The Trouble with Due Dates - OmniFocus

For the longest time, I used to assign Due dates all over the show in OmniFocus. Almost every task would have a Due date assigned, yet I didn't realize at the time that I was throttling the effectiveness of both the application itself and my GTD system. I used to assign a Due date to signify when I would have liked to have the task completed by, as opposed to when the task was, indeed, due. If there were actions needed by a certain date, these would slip through the cracks. 

That's why I have now adopted Defer Dates, Flags, and Due Dates in equal measure because each plays an important role in how I prioritize my tasks for the day. 

Defer Dates

I ignored defer dates for a long time. Now, they are one of the most important attributes that I assign to a task. I have many projects in my OmniFocus database and were I presented with next actions for all of them, I'd be shutting down pretty quickly and heading off to waste some time on the Xbox - no question! I don't deal with overwhelm. 

So defer dates come to the rescue here. I push projects or actions into the future by telling OmniFocus when I would like to see them again as an available action item. If I know I don't need to be working on that research project until next month, I can set an appropriate defer date. It will disappear from my available actions until that date appears, like a tickler system.

Part of my morning routine (sometimes my evening one too - it's flexible) involves scanning through my available actions in OmniFocus and setting these defer dates. I have a context named Clear (thanks to MacSparky for the advice here) which shows an unfiltered list of all available actions. I push out anything which doesn't need to be on my daily list, yet it helps me ensure it's still on my radar. 

Flags

When I set an action/project with a flag, I'm telling OmniFocus that this is something I would like to complete in the near future. I have a perspective called Dashboard that shows only Flagged/Due Soon actions. As I work my way through the Clearperspective I mentioned earlier, I can assign Flags to individual items, marking them as actions I would like to do. Simple, but highly effective. 

It's vital to note that I'm fairly tight on the use of Flags in any given session. I always try to assign less than I feel I can complete. This allows for padding in my day, to deal with any fires that inevitably come up without the inevitable guilt that comes with incomplete tasks at the end of the day which you have deemed as important. 

I also assign flags to projects as part of my weekly review. There are generally, as a rule of thumb, two projects that I have defined as my primary projects for the week. Actions related to these should sit at the top of my list. I achieve this by moving these projects to the top of my projects list in the sidebar and adding a flag. This places their actions at the top of the Dashboard perspective, meaning I don't need to think about which order to process the actions in, I can run from top to bottom in comfort. 

Due Dates

By leveraging defer dates and flags in the manner above, due dates can now serve their purpose. If an action truly must be completed by a certain date, I can enter this date, safe in the knowledge I will have it presented to me at the right time and I will be able to take action. This helps ensure that OmniFocus is my trusted system. 

Do you use Defer dates in your workflow? What issues have you found in implementing them? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Go Dark to Shine Bright

I have to say that being a nice person can be a real productivity killer at times! Saying No to people seems to be just so rude sometimes that I find it almost impossible to do.

Sadly, for lots of people, this means that their workload can end up being inflated, with only a certain percentage of it taken up with that they will get the direct benefit from. 

Well, I used to be in a situation very similar to this. I hate letting people down and love the sense of well-being that comes from helping others as much as I can. That’s where the problem lies though. We tend to have a distorted view of how much time we are actually able to give across to others. 

Look at the amount of time you spend reacting to inputs from other people that disrupt the flow of your work. You get notifications via many different mediums on your phone or computer. I know this used to be the case for myself, with several messaging applications open, email, as well as the occasional phone call (shock horror…phones receive calls too!). Sitting in an open-plan office, at least in the days when this was ‘normal’ also meant that people would always chat when passing, or across the desk. Sometimes, even wearing the largest pair of headphones known to man wouldn’t get the point across that you really don’t want to be disturbed right now! 

I decided I couldn’t keep trudging down this productivity cul-de-sac any longer and so came up with a list of potential actions I would employ to prevent those issues from affecting me.

Phone Notifications OFF

The biggest culprit for these mental shoulder taps was definitely my phone. Well, I say my phone, let’s be honest, it’s me, as my phone doesn’t self-configure itself to disturb me whenever it likes. During my working day or periods where I need my concentration levels to be at their highest, I turn off all notifications except for those from any VIPs. In my case, this is my wife, as a lack of productivity is a small price to pay for missing an alert from Mrs Garrett. 

This approach works really well for me. When I install new apps, notifications are off by default however it’s the SMS messages, iMessages and emails that can be the killer. I hold the view that if there is an emergency, someone will call. If they call and it isn’t an emergency, then they know in no uncertain terms that next time, it had better be an emergency.

