Getting Focused 02

A few days ago I was feeling grouchy about not being that productive, and wrote about two personal quirks that may have something to do with it:

• I have a high activation threshold for starting tasks. That is, it takes quite a lot of energy to actually get my butt moving. I seem to have the expectation that anything I do must meet a minimum level of return approaching 2x. I think of this as the two-fer (as in "two fer one"); if I can think of two or more things that will happen as the result of my action, I'm more likely to do it. The other form of activation energy comes from people; if I'm working with a good partner or working to a deadline for someone else, that gives me the energy to continuously create.

• I am very impatient when it comes to waiting for results. I like to see results right away. If I can't see results, I want to at least see something happening that is immediately useful to me. For many drawn out technical projects, I need to ensure that I have the necessary incoming people energy to stay motivated. I need to see things happening, or I lose interest.

So here's the theory: for me to get focused, I need to take those two traits---high activation threshold and impatience---into account. To deal with my high activation threshold, I need to have people to work with and choose interesting projects with multiple applications.

Unfortunately, the work I have to do right now (which includes such exciting things like paying bills and cleaning my bedroom) have no such payoff implicit in them. There are ways around this, of course. I could make a game out of it. I could promise someone I'll do them. Or I could actually figure out what focus is and do that.

How does one focus, anyway?

It occurs to me that while I understand the concept of focus, I have never really practiced it like I knew what I was doing. If I were a movie director, I'd know how I'd depict focus: steely eyes, intense yet detached, coolly fixated on the task at hand with dramatic tick-tock musical undertones. However, drama is no replacement for the real thing.

I've been reflecting a lot on how my ability to do certain things has been shaped by subconscious observation and passive experience. For example, I never learned directly how to socialize in large groups when I was a kid, and was intensely shy. For a long time I thought this was because I was just introverted by nature, but as I've learned to put together my own socializing methodology a competing theory has come to mind: I just never saw anyone I know do it in a language I understood. In other words, I never had a clear mental picture of what great socializing was. Likewise, I don't think I have a role model for focused action.

So I really have no idea how people are focused, though I understand plenty of theory about what it is. There's a big difference between the "being" and the "what" of something. Being, in my mind, is the integration of the principle into living action. The "what" is merely identification and categorization: essentially, it is labeling. Labeling by itself isn't very useful. I remember seeing a CEO-type person lead a meeting once to figure out how to raise revenue targets. His solution was quite logical: revenue comes from sales. Therefore, we need more sales. Ergo, we need to hire more sales people. Problem solved...except it wasn't. This act of executive leadership identified a "what" without the underlying methodology that would create the what in a meaningful way. If you don't understand sales from the one-to-one perspective and integrate that with accounting practices, you are pretty much just leading your people bravely into nests of machine guns.

There are plenty of people who will tell me what to do to be focused, and that's all well and good. But I need to discover what it means to "be" focused in addition to having the mechanics. I shall reflect upon that today.

Circumnavigation of My Arrogance

I have noticed a disturbing trend in myself in the past few weeks: I've been losing patience and I've been kind of a jerk to my friends and coworkers.

What's new is that I've been under a bit more project load than usual. This is fantastic because I have been wanting to sink my teeth into something nice and meaty for some time. However, I've found some bad old habits resurfacing from the white-hotness of the old 2001 Internet Bubble. I have been arrogant and self-serving under the mistaken belief that I was just being proactive and responsible. I'm lucky that the people that I work with are understanding and strong enough to stand up to me, so I can see what I've been doing wrong. I just feel awful about it, though.

ARROGANCE

First, the positive: my default mental stance is to believe that everyone has a knack. That is, everyone has some kind of incredible potential that, if we can but unlock it, will result in an explosion of empowering happiness.

When I am in the position that I can help someone come into that potential, that makes me feel incredibly happy. This is a mission that I've recently accepted as being one of my primary life goals. Because of this, I am a patient and nurturing teacher, free with my knowledge and my time. I can trace this tendency back to when I was trying to learn the BASIC programming language in the 7th grade, and this older kid named Donald Dimitrios took the time to show me the ropes. He put up with my blank-eyed questions and endless confusion when it came to understanding PEEKS, POKES, and the mysterious FOR-NEXT loop. This generosity of knowledge was particularly notable because in junior high school, there is such stratification between grade levels that even TALKING to a 7th grader was grounds for ruthless taunting. He didn't give a crap though, and as a result I had a positive introduction to computing that not only helped set the course of my career, but imprinted me with the values that lay the foundation for a strong community of practitioners. I am forever grateful.

That said, you might find it surprising that this patient gratefulness dries right up when I am working with someone who is already an equal. The reserve of patience and understanding gets put away for the next student, because I'm excited to gird on the armor and the sword. I'm not exactly Leeroy Jenkins when it comes to group projects, but I must admit there is a certain LET'S GO OUT AND KICK ASS! YEAH!!!!! vibe. I want to drink the blood from conquered skulls of bad interactive media, reveling in the lamentations of the corporate tools who inflicted such point-and-click monkeyware upon the world in the first place! Ok, I am exaggerating a little here, but I really do feel that it's a moral imperative that must be followed through.

