What I’ve Learned So Far

One of the many nifty people I met during SXSW Interactive was Andrew Donoho; we had a nice chat on the upstairs porch of Opal Divine’s during the Worldchanging happy hour.

Last week Andrew posted an interesting piece on Worldchanging’s local Austin blog:

Last Night at the Resource Management Commission…

Andrew’s particularly well suited to discuss this, since he is one of the citizen-commissioners on the Resource Management Commission. I share both his hope that Austin will do the right thing when it comes to neutralizing its carbon impacts, and the worry that, when push comes to shove, we the citizens, our public officials, or the folks at Austin Energy will shy away from footing the bill for it.

First, from Fast Company’s blog, on Laura Levitan:

The New Rules of Networking.

Second, from Josh Li, a report on his conversation with networker par excellence Keith Ferrazzi:

Great Advice from Keith Ferrazzi.

Third, from Ferrazzi himself, a very short recap of a TED conference presentation:

TED: Being Lucky.

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I copied this down ages ago — don’t know whether it’s from the inestimable Getting Things Done or from one of Allen’s newsletters. Anyway, if you’re not on the GTD train, it’s high time to climb aboard.

What generates more for the energy invested is the conscious insertion of at least one of four things that don’t happen by themselves: clearing, focusing, structuring, and action.

(1) Cleaning and clearing. Any activity that does not handle its own waste appropriately is going to increase drag on the system and cause unnecessary effort to endure and deal with accumulated residue. What’s not needed any more? Old projects, outworn policies and procedures, old un-renegotiated commitments, hung up body toxins - anything taking up space and attention and not creating value, when removed, will increase flow and output automatically. But it takes intention and action to eliminate stuff - it becomes more and more inert if it isn’t consistently infused with conscious interest.

(2) Focusing. Psychic and physical forces are automatically mobilized with a focus and rapidly dispersed and exhausted without one. What’s the purpose…for this meeting, this proposal, this vacation, this department, this desk, this job? What are we trying to do? Where are we going? Clear answers to these questions create energy which produces results with less effort. But it takes focus to direct a focus. Unattended, distraction creeps in like a thief in the night.

(3) Structuring. Look around at the physical structures you see right now. They exist not as value in themselves but for what they create - comfort, protection, support, communication, focus, visibility - with minimal energy expended. With no structures we would have a heck of a time maintaining those experiences with just our own bodies. With no list of all our errands at hand when we’re out and about, we’re likely not as productive as we could be. If no one is designated to answer the phone, everyone has to waste attention on it when it rings. If my paint brushes are not in order, I’m limiting my creative expression. Structures don’t show up by themselves. Productive people are always asking: How can I better organize and streamline what I’m doing?

(4) Action.

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The World Cup is well underway, and the field has been narrowed to the “Super Eights”. Meanwhile, a pall hangs over the proceedings now that Jamaican police have confirmed that Pakistan’s coach, the much-respected Bob Woolmer, was murdered after Pakistan’s elimination from contention. No matter what happens from here on out (hint: it’s never a good idea to bet against Australia), the entire tournament has been cast in shadow by Woolmer’s death.

Continuing from the other day’s post, here are some high-level thoughts about managing one’s life, culled from my still-quite-thick “Plann(oodl)ing” file:

• The answer to most of your “How can I . . . ?” career questions is probably “Better output.”
• Don’t juggle even two things at once. Pick one thing, do it all the way to completion, and call it a win — even if it’s a ten-second task. Don’t dare interrupt yourself when you’re in the middle of a task.
• Use single handling of everything as much as possible. Don’t ever bother thinking twice about the same thing unless you decide it’s something you really want to think twice about.
• When in doubt, act boldly — as if it were impossible to fail. Even failure is better than inaction, because failure tells you something definite, while inaction achieves nothing.
• Never hurt anybody’s feelings gratuitously. We all face terrible burdens in life, and a sympathetic approach is usually best. But given that outlook, focus on bluntly speaking the truth, no matter how hard it is for you to say or for your listener to hear. Nothing is as valuable as real honesty.
• Take full responsibility for how the world is around you. Analyze your own failed promises to see how you can act responsibly going forward.
• Celebrate tiny victories. Let good news be good news, no matter how small. The bad news of the world will intrude anyway — no need for you to play Devil’s advocate at every turn.
• Nothing is so unambiguous as actions taken, achievements won. Actions do not merely speak louder than words — they shout when words themselves are mute.
• Learn to decide and act quickly. Even drastic change should be made without delay, once you realize that it’s necessary. Better to pull the Band-Aid off quickly.
• Commit yourself to being the most enthusiastic person you know. Cynicism is cheap.
• Remember that information overload is a choice. Commit yourself to choose better than that.
• Create a life you can be proud of. Anything less is a compromise not worth taking.

More to come . . .

“Cynicism is often seen as a rebellious attitude in western popular culture, but in reality, our cynicism advances the desires of the powerful: cynicism is obedience.”

–Alex Steffen.

I found this long quote from William James in Alec Mackenzie’s (deservedly) classic time-management book, The Time Trap.

“Habit a second nature? Habit is ten times nature,” the Duke of Wellington exclaimed; and the degree to which this is true no one can appreciate as well as a veteran soldier. Daily drill and years of discipline make a man over in most of his conduct.

Habit is the flywheel of society, its most precious conserving agent. The great thing, then, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against growing into ways that are disadvantageous as we guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automation, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their proper work. There is no more miserable person than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of deliberation. Half the time of such a man goes to deciding or regretting matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.

