Productivity

There are 3 posts tagged Productivity (this is page 1 of 1).

4 arguments why “Start Small”​ is the best productivity advice you can use today

Starting Small may be one of the most powerful ideas related to Motivation, Productivity and Getting Things Done   

Here are 4 arguments why starting small is the best productivity advice you need today  

Argument #1 – Getting Things Done – GTD

David Allen talks about the idea of Next action being clearly defined.. Your next action is not “Mom”​ or “Mom Birthday”​ it is “Call the bakery to order Mom’s birthday cake”.

Small, clearly defined and precise next action is much more likely to get done.  

A big reason why we procrastinate is that we haven’t defined the immediate next step clearly and your brain – being lazy – is trying to avoid the effort required to determine that.

Argument #2 – Fogg Behavioral Model  

Well, if David Allen’s argument isn’t good enough for you… Then let BJ Fogg convince you with his behavior model.  

His formula, B = MAP explains that Behavior = Motivation * Ability * Prompt  

In order to be above the Action Line, you either need to have very high motivation or the task has to be easy to do. While you can’t always control your motivation as it comes and goes, you can break down and simplify the task to reduce require ability and move yourself above the action line. Thus, using “Start small”​ you can trick yourself into action

Argument #3 – Motivation Myth 

Further, on the idea related to motivation. In his Ted talk and his book The Motivation Myth – Jeff Haden says that we may have this idea about the Motivation wrong.. We think that motivation will strike and we’ll take action, but that doesn’t always have to be the case. You can create motivation through this loop -> Effort -> Progress -> Feeling Happy -> Motivation.

So, if your starting point is effort, defining the smallest possible step in the right direction is your best bet to actually get going.  

You can listen to the 7-min Ted talk here.

Argument #4 – Physics – Newton’s laws of motion – 

If none of the arguments above could convince you, hopefully Physics can do the trick. You can’t argue with Newton after all..  

A basic revision of Newton’s 1st and 2nd laws of motion

1st Law – An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force

2nd Law – The acceleration of an object depends on the mass of the object and the amount of force applied or F = ma

Once something is in motion, it doesn’t require as much energy to keep on going. Energy is required in getting started. And of course, the energy required to move is determined by the mass of the object F = ma.  

If you were to apply this idea to a project that you want to start on, the Force required to get started is dependent on the mass / size of the project. Starting small will ensure that the energy required to start moving is small and something you can manage, increasing the likelihood of taking action. The bigger the immediate next task the more likely you are to procrastinate.  

Once you are in motion, may be after you have put in 15-mins to get the project going, you’ll find it much easier to continue going for another 30-mins or an hour, thanks to the first law of motion.  

TLDR

So in summary, if there’s something that you want to get done – define what the simplest/smallest version of that project would be and take action.  

Managing your life with Agile

I have been reading “Getting Things Done” by Dave Allen recently, and tried to adopt some of the principles in my everyday life. I started maintaining a list of all tasks in Notion, and have been following it for a few weeks. This morning as I was explaining how Agile works to a friend, it stuck me that GTD == Agile. 

There’s a lot of overlap between the GTD principles and how we manage our work with Agile. Which essentially means that as effectively I use Agile at work to manage my product (SAP SuccessFactors Compensation), it can be used quite effectively to manage your life as well.

Here’s a recipe for how to implement this for you – 

  1. Write down everything you want to accomplish (product vision → life vision)
  2. Create Epics for big projects that lead you there.
  3. Break down epics into manageable tasks → stories
  4. Have a big backlog of all tasks
  5. Prioritize backlog and pull items into the Sprint (week long?)
  6. Assign story points to each task
  7. Over tea/coffe, have a daily scrum with your life partner
  8. Measure your velocity, how many stories/tasks you are able to complete outside of your meetings and emails.
  9. Measuring velocity will help you plan for next sprints better.
  10. Have a Sprint review at the end of each week and see what can be done better.

So there you go, try this out and let me know what you think of it.

Gaining control of Time

Recently saw this TED Talk on Time Mangement from Laura Vanderkam –

So here’s my To-Do/Takeaway from the talk –

– Write the performance review for next year now — this means that imagine it is the end of 2017 and it was an Awesome year, what 3 to 5 things that I did this year to make this so great..

– Every Friday afternoon — make yourself a 3 category priority list — career, relationship and self.. and lookout for the whole next of the week and see where you can plan those for the next week.