promise is bold and audacious and not just very good—it’s exceptional or it’s not worth listening to.”
3. Great stories are trusted. “Trust is the scarcest resource we have left. No one trusts anyone… As a result, no marketer succeeds in telling a story unless he has earned the credibility to tell that story.”
4. Great stories are subtle. “Surprisingly, the less a marketer spells out, the more powerful the story becomes. Talented marketers understand that the prospect is ultimately telling himself the lie, so allowing him (and the rest of the target audience) to draw his own conclusions is far more effective than just announcing the punch line.”
5. Great stories happen fast. “They engage the consumer the moment the story clicks into place. Great stories match the voice the consumer’s worldview was seeking, and they sync right up with her expectations.”
6. Great stories don’t appeal to logic, but they often appeal to our senses. “Pheromones aren’t a myth. People decide if they like someone after just a sniff. And the design of the Alessi teapot talks to consumers in a way that a fact sheet about boiling water never could.”
7. Great stories are rarely aimed at everyone. “Average people are good at ignoring you… If you need to water down your story to appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one. [You need to] match the worldview of a tiny audience—and then that tiny audience spreads the story.”
8. Great stories don’t contradict themselves. “Consumers are clever and they’ll see through your deceit at once.” Make sure you are congruent, constant and consistent in the story you tell.
9. Great stories agree with our worldview. “The best stories don’t teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place.”
ACTION
TODAY: Are you telling a story to your customers? Analyze the story against Godin’s points. How good is it? How can you make it better in an authentic way that will resonate with their worldview?
FUTURE: Whenever you are about to tell a story about your business, your products or services, run it by the 9 points above to make sure that it will indeed resonate with your customers. In the trite-but-true example, remember that people don’t want a drill; they want a hole in the wall to hang the family picture of a lovely and most memorable vacation.
Know someone who needs to tell a better story? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 46 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Are you living your vision?
— From The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell
One of the most creative and inspired dreamers of the 20th century was Walt Disney. “Any person who could create the first sound cartoon, first all-color cartoon, and first animated feature-length motion picture is definitely someone with vision,” says leadership guru John C. Maxwell in his insightful book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. He continues, “But Disney’s greatest masterpieces of vision were Disneyland and Walt Disney World. And the spark for that vision came from an unexpected place.”
The story that follows is wonderful. When Disney’s two daughters were young, he would take them to an amusement park where the girls and he would have a blast. The carousel, apparently, captivated Disney, “a blur of bright images racing around to the tune of energetic calliope music.” Yet upon a closer look, especially when the carousel stopped, he realized he had been fooled because the horses were shabby and had cracked and chipped paint, and the only ones that moved up and down were the ones on the outer row.
That disappointment is what gave him the grand vision of Disneyland, “an amusement park where the illusion didn’t evaporate, where children and adults could enjoy a carnival atmosphere without the seedy side that accompanies some circuses or traveling carnivals… [and specifically where there’s] no chipped paint [and where] all the horses jump.”
Vision is indispensable for a leader, says Maxwell. “Vision leads the leader. It paints the target. It sparks and fuels the fire within, and draws him forward. It is also the fire lighter for others who follow that leader.” And to improve your vision, he suggests the following actions:
Measure yourself. If you have previously thought and shared your vision for your life or business, measure how well you are carrying it out by talking to key people. If your significant other, friends and colleagues can tell you with certainty what your vision is, very likely it means that you are living it.
Write it down. If your vision has stayed in your mind all this time, it’s time to get it out in writing. “Writing clarifies your thinking. Once you’ve written it, evaluate whether it’s worthy of your life’s best. And then pursue it with all you’ve got.”
Do a gut check. “If you haven’t done a lot of work on vision, spend the next several weeks or months thinking about it. Consider what really impacts you at a gut level.
What makes you cry?
What makes you dream?
What gives you energy?
