Email - Synchronous or Asynchronous Communication? - DBR 033

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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תוכן מסופק על ידי Larry Tribble, Ph.D. and Larry Tribble. כל תוכן הפודקאסטים כולל פרקים, גרפיקה ותיאורי פודקאסטים מועלים ומסופקים ישירות על ידי Larry Tribble, Ph.D. and Larry Tribble או שותף פלטפורמת הפודקאסט שלהם. אם אתה מאמין שמישהו משתמש ביצירה שלך המוגנת בזכויות יוצרים ללא רשותך, אתה יכול לעקוב אחר התהליך המתואר כאן https://he.player.fm/legal.

The Head Start: Embracing the Journey

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Sweat and Resilience: Balancing Chronic Migraine with Fitness Goals 35:02

לפני 13 hours35:02

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35:02

The healing power of fitness goes far beyond physical benefits—for today’s guest, it’s a form of self-expression and a celebration of what the body can do. In this episode, host Nora McInerny sits down with fitness personality Ivylis Rivera, who shares her deeply personal journey of navigating life with Chronic Migraine while holding onto her passion for movement. Ivylis opens up about the struggle of staying active while facing the fear of triggering a headache or migraine attack and the resilience it takes to keep pushing forward—a resilience that carried her through the challenging journey of finding a Chronic Migraine treatment plan that worked for her. Join Nora and Ivylis as they explore the concept of “soft living,” a philosophy Ivylis embraces—staying active, listening to your body, and building trust in oneself. Click here for Product Information, including Boxed Warning and Medication Guide, or visit https://abbv.ie/prescribing_info See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

לפני שנה 53:09

MP3•בית הפרקים

Let’s talk about email, and communication metaphors. You’re not going to be shocked when I tell you that we don't handle email well. It's not that we don't know how to use the app that produces email; that's pretty straightforward. And I'm not arguing that we don't know how to deal with emails as items of information, although I believe that's often true. We know this is important because Cal Newport wrote a whole book “A World Without Email” – his point is different but we clearly struggle with these communication channels. My concern is whether or not we deliver our information, our message, well on our communication channels. I think we don’t do a good job here. Email is representative of many channels. I think our metaphors contribute to our challenge. So changing the metaphor will probably help. I’ll address some reasons for that which apply to many modern communication channels. And I’ll have some thoughts on what we can do about it. If we understand the properties of the tool better, we become better users of the tool. If you can see this, send me an email – larry@dobusyright.com Why email? It’s new, so we’ve got to learn how to do it well – define the social contract

Cal talks about email as a back channel means of assigning work
Email is not something that anybody was asking for
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t welcome, just that we have to learn the use cases and create the social contract(s)
Example of a social contract with the government around snail mail
“Mail’ is correspondence
Email is a mash up of two things – a letter and instantaneous delivery
Two metaphors based on historical communications – letters and face-to-face – we have longstanding social contracts around these

Think about this in terms of synchronous and asynchronous communication

Define synchronous and asynchronous
Synchronous vs. asynchronous communication

Examples of synchronous

Conversation is synchronous
So is a phone conversation and a zoom meeting, but both are less so
Of course, there’s a spectrum

Examples of asynchronous

Correspondence (a letter) is not
This podcast is asynchronous communication
A key feature of (previous) synchronous communication is I know whether or not I have your attention
Another feature of synchronous – I can check for understanding in real time
So, correspondence tended to be more thought out or complete vs. a conversation where I can ad lib

Challenges of not understanding the ‘mode’

The two metaphors collide in email (particularly), because of our experience and social contracts
Confused metaphors and uncertainty about use cases and social contract
We fall into thinking that since email is ‘instant’ it is also synchronous
Note, email is not mutually instantaneous – like conversation is
People will pretend to be in synchronous comms, but not be

Understanding synchronous vs. asynchronous

The impact of high-speed communications (it’s actually pretty new)
Instantaneous delivery does not guarantee synchronicity. Speed is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of synchronicity.
Texting has a similar issue; it is instantaneous, but asynchronous
Voice mail as another example
We need to choose a model / a metaphor for how to use these channels – understand the social contract

Specific illustration of the challenge - voicemail

Voicemail as another example
With voicemail, we’re thrown into an asynchronous communication -now, I’m in voicemail and I’ve got to think about what and how to communicate
Do I replan and move to an asynchronous channel?
More detail in Episode One – your phone is mobile, should your call be?

Another specific illustration of the challenge – people pretend to be synchronous

I believe this is one of the fundamental issues of remote, synchronous communications
It happens mostly on phone and zoom, but also happens in face-toface
However, in face-to-face, we can more easily recognize it and we can ‘call it out’

Takeaways

‘better’ email – more complete and thorough transmission of information
Think it through – you initiated the communication, so it’s your responsibility to start it well
Choose the right communication mechanism
We fall into habit around our default communication channel
Effective communication means recognizing the pros and cons of the channel we choose – our own convenience is only one of those things
Choose the channel / media carefully and think about it’s ‘rules’
Most of our channels are actually asynchronous, IN USE. So, if it's not clearly synchronous, think asynchronous
On an asynchronous channel, be more careful, more planned OR clearly move to a synchronous channel

Poor communication is a waste of everyone's attention and, thus, time. Don't get trapped in habit or misunderstand the properties of each communication channel when you choose it. If you intend synchronous communication, use the correct channel(s) that allow you to keep an eye on people falling into asynchronous styles.

80 פרקים

#Business #Larry Tribble, Ph.D #Larry Tribble #Careers #Podcasting Education #Knowledge Work

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

Email - Synchronous or Asynchronous Communication? - DBR 033

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

published לפני שנה

שתפו

MP3•בית הפרקים

Cal talks about email as a back channel means of assigning work
Email is not something that anybody was asking for
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t welcome, just that we have to learn the use cases and create the social contract(s)
Example of a social contract with the government around snail mail
“Mail’ is correspondence
Email is a mash up of two things – a letter and instantaneous delivery
Two metaphors based on historical communications – letters and face-to-face – we have longstanding social contracts around these

Think about this in terms of synchronous and asynchronous communication

Define synchronous and asynchronous
Synchronous vs. asynchronous communication

Examples of synchronous

Conversation is synchronous
So is a phone conversation and a zoom meeting, but both are less so
Of course, there’s a spectrum

Examples of asynchronous

Correspondence (a letter) is not
This podcast is asynchronous communication
A key feature of (previous) synchronous communication is I know whether or not I have your attention
Another feature of synchronous – I can check for understanding in real time
So, correspondence tended to be more thought out or complete vs. a conversation where I can ad lib

Challenges of not understanding the ‘mode’

The two metaphors collide in email (particularly), because of our experience and social contracts
Confused metaphors and uncertainty about use cases and social contract
We fall into thinking that since email is ‘instant’ it is also synchronous
Note, email is not mutually instantaneous – like conversation is
People will pretend to be in synchronous comms, but not be

Understanding synchronous vs. asynchronous

The impact of high-speed communications (it’s actually pretty new)
Instantaneous delivery does not guarantee synchronicity. Speed is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of synchronicity.
Texting has a similar issue; it is instantaneous, but asynchronous
Voice mail as another example
We need to choose a model / a metaphor for how to use these channels – understand the social contract

Specific illustration of the challenge - voicemail

Voicemail as another example
With voicemail, we’re thrown into an asynchronous communication -now, I’m in voicemail and I’ve got to think about what and how to communicate
Do I replan and move to an asynchronous channel?
More detail in Episode One – your phone is mobile, should your call be?

Another specific illustration of the challenge – people pretend to be synchronous

I believe this is one of the fundamental issues of remote, synchronous communications
It happens mostly on phone and zoom, but also happens in face-toface
However, in face-to-face, we can more easily recognize it and we can ‘call it out’

Takeaways

‘better’ email – more complete and thorough transmission of information
Think it through – you initiated the communication, so it’s your responsibility to start it well
Choose the right communication mechanism
We fall into habit around our default communication channel
Effective communication means recognizing the pros and cons of the channel we choose – our own convenience is only one of those things
Choose the channel / media carefully and think about it’s ‘rules’
Most of our channels are actually asynchronous, IN USE. So, if it's not clearly synchronous, think asynchronous
On an asynchronous channel, be more careful, more planned OR clearly move to a synchronous channel

80 פרקים

#Business #Larry Tribble, Ph.D #Larry Tribble #Careers #Podcasting Education #Knowledge Work

Todos os episódios

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

1
Information Overload Is Simpler Than You Think - DBR 080 52:22

לפני 3 ימים52:22

52:22

Eradicating information overload. The goal of personal information management is to put processes and tools around our information so we can “manage” it – that means control it, tame it, have fewer emergencies around it. Our fear that we don’t have it well-managed causes us stress and anxiety – we call this ‘information overload’. So, a feeling of information overload is an indication that we don’t have our information managed well. After all, if you have a feeling of “bill overload”, you would look at your finances and budget, right? But is information overload a USEFUL term? Does it help us understand and deal with the problem? Or is it just a clickbait? Here, we’ll look into the definition of information - understanding the situation is a key to success. If Information Overload and/or the associated stress is a primary concern for you, this is your episode. Definition of information We don’t really have a good one – and that’s coming from an expert We think we can dimly grasp what information is… its related to some way of conveying 'something'. We even use information to convey 'something' to ourselves with notes, etc. For more, see James Gleick's book The Information But is information an independent thing? Information and attention are symbiotic. Example – regular radio pulses from astronomy. Is that information? How does this relate to overload? Information itself is not something that impinges on us. It can’t do that. But we do feel stress – meaning we feel like there's more than we can deal with - about 'something'. Is our problem really communication overload? Communication impinges on us. Communication means information used in a way that has a message (content) and usually has a signal. (we refer to both content and signal as information) We get shouted at - communicated AT Is our problem really content overload? There's no such thing as information overload in a library - content, in itself, has no means to impinge on us If books hollered at you and they weren't well organized, the library would be a horror show. So, this is Information that's well managed and has organizational schemes. In personal information management, one of the better metaphors is to have one's own personal library Is our problem really signal overload? The amount of incoming signal has never been so high The informational content of a signal itself is pretty low. Phones ring, computers beep, screens flash. We think this the right approach. But almost every signal is under our control It's signal overload. So, we've also got to think about the signals that we allow and those that we create for ourselves Conclusion/recap www.linkedin/in/larrytribble larry@doubsyright.com.…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

