#uppingyourgame: a practical guide to personal productivity

DOUG BELSHAW

E M A G R U O Y #UPPING a practical guide to personal productivity Images CC BY Joi

an OpenBeta book

Preface: What is ‘OpenBeta’?

OpenBeta is an iterative and incremental publishing model devised by Doug Belshaw and based upon the idea of an ‘unbook’: The book is released in stages with the contents and the publishing costs being separated (see next page for elaboration)

Introduction Welcome to #uppingyourgame! As explained in the preface, this is the first book to be published using the OpenBeta model I devised. This final version marks the end of an enjoyable, iterative process.

This version of #uppingyourgame contains everything: the preface, introduction (which you’re currently reading), table of contents, chapters and conclusion. Originally this was a book about productivity for educators but, given feedback from non-educators, it grew into a guide to personal productivity.

I’d very much welcome your feedback and hope that you will join us early in the process next time!

The template for this ebook is based on an original shared very kindly free-of-charge by Antonio Lupetti (http://woorkup.com)

______________ ★ LINKS blog: http://dougbelshaw.com/blog email: dajbelshaw@gmail.com twitter: http://twitter.com/dajbelshaw

#UPPINGYOURGAME:A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY

Defining ‘Productivity’ .......................................................................7 What is ‘Productivity’? .......................................................................8 Why be productive? ..........................................................................12 What does productivity look like? ....................................................14

2. Productivity & Motivation..........................19 What is ‘motivation’? ........................................................................19 How to find your personal well of motivation ................................22 Motivation and ‘Flow’ ......................................................................27 Motivation and exercise ..................................................................30

3. Productivity as ‘getting on & doing’ ........34 Planning, not cramming ..................................................................35 Productivity killers ...........................................................................41 Aids to productivity .........................................................................47 Productivity in times of adversity ...................................................49

4. Productivity 2.0 ..........................................56 Apps to aid productivity ..................................................................56 Apps to aid productivity ..................................................................62 Apps for transformational productivity ..........................................68 Future productivity-related apps .....................................................73

5. Helping make others more productive ....76 How to influence people ...................................................................77 The five-step plan .............................................................................79 The power of Mindsets ....................................................................82

6. Conclusion .................................................87

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The Philosophy of Productivity ..................7

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1.

The Philosophy of Productivity

As William James, the Pragmatist philosopher stated, a problem well-stated is a problem half-solved. As someone with a background in philosophy myself, it’s the reason I always start with the abstract: what is ‘productivity’. And, indeed, why even bother being productive in the first place?

This section looks at existing conceptions of productivity and what it looks like in practice.

1.1. Defining ‘Productivity’ I used to view starting off a book or an article with a definition as a sign of weakness by the author. I thought it was a sign that they didn’t know where to start and therefore used a cliché.

It turns out I was wrong. The reason why many authors start off with definitions is either to clarify what they mean by a certain term, or to show that existing definitions are somewhat lacking.

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That’s why I’m kicking off what follows with existing definitions of ‘productivity’. I want to make sure we know what we’re talking about before I encourage you to get better at it.

So on the next page you’ll find definitions of productivity. Some are closer, and some further away, from how I would define what we are looking at here.

1.2. What is ‘Productivity’?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, productivity is ‘the state or quality of being productive’. Helpful! Turning elsewhere, Wikipedia defines ‘productivity’ as ‘a measure of output from a production process, per unit of input’. Becoming more productive in this sense, therefore, is a scientific process perfected in factory production lines.

Steve Pavlina, a well-known personal development writer/coach refines this further, defining productivity in the following way: Productivity = Value Time

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An increase in productivity, therefore, involves either increasing the value of the activity being performed or reducing the time it takes to do it. But what about activities you want to spend time doing precisely because they carry so much intrinsic value or meaning to you?

Instead of an Industrial Revolution-era definition of productivity, we need one that recognises and understands the creative act as well as the value that people place in their actions. We need a definition that recognises the meaning behind action; a definition that cannot be boiled down to a simple, sterile equation.

Fortunately, Dictionary.com has a less scientific, more nuanced approach: Productivity: 1. having the power of producing; generative; creative.

2. producing readily or abundantly; fertile.

It is this latter way of defining ‘productivity’ that is closest to what I shall be discussing from here on in. To me, productivity is as much about being creative and enjoying what you do as it is about churning through laborious tasks.

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“I turned down a scholarship to Yale. The problem with college is that there's a tendency to mistake preparation for productivity. You can prepare all you want, but if you never roll the dice you'll never be successful.”

Shia LaBeouf Actor "It is our choices... that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities."

J.K. Rowling Author "To be successful you have to enjoy doing your best while at the same time contributing to something beyond yourself."

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Author and Psychologist

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The quotations on the previous page pretty much sum up my philosophy of productivity - namely that it is about choice, enjoyment and getting on and doing things. Whilst blogs, self-help books and audiobooks abound and are crammed full of generic tips about productivity, the aim of what follows is to equip you with approaches, strategies, and ideas to develop your own, personal, ‘productive system’.

Many very conscientious people are perfectionists. That’s a dangerous character trait: there’s always more work to be done if you go looking for it! Working briefs can be expanded, outputs endlessly tweaked. Activities shouldn’t expand the time to fill time better spent doing other things.

If the system that you generate at the dawn of your career enables you to cope with the workload, then you are likely to keep it. The difficulty comes, however, if and when that system becomes a static, closed system with no feedback loops or method of reflection. To enjoy your job you have to move beyond ‘getting by’. Productivity, after all, has to have a purpose.

To summarise, then, productivity is the development of a personal system that: • Empowers you to make decisions • Enables you to enjoy life • Encourages you to get stuff done

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But why even bother being more ‘productive’ in the first place?

1.3. Why be productive?

I’ve never read David Allen’s Getting Things Done series of books, commonly abbreviated to GTD - nor do I intend to. There would be no need, in fact, as a quick Google search will provide you with more overviews, diagrams and resources for understanding and implementing GTD than you could ever use!

The reason I don’t intend to learn the GTD approach is that, like other generic productivity systems, it lacks context. Such systems have to either be so specific as to be useless to the other 90% of people, or so generic as to be next-to-useless in practice. Whilst we can all learn from others, forcing yourself to fit into somebody else’s system isn’t a recipe for success!

The central premise in most books about productivity is that there’s a bunch of stuff that you need to get through. It’s the outcome (i.e. getting it finished) that’s important, therefore any process or system that can make that quicker is A Good Thing. I’m certain that applying such a system is dangerous. Why? Well I believe that the process is important - it matters how and why you do things. It’s not just about ‘getting things done’.

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But that’s not to say that being more productive isn’t something I aspire to every day of my life. After all, given the way I’ve defined it above (choice, enjoyment, action), who wouldn’t want to be more productive? Being productive in this sense ensures that you are busy doing things you want to do. Productivity leads to a ‘virtuous circle’ of success, self-esteem and good mental health.

Being productive gives you a feeling of being in control of your life, as being the one who sets your own direction. Instead of being reactive you can be proactive, fitting together ideas and tasks into a meaningful whole. Being productive leads to a settled, ‘centred’ life.

Applying a generic system to our ‘workflow’ depersonalises the activities we engage in as human beings. It disassociates the individual from the meaning found in the action. As a result, you become alienated from your activities, seeing them merely as tasks to ‘get done’.

Instead, a system has to be emergent with inbuilt feedback loops. It needs to take into account the boundaries imposed on you by others but also manifestations of your own personality and predilections.

