Positive productivity: How increasing your energy maximizes your efficiency

The traditional concept of time management focuses on the practice of ardently planning and mastering conscious control over the time allocated to specific tasks.  It sure sounds hard, described that way, doesn't it?  In real life—especially business settings—time management requires tools, skills and processes all laced together by the ultimate goal of increasing efficiency and productivity. Frankly, time management takes a lot of time. 

But what if increasing productivity was much simpler than that? What if instead of involving project management software, schedules, graphs and apps, the process required a decent pair of walking shoes and a fluffy pillow?

Master your energy

Based on the assertions of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their bestseller, "The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal," our most precious resource is energy, not time. Certainly making the best use of your time is critical to your success but, if your energy levels are depleted, your productivity takes a dive regardless of what the clock reads.

Of course, managing your energy in a world abuzz with communication gizmos is no easy task. Energy replenishment takes effort. Think about it:  how many times during your workweek lunch breaks—an hour that should be devoted to refueling and recharging—have you allowed the chatter of texts and emails to further drain your energy?

Build your energy on 4 strong pillars

According to the ideas in "The Power of Full Engagement" as well as those on Tony Schwartz's blog, "The Energy Project," physical energy is the foundation to our overall efficiency. While emotional, mental and spiritual energy are also critical components of high performance, when our physical bucket is empty, all heck breaks loose. By incorporating these four key pillars of physical fulfillment into your typical day, you can elevate your energy levels and in turn, take a major step toward positive productivity.

1. Nutrition: Eat small, high-protein, low-carbohydrate meals throughout the day.  You've likely heard this before but eating mini meals throughout the day is a simple way to sustain your energy. For busy professionals who spend long days at the office, The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends keeping single-serve packages of crackers, fruit, peanut butter, low-sodium soup or canned tuna in your desk. Tuck snacks in your travel bag for a quick refueling between meetings (I always have a couple of Kind bars stashed in my backpack). If remembering to eat  at the right times is a challenge for you, download an app such as the Temple Hydration, Food, Fitness and More iPhone app (TheTempleApp.com), which comes with customizable reminders that kick in when it has been too long since you last ate.

2. Fitness: Make regular exercise a habit.  According to the MayoClinic, regular exercise not only controls weight and helps you avoid a slew of health conditions and diseases, it improves your mood and boosts energy levels. If hitting the gym is not your style, buy a pedometer and record the number of steps you take every day. The Energy Project blog recommends shooting for 10,000 steps per day.  (By the way: I love my pedometer — I have a new one that is fantastic and will be reviewing it next week)

3. Sleep: Get an average of 8 hours of sleep every night.  To aid in developing a sleep-conducive cycle, the National Sleep Foundation suggests sticking to a regular bed and wake time schedule, including weekends. They also recommend creating an environment that is cool, quiet, comfortable and dark. If light is spoiling your sleep space, invest in room darkening or blackout cellular shades to block out the light. Finally, keep the gadgets out of the bedroom as much as possible. Computers, tablets and cell phones distract you from the task at hand: a good night's sleep.

4. Renewal: Plan regular vacations, social outings and personal time. Whether it's a massage, Frisbee golf with the guys or a week-long camping trip, detaching from the daily grind altogether for substantial pockets of time is key to replenishing your physical and mental energy. In the "The Power of Full Engagement," the authors redefine the old paradigm of "downtime is wasted time" to "downtime is productive time." Use your downtime wisely by doing something fun.

Bottom line, don't throw away your precious time management tools and apps just yet. But do make your physical well-being a top priority and start to take note of how your energy levels impact your focus and productivity. It's worth the time.

Got any tips that work for you?  I'd love to hear them.

Make calendar coordination easy

Recently, I was putting together a collaboration call to prepare for a panel I moderated at an industry event.  There were 4 of us - three in Europe, me in the US - and we all used different calendaring systems so it was challenging.

Doodle: A great tool for cross-platform, complex scheduling

One of the panelists introduced me to a great tool to help us figure out what times worked for everyone.  It's called "Doodle" and it makes it easy to present various schedule options.  You can either enter the information manually, or start with your availability from your Google calendar so it's pretty easy. 

You then invite others to weigh in on their preferred time, and they see a form that looks something like this sample:

You can see people's updates and preferences as they fill them in, which is very handy to make sure you aren't heading for a train wreck.

Doodle is for more than just calendars

Doodle also allows you to create quick & dirty polls and send them out to large groups to provide feedback.  Doodle even provides a "None of these options works for me" button.

Doodle's polls aren't anonymous, so they may not work for every situation, but I've used them for things like figuring out where people want to go for an outing, and what kind of food people wanted for an off-site meeting.

Doodle's also free, so check it out.

Never guess at multi-time zone meetings again

I've been traveling internationally quite a bit this year, and often find myself scheduling meetings with people in a variety of locations.   One of the challenges is mapping the time zones correctly so that everyone actually shows up at the right time.

I've tried a variety of methods to resolve this, but have found an iOS app that is just great for this.  The app is called "AllHours" and it makes time zone coordination a snap. 