1
Work-life Balance Is Nothing (... but an Attention Management Problem) - DBR 079 50:20

לפני 10 ימים50:20

50:20

This episode is about the outcomes you can achieve with the information and coaching I am able to give. This is important, because it's gonna be work. It's not hard work but it is work. You'll need to change a couple of thought patterns and build a new habit or two. And in order for you to do that work, you need to know what's in it for you: what's going to happen when you do it. I’ll talk about what other clients have experienced as they've adopted this attention management mindset. The goal is nothing short of making you a better worker and making your life easier. That's two things, not one that depends on the other. What I mean is not that your life's going to be easier because you're a better worker. It's two things. Work's going to be easier to deal with and life's going to be easier to deal with. Outcome: better work/life balance One of the primary pressures on productivity is the notion of work life balance We’re doers of many things in both work and life spheres So, we have two claims on our attention A third primary claim on our attention - entertainment. It's attention consuming. Attention is the primary constraint in modern life The bottleneck on on 'productivity' is our ability to pay attention to getting things done Our work is very much mental work What is it we get better at with attention management? Parallel to athleticism in sports General education - things that apply to all work Underlying even that are abilities that allow us to perform work well We need to develop skills to have our attention where it needs to be when we need for it to be there. There's simply not a word for it in the English language. Attention helps us with the "infinite number" of things that we've got to do If we don't handle that set of things very well they absorb too much of our attention We need a concept of wasted attention If we get better at both work and life (independently), then we’ve got more space to “balance” the two. We come to see that they are not automatically in competition all the time Other outcomes that we can expect You'll get better at your work, regardless of what you do. The important notion of "deliverables" and why attention is critical Better opportunities in your career Better at tasks that constitute 'life' Better at learning, the most basic knowledge work skill An aside on the stress related to competition Corporate world: competition for promotion Sales: competition with other products / solutions Our business schools are focused on models of industry competitiveness Economics teaches us scarcity and competition. If we know we're more skilled, we can face competition with less fear and stress Recap larry@dobusyright.com www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

1
Watch Out For The Three 'Micro' Wastes of Productivity - DBR 078 51:09

לפני 17 ימים51:09

51:09

I want to describe calm productivity. And I want to contrast the results of attention management to the results of efforts to do time management. I’m going to take you over to a recording of a public talk I did at a conference at UA. It’s titled: "The Three Enemies of Productivity". The actual thing that we all want is productivity or efficiency (which are probably synonyms, for the most part). Productivity and efficiency both mean outputs per unit input. When we talk about productivity, we typically think of outputs per unit time. On the other hand, when we're talking about organizational productivity we may be talking about maximizing output per dollar cost or other things. But when we talk about individual productivity, personal productivity and knowledge work, then typically we're going to wind up talking about maximizing results per unit time. And that's fine. But maximization of that is not a “flow” state. It is not calm productivity. It’s “hurry culture”. The equations come from physical product studies Physical product is not variable Delivery mechanisms are critical in knowledge work because information must be comprehensible Part of the product is this comprehensibility Less so in the physical product world Implications of the physical-product-based efficiency equations How this plays in “time” management The first thing is to get rid of waste The notion of “wasting time” is challenging - many things LOOK like waste. So, we try to shrink time. But “speeding up” is bad for us, although “less time” is often good. Poor utilization of the asset (downtime) is the first waste. We've got to understand what the asset is What's being challenged for us is not exactly our time. It's our attention. And, there's lots of ways that our attention could be wasted. There is no real way to ‘overclock’ If I can make you go faster than you're comfortable going, then you're going to start making mistakes. Trying to make somebody go faster than they can is the result of a focus on time management. In the extreme, rushing to make time efficient is cutting corners Rushing does nothing to give us a sense of of calm, and peaceful. Macro waste of attention I don't Talk about macro waste. Use the Covey quadrants. We can't be Attention intensive for 8, 10, or 12 hours a day. “Losing” our attention We don't yet know what "leaves" when we lose our focus. An example of talking about attention in the wrong way Micro wastes of attention. Task switching has an enormous cost in attention. Two reasons for focus The three primary 'micro' wastes of attention (the Keynote) Interruption Multitasking Distraction ...and how to deal with them I enjoy giving this keynote. It helps me spread the message about the core of productivity. If you know someone who needs to hear it, share or get them in touch with me for a keynote. www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble larry@dobusyright.com…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

1
Over-allocated Attention and the Associated Stress - DBR 077 54:26

לפני 24 ימים54:26

54:26

Our attention is over-allocated by a nexus of events. This episode is what to do about that. I'm gonna acknowledge something that I'm not a big fan of. Apparently April is stress awareness month. So, if you weren't aware of stress, stress is a thing. I think most of us are aware of it. I don't want to be a curmudgeon but oh my word. Yes, I'm already aware of all of the different months that have some awareness attached to that. About stress… My promise to you is: if you practice good attention management, that will lead to a new level of productivity for you. That productivity will interact with your level of stress around 1) your to-do list and 2) the information that you need to manage such that your level of stress will go down. In this episode, I'm going to try and do a couple of different things. One is I'm going to tell you a little bit about stress. I’ll give you a great resource around stress. Two is we're going to talk about a really strange notion in our modern world; it's called contentment. If you've never heard that word before I get it, and we'll talk about what that is. Stress versus contentment and achieving some sense of peace, calmness, and clarity. And dare I say it, happiness? This is all based on our attention and the fact that we're at a nexus of events. These events are colliding such that the world is putting us, more precisely our attention, under intense pressure. The intensity of pressure is something that we have not dealt with before, as a culture, as a society. There’s an attention-based stress challenge. Society and culture are placing huge demands on us. It's not a published demand; nobody notified you that this would be happening. That set of forces is the third thing that we'll talk about today. What is stress? Stress is the difference between our expectation and what we experience in reality In this sense, it is closely related to frustration. The feeling is like frustration The Myth of Stress – Andrew Bernstein The only way to deal with it is to learn new expectations (not easy) Our stated expectation – this is just a busy time (month, quarter) – is not reality Also, there seems to be an unstated assumption that we’ll just get better at this as a culture or society. Another false expectation Contentment Example of escalating expectations: the notion of a 'prom-posal' The only term I can come up with at present is: child inflation. Contentment is counter-cultural The present culture has associated contentment with inability - inability to achieve - or poverty, inability to pay for it. We don't want to be seen as incapable of living up to this cultural Norm The factors around our attention Fact 1: the level of attention getting is higher than ever. We’re all trying to get each other’s attention. The level is rising Fact 2: our levels of information and communication are continuing to rise Fact 3: more of us are using our attention as our productive asset Fact 3.5 we are the most entertained society in history And entertainment is a pleasant deployment of our attention. We feel trapped in our frustration over attention My hypothesis is that we wandered into this situation and, therefore, we don't have good tactics to deal with it. That's what I do: give you good tactics to deal with the information- and task-based claims on your attention. That will lower your stress and help you perform better in work. Email me with comments or questions: larry@dobusyright.com And connect with me on LinkedIn to see occasional announcements on episodes and other stuff: www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble (please mention the podcast).…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

1
Yes! You CAN Be Happy At Work - DBR 076 41:43

לפני 4 weeks41:43

41:43

The happiness at work episode. Yay. I’m happy to be at work. Last time we talked about pessimism versus optimism. A closely related subject is happiness versus misery. I do think that optimism is critical. I've heard it said that your number one goal as an entrepreneur is to protect your optimism. I think it's that important. If you’re in the knowledge Work World and think you're not an entrepreneur and then you probably need to reconsider the definition of Entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is somebody that makes their own deal, that makes their own job. And you should probably be a lot closer to doing that than maybe you think you should be. Standing around getting told what to do all the time. Is not. Fulfilling satisfying, or really very enriching. You got to bring something to the party. So figure out what your thing is and bring it because we need it. And then protect your optimism that you can make a difference in the world. As I'm recording this, it's Easter week and I'm a Christian, I'm very happy. Today is Thursday of Easter week. Which is Maundy Thursday. For those of you who aren't familiar with Christian tradition, Maundy is m-a-u-n-d-y. Traditionally, it's where we celebrate Jesus serving his disciples at the Last Supper and Loving on them in that way. Tomorrow, of course, will be Good Friday, which you may be even more familiar with. If not, Good Friday is traditionally the day that Jesus was crucified. We say good to make the point. A lot of people are particularly happy at Christmas. I like Christmas too, but Easter is nore theologically sound. So I hope you're happy this week too while we talk about happiness at work. Happiness and optimism go hand in hand. If you're optimistic about an outcome, then generally speaking that's going to correlate with some degree of happiness about where you are in the world. It's a confusing topic to some degree. I don't think it's necessary that we get into the controversy, but let's talk about what we all agree on. I think a lot of people don't like work. I think a lot of people have made up their minds that they're not gonna like work. In the minority of cases we don't like work because we work in some nasty environment, really dangerous, those kinds of things. Of interest, of course, is the fact that many of the people who do that sort of thing are really, really passionate about what they do and their unhappiness about it seems at least to be limited if not totally subsumed. People in the military, people in the medical profession, a lot of these areas. That said, if you're listening to this podcast you probably work in a nice comfy office - comfortable chair, air conditioning, you’ve got the tools that you need. You’re pretty comfortable and well-treated. Maybe there's bits and pieces around the edges that you'd prefer were different, fine. I just think we've got to recognize that as part of this happiness equation. Optimism is more productive - last podcast Happiness and optimism go hand in hand Charley Gilkey: happy = 31% greater productivity Attitude is important, particularly in service businesses – “my pleasure” Challenges to happiness at work Last podcast… the meme that realism is a sophisticated approach Desire and "wanting it." Flow state is NOT hard, grunting work I do think that the desire piece is overstated in the culture. Avoid this part of the hustle culture I don't think it has to be hard to be morally good work. Negativity and pessimism around work have two primary components Ways to be happier at work Human beings have a great capacity to enjoy the things that we do. A definition of discipline(s) Strong relationships require disciplines. We call this discipline and learn as small humans to dislike it. I’m disciplined in some areas and not in others. You're likely the same Work-life balance vs. chore-craft balance - from Cal Newport and Scott Young. Craft – doing “the thing” Chore – peripheral to “the thing” Craft transcends the work life conflict Happiness at work is certainly possible. Believing that is half the battle. How we do our work with happiness. Engage the disciplines Understand the indirect relationships Happiness is a big part of Doing Busy Right. Part of it is stress reduction. Part of it is greater throughput. Part of it is greater confidence. In addition, consider some of these other ways to be happy at work. larry@dobusyright.com www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

