The word is ... "Law"

Continuing my word is series, this one on "Law." Any productivity/living/law intersections you want to share? Cheers!

• Law of Attraction: I hesitate to even mention this, as I consider it pseudo-scientific claptrap, but open minds I must have. This came on my radar because a good friend tried it (an experiment!) and found it helpful in improving her attitude. She's tried experiments like "stop using no, not, don't" and keeping an abundance journal. The book she used: Law of Attraction: The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don't. The trouble I have with it is the magical thinking around "wish for it and it happens" - I could never believe that there's a benevolent force in the universe who we can appeal to. On the other hand, I'm a firm believer in attitude changing perception, and therefore how I act, which can cascade into changes (hopefully positive ones) in my life. Comments? Experiences?
  
  
• Clarke's three laws: As a sci-fi buff, I love Clarke's thinking. This one has to do with scientific change:
  
  
  
  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
     
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
     
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
     
  Any other favorite eponymously-named laws?
  
  
• Laws of art: I heard these in the interview The Emerging Mind where Professor Ramachandran suggested 10 universal laws of art:
  
  
  
  1. Peak shift
     
  2. Grouping
     
  3. Contrast
     
  4. Isolation
     
  5. PERCEPTION PROBLEM SOLVING
     
  6. Symmetry
     
  7. Abhorrence of coincidence/generic viewpoint
     
  8. Repetition, rhythm and orderliness
     
  9. Balance
     
  10. Metaphor
      
  Do you buy it?
  
  
• Scientific ignorance: From Why the Philosophy of Science Matters:
  

  A sizable proportion of science graduates entering teacher training couldn't define what is a scientific fact, law or hypothesis.

  
  Insert your own commentary on scientific education in the U.S., and compare to the similarly dismal state of health here. Related: What Makes Science 'Science'? ("The results show a lack of understanding of what scientific theories and laws are.")
  
  
• Laptop battery: Recently I was pressing to finish a task when my laptop starting running low on battery power. It occurred to me that is a natural Parkinson's Law enforcer.
  
  
• Newton's laws of motion: From Nicholas Bate's Productivity101:
  

  49. The Celeb's Guide to Productivity (9) Isaac Newton: Newton III: "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". Or send more e-mail and you will get more e-mail. Isaac Newton clearly didn't use e-mail. No wonder he articulated gravity, identified laws of motion, clarified light and the spectrum for us and predicted the motion of planetary motion. Amongst a lot of other stuff.

  
  
  
• Grove's Law: What if this applied to individuals as well?
  

  "While microchip price/performance doubles every 12-18 months, telecommunications bandwidth doubles every 100 years!"

  
  (From The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google.)
  
  
• Laws of natural order: From Path of Least Resistance (paraphrasing):
  

  A big idea here, recognize that structure is a dominant factor and how the laws of natural order relate to that is the essence. The principle is that energy always moves along the path of least resistance, any change you attempt to make in your life will not work, if the path does not lead in that direction. You have to form new structures that will enable you to direct the path of least resistance where you want to go. And that is a big idea on environment, in structuring the environment this is a way to look at that.

  
  
  
• Time, Quality, and Quantity: Brian Tracy, in Focal Point, describes two types of time spent in your life: work time, measured by results and productivity, and personal time, measured in love and contentment. And the law is, it is the quality of time at work that counts and the quantity of time at home that matters. Wow!
  
  
• Newton, redux: From "Wikipedia surfing" John Dewey and Pragmatism: Three historic levels of organization and presentation, in the order of chronological appearance:
  
  
  
  • Self-Action: Prescientific concepts regarded humans, animals, and things as possessing powers of their own which initiated or caused their actions.
    
  • Interaction: as described by Newton, where things, living and inorganic, are balanced against thing in a system of interaction, for example, the third law of motion that action and reaction are equal and opposite.
    
  • Transaction: where modern systems of descriptions and naming are employed to deal with multiple aspects and phases of action without any attribution to ultimate, final, or independent entities, essences, or realities.
    
  Cool. And I'll bet you $5 at least one of my readers has already thought about this :-)
  
  

Control your email addiction by ... checking more often!

I'm just like most people when it comes to email: It's addicting and tempts me to do all those anti-productivity things I know I shouldn't do, like checking every 10 minutes (not batching) and "cherry picking" messages - ones that are fun, easy, etc. (not processing one at a time with no skipping until empty). While playing around with Gmail tools I discovered something simple that's been surprisingly helpful so far, but runs counter to common email advice.

First let's define some terms, then get into the details.

I propose breaking email inbox activity into three categories:

• Emptying: The standard "Base Zero" activity of examining each message in turn, deciding action, then dispatching it to another folder or the trash. GTD-ers will recognize this as Allen's Processing & Organizing phase. It's focused and highly productive. The goal: Empty the inbox as fast as possible.
  
• Monitoring: A triage [1] activity involving scanning unread messages, looking at the sender and the subject, and quickly pushing it through your action pipeline. The goal: Answer for for each unread message, "Is it truly urgent, or will it keep until my next emptying?"
  
