Setting up a collaboration site such as an Office 365 Group is an excellent way to keep them in the loop. Training yourself to make sure you’re updating the group with your activity as you go…much harder.
Category Archives: Coaching
Herein lies the question.
Herein lies the question. Does Amazon want Alexa to become a ubiquitous tool for daily life or grow as the front door to the Amazon ecosystem. After a while those two paths begin to diverge when it comes to diversity of interests and information. It will be interesting to see how close Amazon holds Alexa to their online retailing message and how far afield she is allowed to wander.
Using a Journal AND a Smartphone to be productive
There’s a struggle point for many analog users (pen and paper people to the non-stationery geeks) when it comes to finding a balance between using their paper based system and their smartphones.
What should go where?
Deciding what information is best in what platform is a matter of personal preference. In this case I defer to physics. If there is information that I might need, but can’t guarantee will immediately or frequently need, I place it in my digital system (OneNote). If I can guarantee I will need it quickly and in the immediate future, I put it in my analog system (Traveler’s Notebook). For example, when traveling my hotel information goes in my phone but the confirmation number also goes into my TN since I know I can turn pages faster than I cas search on my smartphone.
Which do I trust more?
In this case trust isn’t a matter of reliability, it’s a matter of accessibility. Which system do I trust to accurately capture and provide information back to me? There’s no clean cut-and-dry answer here because if I can’t trust the tools, they’re worse than useless. Paper and pen are pretty easy to trust, but digital systems need greater scrutiny.
Should I use only one?
Now this is a tough one. Should I bite the bullet and put all my information in just one system? For me, this isn’t an option on a number of levels but one of the most basic is that I enjoy using both systems. If I can consistently access my information why should I deny myself the benefits and joys of both?
How do I avoid double work?
This is the most common concern. How do I prevent duplicating efforts and losing the benefits of each system through unnecessary effort? My approach is to think about each capture or effort and make sure I know how the information will be used, where and when it will be accessed, and what will be needed at the time. By answering those questions, I can make sure (to a reasonable degree) the right information in going in the right places.
There is no clean rule to using digital vs. analog. There are no directions, manual, or book that will give you the perfect solution. You need accept that taking time to tune and refine your system is critical in it’s long term success. If your system isn’t growing and improving with time, then neither are you.
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Here are some other articles about journals and smartphones you may find of interest:
Being productive wherever you are
Three ways to reduce stress and get back to work after a holiday
It’s that time of year where holidays come into our schedules and time off looms as the double edged sword of relaxation and stress. Do you have a process for making your time off more relaxed and still being productive when you get back to work? Here’s three easy steps to take before you leave for a holiday.
1. Fill your first day back.
Make sure you plan out your first day back before you leave for the holiday. The worst thing for you coming off vacation euphoria is spending the morning trying to figure out what you need to do. Filling the schedule of your first day back with productive activities means you’ll be able to pick up with being productive without losing time processing new items. Once you’ve made some progress then you can begin processing again.
2. Avoid meetings on your first day back.
Meetings suck the productive lifeblood out of us. Try your best not schedule meetings for your first day back and especially not the first morning. Keep the time to regain your momentum and return to your flow. Knowing you don’t have to spend your first day sitting in meetings will reduce your stress both during and after the holiday.
3. Check when an email was sent before prioritizing.
If you have to check your email or just can’t help yourself, check when the incoming email was sent before prioritizing when you will handle it. In many cases the emails are sent by people clearing their inboxes before they leave for the holiday. Just because a couple of days pass because of a holiday doesn’t mean the email should receive any more urgency than one sent at the end of the day the day before.
Holidays are our chances to clear our heads, refocus, and unwind from work so we can be more productive. Short circuiting this benefits no one, especially yourself.
So productive people…enjoy your holidays!
Does a change in your productivity solution last?
At the client I am working currently I have been parked at a sitting desk for the past four months. Prior to this I was working from home and could stand and work when I liked (not easily, but I could make it happen.) As of last night I received the new standing desk attachment for my desk to allow me to do just that…stand and work.
There are dozens of stories about the benefits of standing and working, from improved circulation to enhanced mental clarity. Personally I’m looking to see how well my concentration holds up, my physicality supports standing all day (or most of it), and does this help my mental focus. Do I have a hypothesis? No, aside from the fact it should be much more difficult to be drowsy after lunch when I’m standing up…but that is yet to be proven.