Lastly, Maxwell says, think about what you’d like to see change in the world around you. I’ll leave you with this question as food for thought: “What do you see that isn’t—but could be?” Remember that you can seize only what you can see.
ACTION
TODAY: Take a moment to review your vision. Measure yourself as per the exercise above. Are you living/embodying your vision? If yes, SUPERCONGRATS!! If not, what changes do you need to make to start living it?
FUTURE: When embarking on any new plan or project, always keep your vision in mind. Ask yourself if what you are about to start gets you closer to fulfilling that vision.
Know someone who could use help for his or her vision? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Collaboration, Creativity, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 47 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Work is play, it’s fun
— From Hug Your People: The Proven Way to Hire, Inspire, and Recognize Your Employees and Achieve Remarkable Results by Jack Mitchell
Do you remember Jack Mitchell talking about hugging as a mindset? Jack is the chairman of the Mitchell’s stores and a renowned personality in the field of extraordinary customer service. His second book, Hug Your People, talks about creating a Niceness Culture to inspire, empower, recognize and reward associates.
We’ve all heard that we shouldn’t mix business with pleasure. Mitchell says that the opposite is true, “Work and fun shouldn’t be considered antonyms. We think of them as synonyms.” And he points out that, “Scientists have discovered how quickly we adopt the emotional state of those around us by measuring the physiology, heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, etc., of two people sharing a conversation. As the conversation gets started, the vital signs of the two bodies are different. But after fifteen minutes, the physiological profiles of the two bodies become very similar.”
This point is incredibly important because “one associate’s happiness becomes the other associate’s happiness.” Mitchell says that in many companies, people feel guilty if they’re having a good time. It goes like this: “associates are chuckling over something when the big boss arrives and everyone immediately adopts a somber face and scurries to their desk to look like they’re ‘working.’ ”
When you have a Niceness Culture and this scenario happens, the boss joins in the laughter. Mitchell continues, “we want people to bring their real selves to work, not some artificial ‘business self.’ ” And he practices what he preaches: he joins in the laughter, the dancing, the singing and the overall cheering. But it doesn’t stop there.
Mitchell makes a point of fostering the fun in all he and his associates do. He will close the store for an evening and invite the associates to play poker. Or he will take all associates bowling. And he will also do it in smaller ways: at meetings he’ll ask everyone to think of positive words that start with a letter, write them down and share them in his CEO letter that goes out to everyone. Or some of his associates will kick off meetings by asking questions like, “What is one word that describes you?” Or “If your great-aunt died and left you more money than Bill Gates, what would you do with it?”
The sky is the limit in terms of what small or big actions you can take to have fun yourself and make your team have fun too. You can even start your own holidays! Work is such an important part of our lives that we should do something that we like and enjoy it fully!
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw
ACTION
TODAY: How can you imbue some fun in the things you do? Think of small and big ways to do it. Can you record a fun message in your voice mail so that every caller that goes to voice mail gets a chuckle? Can you start a meeting in a fun way, such as “tell us something few people know about you” and then go around the room? Can you plan to go bowling or plan an ice-skating escapade during winter? Your imagination will lead you to come up with many fun ways to spice up your work and your business culture.
FUTURE: Commit to have more fun from now on. Think about fun “traditions” that you can establish either at work or at home, or both. Could you do an annual picnic? I once went to a “picnic” held at an office conference room where the organizers had set a red and white checkered table cloth and had sprinkled plastic ants all over it. It really was a fun touch and everyone had fun with the ants! One of my favorite invented “traditions” with my family in Spain—since we see each other once a year—is to celebrate all birthdays at the same time by adding the amount of years we will turn or have turned that year. Thus, last year we celebrated our 599 birthday! (Below is the picture of our cake). Could you do something similar at work, perhaps on a monthly basis? For example, “the September babies are turning 349 this year!” Think of fun and creative ways to celebrate and enjoy life.
Know someone who could use more fun in his or her life? Send this post to that person! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
599 Years Birthday Cake
