You could choose to be impressed: there is not one thing in this 1990s Microsoft video about computer-controlled houses that didn’t come true. But what was true then and what remains true today is that Microsoft simply has no taste.
Productivity
Productivity
Token football thing
I’d like to say that I want to at least get in the spirit of the World Cup football excitement but frankly the only way I could possibly register that it’s happening is every single bleedin’ news programme keeps telling me so. Apparently the England team has arrived in wherever it is. Apparently this is news.
But while the existence of the World Cup has been bludgeoned into my head and before I manage to shake it out again with the very greatest of ease, I did come across this. Fantasy Football costs America billions of dollars in lost productivity.
I know what you’re thinking. They have fantasies about football?
In a recent study, it was found that fantasy football players are costing employers more than $1.1 billion in productivity every week, during the National Football League season. This statistic was brought out by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. The attraction towards fantasy football is immense because of the lucrative payout that it offers. This is a billion dollar business, which involves 24.3 million players according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.
However, with so much interest in fantasy football, how much of time is being devoted to real work? According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc about 22.3 million employed people spend half an hour of work time every week on managing their rosters and other fantasy football related activities.
The Impact of Fantasy Football Teams on Productivity – Careerealism
That article is dated 2013 and it sits in a website more replete with ads that I am generally comfortable directing you to. Maybe my infectious enthusiasm for football is enough to persuade you to go read the whole tedious piece, I don’t know.
Lessons from being a director – part 3
See the serious part 2 about delegation and also the power-mad-crazy part 1 about RULING THE WORLD.
How long do you think I can keep milking my directing career for productivity advice? I’m hoping I can carry on until the exciting day when I get my second-ever job as director.
But when you’re boring everyone about your power and artistic talent, you have to have more specific topics and now I have this one. Now I have realised this one: directing changes how you write.
Actually, it’s more than that: anything you do that is in some new way related to your writing or whatever your specific talent is, it changes.
I did rewrite the play on the fly to adjust for unforeseen problems, I did many, many times tweak to improve things based on the actors’ opinions. It’s common for writers to decry this but I would like to say right now that I am smug: I have always said that directors and actors should not make changes to a scene when it risks buggering up the rest of the script. Actors and directors are prone to concentrating on this scene right now, this scene you’re memorising, this scene you’re filming. And they should. They need to. Except when a brilliant suggestion that truly lifts that scene is an almighty bomb that ruins the entire point of the drama.
Granted, that’s a worst-case scenario.
I loved the whole process of directing but for me the whole process was in bringing that script to the stage. As short as it was, as specific as it was to this group, it had to be directed right and I had every syllable of that script in my head all the way through. Then I’d have multiple versions of the same scene in my head and I would be running them simultaneously.
None of which helps you, I just got carried away.
The action of doing something different in drama is the same, I think, as heading in to your home town from a new direction. There is one road into my home village in Birmingham that, for whatever reason, I rarely used as a kid. So now if I drive down there into the village, I come out into an entirely familiar world but it is entirely unfamiliar. The library is in the wrong spot. So is the school.
I reexamine them, I notice them again when I have become so used to them that I don’t.
So it was looking at this script from a new direction.
The short recommendation here is that you should go direct something. But the longer is that maybe you can find any way of looking at your story and your script that is different. Not better, not worse, just different. And see what it throws up at you, see what you notice.
Recommended: Holistic Productivity
This is really two recommendations as this holistic productivity is just the latest edition of the very good Mac Power Users podcast. I’m not sure that this is a fair summary of the topic but the thing I took away first was that you can say productivity is how you make something happen or something be that wasn’t there before. And that this can include relaxation.
Relaxation can be a task.
It can be a job.
I need to get healthier and I need to avoid becoming as exhausted as I have lately. I no longer see those as luxuries to do later but I haven’t yet seen them as specific tasks I need to do. Work has always come first so what this idea lets me do is make relaxation be work.
Relaxation is bloody hard, so that helps.
Seriously, though, that’s just the Damascus moment I took away from this latest episode of Mac Power Users. It’s an episode chiefly interviewing Tim Stringer, a productivity kind of guy – and an OmniFocus fan so he must be alright – where he touches so briefly on this issue. And then they go into details and specifics of how he does certain jobs and what software or services he relies on.
Mac Power Users is usually a good listen and I’ve learnt a lot from it, I’ve spent a lot of money after hearing recommendations on it, but I’ve particularly enjoyed this week’s edition. Have a listen and read the show notes.
New Toy Syndrome
I truly thought this was just me. If I’ve found, say, an app that works for me and I think is good, I maybe over-enjoy using it. Right now I’m havering over my forthcoming review of OmniFocus 2 for Mac because I’m wondering how much of what I like is down to it just being an old feature done in a new way.
Whether it is that or not, I am greatly enjoying using that software and it has changed how I do my work. So I’m fine with that, I’m more than fine with it – except that there is good reason to suspect it will change. It will tail off.
