August 25th, 2008
Influencing change through presentations
A stunning presentation by Travis Isaacs:
A stunning presentation by Travis Isaacs:
You’ve got your GTD planner, cross off everything on your daily task list, and your email inbox has zero items. Then, it happens.
You fall off the productivity wagon.
It was accidental, maybe you were sick a couple of days, or you were thrown off schedule by an extended vacation. Or maybe you just watched too much TV. It doesn’t matter what the cause is - it just happened.
You stopped being productive and went back to your old, bad habits.
Did I say ‘you’? Excuse me, I meant to say ‘I’. I’ve fallen off the productivity wagon these past two weeks. The reasons behind it? A mixture of some unexpected illnesses, a broken body clock, and the Olympics. Despite these halfway valid reasons (except maybe the Olympics), I’m ashamed of myself. But I’m trying to get back to being productive, and here’s how:
Find and eliminate time sinks. These things (or people) suck your time and attention from the stuff you should be doing (such as work, sleep, recreation, etc.) Most of my time sinks are computer-based, so I had to reinstall RescueTime (which I talked about before). It turns out that I’ve been checking email more often than I should, and I tend to spend too much time on online forums (which I didn’t do before). However, I’ve also gained some offline time sinks, such as leaving the TV on while working.
Once you’ve found your new time sinks, either eliminate them completely or find a way to reduce the time you spend on them.
Check your processes for flaws and possible areas of improvement. It’s also possible that you’ve fallen off the wagon because of flaws in your productivity system or work flow. Are there steps that make you prone to distraction? Do you do a regular review of how productive you are?
I think my main mistake is not doing a weekly review for a long time, so I wasn’t able to scare myself with the realization on how far I’ve lagged behind. Also, I’ve been taking down hand-written notes, but my note-taking system is far from efficient - so I’ll have to research on how to do that better.
Get work done in advance. So that falling off the wagon won’t hurt as much next time, it’s important to be ahead of schedule with work, if it’s possible. This might mean sacrificing a couple of rest days to get some extra work done,but I find that doing this has long term rewards and can allow you to have a more relaxed schedule after.
Eat healthier and exercise. Sickness is often something we can avoid. The key is to take care of our bodies so that they don’t break down on us while we’re in the middle of important projects.
Falling off the productivity wagon may hurt (and be very embarrassing), but it’s perfectly human. The important thing is that we try to get back to our old productive selves once we’ve realized that we’ve fallen.
Image by Elisa Perosio from sxc.hu
Let me be honest: I slept for the most part of the day. True, it was because I was feeling ill, but after a good day of sleep, I have to say that I feel more capable to tackle the work I have to do. I seem more focused and less likely to give in to distractions.
What are the benefits of sleeping, exactly? If we think clocking in some overtime work and burning the midnight oil will do wonders for our careers, we might be in for a surprise if we find out that it might be doing the opposite.
A recent article from Scientific American shows how sleeping can make us smarter (emphasis mine):
It is now clear that sleep can consolidate memories by enhancing and stabilizing them and by finding patterns within studied material even when we do not know that patterns might be there. It is also obvious that skimping on sleep stymies these crucial cognitive processes: some aspects of memory consolidation only happen with more than six hours of sleep. Miss a night, and the day’s memories might be compromised—an unsettling thought in our fast-paced, sleep-deprived society.
Source: Scientific American, August 2008
Apart from making us smarter, sleep can also make us more productive, as this article from India Times suggests. The senior sleep consultant at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals at New Delhi says (emphasis mine):
“First, any person who has a good 7-8 hours (depending upon individuals) of night sleep does not biologically require an afternoon nap. But, of course, a siesta can be very refreshing and re-energising for the people in active professions. It’s a different matter, however, that in today’s hectic life and demanding workplaces, a nap is an absolute luxury. However, for those who can afford this luxury, say for instance self-employed, retired or housewives, it can be a great stress-buster.”
Source: IndiaTimes.com
If sleep is so important in our waking hours, most of which is devoted to work, then this means that a good night’s sleep is also essential to our work. So if we’re having trouble sleeping, how do we manage to make the most out of it?
