Just Seven Things

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

Archive for the tag “Time Management”

20 Jun 2008
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Why Do Personal Games Work?

Danzo08 ico_ol_3So, building on the shift I identified in my randomness post, I’ve been thinking a lot about lightness of touch. I’m contrasting this against the heavy-handed ‘mental edict’ approach of thinking that I can affect change in my consistent, persistent behaviours by instructing myself to do so.

It really brought me back to what my coach, Alison Down, highlighted when we first started to work together. That I had to start feeling instead of thinking. That I had to trust my gut rather than analysing and planning.

Even before starting to read Fooled by Randomness I had started to question what was obvious to me as an internal lack of commitment to top-down (brain-first) change. I recognised the cycle that I tend to enter of creating a structure to achieve what I want. I then try and apply the new routine. And then it fails. Invariably however I have noticed that some elements of the desired change have stuck. This tends to be the reason why I have continued trying:

  1. Because some things do stick
  2. I learn a lot during the analysis and creation of the structure to achieve what I want

Also invariably, I endeavour to create tools as part of this top-down process. Checklists or time tables to ensure my compliance.

What I’m now starting to question is whether these are something that I should avoid dismissing as being part of a top-down approach that will invariably fail. Jim Estill’s CEO blog post led me to NSC Blog by Nathan Collier and a post on Making it a Game. Both of which talk about how the simple things are the things which can harness change, or help you to make a change. They reminded me of Allen’s point at the start of Getting Things Done about the way in which we leave things by the front door to remember them the next day. The point being that the mind seems to work in simple ways.

So what does this mean for me? Well I’m going to see how relaxing the pressure on myself to change/ improve has an impact. How the use of games or scores/ scorecards can simply prompt me to incrementally achieve. Watch this space….  

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Posted in Action Orientation, Conscious and Unconscious, Control, Focus, Game Playing, Mindfulness, Time Management and tagged , , , ,
08 Jun 2008

Happiness System IV

Nearly there, I promise. I think I’m equally feeling the need to get all this down, structured and internally debated as I seek a life raft of more stability/ process/ systematic behaviour in my life as a result of the amount going on in my life at the moment. As well as the amount that I’m trying to achieve.

9. One 24hrs of total brain rest. Nothing being done to self-improve or create or build mentally. All and anything brain relaxing allowed.

10. A weekly time slot to review commitments, obligations and list and drop, drop, drop. Make more time.

11. (too much confusion with 1,2 and 3 below and I’ll work on the differentiations, but:) One view of overall life mission, and cascade to visions, goals, accountabilities and responsibilities with an ability to view Very Next Actions for each project (a BIG sheet of a paper) 

12. A daily/ weekly/ monthly/ yearly plan that I’m actioning, and know that it’s right. I need to sort out the overlap or alignment with My3Things

I think what’s as interesting as anything else in trying to define all of this in such a systematic and dispassionate way is a. how realistic it is to ever maintain the mindfulness and energy levels to operate t this level to ahieve the happiness anticipated and b. how likely I am to reacte, reaching a tipping point of just doing what feels right at the time rather than following the system

My aim is to see whether using these pages to debate this system and its conflicts will make my usage more habitual and ingrained. Or not.

Posted in Happiness, Time Management and tagged , | Leave a comment
07 Jun 2008

Happiness System III

Building on one of the exercises in Mark Forster’s Do It Tomorrow and borrowing from my last Madgex hack day project, My3Things (an anonymous 360 degree feedback tool which automates the aggregation of individual feedback into a report the line manager can take the individual through) I introduced item 5. of the Happiness System this morning:

5. My3Things: a closed list of only 3 things that I will achieve today. Set according to priorities the night before/ early morning

6. Ruthless 1 topic focus: a Do It Tomorrow ‘capture’ list for any distractions/ thoughts arising during that 1 topic focus (typically a note pad or Outlook task with a due date of tomorrow)

7. ‘Unassailable’ Time slots allocated for the daily review of priorities and projects against Vision and Goals

8. Every task accepted into task management system has Very Next Action decided and noted (Very David Allen)

Next four tomorrow….

Posted in Happiness, Time Management and tagged , | Leave a comment

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