by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 6 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: One Question You Must Ask to Use Your Time Optimally
— From The ONE Thing: The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan (watch the book trailer)
“The way to get the most out of your work and your life is to go as small as possible,” say Gary Keller and JayPapasan, authors of The One Thing.
“Going small,” they continue, “is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognizing that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most. It’s a tighter way to connect what you do with what you want. It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.”
Because we only have so much time and energy, if we try to do too much we’ll end up spreading ourselves too thin. Thus, Keller and Papasan offer the following one question—which they call The Focusing Question—to get us laser focused on obtaining extraordinary results:
“What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
Extraordinary results do not happen in a vacuum. They happen as a result of the choices we make and the actions we take, at all levels. And while tremendously simple at first glance, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of this one question, because it can lead us to answer…
“Not only ‘big picture’questions (Where am I going? What target should I aim for) but also ‘small focus’ ones as well (What must I do right now to be in the path to getting the big picture? Where’s the bulls-eye?). It tells you not only what your basket should be, but also the first step toward getting it. It shows you how big your life can be and just how small you must go to get there. It’s both a map for the big picture and a compass for your smallest next move. […] It leads you to the first domino.”
Let me, then, close this post by asking you: What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
ACTION
TODAY: Ask The Focusing Question again and again. The answer, each time, will be your priority.
FUTURE: Keep asking again and again. If you focus on whatever the answer is (your priority at the moment), you will be working towards your goals and knowing that you are going in the right direction.
Know someone who would benefit from asking this one question to get laser-focused on his or her goals? Please share this post via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 4 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How to Cure a Productivity Hangover
— From Laura Vanderkam’s email series “Just a minute” sent December 1, 2018: How to Cure a Productivity Hangover
As I’ve been immersing myself in productivity and goal-setting topics in preparation for the New Year, I received this great newsletter from Laura Vanderkam.
The race to the end of the year is a sprint, and many of us are putting things aside to clear the way and finish our goals with a bang.
And sometimes what happens is that, “You’ve been working hard. You’ve hurtled toward a huge deadline. You made it happen. Now it’s time to deal with everything else in life that you put off. But you just…can’t.”
This is what Vanderkam calls a productivity hangover. And just as a regular hangover, the only cures are time and sleep.
“But if a vacation isn’t possible right now,” says Vanderkam, “a few other strategies can help.” And she offers the following activities with a preceding note: “You don’t need to feel motivated to get stuff done. Inspiration is like Santa Claus. Nice to believe in, but at a certain point you learn to make other plans.”
So, here are those other plans:
Make a list. “You’re not committing to actually doing anything. You’re just listing out the things you need to do at some point. I find that list-making takes less energy and produces less resistance than the actual work itself, and sometimes seeing obligations in black and white makes them seem less overwhelming.”
Work on something you like. “Surely something on your list is reasonably enjoyable (if not, you’ve got a bigger problem than a productivity hangover!). Tackle this task first. But…
Set a time limit. Yes, even with work you like! Assign yourself 20 minutes of this first task. That’s it. This strict limit has two upsides: first, you might accomplish more than you think you will, but just as important, after 20 minutes, you’ll be able to cross an item off your to-do list. You did exactly what you set out to do. This sense of success is highly motivational, and progress creates its own momentum.”
Pace yourself. “Study your list of obligations. It’s unlikely everything needs to be done today. So assign yourself three items a day (or so) over the next few days. Knowing when something will get done can help you relax, and getting through three things doesn’t seem too hard. No need to work yourself into a pity party over that. Continue to set time limits (an hour per item, max).”
Reward yourself. “Once you tackle your three assignments, celebrate. Go for a walk. Go buy (or make yourself) a cup of coffee. Read those articles you keep saying you’re going to read. Go chat with a work friend — well, as long as she’s not hurtling toward a deadline herself.”