Use Your Calendar

Your calendar can be a really useful tool for letting people know you cannot be disturbed. When I am not in meetings, I schedule myself project time so that those who can view my Calendar see me as busy. It could very well be that I’m not needing that whole block of time to concentrate on one thing in particular however it’s far easier to take away from a Calendar than it is to find time in one.

Fake meetings can be very handy as well. Obviously, you need to be in some form of high ranking superiority in the job you are in to use this approach! 

If you schedule your peak focus periods into your Calendar in this manner then you will go a long way to minimising the distractions other people present. 

Use Your Email

You have to be strict with yourself and simply stay away from your email during your busiest times. If you reply to emails within several minutes of receiving them, people will expect this to be the norm. You will then set a precedent that you could really do with avoiding. Conversely, if people know that you only check your email at pre-designated times of the day then people will not badger you for information. In fact, the number of emails you receive could very well reduce. 

By using an Out Of Office assistant wisely, you could help yourself immensely too. Let people know automatically that you will not be able to reply to any new emails until a given date, or explain that you are currently unavailable, however, if it is an emergency, provide details for a medium that you can be communicated via. 

Use Your Colleagues

Let the people you work with know that you cannot be disturbed. This will not only prevent them from mindlessly distracting you but will also enable them to act as gatekeepers, stopping others from disturbing you, taking messages etc. If you working in an office environment, maybe have a pre-designated signal to identify that you are in Do Not Disturb mode. My headphones work the majority of the time but there will always be an exception to this rule!

Offer Alternative Appointments

Let’s be honest, it’s hard to just tell people you don’t have the time to listen to them. However, explaining that you are in the middle of something at the moment and offering an alternative time to chat shows them that you do want to know what they have to say, it just needs to wait. If it’s important, then you won’t miss out on something you should know, whereas if it isn’t, then you have successfully avoided this time-drain without offending someone. 

Also, offer alternative methods of communication when you don’t have the time to talk. If it’s something that will need attention, then ask for an email on the subject which also acts as a nice digital reminder that you have something that needs processing. 

In Summary

Nobody likes letting people down or appearing as though you haven’t got time for them, however, it is a necessary evil when it comes to maximising the time you have available for the actions that matter. Remember that every time you say No to someone, you are actually saying Yes to something that is more important. 

It’s a tough balancing act to pull off, being a decent human being and a productivity demon, however with some careful planning, subtle changes to your workflow applied and diplomacy, it can be done.

Sometimes you need to go dark in order to shine bright.

Habits, Routines and Rituals

Ever since I read The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg, I've held a fascination with habits. Before then, I'd viewed them with a negative connotation. Maybe it was my upbringing, always having my bad habits brought to my attention - I don't know. Still, it wasn't until I finished this book that I realised there were a lot of positive habits that I'd picked up over the years, as well as scope to create some more.

I then read an article by Thanh Pham over at Asian Efficiency that described how habits were not as effective as rituals. This spun me for a bit of a loop when I first read it - here was a piece talking about how to take your habits to the next level! I wanted to dig a little deeper. That is, until I reached the bottom of the article and Thanh started to talk about how rituals were different to routines.

I had to stop at this point. Habits, Routines, Rituals - all words that seem to have similar meanings, all stemming from the same area of productivity yet each of them can ellicit a different perception.

I'd like to take the time to summarise my take on each of these and how I now utilise them all to improve the quality of my life and my actions.

Habits

I like to look at habits as singular actions I can take that will help drive me towards a particular goal.

Do I want my teeth to be clean and healthy? Then I need to develop a habit of brushing and flossing. Perhaps a habit of drinking water instead of fizzy drinks.

Do I want to improve my level of knowledge about a certain topic? Developing a habit of researching articles on that area on my smart phone while I'm waiting for something, rather than playing Hearthstone or Injustice would be a definite step forward.

How about running in the morning? If I leave my running gear and shoes by the door before bed then that could help lessen the friction I feel when I'm tired and getting my bearings.

Habits are predominantly singular actions, performed automatically and, when you've have repeated them enough, almost involuntary. If you are consistently applying these actions, your brain doesn't have to think about them anymore and there is space in your head to form new ones. It's a win-win.

To create the habit, you need a cue. This is the behaviour that will prompt you to take action. So in the example of laying out my running gear, the cue is the behaviour of going to bed and walking past the front door. It may be that to help me start the habit off, I use a habit tracking application such as Streaks to remind me at a certain time every day (I use this tactic a lot to help kick start a habit formation).