• Checking: An ineffectual scanning, like Monitoring, where you think about each message, make a partial decision, then move onto the next one without acting. In other words, processing then unprocessing. AKA "grazing," this is what most people do, and it wastes your brainpower.
  

The general idea of the technique is to embrace the urge to frequently "get a fix" by making it easy to Monitor, more difficult to actually jump in, and easier to focus on single urgent messages, rather than getting sucked into the email black whole. Do this via a desktop widget that lists all unread messages' senders and subjects. (I used Google's Gmail dashboard widget for the Mac, but there are Windows ones such as GMail Monitor.) To apply the method simply invoke the thing when you get the urge to check. When you identify an urgent message, dispatch only that one then return your project work where you left off. Check as often as you need, but your focus is to: check, identify, handle, and return. Remember this via the handy mnemonic, CIHAR, as in "Chi, the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet, gives me a chuckle - a hardy har har." (A joke, folks. We consultants apparently each need our own silly acronym.)

What I discovered is that by satisfying my urge to check, the monitoring tool gives me a few seconds of space to pause and consider whether I really need to deal with it right now, or whether it can wait. This intermediate step made me more discerning in whether to jump into email, and more likely to get back to work. If I decide to handle the message, I do so efficiently, move it out, and get back on task while resisting the magnetic attraction of other messages.

Why does this help? It might be explained by the New York Times article Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind, which discusses the limits of willpower [2].

Additional points:

• The tool is not a notifier - it doesn't interrupt on its own. It leaves that to you ;-)
  
• It must be lightening-fast to invoke it. On my computer, one keystroke. My process: Hit F11, scan quickly, then either click on and process, or F11 again to close.
  
• One risk is picking off the easy or interesting ones, and procrastinating on the difficult or important ones.
  

I'm curious...

• Have you tried anything like this? How'd it work out?
  
• How does my three-category breakdown of email behavior sound? What's your version?
  
• Do you buy the willpower explanation?
  
• How often do you check?
  

Think, Try, Learn angle

Try this experiment: Use the method for a week, record your observations, then report back in a comment here or email me. Bonus: Create an Edison account (30 seconds) and track it there so we can support you and learn from your experience.

(Side note: Here's a tool opportunity: Have it count invocations/hour. I bet you'd be surprised at how high it is. Any guesses?)

References

• [1] From the Wikipedia Triage article: "This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate, sort, sift or select."
  
• [2] Excerpts: "The brain has a limited capacity for self-regulation, so exerting willpower in one area often leads to backsliding in others. ... The brain's store of willpower is depleted when people control their thoughts, feelings or impulses, or when they modify their behavior in pursuit of goals. ... Psychologist Roy Baumeister and others have found that people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task."
  

A Big Congratulations to Chris Brogan on his new book "Trust Agents"

Just a quick tip of the hat to friend and (well-deserved) social media superstar Chris Brogan on the release of his book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust [1]. I'm in the middle of two "croudsourcing" books (Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations), and his book looks to be a solid addition to my anti-library.

Well done, Chris.

References

• [1] More places to buy from here.
  

Could you outsource painting your life? Or, Would Mick Fleetwood do GTD?

If you insist on an explanation beforehand, you will lose the opportunity for [some kinds] of serendipitous discovery, which is so much a part of the creative process.

Good friend and consulting peer Dan Markovitz sent me an utterly fascinating transcription of a lecture Malcolm Gladwell [1] gave in 2006 at Columbia [2]. The gist is based on work by David Galenson (see Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity), which argues there are two clearly identifiable modes of creativity: experimentalists (Cezanne) and conceptualists (Picasso).

Let me summarize the differences between these two modes as I understood them, then interpret this work from three perspectives: Productivity, my consulting and this blog, and our Think, Try, Learn work. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Differences between modes: Experimentalists vs. Conceptualists

This list ought to make you think :-)

• Exemplars: Cezanne vs. Picasso; Fleetwood Mac vs. the Eagles; Mark Twain vs. Melville; Alfred Hitchcock vs. Orson Welles; Apple vs. Dell; Detroit vs. Toyota hybrid; Tylenol vs. Gleevec.
  
• Range: Broad (all over the place) vs. specific
  
• Time to develop: Slow vs. fast. (Good news for us late bloomers!)
  
• Process: Trial and error vs. directed/focused/clear.
  
• Comfort: Low vs. high (my biased view)
  
• Goals: Badly understood vs. clear.
  
• Planning in advance: Little vs. much.
  
• Redoing work: Much vs. little.
  
• Staring point: Process vs. theory.
  
• Terminal illness: Out of ideas vs. __ (?)
  
• Explanations of work: Convention vs. technical (?)
  
• Could outsource production: No vs. yes.
  
• Current cultural preference: Low vs. high.
  
• Repeatability: Low vs. high (see Liza's Success through Non-Repeatable Process)
  

Productivity: Efficient vs. Effective?

Some questions:

• Could you outsource your essential work processes? Could you train someone else to do it? What does that say about your business, if anything? (Me: Yes for some of the more mechanical aspects. No for the hard stuff: Customization, the analytical understanding your work, and identifying the big opportunities for improvement.)
  