I believe that this is arrogance masquerading as the belief that quality and skill are most important for a professional project. That's not to say that quality and skill are not the point; it is the basis of business trust after all. What is arrogant is my belief that valuing quality and skill entitles me to say and do whatever I think. I never fully calculated the human cost in terms of lingering hurt feelings, lowered morale, and confusion. I think for the first time, I am ready to concede that this cost is unacceptable when it is exacted for my own standards. It is only worthwhile when everyone benefits for their own reasons, and they want to be in the room.

WHAT'S OLD IS NEW AGAIN

The last time I experienced this form of personal hubris was in 2001. I believed I knew exactly what should be done, how it could be done, and was incredibly blunt about it. The net result was that I drove away a lot of good people, and it took four years to rebuild both myself and real relationships with people. I learned that I did have this dichotomy of expectation between my mentoring and collaboration modes. My solution? Go freelance...obviously, I had trouble working with others in a company context, so maybe the freedom to put up or shut up on process was my destiny. Problem solved! This path resulted in the start of this blog and the freedom to build many new relationships with people. I have never been happier or more excited in my life by the possibilities before me.

There's just one problem: I really do want to work with people. So for the past year, I've been slowly building up to the point where I can start working with people more closely.

What's different now is that I'm aware that it's much easier to attract similar people than it is to find them, if you are brave enough to put the vibe out there. One reason that I write so broadly on my blog is that I like eclectic people; I figure that if someone is intrigued by the types of topics I write about, they are probably more likely to be someone I'd like to work with. If they like the way I write, that is an even closer potential match! I think this is a good example of finding your niche; it's more important, particularly at first, to find a few people who deeply connect and enrich you than thousands who you superficially encounter but form no bond whatsoever. The reason I think this is important is that when we're getting started, we all need additional sources of energy to push through our fears, uncertainties, and doubts. Having even one person who really believes in you can make all the difference.

I've also thought that maybe it was the style of collaboration or scheming that was the crucial relationship element, which is just a special case of attracting similar people. People that have similar values and interests are more likely to have a harmonious relationship. In general I've found it to be true...for establishing friendships. Extending this principle to a working relationship has so far eluded me. My weird arrogance regarding competency and process rears its ugly head, and drives away the people I want to work with.

DIAGNOSIS

I hurt a few people today who are important to me, which is why I'm trying to work through this and fix it because I apparently did not achieve closure before. I think there are probably others out there who have gone through---or ARE going through---a similar cycle. Here's a few warning signs, based on feelings that I've had before:

• You believe that people around you just aren't willing to understand the value of what you're doing.

• You believe that you are doing more than you are supposed to with regard to your job or role.

• You believe that there is a lack of definition and direction in the workplace, with no apparent end in sight.

• You believe that if you take responsibility for conveying the importance of these issues, matters will improve if people are willing to listen. Through education and persistence, you can effect a change.

There are two responses to this that I've tried in the past:

1. Step up and lead until someone makes you stop: When you don't have authority to make changes directly granted to you, you can apply personal leadership to the situation. Though it's not strictly part of your job description, bringing clarity and vision to the people around you is often appreciated if it's not perceived as a power trip. Being willing to take punches, go the extra mile for your peers, and create recognized excellence within the organization can be the beginning of a new era of solidarity. However, this approach requires a lot of energy with no guarantee of recognition or reward. It can pay off big, or you will burn out in about a year.

2. Withdraw and cut your losses: Situations in which you do not have the authority to change culture and process are difficult to win overnight. After you assess the amount of effort and luck required to remedy matters, you determine it is too much work. You can stop caring and restrict your role to the smallest unit of responsibility that won't get you fired. Or, you can leave.

I've practiced both responses half a dozen times with various companies. The typical patterns is to lead with "stepping up" and try to last long enough to achieve whatever goal was set before me. Very draining, but rewarding when we pulled off something kick ass. Eventually, though, my energy stores are drained so thoroughly that I become very moody and depressed. I ask myself am I really going to be happy doing this forever and come to the conclusion that it's time to move on. So I close off things as cleanly as I can, and enter a new phase of my life.

The current phase of my life, which is this blogging/design thing, has been sustainable because I'm generally working on shorter projects. With shorter projects, I can work hard to get the thing out, and then count on some downtime to replenish my store of energy. Shorter projects also tend to be very well-defined or limited in some way that makes them much easier to tackle comprehensively.

It's the longer-term projects that require more of a marathoner's approach to energy management: the pace is necessarily slower, because you need to maintain energy for the entire project track. And it's these projects that are the ones with the most need for collaboration between peers. I also think it's these projects that are the most rewarding due to the larger scale of the accomplishment. I need to develop a third option that doesn't involve total withdrawal or total sacrifice.

