Category: Productivity

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Thoughts About a Potential Improvement System

I just happened to read my post about how a weight training system helped me quite a bit and then mused that I should have something similar for improvements in my business and personally. Then I read the following post which had more ideas about what I could put together.

And those were both way back in 2020 and I haven’t done anything yet.

Well, while I was reading I had some ideas. What if I put together some sort of end-of-day (or maybe start-of-day?) ranking system that lists all of my current initiatives and then I rate myself on how I’m doing on them.

Perhaps weekly, I could remove things that are no longer important initiatives.

And that’s it, that would be the system.

Why would this work?

First, it would keep things very simple. I don’t like the idea of a clumsy, complicated system that’s a lot of work to manage.

But what would make it effective would be the following:

  1. It would keep all important initiatives top-of-mind
  2. It would help me track how they are going over time
  3. It would motivate me to actually make progress so that I can put good numbers down

The last one is probably the most important. This has worked with my daily survey I fill out personally, because every time I put down bad numbers I feel guilty or ashamed, and every time I put down good numbers I feel accomplished.

It motivates me to get those good numbers.

So what would I put on this list?

It would be things like new habits I’m trying to develop, long-term efforts like trying to find and purchase other website hosting companies or setting up my fine art photography website, and possibly short-term projects as well.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the perfect time to respond to this daily questionnaire would be when I’m putting together my to-do list for the day. This happens almost every single day, usually late in the morning.

I think I would phrase the question like, “How do you think you performed  yesterday with regard to the following projects:” and then it would list each of them on a 1-10 scale.

If I didn’t do any work at all on a project, that’s a 1. If I did minimal, maybe higher.

Or for a habit, if I failed at it completely, that’s a 1. I suppose if I did it but it wasn’t great, that’s a… 5 or 6. If it was fully engrained and went perfectly, that’s a 10.

I think this could actually work quite nicely. I just need to decide how I want to do it. I use Google forms for my other questionnaire but I don’t love it. It could get a little weird over time as I’m adding and removing initiatives, too.

But, I think it’s worth a shot at least to start. I’ll make a note to start it up in a couple weeks when I’m back from Mendoza and we’ll see how it goes.

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Avoiding Closed Loops

Maybe “Closed Loops” isn’t the best phrase, but I figured I’d talk about something that has constant daily relevance for me.

This is maybe sort of a boring productivity concept, but it’s still pretty relevant and important.

I need to make sure to never have any “closed loops”, where a task in a process ends and has no systemic method to proceeding to the next step other than relying on me to simply “remember”.

So for example, a place where this happens often is with text messages. I don’t like to receive many text messages in my work but it does happen.

The problem is, I often see these texts while I’m out and can’t do anything about them. If I read it, it’s marked as read forever and there’s nothing ensuring I will address it later.

So what’s an easy solution? The one I employ in this example is to email myself a reminder. Email is one of the strongest parts of my system and any email I receive will be addressed, virtually every time.

In this case, it becomes an open loop that will continue along to the next step without any likely point of failure.

Working with website projects, I need to always make sure to chart out the next step and actually set reminders.

When I speak with a new potential client, I need to leave a note in my to-do to then prepare and send a proposal.

If they accept the proposal, I need to add notes in my to-do to send out invoices and get the project rolling when appropriate.

Essentially, unless every step in a project or task is 100% complete, I always need to write something down to complete the next step.

And I’ve been working on this for years.

I’ve gotten to the point where, anytime I’m in danger of creating a closed loop, it’s like something is screaming in the back of my mind to fix it.

Every so often I ignore it.

Not too long ago, I put some leftovers into my backpack. I knew that I didn’t need to do anything with the backpack when I got home other than put the food anyway, and so I knew I should probably establish some way to ensure I wouldn’t forget it.

But I did. I got home, and forgot about it until the next day and had to throw the food out.

Another common thing that has happened is that I don’t see calendar notifications for calls for the day. Normally I just happen to see them but it’s not a great system.

Sometimes, I’ll see the notification that it’s 30 minutes out, but then totally forget when the time comes.

Normally that would be solved by the little Windows popups, but on my home PC I disabled those entirely because they were an incredibly irritating distraction that was mostly for idiotic and pointless things.

If I could make it JUST tell me when I have calendar events, I’d do that. I also recall that they weren’t super reliable so that’s part of it, too.

I’ve developed two solutions for this specific problem:

  1. When I get the 30 minute notification (or whenever I see that I have something later in the day), I set a timer on my phone to go off a few minutes before. That way I can never forget.
  2. I’ll often add an additional calendar entry in the morning to simply warn me of an upcoming event. Since I always look at my phone in the morning, I’ll always see it.