Such a system can only be iterated by you. Others can help, giving advice and pointers (as shall be contained in the rest of this book).

But how it all fits together, how it meshes with the rest of your life, well that’s up to YOU.

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1.4. What does productivity look like?

Productivity is an extremely difficult thing to represent visually.

Unlike ‘danger’ (the colour red) or ‘innovation’ (a light bulb) it’s difficult to think of what productivity ‘looks like’. Many choose to represent it through a sense of ‘speed’ but, in many ways, that’s the opposite of what true productivity is.

I chose to use bamboo as a motif in this book to represent productivity. Why? Because bamboo is: • fast-growing (symbolising action) • natural (symbolising something not contrived, but emergent) • strong (symbolising resilience) As mentioned above, what productivity looks like in practice depends very much on context. That is to say the specific system you come up with is dependent on factors sometimes beyond your control. This could be workplace expectations, historical norms or simply the tastes and preferences of your colleagues.

Despite this, I would contend that it is always possible to gauge how productive someone is after spending some time with them. They have certain habits and ways of phrasing things. It’s only my (limited) experience, but I’m yet to meet someone who I would class

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as highly productive that has an addiction - be it smoking, gambling or something more subtle. Addiction, however innocuous it looks from the inside (or outside) is usually the hallmark of someone who is not in overall control. Addictions make us irrational - not a good starting point from which to be productive!

Habits, on the other hand, are extremely useful. As I shall explain later on, virtuous and productive habits are the building blocks upon which productive systems depend. Habits and routines enable us to be successful whilst having space for creativity.

There is no one personality that is ‘productive’. It’s not something that you’re either born with or you’re not. Instead, it’s learned behaviour. Having said that, the 3 marks or characteristics of the productive person as far as I’m concerned are: • Serenity • Reliability • Focus All of these can be learned and practiced. As you can gather, these are almost diametrically opposed to a vision of someone rushing from task to task. Instead, the productive person is measured, organised and (usually) single-tasks.

The productive educator is the one who has time to talk through a problem with you, whose colleagues know what’s expected of them,

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who can be trusted to deliver. Their serenity, reliability and focus is often at odds to the scatter-gun, ‘headless chicken’ approach of those around them. They are rocks in tumultuous rivers of change.

The rest of this book will help you become more personally productive. What I won’t be giving you is a hard-and-fast GTD system. Instead, I’ll be sharing how to learn to choose, to decide to enjoy what you do, and find the motivation to get on and do things.

Before proceeding, it might be a good idea to write down a list of the things that are important to you, both at work and at home. These are the things that your productive system needs to maximise time for. It might look something like this:

1. My family. tening) 2. Music (playing & lis in new & 3. Using technology interesting ways. luence 4. Being a positive inf nds, on other people (frie ) colleagues, students

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______________

★ LINKS • • • •

Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com Oxford English Dictionary: http://www.askoxford.com Steve Pavlina: http://www.stevepavlina.com Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org

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Productivity & Motivation 18

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2. Productivity & Motivation Productivity, motivation and inspiration are usually discussed together. There’s a good reason for that: they’re three circles of the same Venn diagram in the middle of which I’d put ‘success’, ‘happiness’ and other positive emotions/results.

It’s difficult to be productive without motivation. But what is motivation, where do we find it, and are there any guaranteed sources when you’re feeling extremely unproductive?

2.1. What is ‘motivation’?

Read almost any relevant book published in the 20th century - or even do a quick Google search - and you’ll find that the established wisdom is that motivation is either ‘intrinsic’ or ‘extrinsic’.

Intrinsic motivation:

something done for the love or belief in the value of the activity (e.g. playing a musical instrument, charity work, spending time with family)

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Extrinsic motivation: something done for some external factor or belief (e.g. fear, money, fame/status) It was Chris Craft who first challenged my thinking on the above and Dan Pink who absolutely convinced me. There’s no such thing as ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ motivation. I can thoroughly recommend Dan’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us which expands upon the following insights I noted down when I saw him speak on his tour to promote the book.

We all have a ‘primary drive’, also known as a biological drive which motivates us to obtain the necessities for our survival: food, water, sex. No-one would argue with that and it ties in directly with Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs.

We also have a ‘secondary drive’ that, I would argue, can all be classed as ‘stuff that makes our lives easier’. This includes money (instead of having to barter), maximising rewards (causes pleasure) and avoiding pain (for obvious reasons). Most efforts at trying to motivate people attempt to tap into these first two drives. Indeed, we often try to motivate youngsters by promising them that there’s a linear relationship between how hard they work at school (i.e. the grades they get) and how much they’ll earn later in life.

However, a study from 2005 by the Federal Reserve Bank questioned the wisdom of this. They found that, as expected, with

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purely mechanical tasks, financial incentives worked in a linear way.

In other words, the more money they promised people for improved performance, the more productive the individuals were.

When they changed the activity undertaken they came across startlingly different results. Introducing even ‘rudimentary cognitive skill’ into the task led to a massive drop-off in productivity when increasing rewards were offered. The study, initially carried out in the US, was replicated in India with even more pronounced results.

The message? Becoming more productive in non-mechanical activities is not affected by external factors.

Motivation, then, is a complex thing very closely tied to productivity: • It can’t be simplified to carrot-and-stick.

• There’s not a quick-fix solution to ‘get more’.

• It’s dependent upon personality and what you do for a living.

Let’s try and find out where you can find your ‘well’ of motivation in order to be more productive. Remember that I can be a mere Sherpa on this path. You will have to reach the summit yourself!

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2.2. How to find your personal well of motivation If we cannot rely on our primary drive (e.g. hunger) or secondary drive (e.g. money) to provide motivation, where should we look?

Dan Pink believes, and I agree, that we need to focus on what he calls our ‘third drive’. Rather than conceiving of ourselves and others as inert, we should assume that people are active and engaged. I shall expand in a future chapter upon what this means for encouraging other people to be more productive, but here’s what it means for you: • Put yourself in a position where you are as in control of your time as possible.

• Choose something to get better at.

• Decide what’s going to go on you tombstone / in your obituary. a) Controlling your time If you’re early in your career or new to a job then gaining control of what you do with your time is paramount. Think about the 5W’s you’ve no doubt come across these before: Who? What? When? Where? Why? There are going to be some of these that you can’t change. You may have certain hours you’ve got to work, meetings you’ve got to attend.

Having said that, can you negotiate with your boss to work from

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home, be more flexible with your hours, or ensure that your meetings are short, sharp affairs?

There are some elements that are definitely within your control.

Everyone has at least some autonomy over their working environment. You can setup your desk the way you want it, if you’ve got an office or a classroom you might be able to also organize that better. What absolutely everyone has control over, to a greater or lesser degree, is the order in which you do things. Starting off the day on someone else’s terms can lead to misplaced priorities. Do something creative, read something inspiring, have a chat with a colleague.

Of course, ‘keeping up’ is a problem everyone faces at some time or other. Thinking things through logically, if your colleagues seem to be keeping up, there’s one of two situations in play: 1. You’re not up-to-speed with the systems, procedures and established ways of doing things.

2. Your colleagues are not really keeping up in the way that you think - they’re cutting corners somehow.

If the former is true, then you’ve got some learning to do. Just like painters who break with tradition, you need to be able to imitate those who have gone before. Even if it looks like a pointless system from the outside, learn the processes and techniques from colleagues. Then you can criticise them and look to improve them.