IDENTIFYING THAT THIRD OPTION

What I need to confront is my ego and sense of entitlement. I thought I'd dealt with this years ago, but they both live on. I also need to resolve that sense of responsibility that tends to exert itself when I think I can help clarify things. Here are my thoughts on the matter:

1. I should acknowledge that I'm really good at some things. And that's as noteworthy as someone having hair because everyone is really good at something. Even exceptional skill, I think, is just a tiny aspect of a person's place in the universe, no sense in kicking up a fuss about it. Also, embracing one's talents without feeling embarrassed is a necessary step to performing on the broader world stage; if I really want to do cool stuff on a bigger scale, I need to get comfortable with offering what I can offer.

2. There's no need to "awaken" or "educate" people all the time. What's funny is that I believe that I already believe that expressing ideas in tangible form is most effective in creating positive change; so me merely telling people things and expecting them to follow without some kind of concrete example is just foolish. I'm amazed that I did not see this before.

3. Forgot job boundaries, assigned responsibilities, and appropriateness of action. Just pitch in and help. It's the right thing to do. And this is the path through which quality may be attained with much less friction. I've just realized that assigning distinct responsibilities to people is a form of zero sum thinking; the implication is that if people don't do what they are "supposed to do", the project will go horribly awry. Well...maybe not!

So that's my amended course of action, and I am hopeful that this means that I'll finally get the hang of collaborating with people more closely. I don't think clients will necessarily notice a difference (it's quality and skill that they're paying for). However, I think these new guidelines will help me come to a more comfortable work-life balance that includes everyone, not just me. It's a moral imperative!

Those Other People

The other day I was chatting with a good friend via instant message, mentioning some information I'd read about the United Nations Development Programme. The UNDP has the following mission statement (slightly paraphrased by myself):

"[...] an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life."

I've known for a while that I love connecting individuals to knowledge, experience, and resources, but I'd never thought about how this was done on a grand scale. It's pretty awesome that there are organizations all over the world that have this kind of mission, and one would think that being part of one would make me happy. But no...actually not. I found it odd that I could be pro-empowerment on the individual level, yet not find it in myself to extend my interest to entire groups of people. I commented on the apparent smallness of my heart to my friend:

Dave: I wonder what it is like to volunteer for something like this. I've never done it before. Never wanted to before. But now I am curious, with my recent interest in community building. I'm not sure where I fall on the line between "building for our people" versus "building for other people". I don't like doing things for ungrateful people, I guess.

FriendX: Well, I guess you'd need to feel some sort of sense of community. Other people are just people you don't know yet.

It's amazing when an offhand comment like that unlocks a whole slew of realizations. In this case, I was able to connect past behaviors with future ones.

First, the dark side of my meet more people drive of the past few years. I had figured out that I'm actually most passionate about certain kinds of people, and that being around such people was a prime motivator. So I set out to start finding them, those special people who would be important parts of my life. I told myself that while such people were rare:

• If you click with just one person out of 100 , you'll be far better off than before.

• Every individual is a treasure trove of new connections and information.

I believe these are both true statements. However, there is an unspoken presumption: There are people worth knowing, and people who aren't. Even the people with interesting experiences are not classified as people; instead, they're more like convenient sacks of data ripe for plundering.

The smallness of this personal realization makes me shiver uncomfortably, and I don't want it to be true. Nevertheless...I can feel it. What the hell is wrong with me?

A DAWNING REALIZATION

It's unrealistic to expect that I will ever like or even get along with everyone, so I've presumed that this meant that there were people who were in my tribe and people who were not. This seems like a natural state of things to me. People who are not in my tribe are therefore irrelevant unless they are active threats. It's only then that action needs to be taken. Up to now I thought this was a pretty reasonable way of looking at things. I can't be responsible for everyone.

However, FriendX's statement made me realize something: while I can't possibly be friends with even 3 out of 10 people, that doesn't mean that the other 7 of 10 are "other people" to be thought of as junk. If I make the effort to meet new people, understand where they're coming from and where they're going---in short, to understand their stories and their lives---then they cease to be "other" and become "people" just like me. The common bond that we have is that we all want things to be better for ourselves. Sure, there are people who want to take from others for their own ease, and that's evil, but by and large most people are decent folk. The essence of community, I realized, is that by helping other decent folk like yourself, you are really helping yourself in a weird way. I'm not clear how this works exactly, but I think by working directly with people of a similar mind, you naturally open yourself up to new opportunities. The operative term is working directly with people...that is, making a contribution of time and effort, as opposed to just writing a check. You can help people with a check, but you don't build community.

The personal ramifications are broad:

• Instead of looking for those specific people who I think are the massive contributors, find a way to just talk to more of them and share some stories. That we're all sharing in the same struggle is all the common bond we need. If I can lend a hand directly, then by all means I should. That said, I need to be careful about not overextending myself (very easy for anyone to do), but the flip side is that there's often something I can do that doesn't require a lot of direct investment.

• Instead of avoiding the possibility of getting burned in a collaborative project, I should welcome those opportunities. My mentality in the past was that I always needed to work with very experienced, seasons vets for me to be happy about the project. Maybe this isn't the case, so long as that desire is there.