1
Pessimism Cloaked as Realism Considered Harmful - DBR 075 53:32

לפני 5 weeks53:32

53:32

This one's about optimism and pessimism, and what that has to do with productivity. I and the whole thing is a productivity concern for me. We talk about confidence around these parts. That’s because I think confidence ties to productivity. The tie there is imposter syndrome. We struggle to understand what confidence is. But confidence is fundamental to what we're trying to do, particularly as knowledge workers. By the same token, optimism is fundamental to productivity. A lot of this has to do with long term career growth rather than just simple productivity. We'll leave that career growth potential aside, and just talk about productivity now. The problem The problem is that many people are pessimists If you are not confident in your ability to do something, then your ability to do that thing is going to be quite limited The invisible work that we do leads to negative mental gymnastics like writer's block and imposter syndrome. Our feelings about a thing do have a lot to do with our ability to do and thus I think we should cultivate optimism I’ll give you some tools and motivation to embrace optimism, if you’re an optimist and work to become an optimist, if you’re not Realistic positivity - optimism vs “Toxic positivity” Definition of discipline Mental landscape and productivity The science Learned helplessness Growth mindset is pretty close to a good definition of optimism Grit Counter arguments I'm not a pessimist about me. I'm a pessimist about the world. Optimism as naivete, realism is rational Limiting disappointment by managing expectations Engineering mindset Definition of work Problem solving Tenacity Recap I hope I've convinced you that optimism is the most productive, practical mindset. You should now have some tools to help you cultivate optimism in your life and work. Remember, you've solved many problems and (to date) have survived the worst news you've received. You can do it. larry@dobusyright.com www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

1
How We Got Here and Where We're Going - History of Knowledge Work Productivity - DBR 074 50:36

לפני 6 weeks50:36

50:36

I want to talk about the history of knowledge work productivity. And it's going to involve a lot of different names. It's going to involve the triumvirate, well, the quadrumvirate (that’s the real word), the Mount Rushmore. Only through understanding what they were thinking about can we extend that thinking. Then we can work on knowledge work productivity. We'll go all the way back to the start of the 20th century. We have Frederick Taylor studying “Scientific Management”, which is a study of work, not ‘management’ per se. Then we've got Peter Drucker, and he's important because he was doing all the thinking around knowledge work and how that came about. Stephen Covey taught us that we have to get our mindset right in order to be effective people. David Allen taught us how to use tools and stop using our brains for task and attention management. I might bring in Cal Newport and Thomas Davenport and these different kinds of names, just because of the curiosity factor there. But anyway, Drucker, Covey, Taylor, David Allen, This episode is about: What problem do businesspeople and managers (in particular) have to deal with Why is it an important problem What ways have we tried to deal with this previously What tools are at our disposal to try to solve it now Who is currently presenting solutions and what are they The issue is that our economy, particularly our economic productivity, is changing. We have yet to fully understand how to react to that change. Some history to give us perspective and hints on what to do. 20th century productivity growth Organizational structures - sociology (business structures were not theorized/engineered) Original organizational structures (government/church/military) were monarchy/hierarchy The notion of trade, business, and getting wealthy (via the “business” way) Apprentice -> employee -> growing organization -> modern business problems (management) Used to be everybody worked for the king, who distributed wealth and work It needed to scale and be ‘optimized’, but was never engineered We don't know exactly how it works You got three blacksmiths. All of a sudden it's a managerial problem Most things cultural or sociological there isn't hard science - like business Atom bomb derived from theory and we ‘engineered’ a way to construct one. Same thing with NASA and the space program. Business really was not that way Railroad/telegraph as a management problem (distributed locations). If you need to tell somebody the train's coming, there's no faster way for that information to travel than the train itself. The history of information really correlates to the history of business and culture We can’t communicate quickly enough between different locations for ‘real-time’ management These business/communication structures grew organically, business is perhaps more Darwinian than Darwin Well, all of this was command and control. So what about leadership/governance/control of the organization Now, we have to explain leadership, and this notion of who gets to tell who what to do The ‘great man’ theory Mid 20th century, there was a cult of personality Huge corporations, like General Motors, and they're selling stock, and nobody really understands how that works Government: we've got to understand how this business thing works and explain it to people and regulate it How we began to understand and explain Frederick Taylor "scientific management" and notions of the efficiency of individual workers Peter Drucker In "The Concept of the Corporation" is trying to explain the notion of governance structures, some way to get people to work together We've got big organizations and factories. Got to produce a lot, and so we need to break this down, because nobody, no one person, can produce it all Drucker developed technique for management and the ideas of knowledge work Stephen Covey comes along. He's exploring this idea of technique for ‘effectiveness’. Covey talks effective people in terms of psychological, psychosocial properties of behavior and modes of thought. This is different from previous thought. Now, Knowledge Work improvement (and management) Drucker’s hypothesis: improve the productivity of knowledge work. How do we manage versus how do we strategize? Now, we’ve moved to KW (and management) So, how do we manage ourselves and others The goal of such management is to improve the productivity of knowledge work. David Allen started to use Taylorist thinking in improving knowledge work. My offering on how to manage Knowledge Work is the Attention Compass - a successor to Allen's methodology. Focus: What are the components of knowledge work and how can we improve them? What is the system that needs to be put in place? Our community is working on this and needs your insights and voice. Get in touch. larry@dobusyright.com or find me on LinkedIn.…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

1
Fable: Productivity Rain Dances - Watch Out - DBR 073 47:37

לפני 7 weeks47:37

47:37

I started out talking about the lies of productivity, but I’m going to change to fables because it's just things we collectively believe without much evidence. Plus, I don't think anybody's intentionally trying to mislead us. We just move without much actual data. A couple of those fables collided with a post by Cal Newport with the evocative title of “productivity rain dances”, which is a pretty humorous mental picture. Apparently, rain dances are those habits of work that we believe make us productive but actually don’t. We don’t develop evidence, so we are engaging in superstition. So, fables and rain dances probably have some overlap. Let’s explore Cal’s post and investigate some of our own practices to make sure we’re not wasting our time and energy doing things that don’t improve our productivity. What is the discussion? Cal’s post about Chris Williamson’s podcast It’s not that nothing is useful in productivity, it’s just that the field is not scientifically organized. Experiment means think, gather data, analyze situations. It does not mean “I feel like…”. Technique is a real thing and it exists – there is a better way to manage your tasks and attention. Is a new tool really that helpful? Or is AI another ‘rain dance’ Cal’s post: https://calnewport.com/productivity-rain-dances/ Examples of rain dances (or Fables) Williamson gave a few examples: Why do I sit at my desk when I'm not working? Why do I thrash around about emails? Why do I take phone calls that have no goal? My fables are more habits of thought around specific tasks “I'd better do it before I forget about it” Usually means “… forget about it again” Sometimes we do it just because its late I feel guilty because I'm not any better at my stuff In order to resolve that guilt, we pop up and go do it now Overlap with “not finished” syndrome Avoiding the knee jerk reaction Our systems don't dictate our priority; they reflect our priority. If we often say, "I better do it before I forget about it", then your system is broken. Instead, say to yourself, I'd better capture it before I forget about it. We create tasks that implicitly have the Title of "Make progress on X" “Thrashing is a rain dance.” Rapid task switching, multitasking is a rain dance When we measure time, we switch from measuring outputs to measuring inputs Faster, in and of itself, is not more efficient. Efficiency is a property of a system and only makes sense when the goal is clear. Don't maximize inputs to try to maximize outputs. Only time saved at the bottleneck step of your process improves your productivity. every process has a bottleneck, and the bottleneck governs the overall throughput of the system, Some commentary on the comments Inbox zero: rain dance, or not? Inbox Zero is not efficient behavior in and of itself “Tweaking” your system is a rain dance We spend a lot of time and a lot of stress buying tools to speed up parts of the process that are not the bottleneck, and then we don't get better productivity because of it. You don't need a system to help you handle email faster. You need a system to reduce the amount of email you have to deal with. It's an input. Increasing the inputs for the same number of outputs is the opposite of productivity - the opposite of efficiency, Where have we gotten today? Define your outputs; identify them very cleanly, and then focus on those and work backwards Identifying a bottleneck is not a trivial challenge Faster is not more productive. Faster is simply faster. Many of these things are signs that your system is broken or incomplete We do our rain dance and it doesn't rain so the process is broken Understanding which part of a process is broken is not trivial or simple. Don't deal with a system in a piecemeal fashion (See the previous episode about optimizing sub processes is not a reliable way to optimize the overall process.) larry@dobusyright.com; www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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The Modern Productivity Paradox, What Should Knowledge Workers Do? - DBR 072 49:53

לפני 8 weeks49:53

49:53

Most everybody involved in knowledge work is involved with technology. It's what we do. We deal in information, so we deal with information technology. We believe that it makes us more productive – “better” at our jobs. But what is the evidence that information technology is helping us be more productive? After all, that is its purpose in the modern workplace. I’d suggest that many people believe that the tech companies are dealing with that on our behalf. And the software companies would agree. They want to tell you that, yes, they're improving your productivity. But there's a ton of contrary evidence to that. Also, both solopreneurs and companies are just hurling themselves into AI. The argument is, as the argument has always been with IT, that AI will make us more efficient, more productive. There are good reasons to doubt that. We’ll get into them. What is the productivity paradox? The mismatch between the belief that IT spend on improved productivity and flat economic productivity The Y2K Bug and the aftermath of the Dot Com Bust The productivity paradox is making a return You need to know as you plan your own IT spending, for yourself or your team look for two problems: 1) you’re wasting money, and 2) you may not have another plan for improving productivity What is the ‘modern’ productivity paradox? process “accretion” We struggle to learn from each other Vendors are a little unreliable on this point, for obvious reasons an accumulation of point solutions doesn't make a system Challenges of managing technology 2003 Nicholas Carr , "IT Doesn't Matter" Carr’s point: technology wants to be a commodity Carr’s conclusion: you can’t gain a strategic advantage with a commodity resource Systems theory efficiency is in automating processes, not in automating tasks. the difference between automating tasks and automating processes optimize a sub process then you sub optimize the whole process Systems engineering example – The Goal, Eli Goldratt Modern productivity paradox What to do? Be aware that there is an ongoing argument about how to do this. It’s not trivial. Think about optimizing and automating Processes rather than Tasks Measure at the process level and experiment Recap I guess the primary takeaway is a reminder to not let the IT hype be a distraction from what you're trying to do. Some tools will help you and others won't. Just understand that convenience and 'time-savings' are actually pretty low on the list of useful targets for IT interventions. Stay focused on what you produce that creates the value you deliver to the world. Things that help you produce more are productive, everything else is not really. www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble larry@dobusyright.com…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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"Attention Crisis"? What is the Argument and the Evidence - DBR 071 45:36