Have you ever had to work when you did not feel motivated to do so? How did you find the energy? What did you think or tell yourself that made you do it? I’m very curious, please let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: If you are sprinting towards the end of the year, you may have to put aside a few things to get other ones accomplished. Make a list of several things that truly motivate you, so that if you get a productivity hangover, you can fall back on those things that help you bounce back up faster.
FUTURE: Whether it’s a sprint in December or some other project that leaves you depleted throughout the year, go back to your motivation list and come back to this post to put Vanderkam’s suggestions into practice.
Know someone who would like this post? Please share it with your circles via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 58 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
In the two previous posts in this miniseries, we’ve learned how to use The Diderot Effect in a positive way to our advantage, and how to create a chain of new habits by stacking them all together.
Since the secret to success lies in the selection of the right cues to kick things off, today we’ll be talking all about cues.
First, as obvious as it may seem, it’s important to realize that the timing of the cue must be relevant and realistic to the new routine you want to create. James Clear writes:
“When and where you choose to insert a habit into your daily routine can make a big difference. If you’re trying to add meditation into your morning routine but mornings are chaotic and your kids keep running into the room, then that may be the wrong place and time. Consider when you are most likely to be successful. Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else.”
Second, the frequency of the cue should be the same as of the new habit you want to instill. “If you want to do a habit every day, but you stack it on top of a habit that only happens on Mondays, that’s not a good choice.”
To find the right trigger for creating your new habit stack, the author suggests brainstorming a list of your current habits. You can download a free “Habit Scorecard” from his website, or simply create a list with two columns.
On the first column, you write the habits that you do every day, no matter what. For example, “get out of bed, take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, brew a cup of coffee, eat breakfast, take the kids to school, start the work day, eat lunch,” etc. Your list is going to be much longer than that, but you get where this is going.
On the second column, you write the things that happen to you always. For example, “the sun rises, you get a text message, the song you are listening to ends, the sun sets,” etc.
With your two-column list handy, then you can start looking for the best places to insert the cues to form your new habits. It’s important to note that the cue must be highly specific and immediately actionable, says Clear, otherwise, you run into ambiguity, which is certain to derail your habits. Let’s learn a lesson from the author:
“Many people set cues that are too vague. I made this mistake myself. When I wanted to start a push-up habit, my habit stack was ‘When I take a break for lunch, I will do ten push-ups.’ At first glance, this sounded reasonable. But soon I realized the trigger was unclear. Would I do my push-ups before I ate lunch? After I ate lunch? Where would I do them? After a few inconsistent days, I changed my habit stack to: ‘When I close my laptop for lunch, I will do ten push-ups next to my desk.’ Ambiguity gone.”
And there you have it. The more specific, precise, and clear on your cues and your instructions to act, the more the new habit will stick, as there won’t be room for inconsistency or confusion. “The specificity is important… After I close the door. After I brush my teeth. After I sit down at the table… The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act.”
Leave yourself no choice but to act in favor of establishing your new habits by setting up specific, timely, and relevant cues where they will give you the highest possibility of success.
So, what cue will you use to trigger the action for your new habit? Where will you stack it? Let me know in the comments here. As for myself, just as the author, I’m developing a push-up habit, so my cue will be “when I take a long break from my pomodoros, after setting the break time in my timer, I will do 12 push-ups right next to my desk.”
ACTION
TODAY: Make your two-column list of habits and things that happen so that you can figure out where you can insert your cues to trigger the new habit you want to build.
FUTURE: Set cues and stack habits where you will have the biggest possibility of success. Og Mandino said, “If I must be a slave to habit, let me be a slave to good habits.”
Know someone who would benefit from learning about cues and habit stacking? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Yesterday we learned about The Diderot Effect: how to use it positively to create new habits and to make sure they stick via habit stacking.
But I told you there was more to this, and this is what I want to share today. The concept is simple: if habit stacking increases the likelihood that your new habits will stick, then you can actually create a chain of new habits by stacking them all together, using one habit to cue the next one for the whole routine you want to implement.