Clive Thompson writing in Medium:
Psychologists have noticed the novelty effect for decades. Back in the 1930s, the Hawthorne Works factory decided to change the lighting for its workers to see which would improve productivity: Higher levels? Lower levels? It turned out that it didn’t matter which way they went — any change in the workplace produced a temporary boost in productivity. Scientists call this the “Hawthorne Effect”, and while the historical record of Hawthorne is still being scrutinized, the novelty effect it epitomizes is seen all over science. Indeed, many scholars suspect novelty effects are behind some “positive” results in social-science experiments. A bunch of researchers will say Hey, let’s experiment with giving elementary-school kids individual laptops! and lo: The children do better! Except the improvement might be not because of the tool itself, but merely because the kids’ world becomes different and interesting, temporarily.
I find that last part about kids supremely depressing. But where I might also be unhappy at the thought my new shiny OmniFocus 2 for Mac may lose its iridescence soon, I’m okay with it.
Because OmniFocus 2 for iPad is coming.
Hat tip to Lifehacker for spotting the novelty article. And hat tip to The Omni Group, because.
Lessons from being a director – Part 2
Yesterday I shared perhaps the most important lesson I have learned in my long, long, day-long career as a director.
There is another. Who’d have thought there could be two life lessons from directing?
The lesson is to delegate. I am used to doing everything myself and I’ve often argued that this is good. Whenever you can take on a task yourself, it is great because you know you’ll do it. Waiting for other people so very often means it doesn’t happen.
So I’m not a control freak in that I need things be done my way, I’m a productivity freak in that I need things to be done.
Yesterday’s play needed me to work with the cast but it was in a writing session and there were a lot of people there. Normally I’d fuss over everything, I’d think myself smart for finding a way to incorporate everyone. But there was no time.
I have an assistant when I’m leading these writing groups and yesterday it was poet and writer and journalist Justina Hart. I told her she had an hour and I needed this, this and this. Never gave her another thought, I got right on with the next crisis.
And at the end of the hour I had this, this and this from her and the group. I’ve no idea how she got there but the result wasn’t just what I would’ve done, what I had wanted, it was better. Far and away better.
Let go, William. Tell good people what you want and then get out of their way.
That was May 2014
Previously… I used to report to someone what I’d done in the month, more to make me feel accountable than to actually be accountable, now I carry on with you. The list is sanitised because so much is confidential until things are finished, but.
Also, for the first month in over a year, I failed to make notes as I went along. That rather surprises me, given how much I have felt the benefit of doing this. But it also means that this time I’ve had to rely on checking my calendar and To Do list. Doubtlessly I’ve left things out, which can’t mean much to you but makes me crinkle up my mouth at me.
But now read on for May 2014.
Writing: approximately 61,400 words
The Blank Screen news blog: 157 entries totalling approximately 46,000 words
Self Distract blog: 5 entries totalling approximate 5,400 words
Completed script “Murder at Burton Library”
Approximately 4,000 words of novel
Approximately 6,000 words of non-fiction book
Events:
Produced five events:
Two young writers’ days
One productivity workshop for the Federation of Entertainment Unions
One Steven Knight interview evening for the Screenwriters’ Forum
One theatre event at the Birmingham Rep
Pitches/calls:
Only made 21 calls but was called about two projects and the pitches for both were successful
Meetings:
Attended Royal Television Society committee meeting
Attended Writers’ Guild committee meeting as secretary
Production meeting in a train station bar
An organisation I admire offered to support a new series of books I’m writing/producing
Plus I spent two rather idyllic days away working on a new drama project – and one of my colleagues wrote a poem about it and me. I am blinking as I say that to you. Just… just… wild.
Press:
Doctor Who: Scavenger reviewed in many fan sites including Artron Reviews
One more thing. This is the 500th post on The Blank Screen news site. I’m proud of that: 500 since the end of November last year. Just wanted to tell you and to take a moment to notice it myself.
Produce your phone calls to make them easier and quicker
I’ve only got three phone calls I have to make today but I started at 11am and as I write this, it’s 11:13 and I am finished.
As you can expect and fair guarantee from any round of phone calls, they aren’t all finished and done with: right now I’m waiting for a call back from two people with more information and an email from the third. But the calls are all made and these issues are all underway and the response rate would be no different if I’d spent the day fretting over them.
And I do fret. Given that I’m a journalist and it is routine to phone people up, I find it really hard calling for myself. So I do several things to make it better. To make me do it, really.
There’s quite a bit about this in The Blank Screen book (UK edition, US edition) but since writing that I’ve been focusing on one particular piece of advice I learnt for it. I’ve made making calls be my thing, be the work I have to get better at. And I’ve done it by making days like this. All of which boil down to this:
Produce the calls.