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If the latter is true, if you find out that your colleagues are just pretending to keep up, then you need to expose the lie. This isn’t the place to say how to do this, but you can either show the boss how it’s not working (risky!) or persuade others to own up by modelling the behaviour you want to see (be truthful about your capacity and work-rate!)

We all have the same number of hours in the day to get things done.

What is easily forgotten, however, is that we can be thinking one thing whilst doing another. Whenever you’re doing something that doesn’t require even ‘rudimentary cognitive skill’ - taking a shower, walking the dog, washing the dishes - why not let your mind drift back to how you can gain more autonomy in what you do?

It’s a virtuous circle: the more productive you are, the more productive you are seen as being, leading to you feeling more motivated and being more productive! b) Choose something to get better at I’m no scientist, but I know that learning happens because of connections between neurons in the brain. Undertaking different activities and ways of thinking makes more connections. The more we practice, the ‘deeper’ become the ‘grooves’ in our neural connections. This is how we learn to ‘master’ things.

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Mastery is our powerful impulse to get better at stuff. In fact, a longitudinal study by Harvard Business Review of many companies found that the biggest motivator for employees across a whole range of industries was "making progress". Most people undergo performance management once per year. Imagine a professional athlete getting feedback on these terms! How would they ever improve?

Instead, you have to set yourself targets. The beginning of the year is both a good and a bad time for this. Good in that it’s a definite starting point. Bad in that our culture easily forgives us for failing to stick to our resolutions. Instead, as recommended by Dan, why not ‘call yourself into the office’ at the end of each month after having made some commitments at the start of it? These don’t have to be work-related. In fact, far from decreasing your work-related productivity, having projects over-and-beyond what your day job often leads to productivity gains.

It’s natural to want to keep these commitments and targets quiet and to yourself. But they’ll be a much more powerful motivating force if you share them. I’ve found sharing these online via my blog or social networks such as Twitter much more powerful. People can hold you to account; you’re much more likely to stick to them!

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c) Write your obituary I’ll never forget the the look on the faces of my form class when, as a teacher, I asked them to write their obituary. They thought it was morbid, creepy and that I was a little bit crazy. Once they got into it, however, they realised, as I had done, how eye-opening it can be.

It’s more difficult these days to be able to predict with any degree of accuracy or success just what you’ll be doing in terms of occupation from now until the end of your life. What is achievable, however and this is the type of thing that is focused upon in obituaries anyway - is the overall purpose of your life: what you stood for, who you aligned yourself with, the things you believed in and supported.

Without knowing where you’re going the activities you involve yourself are bounded in terms of the amount of interest you can muster in them. Even the most mundane of tasks can be made exciting, useful and interesting if part of a bigger picture.

Give yourself a sense of purpose. You don’t have to be religious to want to evangelise something you believe in. To summarise, then: control your time, get better at something, find where your passion lies.

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2.3. Motivation and ‘Flow’ As we’ve seen above, there’s broadly two types of activities you can be engaged in: routine tasks and ones that take some form of cognitive skill. It’s important to say at the outset of this section that it’s possible to achieve state of ‘flow’ in both.

‘Flow’ is a term used by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his seminal work Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. Since finding out about the idea during research for my thesis it’s changed the way I think about approaching activities and how I organise my life.

Indeed, on the cover of the book it states prominently the opinion of a reviewer who calls it ‘important’ and ‘life-changing’. Although I was sceptical before I read it, I would definitely now agree!

Csikszentmihalyi defines ‘flow’ as: “Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.” 1

1

Interview with Wired magazine, September 1996: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.09/czik.html

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The person who experiences such flow states is ‘autotelic’ (from the Greek: auto meaning ‘self’ and telos meaning ‘goal’) - they are internally driven, with a sense of purpose an curiosity. This is a different driving force than goals such as fame, money and power.

The flow ‘channel’ is perhaps best shown visually: 2

2

CC BY-SA Wesley Fryer:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/304317777/

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Finding this optimal channel between the challenge involved and your current skill-set is something that young children do naturally, argues Csikszentmihalyi: it is socially conditioned and educated out of us!

As a result of finding this flow channel often the ‘autotelic self’ learns to make choices “without much fuss and the minimum of panic”.

This becomes directly relevant to motivation: “One of the basic differences between a person with an autotelic self and one without it is that the former knows that it is she who has chosen whatever goal she is pursuing. What she does is not random, nor is it the result of outside determining forces.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 2008:209) This, I believe, is key. Once you have an overarching goal and motivating force to your life that is based upon individual selfimprovement, you have found your ‘well’ of productivity and motivation. It needs to be something beyond your day-to-day tasks and can’t be found in your job description: • If you’re a languages teacher, it might be the public understanding of the importance of having more than one language.

• You might be a firm believer in the collaborative power of new technologies.

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• If you’re in business it might be how your new product can transform the world for the better.

To employ that over-used term, it’s about finding your passion.

2.4. Motivation and exercise There’s no getting around it. Every single person that I would consider ‘productive’ is highly-motivated. And everyone I know who is highly-motivated does some form of regular exercise. For some, this involves team sports, for some going to the gym, but for many people (myself included) this means running.

Running’s great. All you really need are a pair of trainers (sneakers).

The extra bells, whistles and gizmos - Nike+, GPS tracking, dedicated running gear, and so on - are useful, but not necessary. In fact, I read recently that studies have shown that the money spent by people taking up a new exercise on equipment is inversely proportional to how long they stick at it. It’s better just to start and focus on what’s important - the exercise rather than the paraphernalia.

If you’ve got a gym membership and go regularly - great! If you do some form of exercise three or more times a week, then you already understand what I’m going to say. Although the thought of dragging

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your carcass out of bed on a cold, dark morning sometime in January to exercise before work sounds awful, it’s actually a profoundly good thing to do.

Why? You’re training yourself. That determination, that tenacity, that sheer willpower to do something that you know is important is vital to becoming more motivated. It also gives you time to think. We all need ‘down time’, but usually this is conceived of as being time in front of the TV. In fact, ‘down time’ is really anything that rests a certain faculty that you’ve been working hard. So, if you’ve been exercising at the gym then reading a book involves resting the muscles you’ve been using.

Likewise, if you’ve been concentrating - for example, preparing a report or some type of plan - going for a run really does clear the mind.

Although I try to surround myself (both physically and virtually) with productive people, I do interact with those who are fundamentally unproductive. The reason for their unproductiveness is usually down to one or more of the following reasons: • A belief that the longer you spend on something the better it will be.

• An unbalanced lifestyle (for example, not exercising often) • Some form of addiction.

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Of course, if you haven’t exercised for a while it’s going to be hard. If you’re overweight or asthmatic, really hard. Sometimes that which is the last thing we want to do is the very thing we should do!

René Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher, believed that you can deal the mind independently with the body. He was wrong.

In fact, to quote another philosopher: “In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection.” (Plato) Can’t manage a run? Go for a walk! Seriously. ______________ ★ RECOMMENDED BOOKS • Daniel Pink - Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us • Daniel Coyle - The Talent Code • Dr. John Ratey & Eric Hagerman - Spark! The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

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Productivity as ‘getting on & doing’ 33

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3. Productivity as ‘getting on & doing’ I’d like to think that all of #uppingyourgame is practical, focused advice. But if there’s a section that’s especially relevant to that, then it’s this section.

You might find this part a bit more personal than the previous sections. That’s because, as I’ve outlined in my argument against GTD, productivity is an intensely personal thing. It depends heavily upon context. That’s why I can only share with you what I do along with some ideas and advice. I can’t offer cast-iron guarantees. You have to do most of the ‘lifting’.