I could present many more examples but I think these illustrate the point.

It’s just one little snapshot into my productivity optimization. It’s not a massive part of it but it’s still quite important.

I don’t have much of a point on this one other than that I need to continue improving this and ensuring that nothing ever gets left.

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I Want to Feel Obsessive Over Things Again

I recall that not too long ago, with almost every new thing I would become obsessed. I would learn a little bit about a topic and I would feel incredibly motivated to spend an incredible amount of time learning about it and practicing it.

I haven’t felt that way in a while.

I suspect that what I was feeling was a surge of effective dopamine and related neurotransmitters that made me excited and hyper-focused on the topic or activity at hand.

If that’s true, then the question is: why don’t I have that anymore?

One of my friends describes his affinity for video games as an “addiction”. When he starts playing, everything else disappears and he just has to keep going. He is extremely motivated and focused on the game.

I don’t want quite that level perhaps, but in general it is sort of what I want. I want things to utterly captivate me. I want to feel, even if fleetingly, like nothing else matters and truly dive into something like I used to.

I’ve learned a lot about dopamine and other neurotransmitters lately and specifically about things like dopamine fasts and other general ways in which you can make them more effective.

I’m already doing most of the things that are suggested like not drinking, avoiding most social media, and generally avoiding addictive-type things that give you lots of dopamine and leave you resistant to it when you need it.

It’s possible that over time, I’m going to feel everything come back and I’ll feel exactly how I did before.

If not, I think I need to put some more thought into what else I can do to help it along.

I’ve considered also that it’s possible my other regular activities are using up the dopamine in a healthy way and there just isn’t any left for other things.

For example, I workout regularly, I study a variety of things daily, and obviously I work everyday and have many habits related to that. Is it possible that these things are using it all up?

I don’t think that’s the case, but it is possible!

I think I just need to keep an eye on it and see how it goes.

If, at some point down the road, I feel like I am back to where I was, I could consider testing bringing some of my old things back and seeing if it has any effect on it. It would be interesting to see what the primary causes were.

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Intelligence Has Way Less to do with Success Than Other Factors

I wrote a post with basically the same title and premise back in January 2019 and, funny enough, I just read it as part of my regular review of old posts.

Today I’m going to present a bit of a different perspective, though it’s the same at heart.

I don’t want to give away enough details to identify this person, but I recently was thinking about how hard it is to work with someone in my life. And I put some thought into why that is.

This person isn’t dumb and isn’t unfriendly, but they are incredibly ineffective in a lot of ways. The primary reasons seem to be:

  • Lack of accountability
  • Lack of a system to organize tasks that need to be done
  • Inability to think critically and develop novel solutions
  • A sense that things outside their normal scope of care are either unimportant or outside of their control
  • General lack of initiative
  • Total lack of follow-through

These are all things that most people struggle with at some point or another. And none of them really have anything to do with intelligence (though it can help a bit).

But in the case of this person, I would say that these are the reasons they are difficult to work with and also are likely causes for any failures or lack of success they’ve had elsewhere, as well.

It could be totally different for everyone, but these are the main things I’ve seen with this person.

Everyone starts out with tons of weaknesses. Some affect them more than others. Intelligence might help solve some of those problems or improve those weaknesses, but by itself, it won’t accomplish anything.

I’m thinking now that the single most-important traits (or group of traits) is probably the ability to accurately reflect on one’s own weaknesses and to effectively improve or compensate for them.

Essentially, it’s the ability to accurately answer the question, “what’s holding me back?”

And then, of course, to figure out a way to overcome whatever the answer is.

More broadly, this could really be described as having a “growth mindset,” though I generally think of a growth mindset as being entirely internal, whereas external factors could also be holding you back and you still need to be able to overcome them.

A related trait that may be just as important is the ability to effectively identify and take advantage of the right opportunities. Sometimes there may not be anything holding you back, but you still need to be able to figure out which opportunities to pursue, and how to stick with them and pursue them effectively.

That last part is where I feel I’m weakest right now and where I really need to push forward. I’ve identified some excellent opportunities and feel I have everything in place to go after them.

I just need to do it.

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Ignoring Things to Give Them Time to Resolve vs. Being Proactive

I’ve heard two approaches to dealing with all of the tasks work and life through at you. Both seem to be championed by modern thinkers and yet they are diametrically opposed.

Supposedly Napoleon would wait a week or two before opening any letter he received. The idea was that most problems would resolve themselves, and there’s no sense wasting time on something that doesn’t actually need your help.

It makes sense when you think about it, and in my experience is absolutely true.

It’s easy to assume it’s just a terrible idea and that Napoleon happened to succeed in spite of this poor strategy. You’d think that in war, particularly, having rapid knowledge and acting on it would be a game changer. And my understanding is that it was once it was possible.

