Temptation and strengthening your will

I was just reading an interesting article by Peter Bregman on the Harvard Business Review blogs, called "How to Use Temptation to Strengthen Your Willpower."​  It first caught my eye because he was writing about a retreat at a place near where I live in Oregon.

But what really got my attention was the notion of "always wanting more" phenomenon (aka the Hedonic Treadmill) that he describes:​

We relentlessly pursue things and experiences that we think will make us happier. But once we acquire them, we quickly return to our previous level of happiness. So then we look for the next thing.

This sounds familiar to me, as my love for gadgets is kind of like this, to name one of my "vices."  Another thing in his article resonated with me, as well:​

Maybe getting the object of our desire isn't what we really desire. Maybe it's the desire itself which we desire. In other words, maybe it's more pleasurable to want things than to have them.​

In other words, maybe the quest for what we want is worth more than getting it.  In some cases, I think that is certainly true, but we also need to obtain​ enough of our desired outcomes to drive our sense of progress, as well as to allow us allow us to move to the next phase of our journey.

The big question:  when does our questing become detrimental?  From my experience, there is a fine line between healthy focus and obsessive / compulsive pursuit, or even an addiction.  This is where I find that an objective coach or mentor can be a huge ally - whether it is a friend, coworker, roommate, spouse, or someone else you can trust to be straight with you (like a "sponsor" in a 12-step program).

The other aspect that I really liked about Bregman's article is the notion of using delayed gratification to make the experience more pleasant once you release the tension.  I encourage you to read what Bregman has to say - it is really good.​

How can you boost your productivity?

In the past, I've written a lot of things relating to personal productivity here, since efficient & effective throughput is a big quest for me. I recently ran across an article on the Industrial Space blog, called "7 Websites That Can Boost Your Productivity" and I found it worthy of sharing.

The post refers to a couple of familiar tools that I've written about before, such as Toodledo, which I use in conjunction with the Manage Your Now methodology; and RescueTime, which I use to track where I spend my time on my computer.

But wait- there's more!

Eric Thompson, the author of the post, also brought several additional web-based tools to my attention -- ones I'd never heard of before. Specifically, he shares info about Bitrix 24, PickyDomains, Yugma, JetRadar, and Vyew. I won't link to them here - instead, I encourage you to head over to the article on Industrial Space, read Eric's descriptions, and follow the links from there.

I will tell you that I've already added JetRadar to my toolbox - it is a great resource if you travel as much as I do!

And one more from me...

And while I have you, I'd like to mention one other website that has really helped my productivity: Buffer. Buffer, (aka BufferApp) is an easy-to-use tool to allow you to create a reservoir of things you'd like to tweet, and have them go out at scheduled times. I have a schedule set up to send out tweets several times a day, which I like because I can schedule 30 minutes to catch up on my blog and RSS Feed reading, then queue up a bunch of tweets to go out over a longer period of time.

For me, this helps keeping me from "tweet storming" a bunch of posts at once (I find that a bit annoying myself), and creates the illusion that I'm online and tweeting a lot more than I actually am (shh- don't give away my little secret). Buffer integrates with a lot of apps including the Twitter web site, Tweetcaster, the Google Reader feed, and others. Most of the time, I use the BufferApp Safari add-on, which lets me push a button to add a page to my buffer:

As you can see from the dialog, you can post the tweet now, add an image, and/or add it to your Buffer. Once it's in the buffer, it gets added to the list of items to go out on your assigned schedule. I just added the post in the screen shot to my Buffer, and it is scheduled to post Monday at 5:42pm Pacific time.

However, it may not go out at that time, after all… and why not? The answer lies in a cool feature of Buffer: You can edit your buffer - the app provides a web page to manage your buffer, which makes it easy to re-order items, edit them, elaborate, etc. so you can adjust when specific items get posted.

So if you like to tweet, check it out. And, once again, don't forget to check out the "7 Websites That Can Boost Your Productivity."

Counter-productivity tips?

