Tools for Thought

A friend of mine from out of town met me yesterday in a cafe, catching me at the tail end of my weekly review. When she asked what I was doing, I explained the process, and she responded, “I used to do lists, but they just turned out to be too much work. I found that I can get one or two things down in the time it takes to make a list.”

The latter statement is true. It’s certainly possible to complete one or more tasks in the time it would take to make a list, but that’s not the point of a weekly review, nor is it the point of a list; nor is it the point of taking a systematic approach to personal organization. The value of having a task or time management system is perhaps best illustrated by comparing it to its absence.

Batch processing vs. doing everything now

You guesstimate that the email you have to write to Susan will take about 10 minutes. The round trip to and from the hardware store to get the a replacement washer for your leaky faucet might take 30 minutes. Unboxing and hooking up the flat screen TV you got the family for Christmas will probably take on hour or more.

You can do any one of those activities in less time than it would take to do a weekly review, but collecting them and putting them on their appropriate lists — Computer, Errands, Home — could be done in under a minute or two. By collecting on clarifying your inventory of projects during a block of non-doing time, you finish the thinking about them in advance, so that during the week you can focus exclusively on doing rather than rethinking. Just-in-time execution is like running your washing machine every time you have an article of clothing to wash.

Instead of asking, “What should I do now?”, you only have to look at the list that corresponds with where you happen to be at that moment. You’re sitting in front of a computer, so writing the email to Susan seems like a good option. Or you’re sitting in your car, and you notice that stopping at the hardware store before going home would be a smart idea.

If, on the other hand, your thinking hadn’t been done in advance, thoughts about the faucet might occur while you’re sitting in front of the computer, and you might decided to get in your car to get the washer. Since the errand isn’t on a list, and it exists strictly in working memory, you’re either compelled to “do it now” before you forget about it, or allow it to consume continuous partial attention while you’re writing your email to Susan. Instead of your holding the errand in your day planner, your mind becomes the day planner.

By giving yourself more time to think about all of your projects on the front end, it might have occurred to you to think about less obvious aspects, like getting the HDMI cables that weren’t included with the flat screen TV — another task to add to your consolidated Errands list. Now on the drive home, you can eliminate the next actions for two projects.

Separating thinking and doing

Very few people are aware of how much stress is created by trying to think about what to do next at the time that they need to be doing it. Realizing you need additional cables after taking the TV out of the box is more frustrating than having thought of it beforehand, even though the amount of physical effort is exactly the same.

If you had taken the traditional approach of time management systems — blocking out one or two hours on your calendar to “Set up TV” — you wouldn’t have applied enough granularity of thought to have taken more discrete tasks like “Get HDMI cables” into account. This is the fundamental difference between a To Do list and a Next Actions list.

Clarifying projects and next actions is an executive task. Holding projects and next actions is a clerical task. Use your brain for the executive functions, and offload the clerical work to a system of shelves — list managers, calendars and file cabinets –organized for efficient retrieval. It’s organization that makes a library a more functional tool than a random pile of books in a warehouse. You can spend your time focusing on what to get instead of how or where to get it.

“But I don’t think in lists!”

A frequent protests against using lists is that they’re one-dimensional, and that they don’t reflect the complexity of real life. That’s absolutely true. Thinking always involves more situational awareness than a list can integrate.

But that’s not the purpose of a list. A list is nothing more than a collection of items that require attention. Lists either hold items you need to think about, or the results of items you’ve already thought about. If you write “faucet” on a mind sweep list because it had your attention, you’ll still need to loop back and clarify the meaning of that item: “Faucet . . . I need fix that leaky faucet [puts 'Fix faucet' on project list] . . . What’s the next action? . . . I need to get a new washer from the hardware store [puts 'Get washer from hardware store' on Errands list.]“

More complex issue are simply different context with which to apply the same process. Instead of “thinking about” going to graduate school a chronically amorphous fashion, you capture the thought. putting “grad school” on your mind sweep list to bring the issue into objective awareness, allowing you to think about it concretely.