לפני 9 weeks45:36

45:36

There's an article in The New Yorker "What If The Attention Crisis Is All A Distraction" by Daniel Immerwahr. I think the attention problem (if there is one) is important for us to understand and resolve and, frankly, to have a debate about. I thought I'd report out on this article, and the state of play. Where are we? What's the evidence? How do we form an opinion on what's going on with society on this front? My foundation for engaging in the debate: I think attention is the fundamental productive commodity in our current economy. I think as knowledge workers, our attention is what we use to make our economic productive way through life. It's how we create value and and the means by which we we earn our food. Drucker's hypothesis: American economic growth that we experienced in the 20th century was based on huge increases in in labor productivity. Therefore if we're going to maintain our economic growth level, then we've got to do the same thing with knowledge work. We have to increase the productivity of knowledge workers So our ability to deploy and manage our attention is important, both for us as individuals and also for the economic society at large. Do we have a problem with increasingly short attention spans? Our question Work, particularly knowledge work, requires that we pay attention to it for periods of time. I'm mostly interested in the impact of attention on on work and economic productivity. I think that things that that interfere with our ability to focus for extended periods of time, hurts us. Humans have always been distractible and have needed to be taught to have an attention span of any duration What does attention span mean? (Based on: The Distracted Mind, 2016, Gazzaley & Rosen) Attention is fundamentally selective - it has an object. The persistence of this selectivity is what we mean by attention span Therefore, logically it includes the ability to to block out other things So-called “compelled attention" interferes with our ability to block out Attention Crisis? Really? There have been attention crises prior to the modern version. Plato didn't like the technology of writing "Amusing Ourselves To Death", Neil Postman, 1985. The threat of TV "The Shallows", Nicholas Carr, 2010. The threat of the internet "The Sirens Call", Chris Hayes, 2024. The threat of active technology Hayes Attention is a commodity – it gets captured and sold to people who want us to buy something We have a thing called “compelled attention” (involuntary attention) “Attention engineering” is not a new thing, but its intensity is increasing as the value of attention increases We’re “Penned into a way of paying attention that we don’t like” Immerwahr The data are equivocal and “distracted from one thing is to attend to another” Increasing length of movies, television, and video games as evidence that our attention spans are not shrinking The hand wringing comes from elite “attentionistas” who are in the old-school attention business My thoughts Sometimes we must pay attention to that which is not attention grabbing, like work Advertising is monetized attention and is growing When it comes to utilizing our brains and our attention in functional ways, I think a decrease in the ability to sustain attention is bad. My concern is whether or not we control our own attention If we're gonna think well, then we have to think in long sequences. That's challenging to us So attention span is important. The good news is that we can work on maintaining our attention and focus in the face of "Compelled Attention" and any shortening attention span. I offer coaching, Attention Compass implementation training, and this podcast as ways for you to combat the theft of your attention and the negative consequences for knowledge workers.…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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The Wrong Mindset May Be Causing Bad Results - DBR 070 51:53

לפני 11 weeks51:53

51:53

It's time to update on philosophy of work; I've got some more info for you. A lot of this is going to be review, but I think it's absolutely critical that we put ourselves in the right mindset towards work. It's important because work is what actually produces the things that we then associate with productivity. Unfortunately, there's a lot of a lot of weird stuff going on in our heads about work. Our perspective on work has significant impact on our lives and our productivity: We’re more likely to procrastinate things we “don’t like” We have more stress around them, quality of life We tend to rush at them without thinking about how we could get better at them Your brain gives you what you expect - if you expect "miserable" that's what you get So, can we change our mindset? We just want to get these things out and inspect them get our mindsets right about work, and get rid of some of the weird stuff. We’ll cover: A historical perspective on work Cultural ideas about work What might work mean for humans More recent ideas Historical view of work Hunter/gatherer to agriculture and herding – reduction of risk The rise of business (work for money) The era of slavery in the West and America Modern employment is sometimes compared to these other kinds of work Model of work as slavery, drudgery, serfdom Cultural issues with work Only ‘hard’ work is virtuous; sweating is virtuous, and not sweating is not virtuous. Things that are easy (for us?) are not accorded much virtue. We glorify the hustle culture in America. Artifacts of a consumerist culture - The ’cash problem’ We're working critters We enjoy working as 'making the world and ourselves into what we want them to be' Most of us despise the idea of doing nothing. We call it boredom. We can't avoid goal seeking based on imagination and problem solving Currently common ideas Start With Why? We can “choose our own adventure” to some degree Your standard (of quality) is your own; think about your standard. Minimum effective dosage (Matt Reynolds via the AOM podcast) there's such a thing as as doing it the easy way Think through these mindsets and determine where yours has come from. Check it against reality to see if it matches up. If not, try to learn to think in different ways. If we consider our work to be joy, then we'll get joy from it. larry@dobusyright.com www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Why you need commonplace books and how to create them - DBR 069 51:56

לפני 11 weeks51:56

51:56

One of the primary uses of information is to help us learn. When we are explicitly learning, we work to collect information. It works the other way, as well. As we are exposed to new information, we have the opportunity to learn. The relationship between learning and merely storing information in our brains is mysterious. Many people would say that ‘learning is more than storing facts’, but when we try to figure out what that ‘more’ is, there is no clear consensus. To help think through the need for information, I’m going to argue that the commonplace book from the previous episode is a great target and goal for post-compulsory education. So one thing that came out in the Personal Information Management podcast (Episode 68) is that learning styles have changed, and certainly the techniques and technology have changed to some degree. So learning has changed a little but we want to think about our goal. Once we get done with the formal educational system, how do we go about learning? Developing a definition of learning Learning has a lot to do with recreating the thought processes that another human being thought first, How do we go about learning? The modern view of learning in one sense: we practice thinking like the people that we want to think like later. Learning and practice AI is a best in class practice machine. Part of learning then is collecting this existing information so that we can practice having our brains think in these ways. If practice is involved, then we have tasks and, thus, attention We need to collect and manage information, and organize our attention such that we actually do the practice Multiple goals are in play at the same time, we've got to allocate our attention amongst the goals The historical tie between learning and books is so tight that it must be useful Books are, at a minimum, a ‘required feature’ of pedagogy there's huge debate over whether or not the standard pedagogy is the best possible pedagogy In the 21st century, textbooks are the teaching books (and primary pedagogy) of choice But there was a time before textbooks. What did pedagogy look like then? What about our own (personal) books and non-textbooks?? When secondary education is complete, some sort of a commonplace book would be a reasonable target for further education At some level, this podcast is a commonplace book for me, where I go out and learn things and then try to bring them back in and put them somewhere where you can find them if you're interested. What would our commonplace book look like? A book on a subject that I would write for myself would be structurally different from a textbook. We'd want some instruction about different advanced techniques that are rarely used. Cases, examples, war stories on applications of the knowledge. It's somewhere between authoring and scrapbooking closer to the scrapbooking end of the spectrum. Organizing so that you can find things, indexing and table of contents What tactics would we use? What technology(s)? How can we collect in such a way that puts it in this position of being part of the record for what we're going to do anyway? Project folders as learning tactics I teach clients to collect a project file to have a storage location where data can live Let's have both a short term storage location and a long term storage location Notebook for the daily, have another one or more to collect up the considered, important information Attention Compass is an ideal workflow to help you capture a commonplace book in real time. Hit me up for a free session: https://calendly.com/larrytribble . Email me: larry@dobusyright.com Or find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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The History of Paper as a History of Personal Information Management - DBR 068 52:20

לפני 12 weeks52:20

52:20

This episode is about the history of personal information management as viewed through a now ancient technology, PAPER We’ll have a couple of takeaways: One is human beings have been trying to manage their own personal information for a long time, so we don’t need to be so worried about the current need – we’re humans so we manage information. We’ll glean wisdom from these previous efforts to manage the information that the world presents to us. We’ll assess tactics and mindsets that are going to be useful to us. Hat tip to the Art of Manliness website, and to Roland Allen talking about his book, The Notebook. There's also information in this podcast from a book called Hamlet's BlackBerry that I read some years ago, and a book called The information that that talks about the history of our understanding of information and its use in our world, so some combination of those things. The management of personal information Ancient: Plato was skeptical of writing as an information management technique. Less ancient: people used wax tablets. In the 1300s we were using money. We had language; we had poetry; we heard things that we wanted to record and wanted to tell other people. And so, life was not a ton simpler than it is now. Note on reusable media. Even less, but still fairly, ancient: the commercial availability of paper Note: we had blank paper for hundreds of years before we had the printing press. People would get a bound collection of paper called a notebook. Also hundreds of years before printing. Gave rise to various practices in information keeping, information management. Non-printed Books Initially, books were handwritten and hand copied Note on the reliability measures of Old Testament copying Making a hand-copy of a book while sitting at a desk for extended periods of time being read to and writing this down. A bound set of pieces of paper that you write in would not have been foreign The commonplace book Printed books The notion of an almanac Printing created a more authoritative position for authors and publishers, along with a broader reach Education Use of notebooks in education – what can we learn Diaries and travelogues would have been more autobiographical The notion of a textbook really dates from the 1800s or so The notion that education could very likely have been the creation of books for oneself 500 years ago, education may have consisted of putting your book together so that then you had the compendium of knowledge as it was presented to you Same possibly in the trades Modern ideas Nuances of reusable media Allen: there was kind of a scratch notebook, and then a big notebook Modern journaling The possible need to have two notebooks Is the creation of a book a good educational goal? How do we apply modern technology? Capture and Processing using modern tech Complexity led to ancestors keep records of people and places and things. Some of that turned into financial record keeping Maybe we should be spending our time trying to create our commonplace book(s) as we learn things. Summary…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Operating system for attention, tasks, information (and time) - DBR 067 54:04

לפני 13 weeks54:04

54:04

We need a new operating system. We need one that is specifically dedicated to knowledge work. So I'm going to point you to one that already exists. When we start talking about ways to manage our information, the tech is really important, and I'll explain why. But the tech is dealt with and managed through some sort of overall plan, and some tech is better than other tech, and we'll talk about all these sorts of things. When we think about an operating system, it's both a set of tools and some mapping of those tools to a process or flow. And so that's what I think we need, and that's what we've developed with Attention Compass. When I say we've got bad tech, I mean it's not been updated - it uses archaic metaphors. (I talk about metaphors in a previous episode - episode 40, if you want to know more.) These metaphors impede our ability to do what we want to do or what we need to do with the information that we use the tools for. https://dobusyright.com/what-does-our-it-really-do-for-us-dbr-040/ I'll explore the relationship between attention and information, because they're so tightly linked that all of the tools that we utilize are information tools in nature. And that's going to be important, because the ways the current tool set fails us are that they don't let us work with information the way we should best work with information. Now this is an attention show, attention compass, and our attention is absolutely critical, for reasons that I've talked about previously – like episode 57 where we talk about time versus attention. So I'm going to try to explain or interpret the relationship between attention and information. We want to manage our attention well, so I’ll relate attention back into the nature of information. This will help us understand why our tools are not designed to manage information in the ways that best support our attention management. https://dobusyright.com/protecting-ourselves-with-a-model-of-attention-dbr-057/ Two reasons attention is important one - how we direct our will (what to DO) When we're making or doing something in the world, we're using our attention, directing it to some situation in the world. Two – our attention is how we engage with information Attention to consume information, to do the work of ‘transmuting’ information, to encode the information What we need to be able to do with information Find information Utilize some media to consume the information Store/encode the resulting information Why are the tools important Information doesn't exist by itself. It is easy to make the argument that, without tools or tech of some sort, information could not be comprehended. Information is always encoded in some sort of medium. In particular, when we USE information, it has to be encoded. Encoding involves one or more media Media and its surrounding tools are technology. Media involves tools. Tools involve technology, and skill. Things around and about tools that get in our way Tools are our (imperfect) inventions. Tools are developed to be used in certain ways in certain environments with certain materials Metadata The “Application Limitation” in modern OS A new Operating System for Knowledge Work Attention Compass Handle the Metadata problem Handle the "Application Limitation" At the end of the day, when we look at knowledge work, we recognize that four things are involved: attention, information, tasks, and time. They are interrelated and cannot be dealt with in isolation. Many people focus on "Time Management", but time is the junior partner of the four. When we deal with these four things effectively, we can say that we Do Busy Right - lower stress and greater productivity with less waste. Attention Compass is the operating system to Do Busy Right. larry@dobusyright.com linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Top 10 Productivity Tips? NOT - DBR 066 41:22