Frankly, both those ideas are absolutely terrifying to me, and I am not convinced it is a wise thing to do. Every fiber in my project manager hat is screaming ARE YOU CRAZY?, but another part of me (maybe it's Mom) is smiling and nodding, pleased that I finally am on the verge of understanding something about people that I wasn't capable of grasping before.

THE EXPANSION OF SCOPE

Previously, I saw my social hierarchies as a set of expanding rings.

• Elder Friends, with whom I've been through a lot, or know me scarily well.
• Close Friends, with whom I share important ideas and dreams.
• Coworkers and Cohorts, who I scheme and collaborate with on projects.
• Acquaintances, who I chat with every once in a while, but are not part of my daily continuity.
• Contacts, who are people I sort of know only in a specific contexts (e.g.: a barrista at Starbucks, perhaps a tech support person at a company).

Each of these rings is "bound together" with of one or more of the following elements:

(1) emotional connection
(2) work/life context
(3) shared continuity of time/place

It's interesting to note that the hierarchies at the top contain strong doses of all three, while the ones toward the bottom tend to have only one or two.

With the realization that there are no "other" people if I decide that this is the way to think about it, an additional element gets added to my social hierarchy ring game. I'm not sure exactly what to call it, but my best guess is that it's this:

(4) the belief that we're each responsible for contributing to the creation of a good life for the people around us.

That's as close as I can get right now. I'm sure that the theologians, philosophers, social scientists, and psychologists out there probably can list a hundred different names for this idea, and that's kind of exciting to think about. The thought that's on my mind right now, however, is what is it that I can do to create that good life around me? But I'm getting ahead of myself: the first step is to get to know who people are. Then, they won't be strangers anymore. That may be all the information I need.

How to Measure Productivity Power?

NOTE: In this article, I'm trying to wrap my head around the very tenuous beginning of an idea: that despite the highly subjective nature of productivity, there may be some way of creating a standardized measurement of one of its aspects that would be useful and implementable. I probably should have written this as 3 or 4 different articles, but it pretty much jumped out of my head and I didn't feel like stopping it :) That said, it may be a little difficult to follow.

AN UNCERTAIN BALANCE

The past six weeks have been rather hectic. I've incorporated new personal routines on top of my existing work practices, which has led to a general increase of happiness. However, I feel that some of this has come at the expense of maintaining the quantity of work that I'd like to be doing. In other words, it feels like I've been playing too much, and now it's time to work more.

I think the idea that one should work more than play afflicts a lot of us. Here in the USA, our national fable is that The American Dream is within the grasp of everyone who works hard (and perhaps catches a bit of luck). Those of us who haven't yet discovered that magic formula for success are constantly left wondering what it is we could be doing better. The lack of certainty leads to procrastination, which is a lack of action. This eventually leads to apathy.

There is a simple cure, the much-touted just do it approach. It's absolutely true that if you just do the work, you will be in a better place than if you didn't. This is true even in the case where your work didn't lead to where you wanted it to go, because the experience has shown you what didn't happen according to plan. Yeah, I know...it's kind of a lame consolation prize, but I think just about every genuinely happy person you come across will tell you that what doesn't happen was just as valuable to them as what did, and that they could not have possibly planned for it. Your future constantly changes as you choose to do new things, new doors opening and closing with every moment. Statistically speaking, the number of opportunities increases if you are mindful of two things:

1. You are doing tangible work that others can relate to and use

2. You are paying attention to how people are reacting to your work, so you can see the door that might opening.

But I digress. I'm really more interested in the complicated cure, the one that we procrastinators seem to demand without knowing quite what it is. There is an interesting line of inquiry buried here that I want to bring to light.

THE SWING OF THINGS

As I was mentioning earlier, I've been experiencing some swings in the balance of my personal and work life.

On the personal side, establishing the gym habit, which at 6 weeks is still holding strong, is a major win. However, I have been sleeping a lot more, so I'm learning to find the right balance of working out so I don't exhaust myself. Stamina will slowly increase, I think. I've also been building new personal relationships and this has resulted in an increase in contentment; there are so many delightful people out there, it's just crazy! Some days, I want to burst from the sheer awesomeness of this.

On the work side, it looks like I am booked until the end of the year thanks to this big museum project I'm kicking off, with several smaller projects tucked in here and there. It's all interesting work too, driven by the kind of design thinking that I like to do. And on top of that, I am finally seeing clearly the kind of business I'd like to run. More importantly, I can see what my business will stand for.

The net result of all this happy talk is that my to-do list is insane. It's so insane, that I've stopped keeping track of it, letting project deadlines and the availability of delightful people dictate my immediate tasking and scheduling. This is, perhaps, the way that a lot of us do things. You'd think I've be using my various Printable CEO™ forms, but I have not yet created a process that specifically addresses this question:

How can I make time for the people in my life while maintaining optimum forward momentum in my work?