And yet, there’s some logic to it.

It is completely contrary to what I’d consider to be a considerably more popular idea among efficiency experts and self-help gurus. The idea that you need to proactively manage everything so that you avoid ever having to put out fires.

This is certainly more of the approach I’ve attempted to adopt in my life, and it does seem to be effective at making things calm and predictable and also allowing me to be as productive as possible.

It’s one of the primary components of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and basically every clone of that book ever released. Supposedly most people are just flying by the seat of their pants and simply react to avoidable emergencies as they come along.

So what do I make of this?

I want to believe there is some kind of middle ground between the two concepts. However I think the reality may be a bit more nuanced.

I’m not sure you have to be one or the other.

Something tells me that it’s more an issue of figuring out the things that are in your control, important, and also your responsibility.

Napoleon choosing to remain ignorant of problems within his empire sort of feels like procrastination. He could have simply read the letters right away and determined that he could ignore them. Or had one of his people simply respond and say that it’s their responsibility to solve it.

Or perhaps, had he delegated and established roles and responsibilities better from the start, he would have never even received the letter to begin with because the issue would have been dealt with locally.

I think there is a very small amount of middle ground for some things, however. For example, my recent post suggesting that responding to emails within a day is just fine, and that responding in an hour is totally unnecessary.

I receive emails several times a week with people having issues with their devices or their website that they quickly resolve on their own and let me know they don’t need me.

I think there’s room for that.

But for the most part, if I’m focusing on things that are important, in my control, and my responsibility, I shouldn’t be wasting too much time on other tasks regardless.

I suspect that people who employ the Napoleon strategy really only benefit from it because they end up only putting time towards the really important things, and end up ignoring most of the distractions.

That feels like more of a side-effect than the actual intention.

I have plenty of posts discussing more about that.

So overall, I’d say I can safely ignore the Napoleon approach and focus on being proactive.

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The Importance of Responding in 24 Hours, but Not 1 Hour

In my business, I consider it very important to respond to emails within 24 hours. Sometimes this gets stretched out a little depending on when emails are sent, but I always respond within the next business day.

That’s important, and it is sufficient to make my clients feel like I’m on top of things, I’m responsive, and it’s also fast enough that I don’t miss out on things or have other major problems crop up because I didn’t address something soon enough.

I also do tend to scan email more frequently, and if there’s ever an emergency, I can deal with that right away, but it’s not usually a problem.

But what’s important to note is that it is absolutely not important to me to respond within 1 hour.

I think tons of people make it their goal to respond to things immediately, and it’s just entirely pointless.

Sure, it will impress some people, but it doesn’t typically provide very much additional value, and more importantly: in order to achieve it, you have to be willing to give up a ton.

The only people I know that do this are the ones who get notifications – often audio – every single time an email arrives.

In my opinion, nobody who is doing that could possibly be producing quality work. Just like a distracted partner scrolling through Instagram ever 3 minutes on a dinner date, they simply aren’t present enough to put serious thought into things and do a good job at anything other than responding to emails quickly.

So I think 24 hours, in this case, is the sweet spot.

But this makes me wonder: what else is like this? What are some things that people (or, more relevantly: I) do that that maybe take a lot of extra work and provide little additional value?

Are there any other notable areas where I may be well outside the sweet spot?

The answer has got to be “yes”.

Some categories could be:

  • When I’m working and/or available during the day (or week)
  • The level of detail in my communications
  • Pursuit of marketing opportunities
  • How much time I spend working on the business

And the list goes on.

Of these, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I think I’m happy with my work hours. I’m available enough but still retain flexibility for other non-work opportunities.

I perhaps do communicate a bit too much, but I do almost everything via email and I can type really fast, so I don’t feel that it takes up that much of my time.

I’ve been slacking in marketing opportunities, for sure. Writing in this blog has essentially been all I’ve done. So that one is nowhere near the sweet spot.

Likewise, working on the business has probably been slacking a bit.

There are many things I’m aware of that I could and should be doing more with. But I think I’m more curious with this blog post to determine if there’s anything else I’m actually being too aggressive in.

Nothing comes to mind, unfortunately (fortunately?). But now I’m thinking about it, and if I figure something out, I’ll write about it.

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I Need to be Having Fun & Enjoying Life OR Working Hard to Maximize Income

I’ve been in the Los Cabos area of Mexico for over a week now, and a though crossed my mind as I was swimming in the ocean near where I’m staying.

I need to basically either be enjoying myself, trying new things, and taking advantage of everything my area has to offer, OR working as hard as I can to maximize my income at all times.

It doesn’t mean I have to pick one forever, just that I need to completely eliminate everything that’s not one of those two things.