The author offers the following routines as examples.
Morning routine:
- After I pour my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for sixty seconds.
- After I meditate for sixty seconds, I will write my to-do list for the day.
- After I write my to-do list for the day, I will immediately begin my first task.
Evening routine:
- After I finish eating dinner, I will put my plate directly into the dishwasher.
- After I put my dishes away, I will immediately wipe down the counter.
- After I wipe down the counter, I will set out my coffee mug for tomorrow morning.
You get the idea. Very simple but immensely powerful.
There are also a few iterations of this basic stacking principle to further help you achieve a particular goal. One of those iterations, says Clear, is to “insert new behaviors into the middle of your current routines.”
For instance, he points out to a routine like this:
Wake up > Make my bed > Take a shower.
What if you wanted to instill in you the habit of reading every night? You could modify your habit stack by adding the following:
Wake up > Make my bed > Place a book on my pillow > Take a shower.
That one change would mean you’d have a book waiting for you to enjoy in the evening before you go to bed.
Another tip that Clear shares is that of creating rules to guide your future behavior. “It’s like you always have a game plan for which action should come next.” And he gives the following examples to illustrate this point:
- Exercise. When I see a set of stairs, I will take them instead of using the elevator.
- Social skills. When I walk into a party, I will introduce myself to someone I don’t know yet.
- Finances. When I want to buy something over $100, I will wait twenty-four hours before purchasing.
- Healthy eating. When I serve myself a meal, I will always put veggies on my plate first.
- Minimalism. When I buy a new item, I will give something away. (“One in, one out.”)
- Mood. When the phone rings, I will take one deep breath and smile before answering.
- Forgetfulness. When I leave a public place, I will check the table and chairs to make sure I don’t leave anything behind.
The most important thing is picking the right cue to initiate the action. Over time and repetition, the habit will be built. And by virtue of having stacked it, it has no choice but to stick.
And just as I promised that there would be more info on new habits today, tomorrow this miniseries will continue with how to set the cues for best results. So, please come back to continue learning about creating new habits and creating the optimal conditions for them to stick.
ACTION
TODAY: Look at your routines and determine when would be the best step to stack that new habit.
FUTURE: Start a document with your own set of rules to guide your behavior. As you run into a situation where you’d like to stack a habit, make a note of it in your document, so that you can have one repository of all these rules. You’ll eventually have them in your mind, yet initially, having this document as a backup will come in very handy.
Know someone who would like to read this?? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 21 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: ASAP is stressful, use it wisely
— From REWORK: Change the way you work forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
The post on being conscious about the language we use left me thinking about other words and sayings that have become common—but shouldn’t be.
One of those is ASAP or As Soon As Possible.
ASAP is stressful because it always denotes urgency. ASAP means drop everything and pay attention to this.
I get stressed out—and know a lot of people who do too—when colleagues used ASAP liberally, like salt on their food. That’s why I loved what Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson say about it in their awesome book Rework:
ASAP is poison.
Stop saying ASAP. We get it. It’s implied. Everyone wants things done as soon as they can be done.
When you turn into one of these people who adds ASAP to the end of every request, you’re saying everything is high priority. And when everything is high priority, nothing is. (Funny how everything is a top priority until you actually have to prioritize things.)
ASAP is inflationary. It devalues any request that doesn’t say ASAP. Before you know it, the only way to get anything done is by putting the ASAP sticker on it.
Most things just don’t warrant that kind of hysteria. If a task doesn’t get done this very instant, nobody is going to die. Nobody is going to lose their job. It won’t cost the company a ton of money. What it will do is create artificial stress, which leads to burnout and worse.
So reserve your use of emergency language for true emergencies. The kind where there are direct, measurable consequences to inaction. For everything else, chill out.
What other words or phrases have you come across that you’d like to veto from our language? Let me know in the comments here and I’ll write a post about it!