In the following sections you’ll learn, amongst other things: • How to ‘parallel task’ • The importance of ‘Shipping Dates’ • Why it’s not good to be a perfectionist

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3.1. Planning, not cramming Everyone has the same amount of hours in the day. There’s no reason why you can’t achieve the same as pretty much anyone you care to name. That sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.

The ‘Ah, but...’ excuses don’t wash, I’m afraid. If there’s something affecting your productivity, then change it!

• Disturbed regularly by noisy neighbours? Move house.

• Have responsibilities that take hours from your week at random times? Renegotiate them.

• Haven’t got access to the resources you need? Find a way to get them.

Short term, this might be difficult. That’s why you need to plan and share that planning with other, relevant, people. You don’t need to tell the whole world what you’re doing, but you might want to let your family know. They can help and support you in your drive to become more productive.

When I cast my mind back to my childhood, almost everything positive about my schooling came from my time at Middle School.

Nowadays, Middle Schools in England are on their way out. They’re slated for being a time when ‘dips’ in performance occur. But I loved my Middle School. My teachers were full of character and I seemed to have remembered much more of what I learned there than at

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High School. I think that’s because I was allowed to ‘be myself’ more than in High School. They certainly didn’t try to cram me with knowledge.

Three pieces of advice from three separate members of staff have stuck with me. I’d like to share those with you. a) Parallel tasking First of all, I can distinctly remember Mrs Hedley’s classes. They had a fancy name but she basically taught us how to cook. Her nickname was ‘Deadly Hedley’ and she was a fierce, short redhead - probably of Irish stock. You get the picture.

I can’t remember her ever saying anything positive to me at all, yet I tried so hard in that lesson! That’s because she knew her stuff, had massively high expectations of us all and taught us things that were new and valuable every lesson.

But the things I learned weren’t really specifically cooking-related.

In fact, Mrs Hedley would be ashamed of my ability to burn water and spectacularly mess up beans-on-toast.

The greatest thing that Deadly Hedley taught me was the art of parallel-tasking. She would badger us constantly (us all of 10/11 years of age) about what we could and should be doing whilst we were waiting for potatoes to boil, lasagne to cook and water to boil.

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She’d have us write down detailed plans of what we were going to do when. You didn’t dare waste a minute in her classes! All of this helped me in a wider context: I learned to parallel task in other subjects, and with non-school-related things as well.

Later - much later, in fact - at university, I read about the ability of the brain to process things sub-consciously. This made a lot of sense to me. I’d had success revising just before going to sleep, coming back to things a while after I’d first thought of them, and so on.

So how does this relate to you?

• Think about how you can parallel-task every day.

• See performing repetitive tasks (e.g. washing-up) as time to parallel-task.

• Change activities once you’re out of a state of flow. Mix things up - go from working on the computer to running an errand, for example. Your brain can still be processing things from the previous activity. b) There is no such thing as 100% When I was 12 years old I scored full marks on a Religious Education test. It’s fair to say that I was fairly pleased with myself.

One day Mr Surtees, the Headmaster, an ageing, widely-respected gentleman, came and sat next to me as I was finishing my dinner in

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the Dining Hall. He said that he’d heard that I’d got 100% on a recent RE test. I was expecting congratulations, certificates, a pat on the back.

I can’t even remember him saying “well done”. Instead, he told me that he had never given anyone 100% on a test because “there’s always more to learn”. Being surrounded by my friends at the time I gave him a quizzical look and laughed it off, but it stuck with me.

To put a geeky spin on this, never getting to 100% is like being in perpetual ‘beta’. If you imagine yourself as a software product, you will never be so feature-complete that you are ‘finished’. I think that’s a good way of looking at things.

There is no-one on Earth who doesn’t need improvement in every area of their life. The Olympic sprinter can always go faster. The monk can pray more earnestly and more often. The teacher can explain things better.

Just because people ‘wind down’ at the end of the week and (especially) at the end of the term, doesn’t mean that you should. In fact, it might be worth planning for projects to start a couple of weeks before the end of a half-term, or on a Friday. Yes, I agree that’s not easy, but then this isn’t #uppingyourgame: an educator’s guide to the easy life, is it?

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In an earlier section I talked about Dan Pink’s idea of ‘calling yourself into the office’. Try that, or something like it, and see it as an opportunity for self-improvement. Be focused, don’t necessarily take your norms and values from those around you. That counts double if you don’t have a high opinion of them. c) Yes and no The third thing that’s really stuck with me from my Middle School years is something that Mrs Greener, at various points my form tutor and English teacher, RE teacher and Geography teacher, used to repeat often.

She would say that each of us should, “Say what you mean and mean what you say.” Mrs Greener would say this if we’d been caught lying, if we were having trouble explaining a concept... in fact most days she would find a way to work it into the dialogue she had with us as a class and as individuals.

Not only does this demonstrate the power of repetition, but it’s extremely good advice. I can remember one occasion when she indicated that Jesus’ exhortation to “let your yes mean yes and your no mean no” could essentially be boiled down to “say what you mean and mean what you say”!

You’ll have read and heard lots of people who say that if you want to become more productive then you need to say “No” more often. And

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that’s good advice if you’ve previously been the type of person that people put-upon and delegate things to unnecessarily.

But saying “No” isn’t a good long-term strategy. Turning things down and being uncooperative without taking into account context is foolhardy, in my book.

Instead, you need to be decisive. The productive person, as I mentioned in an earlier section, is serene, reliable and focused.

That’s a choice that they’ve made. If you commit to something, then you really need to give it your best.

That’s why Mrs Greener’s advice about saying what you mean and meaning what you say is so valuable. People respect those who have put themselves in a position where they can be decisive.

So what does this mean in practice?

• Go on the school trip, conference or away day if you’re asked to (and you want to) - after all you should already know whether it falls at a convenient time.

• Spot whether someone is delegating to you out of laziness or to give you an opportunity (these are not mutually exclusive!) Respond accordingly.

• Take on extra responsibilities that fits in with your interests, career aspirations and other commitments. Remember that

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your idea of where your career takes you needs to be flexible within certain parameters!

3.2. Productivity killers You actually already know what the productivity killers are, I’m just refreshing your memory here. I think the biggest are: • • • • •

Unhealthy food Lack of exercise Too much alcohol Tinkering (perfectionism) Lack of discipline

Imagine your productivity to be like a living flame inside you. There are things that you can do to ‘stoke up’ this flame, and there are things you can do to diminish it, or effectively dowse it.

To extend the metaphor, imagine that everything you put into your body has some type of effect on that living flame. Caffeine, for example, is the equivalent of pouring some kerosene on a bonfire massive short-term boost, but not something you can rely upon as a long-term solution.

Likewise with food and exercise. Imagine that the food you put into your body is feeding that ‘living flame of productivity’. If you feed

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your body lots of processed food with high levels of sugar in it, then it will have a similar effect to the kerosene on the bonfire. But with food it’s worse: you end up with a physical reminder in stored fat.

As I’ve mentioned before (because it’s important!) exercise is central to any kind of productive system. It’s good for your body and it’s good for your brain. It can help you lose weight, if that’s what you want to do. It can motivate you (through a ‘virtuous circle’) to want to eat less of those foods that have a negative effect on your living flame.

The last two major productivity killers, however, are more psychological than physical. Again, I’ve already touched on the dangers of perfectionism and endless tinkering. You need to recognise it for what it is. My thinking on this was changed 180˚ by Seth Godin and what he terms ‘the resistance’: Are you a serial idea-starting person? If so, what can you change to end that cycle? The goal is to be an ideashipping person.3 In other words, you need to be someone who delivers. It’s not good enough to have lots of good ideas and to get started on things. You need to finish and sign-off on things as well.

