Category Archives: Coaching

Coaching

Keeping a Work Journal

JoelMontes / Foter / CC BY-SA

JoelMontes / Foter / CC BY-SA

As a productivity and process professional I am always focused on the tool or tools being used to make processes more efficient and effective. Sometimes though it’s not about the tools…it’s about something more basic. Over the past three months I’ve been working on a number of projects where it is important to keep running track of the work going on in parallel. Due to some specific limitations for security reasons, I keep track of my work in a paper journal. Now normally this would be perceived as inefficient and in dire need of replacement with digital tools and processes. However, let’s not look at the tools and rather let’s look at the process.

My journal starts with a page each day that acts as an index to the work accomplished each day. Included on that page is the date and the start and end times for work that day. Since I’m responsible for reporting my time for my client (as many of us need to do) I need to know not only what I’ve done but how long it has taken me. As the day progresses and I switch from topic to topic two things happen in the journal: first I make a verbose record of the work and second, if I’m starting a new activity for the day, I add a line to the daily summary.

It’s not a complex system There are all kinds of techniques on the Internet to “improve” the efficiency of such a system but what I feel they lose sight of is, does the process and the tool meet the original objective? With each week I have had the instincts to “tinker” and try to improve the tools and techniques and wind up coming back to my paper and pens. This process of verbose journaling has helped me focus on objectives, develop more detailed plans, and work through iterations while providing myself visibility into my own thinking process than I have had before.

How do I start a work journal?

First you have to give yourself permission to spend time capturing a level of detail about your activities greater than you are accustomed to. The reason why I say, “give yourself permission,” is because we are trained to find the most efficient path for our work which doesn’t necessarily lend itself to taking a detailed record of what we do for the purposes of review and learning.

The method of work journaling is more important than the tools involved. Use your journal as a storage place, a work space, and a narrative of successes and failures. The key is to circle back frequently and transfer important content from the journal to your normal note and information management systems. The journal is all about the capture, not about the organization.

Originally published at www.theideapump.com on January 11, 2015.

Coaching

Working from home – Maintaining Order

One of the downsides of working from home is my office can get to look a little “lived in.”   Nothing hoarder-like,  just a little too comfortable for what should be in a professional office.

How do you keep your home office working as an office?

In an effort to keep that under control,  beginning today I am blocking 30 minutes out on my calendar to,  as the old term goes,  “sharpen the saw.”   A little work on the working area will hopefully be a positive contribution to the productivity of the space and myself.

Spending time making sure your space is ready for work is as important as doing the work itself.   A good mechanic keeps his or her tools in order and clean,  the workshop safe,  and everything where it can be found for the tasks at hand.   This is a rule we should all follow in our work.

How do you keep your workspace under control?   Any tips or tricks you’d care to share?   Post them in the comments,  please!

Coaching, Full Length Articles, Strategy

Working from home motivation – Get dressed

I’ve been working from home for more than three and a half years now and over that time I’ve found that maintaining the motivation to get things done can be just a challenging as in an office.  Recently I’ve started to try some new things to get me going and I thought I’d share my successful/unsuccessful efforts here.

It’s easy to fall into a level of comfort when working from home.  No business casual dress code needed if you’re not seeing people after all.  But I’ve found that staying in the “casual” mode too long tends to create inertia in the brain and doesn’t let me do my best “business work.”  My solution…get dressed.

Now, I’m not talking about putting on a suit or anything like that.  The simple act of putting on a dress shirt can change my mindset completely when it comes to focusing.  I’ve heard the process equated to putting on a uniform in sports…you get your game face on.  Combining this with the option to do video calls more frequently, and I’ve found “gearing up” can be just the catalyst I need to get over a hump of inactivity.

Put away the bunny slippers, put on some good clothes, and go comb your hair.  It’s amazing what mixing things up a little bit will do for your productivity.

What gets you motivated working at home?  Share in the comments section if you please!

Coaching, Full Length Articles, Strategy

The Value of Productivity Advice

Does the source determine the value?

An interesting discussion popped up on Google+ today talking about evaluating productivity advice based on the provider of the advice over the advice itself.  While I may be over-simplifying the concept, it inspired me enough that I believe it is worth further investigation.  I do agree with the commenter there is a segment of the “productivity movement” tending towards saleable advice, but that is to be expected in any venue of expertise.  I spend a great deal of time in the project management space and you find the same perspectives there.  The challenge I raise to this is, do we discount productivity advice based on if we do not agree with the adviser?
My stance, and what I recommend to others, is to take a three-pronged approach to evaluate productivity advice.  The three tenets of the evaluation are:

Relevance – Practicality – Repeatability

By using these measures you can determine if a productivity hack, solution, tool, or whatever has a good chance of contributing positively to your personal productivity for an extended period of time.

Relevance

Does the advice have a relevant point of reference in making an impact in your daily life?  When you review your list of “productivity issues” do you see one that matches the solution the advice recommends, or do you see the solution and look for a problem for it to solve?  I’ll use the example of Inbox Zero for my own reference here.  While the approach of having all email addressed and resolved in a timely manner can be a huge boon to many, it’s relevance to my own needs is minimal.  Seeing the posts and solutions (some excellent by the way) I moved to see if implementing Inbox Zero methodologies made sense.  For me, the end result was additional work with no increase in productivity.  Not a failing of the solution, or of my own, but a failing of relevance.  I was solving a problem that for me didn’t need to be solved.

Practicality

Can you execute the advice without creating an adverse increase in your work efforts?  Many systems are complex and comprehensive, promising grand repositioning and resolution to many productivity needs and problems.  They require commitment and application for their success, and their failure comes not from the system but from the application.  For example let’s look at the popular approach by David Allen, Getting Things Done.  There are a huge number of advocates of this solution and just as many people who have successfully implemented it into their daily lives.  When I applied my own evaluation criteria to the approach (after several attempts to make it work for me) I found the effort needed to implement the solution was never going to be practical for me.  Again, it is not a failing in the solution nor is it a failing in myself, but rather a recognition that my personal needs and style required a different solution.

Repeatability

Can the advice become a repeatable contributor to your daily productivity methodology?  We have all fallen prey to the instance of the “hot hack.”  The simple, quick trick that promises to solve a productivity issue in short order.  The challenge often comes from these hacks not being truly sustainable over the long term.  An example of this for me became the “shared solution.”  Many methodologies recommend improving your productivity by engaging others in your system.  Shared notebooks, shared notes, shared tasks, shared lists, etc.  The thinking is by engaging another in your process, you lessen the direct load on yourself and thereby become more productive.  Personally, I’ve found this to be true IF (and that’s one really big if) the person or persons being engaged to share your same vision of the solution and a common willingness to participate.  In the professional space, the org chart can be used as the stick to reinforce the use of a shared solution, but in the personal space, there is rarely such an incentive.  You may be able to get a person to participate once, but making that success repeatable to multiple individuals and instances is a different matter entirely.

Evaluate based on what not who

Anyone can recommend a productivity solution, hack, or idea to me and I will evaluate it for myself based on the criteria listed above.  Who that recommender is bears no impact on my evaluation.  What is most interesting about this is many of the ideas I have adopted over the years have come from posts online, from people I have never heard of, but whose ideas whether their own or shared from another, have met the requirements and made a difference for me.  I will admit if a person’s repeated advice fails my test I’m much less likely to pay attention in the future.  So as I started this missive, let me recommend you evaluate what you see and read and determine for yourself what will work.