Schedule sleep time. By setting some sleeping time aside instead of just scheduling your waking hours, we can make a better effort at sleeping properly. Also, sleeping on a regular schedule keeps our body clock predictable. A good night’s sleep means we won’t be surprised in to wake up from an unexpected nap during the workday.
Know more about your sleeping habits. Do you sleep better if the room is completely dark? Does a glass of warm milk help? What time do you feel the most active? Do you wake up in the middle of the night? If you need help figuring these things out, I found quite an extensive sleep profiling quiz on the BBC website that helps you analyze your sleeping profile and what you can do to fix it. The only problem with the quiz is that in some portions, it has limited time options (for example, I couldn’t enter that I felt more active and optimized at 3am, the earliest time I could enter was 5am).
Develop a pre-sleeping ritual. Once you find out what conditions make you sleepy, incorporate them into a nightly ritual before you sleep. Doing so will help you mentally and physically get into ’sleeping mode’, instead of just lying awake in bed for hours waiting for sleep to happen.
How serious are you about your sleep? Do you take naps within the day? Do you try to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night? What effects does sleep (or the lack of it) have on your performance at work?
Image by Lynne Lancaster from sxc.hu
Tags: rest, sleep, work life balance, work smart, working smarter, Worklife BalanceHappy Friday, Pimp Your Work readers! Here’s our discussion for the week:
Do you think you’re efficient? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most efficient, how would you rate yourself? What is lacking in your workflow? What distractions do you have? How do you think you can work more efficiently?
Click here to share your answers.
Image by Celine Roque from Blue Rabbit Media
Tags: efficiency, Productivity 
In all things success depends on previous preparation, and without such previous preparation there is sure to be failure.
Confucius
Image by Valentina Jori from sxc.hu
With rising fuel costs adding to the worries of the average employee, it’s no surprise that telecommuting is becoming more and more popular, and, as a result, is discussed more widely. Here are some news articles from the past two weeks that discuss this trend:
There’s a case to be made for telecommuting by Lee E. Miller from The Star Ledger
Most office workers fear backlash of telecommuting,but see trend increasing from MarketWatch
Executives expect telecommuting numbers to increase from Occupational Health and Safety
Telework ‘with a new twist’ making a huge comeback in Canada from ITBusiness.ca
Other articles of interest:
Does teleworking offer more equal opportunities? a post I wrote for WebWorkerDaily
Making Your Case for Telecommuting: How to Convince the Boss from QuintCareers.com
Image by Celine Roque from Blue Rabbit Media
Tags: telecommute, telecommuting, telework, teleworkingIn an effort to enhance the Google experience in Firefox, CustomizeGoogle was born. It’s a free Firefox extension that adds flexibility to Google services. Customizing is as easy as opening the Add-on window, clicking on options and choosing what functions you would want to activate or deactivate. You can turn on Google Suggest, a feature that suggests words as you type them when doing a web search. Filter spam sites and exclude them from your web search.
One of my favorite things about this is that users can remove ads on several of the Google services available, such as in Gmail and Google Groups. You can also remove unwanted information such spam counters in your mail.
If privacy is an important factor for you, CustomizeGoogle can secure your Gmail and Google Calendar by switching to https. It also includes the option to use an anonymous Google cookie UID as well as prevent Google Analytics from receiving cookies that gives information on your surfing habits. If you’re a regular user of Google services, this add-on is worth checking out.
CustomizeGoogle is compatible with Firefox 1.0 to 3.0.
Screencapture by Celine Roque from Blue Rabbit Media
This slideshow is a bit based on the book “Made to Stick”. Good resource for those who haven’t read it, or to those who’ve read it and want to review the ideas behind the book:
Howdy, readers! Here’s our discussion for the week:
What is your to-do list strategy? Do you use digital (web apps, software) or analog (paper, whiteboard) tools? If so, what kind? Is it just for work tasks or do you list personal tasks? Do you even use a to-do list at all?
Click here to share your answers.
Image by Celine Roque from Blue Rabbit Media
First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first one is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
Bertrand Russell
Image by Kalyana Sundaram from sxc.hu
Putting some shizzle into your work ... and making your work day better
Written by Celine Roque [email] for b5media.
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