Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the category “Learning”

06 Nov 2008

Why Do Urgent But Less Important Tasks Drown Out The Really Important?

One of the things that continually amazes me is the split personality that exists within my brain (apologies for the mixed definitions here).

I can have a day like yesterday when I had fantastic conversations with clients and fellow industry CEOs which genuinely moved some of my thinking on. Our corporate strategy will develop positively as a result. I worked on some financial modelling that I’d long planned to. It gave me insights that have informed a whole other set of thoughts that will further impact strategy.

I then did some further reading that extended my thoughts on some issues and opened up whole realms of other thoughts.

Now, this post isn’t to wax lyrically about how effective I’ve been. The first point is that the time investment to achieve the above was probably 3-4 hours in total. Granted, there was travelling, but I worked every minute of that time. The second point is how I felt at the end of the day. Building on my last post, I felt that all the non-important tasks were rightly put in their place. That the siren call of the urgent was drowned by the sense of achievement from the important. I had done the right – commensurate with my responsibilities and accountabilities – things with my day.

Now don’t get me wrong. Today hasn’t been a bad day. Productive things have been done. But the challenge of ignoring the urgent task siren call has been remarkable.

I am left wondering whether it is a personality ‘type’ thing. Does my need for control/ power show itself in a restless frustration when I’m not all over my inbox and detailed task list? Does this undermine my trusted system? Have I just taken what I accept in to my action list too far, such that it’s seeping out at the edges?

I think an interesting flip to observe is that in the situation I am blogging about, my conscious/ other-than-conscious position is reversed. I know what I need to do: the important and less of the urgent. I’m kidnapped though by my other than consciousness.

And I don’t know why.

Posted in Control, Habits and Routines, Knowledge Management, Learning, Mindfulness, Social Networks, Time Management and tagged Important, Knowledge Management, Networking, Priorities, Tasks, Urgent

11 Oct 2008

The Conscious Analyser

A flow of thought post.

I’ve just stood back from myself while working. I noticed that I’ve started to work slightly differently. My reading on the relationship between conscious and other-than-consciousness has led me to redefine their relationship and has created a separation of their ‘utility’ in my mind (hard to refer to the concept of the mind in this context…..)

Put simply, I’m trusting my gut/ intuitive/ unrestricted freedom of thought flow. I’m then trusting my application of my conscious analysing/ sorting/ challenging intellect to the outputs from more of the other-than-conscious thought flow.

I’m deliberately stopping myself from getting in the way of myself (if you see what I mean…)

This appears to be having the following results:

1. Ideas are flowing faster, and more clearly. They are unhindered by attempts to assess/ categorise or action on the fly
2. At the stage of assessment/ categorisation, a next stage of creativity seems to be more easily triggered because of the focus of attention that my conscious intellect has on a body of information/ thoughts/ musings that my other than conscious has produced.

Working separately, but together appears to be creating a stepped value-adding cycle of:

1. Release flow of thoughts/ feelings and unconnected ideas
2. Evaluate connections/ gaps/ conclusions
3. Address outputs from evaluation stage 2. and produce required further creative response
4. back to 2.

I’m not deliberately trying to systematise this. I don’t think this helps the process. But there is definitely a process….

Posted in Conscious and Unconscious, Creativity, Focus, Learning and tagged Brainstorming, Conscious and Unconscious, Creativity | Leave a comment

25 Sep 2008

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The Role of Reading and Knowledge in Personal Development

My thoughts keep occasionally swirling back to this topic. A number of reasons:

1. I’m always interested in further developing my knowledge

2. I’m always seeking the most effective way of doing things, including (1) above

3. I’m always challenging myself on how I’m currently approaching things.

I’m trying to put the deliberate practice into my own self development.

In the series of talks that I’ve been doing at Madgex for the ideas and learnings programme, I’ve had a purpose or focus for my learning. The research and knowledge gathering that I’ve done has been done against an operational need.

There seemed to be a view that it was possible to get too big for reading that has gnawed at me since I wrote the post. I’m still hoping that I misinterpreted the article I read.

All of these things together have lead me to wonder two things:

1. Do the consumers of information always need an ‘operative or operational purpose’ to maximise the effectiveness of their consumption and subsequent usage. Knowledge in advance of need being an inefficient use of time?

2. Does the nature of both academic and mainstream publishing mean that to have a chance of being published there has to be a niche focus or positioning? That the lack of breadth to subject matter is a direct result of a bias for differentiation? (with due reference to a conversation with C. Turner for prompting this thought)

The impact that this has on learning and personal development is interesting. Does the effort that we have to put into assimilating the pockets of information aid learning by increasing engagement through the value add of linkage?

To be frank, I think I might be off on one ;-)