• Could someone else repeat your process to get where you are?
  
• What is the impact on the importance of having a personal workflow system? I'd argue that it's high. Just because you don't know your direction doesn't mean you have to flail while getting there, no? Also, just because you're (essentially) a scientist of your work doesn't mean the rest of your life stops; why not deal with it efficiently, leaving the most time for the good stuff? Finally, I'm a firm believer of "Empty head = Room for breakthroughs."
  
• How much trial and error do you or your organization do? Why?
  
• How comfortable are you when your work doesn't yet have direction? What percentage of your work is like this? How has that changed over your career?
  

What other questions can we ask around productivity?

The IdeaMatt: So THAT explains it!

Reading Gladwell's lecture gave me relief and validation. From the start in 2005 I've said I'm driven to do my consulting [3], and at the same time I don't know where it will go, but I have to know how the story will play out. I wrote a few years ago that I like learning it the hard way - reading, studying many competing systems, applying it to different domains, teaching, and getting to know people. The overall strategy: Pour ideas into head, try out, wait for synthesis to create something new. Then share and repeat.

I bring this up because I struggle regularly with craving the end result over the process - against all advice on being happy, of course. Any insights into this path (I hate the word) of creating something new are helpful. One that I especially like is Steven Pressfield's The War of Art. Do you have any inspirational favorites?

Finally, this explains why my blog is all over the place - I'm still exploring. It hit me a while back that if David Allen had a blog 20 years ago, it might look like this. (Do I have a big ego? Hmmm. Ask my wife. Question: Can you be audacious without one?) I think this is good - it's what my partner calls "non-repeatable processes" (see link above), and includes GTD and arguably most success stories. The latter explains why there are so many books on the topic. Here's the template: Perform a non-repeatable process (Tim Ferriss, anyone?), document it, generalize principles, and write a book. Question: Any examples of someone who has written more than one substantially different book? Makes me wonder who can (or has) birthed more than one repeatable process, i.e., more than one "purpose on the planet." Examples?

Life-as-experiment: Justification?

Finally, this writing demonstrates the value of the experimental viewpoint. It also begs the question (which I believe Galenson address in his book), are we predisposed to one pole, and can we shift back and forth? Could Cezanne have done Picasso? I'd argue yes. In Sometimes Laser, Sometimes Blind: How Natural Converge/diverge Cycles Explain Progress I described the pattern of branching out and closing in. Is this another way to to say we can cycle between?

This is a question I want to answer with TTL: Is this perspective of treating everything in life as an experiment something that many of us can adopt to slide us to the left? Gladwell finishes his lecture saying both modes of creativity are important, so having a philosophy to do so seems valuable.

(An aside: We're cleaning up our Think, Try, Learn web site, and we (ta-da!) have v0.2 of Edison, The TTL Experimenter's Workbook up. Feel free to check it out. It's basic, but that's because we're applying TTL to our work (meta!) - create a tool that's as simple as possible to give us maximum information to inform our next steps. "Exploring the theoretical frontier" my scientist friend calls it. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Improvements forthcoming.)

References

• [1] Author of Outliers: The Story of Success, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
  
• [2] I could only find the PDF in the Wayback Machine. I hope it's legit. From the transcript:

  [On February 21st, Malcolm Gladwell gave a talk about the phenomenon of prodigies and late bloomers in art. The event was part of the New Yorker Nights, a series hosted by the Columbia University Arts Initiative and The New Yorker.] Transcribed by John Lennox from audio file posted on Feb 27, 2006 at Audio: Age Before Beauty : The New Yorker.

  
  
• [3] My personal transformation due to GTD can't be understated; I quit my job, submitted myself for a radical careerectomy, and started my own consultancy - all based on a $12 book. It's why I deeply believe in this work, and why I love doing it.
  

A Huge Congratulations to Bob Walsh on his new Web Startup Success Guide

My super-impressive friend Bob Walsh [1] has written another great book, The Web Startup Success Guide. It is comprehensive, and aims to cover everything a successful startup needs to know. Chapter 8, Getting It Done, will be of particular interest to you. My interview is on page 315, which includes this crisp executive summary: "If his advice can make rocket scientists more productive, it should be just what you need for your startup." :-)

Bob's productivity is off the charts. As someone just getting started in professional (i.e., paid) writing, I really look up to him and his work.

I am delighted to be included, especially given the caliber of the other folks Bob tapped (reading these interviews was itself valuable):

• David Allen, GTD creator, @gtdguy,
  
• Joel Spolsky, CEO and Cofounder, Fog Creek Software, @Spolsky,
  
• Guy Kawasaki, @Guykawasaki, and
  
• Pamela Slim, author of Escape From Cubicle Nation, @pamslim.
  

What a lineup. Thanks, Bob!

References

• [1] Bob's (@bobwalsh) sites are http://47hats.com and The Startup Success Podcast. His other books: The Twitter Survival Guide, MicroISVs Sites that Sell!, Clear Blogging, and Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality.