Advice

Productivity for the Neurotic

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Writer Tim Ferris just opened up on the Huffington Post:

We all like to appear “successful” (a nebulous term at best) and the media like to portray standouts as superheroes.

Sometimes, these dramatic stories of overcoming the odds are inspiring. More often, they lead to an unhealthy knee-jerk conclusion:

“Well… maybe they [entrepreneur/artist/creator painted as superhero] can do it, but I'm just a normal guy/girl…”

This post is intended to give a behind-the-scenes look at my own life. Though I've occasionally done profiles like A Day In The Life with Morgan Spurlock's crew, I rarely let journalists follow me for a “normal” day. Why?

I'm no superhero. I'm not even a consistent “normal.”

Forgive me, I'd no more heard of this guy than I have used Digg. I'm learning a lot today. Ferris wrote The Four-Hour Week, which just makes me shudder, and in this feature he lists all the fantastic things he's done recently – right alongside all the bad. Some lazy, some trivial, others seriously concerning but they're all there and he says he's written all this out so that:

Most “superheroes” are nothing of the sort. They're weird, neurotic creatures who do big things DESPITE lots of self-defeating habits and self-talk.

Personally, I suck at efficiency (doing things quickly). Here's my coping mechanism and 8-step process for maximizing efficacy (doing the right things):

Productivity Tricks for the Neurotic and Crazy (Like Me) – Tim Ferris, Huffington Post

You know I'm going to recommend that you read the full piece to see what his “coping mechanism and 8-step process” is and I am. Here I am, recommending it. But also read what he's done well and what he has done badly. Right in itself, that's got me thinking about what does and doesn't matter.

Write down your process for doing things

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Write it down now.

A very long time ago, I used to be a computer programmer and there was a culture that documenting what one did was a waste of time. A good coder just got on with it, a good coder didn’t need to leave namby-pamby notes in the code.

That reminds me of how my brother used to refuse to wear a seatbelt because he (believed) he was a great driver. It’s the same level of idiocy and it’s got the same shockingly, overwhelmingly stupid blind spot. If you were this great driver, if you were better than anyone else, that means everybody else is worse than you and they are all on the road heading your way.

Similarly, coders who didn’t believe anyone should document what they’re doing were bollixed when they had to update someone else’s spaghetti of a programme. Talk to me about elegance in coding, talk to me about the language of the very finest programmers, just talk to me about it all later ’cause I’ve got this mess to sort out now.

I’m minded of this for two reasons. The Evernote company blog just said it and said it thisaway:

Whether your business is a one-person shop or a multinational corporation, it’s very likely that you have a number of repetitive processes you go through on a regular basis. Some of these tasks could include preparing reports, submitting expenses, ordering office supplies, or responding to customers. Whether big or small, Evernote is the place to document your processes and maintain consistency.

Save Time by Documenting Processes – Joshua Zerkel, Evernote Blog (27 May 2014)

That’s not really a blog, it’s a sales brochure for Evernote and the full piece goes on to detail just how that software is good for this. But it does sound like it’s good for it, I am convinced.

But I’m really convinced because I helped a friend out with her website recently and it took me quite some time because the things she needed to do I had already done on my own site. I’d just forgotten how I did them.

I got it all working, I figured it out again – it was a WordPress installation, need I say more? – but I wasted a lot of time and actually while I got it working, I didn’t get it working quite the way I’d like. Not quite the way I have it on mine. I just could not find the specific plugins and settings I wanted for her and so I’d had to compromise.

So I’d compromised and it took a long time to get to the point of compromising. If I’d kept a note of what I’d done on mine, we’d have had hers running in a jiffy.

Much as I say about To Do tasks: if you have a complex thing that you do or even a simple thing that you have to do a lot, write down all the steps as if someone else is going to do them for you.

So JK Rowling writes a book and then she’s a billionaire?

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I have no idea whether JK Rowling is a billionaire, I really only know two things about her: she has earned a lot of money – and she earned it. That sounds like one thing but I look at her body of work, I look at the years and the effort and the joy she brought to millions of people, she earned whatever money she has.

But she does get knocked for having apparently gone so very effortlessly from being impoverished to being (is this a word?) poverished. Whatever the opposite of impoverished is. That narks me. I can be sure as onions that she did not go into writing Harry Potter with the idea that it would make her lots of money and thereby feed her kid. Did she dream of it? I hope so: it’s tremendous to achieve one’s dreams. But she wrote that, she did all that gigantic amount of work on top of keeping her family going. I imagine she wrote because she had to. Not in the financial or economic sense but in the artistic one.

