It’s an advert but let it be an advert: it’s other message is sufficiently clear and important that it actually moved me to tears.
Productivity
Productivity
What Microsoft can tell small startups
Not much, you’d think. And I still wonder. But ex-Microsoft guy Rakesh Malhotra says he learnt lessons there that have helped enormously in his jobs since, including:
Know your blind spots: Like a lot of companies, Microsoft conducts 360-degree reviews, where you solicit a review from everyone surrounding the employee: Manager, peer, reports, etc. There are many best practices as to how to conduct an effective 360-degree review, but the effect is usually the same — you learn your blind spots. A successful leader pays attention to weaknesses and finds a way to manage them. It really helps to be self-aware, especially at a startup, where every member has a lot of responsibility.
Lessons — From Microsoft! — On Being a Startup Leader – Rakesh Malhotra, Re/code (27 June 2014)
I didn’t put the exclamation mark in that article title. But I thought it.
How to Spend the first 10 minutes of your day
Get everything in place before you start so that it is all to hand during the day.
Slightly longer, if more persuasive version:
If you’re working in the kitchen of Anthony Bourdain, legendary chef of Brasserie Les Halles, best-selling author, and famed television personality, you don’t dare so much as boil hot water without attending to a ritual that’s essential for any self-respecting chef: mise-en-place.
The “Meez,” as professionals call it, translates into “everything in its place.” In practice, it involves studying a recipe, thinking through the tools and equipment you will need, and assembling the ingredients in the right proportion before you begin. It is the planning phase of every meal—the moment when chefs evaluate the totality of what they are trying to achieve and create an action plan for the meal ahead.
For the experienced chef, mise-en-place represents more than a quaint practice or a time-saving technique. It’s a state of mind.
How to Spend the First 10 Minutes of your Day – Ron Friedman, Harvard Business Review (19 June 2014)
You can see how this applies beyond the cooking of food to the doing just about anything but Friedman has more interesting things and examples to say in the full piece.
Via Lifehacker
The internet is blue
I thought this was something to do with pornography, but no. Not depression, either. Actually blue:
The blue at the top of this post [on the original site] is a Google blue. It’s not the only Google blue, just the Google blue you see the most. How was it chosen? Another blue, a slightly different Google blue, the story goes, was selected by a designer who liked how it looked. But this designer was told by a manager that this blue was the wrong blue: Another blue, testing revealed, had resulted in more clicking. Their boss intervened. 41 blues, between the nice blue and the powerful blue, were tested for efficacy. One prevailed.
The Awl’s full article shows those blues and you’ll be surprised how readily you recognise Google’s and Twitter’s and Facebook’s shades of the colour. But it’s also interesting because it includes a nod to a time when there wasn’t a word for blue – and to the moment that someone decided underlined links on the web should be and would be blue.
Two emails will save you hours every week
I’m convinced 95% of cubicle workers who work over 60 hours a week constantly can cut it down to 40-45 hours by sending 2 emails a week to their boss:
Email #1: What you plan on getting done this week
Email #2: What you actually got done this week
That’s it. These 2 emails will prevent you from working 60 hours a week, while improving your relationship with your boss and getting the best work you’ve ever done.
Sold. Read the full piece for more and you will be too.
Via Lifehacker
A good team is precious
I learnt a lesson, or perhaps was just forcefully reminded of one, when I went into a school. It was to do with how you need good people around you and that it’s harder than you imagine to get them:
I need to be a little circumspect here because this was a school and I don’t want to identify anyone. But what had gone wrong was this particular group. There was a small set of kids who didn’t want to do anything at all, there was a small set who wanted to work but refused to pitch. It was nerves and shyness and you see this, you understand it, you try to help these kids along. Sometimes – fortunately rarely – you recognise that there is nothing you can do in the time, so you just have to leave them to get on with it or not. There are groups you can help, who will take the help. Naturally, then, you help them.