You don’t go into any meeting and you don’t ever pitch without knowing who you’re talking to and what it’s about. So I take some time during the morning to build up a list in Evernote of who I am calling. I run my life through the To Do software OmniFocus and it’s very easy to use that to get a list of calls to make: I just tap or click on a button marked Phone and it shows me every call I have to make in every project, ever. But if I then start writing that out in Evernote, I can build up this:
Who I’m calling at what company
What their phone number is
The specific aim of the call and the most recent conversation or correspondence we’ve had about it
All obvious stuff but each line does something in particular. The first one, who I’m calling where, that acts as much as a heading as it does a To Do. Then the bit about their number is crucial – I know that sounds obvious, I know you’re thinking that without it I won’t have much luck calling them but it’s more than that. The point is having the number right there. See the name, ring the number, go. That’s the plan.
Then the specific aim is equally important to both sides. Usually there’s just one thing you can get done in a call so I pick that and we’re off. Knowing it, knowing it precisely and having written it down focuses me on it so that I am right on the topic and they get a quicker call out of me. And similarly, how we last left something means I sound like I am on top of things, I am fully aware of what we’re doing and also that I’m moving this stuff on, I’m not hanging about, I’m not kidding. Without being rude or abrasive, you know I am working and this is business and as much as I may like nattering with you, today we’re doing this thing.
So I’ve spent the morning building up that Evernote note in between other jobs, then it comes to 11am and I start. See the first name, see the number, I’m dialling it before I can hesitate and it’s ringing while I’m fixing the rest of the information in my head. Ring, speak, done, next. See the second name, see the second number, I’m dialling.
I do also use Evernote to make notes about the calls and that’s not brilliant yet. What I find is that I will build up a lot of information under a call but then the next time I have to call them, that information is back in the previous day’s call list. I need to get more organised about copying the information out and into a single place per person or per project or per something. Not sure what yet.
But it’s surprising how much sheer data you can write up about a call. I record just whether I got them or voicemail, I make a note that I said I’d call back and perhaps when if I said a particular time. Also any numbers they need to tell me like fees or contracts or purchase orders. The list goes on and on.
One extra is that I also record the time of the call. I do that in Evernote but using a TextExpander snippet. As the phone rings and as I’m reading, I will type the words “Called at…” and then the TextExpander snippet ;ttime – a semi-colon and the word ‘ttime’ which pops in the current time. If it’s a long call or I’m routing through a hundred service desks who keep me waiting, I’ll log the time along the way because why not?
Then the last thing I do after all the calls is I make a note of them in a separate Calls Made list in Evernote. This has no function at all except to make me want to make more calls. It’s showing me that I’ve made 162 phone calls so far this year and, hand on heart, I wish I hadn’t looked because I thought it would be more impressive than that. Just 162 in five months? I promise to do better.
Starting now. I’ll just add today’s 3 to the list and I’m on 165. That’s a bit better.
When is it over?
There’s not going to be some great life-changing Hallmark-Card-like slice of advice here, I’m just wondering about something I have wondered about a lot.
I wonder when things are over.
There must be a day when something is done. This first popped into my noggin some years ago when I read a line somewhere about how Dar Williams‘s new album was coming out soon. (I think it was Many Great Companions, which is so good that when a friend asked what I liked about Dar Williams, I just bought her the album. It’s cheaper to write reviews, but I wanted her to have it. I want you to have it too, but I’m a little short today.)
I can’t remember when this was but I was surprised because up to then, her previous CD had been the new one. My own Doctor Who releases go through a similar thing.
Actually, Doctor Who, there’s a thing. I go through various processes writing those, there are the same types of deadlines to the same types of timescales and in theory I could say my involvement ends when I deliver the last draft. Well, you don’t know there won’t be more to do then. So call it when the scripts are in studio, that’s definitely the end for me. Well, sometimes I’m in studio and working on scenes. Okay, post production. Definitely no involvement there, so that Doctor Who is over and I’m looking for the next one.
Except there are liner notes to write for the CD. Quite often there are interviews to do.
So okay, when it goes on sale. But that’s when I start talking about it all, I suppose officially because that’s marketing and promotion, but really it’s because now I can FINALLY talk to you about it.
I don’t put “Tweet about Doctor Who” in my OmniFocus To Do list. It isn’t a task, it’s what I do for fun. So by the time we reach the tweeting stage, you can bet that my OmniFocus Doctor Who project is long completed. So that’s definitely it, that’s definitely over. I have ticked off everything I have to do, everything I have to deliver, I can mark the entire project as done.
That seems very satisfying.
And that’s why this is on my mind today. I did an event yesterday that has been some preposterous number of months in the making and this morning I’m doing my OmniFocus review, I’m getting to that project and I am about to grandly click on Done, when I don’t.
Because I’ve thought of some more tasks. Well, call them tasks because it would be bad if I didn’t do them. Just wrapping up stuff, there are so many people I want to thank for getting this done for me, for instance. That could go in the fun pile, that needn’t be a task To Do per se, except I’ll feel very bad if I forget someone in the rush. So I jotted down who it is. And okay, I know it’d be handiest for this person if I phoned and for that person if I texted, and so on.
Then there’s the money to do with the event. That truly is a task. That is several tasks in a row.
When that’s all done, then, that’s when this event is over.
Okay.
Sorted.
I just need to keep the event details around because I’ve had a lot of praise for it that might help in the pitching for the new one.