Mackenzie goes on to summarize James’s “three great keys” for establishing good new habits in place of bad old ones:

1. Launch the new practice as strongly as possible.
2. Never let an exception occur until the new habit is firmly rooted.
3. Seize the first possible chance to act on your resolution.

Mackenzie then includes another great quotation from James — one well worth living by if, like me, you have the tendency to talk the talk far better than you walk the walk:

“A tendency to act become effectively ingrained in us only in proportion to the frequency with which the actions actually occur. When a resolve or a fine glow of feeling is allowed to evaporate without bearing practical fruit, it is worse than a chance lost; it works so as positively to hinder the discharge of future resolutions and emotions.”

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As I touched on in the preceding posts, I’m wading through a years-long backlog of notes to myself on time management and related topics. This is like the would-be writer who takes courses on writing, reads books about writing, joins discussion groups on how to write, . . . but then fails to do much writing. I have some empathy for that would-be writer: I’ve been there. But when it comes to time management . . . sweet mercy, I’m a sad case. I make that would-be writer look like Saul Bellow.

The good news is that I’ve demolished the two folders labeled “Time Management”. The next challenge is an even fatter folder which, in a moment of unusual clarity, I labeled “Plann(oodl)ing”. The really sad thing about it is that there’s plenty of good noodling in there, but I can’t use it since it’s either out-of-date, or simply buried in such a mass of other material.

So, I’m skipping the specifics in it. I figure, if this folder had been lost in a fire, it wouldn’t make me cry, much less despair over the future direction of my career. So I’m not going to worry about any of that. Instead, I’m going to set down a few of the better observations made in this farrago of notes, hoping that these generic lessons will help you and me both going forward. If I achieve that, at least all of this silly, task-aversive, time-wasting noodling won’t have been entirely in vain.

• Don’t plot out a million-minute itinerary for your life or career. In career terms, you can — you should — do something you would never do when planning, say, a transoceanic vacation: (1) Figure out roughly where you want to go. (2) Figure out how to exit the structure you’re now in. (3) Head roughly in the direction of the nearest travel depot that could facilitate your journey. If you have the choice and the budget, choose a better conveyance (dirigible, hovercraft, Apollo vehicle) rather than a worse one (hang glider, dinghy, skateboard). But mostly, just head out. (4) Keep your eyes open, adapt to situations, and be ready to upgrade when the chance is given to you. You’ll do fine.
• Insist on clarity from yourself. If you lie to yourself, you’re only going to make yourself suffer worse. Yes, I sound like a cut-rate version of Gautama — but there’s a reason why his observations are still good after this many millennia.
• Be a good animal. Keep your environments (internal an external) tidy and healthy. Appropriate order in your environments is always beneficial. If you’re not receiving benefits from your environments, the order in them is not appropriate. Keep adjusting until it is.
• Seek greatness of method, but only in the service of greatness of achievement.
• If you really want something to happen, give it disproportionate passion, energy, thought, and time. I mean wildly disproportionate — especially the passion.
• At the gym I see “coasters” — folks who come in regularly, go through the motions on the weights and the treadmill, but never change their shape or get noticeably fitter, in terms of either physique or performance. Lots of people do this in life, too, and it’s especially easy to do in cube-land. Don’t be one of these people, in any setting.
• You can spend the rest of your life running errands. Or you can achieve great purposes. Believe me, the errands will scurry for cover if you give yourself over to the big stuff.
• Do the very best work available to you at all times, and you have nothing to fear from life. Of course, deciding what “best” means is tough. But that’s the cost of a life well lived.
• When in doubt, move higher up the chain of value to address problems in ways that promise the highest leverage and biggest returns. But if you can’t manage this, or can’t figure out how to get it to work, then lay hands on the very first thing you can improve, even if it’s just a squeaky hinge, and improve it.
• Commit yourself to matter more in the world, and you’ll matter more. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, so long as you don’t waver from the commitment.
• When your turn on the stage of history is done, you’re going to be dead to history for a long, long time. Elect to become a historical actor while you still can.
• A summary of some of the pointers above: implement it now . . . perfect it later.
• Seek criticism. Don’t focus so much on how much you suck — you’re probably not as important as you think, anyway — but do find out how you can do it better next time. Preventable ignorance or lack of skill is an enormous waste of time.
• Give away your ideas for free.
• Go ahead and embrace your mistakes. You’re going to make them anyway, so you might as well own them so that the fear of them doesn’t come to own you.
• Never give up. Try something different instead.
• Hay tiempo. There is time enough in a day for you to accomplish what you should.

That’s the fruit from about 20 pages’ worth of that file. Updates to come.

Just went through one of my two folders on time management.  Lots of good stuff in there, some of it from as far back as my time in St Andrews (1994-95 school year), some dating from my dates on the UT School of Architecture staff (1999-2000).

The notes and photocopies were full of good ideas for time and project management, along with perceptive self-analyses about my own weaknesses when it comes to self-organization (I keep too many different notebooks on hand, I interrupt myself too often, etc.).  So, good stuff . . . but seriously ill-executed, or else I wouldn’t be trolling back through this same material today.

Ah, but today is new, today is a fresh opportunity to get it right.  So I saved about a dozen pages out of 200 — the rest is in the recycling.

Baby steps . . .

“A writer must inevitably keep the best of himself for his own secret creative world.  I had no appetite for studio talk.”