But this time was different because the young woman producing was doing so well. That’s an odd thing to say when she’d lost control of her team but the unfairness of that rankled with me. The school picked the groups and there was a specific plan to break up friends and thereby get everyone working with new people. That’s more than fine, that’s a good idea but in this case, it just seemed strongly clear to me that she was saddled with a tough group. I could see the frustration in her and it was just wrong.
You need good people – William Gallagher, Self Distract (27 June 2014)
So I interfered. Read more of why and what happened on my latest Self Distract post.
So what does accuracy and guaranteed mean again?
In the story on how one’s email address can give people a poor impression of you, I mentioned this little extra tip:
But I also have any number of other addresses you like, specifically because I own williamgallagher.com. Yesterday I set up a new address for an author I’m working with to send me text. Earlier in the week I used a groupon offer but I signed up as groupon@williamgallagher.com. If I get a sudden spike in spam and it’s all to groupon@williamgallagher.com, their mailing list policy is rumbled and I switch that address off.
Don’t put people off with your email address – William Gallagher, The Blank Screen (27 June 2014)
The truth is that you can send to any name you like so long as it ends in @williamgallagher.com. Try it: email isthisforreal@williamgallagher.com or thickeejit@williamgallagher.com. I’ll get it.
So that’s how I’ve seen that this week I’ve been receiving emails like this:
Would you be interested in email list of any industry specific Top key decision makers?
The List contains Opt-in business and personal email & Phone number, Contact name, Physical address and mailing address
List format – Excel/CSV
Accuracy is guaranteed – as per industry standards
You can acquire Top key decision makers with complete verified contact details and business email addresses from following industries…
I’ve had that three times this week, all to different people with just two things in common: their email address ends in @williamgallagher and they don’t exist.
I’ve emailed the company back pointing out the mistake but so far they’ve ignored it. I get quite a bit of this and I go to some trouble to make sure the sender knows they ain’t gonna get a reply back from who they hope. But this particular firm is ignoring me.
Which means you have to question their standards as well as their accuracy.
Present imperfect
I do a lot of presenting now so I’m thinking about it all constantly and yesterday’s Google presentation isn’t helping. But it is fascinating. Cult of Android ran this story, We Watched Google’s 3-Hour Keynote So You Wouldn’t Have To which tells you the Android community’s take but cult of Mac, on the other hand, went for this:
As the event dragged on, the tone on Twitter went from restrained interest about Google’s somewhat underwhelming announcements to reports of sleeping reporters and jabs at the ponderous presentation’s length. “Apple just launched a keynote shortener,” tweeted Dave Pell
That’s from a piece called Copy this please: 9 things Apple can teach Google about Keynotes. It continues:
Find your Steve Jobs: Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, so Apple looked inside and found a suitable replacement to become the face of the company. Apple exec Craig Federighi emerged as the company’s new “Superman” presenter at this year’s WWDC. Google’s Sundar Pichai might be “the most powerful man in mobile,” but he’s no Federighi.
Cult of Mac writer Lewis Wallace is right that Craig Federighi is quite the star presenter now. But he wasn’t before. It takes time and standing up in front of millions of people online before you get that good. So hopefully Google will take a telling from how poorly this year’s event went and is going to come back strong.
Book recommendation: The Blank Screen
Earlier this week I sort-of recommended David Allen’s book (and accompanying cult) Getting Things Done. But amongst all the praise I had and have for it, I said this:
Getting Things Done (UK edition, US edition) is a self-help book by David Allen. The strange things first: it was written in 2001 and you will be amazed how long ago that seems. (Example: Allen talks a lot about how, for instance, you obviously can’t access the internet unless you’re in your office. It’s practically Victorian.) Also, it feels as if Allen is focusing on office workers and people who may do fantastic things but aren’t the kind of messy-minded creatives that writers are.
