Category Archives: Productivity

Information Rituals

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Update (11march2013) – This post misses the point. I consider this a first, misguided draft. I am still working with the idea of information rituals. Step one: figure out what information rituals need to accomplish.

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I need to develop new information rituals. My current habits are not working for me. I have three email accounts — one personal, one for work, and one Gmail for capturing data posted to web forms. All three have become link hives,   hundreds of emails with nothing but unvisited links to sites I need or want to visit.

My email situation, though tragic, is not uncommon. But then consider the other places I have stashed unvisited links:

  • Google Bookmarks
  • starred posts in Google Reader
  • favorited tweets
  • Evernote for articles that require some action
  • Instapaper for articles to read during downtime
  • ScoopIt for articles to share with others
  • PDFs scattered across iBooks, Adobe Reader for iPad, Blue Fire and Dropbox

This is a mess. I not in control. If unvisited weblinks were physical objects, you would be watching my tearful family on Hoarders begging me to let these links go and just live a simple, uncluttered kind of life. I cannot let them go. I need these links. These links have something for me, some small but essential insight.

The problem here is discipline. My information habits lack purpose and rigor. My information habits are thoughtless and unexamined. I need clarity. I need a streamlined system that makes sense, and then, I need to develop the rigor required to operate and protect the system.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I am kissed with a little bit of OCD. Some people wash incessantly. Some people drink or do drugs. Some people are compulsive about light switches. My manias are list-making and link catching.

I can’t stop catching interesting links. I am a librarian. I work on the web. I am online all day. I get interested in things. I share links. People share links with me. It is the nature of what I do.

I need a better system for organizing my link hoards into coherent clusters that can be dealt with, delegated or deleted.

I need new information rituals.

Something like this:

  • Only keep Google bookmarks that matter. If a link gets tagged read or explore, then read or explore that link. Delete the links that don’t matter.
  • Triage all interesting emailed links into one place. Maybe a folder inside one email account or a dedicated email account. Funnel all emailed links to that one place and prune that one place ruthlessly. Bookmark the links that matter. Delete all emails.
  • Do not favorite tweets or star items from your Google feed. Push them to the folder and deal with them when there’s time. Bookmark then delete.
  • Keep Evernote clean for links that require some follow-up or associate to a particular project, like this blog.
  • Read Instapaper articles daily.
  • Push all PDFs to iBooks because iBooks allows annotation and also allows organizing features on bookshelves. Adobe Reader and BlueFire  have no organizing features to prevent the tumble. Dropbox is crowded with other things.

There are the tenets of the faith. Here’s the ritual:

  • Read Facebook and Twitter in the morning, preferably via Flipboard. Push links as needed.
  • Read Google Feeds at lunch. Push links as needed.
  • Read ScoopIt in the late afternoon. Push links as needed.
  • Read Evernote before blogging in the evening. This is where the blogging ideas get saved.
  • Visit Google Bookmarks for new sites and to delete unneeded bookmarks.
  • Read Instapaper with evening leisure time.
  • Read PDFs as needed.

Fascinating. This is completely unsustainable and I sound like a complete lunatic.

Okay, you get the idea. I’m stopping now.

I need to think a bit more about the idea of information rituals, those habits of searching, finding, clicking and reading that get us through the day.

What are your information rituals? How well do they work for you?

See Farther, Work Faster: A Workplace Prayer

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At some point in your career, I hope you are asked to work at the edge of your limits. I hope someone needs you to offer up more than you believe you are able to provide. I hope you are asked to see farther and work faster than you ever thought possible. That’s where growth happens. That’s where you make yourself vulnerable. That’s where you discover your limits. That’s where you surprise yourself by what you are able to accomplish and by what others around you are able to accomplish because of your support.

You will find yourself failing. You will find yourself falling behind. Keep at it. There’s no prize for taking it easy. There’s no prize for doing what everyone knows can be done. Do hard things. Help other people do hard things. Rest when you must but do not stop. Be more than you already are. Be what is needed. Be what is required. See farther. Work faster. Be ready.

No News is Bad News

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People often say, “No news is good news.” I have said it myself many times. It’s a  lie. This is a thing we tell ourselves when we aren’t sure where we stand or how a  project is really going. This is the credo for the path of least resistance. This is the motto for the path of greatest avoidance.

I run an academic library at a mid-size community college. If you think libraries are drowsy, dull places where routine is revered and nothing ever changes, you are flat wrong. Everything is changing. My library is wrestling with eBooks, eJournals, iPads and other mobile technologies. We are building chat-based reference services and piloting embedded course librarians to more effectively teach our students good information habits. We are reshaping our print collections and working with other departments to develop online learning objects to be used in the classroom. One of my favorite projects at the moment is piloting the delivery of  real-time telepresence research assistance at a satellite campus via the use of a Tandberg hi-definition video conferencing unit. My library is a busy, interesting, and challenging place.

I want these projects to succeed. I want them to solve somebody’s problem. I want them to address a need.