All of my forms sneakily avoid the question. The most applicable form is probably the Concrete Goals Tracker, which provides narrow focus on those big big goals. The Emergent Task Timer gives up entirely and just lets you keep track of whatever is happening to you, because this kind of information is often illuminating. The Emergent Task Planner, by comparison, enables you to visualize how much you can realistically expect to get done in a single day, but doesn't tell you what to focus on. Etc. It wasn't until this morning that I realized that addressing the BIG QUESTION is what will tie all the PCEO forms together into a system that will work for me...though I suspect that if I can answer the question I might not need the forms anymore.

DEALING WITH TO DOS and INDIVIDUAL POWER

Ok, I have a zillion to-do list items, each of which requires between two minutes and 40 hours to check off. There are several methods for dealing with the mountain of tasks:

• Ignore them, because you don't feel like doing them.
• Procrastinate by telling yourself how much needs to be done before you can even start. Pass the Doritos!
• Just do them by starting at the beginning (slow and steady wins the race, grasshopper!) or starting anywhere you feel like (getting anything done is better than nothing, dude!)
• Coerce yourself into action through sheer panic, self-loathing, and shame. It's an awful place to be, but Procrastinators often need the drama to push through.
• Project manage by defining clear and tangible results, then planning and executing to completion. For success, you must be able to assess results and estimate the time to achieve them.
• Get a trusted project manager that will tell you what to do so you don't have to think about it. Spouses, you may all raise your frying pans or poking sticks in solidarity.

All these approaches work, though they are all based on the notion of individual power; that is, the scope of action of an individual person. Leaders of organizations know that the simple way out of this is to think about the power of many, and now we are into topics like building teams of complementary specialists, communication, and outsourcing. That's all interesting stuff, but I want to first understand individual capability. That is how much can we do in a given period of time, so we can estimate accurately and pace ourselves for optimum efficiency.

LESSONS FROM THE GYM, REDUX

One thing I've learned from my new gym experiences is that the body is a kind of engine, and that it can be tuned. When I first started, my stamina was low and my cardiovascular limits were easily reached. After 6 or so weeks of daily cardio, I'm at the point where I can actually feel that my body can do more than it used to. I also can push past the resistance my muscles put up after just a few minutes of activity, reaching that zone where the body can operate efficiently for an extended period of time.

The key tool that I've used at the gym is the heart rate monitor, which tells me how fast my heart is beating. I monitor it constantly, comparing the reading to how I am feeling physically. Since I am new to exercise, I've been very careful about not letting my heart rate exceed a certain point until it's apparent that I'm no longer being challenged by it. I assess the challenge by monitoring how short of breath I feel and whether I feel elevated internal stresses in a place other than the working muscles. After a week or two at a certain level, my body seems to adapt, and then it feels safe to push a little harder.

I am thinking that there must be some equivalence between productivity and the gym experience. When we first become aware that we're not productive in the way we'd like, we immediately look for the magic key that will allow us to unlock and apply our potential, which I think is one of the universal desires that everyone has. There is, of course, the non-magical path, which is to actually learn what productivity means, and how to measure one's effectiveness relative to that meaning.

SEPARATING LAYERS OF PRODUCTIVITY

There's a somewhat subtle difference between looking good and being physically fit. Looking good is about surface appearance, while being physically fit is more about internal strength, resilience, and adaptability. It's possible to look great without having all that power under the skin, and it may be good enough just to look good depending on what your goals are. Analogously, it may be good enough just to feel productive rather than to be productive. My forms are designed to address both these aspects because their focus is to provide feedback for the right actions, and if you feel good about something you're more inclined to keep doing it. I'm thinking it's time to look at the substructure of productivity itself.

We all have an innate ability to assess the physical attractiveness of a given individual. I'm not sure where it comes from, but we can generally decide hot or not within seconds of an initial ogling. I'm not sure what exactly the equivalent for productivity is, though I can relate my own experiences regarding my site. Because I tend to write a lot about productivity and have produced some interesting forms, people naturally assume that I'm a productive person. Ironically, I don't think myself as being that productive, which is why I label myself as a productivity enthusiast :-) However, if I were to measure myself only on (1) number of words written and (2) number of forms created and shared, then I could say I am more productive than average, since the average person doesn't spend time designing forms :-)

Identifying the metric by which you are going to measure results is necessary if you want to define how you are productive, and that metric depends on what you really want to do. I'm reminded of the American muscle cars of the 1970s, for example, were affordable street vehicles designed for little else than rapid acceleration and style; you could pretty much forget about good road handling. You can find other examples of this kind of trade off in military aircraft design. One of my favorite examples of a specific need creating a specific kind of design is the MIG 25 interceptor, which was designed by the Soviets because of their hypothetical vulnerability to US bomber attack. The Americans, with their very fast high altitude bombers, had the capability to bomb the U.S.S.R. without challenge. Thus, the Soviets built the MIG-25 specifically to close that gap: shoot down high-altitude supersonic bombers with air-to-air missiles. The design goal was similar to that of an American muscle car: climb very high very quickly, at an affordable price. That's easy to focus on, and it was achieved. This is the project-focused mentality that is so highly effective in getting things done.

So being more productive seems simple: identify the metric by which you measure your productivity, and then you should be able to construct a set of relationships to get you there. It's just a matter of doing those things and assessing whether they are getting you the results you want. This is pretty much what the Concrete Goals Tracker was designed to do, but there's a big problem when you try to apply this to general productivity: often we don't know what kind of life we want to design. We just know we want to be better. And having spent the last 15 years trying to figure out what I wanted to be, I know that finishing projects has not yet helped me answer that fundamental question, which I'll repeat here:

How can I make time for the people in my life while maintaining optimum forward momentum in my work?

Which is my begging-the-question way of asking:

How can I be happy?

Maybe when you find you indeed ARE happy, you can tell the people around you the whole story of how you came to arrive where you are, but until then all anyone has are guesses and a few pieces to a puzzle. You can't answer the question in any kind of direct way, which is what we want. That's the magic pill. Instead, you have to answer the question obliquely, by doing things and finding out whether they make you happy or not.

PRODUCTIVITY POWER THEORY

I've tried the project management approach to finding productivity, and have gotten fairly good at it. However, the project management approach is time consuming and frankly draining for me; this is probably why I have not really found GTD that compelling. What I want really is a productivity heart rate monitor, something that I can use to assess my given level of productivity fitness at any time. Then, I need a set of ranges that tell me when I'm being lazy, productive, and dangerously productive for my given level of "productivity fitness".

I am modeling productivity in a way that is similar to average power:

• the strength to do a task
• the level of challenge of the task
• the length of time it takes to do the work

Power is defined as Work performed over Time. Work, conceptually, is sort of defined as the "strength" of something applied over the range where that strength is directly applied. In mechanical physics, it's FORCE (how hard to push) multiplied by DISTANCE (how far the pushing was done). In electricity, it's VOLTS (the pushing force of electrons) multiplied by CURRENT (how many electrons are allowed to flow). In business, it's CASH (buying strength) multiplied by VOLUME (how much buying/selling was done). For Productivity, I'm thinking the same kind of thinking can be applied.

I'm thinking there are both long term, medium term, and short term components:

• Measuring productivity requires a metric, but as there are multiple goals we'll need multiple ways to measure measure strength and challenge. Eventually, I think we might be able to put together a list of common specialties in which people wish to be productive, thus forming a useful standard for comparing one's own ability against a realistic ideal. This is good for the long term measurement of one's advancement toward goals. This has been the traditional way I've been approaching the productivity. In terms of the gym, this is the equivalent of recording your weight, strength, and challenge levels over time. As for realistic ideals, the physically-fit men and women at the gym show you that it is, indeed, possible.

• In the medium term, there are certain ranges of effort that are most appropriate for your given level of fitness. At the gym, this is maintaining my heart rate such that it is high enough for me to be challenged, but not so high that I grow short on breath or collapse. I could see some kind of scaled approach happening here; the Emergent Task Planner has this implicitly designed into it with the groups of three tasks. Once we have some kind of unit of measurement for productivity, we will be able to define these ranges.

• To have any hope of making progress toward your goals, you'll concentrated attention over a period of time. This is a short-term---actually, this is an immediate and present---focus. In the cardiovascular training, I'm supposed to maintain an elevated heart rate for at least 30 minutes a day to start making a difference. I don't see why it would be any different for becoming more productive; the various dash approaches to breaking procrastination habits remind me very much of the cardio stuff I've been doing. The goal is to at least start somewhere to attain that higher-level of work. Start with 30 minutes of focused energy in the day minimum. What we need is a way to measure it, as with the heart rate monitor, on an instantaneous basis.

READER POLL: WAYS OF MEASURING PRODUCTIVITY and RANGES

So how does one define a unit of productivity. For that, we need to know what the following means:

• STRENGTH
• CHALLENGE

To define ranges of productivity behavior, we need to know

• Typical duration of the productive activity
• Examples of strength
• Examples of challenge

Off the cuff, I'm thinking that STRENGTH here can be STRENGTH OF ATTENTION. In other words: FOCUS. The idea of CHALLENGE (that is, level of difficulty) might be measured by the NUMBER OF INTERACTIONS between the person and the work area that are occurring in the real world.

I don't think it's necessary to come up with a unit that will work for every possible circumstance, but I think they should be based on what is directly observable. For example, you might spend a lot of time thinking about things, but since no one else can see what you're thinking, what's the point. If you are, however, thinking and drawing at the same time, then you're putting something new into the world. Also, I don't think it's necessary to measure the productivity of every kind of task throughout the day, because being productive in one area is a kind of good constraint that spills into others.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I am curious about the following:

1. How many tasks are on your To Do list?
2. How many tasks are you getting done a day, on average?
3. Are you satisfied with what you're getting done?
4. What makes a task hard to start?

Thanks for any feedback in advance!

ADDITION: After Sarah's comment, I realized that it's not very fair for me to ask people to provide information like this because it can be very personal or embarrassing when you already feel like you're not doing enough. So if you'd like to participate in an informal poll but prefer to not comment publicly, feel free to email me via my contact form instead. I'll summarize any patterns I find at a later date.

In the meantime, my answers to the questions:

1. I've got several to-do lists. One's a big one with EVERYTHING I COULD EVER DO on it, broken across several text files. There must be at least a hundred things on it, and there would be more if I looked at this every day. I rarely do look at it because it just makes me feel anxious. My "real" to do list consists of Google calendar and a handful of items that I need to get done for the week, and maybe has 5 or 6 immediate things on it, plus meetings and calls.

2. I feel like I've had a good day if I get 3 things done from that list...usually they're just deliverables. Some days, though, nothing gets done that was on the list, though life did happen. I tend to list "big" things rather than small things, though you'd be surprised what a big deal tasks like "go to the post office" are to me. I'd sooner stick my head in a bucket of water.

3. Satisfied? In hindsight I can say that I'm making more progress than I used to, now that I know who I am and what it is I can do. But I keep thinking there's so much more I could be doing. Which is why I want to make a realistic assessment of what that is, and use myself as my yardstick.

4. What makes a task hard to start? For me, it's when I can't tie the starting of the task directly with another human being in the room with me. This is a big problem when you work by yourself. So I end up IMing people and telling them what I'm about to do. Or I chat with someone in the morning about something. After that, I feel like I can start. Another hard thing is that I often have a lot of interesting ideas I'd like to pursue, and that's a distraction from planned activities.

Passion versus Compulsion: A Case of Mistaken Identity

I had another one of those shocking shower insights this morning:

• I am good at organizing, but I am not an organized person by nature.
• I am good at noticing details, but I am not detail-oriented by nature.
• I am good at understanding and defining process, but I do not follow the same process every time.
• I am knowledgeable about productivity and productivity tools, but I am not a systematically productive person.

Now, I recognize that my definition of "organized" is quite subjective; in relative terms, I may actually be quite organized, detail-oriented, process-driven, and productive compared to other people. However, it's not how I think of myself. While I have at times molded my behavior to conform to these ideals because it's what I expect from professionals---these are the credibility markers I look for in competent people---I nevertheless find maintaining such high levels of organization, detail, and process to be very draining. This might explain why I was so "meh" last weekend: I was already tired, and I subconsciously knew I would be drained even further by my "responsible and forward-looking" plans. That's not much of an incentive.

This realization puts me in a peculiar bind. One would ordinarily assume that the above subjects, which I write about frequently, are the ones I am passionate about. This is not entirely the case, as a good percentage of it is obsessive compulsion. To be passionate is to be moved because you are filled with powerful emotion (in this context, it's presumably positive emotion). Compulsion is something else; it's what you have to do because you can't not do it. This is NOT always a good feeling; satiating a compulsion is more about alleviating pain, not feeling joyful. While I am capable of being an organized, detail-oriented person, it's not something that brings me joy in itself. In fact, I am quite drained by the effort, which isn't good for long-term sustainability.

A Catalog of Compulsion

Although following through with these compulsions isn't necessarily good for me, several of them are bankable. I imagine that a lot of people are in the same situation, and can identify themselves with the double-edged nature of having compulsions that others find useful. Here's some of mine:

Compulsion 1. I am paralyzed until I collect, analyze and organize information and break it down, so I can identify the patterns and construct a self-consistent model of understanding.

• The positive: I actually have gotten very good at analyzing information and finding interesting ways of collecting it, so it's not something I fear. I've learned to trust that I will find some kind of answer that will allow me to move forward. *The negative: I can't actually act until I have gone through enough of the deconstruction process. It takes less time now, but there are certain situations where acting first and thinking later is probably the more effective approach.

Compulsion 2. I constantly seek details that doesn't fit the pattern, or the meta-detail that explains it all.

• The positive: I'm a data scanning machine, processing whatever data I need into recognizable patterns. For some reason the interesting data points (the ones that make me ask "why") seem to jump out. The best possible outcome: stunning clarity and surprising insight.
• The negative: It can be very exhausting to go through tons and tons of data, leading to massive eyestrain and headaches. It's a compulsion to keep looking. I also tend to gloss over what appears to be "normal" data, unless there is an unexplained phenomena that causes me to question its validity.

Compulsion 3. I seek the novel or insightful solution over the boring and mundane.

• The positive: Insight is the gateway to clarity and innovation. That rocks.
• The negative: Sometimes, the obvious solution is just as good. And, I tend to lose interest in ordinary solutions unless there's a secondary source of motivation. For example, if I've made a personal promise to deliver, or if there's a game challenge behind it. However, the net process drains energy, albeit more slowly, and is ultimately exhausting. If there is no secondary at all, the energy drain is enormous.

Compulsion 4. I constantly feel the need to document and record my insights, because I don't trust my memory to be a 100% reliable store. I document so I can remember the hard-won insights, and communicate them to other people who might find them useful.

• The positive: I write a lot, and blogging has turned this into a catalyst for productive enterprise. It's also delivered many, many insights that have gotten me to this point. This was completely unplanned.
• The negative: Creating good documentation is quite time-consuming. Plus, it is a waste of time if no one really reads what you've documented.

Compulsion 5. I am compelled to find connections between everything and anything.

• The positive: Oftentimes there's quite a novel idea or solution hiding in between nodes of information. Many great opportunities are just waiting to be discovered.
• The negative: Not everything and anything needs to be connected, and this habit makes me very easy to distract from the task at hand. Just call me tangent boy.

I'm Not Broken, Just Miscategorized

Before people start worrying, THIS IS NOT A CRY FOR HELP. I'm just curious what the ramifications are regarding my quest for identity.

Why am I on this quest, you ask? Um, maybe it has to do with establishing my global microbrand? Or maybe creating a foundation of understanding on which to base my self-esteem? Perhaps it's because I need to define myself, because I can't effectively differentiate myself from the crowd without knowing what I am?

I once theorized that "doing what you're good at" was one path to fulfillment (this is from the "life doesn't have to be hard" school of thought). There's a place for that, but it's not the complete answer. I'm not excited by doing what's easy for me or what I'm "good" at...there's something missing.

What about Passion?

Passion is what moves you, a powerful-but-fleeting sensation that sweeps you away with emotion. Here's a sobering thought: I might be a passion junkie, eagerly looking for my next fix of joy when I should be getting to work like a responsible citizen.

A healthier way of looking at passion is to think of the positive applications to people. The first one that comes to mind is, not surprisingly, Kathy Sierra's blog Creating Passionate Users, where she illuminates the mechanisms behind creating empowering experiences for people so they can kick ass. I become inexplicably happy whenever I see enabling experience happen in any form; it's one of the few things that I take as a given about myself, no questions asked.

What makes me super happy, though, is seeing people empower themselves in ways they have may have dreamed of but never dared to reach for. The difference between Kathy Sierra and me is this: I'm really more interested in elevating the level of creative empowerment, and it is this that drives my interest in productivity, design, development, storytelling, and psychology. This probably stems from the frustration of not being able to make what I've wanted to make since I was a kid; always isolated, never having the right tools or experience, lacking access to people who knew something about the subjects I was interested in, being trapped in a country where I could not read/write the language, and confused by ambiguous pattern-based educational experiences.

Here's another way of spinning it: I want to create the community I didn't have when I was a kid How's that for self-interest? :-) Secondly, I don't want anyone to be deprived of the opportunity to find their best way. Bullies, assholes, sheep, nay-sayers, mean people, ignoramuses, and "The Man" are the natural enemies of this process; one must not suffer these people to bring the rest of us down.

This may very well be the mission I am looking for. While it's not as selfless and grand a mission as I might have wanted, I think it's pretty very close to the raw truth.

Scoping the Mission

Now that the mission has been redefined, I can apply an Intention / Motivation / Expectation analysis:

Intention: Create a higher level of creative empowerment; create passionate creators; provide insights, materials, and opportunities for people to use and apply to their own life. Make a living doing this.

Motivation: Since no one else I know is really this, I have to do it myself.

Expectation: I expect that I'll be happier, more fulfilled, and more productive because I will have a community that provides both the stimuli and creative energy to move forward. I want to be around people like this all the time.

The bases are loaded, so it's time to follow up with the heaviest-hitting word of them all: WHY?

Well...I don't really know for sure why. The best I can say is that I suspect I will be happier because I feel good around creative out-of-the-box types. I feel good when I make things that people respond to on an emotional level. I feel good when I write something that makes a lot of sense and helps people understand.

Since this is not quite the home-run of an answer I was hoping for, I'll go ahead and apply the next string of analysis words. These are more tactical in nature:

Assumptions: My assumption is that offering commodity design services is not going to bring me happiness. I believe that I need to have a strong reason for doing whatever it is I'm doing. While having a mission itself provides additional motivation, I know from my own past that I'll need an immediate focus to help me power through. The immediate focus can be provided by short-term projects: the books, various productivity forms, idea sharing spaces, and so forth.

Constraints: I need to stay focused and make money to support myself, so I am constrained by the amount of time left over. I also need to align myself with projects that are at least tangentially related to the mission of creative empowerment. Fortunately, that is a pretty broad field; there is plenty of skill-related project work that will help sharpen my edge. I'm also constrained by available energy, both in myself and in the energy I can surround myself with. The solution to that is finding the right people, maybe even co-schemers, that keep me excited and energized.

Assets: I have plenty of ideas, so I can afford to generate and give away for cheap. It's a competitive advantage. I know really great and interesting people. I have everything I need to design on a computer, and I know people who can help me break through to the next levels of production. And I can write very very fast.

Dependencies: The most critical one is myself, because I need to ensure I'm moving forward on the goal of creating this empowered creativity platform. Finding co-schemers or co-workers is equally important, because you can't have a community of one :-)

With that, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do, so what's left is definition and visualization. Then I'd define tangible deliverables and associated metrics of success that tie back to the original intention / motivation / expectations phase. But right now I'm kind of tired, so I'll sleep on this and see if it makes sense later this week.