לפני 15 weeks41:22

41:22

This episode is about what it is I'm trying to do with attention compass. And why I hate current productivity “help”. I developed this AC stuff. I didn't discover it. I didn't invent it. These are the principles, and they produce specific results. I make no bones about the fact that a lot of people went before me did a lot of really good thinking about productivity. AC is derived from Stephen Covey, from David Allen and from a lot of different folks who thought a lot about this and who are well regarded in what's going on. This ain't magic. I'm not some genius, brilliant dude. I just got tired of being told mindset things. “You're just thinking about it the wrong way”, and “change the way you think about it” I love Covey. I love the seven habits, but you gotta take what he says and then figure out how to implement against that. It's not magic, it's not secret sauce. That's one of the great things about David Allen - he's not playing around. He says, “Look, you got a piece of paper in your hand, do this with it.” The principles are important. I'm an academic and a scientist, and so I want them to be true, but at the same time, it's got to be actionable advice. The headline here is stop wasting time and causing yourself a whole bunch of anxiety by listening to people who are giving you less than helpful input. If you want different results, then you have to DO differently, behave differently. Some stuff I tried that didn’t work – day-timer and GTD. These were my first attempt at having my stuff where I needed my stuff to be, but continued to thrash so I kept trying. I still want to keep up and I get intrigued. Here’s what I see when I look out into Productivity Advice land. The pinnacle of productivity advice c. 2025 "Top 10 productivity tips" - anonymous. work from rest, not for rest take regular breaks daily tackle the biggest tasks first designate time daily for emails. keep the main thing, the main thing keep your energy level high. Prepare the night before win the first hour, win the day protect your margins. engage in activity stacking Problem: Everybody's heard that, and apparently most people are still not able to do it. Three problems with the productivity industry One - people say all the same things over and over Two - it's not actionable, it's not doable Three - most of the advice is about mindset Attention compass is really fundamentally different. There's a workflow that will get you on top of this stuff, I want to educate you a little bit on how your brain works with information tasks. I'm going to bring you Information Systems level understanding of information storage, information use, and the value of information in your work and life. What do we do about and with information? I’m going to bring you a software developer’s knowledge about your information tools. If you don't buy what I’m saying, do an experiment. The rules of productivity are pretty simple Reuse everything you can. Don't reinvent the wheel. Focus, don't thrash simple. The problem is the interference that we get from our culture's (incorrect) view of dealing with information and communications and the existing tools. Athleticism as a metaphor for attention Tennis metaphor Physician metaphor Excel metaphor That's what AC does with attention. It gets your attention where it needs to be, so you're not thrashing around daydreaming Other good habits flow out of that ability. All these tips are great – do you have the ‘athleticism’ to address them? I think a lot of people are worn out by all this information. Don't give up. Hit me up on LinkedIn or at larry@dobusyright.com.…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Knowledge Work Careers via Resistance and Linchpin - DBR 065 48:29

לפני 16 weeks48:29

48:29

I rarely talk about what we need to do to have a meaningful, successful career. So I gathered some sources... The first I'll bring up is Seth Godin, the author. The book that we'll look at today is called Linchpin. He’s got some things to say about being successful in the modern era. On this podcast, we're looking at knowledge work, at improving it and getting better at it. We also look at the productivity of knowledge workers. That's what Godin's book is about. I'm normally about the micro level, the very base. I'm about helping you fix the wastes of attention, and to a lesser degree time, that you face as a knowledge worker. This is that next level: strategically speaking, how should we position ourselves such that we can have impact? How can we arrange our work so that we create value in the world, and thus be able to take a share of that value for ourselves and be economically successful. I’ll add in some thinking from Steven Pressfield and his book The War of Art. Pressfield is all about motivation and, having chosen what we’ll do to create value, how do we continually convince ourselves to do it? Godin wants us to do some pretty dramatic things. Pressfield will help us not be derailed by the fear of those dramatic things. Your takeaway: career growth opportunities and encouragement and tactics to avoid fear-based procrastination when confronted with those opportunities. Our concern is: How do you deliver profitable value in such a way that it's meaningful to you as the creator of that value? Linchpin and the changing work world Work is changing - 20th Century work is now a race to the bottom. If your business plan to be unusually good at well-known things, you've got to be better than 7 billion people. You don't have to have a Nobel Laureate IQ, just be willing to be curious and investigate and solve problems. Pressfield and the Resistance The resistance is this set of forces acting to prevent us from producing our value. The muse, the "inspiration model" of great work, is really not a thing. If you're gonna be a linchpin, then you're gonna face this resistance. The problems with being a Linchpin There aren't mile markers along the way, so we're robbed of the way we usually get reassurance. The (actual) course of invention You're not going to get a lot of support if you're in this space, because people don't understand your thing. We have to get comfortable with the notion that there is no previously trod path. The risks of being a Linchpin You spend a whole bunch of time and effort and then quit before you're done. Ignoring and/or dismissing feedback out of fear. Why you’ll face the Resistance You have to look to people who who don't love your stuff so that they'll be willing to tell you what's going on. Your buddies are too worried about hurting your feelings. Whether or not people crack open their wallet because they're serious about how valuable it is It's a skill just to have the guts to pitch your thing. Prepare yourself Develop feedback mechanisms in your world. Learn to use feedback in school Don't expect a textbook. You're writing the textbook. You're inventing this as you go, experimentally. Get good at doing things in the face of the Resistance. Find a place to put the "lizard brain". Your work is different than your parent's work. Don't learn to do the wrong things in the wrong way.…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Invest in Technique to Get Better at Knowledge work - DBR 064 55:53

לפני 17 weeks55:53

55:53

If you've listened to this podcast for very long, you know that I'm fascinated with human performance. Particularly when it comes down to work, how do we do work? How do we get better at work? I don't think there's a ton of knowledge out there, so I'm trying to move the needle a little bit here, and get us some more information about this thing. We know that our work is stressful. We know there's a problem. We know that work life balance is an issue. We know that we have individual/personal issues around our work. We also know economically that we need to improve productivity. Labor productivity has been flat for a while. According to Peter Drucker, if productivity is flat, then we cannot expect to enhance our standard of living in the long term. And so that's what we're all about. Add to that the fact that in our modern world, business is the way we create, generate, and distribute value in the world. We need to get better at our work. The approach and why I chose it Remember: knowledge work What is the data / experiment Our question: how do we get better at what we do? Focus on tools and techniques to get better? We’ve tried formal education Tools are a typical approach, particularly in our Knowledge Work Are tools as good as they’re going to get? My personal history with this question We’ll look at sports (and games), music, and knowledge work Categorizing sports and games Endurance / athletic sports What’s the theme Mental game? Skip the defense? Levels of defense Heavy on technique I never really paid for coaching. Learning & getting better as an adult Here’s my story about learning as an adult – the bass I got a coach pretty quickly “You’ll just hear it” – the issue of ‘innate’ talent Coach = technique BOSS What does technique do for a bassist/musician We may be missing technique in the modern computer-mediated world Musical parallels to talent and athleticism Where does athleticism matter Talent might interfere with learning technique Tools might interfere with motivation to learn technique Tool-mania in certain sports and games Tools won’t save bad technique Application to knowledge work Knowledge work is not well-understood Tools and knowledge work Education and knowledge work Coaching and knowledge work Technique and knowledge work Talent and knowledge work Athleticism – is there a parallel in knowledge work? Athleticism as a substitute for technique in sports So lack of athleticism in Knowledge Work indicates that we should have other ways to work on technique Focus our attention – parallel to “being where you need to be” Information and attention athleticism? Good technique may be the key to information and attention athleticism, thus improvement Technique with coaching needs a serious try in improving knowledge work productivity Bottom line / recap Think about technique Have a coach Focus on attention – get it where it needs to be when it needs to be there Try to worry less about tools…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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What does proactive have to do with busy and productive - DBR 063 46:10

לפני 17 weeks46:10

46:10

I'm interested in this difference between busy and productive, if there is one. It’s hard to tell the difference, even from the inside. I think this has something to do with the relationship between the terms. Busy is a state that we are in intermittently, occasionally, as circumstances drive us. We mean that our time is fully or somewhat over committed. It is a term of reaction. We would like to say “No” to some work, but we (for whatever reason) don’t feel that we can. Busy is more of a feeling/emotion, a response to the environment. Productive is a more long-term, personal trait. We mean that results are produced. We sometimes also add in the idea of ‘efficient’. I think this is where the overlap with Busy comes in. Is busy something we can avoid? This is going to take us on a deep dive into the first of Covey’s 7 habits – Be Proactive Expectations and consequences We do many things because we want the results of the doing - we do others because of the consequences Recently, we defined some kinds of work/effort. The first two: 1) work proper, which is work for money and 2) chore, which is maintenance work to meet some standard, often external. We defined hobby, as well. Here we do things because we enjoy doing them, and the doing is its own reward. Consequences are powerful behavioral controls. And these are "police" in our world, bosses. Other people closer to us, we more experience consequences with them than they're the deliverer. The sphere of influence and the sphere of concern ideally, I think our sphere of influence and our sphere of concern would coincide, and we control both of these things. One we control in the long term, the other we control in the short term. We can control the sphere of concern in the short term, and most of us need to shrink it. Busy/productive – how does Covey address this Habit one is be proactive. This is neither busy nor productive, but precedes both. Covey defines being proactive is to subordinate an impulse to a value – I don’t love this I think most of us hear proactive and we think pre active (contrast to reactive) Proactive, in some ways, is response to a lack of stimulus, or the ability to create our own stimulus. In order to act, we look at values and our own desires and we initiate action, rather than constantly being at the mercy of external stimuli. Back to spheres Technology allows us to expand our sphere of concern (and our number of stimuli) beyond any reasonable scope relative to our sphere of influence. A lot of people waste significant time and emotional energy on areas of the sphere of concern that don't overlap with the sphere of influence If we're in the sphere of concern and not in the sphere of influence, then the only action we can really take is to worry, and that takes our attention and drains our mental energy. Modern communication technology tempts us to expand our circle of concern so we can, you know, investigate what's going on in areas of the universe that really just have nothing for us Moving to commitments and action – delivering influence The very heart of our circle of influence is our ability to make and keep commitments Commitments are promises to ourselves and to others about what we will do and how we will behave. But the commitment is always first and foremost to ourselves, because we're the ones who are going to have to act. If we commit to others, then that commitment is to act and to act in ways that that other person's environment changes to some degree because of our result. Production is the result and the delivery of the artifact that satisfies the need. When we say we want to be productive, that means that we want to produce results so that we can meet commitments that we've made Productivity and production capacity Productivity is about the quantity of result and Covey talks about this. He calls it production capacity, defined as skills, learning, abilities and assets that allow us to produce We want greater productivity. What we mean is that we want to have greater production capacity. And by greater, we mean more results or more valuable results. And the more is shorthand for more per unit of input, where input is some resource of value: time, money, raw materials, energy, all these different sorts of things. If we have greater production capacity, then we can produce more results or better results, which are more valuable, and we can get rewarded more The relationship between commitment and stimulus Covey says we want to be the kind of people who meet commitment. Particularly, I would suggest we meet commitment even in the face of a lack of external stimulus. We learn this capacity. We grow this capacity. We learn it by, you know, looking back on yesterday and saying, Yeah, I was able to do it yesterday Internal and external stimuli Interesting to note that the thing that is your BAD HABIT typically has no means to create any stimulus. The cookies in the cabinet cannot call out to you. As we're learning to act with lack of stimulus, can we learn to not act with lack of stimulus? Productivity as compared to busy. Perhaps busy has a lot to do with others and commitments to consequence keepers. Where productive includes commitments to ourselves and thus this ability to be proactive. Takeaways Is the Sphere of Concern the right size? Are we response-able and can detect the difference between important and not important? Do we need to develop another plan for consequences…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Don't Like Work? Why? - DBR 062 50:36