Once the cue has presented itself, it's time to take action and complete the habit. Not much explanation needed there!

Once you have carried out the action, it's time for the reward. When you brush your teeth, it's that sensation you have on your teeth that tingles ever so slightly and makes you feel fresh. When I've laid out my runners, it's the satisfaction that I've zero friction in the morning when it comes to going out for my morning run. Consequently, I'll get the reward of feeling fitter and healthier once the run is complete.

Routines

So how would I describe a routine? I used to look at my morning routine as a series of actions that I can execute in any order. I guess you could equate a routine to being a collection of habits. In the morning I will drink a glass of water, brew my coffee, meditate, read, review my calendar for the day and then kick the day off knowing I am in full control.

It's difficult, however, to avoid the negative connotations attributed to the work routine. I catch myself using the phrase "stuck in a routine" more often than I would like. It's rarely used in a positive light at all. It's almost as though a routine is something you need to avoid. This is where the word ritual takes over and why I no longer have a morning routine. The morning ritual has taken over.

Rituals

Rituals, like routines, are a collection of habits. I see them as having two clear differentials.

1) The actions contained within a ritual are executed in a certain order. I don't mix and match the actions in my morning ritual as I won't have my morning coffee until I've drunk a pint of water. I won't have my coffee sitting there cooling while I'm meditating - I like it to the side of me whilst I read. These actions need to take place in a certain order.

2) There is a clear and definable benefit to the actions created. The actions aren't there for the sake of being there, they are there because you have chosen them and you have a deep connection to them. It could be the desire to feel nourished, or because you crave the feeling of self-improvement. For me, I have a morning ritual to help ensure I have the feeling of control over my day that I may otherwise have lost.

I feel this differs from a routine in that a routine is a systematic, functional group of actions that you have to complete. There is no emotional attachment.

You carry out the actions in a routine because you have to. The ritual, on the other hand, is there because you want to.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

Slicing and Dicing with the Pomodoro Technique

When I first decided that I wanted to improve my levels of productivity, I became inundated with advice, both from colleagues and online articles. Some of the advice wasn’t so great - at least, not for me. Productivity is a very personal thing and what works for some, may not necessarily work for all. 

One productivity style that has worked for me is the Pomodoro Technique. It first hit me because of the name (I’m the only person in my house that loves tomatoes, so what?!) and when I delved further into it, I realised it could answer a lot of my problems. I had difficulty maintaining focus and the Pomodoro Technique certainly helped me overcome this weakness. 

Overview

Francesco Cirillo created the Pomodoro Technique in the late 1980s and involves six key steps:

• Decide on a task to be completed

• Using a timer (the original timer looked like a tomato, hence the name) allocate 25 minutes to focus on a particular task.

• Work solidly on the task until the timer goes off

• When the timer rings, put a checkmark on a piece of paper, or text document (this is optional, I don't do this myself).

• If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a 5-minute break. We refer to the thirty-minute period as a single Pomodoro

• Repeat the process. When you have four pomodoros, take a longer break, up to 30 minutes

How I Use It

I largely follow the steps above directly, however, there are some slight deviations, so let me give a brief overview as to how I use the Pomodoro Technique.

Firstly, I use it predominantly when I'm working from home or in a coffee shop/office space. If I'm working in a busy office with a lot of people around, vying for my attention, I find that despite my best intentions the Pomodoro Technique can suffer. Even if I have my largest size headphones on which silently scream to people "I'm busy, don't talk to me", someone will interrupt and the benefits of solid, focused attention disappear. Thankfully, those times where I’m working in a congested environment are far fewer than in previous years, which means I get to use this technique a lot more. 

Next, I set up my environment accordingly. I'm sure to have a full glass of water or fresh coffee depending on the time of day. My devices are in Do Not Disturb mode and I'm sure to have only the applications open that I need. 

Lastly (and this is the part most people miss) - I make sure that the task(s) I intend to work on is broken down into the smallest possible chunks!

That's where the title for this post comes from. I slice and dice my tasks to ensure there is little thinking to do about the task itself. I won't spend 5 minutes of the Pomodoro trying to work out what I need to do. There won't be those agonising moments where I look at the task and think "Hmmm, OK, I can't do that at the moment because I need to do this other part first"

Let's take this blog post as an example. I could easily have a task in my task manager that said "Publish Blog Post on using the Pomodoro Technique" however that would only lead to friction. If I set the timer and looked at that as my task, I'd wonder where on earth I would start. Firstly, I need an outline - how should I construct the post so that it's easy to read, what information should it contain? Once I have an outline, there may be different sections to the piece (depending on its length). Do I have an image that I can use with the title? What about proofing?