I imagine it because I’m a writer too. This is how it is and this is what we do. This is what we do regardless of the results. So long as we can still eat and breathe, we write.

This is the bit where I twist all this into being some kind of life lesson. Actually, I started writing a life lesson and just went off on one about Rowling and how she should be admired more than I think she is. But what started this thought off in me today was this:

One of the most uncomfortable questions customers/clients can throw you is, “how long did it take you to make that?” It’s specific and straight forward enough that not answering or changing the subject would be noticed or come off as rude. It also entirely undermines your work down to just the actual labor part: completely removing the prep, materials, process, and finishing which probably take the most time and energy.

How Long Did that Take you to Make? – 99U

The website 99U was leading in to a story its writers had found on Fine Art Views which grabbed me even more:

Now, right or wrong, here’s what your customers will do. They’ll take the selling price (let’s pick a dollar amount out of thin air – $600) and divide it by the time the artist said it takes to make (three hours). They’ll come up with an hourly rate of $200 an hour.

You may tell people that doesn’t include the cost of acquiring your materials, or prepping, or finishing (frames, framing supplies) or the time schlepping your work to and from shows and exhibitions. It doesn’t include the time and money you spent on educating yourself, nor the time you spent and energy perfecting your craft. It probably doesn’t include the time and energy you spend on applying to shows, marketing, doing paperwork, or cleaning your studio. And if you have gallery representation, you’re actually only netting half that amount.

Nope, they won’t hear that. They may nod their head, but they’re still thinking, “$200 an hour…that’s $400,000 a year!!”

Questions You Don’t Have to Answer – Luanne Udell, Fine Art Views (27 November 2011)

I’m asked how long Doctor Who radio dramas take me, I’m asked that quite a bit. And when I answer, that’s the kind of reckoning you can see going on in the asker’s head. I expect you can see it going on in mine when I ask it about things too.

But you notice the difference in the article names. The 99U one is just the question whereas the Fine Art Views one I lopped off half. The full title of that piece is “Questions You Don’t Have to Answer: How Long Did that Take you to Make?”. But I lopped it for space, because I knew I’d be telling you it in full here, and also because I want to focus on the bit I left. You don’t have to answer the question.

Yes, you do.

No, you don’t.

If you answer it you get into that cycle and nobody’s happy. Not you who spent your life creating something, not the asker who thinks you spent twenty minutes and have no idea what a real job is like, you bastard.

If you don’t answer it, the asker goes straight to the you bastard bit.

But what Udell is saying is that you don’t have to answer it that way. You don’t have to really recognise the question, you just need to respond to it:

Now, ‘not answering’ doesn’t mean you stand in stony silence. It simply means you can start talking about your work, and engaging them, without actually tallying up all the steps it takes to make your work.

I love it. I’m having that.

How long does it take to write a Doctor Who radio drama? I’m so pleased you asked. Take a seat, let’s get the kettle on, I’ve got so much to tell you.

To sleep, perchance to put the screen down and snore

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If I’m only sometimes good about adding contact phone numbers right after we speak, I’m terrible at this. I am atrocious at switching off my iPad or any screen. And I should fix that. You should fix that.

Put – the – screen – down.

Do it at least an hour before you go to bed and you will sleep better.

Promise.

Pinky promise.

A pinky promise that I swear to stand by for myself too.

Add numbers to your phone as soon as you get them

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I’m not great at this but I try. If you give me your phone number or I’ve found you on some research thing, I will add you to my Contacts list. I don’t like the word Contacts, I’m not suddenly thinking of you as a contact instead of a human being. But I am adding and I will add you to my Contacts app. Whatever machine I’m near at the time – iPhone, iPad or Mac – I will try to enter your number right after we’ve spoken.

Given how easy it is to get photographs of people now too, I will often drag a photo to your contacts page too. That usually happens if I’m on my Mac and you’re not obscure. Or have the same name as someone who turns up a lot on Google. If all of this is true, one drag and you’re in my book.

Which is why today I got a call from a charmingly modest woman who wondered if I remembered her – and of course I did. She rang on my mobile, there was her name in big letters and there was her photo from her website. I hope that I would’ve remembered anyway but I’m suffering under a cold not terribly with it today, so this was a real boon.