לפני 19 weeks50:36

50:36

I want to explore what we mean when we say we don't like to work, or we don't like our work, or we don't like a task. A buddy of mine, Justin Janowski, captured this recently saying about a task, “It didn’t feel like work, it felt like hanging out with friends and having discussions.” Punchline: I think he was referring to recording marketing videos in an all day session - something many people would dread. Why can't we take this view more often? I firmly believe that the evidence shows that our feelings about something have a huge impact on our experience with it. What I mean is, if we expect something to make us unhappy, it's very likely that it will. Made to work The material stuff of our universe is there for us to do things with, we can bring forth that which is not readily apparent We're drawn to work. We like making places for ourselves, and we like occupying our attention with things. Many of the things we desire to have or be require work There are some things that we do at the request of other people, in exchange for money Four categories of “work” First category: you're going to your office or your business or your job, and you're doing the work Another category that's often called work is chore. The goal is problem avoidance, maintenance. The third category is Hobby. The goal is to “keep playing/producing”, although it can be ‘hard’ work The fourth category – entertainment and amusement - pleasantly engaged with light positive emotion. Feelings about the four There are a full range of emotions across the four categories - positive and negative Dislike is a value judgement, not an emotion, although it can be spurred by negative emotion Chore vs. hobby - who has control of the standard of quality Chore and Economic work - both have an external (uncontrolled) standard Hobby - can be physically, emotionally, and mentally hard, but we don't dislike doing it Entertainment/amusement - the standard is very low. Dislike? Not owning the standard may correspond to dislike Mindset is the key to owning the standard Culture is the primary force that tells us work is "bad" - can we not adopt that trope Our minds give us what we expect Takeaways Own the standard and move chore and economic work toward hobby Refute the cultural meme about people who enjoy their (economic) work Entertainment/amusement is addictive in our culture; so is hobby (but hobby produces results) I think both economic work and chore can be elevated out of the dislike category. Own the standard and raise your skill so that your standard exceeds the external one. Entertainment/amusement is probably dangerous and should be strictly self-controlled. larry@dobusyright.com ; linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Humans Monotask; Computers Task-switch; Nothing Multitasks - DBR 061 57:26

לפני 21 weeks57:26

57:26

I was having a sales conversation, discussing several ideas around managing tasks and attention. I happened to mention the background of the term multitasking and his eyes got really big and he started asking questions. I realized that he was not familiar with the story of how we arrived at the term “multitasking” and so I told it to him. He was fascinated and realized that there is really very little evidence that humans can multitask – it’s like we all believe some fable. This encouraged him to realize that he needed to abandon his pretext of trying to multitask and to take his attention management more seriously We don’t want to acknowledge our “weakness”, so we don’t use the tool that helps us. Fair enough, human nature and all – who wants to walk with a cane? History of the idea of multitasking shows that the term is only about 70 years old – prior to that, nobody had any concept that we could (or would want to) do it. The first known published use of the term is in 1965. For data, I consulted Google N-gram viewer The rise in use of “multitasking” The most interesting thing is that computers still can’t really do it. So, let’s look at the rise of the notion in computing The original computer was a single-task mechanical device From that, we built a machine that could have its purpose controlled on the fly. That’s what a Turing machine is – that’s the concept. so we've conceptualized this notion that the machine can do multiple things, do different things, The term multitasking came into use in the 60s, and it was engineers talking to engineers It was never a term that was really intended to apply to human people If it wasn’t intended to apply to people, why do we apply it to people? Brain as computer and computer as brain If a computer can do it, then maybe a human brain can do it, and if a human brain can do it, and maybe a computer could do it. We’re not multitasking, we're task switching and applying continuous partial attention. Fine, we’re task switching, why is that bad? Almost before we recognize it, we have switched task We lose our focus I'd better do that now. I'd better stop what I'm doing and go do that thing We're slow task switchers - neurobiology Fine, I’m reactive – isn’t that what is required? Things that make us feel the need to stop doing what we're doing and start doing another thing. A majority of people don’t know that this is a problem - that we can't multitask Our machines are much more responsive, consistent, and well-trained than we are We need to find and solve systemic problems in our processes We can only do those things through calm thoughtful work What if your reactivity is just a habit adopted from a distorted picture of “what everyone else is doing”, a symptom of a lack of understanding the real principles of producing and capturing value in the world? When you're too close to the situation, it becomes difficult to see the big picture. That's the origin of the saying "can't see the forest for the trees." When you don't know what you don't know, it's impossible to find the solution. larry@dobusyright.com; www.linkedin.com/in/larrytribble…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Do I Have a Context Problem? - DBR 060 48:51

לפני 23 weeks48:51

48:51

Anytime you talk about task management, you talk about actually doing things. It's one thing to know you have something to do. It's another thing to prioritize well and what I have to say will have something to do with prioritization. But actually doing things has a lot to do with the third thing which is, given a prioritized task, will you do it? The challenge here: What do we know about context, and how can we organize our thoughts around tasks, having context and us entering into that context before we attempt to task. So we'll explore context today, and I think it's an important concept to understand as we try to orient our lives towards actually completing tasks and delivering results. These are the foundations of creating value and getting paid. In the modern workplace, a lot of us have gotten the idea that we can work from anywhere. And there are a couple problems with that. The one we’ll deal with today is: not all work environments are created equal. What is context? One category of differences in work environments is what we’ll call ‘context’. Context examples grocery store, phone availability, etc. When we're prioritizing our tasks, I think we might overlook the notion of context. However, context is important to our productivity Context is malleable to some degree One: There is some risk in selecting context – it can change on us Two: What's the cost of that malleability? There are two associated notions: One: Knowing the context, being aware of the required context. Two: Developing/creating that context. If we're in the wrong context, we'll have subpar results from our work. “Battlefield surgery”, but that shouldn’t be the norm Five components Physical or 'hard' environment Energy level - the mental energy we bring based on circadian or other rhythmic Mental - our 'stick brain' - can we batch tasks? Quasi-physical - are your tools and information available? Social - are the right people around)? What happens if we're in the wrong context? Spectrum of effects that we could see from the wrong context (“a little bit harder” through “the power’s out”) Procrastination at the lower levels? Operationalizing context - Work blocks Scheduling work blocks with context in mind Sequencing work blocks with context in mind Some rules/parameters for batching Postponing tasks is another good time to to think about context Bring context into your planning arsenal A key point about Attention Compass: context is baked in to the Daily review workflow – we develop habits around dealing with context well. Hit me up and tell me what's on your mind: larry@DoBusyRight.com or LinkedIn (mention the pod when you connect, please).…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Smart Glasses, Book Notes, and a Memex - DBR059 54:44

לפני 24 weeks54:44

54:44

I got this question from one of the participants in the current Attention Compass group training – “What should I be recording/capturing?” I had mentioned that I kept Book Notes. There was some debate on the usefulness of capturing Book Notes, around the usefulness/efficiency/etc. of broad capture of information. For about 75 years now, people have been thinking about ‘ubiquitous capture”. I’ll argue that we’ve entered phase three. It’s quite within technical reach, IMO, with Smart Glasses (although I’m not sure that’s the purpose). The question is: what evidence is there that it would be useful. The point is – how much information should we be trying to keep and how do we know when we’ve got it covered. How much technology should I be using? We’ll take that on in today’s episode. The two primary challenges of capture It’s hard to predict what will be useful It has a cost, so we want to be efficient. Cost = 1-storage, and 2-review (processing) Cost 1 is falling rapidly Cost 2 may be subject to AI intervention The history of ubiquitous capture Memex Ph.D. reading and Book Notes Google glass Now – Meta smart glasses Better/worse ways to read (from an information capture standpoint) “How To Read a Book” – use the parts of a book Example, TOC has two main purposes 1) find for second reading 2) pose questions for first reading what’s an index? Make Book Notes The notes become the index, which is stored in the book – how can I use that? challenges to making Book Notes But how DO we read Reading fiction is different than reading non fiction. We just expect to gain pleasure or alleviation of boredom from reading fiction. We don't have a habit of reading in an environment that's conducive to taking notes Why Book Notes What are ‘book notes’ – summary of takeaways Purpose: I don't have to reread the book to verify/remember the information I need. Reading apps like Kindle are not all the way there; best is to just have some copy paper in there and a pen This makes associating our thoughts with a physical book pretty straightforward How much capture is too much? Extending the book notes model Indexing information that we consume. If we’re in an information/attention economy, then how do we practice ‘economy’ in gathering information? we're utilizing our attention to create information, we need to do it well/efficiently our brains are unreliable when we consume information Back to books / Ph.D. reading Hard to manage the information when we read a lot of books Beyond books and book notes – toward ubiquitous capture One problem – how do we store our own thoughts Brains are not real reliable storage mechanisms We don't know exactly what information we'll need later Make some notes to yourself; it's a waste of time to have to re-consume all the information in order to recall the nugget that we wanted The technological road to Memex Phase 1 - virtual assistant to transcript your meetings Phase 2 - zoom avatar to attend the meeting Phase 3 – a Memex-like system via (e.g.) Meta Smart Glasses The big difference is AI, so the question comes down to How much do you trust AI?…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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No 60-0-60 Thanksgiving - DBR 058 8:23

