Your best just got better

Does categorizing (action, reference material, ideas) really make us more efficient?

There are many very specific ways of analyzing ideas and information. While you’re working, there are three main areas of focus you bounce between – giving more or less of your focus to each “type” of work, while simultaneously reprioritizing what you still need to do, weighing that against what you are doing right now.

The three kinds of work we’re all engaged in:

Thinking
Managing
Doing

At the TASK/TO DO level of work (the focus of this post), there are many schools of thought as to the best way to organize and prioritize. Those of us who have studied the history of time management have heard of many different ways:

By time block
By context
By tool necessary
By priority
By date
...and probably many others.

I believe that at some level, most people do some kind of combination of many types of categorization of their tasks. Probably the most COMMON type is what I call EXCLUSION. That is where you make a to do list, and just leave stuff off the list!

For a multitude of reasons, people don’t want to see, think about, be reminded of or give any of their attention to the myriad of things they are not going to do.

Question: Does excluding things, leaving them off the list, but bouncing around in your mind, make you more efficient? And, if so, are you being most effective [that is, working on the most important thing at any given moment] throughout the day?

Over the past few years of researching and working one on one with some extremely busy and time-bound people, I have found that there are specific methods to organize yourself and your work reminders for maximum productivity. Want to know the secrets we speak and write about? Here are two, with a bit of commentary aside each one:

Allow yourself the gift of writing everything you think of on a piece of paper (or, as the case may be for many of you reading this, pieces of paper!). It is statistically significant that we have many thousands of thoughts pass through our minds, day in and day out. By identifying them, you can begin to see which ones will need more or less of your direct attention.

Track your use of your time. For a week, place your attention on HOW you use your time and WHAT you do with your time. Before you get deeply engaged (or too attached) to “just changing to something more productive,” we highly recommend you take a look at what you are doing already. The most objective way to do this is to set up a video camera and record yourself working for 60 or 90 minutes. Then, at the end of that time, you can go back and actually see how much time you spent on each e-mail, how effectively you use your computer keyboard and software programs and, what kind of time you are using on the phone.

Organizing a Home Office @ Lifemeetswork.com

Do you (or does someone you know) work in a home office?

Here's a brief article about getting "back to organized" on at least a weekly basis, check out our latest article at "Life Meets Work" (dot com).

Organizing a Home Office | Lifemeetswork.com

Tags: Weeklyreview, weekly debrief, home office, office organization

Using the Microsoft® Outlook® Dashboard for Agendas

For a long, long time (since reading Steven Covey's work back in the early 90's), I have kept a running "conversation log" with the people that I work with and for.

 

I remember through the 90's, I had a binder that held a separate sheet of paper for each student in my classes. I taught four different subjects, and worked with over 150 students per day. Keeping track of what I told who was a job in and of itself!

Since then, I have found different organizational systems to keep up with the process I use. The process: Think of as many things as I can to tell someone the next time I see them. The system: any binder, paper, notebook, computer program or PDA that will bring me that information the next time I see them!

So, if you're a Microsoft® Outlook® user, check out this video...it may spark an idea or two!

Oh, and here's a great "user-comment" from someone who is already gaining value from the Agenda view using the Outlook Dashboard!

Jason, just finished with your 4-minute video on using the Outlook Dashboard to effectively manage agendas and conversations. I've been looking for a way to track and organize my conversations for the coming months. In less than 4 minutes I found the solution. Thanks!

Joe Bruzzese

Making Things Possible

We’re saying it now in our everyday conversations, and it’s pretty cool! Just last week, someone called later one afternoon and asked, “What does The Jason Womack Company do? What are you great at?”

It’s a big question, and my answer was as equally as big.

“We are experts in making things possible.”

Change is a constant theme in our work within corporations and with individuals. People say they either like change or they don't. Typically, that means they're initiating change or reacting to it.

Recently, we initiated some changes in our company such as how we get the word out, repackaging our DVD (Titled: Making Things Possible!), and customizing training packages for clients. In stepping out of our business-as-usual mode, new opportunities and relationships are opening up.

It creates some new sources of stress, but the thinking is that it is an investment in the long-term benefit of our company's products and services.

Where have you been avoiding making changes because it's scary, too much work, or just too stressful to even think about? Some questions to start with:

• What changes would you like to make?

• What initial step would start the process?

• Who do you know that you could ask for help?

"Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind," said King Whitney, Jr. "To the fearful, it is threatening because it means things may get worse. To the hopeful, it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident, it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better."

You may not even know how it all works out between the start and finish. The value is in declaring the start...

...and moving consistently in the direction of your vision.

3 Ways to Work on the Most Important Things

Enhance your focus on the Most Important Things (MITs)

Just yesterday I was working with a client who'd seen our Time Management DVD, and asked, "How do make sure you work on the most important things every day?"

It's a great question, and before I share my own ideas, I ask you to think to yourself: "How can I work on something really important (professional OR personal) before the sun goes down today?"