One possible train of thought might be: “Grad school . . . What’s the outcome I’m looking for? . . . I’m not ready to go back now, but would resolve that situation?  . . . I need to determine which Masters program I’d like to pursue [puts "R & D: Best Masters program" on project list] . . . What’s the next action? . . . I need to ask Ron about the program he completed at Davis [puts "Ask Ron about Davis Masters program" on Calls list].” Notice that no decision has been made to actually go to grad school, but the thinking has moved from idle contemplation to a specific action that would enable an informed decision.

A journal entry would probably allow more thinking in depth about this issue, but as a focus tool, a list is easier to refer to when it’s time to act. Trying to scan a page of prose to extract the actionable items involves rethinking that would probably be too. cumbersome to motivate further action. So if you prefer the journaling approach, but sure to examine what you’ve written for action items, and get them on a list as soon as possible.

(Photo credit: * CliNKer *)

Technorati Tags: GTD, Productivity

For anyone who works at a computer daily, few skills have higher leverage over the course of a career than fast, accurate touch typing. The benefits are by no means limited to professional typists, writers and personal assistants, any more than learning to drive is only of use to chauffeurs. Typing is as much a cornerstone of computer literacy as being able to navigate Word, Excel, Quickbooks or Photoshop.

I wrote about the importance of typing speed a while back, but it wasn’t until recently, when I decided to increase typing speed by double that its value was reinforced. When I wrote the previous post, I tested at 54 wpm, which I considered sufficient. I was wrong. I haven’t reached my goal of 108 wpm, but after two months I’ve reached 93 wpm, and the difference is substantial. Expressing thoughts in writing through inarticulate typing is like trying to talk with a mouth full of marbles — it’s possible, but arduous enough to often feel as though it’s not worth the effort.

Good typing vs. adequate typing

Increasing your typing speed isn’t about bragging rights. And while many typists will argue or imply that doubling typing speed cuts one’s working time in half, the gain isn’t quite that linear.

There is, however, a close correlation between fast (accurate) typing and good typing. Good typing is lacks self-consciousness. You have a sentence in your head, and your fingers carry out that sentence autonomically, not unlike the way your mouth and throat allow you to speak your sentence without conscious effort. Adequate typing gets the job done, but with much more time and effort, and less pleasure.

Less-than-good typists typically think that they’re spending the bulk of their writing time thinking about what to write, rather than how to get that content into the keyboard. They’re generally unaware of the continuous partial attention they give to the mechanical process of typing, so they attribute the additional effort required to continually refocus as “composition.”

Adequate typists are “functionally literate” keyboardists who “know” where all the keys are (at least the ones closest to the home row), and generally strike them with the correct fingers, but have trouble with numbers and shift-key characters. They usually don’t have to look at the keyboard, but do have to spend a split second of low-level thinking determining where their fingers need to move with each keystroke. At least hunt-and-peck typists are self-conscious of their self-consciousness.

A global skill

Increasing typing speed transforms the experience of writing. It can mean the difference between wanting to answer an email immediately or letting it sit in your inbox. It can mean the difference between wanting to comment on a blog post or lurking. It can mean the difference between taking notes or relying on memory. It can mean the difference between learning to navigate frequently used applications with shortcut keys or using the much slower mouse — which requires taking one’s hand away from the keyboard, then returning to the home row (a greater distraction for subpar typists).

Fluid typing is a meta-skill that automatically increases your facility with almost any computer application, even some ostensibly mouse-driven ones like Photoshop. You get into the habit of learning to navigate new apps by looking for the shortcut keys, which often overlap between programs (like Ctrl-O to open a document). When I’m learning a new program, I make it a rule to use the mouse the first time only to see if the menu listing for the desired feature indicates the shortcut key: for instance, in the Windows Live Writer app that I’m using now, I see that the Insert menu shows Ctrl-L to add a picture. Once I know that, I no longer use the mouse to add a picture.