Anytime a team starts a new project, the effort receives the benefit of the team’s full attention. Everyone is paying attention and watching to get to the project off the ground. Quickly after launch, the immediacy wanes and the project becomes a normal part of life. Once the initial vigilance fades, we begin to shortcut our assumptions about how the project is going. We lose touch with reality.

In those first few months of life, we are continually searching for flaws in the project so we can fix them and improve. Eventually, the search for flaws becomes an assumption of strength. In the absence of negative feedback, we convince ourselves that things are going well. If things were going poorly, someone would tell us. Ergo, no news is good news.

The truth is opposite. No news is bad news.

If things are going well and people are being well-served by your product or service, they will tell you. If things are going poorly and people believe or expect something better from your product or service, they will tell you. In either case, clients, customers or patrons are engaged with your service and are willing to invest their feedback into making your product stronger. If no one tells you anything good or bad, then no one is really engaged by your product or service and you are operating in a void. You aren’t meeting a need and no one cares enough to tell you.

Complaints are a sign of health. When people complain and point out flaws, it is a sign that they have a greater expectation of your product or service. Since nothing is ever perfect, some manageable volume of actionable complaints is a sign that people value what you are offering. Act on all reasonable complaints and you can only grow stronger.

When people praise your product and point out strengths, celebrate and work to preserve and increase the specific value they have recognized.

Listen. Be patient. Don’t be defensive. Feedback, both positive and negative, is a sign of engagement. In either case, be grateful.

Silence is the enemy. Silence is deadly. Silence means nobody cares.

No news is always bad news.

Less time managing time = more time getting things done

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I’m that guy who believes there is some secret trick or some special technology waiting just around the corner that will unleash my full ability to work smarter, faster and better. I follow blogs about productivity and tweet using the #productivity hashtag. That’s right. I’m that guy.

That’s why, from time to time, I require simple, straightforward reminders like this one from Anthony Iannarino at The Sales Blog. Managing time isn’t hard. We all manage our time. We manage our time according to our priorities. Getting our priorities to line up with our best interests more difficult. That’s called managing yourself. When you manage your priorities well, time is not really a problem.

A Tweetable Mission Statement

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Things get crazy and it gets hard stay focused. When there is too much to do, prioritization becomes essential. Prioritization isn’t easy. Everything feels urgent. Everything feels important.

Personally, I struggle a bit with prioritization. I have often read that the core of good time management practice is having a clearly stated personal mission statement. A personal mission statement isn’t a description of the work you do. A personal mission statement is a statement of what you intend to accomplish through the work you do. The mission helps you determine the work. Not the other way around.

I have taken a few passes at a personal mission statement, understanding that this should evolve over time. I recently realized that the frustration I felt at not grasping and attaining clarity with my personal mission was that it had become overly complex. I explained too much.

So here’s my new rule. My personal mission statement must be tweetable, 140 characters or less.

Here’s where I am today:

Be curious and inspire curiosity in others. Learn new things and make it easier for others to learn. Help people share what they learn.

24 words. 135 characters. It explains why I am a librarian. It explains why I get myself involved in things that matter. It explains why I read, write and share ideas. I can’t claim to have realized this goal but I can say it is helping me find clarity of purpose and a little sanity in the ways I choose to divide my time.

Unscripted time

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A friend at work recently congratulated me on becoming the “man with the most hats in the world”. I’m still trying to figure out if this was a compliment or something else. Either way, she is right. I am currently wearing a lot of hats. Trouble is, I still only have one head.

There is no end to the urgent, imperative, interesting work that begs to be done. I can count at least 7 major projects/initiatives with significant claims on my time and energy. Each deserves my fullest focus and effort. Each will get the absolute best that I can deliver.

I took a few days off this week to rest a bit and refocus myself before things get really crazy.  Much of this time I was busy at my mom-in-law’s house, getting it ready to put on the market. The work was tiring but rewarding and productive. Sometimes it is invigorating to work hard at something other than what you normally do.

This afternoon I found myself with a few hours unscripted time, no commitments or plans. I wasn’t  passing out exhausted. My daughter was at her grandmother’s house. I read a book. I listened to music. I let my mind wander. I felt good.

This is just to remind myself that we don’t always accomplish the most by dumping tons of hours in toil. Sometimes, we have to make space for ourselves by allowing room for unscripted time. Time that belongs to us without expectation of what we will produce with that time.

I feel refreshed. I feel focused. I feel ready. I do have many hats to wear. I once again believe I have enough heads to wear them all.

 

 

Eradicate email!

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So I’ve written a bit already about my personal war with email. Managing email happens to be my personal Achilles heel and is emblematic of the larger problems of information overload that challenge all of us.

Edudemic posted a helpful article about Chris Anderson’s very practical campaign to get email under control. The article quotes Anderson:

an email inbox has been aptly described as the to-do list that anyone in the world can add an item to. If you’re not careful, it can gobble up most of your working week. Then you’ve become a reactive robot responding to other people’s requests, instead of a proactive agent addressing your own true priorities.