לפני 25 weeks8:23

8:23

The 0 - 60 - 0 model of vacation and time off It's pervasive in the Knowledge Work culture. I haven't decided what to advise for this. This is less than 10 minutes. I've given you 40+ minutes of your life back. Take the time you would have given listening to me and give it to someone else. Spend time over Thanksgiving and Christmas (in the US) with people. Give them your attention.…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Protecting Ourselves with a Model of Attention - DBR 057 53:25

לפני 26 weeks53:25

53:25

Our attention is our primary productive asset. Therefore, we need to protect it. Today, we’ll talk about how to do that in the face of modern technology. I’ll describe the neuropsychological model of attention, how it gets abused by modern technology and what we can do about it. This is critical understanding – your productive asset is being hijacked right under your nose and used for nefarious purposes. Let’s figure out how to stop that from happening. This is based on a book called The Distracted Mind by Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen. Both are respected guys and I wanted to use the best source(s) I could find. “What does our ‘ancient brain’ do with modern technology?” Attention is your productive asset, and the information in the world is competing for time on that productive asset. So here we go. Oh, and by the way, the takeaway here is going to be recommendations for how to deal with this stuff. I think you’ll find it surprising. We have to manage our attention Attention economy Economy: how goods and services are produced and distributed (usually ‘within a culture/jurisdiction’) Attention economy: how attention is used with particular respect to production, scarcity, and alternative uses (little to no location constraints) The model of attention has to do with three ideas Idea 1: Selectivity - both inhibitory and enhancing Idea 2: working memory, Idea 3: goal management Switching costs How to manage attention from the book #1 while you're doing the task, think about the value that you're creating or gaining from having Your attention where it is and where you want it #2 put the distractions away. #3 If what you're doing is a routine task, make it slightly harder – play games to stay interested #4 remind yourself that what's out there probably doesn't have huge value. MY big takeaway from the book We can get better at this attention thing. I think a lot of people get victimized here We know how to do these things and that hasn’t changed The environment is changing, but not in particularly fundamental ways We’ve just got into a bigger library, but the skills are still the skills We have agency here – don’t be a victim - we can be more effective than we currently are…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Say "No" List - DBR 056 52:40

לפני 27 weeks52:40

52:40

We're looking at burnout, overwork, these kinds of things. They are a clear indication that we’re doing busy wrong and I don’t like that. I’m going to talk about one way to combat the problem. How to decline work assignments. But we talk about burnout, we talk about work life balance, we talk about all these challenges that we face around our level of busy in the modern workplace. And I think those challenges have a single primary cause - how we accept work assignments. We need a system that helps us say "No" Burnout and modern work culture Cause of burnout is the work culture – the ‘amount of work’ problem We don't have a clear sense of the quality of knowledge work; higher amount of effort We’re better at controlling the amount of physical work The physical job world went through a similar set of things. There's nothing magical about 40 hours a week. I agree with Cal at this point, that's not the number of hours, it's the number of projects. Recommendation(s) So how do we deal with the number of projects? They’re not going to stop coming, so we need to focus on the “at one time” part Make work visible Cal's recommendation is basically you manage your work in a kanban system Accepting or declining new work requests The challenge that most people face – accepting or declining new work requests. We need to take the responsibility, even out of just sheer self defense We have to have a current, prioritized, boss-vetted list of projects. But the whole point for workflows and tool set is to have a list and to maintain the list. You're losing in the workplace because you don't have this list. You're completely unarmed. You’ve got to implement a system to manage your own work Your boss, organization, or customers are not going to do it for you. The most basic requirement of such a system - you need a full picture of what you're doing. Having and managing a complete picture of what you're doing is a huge challenge in the modern workplace. Get a system in place. Attention compass is the work management system that produces a good list. How you would use a list – how a list solves the problem If your system doesn't support you saying no to stuff, then you're going to wind up saying yes more often than you think James Clear - "you don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your system". So get a system You have to be able to say to the boss, oh, here's the priority list that WE developed. It's an ongoing conversation with your boss. But it depends on a decent list How can you create a list? What tool? We've got to have a list, and we've got to be able to pull it up. That's attention compass How does the attention compass provide this list – a backlog The backlog provides all these benefits for us. There's lots of moving parts to the backlog - part of the process is teach you how to do a backlog. Cal recommended a Kanban - a backlog versus a Kanban? Pull systems are more efficient than push systems – push systems accumulate project-level overhead Kanban is great - work in progress limits Once you have a backlog, turn it into a Kanban - here's how.…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Interruption, office hours, and tech-driven chatter - DBR 055 47:24

לפני 27 weeks47:24

47:24

We had group class yesterday. It was our second of eight group meetings to implement attention compass. Nick is in the class, and he was talking about communication and interruption. Nick's the one that has the office job with teammates and folks that that can reach out to him anytime. He has very little control over who can hit him up. So we were thinging about controlling communication, both electronic and face-to-face. Today, we’re going to talk about the mechanisms for communication, how they turn into traps, and what to do about them. If we let them go, they’ll consume too much of our attention and we won’t have enough left over to do our own stuff. We can feel like we’re ‘doing our job’ but still not getting the important stuff done This might be quite a serious problem in your world At the end of this episode, you’ll have solid strategies for dealing with communication and other information As entrepreneurs, we usually have more control – we get to set our own standard, but we’ve still got to deal with it Information channels The purpose of information in our lives – understand our environment and react to it appropriately Information channel definition Think about the specific purpose of each channel Example: my group uses Facebook – do I open up another communication channel? default communication channels - we all have one Categorization schemes Categorization scheme – active vs. passive Categorization scheme – one-way (consumption) vs. two-way (communication) Categorization scheme – synchronous vs. asynchronous – related to whether or not I can know if you’re paying attention one of the problems with email and chat is that we must treat it as asynchronous communication on an asynchronous channel, I have to communicate more. Two-way channel vs active/passive channel – “most communication channels are active” (really?) Prompting capacity of information channels Many (but not all) information channels can prompt us that new information has arrived – these prompts can be active or passive Modern tech – active prompts are typically the default Most of the time, we can move it to passive prompts Manage the prompts We can use turn active channels into less active channels, exert control over the ones that we want to be active in effect, and then move others over to passive Lots of information channels Our organizations have put us in a position where we have multiple, multiple communication channels When people are asked they always say, I need more information, despite the fact that after a certain point, more information actually leads to worse decisions We're afraid you're going to miss something and look like a goofball. Manage the level of activity in each channel (both number and signal) Don’t let your technology be a six-year-old child – prune your channels Technology - Controlled, it's great. Not controlled, it's a problem. Sphere of concern and sphere of influence We use information channels to explore our sphere of concern Our technology and culture have allowed our sphere of concern to completely outstrip our sphere of influence Our natural curiosity is a trap here + cultural influence (i.e. ‘awareness’, etc.) Challenge #1 - conversations about: what channels are we going to use? Conversations about what channels we are going to use We've got to have help from the other people in our environment to pull this off "In our group, here's our communication culture " Discipline allows each of the team members to turn off communication channels for a period of time Note that this an agreement in your organization, you may not have the lift to move the needle much Challenge #2 Switch channels during a communication – pick the proper channel for good communication An asynchronous channel is a terrible way to communicate complex information Challenge #3 Implementing an “open door” policy (deal with face to face interruptions) Make face to face less active – office hours You're the only one that's going to enforce it. Recap…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Where Should I Keep My Stuff? - DBR 054 50:09

לפני 29 weeks50:09

50:09

I talk about the tool set for the kind of information and attention management that Attention Compass provides. I get a lot of questions about: I use tool X. What about tool Y? What tools should I use? Most of this revolves around “where should I keep my stuff?” And we'll talk about that today. When I say tool, I mean online service, system, database, to keep my stuff. Google Keep, Apple Notes, Clickup, etc. The information storage tool is a core part of the Attention Compass system. Our information is a primary consumer of our attention in two ways: comprehending it and finding it when we need it. The storage tool is primarily about ‘finding’. It is vitally important that you have a tool, a place. We'll talk about why that is. And we’ll talk about the purpose and properties of a good tool. So here we'll lay out what the purpose of a tool is, some of the properties that a tool should have. It's not exhaustive, and that way, you'll have a better picture of what's going on. In general, the tool here is the container and storehouse for our information We're talking about a tool for personal information management – a storehouse for information. Our storehouses have “containers”. A library (information storehouse) has books (information containers). Is having a container the ideal? I really can't envision another way to do it. Container The container defines what our information can do, and more importantly, defines what we can do with our information. Container is not a rigorously defined term, Challenge: medialessness = ‘container’ as a metaphorical term it's all just electronic, and we can mimic containers – OneNote = electronic paper (Almost) everything about OneNote to me looked like a piece of paper. OneNote – an astonishing difference Back to the container – metaphor from the physical Now containers are really just metaphorical The app developer creates the container and creates the metaphor for how you use the container And that’s how information is stored in computer apps The ‘right’container The ‘right’ container is pretty murky - we don't know what a fundamental unit of information is (it ain’t the bit) So we have to create our own containerized units of information – examples: a note, a text field in an app, a snippet of audio The kind of container matters in how we're able to use the tool, and what the tool is able to do. Another example of container: a calendar appointment Certain kinds of information goes in there very well. Other kinds of information doesn't fit well Can I mangle the container in such a way that it supports storing a chapter of your book? a Google Calendar calendar event may have different fields than an Outlook calendar calendar event. Are they both calendar events? Or is one different enough that we need to come up with a different name for it? Container names don’t convey much information Back in the day, it was easier because the medium defined the properties of the information. A note in evernote and a note in onenote are different critters, because they have different ways they can interact. What kinds of containers are best? The PIM folks give a list of kinds of information that our systems should support. Does a tool have containers that support these four kinds of information well? You can say, Okay, well, here's why it would be a good Personal Information Management tool, and here's where it would be weak. People get enamored of a container type and devote themselves to that container type without much thought about Well, is it an effective container? “my tool is the best tool, and it works for me…” From a pure informational standpoint, there is very little difference between the bits that are stored in a contact record versus the bits that are stored in a calendar container. I counsel people to not get so married to one app, but really think about what the app does Also, a system has properties – these are more about the library (storehouse) than the book(s) (containers) Property is something that applies to all the different container categories equally Properties that a personal information system needs to have Security Data availability Information management - archiving, backups, etc. I've discovered some good properties of information that are just now being embodied in tools, The storage metaphor The retrieval mechanism It's fine to store it, but if you can't retrieve it, it's useless Global Search has its place, but it is not a panacea. List of four The personal information management people have four kinds of content that a system needs to handle. They're not perfect categories. Classification systems – Mendeleev’s Table of the Elements Contact management is about the people in our lives Calendar information is all about managing our time Communication management is about interactions with people Records management = historical data management. This is the blurriest of the categories. In attention compass we talk about actionable information versus reference information. Maybe a fifth kind? How to determine if a tool stacks up? A framework for evaluating tools based on the 10 properties Compare tools based on how well they support each property. The challenges of using multiple "best-of-breed" solutions Be open minded about the tools - don't get "married" to one Recap…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Fable: Your Tasks Are Easy to List - DBR 053 59:30