Changes we make to our physical work environment can give us a temporary spark of productivity and surge of energy in being productive. The challenge is does it continue over time or does it drop off significantly and leave us back where we started. The same analysis can be applied to productivity tools and processes. Does the new tool keep us moving forward or does it drop off quickly as our short attention span falls by the way side?
When evaluating our personal productivity solutions, and yes the physical is just as important as the mental and procedural, we need to consider what will happen should the experiment fail. When I think about it more, the better way to look at the results is no experiment is a failure. Following the Edison model, you’ve just found a way that won’t work for you. You can move on to something new or move back to something tried and true (rhyme unintentional.)
Make sure when you’re tinkering with your personal productivity solutions you have a fall back plan (with a standing desk that could be literal) in case things don’t work out. If you’re not sure how to approach adjusting your solution, ask. You can stop by the Being Productive group on Facebook if you would like some ideas and feedback on ways to improve your own personal productivity solution.
Now, productive people…back to work. 🙂
Search vs structure for organizing your notes
Most note keeping solutions offer multiple methods of organizing your notes within their tools. You’ll find search, tags, labels, folders, outlines, and a variety of other less common structures. Determining what features will work the best for you in locating your notes after you’ve captured them can be a struggle at a minimum and derail your entire system at the worst. How do you know which features work for you and which is the best to implement in your personal productivity solution?
First thing to clear out of your head is you don’t need to choose one method or the other. Both have strengths and weaknesses so it’s more a matter of determining what feature works when. In comparing your solution to how our brains work our logical starting place is search.
When we remember something, we don’t think to ourselves “well that piece of information is in this place in my head, in this folder, with this label.” No, we just think about the topic and our brain does the best it can at finding all the memories we have stored around that topic. Unfortunately the process is far from efficient and reliable, so when we think about digital searching with personal productivity solutions we need to concentrate on how the computer will search the contents of our notes (memories) to find all the items that match our search topic.
If we are going to rely on search to locate information in our solutions we need to make sure our notes contain the content matching the terms we will be searching with. For example, if you are storing a health insurance summary, you need to think about what you would plug into the search box to locate that document. The content and titling needs to match those terms so in this case if your instinct is to look for “health insurance” remember you will find the summary we mentioned earlier but also every other document with the same terms possibly making it harder to be specific quickly.
The flip side of the search coin is folders, tags, and labels. These are helpful if you’re a browser rather than a searcher. If your instinct when looking for materials is to start at a top level category, then drill down further and further until you reach your content. This type of structuring can be powerful if you are comfortable designing the organizational structure and then adhering to that structure for the retention of all your notes.
Setting up a defined folder / tag structure can be a challenge, with experts in the fields of taxonomy and tagsonomy spending months defining systems to organize commercial document management systems. I doubt you have months to bring your solution to a usable state (I know I don’t) so my suggestion is to start small and build up. Create structures that match how you think and live every day, focusing on where and when you need access to your notes. Keep in mind that in most cases when you need a note or piece of information you typically don’t have a great deal of time to go looking for it through large, complex organizational structures (hence the phrase, “Google it.”)
So which is better? There is no clear winner of one over the other and I’ll readily admit I use both in my personal productivity solution. Creating and maintaining an organizational structure in your tools of choice such as sections in OneNote, notebooks in Evernote, or folders in Google Drive can make the location of content simpler with the downside of increasing the overhead of maintaining the solution. Combine structure with search for locating content quickly and making your note management a trusted part of your solution.
Being productive wherever you are
One of the keys to productivity is taking advantage of the moments as they come available. To do this successfully you need to be prepared to react when those moments arise. Here are some tips for taking advantage of “idle moments”:
1. Clean up your task list
If you’re keeping an active task list regardless of it being digital or analog, idle time is a good time to go through and do a quick update. Capture new items on your mind, update completed tasks, and look over what is already there to see if anything needs to be revised.
2. Journal
Journaling is a powerful way to keep a grasp on what has been happening and what needs to happen in your personal and professional life. One of the obstacles to journaling is the idea you need to craft these wonderful personal missives in your journal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking a couple of minutes to jot down what is happening right at that moment is a great way to start building the running narrative of your life.
3. Keep a quick reading list
Idle time is an excellent opportunity to catch up on the light reading you’ve been putting off. Apps such as Amazon Kindle and Pocket are great tools to have reading material on hand even when you may not have connection to the internet to be able to fill idle time with productive learning and information.