Anderson’s image of email as the world’s open to-do list for me is pretty apt and gets right to the root of my problem with email. I can’t respond to it all, I can’t answer it all, and I can’t use it all. It piles in and there’s never any getting to the end of it. I have never witnessed Inbox Zero is my personal or professional life but know that, if I ever did, the relief would be short-lived. You have to sleep sometime.

I am prepared to declare war on email. If you are ready to join me, you may find Chris Anderson’s “Save Our Inboxes!” to be a useful manifesto to lay the battle lines. Take a look. Share it if you find it helpful. I am considering adding the link to my work email as a gift to my c0lleagues. Celebrate clarity. Attach attachments. Respect recipient’s time.

Did you like the Email Charter? Let me know. I need to know I’m not the only one ready for battle.

More thoughts on Bergman’s “Two Lists”

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I’ve spent the day thinking more about Bergman’s “Two Lists You Should Look at Every Day” post and realize I took the easy way out yesterday. The focus list of things I want to achieve is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it helps to have a list of things that inspire me and carry me forward. That first list helps me better define my own understanding of success.

The second list is essential but far more difficult. Few people, Bergman claims, ever make the second list. The second list isn’t just a list of unpleasant or unimportant distractions to be avoided. The second list is hard because it may well contain things that are important, things that are worthwhile priorities, but which, I am consciously choosing to avoid.

What Bergman is talking about here is opportunity cost. For every opportunity I follow up on, I am trading the time and energy I might have made available for some other worthwhile opportunity. This isn’t an easy choice between things I like and things I don’t like. The second list involves guts. The second list involves disappointing people, letting things go, admitting my limits.

This second list strikes me as a very powerful idea. It actually scares me a little. I can’t quite get my head around it. I know I have a hundred things that belong on that second list but I don’t know how to start naming them.

Here is the generosity of Bergman’s suggestion: this isn’t a facile proclamation of what I want to do and what I don’t want to do. This is a public admission that, even if my talents were unlimited (they are not), my time and energy are finite. I can’t do everything I want to do or think I should do. I have to pick and choose.

The second list is about being mindful of one’s limits to avoid the trap of constant reaction. Our mobile, hyper-informed, web-laden lives are brimming with opportunity costs. Activities, projects and notions call for more than our attention. They call for our time. We cannot give them time without sacrificing time from somewhere else.

All of this brings me back to an idea I picked up a few weeks ago about reactionary workflow, the idea that our use of information technologies only make us more productive if we can harness them mindfully to accomplish specific things we wish to accomplish. Otherwise, we spend all our time reacting to other people’s agendas.

Success is spending time making the things you care most about. I’ve got to make these lists. I’m just not sure how to start.

Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning by Peter Bergman

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So, every now and then the universe throws a reminder flag and tells you to slow down and take a look. Today, that flag was “Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning” by Peter Bergman.

Bergman reminds me that disciplined focus and mindfulness are more worth cultivating than simple information gathering and fast acting information reflexes.

There is skill in being able to define for yourself what kinds of activities are going to get your attention. How very much more powerful and useful to also be able to define for yourself what kinds of activities are not going to get your attention. It helps to call to mind the things that typically distract you and prepare yourself to move beyond those things.

I haven’t built my two lists yet. It does, however, call to mind my earlier post about the Stop Doing List, a mindfulness practice which I have not well-maintained.

Ah well. It’s a new week with new opportunities to do things differently or not do them differently.

Email: The Battle Continues

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I felt a bit embarrassed while admitting to my troubles managing my email. Since that post, I have had several interesting conversations with people about the problem of email and what a massive time suck dealing with email has become for all of us.

A friend I admire as one of the most driven, organized, on-top-of-it people around told me her email stresses her out daily and that checking email has become an unhealthy obsession. Every time her iPhone chimes, an angel looses its wings.

A vendor called today to get the pricing information she had requested twice by email. She said, “Its frightening how quickly that very important thing at the top of my email gets pushed down the list.”

A presenter today acknowledged 10,000 messages in her email inbox. I hope that wasn’t an exaggeration. I wanted to shake her hand. Or buy her a drink.

Here’s the problem I see: we have all somehow arrived at the conclusion that email is our job, that email is what we do. Somewhere along the line, I swallowed the belief that every email needs to be acknowledged, that there is a prize for how well or completely we deal with our messages. Email is the first communication we reach for yet is also the communication most likely to be lost, unread or deleted without consideration. Why do we expect everyone else to read our email when we do not always read all of their’s?

Tanya Joosten today described the problem as a noise and signal problem. Classic communication theory: the more noise there is on a channel, the greater the chance of signal loss. Truth.

So what’s the remedy? I’m still working on that.

In the meantime, my battle continues. I have tried to keep a clean inbox. No luck. At present there are still 48 emails received since May 1 that seem to require some action or acknowledgment on my part.