Productivity Advice for Bono
September 4, 2007
Evaluating your activity in terms of the return on investment of your time and effort is a great strategy for getting more done.
Have you ever got some random song stuck in your head? I have. The other day I was walking through the supper market, and heard that U2 song “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. It actually got me thinking about a conversation I once had with a friend.
A while back I was chatting with that friend about his work, and a realization he had just made. He was telling me that he’d recently slipped a bit in terms of organization by letting his desk get messy.
What You and Pavlov’s Dog Should Not Have in Common.
September 4, 2007
You remember good old Dr. Pavlov don’t you? He was the scientist who conditioned his dog to salivate every time the dog heard a bell ring.
Dr. Pavlov achieved that by ringing a bell every time he feed the dog. In so doing, he conditioned the pooch to associate food with the ringing of the bell. After a while, he could get the dog to salivate just by ringing the bell.
Thus proving two important things: First, creatures can be conditioned through association … and Second, Dr. Pavlov had entirely too much time on his hands (but who am I to judge).
So let’s get real for a moment, and I think some of you may know where I’m going with this. A hundred years from now, will future scientists marvel at how silly we’ve become when we “salivate” ever time our email notification alerts us to new message? I sure hope not.
Subscribe to Nate’s Productivity Tips by Email
Nice Going Einstein!
September 4, 2007
It’s said that one day a colleague of the famous scientist Dr. Albert Einstein asked him for his phone number. The colleague became perplexed when he watched Einstein grab a phone book to look it up. Baffled, the colleague asked, “You don’t know your own phone number?” Einstein replied, “Of course not! … Why would I remember anything I can look up?”
Subscribe to Nate’s Productivity Tips by Email
Monkey See, Monkey Doo!
September 4, 2007
If you’re like most folks, you’re what I call a “visual prioritizor”. Visual prioritizors leave things out as reminders to prompt them to take some kind of action.
For example, you might leave a letter on the table next to the door to remind you to mail it the next time you leave the house.
Or maybe you leave a post-it note on your computer monitor or phone to remind you to make an important call as soon as you get into the office. Perhaps you leave messages in your email inbox (remarked as unread of course) as reminders to follow-up when you check email.
If these examples ring true, then you’re probably a visual prioritizor.
It’s actually quite natural to try prioritizing things by keeping them “in your face”. But there are serious draw backs to this method.
First, it can become visually overwhelming very quickly. For instance, if you have ten different post-it notes around your monitor and 16 emails flagged in your in box, that starts making you feel busy, and can stress you out.
Subscribe to Nate’s Productivity Tips by Email
No More Bobblehead Prioritizing!
September 3, 2007
This one time … no, not at band camp. I worked with a colleague who was so notorious for dropping the ball on follow-up, that it actually become an inside joke between us.
Here’s how it would typically play out. We’d be at a business lunch, and we’d get to the “down to business” part.
We’d discus a topic, and it would come time to assign tasks. Whenever “Forgetful Fred” was assigned a task, without fail, he would always shake his head in agreement, but NEVER WROTE IT DOWN.
Of course, the rest of my colleagues and I eventually caught on that if we didn’t see Forgetful Fred “capture” the task by writing it down, there was a good chance it wasn’t ever going to get done.
I call this bobblehead prioritization. Because whenever I see someone (or catch myself) get assigned a tasks, shake in agreement, but not write it down … it seems just as silly as watching a bobblehead shake its head around. It’s actually just as productive too.
So how do you keep from bobblehead prioritizing?