I was just reading an article called, "8 Surprisingly Counterproductive Productivity Apps," which has some interesting items on it.  My favorite is one called iNap@Work, which took the #1 spot:

No. 1 with a bullet? iNap@Work. It’s the productivity app gone so wrong that it could help you lose your job. With counterproductivity as its aim, the app will make you seem busy while — you guessed it — napping at work. To fool the waking dead (read: your cubemates), the app will play a series of sound effects at varying frequencies, including typing, stapling, and mouse clicks.

I played around with this (not for napping, but out of curiosity) and it's pretty entertaining to say the least.  The rest of the list is interesting, as well.

What are your "time sink" apps?

That post reminded me of a tool I've been using called "RescueTime" which automatically tracks your time on Windows and OS X.  I really like it because it not only tracks which apps you are using, but it asks you what you were doing when you return to your desk after a meeting or other reason for being away (sample dialog is below - and you can customize the categories if you want):

WIth RescueTime, you get a very nice breakdown of your productivity through the RescueTime dashboard, along with a categorization of which were the most and least productive categories of time.  The scale ranges from -2 (very unproductive) to +2 (very productive), and you can adjust the categorization to better fit your real view of the world in case you disagree with their classification of an activity.  For example, RescueTime considered LinkedIn to be a -2 (very unproductive) on their scale. I adjusted LinkedIn to be a +1 (productive) since I use LinkedIn to help me in my work and save time.

Once you've been using RescueTime for a while, you can use various reports to see how productive you are and find places where you waste time (your 'counter-productive apps' in a sense).  Here is a sample category breakdown for the month of September so far, based on my utilization:

I don't obsess over these reports, but I do check in a couple of times a month to see how much time I've been spending on distractions.  You can monitor as much or as little of your week as you want, so you can audit all of your time or just your work hours, for example.  I didn't have too many surprises other than realizing how much time I spent playing Diablo 3 last month.

If you're looking for a quick and easy way to track where you spend your time and identify when you are at your most productive, check out RescueTime.  And if you want to take naps at work or engage in other unproductive activities, go read up on 8 Surprisingly Counterproductive Productivity Apps!

I fell off the path and am getting back on...

I recently wrote about Beeminder here, and talked about how much I liked it to help keep me on track.  That is all still true. 

Unfortunately, technology can't always overcome human flaws.  You see, in spite of Beeminder, I missed my commitment to post here at least 4 times per month and wandered off my yellow brick road.

What happened?  

I could make any number of excuses - I got busy, I didn't have a good idea for a post, I was tired, I was on vacation, etc. (all of which are true, but irrelevant).

Basically, I decided to procrastinate when I could've taken a few minutes do write something, or I couldn't planned ahead and written posts early & scheduled them, etc.  In other words, I didn't take proper responsibility for my commitment and didn't hold myself accountable.  It happens.

What am I going to do about it?  

I have paid my pledge of $5 to Beeminder, reset my graph, and am back on the horse trying to meet my commitment of at least 4 posts per month through the end of the year.  And this time, it will cost me $10 if I miss my commitment again.

You know, this made me realize another benefit of Beeminder:  consequences are making me get back to my commitment sooner.  Prior to Beeminder, I could've been a slacker for any length of time and nobody would have known - there is some benefit in a public scoreboard.  If you want to watch my progress, check out my current graph to see how I'm doing.

Presenting with a pocket full of cobras

I was just reading an article on Harvard Business Review's blog, written by Kare Anderson - it is called "Make Your Message (Almost) as Vital as AIR." It is a great set of guidelines to help make your message more impactful.  She uses the acronym "AIR" to represent three aspects of effective messages - here is a brief recap:

1. Actionable:  "To secure connection with your intended audience or market, aspire to offer the equivalent ease of Amazon Prime's one-click buying."
2. Interestingness:  "Make your message so unexpected, novel, provocative or otherwise odd that they are compelled to pay attention even if they are supposed to be doing something else."
3. Relevance:  "You can increase relevance by getting specific sooner. That may mean you capture fewer people overall — but you will capture more of the right people, the people you need to reach."

In addition to resonating with the advice in this article, I absolutely agree with Kare's conclusion: 

Crafting a memorable message will make you more quotable, will keep you at the top of people's minds, and will ultimately inject your life with more opportunity and adventure.