My emphasis. Taken from Seth Godin’s post Random rules for ideas worth spreading (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ 2010/01/random-rules-for-ideas-worth-spreading.html) 3

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Whilst I’m certainly not advocating comprising on quality, you have to recognise the asymptotic relation between time (x-axis) and quality (y-axis):

The blue line is ‘perfection’, ‘everything running completely smoothly’, the guaranteed ‘Outstanding’ lesson observation, ‘100%’, whatever impossibly-high standard you are used to aiming for.

The black line is an asymptote - a line that approaches, but never quite reaches, the blue line. The productive individual recognises

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where along that black line it’s appropriate to stop and deliver. This may alter for different workplaces, for different colleagues, on different projects, and different in your personal life than in your professional life.

Take, for example, the situation, familiar to many, where in any given week you deal with two vastly contrasting projects. One project contains enthusiastic, ‘well-behaved’ and committed colleagues; the other tests your patience and diplomacy skills.

With the first project, in my experience, you can leave things a lot more open-ended. It doesn’t particular matter if everything looks perfect: those involved in the project will enjoy investigating, exploring and discussing. You may not have to go too far down the black line to ensure that it’s a successful project.

The second project, on the other hand, is much more likely to need in the first instance, at least - more structure. Communications will need to be more much carefully organised and planned. You need to think through everything not just in terms of space and time but almost in terms of ‘behaviour management’. It’s like teaching; you have to model good behaviours, and you may have go further down the black line to ensure a successful project.

The final productivity killer I want to address here is discipline - or rather, a lack of it.

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In western society, discipline is seen as almost in opposition to freedom and liberty. I’d like to argue that, in fact, it’s on a different spectrum. Discipline is not the same as obedience; it’s focused on self-improvement, not (semi-)enlightened slavery.

Let me explain. ‘Discipline’, according to most dictionary definitions is ‘a system of rules of conduct or method of practice’. 4 To be ‘disciplined’, therefore, is to adhere to a system of rules of conduct and practice a method often. No more, no less.

It’s up to you to decide how you are going to be disciplined. As I’ve explained before, context is an extremely important factor in any kind of system of productivity. Everyone has different colleagues, , concerns and commitments.

That’s not to say, however, that those who have found a system that works for them can’t share what they’ve found useful. And that’s what I intend to do briefly in the following.

There’s five things I’ve found to be extremely helpful in terms of remaining disciplined to help my productivity. These are: 1. Exercise at the right times: For me, this is early in the morning as it puts me in the right mood for the day

4

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

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(although I do greatly enjoy running by the light of lampposts late at night...)

2. Set aside time to read: You can only apply the knowledge and skills that you have to any given situation. I try to have one fiction and one non-fiction book on the go at any given time. The fiction relaxes me in order to help me get to sleep (audiobooks are great for this!) and the non-fiction is usually education, business or design-related.

3. Under-promise and over-deliver: I realised as a teenager how annoyed my parents were be if I said I would be back for, say 10pm and I was back at 10.15pm. If, however, I said I was back at 10.30pm and returned at the same time they were pleased. Similarly, be realistic about timescales. Push yourself, but aim to deliver early on deadlines rather than over-running. This is also virtuous circle-making!

4. Write lists: There’s a reason why to-do applications are popular on the iPhone app store: Productive people use lists.

I’m increasingly using a hybrid online/offline system with some of the apps I shall mention in Chapter 4 as well as a Moleskine notebook that I carry everywhere with me.

5. Don’t multitask: Psychologically-speaking, multitasking the carrying out of several conscious tasks simultaneously -

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is impossible. Those who think they’re multitasking are actually giving fractional, but sequential, attention to the tasks around them. Productive people work on one task and take regular breaks. And they tend to deliver before their deadlines by doing so!

3.3. Aids to productivity In addition to doing the opposite of what you’ve just read in the previous ‘Productivity killers’ section, you may find the follow useful as an aid to productivity: • Drink coffee (more specifically, caffeine) - It can aid concentration, although research has shown it’s not so great for creative and pattern-recognition activities.

• Create routines (and make associations) - I try to work on different things in different physical locations. This ensures movement, breaks and the association of place and activity can lead to increased productivity. It can just be different places in your office, using the dining room table instead of your study, going down to the coffee shop, and so on. But it works!

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• Cultivate relationships - Patching up relationships takes a great deal of mental and emotional effort. That’s why it’s best to, wherever possible, maintain good, positive personal and professional relationships. It helps your productivity.

• Avoid stress - No-one can be truly productive whilst undergoing stress. As I’ve explained earlier in #uppingyourgame, stress and pressure are two different things. Some call the latter Eustress and you can avoid the it turning into damaging stress by being organised and avoiding situations which you know cause your blood pressure to rise!

• Contemplate - To contemplate is to create a space for thinking. Usually this means being away from others in a quiet, often technologically-barren place. For me, that’s washing-up (one of the reasons we don’t have a dishwasher!), in the shower and even on the toilet. My best creative ideas and productive thoughts come in these places.

• Use shipping dates - I’ve recently started pinning ‘shipping dates’ to the wall of my study since reading the book Linchpin. The idea is to have a physical, bold reminder of deadlines that are coming up that can’t be missed.

Anything and everything that’s important can go on here: schemes of work that need to be written, packing for trips that needs to be done, and so on. The best idea is to break

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down one large shipping date into smaller, more manageable, chunks.

• Listen to music - I find that music without words usually helps me to stay focused and positive. What kind of wordless music varies dramatically upon the time of day, what I’m doing and the mood I’m in. Sometimes it will be ambient almost-not-there music like some Brian Eno, sometimes it will be in-your-face hard trance, sometimes classical.

Experiment. See what works for you.

3.4. Productivity in times of adversity There’s times in everyone’s life when we get less sleep then we need.

It may be that a newborn baby has come into your life, you may be near a project deadline, it might be travel chaos that’s beyond your control. Whatever it is, there’s ways to deal with it that enable you to be as productive as possible given the circumstances.

Most of the time, though, our day-to-day productivity is affected by a rough night’s sleep. There’s many reasons for this - too many to go into, but we’ve all been there. The following ten hints and tips are designed to help you get from surviving to thriving in the shortest amount of time. They’re sequential, so when you have a rough night come back to this section and put these into practice!

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a) Don’t snooze The likelihood is that if you’re having a rough night you’ll probably wake up half an hour to an hour before your usual waking-up time.

Get up! Whilst it’s tempting to stay in bed, snoozing actually has a worse effect on your productivity than getting up and getting on with your day.

You can always go to bed early at the other end! b) Have a cold(er) shower I remember reading in Men’s Health magazine that having a cold shower after running or a work-out helps your muscles to recover more quickly. It also stimulates your skin. In fact, I end every shower that I have with a quick burst of freezing cold water. This means that even in the middle of winter the bathroom seems warm…

In terms of our current focus, a cold (or colder) shower stimulates your skin and makes you feel a bit more alive/human. It gives you a jolt similar to a double espresso… c) Bounce!

My wife’s got a mini-trampoline. It was a bit of a fad: she’d bounce during watching Friends back in the day. I noticed that she would

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always seem happier afterwards, but attributed this to watching comedy.

In fact, research shows that bouncing stimulates the brain and releases endorphins. You may not have a trampoline, but you can bounce on the spot. Aim for 100 bounces – it’s enough to make you slightly out-of-breath and feel a lot better! d) Focus on others The chances are that if you’ve had a rough night then anyone else you live with will have done as well. Focus on them. Make sure they’re OK. The last thing you want to do is have an argument with people you live with and care about because you’re both tired.

Do something nice for them – make them breakfast, iron their clothes, smile at them – whatever. The very act of focusing on someone other than yourself will make you feel better. e) Eat carbs If you’re anything like me you’ll be tempted to head for something sweet for breakfast the morning after a rough night. It’s the sugar your body’s craving. Instead of heading for the leftovers of last night’s dessert, choose something that will stand you in good stead for the day.

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Try some muesli, perhaps with some fruit. Not a big fan? Eat lots of toast. The carbohydrates will release energy slowly, keeping you productive until you next meal. Choose sugar, and you’ll suffer from blood sugar spikes and troughs, making a bad situation worse. f) Write down two things to achieve You might have a to-do list as long as your arm, but focus on just two things to achieve before you get back into bed for that muchanticipated next sleep. Perhaps during your breakfast write down something to achieve before lunch and then another thing to achieve before you head home for the day.

Slimming down your to-do list and focusing on just a couple of goals means that you will feel the sense of achievement experienced when you complete something worthwhile. g) Clear your mind during your commute If you usually listen to the radio or your favourite music, it’s worth abstaining today. Silence is best but repetitive, fairly nondescript music works as well. Think about the two things you need to get done today and think about how to achieve them.

Another thing to do is to let go. It’s easy to be overcome with negative emotions when you’re tired. Let go of frustrations, anger and other negativities that would otherwise affect your productivity.

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h) Stick to routines It’s tempting to try and cut corners when you’re tired, to avoid doing the routine so you can get to the things you’ll be judged on and held accountable for. But those routine tasks are there for a reason: they underpin everything else that you do. So don’t ignore them. Stick to, for example, keeping things tidy, in order, email answered and making your presence known.

The idea is to move from surviving to thriving. Without the routines and workflows that underpin your productive system, you’ll end up in productivity ‘negative equity’. Which is not a good place to be. i) Take a caffeine nap The idea behind a caffeine nap is a simple one: drink a cup of coffee, close your eyes and relax for 15 minutes, wake up and get on with the rest of your day. I find they work best early afternoon an hour or so after lunch.

Even if you don’t go to sleep properly, you will experience moments where you’re not completely awake and you’ll certainly rest your eyes and relax. Then, just as you open your eyes the caffeine will be kicking in and you’ll be ready for the rest of the day!

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j) Read before bed The biggest thing to avoid when you’ve had a rough night is not to have another one immediately afterwards. Whilst bouncing back from one rough night’s sleep is eminently do-able given the advice above, two in a row can kill your productivity until the next weekend.

Don’t look at screens for the hour before you go to bed. Hit the hay earlier than usual. Read something that will take your mind off things. Relax. ______________ ★ RECOMMENDED BOOK • Seth Godin - Linchpin: are you indispensable?

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4. Productivity 2.0 There’s an absolute wealth of websites and applications promising to make you more productive. There are some that will work for most people, some that will work in specific contexts, and some that probably won’t work for anyone. Whilst it’s relatively easy to spot those that fit into the latter category, it’s not so easy to differentiate between those that fit into the first two categories.

What you’ll find in this section, then, are personal recommendations. Most of the apps and services mentioned are free, with those that are paid for being flagged up as such. There’s no affiliate links in here and no-one’s paid me for inclusion in this section. If you’ve followed the advice in previous sections I’m confident that pretty much all of them will lead to some kind of productivity gain, but YMMV. 5 4.1. Apps to aid productivity Productivity implies organization. But what does it mean to be organized? I’d suggest that it means having immediate access to 5

Your Mileage May Vary. See, I’m teaching you acronyms as well. ;-)

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required information and resources. I’m going to make the assumption that both your place of work and your home has a decently-fast and reliable internet connection.

With that in mind, I’d like to make three major recommendations.

In fact, if you take away nothing else from this section apart from using these three (free) tools, then it’s job done.

What are they?

• • •

Dropbox (http://dropbox.com) TeuxDeux (http://teuxdeux.com) Joe’s Goals (http://joesgoals.com)

Used separately, they’re powerful productivity tools for educators.

Used together, they’ll change the way you work. Let me explain.

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Dropbox is a service that synchronizes (‘syncs’) files on your computer with a storage area ‘in the cloud’ (i.e. online). This means you’ve simply got to drag-and-drop a bunch of files into a specified folder for it to be available to every device that can connect to Dropbox (including smartphones like the iPhone).

What’s this great for? It’s meant almost the end of USB flash drives for me. I’ve replaced the ‘Documents’ folder with my

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‘Dropbox’ folder. I stick to a planned folder hierarchy (for work and home) and everything just syncs!

The free account gives you 2GB. But, recommend it to others and, when they sign up for a free account, you both get an extra 250MB (up to a maximum of 5GB). After that it’s $9.99/month for 50GB. Money well spent in my opinion!

TeuxDeux, like most I recommend in this section, is an extremely simple and focused app. Here’s what it looks like:

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That’s right, it allows you to create online lists. The clever thing is that you can click on the task to strike it through and declare it complete. Any tasks that haven’t been striked out automatically carry over to the next day. Simple, but very effective.

What kind of things do I use this for? Everything from making sure that I follow up on things that have been mentioned by colleagues to ideas for blog posts! At the time of writing an iPhone app has just been released, making a good service great!

Joe’s Goals allows you track how often you do things. It’s extremely flexible and is much more useful than it sounds. For example, take my current goals:

As I do them, or at the end of each day, I simply click on the relevant grid square and a satisfying tick symbol appears. If I do

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the activity twice, I can indicate that. Underneath is a space for notes.

What do I use this for? Making sure that I’m doing things that I need to stick to regularly. Things like exercise and working on my Ed.D. thesis. The notes section is handy for recording, for example, what type of exercise I did and/or the book or article I studied.

Other apps I’ve used and would be happy to recommend: Drop.io (http://drop.io) - Create a ‘drop’ for yourself and others to access files. More useful for making resources available to others than for personal use.

Web browser extensions (Firefox/Google Chrome) - There are thousands of these that can make your life a whole lot easier.

In addition to things like YouTube downloaders there are things that will make repetitive tasks a lot quicker to carry out. I recommend you spend some time browsing at least the most popular ones.

Delicious (http://delicious.com) - A online ‘social’ bookmarking app. Some swear by Diigo (http://diigo.com) but I find it overkill.

Tag bookmarks, encourage others to do the same. Never again spend long finding a website you’ve previously visited!

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Google Gears (http://gears.google.com) - Whilst this will be replaced soon with newer technologies, the concept remains the same. It allows you to take online documents,etc. ‘offline’ so that you can continue working on them. Everything synchronizes when you re-establish an internet connection.

Remember the Milk (http://rememberthemmilk.com) - I used to be a ‘Pro’ subscriber to this online To-Do service before I migrated to Google Tasks (https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas) and then to TeuxDeux.

4.2. Apps to aid productivity It’s likely that, no matter what occupation you’re in, you’ve got a ton of digital communication to deal with. Most of this will come through email, which is why it’s vital that you use a decent email client.

For a one-stop shop of online integrated communication tools, I’ve yet to find something better than Google Apps. You might want to encourage the powers-that-be to investigate in Google Apps for your school or business.