Getting started

I suspect that there’s better offline typing software out there than I’ve come across personally. My experience with CD-ROM titles like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, which are bloated with multimedia content, was frustrating enough to almost put me off of learning to type forever. I much prefer free, online, Flash-based typing tutors like Peter’s Online Typing Course.

POTC consists of 18 progressive lessons. You move on to the next lesson when you can type three refreshed screens of refreshed text in under 60 seconds with no errors. I recommend putting in 30-60 minutes a day, avoiding the temptation to skip to the next lesson prior to completing three screens in a row without error — even if it means sticking to the same lesson unit for several days. Learning to type is a skill for lifetime, so there’s no reason to rush through the content.

In addition to the 18 lessons, the site contains seven exercises to try. I’d suggest skipping them until you’ve completed all of the lessons. The lessons will get boring, but switching to other material for variety’s sake will only increase the training time in the long run. Of these exercises, the most useful one is the “Make Your Own Exercise” tool, which allows you to copy and paste text from whatever real-world source you choose. This can come in handy if the type of text you’re used to working with is different from the norm. For instance, a programmer might want to paste in code to get more practice with special characters, numbers and whitespace.

(Photo credit: Foxtongue)

Technorati Tags: Productivity, Writing

Idleness often stems more from a lack of clarity than a lack of willpower. Taking action on a vague intention always seems to take more effort than a clearly stated task. It’s best to have the task clearly stated, either to another person, on paper or on a computer, than to have it “understood” strictly in mind. Writing down an intention is the first step to manifesting it in the physical world — not in a “Law of Attraction” sense, but for concrete planning. Contractors work from blueprints, not from an architect’s description.

The reduced effort behind a clarified next action comes from eliminating the need to define the action while trying to do it. If the action is defined beforehand, the overhead of thinking about the action is offloaded. That doesn’t necessarily mean that no thinking is involved in an action. Programmers think while writing code, but not about what the particular block of code they’re writing is designed to accomplish. As I write this paragraph, I don’t know the exact wording of the next sentence, but I know thought this paragraph is intended to express. The words are just detail.

Efficiency is doing things once, not doing things fast

When a next action is clearly defined, it’s possible to do a mediocre job of executing it and still be more efficient than the ready-fire-aim approach characterized by Type-A workers. Risk scenarios aside, making fast mistakes never saves time. A few extra seconds of asking and answering “What’s the next action?” can save minutes or even hours of correcting fast mistakes made by prioritizing doing before thinking. But what makes a good next action? When in doubt, there are a few questions that can be asked about a next action it ensure that it’s well-formed.

Can I check it off? It might seem obvious that a next action is something that can be successfully crossed off a list when completed, but sometimes the specific threshold for doing so is unclear. “Look for a job” is an example of a task that lacks a defined end point, beyond actually getting hired. Those looking for a job today need a way of knowing that they’ve “looked for a job,” otherwise it remains an open loop that persists after stopping the search.

What condition needs to be satisfied in order for “Look for a job” to be checked off? The time management approach would be to block a specific amount of time on the calendar. At the end of that time, the task has been completed. Another approach would be to clarify what looking for a job accomplishes — it enables someone to send out resumes or, if possible, make calls. Once it’s possible to send out resumes, the first cycle of looking up job listing is complete.

Can I visualize it being done? Next actions are physical, visible actions. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to take action in the real world on tasks that lack a physical component. “Look for a job” is too vague to qualify as a next action. The ways of looking for a job can be visualized — calling colleagues for leads, reviewing a specific job-related website, reviewing classified ads in the newspaper — and those are next actions; but “Look for a job” is an intention for which there are next actions. When it’s time to work from our action list, we don’t want to spend additional time deciding which action is best suited to the intention. We want to already have decided it and already have it on the list so that no further thinking needs to be done.

Is it a Next Action or a To Do? A good Next Action list only contains physical, visible actions with no dependencies. “Call Sally” only appears on the list if Sally’s phone number is immediately available. Otherwise the action that would enable call to Sally would be the next action, which would either be written down — “Call Michael: get Sally’s phone number” — or done immediately if it can be done in under a couple of minutes.