4. Be “mindful”
While this may be the current buzzword when it comes to many circles, being mindful of what and where you are can be a wonderful application of idle time. Take a few moments and focus on the sights, the sounds, and the happenings around you. Don’t worry about adding things to your Snapchat story or your Instagram feed. Let Facebook wait for a while and take the idle time to capture the most important thing…a memory.
5. Brainstorm
Brainstorming is one of those things I find works best when you can disengage your mind from the tactical requirements of a problem and give your subconsious a chance to ponder and poke at the topic. Next time you have some idle time try this brainstorming exercise: pick a topic you know you need ideas around, say a project for example, and focus on it for a full minute. Try your hardest to come up with new ideas. Now after a minute let it go. Don’t focus on something else, but rather just stop focusing on the topic. After a few minutes of idle time you may find your mind making connections you didnt see when you were concentrating. Often creative ideas gain their greatest energy when given the chance to play on their own without our direction.
In today’s world, idle time is a blessing. It is a rare gift we need to appreciate and take greatest advantage of rather than waste as it slips by. Whether we want to accomplish things or revel in inactivity as a way to “sharpen the saw” we can use idle time to our advantage. By having a plan as to how you can take advantage of idle time, you can lower your stress, increase your productivity, and feel better about both in the process.
What to do when your paper journal disappears
There is a recognition in the analog journaling community that the physical nature of the journal can be a single point of failure when it comes to the information you keep. For some, the chances of losing their journal are slim, for others, much more likely. Personally I have found my challenge comes not only from not having a specific journal with me at a given time but also the frequency at which I prefer to change notebooks (yes, I am a stationery geek.)
Recently I asked the Bullet Journal for Professionals group on Facebook what people would do if they no longer had their analog journal through either loss, destruction or theft. There were a range of responses demonstrating the critical nature of these journals for daily productivity:
1. cry
2. cry some more
3. sit down with a piece of paper and write down every to do that i can think of that wasn’t completed
4. Curl up into a ball in the corner and sob uncontrollably.”
5. Go to the pub!
What is most interesting is even with these responses of distress, almost everyone had a plan for backing up their journals digitally, by either re-entering information into digital systems or, the most popular way, through digital images of the pages for storage and retrieval.
If you decide you are going to live the analog life when it comes to journaling, I highly recommend you find a method of archiving and backing up your paper that works for you. Whether it’s digital images, scanning, or just copying things down somewhere else, having a Plan B for your information is the only way you can truly have confidence in your system.
When it comes to a technical method of backing things up I use two different tools: my phone and my printer. I can never be sure when I will have time to capture the contents of a notebook so by using my phone to capture scans to Google Drive (my storage system of choice) I can feel more confident things are there should the worst case happen. My printer comes into play because when I purchased my printer I specifically bought one that allows scanning directly to Google Drive (see the plan coming together?) With the printer on hand, I can scan page after page of journal and other documents to my library with no risk coming from the loss of the physical materials.
There are many different ways to back up your analog journal. It isn’t nearly as important how you do it as it is that you do it at all. Don’t be the person crying in corner of the pub because the dog ate your journal. Be prepared.
Preparing for a lost or stolen wallet
We are constantly reminded how vulnerable our personal information is everyday by the media. With our focus on protecting our digital information we sometimes forget how important it is to protect our physical information. Being productive isn’t just about handling daily tasks, it’s about being able to handle the unexpected in a way that is efficient and effective.
We carry a great deal of personal information in our wallets, from financial to medical to identity. How do we keep track of that information and manage should our wallets be lost or stolen? My recommendation is to leverage a tested technology being used online for our offline information.
Lastpass is an excellent online tool for managing user accounts but it can also be used to securely encrypt personal information for access from the cloud. By installing the app you can create secure notes in the Lastpass system, capturing things such as credit cards, ID cards, and other vital stats. The best aspect of this is the ability to attach images to the records for reference.
In my own case I have a folder in Lastpass called Wallet in which I have secured notes containing all the different vital items I keep in my wallet. In the circumstance where my wallet may be lost or stolen, I have a record of each item as well as a photo of both sides of the cards so I can quickly have cards and accounts cancelled and replaced.
It took about ten minutes to capture the contents of my wallet into Lastpass, and the peace of mind coupled with a productive plan of action should the situation arise. Planning ahead can make all the difference in your productivity when things are disrupted by forces outside your control.
Pick a tool and stick with it
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