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Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

It ain't like brushing your teeth

Well, I've fallen off the wagon again with my Getting Things Done routine. My inbox is up to around 400 messages, I feel a bit "stuck" on a few projects, and that's not good.

Rituals

I love David's GTD methods and philosophy, but I have a recurring issue with drifting away from my good habits. A few months back, I went to one of David's GTD|The Roadmap seminars, and he talked about how we needed to develop new habits for GTD so they'd become automatic, like brushing your teeth. His story went something like this:

When you're born, you don't know anything about brushing your teeth - you didn't even have teeth. Then, when you had teeth, your parents made you go brush them every day. You may have complained, but they reminded you and you did it every day. Then one day, without realizing it, you did it without being told or asked. You'd developed a new habit!

How often do you need to be reminded to brush your teeth? Probably not very often. As an adult, if you go too long without brushing your teeth, the "scuzz factor" kicks in and the sense of urgency to go brush your teeth increases. And then you brush your teeth and the scuzz factor is gone.

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Succeed or die

Are you facing a daunting task, a difficult challenge, or a project where you really want to (or have to) achieve wild success? If so, here's a technique that may help you achieve the kind of breakthough thinking you'll need to succeed.

In the past, I've written about the technique of "trying on beliefs" (see related posts below). With this technique, you pretend that something is true and act as though it is true. If you go with the spirit of the technique, you'll find you'll make different decisions, interact with people in different ways, etc. This approach can have a powerful influence on the outcomes you achieve.

With that in mind, try on the following belief about your project:

You will die if your project is not successful in 6 months.

  • What will you do to ensure your don't die?

  • What things are you doing that put your project at risk? What are you going to do to stop those things?

  • What actions will you take to increase the odds that you'll be around in 6 months?

  • Who will you ask for help to increase the chance you'll make it?

Adjust the time frame above to fit your needs, but the concept holds no matter what. Basically, this approach is a good way to help you think about what you'd do if your life depended on it.

Try it on - you might like it. It works for me.

Burned out minds yield burned out results

In one of my periodic sweeps to catch up on my Bloglines subscriptions, I stopped by Phil Gerbyshak’s “Make it Great!” blog today, and found a very insightful article on recharging your batteries.  As I’ve written in the past, I’m one of those who really needs my “recharge time.”

Phil breaks this down into a formul of the “4 R’s.”  They are:  Rest, Reflect, Read, and Relax.  These certainly resonate with me, and I realized that I’ve not taken enough time to Rest and Relax lately.  I’ve been doing plenty of Reflecting and Reading, but just haven’t been making as many “a-ha” connections I usually do.

In other words, I’ve been working hard this week, but haven’t been getting the full benefit of that work because my batteries were a bit run down.  This evening I feel more energized and creative.

Skates_1After reading Phil’s post, I realize I'm reaping the benefits of spending all afternoon ice skating with two of my kids (the third went to Build-A-Bear with my wife).

So, check out what Phil has to say.  And don’t forget to use all 4 of the R’s.

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[Updated] Breakthrough performance

For the past two weeks, I've been participating in Lisa Haneberg's "2 Weeks 2 A Breakthrough " (2w2aB) program. Lisa, who I discovered through her Management Craft blog, is also the author of "H.I.M.M. - High Impact Middle Management" which is a tremendous resource for managers at all levels.

Anyway, I was part of the 2w2aB program, which involved picking a specific goal and being willing to accept coaching and suggestions from Lisa every day for 14 days.  It also involved a personal commitment to spend about an hour per day working on specific types of activities to advance toward your stated goal.

This was one of those "hurts so good" kinds of activities for me.  My goal was to really kickstart a new project which resulted from me taking on some new responsibilities at work.  This new project required me to do a lot of networking, discovery, and evangelism and really pushed me out of my comfort zone in a lot of ways (I don't yearn to do cold calls, I assure you).

Lisa's approach was very effective at forcing me to approach my work in a more reasoned, discipline-driven way.  It also encouraged me to enlist others in my goal and established a daily discipline routine that I think will help me beyond Day 14 of the program.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lisa for giving me the chance to participate in the Pilot of this program, and I look forward to what she puts in place as a result of this (she is running 4 pilot teams through the process, in an effort to improve her methodology).

My main take-aways from this process:

  • I reaffirmed the importance of specific, written goals
  • I realized the power of small, persistent actions toward a goal
  • I discovered the effectiveness of asking / allowing someone else to poke me on a daily basis to keep me focused on my goal
  • I found I could make far more progress in two weeks than I'd ever have thought possible
  • I confirmed that discipline is not just a choice - it's a bunch of choices and opportunities - if you missed one opportunity, get right back on track by siezing the next

This process reminded me of something a friend of mine once told me: "If you figure out what you really want, and ask for it, you just might get it."

The breakthroughs are ours for the taking. Thanks, Lisa.

Update June 15, 2005:

Last night, I got to the end of Lisa's book, H.I.M.M. - High Impact Middle Management, and there is some great information toward the end of the book about how to achieve performance breakthroughs, including how to coach others to achieve their own breakthroughs.  Good stuff.

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Copyright 2005-2015 Dwayne A. Melancon, all rights reserved. Licensed under Creative Commons - see the "About the Author" page for details.