Food as a glue

It's the night before Thanksgiving in the US, and our home is filled with the smell of pumpkin pie in the oven.  This has reminded me of food and its ability to bring people together.

I grew up in Louisiana and have come to appreciate the food even more since I've left.  Why?  Because it's so good?  Well, sure – but that's not what I mean.

What I appreciate about the food in Louisiana was its role as a "glue" for both social and business bonding.  When I think of people I hung out with, I often think of the meals we shared.  Sometimes they were crawfish boils, sometimes family dinners, sometimes business lunches – but food was always a good excuse to get together.

Another important aspect of our food was the sharing.  When someone had a death or illness in the family, their friends cooked for them and brought it over to the house.  We often took turns cooking for each other, and each of us jumped at the chance to bring your "signature dish" to someone else's food fest.  (Sometimes, there was a parallel between food and stories – just as my friend always brought her own special fruit salad every time we had a potluck, she always told pretty much the same stories).

We marked the seasons with food, too.   Gumbo when it was cold,  King cake from Epiphany through Mardi Gras day,  fish on Fridays during Lent, crawfish boils in the spring and early summer,  boudin in the fall, pecan pie at Thanksgiving, duck in the winter, etc.  And I'm just scratching the surface with this list!

Having a reason to connect makes it more fun to do so, and more likely that you'll actually do it.  I appreciate the role food has played in my life in helping me stay connected to others.  Sure the food's good, but it isn't really about the food – it's about the connections.

What can you say no to?

I'm in the midst of taking on a new role at work, and it's resulting in a lot of people vying for my time. This has forced me to up my game in prioritization and in saying "no."

One useful technique I've been trying on is to consciously avoid "maybe" or "let me think about it" responses. My queue never clears without more "no's."

The challenge is in getting alignment around the priorities, and being able to articulate how the decision was made.

Data is your friend in this process, if you can get it. Short of that, documenting your assumptions can help. That way if the issue resurfaces, you can share your assumptions and ask "Which of these assumptions are no longer true, which would warrant re-opening the issue?". The new habit I've had to begin to develop in this area is documenting my assumptions, instead of just talking about them.

What techniques have you found that help you with prioritizing and saying no?

This is book-worthy advice? You're kidding

Yikes.

Creativity Games - good thinking!

I got a note the other day from Ryan, who told me about a site called "Creativity Games," which is very cool.

I'm a big believer in doing puzzles, word games, logic puzzles, etc. to challenge your thinking, and there are some good things going on at Creativity Games. Check it out - I think you'll like it.

Also, if you like puzzles, I highly recommend subscribing to Games Magazine.  I started reading Games Magazine when it first came out over 30 years ago and still love it.  It has just about any kind of puzzle you can imagine (crosswords, cryptograms, word search, mazes, logic puzzles, sudoku, "what's different about these two pictures," and much more).

I believe doing these sorts of puzzles helps keep you sharp, opens your mind to better observation and analysis, and generally make things fun.

Got any other great creativity resources? Please share!

Get It Done, by the book

The other day I got my hands on Stever Robbins' book, "Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More (Quick & Dirty Tips)," which is a great collection of tips & tricks to be more productive.

When I picked up the book, I was wondering how this aligned with David Allen's "Getting Things Done."  Turns out it's very complementary - GTD is focused mostly on how to collect, capture, and organize the things you want to do so you can pick your activities based on context, energy, importance, etc - you still need that, even with Robbins' book.

So what is Robbins' book about, then?  While it does have some overlap in terms of defining life goals, priorities, and "purpose" stuff, much of Robbins' book deals with tactics to help you free up more time to be productive - how to overcome procrastination, how to get better at saying "no," how to block out distractions so you can focus, and those sorts of things.

Practical and fun to read

Robbins' style is very conversational, making it an easy read.  He also has a lot of quirky stories and memes going on (hint: zombies abound).  In the midst of the quirkiness, there are a lot of sound ideas - and he illustrates them with stories from his life.  For example, there is a section on "baby chunks" which is a strategy to break daunting tasks down into smaller, more manageable pieces.  He discusses how he used this approach in writing his book, and I found it easier to understand the techniques involved because of this concrete example.

Likewise, he illustrates most of his concepts with real stories you can identify with (except for the zombies, of course).

So, you may be wondering, "What are the 9 steps?"  Let me fill you in:

• Step 1: Live on Purpose, deals with identifying you top-level life priorities;
• Step 2: Stop Procrastinating, offers tips to get your butt in gear and do the things you're avoiding;
• Step 3: Conquer Technology, which helps you figure out ways to prevent technology from hijacking your productivity, as well as how to use technology to help you get through your tasks more quickly;
• Step 4: Beat Distractions to Cultivate Focus, is perhaps my favorite chapter, and it deals with how to establish an environment / habits that will help you focus more (you might also want to look at my post on how to focus in a cubicle environment, if you have trouble focusing on your tasks);
• Step 5: Stay Organized, which helps you implement systems to support a more organized life;
• Step 6: Stop Wasting Time, which is mostly about how to identify your leverage points - the 20% that's most important in your 80/20 life;
• Step 7: Optimize, which has some very interesting tips to help make time-consuming or mundane tasks more efficient, and even "outsource" them to others if you can;
• Step 8: Build Stronger Relationships, which is about doing the care & feeding of relationships to make your life more meaningful and create a network that can support your efforts when you need help;
• Step 9: Leverage, which is partially about automating things to give you more power over getting them done, but also a lot about how to use your skills to their best advantage to increase your personal value.  Leverage is also about how you can tap into the strengths of others to move past your own limitations.

In summary, I got a lot out of this book and found it to be very practical.  Through this book, I also discovered the "Get-It-Done Guy's Tips & Tricks" site, which is loaded with great ideas.

If you're looking for a good way to refocus your energy on being more productive, you won't go wrong with this book.