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If that’s not possible, then I highly recommend Mozilla Thunderbird as an installable email client. Not only is it free and Open Source, but has extensions in the same way that Mozilla Firefox does to make email a little less painful. And it can connect to your web-based services such as GMail, Hotmail and Yahoo!

Mail. I’d definitely recommend the ThunderBrowse extension for accessing website links within Thunderbird itself!

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A word on email. Don’t let it take over your life. Check it when you want to. Don’t send work-related whilst you’re at home. Note that I say ‘send’ not ‘compose’. A trick I’ve learned is to, if you do check your emails at home in the evenings/on weekends, queue up the emails ready to go but not actually to send them.

Why do this? Because it benefits you whilst sending a clear message to other people. You get to respond to emails when you want to, without being tyrannized by other people’s expectations.

It might seem trivial, but I’ve seen people in floods of tears because of email overload. So do what you can. Keep emails brief and don’t send them unless you really need to!

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In terms of communicating with educators elsewhere, I’d recommend Skype and Twitter (above) over and above email.

This isn’t the place for a how-to guide on getting started with Twitter, but suffice to say it’s worth spending time getting acquainted with how it works and building a network. It’s such a time-saver when it comes to needing quick answers on even niche questions that it’s time very well spent.

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Regarding Skype, I’ve no doubt that, given its popularity, you already use this application at its most basic level. I’d encourage you to go further. By purchasing some Skype credit you can invest in the ‘Skype In’ facility. This allows you to effectively never be ‘offline’ on Skype as phone calls are redirected to your mobile phone.

This is more useful than it sounds: • It allows people in countries worldwide to contact you wherever you are cheaply and conveniently.

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• Your mobile phone number is cloaked - it is not revealed to your Skype contact.

• There are buttons you can place on your website for people to contact you (again, without revealing your number!)

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My final recommendation for communication-related apps is to install a plugin such as Rapportive (GMail), Xobni (Outlook shown above) or an add-on for Mozilla Thunderbird such as the cunningly named MessageFaces. It makes such a difference being able to see that you’re dealing with a real person. These plugins can not only harvest images attached with LinkedIn or social media profiles (such as Twitter) but allow you to set your own. It makes for a more ‘human’ experience.

4.3. Apps for transformational productivity The apps in the previous sections are all great. But they’re not really game-changers. They will help you to become more productive, but in standard ways and using established metrics.

To become transformationally productive requires a different set of apps. Ones that change the game and give you a clear advantage. I can say confidently that the following can help you do that:

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Sleep Cycle (http://bit.ly/sleepcycle) - We don’t sleep evenly when we go to bed. At times we’ll be dreaming, at times in deep sleep, and at times on the verge of waking-up. Sleep Cycle is a £0.59 app that uses the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer to wake you at the best time in the 30-minute window before the time you specify. Result? Jumping out of bed rather than hauling your carcass into the shower each morning!

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Spotify (http://spotify.com) - Physical media is an anachronism these days. By all means keep some to reminisce about, but it’s not practical for day-to-day life in the 21st century. Instead, try something like Spotify. You can access most of the music every recorded and store some for offline listening. Result? Faster access to relevant and enjoyable music, both at home and in the classroom (both of which can have a positive knock-on effect on productivity!)

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Amazon Kindle (http://amazon.com) - Yes, I love books too. But I love reading more. Which is why I’m ready to access books-ondemand when I get my Apple iPad using services such as Amazon Kindle. I’ve already got it installed on my iPhone and Macbook Pro, and loving it.

There’s still a place for the serendipitous discovery in charity bookshops, but the instant nature of the access to the knowledge found in Kindleformatted books is not to be ignored!

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Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) - There are at least two ways to use Google Docs. One is what I would call a ‘1.5’ ways simply replacing Microsoft Word and the like. But, in essence, Google Docs is a wiki. It has a revision history. It is accessible from anywhere. It’s a perfect place for short-to-medium length thoughts and ideas. It’s a great place to quickly collaborate with others in (at least initially) a private way. Check out all of its features to make sure you’re making best use of it!

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4.4. Future productivity-related apps As I’ve mentioned above, the apps I use change every so often. It’s a case of using the best tool for the job. Which, of course, means that you not only need to be aware of potentially productivityenhancing apps, but need to experiment with them to see if they’re worthwhile.

Something to remember if you know you’re going to be moving between apps is the importance of data transport. That is, it should be easy to get your data into an app and easy to get it out.

This gives you flexibility. I’d suggest that if you experiment with an app and you can’t get your data out of it easily, you jettison it immediately. Trust me, it can be a whole world of pain otherwise!

I’ve found Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com) to be a consistent and reliable place to find high-quality apps that can enhance productivity. Registering for an account as soon as you come across an app, of course, almost guarantees that you get the username you require. I’d recommend that you use the same username across all apps, and incorporate the name of the app into a standard password you use across all the apps you use. To use a made-up example: User: charliebrown Password: peanutsyoutube

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Otherwise, if you use the same password for all accounts, someone figuring it out could quickly and easily access all of your data! :-o Finally, when you come across a new app that could lead to productivity gains, share it. Tweet about it, blog about it, tell people face-to-face. You’ll find that building up, or being part of, a community of users is far more valuable than going it alone. You get tips, ideas, and ways of overcoming obstacles. Be open! ______________ ★ RECOMMENDED BOOKS • Gina Trapani - Upgrade Your Life: the Lifehacker guide to working smarter, faster, better

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5. Helping make others more productive “No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”

(John Donne, Meditation XVII) Personal productivity is all well and good, but everyone has to deal with and work with other people. You may have the most honed and perfect system of personal productivity in the world, but if those around you are unproductive this will impact you negatively.

That’s why the final section of #uppingyourgame is all about helping make other people more productive - about #uppingTHEIRgame! You’ll learn three ways to influence people in general, the theory of ‘mindsets’ and a five-step plan of action.

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5.1. How to influence people To help make people more productive you have to learn how to influence people in general. In my experience there’s three ways to do this. I’ll share the first two with you but I believe it’s the third that’s really powerful.

The first way is to appeal to emotions. Advertising does this a lot.

You’re made to feel that “You’re worth it” or that purchasing a product will make you happy, special, or good-looking. Making other people happier leads them to feel more positively about you, and as a result, they’ll be more receptive to what you have to say. That’s why people who evangelize pretty much anything tend to smile a lot!

Secondly, people are influenced by those they admire. Again, this is a staple of advertising. Celebrities are paid to endorse products because they lend some of their ‘star power’ to the product. It’s the ‘halo effect’ - people think (either consciously or subconsciously) that if someone they admire does or uses something, then it’s worth them doing or using that too.

But there’s a third way, something that advertisers haven’t really got access to. It’s the basis of the plot of the film ‘Inception’ and is the marketer’s holy grail. What is it? Making other people think an idea was their own. Not only does doing this allow for greater

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ownership but it increases self-confidence, especially if you then endorse their idea (which was originally your own!).

This isn’t as Machiavellian as it sounds. After all, the reason for doing it is to raise their levels of productivity. Granted, this is partly - or mostly - for your own ends, but it will also have a beneficial effect on their own life.

Helping people to think an idea was their own can be done via almost any indirect method. For example: • Email a link to a third party’s blog post/tweet/Facebook update.

• Lend a book.

• Suggest to a someone’s friend that they could do with hearing some advice.

If you tell someone a fantastic piece of advice and they successfully implement it, then they’re implicitly in your debt. If they admire you and set you on a pedestal somewhat, then this doesn’t matter too much. If you work in the same office, however, this is a barrier. The best they can have done is to emulate you.