ACTION
TODAY: The authors are right in saying, “When everything is high priority, nothing is.” Take a moment to prioritize your schedule today and for the rest of the week so that you’re not telling yourself “ASAP” unconsciously and operating under unneeded stress!
FUTURE: Do you know someone who operates in ASAP mode all the time? Grab a cup of coffee with that person, and share your willingness to work as a team, but be candid in mentioning that seeing ASAP so often is very stressful and thus underproductive. Set up a system to work together that will (1) ensure you get the projects on time, and (2) enable you to know when projects are really urgent to devote your whole attention to them. I’ve found that a cup of coffee works wonders for most things: it creates bonds of friendship, better understanding among colleagues, and much willingness to work together (and have coffee again in a future).
Help someone get out of ASAP mode by sharing this post via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time for blocking your time: 3 minutes, 23 seconds:
TODAY’S IDEA: Blocking your time
— From The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington
“If you are not in control of your time, you are not in control of your results,” say Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, productivity and execution gurus and authors of The 12 Week Year. Yet sometimes things come up throughout the day, mainly unplanned interruptions that “will eat up your valuable minutes” here and there.
What to do?
“Trying to reduce these interruptions usually doesn’t work well and it can be more difficult that just dealing with them… The key to successful time use—intentional time use—is not trying to eliminate those unplanned interruptions, but instead to block out regular time each week dedicated to your strategically important tasks.”
The authors call these blocks of time Performance Time, and they say, “It is the best approach to effectively allocating time that we have ever encountered.”
Performance Time uses a time-blocking system so that you can be in control of your time and maximize your effectiveness, thus, controlling your results.
The time blocking system is simple; there are three different kinds of blocks. Let’s look at each:
Strategic Blocks: A strategic block is a three-hour block of uninterrupted time that is scheduled into each week. During this block you accept no phone calls, no faxes, no emails, no visitors, no anything. Instead, you focus all your energy on preplanned tasks—your strategic and money-making activities.
Strategic blocks concentrate your intellect and creativity to produce breakthrough results. You will likely be astounded by the quantity and quality of the work you produce. For most people, one strategic block per week is sufficient.
Buffer Blocks: Buffer blocks are designed to deal with all the unplanned and low-value activities—like most email and voice mail—that arise through a typical day. Almost nothing is more unproductive and frustrating that dealing with constant interruptions, yet we’ve all had days when unplanned items dominated our time.
For some, one 30-minute buffer block a day is sufficient, while for others, two separate one-hour blocks may be necessary. The power of buffer blocks comes from grouping together activities that tend to be unproductive so that you can increase your efficiency in dealing with them and take greater control over the rest of your day.
Breakout Blocks: One of the key factors contributing to performance plateaus is the absence of free time. Very often entrepreneurs and professionals get caught up in working longer and harder, but this approach kills your energy and enthusiasm. To achieve greater results, what’s often necessary is not actually working more hours, but rather taking some time away from work.
[…] An effective breakout block is at least three-hours long and spent on things other than work. It is time scheduled away from your business during normal business hours that you will use to refresh and reinvigorate your mind, so that when you return to work, you can engage with more focus and energy.
For Performance Time to work better, the authors suggest going beyond merely scheduling these three blocks in your weekly calendar. “The more you can create a routine in your days and weeks, the more effective your execution will be.”
Moran and Lennington say it’s ideal—if you can—to schedule routine tasks at the same time on the same day each week. However, more important is to know when you are at your best (Morning? Afternoon? Evening?) and schedule your most important activities for that peak time when you’ll be super effective.
ACTION
TODAY: Take a look at your calendar and figure out when you can clear up some time to add Performance Time. If not today, schedule it between now and next week and stick to it.
FUTURE: Give Performance Time a shot and try it out for a week or two, or three… Tweak to where it works out best for you and stay with it for a while to start reaping its benefits.
Know someone who would benefit from reading this post? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