No question: my own productivity techniques owe a huge amount to Getting Things Done and in fact I credit David Allen extensively in my book. But The Blank Screen is written for us writers. I know normal people will get a lot from it too, but it’s written for us. So it’s about coping with the kinds of things we have to cope with – how to be productive when no editor ever bleedin’ phones us back productively – and it’s very much about making more of your computer. Jonathan Davidson of Writing West Midlands (a truly fine charity without whom The Blank Screen wouldn’t exist and which you should definitely be supporting, please) said this to me once:
Writers were the first to go digital.
He means it and he is damn right. We went digital back in the 1980s when we saw, we understood and by hell we coveted word processors. The rest of the world that is now so mad keen on digital, they’re just catching us up as best they can.
I’m just not sure they all come with our writer neuroses. That’s another big issue with us: we have to battle the curse of ourselves as well as the curse of other people when we’re trying to make our way as working writers. That’s something The Blank Screen is riddled with.
And the book also has one especially popular chapter on specifically how to cope when you either have too much work or you don’t have any at all. Those are both crippling for writers and we get them all the time. I suppose I should try to flog you that chapter, but I’ve seen how it helps people: I want it to help you too. So go on, since it’s you: download the free chapter, Bad Days, from The Blank Screen. If there’s someone you know it will help too, give them the link.
There comes a point when my free Bad Days chapter has solved that time when you are so fraught you have to hold your chest and breathe slowly, when you’ve passed it to other people and been thanked for how it’s done the same for them, and when you should really be buying the book.
The Blank Screen is on Kindle and iBooks plus – my favourite – it’s in paperback. Seriously, check out the free and complete Bad Days chapter but then:
The Blank Screen is on Amazon UK (Kindle and Paperback)
The Blank Screen is on Amazon USA (Kindle and Paperback)
And it’s a rather gorgeous iBook too.
One thing. I’m saying this to you today because I do want to celebrate a little milestone. You’re reading the 600th article on The Blank Screen website and I’m rather proud of how this spin-off from the book has become a productivity resource of its own. I do hope you keep reading and I hope that you enjoy it.
God, I am just like so swamped with work right now
It’s crazy-bad. Crazy. Man, I’m exhausted from it. Reeling. I tells you, right, if I don’t stop for just one goddamn minute and have me some me-time, I will not be responsible for my actions.
I know you’ve heard people say things like that but be honest, how often have you said it too?
We have a problem—and the odd thing is we not only know about it, we’re celebrating it. Just today, someone boasted to me that she was so busy she’s averaged four hours of sleep a night for the last two weeks. She wasn’t complaining; she was proud of the fact. She is not alone.
Why are typically rational people so irrational in their behavior? The answer, I believe, is that we’re in the midst of a bubble; one so vast that to be alive today in the developed world is to be affected, or infected, by it. It’s the bubble of bubbles: it not only mirrors the previous bubbles (whether of the Tulip, Silicon Valley or Real Estate variety), it undergirds them all. I call it “The More Bubble.”
The nature of bubbles is that some asset is absurdly overvalued until—eventually—the bubble bursts, and we’re left scratching our heads wondering why we were so irrationally exuberant in the first place. The asset we’re overvaluing now is the notion of doing it all, having it all, achieving it all; what Jim Collins calls “the undisciplined pursuit of more.”
This bubble is being enabled by an unholy alliance between three powerful trends: smart phones, social media, and extreme consumerism. The result is not just information overload, but opinion overload. We are more aware than at any time in history of what everyone else is doing and, therefore, what we “should” be doing. In the process, we have been sold a bill of goods: that success means being supermen and superwomen who can get it all done. Of course, we back-door-brag about being busy: it’s code for being successful and important.
Why We Brag About Being Busy (And How to Regain Focus) – Greg McKeown, Lifehacker (16 June 2014)
McKeown’s article is on Lifehacker but it was originally on the Harvard Business Review which I want to mention both because that’s where this originated and these things should be noted, but also because the original piece had a great word in its headline. That headline is “Why We Humblebrag About Being Busy“. I love that word humblebrag.
And I’m only a little bit ashamed to admit that I need to eat me some humblebrag pie.