לפני 30 weeks59:30

59:30

Fable: It's quick and easy to figure out what I should do, or I just know what I should do. It shouldn’t take much effort. Corollary: I’m wasting time managing my stuff when I need to do things. Spoiler alert, it's not that easy, and I’ll talk about the reasons. For now, if we have this mindset it leads to poor management: I'll just get to the office and whip out a piece of paper and I'll make my to do list. We don't give it enough thought and time. There are some specific things I want to say about how our brain works when we create this list. But, I've got a lot of potential clients who say: I don't need some big system to track what I need to do. It's just, I need to do it. There are some cases where the job is simple enough that you just go in and you just do the job. There are more routine kinds of jobs and less routine kinds of jobs. Simple is probably not your job (and it’s certainly not your life). Knowledge Work requires more management, not less Most knowledge work is Non-routine Therefore, Most knowledge work is less procedural This means that we have to think about what we’re doing Also, for whatever reasons (and there are many) our lives are more complex Thinking “it’s quick and easy” leads to The ‘typical’ approach to managing our tasks Most people use a to-do list, carry stuff over from yesterday, eventually find it too much and start over. The to-do list cycle ends in starting over, again and again Eventually, we get tired of repeating (starting over) and some folks throw the whole thing over and just react We’re asking our brains the wrong question “It’s a waste of time and the wrong things get on the list What you need is a backlog. Attention Compass teaches you how to do that. I said it’s hard – here are the mental challenges that set the "typical" approach up for failure You've gotta think hard to get your brain to serve up priorities Your brain tends to serve up results, not steps These tend to be big, chunky things that are easy to procrastinate We need to pre decide these things. We have to take time to think about the next step “I’ve got a new idea” about process doesn’t store well in the to-do list So, Haste makes waste, particularly in our task list The fable of task management - PMI In our mind. We have this notion of how projects are managed. But most of us are working off of legend Key: notice resource constraints and predecessor tasks – takes thought and planning The legend is simple, the process is complex. We don't give the process the thought it needs. The result is an inaccurate plan It's so hard that most software development companies have scrapped it – viola, agile We do a rigorous, sophisticated, detailed plan with no slack The real idea of PMI - creating a control chart, requiring heavy monitoring, and paying for that monitoring Amateurs, when they approach this problem, don't understand it in that same way. PMI spends a ton of time/money PRE-DECIDING – as amateurs, we try to short-circuit that in the name of efficiency Here’s where time efficiency has us… Haste makes waste, particularly in our task list you can't fumble the delivery - You gotta have the patience and the perseverance to complete a task before you move on to the next premature optimization. switching tasks too soon and too quickly. fast task switching also hurts your memory of completion Tech has made us faster, but it hasn't made us better. Hurry sickness and hustle culture Don’t get focused on trying to move too fast (in the short term) How experience works - the specific ways in which those things are different are still unknown to you. (cake vs. bread) It's very difficult for us to know what we should do, and thus we SHOULD spend a lot of time "thinking about it" Haste makes waste efficiency and productivity are not exactly the same thing most of the time efficiency is based on experience with the process most of us pursue productivity with efficiency-based methods here, as much as anywhere, it’s important to consider attention vs. time Where do I get the time for all of this First, it doesn’t take as long as you might think Second, you’re wasting a lot of time on interruption, multitasking, and distraction – we reduce these wastes Third, we get time by getting rid of the to-do list process Fourth, get habits in order so you can do the right things consistently…

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Principles, Philosophy, and Mindset - DBR 052 56:34

לפני 31 weeks56:34

56:34

Do Busy Right – philosophy and some basic mindsets I'll start out with a client story. Her name's Kelly, and we were talking about attention compass. “Well”, she said, “I don't know anything about all that. But I admire the Larry Zen”. I loved it. But, I didn’t know what “Larry Zen” meant. So, I asked. And she said, “nothing seems to bother you, nothing seems to get under your skin. You don't get ruffled easily. You're able to take things on and accomplish things without getting too wrapped up in the drama of situations.” I will say, I consider that a high compliment. I am actually a very emotional person. I'm not terribly demonstrative about that, and it doesn't apply to everything. I'm a football fan, but you seldom see me screaming at the TV. I have thoughts about what happened. I am a Monday morning quarterback, just like everybody else. I'm very interested in coaching and performance, and so I like to study really good coaches, because they get results through other people, which is the essence and the art of management. I just don’t do much drama. I think that our feelings often get in the way of our thinking. Back to the story, Kellie said, “Okay, well, how do you do that?” And I said, “Well a big part of it is my Attention Compass. I don't have stress over the things I have to do.” I developed the system because I needed it to live the kind of life I want to live. Along the way, I developed 'Larry Zen' through: I’m a Christian - Easy yoke and light burden LP Jacks – “the master of the art of living…” A very good mental picture of the life that I desire for myself and for people around me Minimalism and stoicism I don't think of myself as a minimalist in any hard-core sense. I'm more, if you will, a stoic philosopher. I have minimalist tendencies - simplicity I do think that that the culture pushes us away from minimalism and stoicism I think most people are, by and large, as happy as they decide to be, but good tools help I think we should work to do busy right. I use the phrase “calm and focused productivity”. Kipling in “If” – you know, “you'll be a man my son”. Ride the roller coaster “Mind like water” - knock those things out and move on, go eat dinner. Culture – “Why does it matter how I feel about a task?” “I hate doing expense reports” Terms I like and use WorkPlay I choose peace and calm, for doing work because we love it We're created to be workers - to change the physical nature of our environment. I like to be lighthearted, relaxed and playful WorkLife It doesn’t count as work because you enjoy it? We have deadlines, some are easy and some are not Calm, focused productivity, work play and work life I choose the contentment perspective on minimalism House pet example - Stuff breeds responsibility I'm in favor of good stewardship. we are in many ways accountable for the gifts that we've been given and that we use them well and properly. That's my definition of stewardship. can we afford to be content? Is the wrong question. Charles Dickens's character Wilkins Micawber warned us: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.” I think we can improve the lives of knowledge workers, and I think it's important, I'm worried about our productivity as knowledge workers We've gotten a lot faster, but I'm not sure that we've gotten any better. We get faster and faster and faster with the things that we can do, and we're required to to get faster and faster stay ahead of that. I’m against a few things, we weren't meant to be overclocked the hustle culture, I'm very much against that. I'm against it's close cousin, which I refer to as hyper reactivity So I'm against that consumerism I think that that the most powerful economic forces in our culture today live and thrive and profit off of our discontent. I'm definitely against multitasking Group class launching 10/29/2024. I've got a few seats available and won't have another class until after the first of the year. You can take care of it now and start 2025 with a better level of productivity. Linked In or larry@dobusyright.com . I wanted you to understand where I'm going and to pick up some motivation. Build a community……

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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What Do You Mean? I'm Not Doing Busy Wrong - DBR 051 50:27

לפני 32 weeks50:27

50:27

What do you mean? I don't think I'm doing busy wrong. I don't really get this one directly, but it's a consistent subtext when I talk to folks, and it's not that I misunderstand. For years, I thought I wasn’t swinging a golf club wrong, but I think maybe people take it a little bit too personally, let’s think about why this might be so. The cultural idea: One's ability to use technology in the modern age is really unfortunately connected to efficacy as a human being, and the culture is such that we buy that notion. The thinking here is an outgrowth of the learning experiences that I've had as an adult We’ll talk about three interrelated areas: personal productivity, knowledge work, and work from home The tech (for various reasons) doesn’t support our learning. Evidence: Software, the industry and the software marketing business Evidence: usability is hard and the economics don't drive companies there Financial motivations in the software industry The whole software business is built around solving a problem that every human being has, and so you're going to be able to sell a billion copies of it. And that makes you rich, right? if you sell it to two people, you lose – that’s not the business model Two ways: Build a piece of software that does everything right, solves a problem so big that everyone needs it. This is very, very hard. Market to people and make them believe your software does everything, and you don't want to constrain them by telling them how to use your software Software builders are trying to be everything to everybody. Somebody has to teach you that's not what hammers are for, that's not what screws are for. Back to "intuitive" Marketing has managed to equate intuition with your intelligence. And more likely: intuition is related to your experience. the new one better look a whole lot like the old in order for my intuition/experience to be employed. “Intuitive” is a weird word. It moves the responsibility to the user. There's nothing intuitive about it "Intuitive" is really kind of a strange word. It snuck in there and all these implications that are not, not really true. Software Marketing Spin it such that, if it wasn't intuitive for you, then it's not our fault, it’s yours. People simply don't design things for usability – they simply claim that they do So not only do we start off with bad metaphors, but those metaphors tend to persist. The email metaphor is terrible Evidence: The envelope metaphor for email Fascinating: the interfaces haven't changed. DBR – basically information management Password management as information management I asked a cybersecurity class – overwhelming majority don’t use good password management Do you understand what a password manager does? It's okay to say no, it does not make you stupid. Can you learn about this stuff? Yeah. Do you have time? Probably not. The “password = key” metaphor is wrong Imagine if you couldn’t keep a physical copy of your car key but that's a metaphor for passwords Password questions Do you understand the challenge of managing passwords? Have you been taught? Well, why not – it’s hard and our metaphors are wrong Data (electronic information) storage This is a hard problem that hasn’t been solved Were you taught how to use email? It’s complicated and we’ve not really figured it out Have you been trained in the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication? Do you know what I'm talking about? Work from home? We went to offices, because at an office, somebody else took care of many of the services for us, How's your home ergonomics? How's your networking? Are if it doesn't work, who has to fix it. Data integrity in your home office? Have you been taught? Have you been trained in how to backup software, maintain your data? Knowledge work We sort of knew how to do physical. In knowledge work, we really don't know how it's best done. Do you know how to manage information assets, to collect and organize information in such a way that you can find it again? If you can't remember being taught, you probably weren't. Are you self-taught? You know, a lot of people say, Well, I was trained for knowledge work when I was in school. I've already done a podcast on that. No, you weren't. I talked to college students about this stuff, and they're just flabbergasted that we know something about how to do these things. And they're like, why hasn't anybody ever taught me this before? But were you trained to solve problems? Finally I don't think I'm doing busy, wrong. Well, what's the evidence that you're doing it right? It is not very easy stuff. The tech industry is not really helping us, yet we fixate on the latest innovations. “Maybe this will finally solve my problem.” “It just works for me”. Compared to what and/or who? Respectfully, I've spent 15 years trying to figure out what knowledge work is and how it's best done.…

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