Is your message lost in the noise?

I commented on Kare's article on the HBR site, but wanted to elaborate a bit here about just how vital the "Interestingness" part of this formula can be.  

As you may know from my writing on this blog, I spend a lot of time doing presentations and leading discussions as part of my job in a software company.  In addition to trying to create Actionable, Interesting, and Relevant messages, one of the big challenges I have is delivering my message in a way that allows me to not only compete with the "ambient noise" of daily life but to get people to stop what they are doing and engage with me.

Often, especially when I'm presenting to large groups at conferences, I can see people with their heads buried in their email, Facebook, or some other online activity.  I try not to take it personally and, in fact, I try to frame it as a challenge:  How can I pull them away from other activities enough that they begin to engage in my topic?

Got a cobra in your pocket?

As I mentioned in my comments to Kare, I used to work with a guy that I described as having a "pocket full of cobras."  Why?  

Any time he started to get attacked in meetings, or feel uneasy with the topic at hand, he had a knack for coming up with some tangent that sucked everyone in and got everyone focused on something new.  Kind of like if he'd pulled a cobra out of his pocket and thrown it on the conference room table - if that happened, no matter what you were doing a moment before you'd instantly turn your attention to the cobra. 

My coworker used his cobras as a way to deflect and distract, but I believe you can create your own collection of cobras that you can use to compel and focus your audience.  After all, when presenting, or writing, or even trying to lead a discussion in a room full of coworkers, sometimes it can be good to "shock the system" with a dramatic, controversial, or unexpected injection of provocative content.

Be prepared.

Some of my favorite communicators are great at grabbing your attention, and have developed their own "pockets full of cobras" to help keep you focused on the right things.  Some of the things I've seen work well include:

• Stories:  Telling an interesting or personal story to illustrate one of your main points can be very effective.  People tend to remember stories, so you'll increase the likelihood that they'll retain your key points if you wrap them in good stories.
• Pictures:  I've seen a (welcome) trend away from bullet points toward evocative images.  These work most effectively when combined with good stories, as described in the previous bullet.
• Polls:  Want to engage the audience?  Be ready with some questions that require them to answer, vote, or otherwise respond.  If you do this early in the presentation, you'll keep them on their toes - after all, if there is going to be another quiz, they're going to pay more attention.
• Small group discussion with a report back:  This doesn't work for all topics, but it can be effective to get the audience engaged, take the 'burden of content' off your shoulders, and inject new ideas into the group.  Get each table to go off and work on a problem (could be the same problem for everyone, or a collection of relevant problems), the get each group to report back about their group's ideas or proposed solutions.
• Videos:  Videos or film clips can often switch things up and get people to pay attention to what's going on in the room.  
• For example, I once did a presentation that used an excerpt from the movie "The Blind Side" to frame a discussion about the need to make a radical change in companies' approaches to their information security strategy.  I then told a story to connect my concepts to what we saw in the video clip.  I got lots of feedback from the audience for months afterward, talking about how much they remembered that presentation and used it as a reminder to think differently about their security strategies.
• Step into the crowd:  Move into the crowd, or take a step into the crowd.  That little bit of "hey, what's this guy up to" can shift people's attention.  And, they'll be less likely to do email or Facebook with you walking around behind them!
• Contrast:  What do I mean by contrast?  Contrast could be silence.  It could be a loud noise.  It could be a goofy exercise.  Just find a way to break the flow of the discussion in a noticeable way, and you'll increase the chances that people will shift their attention to where you want it to be.
• One cool trick I've learned is the "blank screen" technique.  In PowerPoint, you can just hit the "B" key on the keyboard and your screen turns black.  Do that, and people stop reading your slides and look at you.
• Another cool trick if a lot of people are having side conversations is to just stand there and look at them without saying a word (or, if you don't want to stare at them just look out into the room).  After about 5-10 seconds, they'll probably stop what they are doing and look at you.  Boom.  You have them back.

These are just a few of the productive cobras I've developed.  Do you have any other ideas or techniques that sound anything like this?  How about sharing them?  I'd love to put some more cobras in my pocket.