Why?

This was the first time in 4 or 5 days that I actually swam in the ocean, despite it being extremely close. I’ve barely taken advantage of this place I’m in. Mostly because I’ve been working.

But I’ve wasted a lot of time, too.

When I’m working, I need to be working hard. And I need to constantly focus on how I can maximize the financial return for my time.

The reason for that is because I want to retire as soon as possible. The faster I can increase my net worth, the sooner I can retire and then it will be much easier to take advantage of everything around me.

And more to the point of this blog post: I need to eliminate things that are just a waste of time or that are just going through the motions.

I can’t be wasting time on things that aren’t important, and I can’t get complacent in my business and simply continue with the status quo.

I need to constantly be growing and expanding. I don’t want to work more hours, but I want to get way more out of the hours I do put in.

My goal is to retire by 50 but I would greatly prefer to do it much earlier, or at least be able to reduce my hours or increase flexibility before that.

Certainly I have improved in everything I’ve described here over the last several years and certainly the last decade. But I can’t get complacent with that. I need to continue improving, ideally at a more rapid pace.

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Finally Making Changes to Sleep Pattern

First of all, it is depressing to me that I haven’t posted since April 20th. A ton has happened since then and I’m a little sad that I haven’t had time to talk about any of it.

Anyway, I do have good news. I’ve made more progress in the last week to my sleep than I had in years.

Basically I started listening to the Huberman Lab podcast, and it has some excellent information and recommendations for improving sleep.

I’ve been getting up without my alarm the last few days and starting to sleep better. I’ve been up generally early and have been much more productive overall.

The key is to just tie in to a lot more physiological processes than I have been to help me develop a proper rhythm. Brute-forcing a habit hasn’t worked for me in the past and I think it’s mostly just because I didn’t understand the physiological processes that control a circadian rhythm.

So I started getting up early and actually going outside and exposing my self to the morning light, which helps set your clock for the day. Specifically, I haven’t been using my phone at all, and I’ve gone outside and hot tubbed for a bit first thing in the morning.

In addition to being great for the light reasons, it’s also just easier for me to get up and do something I enjoy vs. say, a strenuous run or something.

And then I’ve also made an effort to be outside for a bit around sunset, which also helps regulate your internal clock and circadian rhythm.

And then of course, I’m trying not to stay up too late. Falling asleep has still been a challenge but I feel like it’s getting easier every day as I fall into this new rhythm.

I’ve also been just generally much more productive, though that may literally be just because I’m getting up earlier.

I also have avoided news and entertainment sites (aren’t they the same thing at this point?) almost completely, which in turn has also made me much more calm and focused, and generally improved my mood.

All good things!

I’m really hoping I can continue all of this and just keep improving. The more I learn, the more I realize that my terrible sleep habits are likely causing lots of other problems in my life, or at the very least: preventing me from performing optimally.

So this is just one thing that’s going well, but I hope to continue improvement from here.

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Writing About Things I Need to do and then Forgetting About them is Still Just Procrastination

I have lots of great ideas in this blog. And most of my good ideas that I have end up here eventually.

But if I write about it here and then do absolutely nothing about it, what good does it do me?

This blog isn’t intended to be an idea graveyard. The goal is to actually enact change.

I think it’s tempting to write about something here just to feel good about myself, like I took the necessary step with it and accomplished something.

But if I don’t continue on to the next steps, then it’s not really very helpful.

This particular post doesn’t really have an actionable next step, it’s just something to be aware of in the future.

Writing and doing are not the same thing.

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I Seem to Have Lost Most of my Initiative Since the Pandemic Started

I had lots of great plans and initiatives going into the pandemic. You can see a lot of it just by reading my posts here.

But then, like most people, I was generally discouraged once the world grinded to a halt. I was distracted constantly by the news and the general anxiety of it all.

A lot of my initiatives fell to the wayside. Despite actually having much more time on my hands, I never seemed to be able to proceed with anything.

And I’m sad to say that initiative never really seemed to come back.

Sure, I’d like to grow my business and generally do things to improve. But I’m not doing it. I feel like I’m not really doing anything at all.

So what is it? What happened?

Was it just literally that the weight of the pandemic was enough to crush my spirit permanently?

I have a hard time believing that.

It’s understandable that I would be distracted and lose sight of things for a time. I think that happened to everyone.

But over time, I suspect I just fell into some bad habits. And I need to fix them.

Perhaps a good fix would be to avoid all news sources for a while. Perhaps disconnecting and having a reset would be great for me.

And I should try to do a lot of self-reflecting to figure out what it is and how I want to proceed.

I’ll try to circle back on this topic in a couple weeks and see if I have any progress.