All because when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, I put her name and photo into my contacts app. Right away.

Quick trick for getting your chair height right

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Put a dot (a simple sticker or piece of tape will do the trick) in the center of the top 2/3rds of your computer screen. Now, adjust your desk and chair until your eyes are in an exact perpendicular line with this dot.

The same idea holds true if you prefer a standing desk. Add the dot to your screen and adjust your desk height, while standing in comfortable shoes, until your eyes are in the appropriate line of sight.

The Easiest Way to Figure Out the Perfect Desk Office Chair Height – Apartment Therapy

Via Lifehacker UK.

I won't be doing this. I don't fancy marking my gorgeous 27in iMac screen with a dot and I can't pop some paper Post-It Note on it because I have papyrophobia.

But I like the concept and will be squinting at my iMac to guess it because my office chair is the most gorgeous thing except for how it sinks during the day.

Five ways to start your day right

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The always excellent site Asian Efficiency – I've followed their OmniFocus advice before – has some pointers about getting started off well:

Picture this: you show up at the office and think, “now what?” Unless you have a meeting, are working towards a deadline, or have something on your mind that morning, your first inclination may be to peek into your email inbox and see what wonders (work!) they day might hold. This is perfectly normal.

Starting your morning with email however, is not how we start our workdays the right way.

Neuro-research shows that, for most people, the morning is the best time for creative thinking, learning, and comprehension.

If you want to make the most out of each morning’s peak brain power, you need to create and set a routine that will allow you to get your most important work done first.

5 Powerful Ways for Starting Your Workday Right – Asian Efficiency

I'm disappointed that they don't link to the research they mention but the full five things to do are all good. They include tackling your most difficult tasks first and planning breaks. For more detail and the three other thing so do read the full article.

It’s about time

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If you possibly can, get some work in radio. What you learn – it doesn’t teach you this yet you inescapably accrue the knowledge and the experience and the feeling – will change how you approach time.

I recently spent time at a BBC radio station and all this came back to me. One of my uttermost favourite things in the world is how radio splits time in your head. Part of you is seeing the minutes of a show roar by so fast yet part of you is also crunched up in panic over how you will fill the next twenty seconds.

You cannot have dead air. I’m not sure if this is still the case but at one point if you were silent for long enough on a radio station, the transmitters switched off. And it takes a long time to get them back on.

Whatever the technical issues, though, you cannot have dead air. Think of all the times television tries to cover up a swearword by dipping the sound. Usually the bleep, sometimes they dip the sound to silent for a second. And when they do, the entire room notices and reacts.

The driving need to keep the show going and to fill the gaps that are coming up ahead of you like Gromit adding train tracks as he goes, it is beyond overwhelming, it is inside you. It is you. I’m sure it’s the same in television and actually it was in my first TV job that I learnt the average speaking rate is three words per second. (In those days video machines needed time to get up to speed so you’d make a mark on the script so many words, therefore so many seconds, before the vision mixer needed to cut to it.)

But I got it from radio so radio is special to me. And alongside that parallel track of slow and fast time, you also get the shape of time.

I do this now in workshops. I think of things like the top and bottom of the hour. I know this is a hard item – hard as in inflexible, it’s a certain length like a video package – and that I need a couple of soft items – live interviews or discussions that you can just end when you need.

What’s more, seeing time this way helps you with everything: you look for the thing you can do now rather than have dead air. You look for the shape of the hour and of the day. Time runs away from us, time catches up with us, but it is our chief resource and we benefit from using it more.

Don’t plan a career, concentrate on now

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You can’t figure out the future. Even young people who have a plan (be a doctor, lawyer, research scientist, singer) don’t really know what will happen. If they have any certainty at all, they’re a bit deluded. Life doesn’t go according to plan, and while a few people might do exactly what they set out to do, you never know if you’re one of those. Other things come along to change you, to change your opportunities, to change the world. The jobs of working at Google, Amazon or Twitter, for example, didn’t exist when I was a teen-ager. Neither did the job of Zen Habits blogger.

So if you can’t figure out the future, what do you do? Don’t focus on the future. Focus on what you can do right now that will be good no matter what the future brings. Make stuff. Build stuff. Learn skills. Go on adventures. Make friends. These things will help in any future.

Leo Babauta – Zen Habits

Via 99U