Much better to allow them to ‘discover’ an idea, method or approach themselves. Given that you will have learned from somewhere, just share that source. Lend the book, email the blog

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post, tell their friend something awesome that they will just have to share with them!

In the end, it’s about deflecting attention away from yourself and your ego and onto the idea, method or approach. Distancing yourself slightly from it has the added benefit of reducing the likelihood of you coming across as a zealot…

5.2. The five-step plan Influencing others, however, is but a part of a wider series of steps to help make other people more productive. I can only go off my own experience and that of people of whom I’ve read, but I believe there to be broadly five steps: 6. Establish a positive relationship 7. Outline where you get your ideas from 8. Be generous 9. Get other people involved 10.Expect the best By establishing a positive relationship you’re showing that you value that person. In other words, you’re moving beyond the “Hello, how are you?” kind of statements that provide a cushion to having to interact in a meaningful sense and do engage at an emotional level. The test of this is whether you’d be able to talk

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about something that’s important to that person if you were left alone in a room with them. This means knowing their interests, what’s currently going on in their life, and the best way to ask them about the two.

As I mentioned in the previous section, sharing where you get your ideas from is extremely powerful. Not only does it distance your ego from the ‘productivity transaction’ but it means you can have fruitful, purposeful conversations with that person. You have a shared, common reference point. Suggesting a podcast, book, TV programme or other kind of media lends objectivity to the meaning you are trying to convey.

Generosity, unfortunately, seems to be on the decline in western culture. As Seth Godin notes, there’s no reason why this should be the case. In fact, those who wish to influence should be more generous, especially given that we can create digital media digital ‘gifts’ - for free (or at very low cost).

But give away more than that which costs you nothing. People are drawn to those who are generous. To be generous means that you’ve got things sorted, finished and your life organised enough to be of benefit to others. So ‘lend’ books without expecting them back. Give people small gifts if you think it’s going to increase their productivity. In some Native American tribes, the chief would ceremoniously give away everything they owned. Why? It was a symbolic way to show that they had the power both to own

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and dispose of possessions in a way far greater than anyone else in the tribe.

I once heard that people have to be ‘evangelized’ to around seven times before they’re ‘converted’. I think this applies as much to secular things as to the religious. Therefore, if someone needs to hear a thing several times, it’s best if they don’t all come from you.

Talk to those who know the person better than you that you’re trying to influence towards increased productivity. Ask the close friend if that person has always done X, Y or Z in that particular way. Ask if there’s a reason for that. Mention other ways that may be more productive. Usually the friend will pass on your suggestion.

The great thing about this approach is that you seem not to be involved and the person you want to influence gains ownership of the change they make. Again, it’s about removing your ego from the ‘productivity transaction’.

Finally, expect the best. If you were at a restaurant and received a sub-par meal or bottle of wine, you’d send it back. Likewise, if someone’s produced some work that you don’t think’s up to scratch, don’t stand for it. Challenge them to raise their bar, up their game.

The best way to approach such conversations is to ask “What’s the matter?” or “Are you OK?” This is a fairly non-confrontational

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conversation starter. If they wonder why you’re asking, reply that they usually produce such stellar work that you thought there must be something wrong. If they invite you to point out what the problem is with the work, point towards something objective – for example the amount of time it took, sloppy mistakes, etc.

You might think that this last idea is something that only line managers can do for those they have the responsibility of reviewing. That’s not the case. Those who have the influence in the organization are not necessarily those who make the most money, fill in the forms or have the required signature.

These five steps are somewhat sequential. You can’t have the kind of conversation required in Step 5 without knowing people well.

Work through them and see if they make a difference. They have for me!

5.3. The power of Mindsets Whilst I’m not a huge fan of pigeon-holing people or setting up dichotomies, one of the ideas that’s been most influential to my thinking over the last couple of years does just that. In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck points to studies showing that people broadly fall into two categories:

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1. Those with a ‘static’ or ‘fixed’ mindset 2. Those with a ‘growth’ or ‘incremental’ mindset You can already guess which is the most preferable, but what do they mean in practice?

Those in the former camp, those with a ‘static’ mindset, believe that intelligence and talents are fixed, usually at birth. Therefore, effort is independent of success. You’ve either got it or you haven’t.

Those in the latter camp, those with a ‘growth’ mindset, believe that intelligence and talents are incremental, that they can be developed. Effort is therefore equated with success: you can get better at things by trying.

It turns out that these beliefs are learned behaviours. The classic example cited is the way that children are praised. If the positive feedback mentions how ‘clever’ they are, then eventually they will grow to think that this is something they’ve ‘got’. If, however, the positive feedback talks about ‘how hard they tried’ then they will grow to consider trying hard to be essential to success.

Beliefs, of course, can be changed. Without getting too philosophical (that section was at the start of #uppingyourgame!) a thinker by the name of W.V. Quine showed in the 20th century that individuals have a ‘web of beliefs’ that contain core beliefs

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and more peripheral beliefs. Such belief systems are more malleable when young, but can still be altered later in life. A religious conversion would involve a seismic shift in belief system, for example, as it affects core beliefs.

It’s difficult to change some of our habits, and this is especially true of the way we speak. I’ve found it hard to praise my young son not for what he’s achieved but for the effort involved in achieving it. When you’ve been surrounded by people who have contributed to your own (previously static) mindset, it’s difficult not to replicate it.

Instead, try to use the language of the growth mindset. It may feel awkward and unnatural at first but, having gone through the process myself, I can promise that this passes and people respond to you more positively. They think “Yes, I did try hard with that!”

You’re recognizing their effort. Of course we still recognize talent, but realize that it’s also the result of training, determination and motivation.

So attempt to surround yourself with people who have ‘growth’ mindsets. If that’s not possible, ensure that you talk in such a way that they’re caused to question what constitutes ‘talent’, ‘intelligence’ and the like. Share with them - through methods mentioned in previous sections - the work of Dweck and other people in the field. Help them to understand that productivity is something you can get better at!

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______________ ★ RECOMMENDED BOOK • Carol Dweck - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

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6. Conclusion So here it is, the end of the journey. You may have read through #uppingyourgame quickly in a couple of sittings. You may have read a section, attempted to implement some of the advice, and then come back to it. However you’ve approached it, I hope that this will become a resource that you come back to often.

The tools recommended in the ‘Productivity 2.0’ will, of course, change. I’m probably already using slightly different apps that those mentioned already: things evolve, but the principles behind them stay the same. In that sense, the advice although specific is generic in application.

This has been my first attempt at writing a book using the ‘OpenBeta’ process I devised. I’ve greatly valued the feedback and encouragement I’ve received from early adopters along the way.

I’m also very fortunate to be surrounded by people who both understand my drive to increasing levels of productivity and are willing to take on board my suggestions.

Do let me know what you think of #uppingyourgame. By all means point out typos, grammatical imprecision and your typographical/design preferences. But I’m particularly interested

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to hear if and when you put into practice some of the ideas this book contains. Did they work for you as they did for me?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Doug Belshaw September 2010

______________ ★ LINKS blog: http://dougbelshaw.com/blog email: dajbelshaw@gmail.com twitter: http://twitter.com/dajbelshaw

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Thanks • My family for allowing me the time to work on projects like these • Those who gave valuable feedback on earlier iterations of this book • The authors and other individuals already mentioned in the text, for their inspiration.

• Joi Ito (pictured) who walks the walk at Creative Commons by licensing his magnificent photographs for commercial use.

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