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In the interface, select the desired time in one time zone (generally the one you're in)  and it will adjust the time in the others to show you what the various local times will be.  

You can then tap on the little envelope button (see the screen shot) to open your email client with a pre-composed list of the cities and the local dates and times you've selected in the UI.  That makes it easy to send proposed meeting times to others to review.

If you're ready to schedule the meeting, tap on the little calendar icon and it will open a meeting request for the time you've selected.

AllHours is a great (free) solution for iOS.  If you've found a good app like this for other platforms, please leave a comment with your suggestions. 

Keeping Your Life Synced Up

Everywhere you look these days, you see someone using a tablet.  That happened fast - in fact, my daughter's school just issued tablets for every student in the school - a big change from when I was in high school.

Pew Research says that 56 percent of Americans own a smartphone, and 34 percent own a tablet. Most people have more than one mobile device. The more devices you have, the harder it is to keep them in sync. You'd like to be able to use your laptop, tablet or smartphone and have access to the same information. It's time to get your life synced up and start using the apps that help keep your life organized.

Syncing and the Cloud

Early sync technology worked by downloading the same files to your devices to make them all have the same information. Cloud technology changed that by allowing you to store your files in the cloud where all of your devices can get to that information. There are two major ways that apps keep your information synced up now: through files or through an application.

An undeniably popular cloud service has been Dropbox. This application is a preferred pick for keeping files in sync because of its reliability and ease of use. Once you create an account, which is free until you need more space, you'll download a small app onto your smartphone, tablet or laptop. This creates a Dropbox folder in which you can create other folders. Just drop files into one of the sub-folders, and it will now be accessible to any device you connect to your account.

For example, you can take photos with your smartphone and place them into a photos sub-folder in the Dropbox folder on your phone. When you get home, you can fire up your laptop and go into its Dropbox Photos folder and touch up those photos before posting them on your Facebook page. Later, when you have more time, you can bring the photos up on your tablet from its Dropbox Photos folder for review.

There are other services that offer a similar cloud service. such as Microsoft Skydrive, Box.com, and Google Drive which all do something similar and allow you to keep the files on all of your devices in sync. With the speeds available to you through broadband, high-speed cellular connectivity, and even satellite Internet now, keeping your files in sync between all of your devices is quick and easy.

Syncing With Applications

The Evernote application, one of my "go to" apps, gives you a tool on all of your mobile devices to make notes and save web pages and images, and it keeps everything in sync for you. There are no files to deal with. You can browse a website on your phone, copy it into the Evernote app, and make some notes about it. When you get home, you can bring up Evernote on your laptop, and do some further research on that website.  One of the killer features of Evernote is to do character recognition on things like whiteboards - you take a picture of them and the handwritten text becomes searchable.  Very cool.

Google Sync is a way to keep the calendar and contacts on your smartphone or tablet in sync with your Google Calendar and Contacts. This is a small app that runs in the background on your mobile device at specific intervals that you pick during its set-up.

Toodledo is an example of one of many task managers that will help you create and manage a to-do list on all of your mobile devices and keep them in sync.

For your entertainment needs, Apple's iTunes will keep music, movies, TV shows, and audiobooks on all of your mobile devices in sync. Given Apple's focus on its own ecosystem, this app is streamlined for iOS devices, and there are some restrictions for Android devices, but you can use tools like DoubleTwist to bridge the gap and make it easy to sync your iTunes content to your Android device.

Finally, some streaming services are creating apps that let you control your TV viewing from multiple devices. For example, DirecTV Mobile Apps work on smartphones and tablets. You can start a movie from your smartphone on your TV, then go into another room, bring up the app on your tablet and watch the movie from where it left off on the TV. While not truly syncing, these apps allow you to use different mobile devices to access the same information.

Stop people from spying on you using your webcam

With all the talk about unwanted surveillance these days, one of the things I've heard people worry about is the privacy of their webcams.  "Could someone spy on me via my webcam without me knowing it?"  It's unlikely, but possible. 

If you don't want to be seen without your consent, there is an easy way to handle it:  ‎Scotch® tape or its equivalent. 

I've heard of people using duct tape, electrical tape, masking tape, etc. but I prefer the clear, but opaque ‎Scotch® tape for a few reasons:

1. ‎Scotch® tape allows light through, which enables your computer's light sensor to gauge the ambient light and adjust your screen brightness accordingly.
2. This tape allows you to see the "camera active" LED next to the lens when it comes on.  This can be an indicator that someone is watching, so you'll know when it's happening.  Note that some eavesdropping toolkits are able to monitor your webcam without  turning on the light, so the light alone isn't a perfect indicator.
3. The tape is easily removable without leaving a residue.  That means you can easily use your webcam when you want to without a lot of hassle. 

How well does it work?  Take a look at these two views - one normal view, and one with tape over the lens. 

As you can see, a simple bit of inexpensive tape does the trick. 

One other thing to keep in mind:  This does nothing to keep people from listening in on your microphone...