As you can see, you can slice and dice a task into several sub-tasks.

• Create an outline for the blog post

• Draft the Intro and Overview

• Draft How I Use It

• Edit the post with proofing tools (I use Grammarly at the moment but there are lots of options out there)

• Upload and Schedule the post

• Archive the post in my blog post archive

• Schedule the next post in my Task Manager

Now that I’ve broken the task down into these subtasks, I will start my Pomodoro Timer application. Now I use an application called Session which I use as part of my Setapp subscription. Now I cannot recommend this application enough, it’s so versatile. 

What follows is where I may deviate from the default Pomodoro steps mentioned in the overview. The outline would be completed in the first Pomodoro and perhaps part of the intro. If my timer goes off and I find myself in a sense of flow with a particular task, then I will double the length of my Pomodoro. Instead of twenty-five minutes of focused work, I will make it fifty minutes instead. This helps to eradicate the effect of losing focus on a task during my break and then regaining it again. There is an attention cost there that I will always try to avoid. Remember, all these techniques form part of a framework. You don’t have to religiously stick to them because an article says so, you work in the best way for yourself. 

Breaking down the tasks in this manner will also allow you to make greater use of working with contexts as opposed to projects. Contexts refer to the materials, locations, people, applications, energy levels required to complete certain tasks. One example is that you may have an application such as Excel open. You may wish to spend one Pomodoro just working on a list of outstanding tasks that need completing within Excel. Or perhaps you could spend a Pomodoro solely making phone calls. It's pliable to your own needs and work strategies.

I love the Pomodoro technique in certain situations. It helps manage my focus and, with that, my energy levels and output.

Do you use it? How has it improved your ability to produce? I'd love to hear from you.

If It's Not a Hell Yes, It's a Hell No

If It’s Not a Hell Yes, It’s a Hell No

With Christmas now a passing memory, I’m hoping that my wallet can recover from the open heart surgery it experienced towards the end of last year. It’s certainly an expensive time when you have a young family - although the rewards trump the cost by a significant factor. 

I’ve found that when I spend money on others, a net result of this is a change in attitude regarding how I spend money on myself. There’s only a finite pool of cash that I can spend, so at times when my loved ones are the focus of my expenditure, I have to be ruthless when it comes to spending on myself. In fact, I’ve learned to adopt a strict strategy when it comes to buying something I like. I ask myself a simple question. 

“Do I 100% want/need this? Is it a Hell Yes?”

If it’s a Yes, then I’ll make the purchase. I trust my thought process enough to answer honestly. More often than not, however, the answer is No (In fact I’d say that 95% of the time, it’s a No!). 

I love this way of managing my purchases. It means I have to be ruthless with the money resources I have available and it allows me to make the best use of them that I can. 

So - why is a productivity guy talking about money management? Well, I quickly realised that this approach doesn’t have to be used solely for my finances. There is another resource that needs closely monitoring to make sure it’s utilized effectively and that’s my calendar. 

If I spend a little too much money in a month, then by hook or by crook, I can find ways of replenishing the pot - whether it’s by working extra hours, selling household items that are no longer needed - the bottom line is, there is a way of redressing the balance. Can I do this with my calendar? No chance! When the time is gone, it’s not coming back. This means that I need to be every bit as protective of my calendar as I would my bank account. 

This allows me to adopt the Productivity NInja characteristic of Ruthlessness when looking at Projects I have available and requests for my time. I ask myself a simple question. 

“Do I 100% want/need to do this? Is it a Hell Yes?”

If the answer is yes, it goes into Omnifocus as an Active Project and I schedule the necessary time in my calendar to work on the next actions for it. The same approach goes for meeting requests - If I’m 100% required to be at the meeting, then I attend happily. Otherwise, I make a point of requesting the meeting minutes as soon as it’s complete and picking up any relevant actions (which as I’m not at the meeting, is an infrequent occurrence - double win!). 

There are so many demands being placed on us within this Information Age that we live in. We’re all connected, our brains are being overwhelmed with the stuff of life and we need to adopt a ruthless approach if we are going to protect the resources that are dear to us. We don’t give people open access to our wallets - we shouldn’t do the same with our attention.

Protect your attention. Be Ruthless. 

When you create your magic and perform superbly at the office and home, everyone will thank you for it.