To Do lists, making no distinction between actions and projects, typically have items like “Look for a job.” The problem with generalized action descriptions is that they create a cognitive dissonance when it’s time to act from them. The brain sees “Look for a job” as the very next thing to do, but still has to choose the very next thing to do (“Review admin jobs on Craigslist”) in order to act on it. Since the disparity is implicit rather than explicit, the internal conflict goes unidentified, and the next thing to do seems harder than it actually is. It becomes easier to put off thinking about it than to revise what’s been written, sowing the seeds of procrastination.

Where does the action take place? One of the advantages of organizing next actions by context is that it compels the user to make them physical and visible. “Draft ‘Anatomy of a Next Action’” doesn’t specify where or how the action will be taken. I have several options for how it gets done. I can type it out on my laptop, write it on a legal pad, or even jot it out on my Notetaker Wallet. When the time comes to write, I want to spend my time writing, not deciding how to write. I put “Draft ‘Anatomy of a Next Action’” on my @Computer list, so that when I’m at a computer, I have a physical trigger for the actions I need to do there.

Clarifying the context for next actions does not require using context lists to organize those actions. Context lists simply batch tasks to resources for added efficiency (e.g. making all phone calls in one sitting). Defining the context for a next action simply binds it to the physical and visible, ensuring that it’s actionable. Be on the looking for “unbounded” words like “contact,” “find,” “ask,” “decide” or “plan.” Those words are pointers to more concrete actions like “email,” “google,” “call,” “review” or “outline” that are tied to specific tools or locations.

(Photo credit: Enoch!)

Technorati Tags: GTD, Productivity

Yesterday, looking at a bank building, I saw a sign whose top surface was covered four-inch wires jutting upwards, acting as a bed of nails for any birds that would have otherwise landed. I’ve always disliked this “solution” to the bird problem, since it aesthetically detracts from the sign and has probably injured more than a few birds. I decided to take a moment to think about what assumptions went into putting spikes on the sign.

• We need to discourage birds from landing on the sign
• We need to keep the sign clean
• We need to keep birds off the sign
• We need to keep birds from settling on the sign

These four assumptions superficially look the same, but they have subtle differences with different implications which, if questioned, can lead to a different design conclusions. The first three assumptions above are the obvious ones, but the one that caught my attention was the fourth one: keeping birds from settling on the sign — which is different than keeping them from landing on the sign.

What if it wasn’t necessary to keep birds from landing on the sign? After mentally running through a few options, I came up with the idea of running wires a few inches over the top of the sign, parallel to the surface, but sleeved with thin PVC pipe (probably in segments). That way, a bird could land on it, but would be unable to remain upright. The sleeve would pivot on the wire, so the bird would have no way of settling on the sign. The same method could easily be applied to power lines: put loose segments of PVC around the wires, and birds couldn’t land on them without spinning on the tubes’ axes.

A few days ago I heard an interview with a forum moderator discussing his strategy for dealing with repeat trolls. Instead of banning them from the forum, he configured the server so that the trolls’ connection would time out. Rather than assuming it was necessary to confront or banish forum members, he simply inconvenienced them to the point where the frustration of posting outweighed the gratification of provoking others.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Thinking is more than problem solving. In addition to solving problems, we often need to turn our attention to understanding those problems in the first place. How a problem is framed is integral to how it’s solved.

Taking a trip to France might raise the question, “How do a learn French?” But the question, “How to I learn French for travelers?”, or better still, “What French expressions do I need to know?” narrows to the problem domain and flattens the learning curve significantly.

The essence of creative thinking is reexamining assumptions. Whenever you have trouble solving a problem, take a closer look at how you’re wording the problem, and try to identify what assumptions are going into the problem definition. Try to spell out several assumptions, not just one. It’s often one of the last assumptions that’s the least obvious, with the greatest potential for overturning.

(Photo credit: Martin Clifton)

Technorati Tags: Creativity, Thinking Operations