Ok, here are some of the things I recommend:

1) Turn off your computer monitor, and set an alarm to work on one "file" for 15 minutes. Read, write or plan until the alarm tells you 15 minutes have passed. Before you go on to to something else, decide what "next" would be and write that down on your "to do" list.

2) At the end of the day, write 3 specific projects you want to work on the next day. Put that paper with your car keys or wallet - look at it before you leave for work, and decide: Yes or No! If YES: Set yourself up for success. Leave those materials on your desk, and image-in yourself working on them the next day. (If NO, then choose something else to fill out your "top 3" list!)

3) Ask someone to watch you work for an hour. Don't talk them, and don't do anything differently - just respond to e-mails, file papers, write notes...do what you normally do. At the end, ask them to tell you what they saw. How did you stay focused, and where did you lose focus? Having someone watch me work gives an insight into HOW I am getting things done; not simply what I do during any 8, 10, 15 hour time period.

How do you do that "task thing" in Outlook 2007?

Someone wrote in last week asking about setting up a "new task" in Outlook 2007. So, I put together a one-minute video here.

Thinking...in different ways!

In a seminar last week, someone asked about "thinking" and "goal setting." In my experience, I've found that there are more or less effective ways of thinking.

Not efficient (just thinking a lot, quickly, about what I've thought about before...) but effective (new thoughts, new innovations, new developments...) ways of thinking.

I know I'm a different kind of thinker. What can look from the outside to be "positive" thinking is really on the inside "directed" thinking.

Is it easy...Good God no! Is it worth it: absolutely, unequivocally YES!!!

"So Jason, how do you do it?"

I love (and I mean I really do LOVE) this question because it puts me in the learning. The real question is not "can you think in a directed why IF you need to," but...

• "When things are tough, when you are down, when it seems there's nothing left to uplift you, WILL you think in a directed way?"

There are a lot of things you could do (please, leave a comment below with your idea!), and I thought I'd just share a couple of my own ideas...

1) When I attend a seminar or watch a presentation, I write many notes in my notebook (for example, just the first 2 minutes and 47 seconds of this is enough to get me going...and writing Bill Strickland ). I realize that I can change my direction of thinking pretty easily! As a matter of fact, many years ago I was one of the only ones taking class notes in multiple colors. I found over time that one of the ways I learn the best is through visual variety.

2) Likewise, making goals attainable, attractive and fun in the process has taken me work and focus. I've tried a few things, including making collages, writing affirmations and creative visualization...I learned a lot of this through this book here: Creative Visualization. When I get a goal, I usually write it out (same goal, usually different words) on my bathroom mirror with a "dry-erase" pen. That way, I'm sure to see it when I'm getting ready for the day, and I'm sure to reflect upon it one more time before I go to sleep!

Finding what will work for you will ultimately be a process of trial and error. Try something; if it works...keep on doing it!

Where does creativity come from?

Over the past month, I’ve addressed some of the bigger questions we get to ask ourselves.

Questions like:

Who am I?
How do I serve?
What do I do next?

Of course, the field of education calls to me each and every day. Since volunteering as a tutor for migrant families in Santa Barbara County back in 1992, to donating my summer to a bilingual school in Argentina in 1997, to being selected as a “Teacher of the Year” [while teaching high school] in 2000, I have known it was calling to work in the teaching field.

When I left formal education, and worked as a consultant from 2000-2006, and since then starting my own coaching and leadership development firm in 2007, I have further solidified my resolve to be the guy who shares good information.

It is my intention, my goal, and my calling to create learning opportunities the help people reach beyond their current experiences and comfort zones; and, achieve more of what they want out of their lives.
To do all of that, I have found, it is imperative that I invite creativity and innovation into my life. That is here this post started.

One day I wrote in my idea journal the following:

How do I create the space to create?
What do I have to let go of, get rid of or do to gain the area I will need to be more innovative?

Over the years, I have come up with my own ideas on clearing space to be creative. It will be great if you share your ideas. Please leave some comments below!

How efficient would "Airborne Internet" access be?

I recently contacted a journalist for the Los Angeles Times regarding some research he was doing for an article on "Internet in the sky."

I'll be honest, for years I have had day-dreams of what it would be like if I could send e-mail, visit a website, Instant Message a colleague, or even call a client and run a conference (or video conference!). However, the secondary thought to that has been something along the lines of the following statements...

- My air time is some of the only "have to not do e-mail" time I have
- My air time is the time I get to read my novels, or write thank you cards, or leaf through magazines...
- ...of course, given a window of time, with certain tools (such as access to the Internet), different options are available.

I stand by my two quotes in this article (see the end of the article here), and I'm sure to experiment with this as soon as it's available. Stay tuned!

What's your "walking score?"

A friend of mine sent me this link (thanks James!), and I found it very, very interesting. My house...is a 0 out of a possible 100 points! What's YOUR walking score?