Protocol 80 Productivity Blog

I felt I might have been a little harsh on Brian Tracy yesterday, so I gave some more of his material a listen, they are fairly short audio books, an hour each and so I gave his “How to become a millionaire” a listen in full, and his “21 ways to earn more and be promoted faster”.
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I’ve taken a bit of a detour in my reading/listening of the “7 Habits” because my audio book is either abridged, or a different edition to my hard copy (I have the latest revision), plus there are clear cuts in sections. Which makes it near impossible to follow since I can’t tell how much I’ve missed by flicking into my book.

So, not to be put off I picked up one of the other collection of audio books I read, “21 ways to be more productive” by Brian Tracy. Wow, was this a different approach, while reading “Getting Things Done” and “Seven Habits” had given me pause for thought on my opinions of various self help styles, this guy just reconfirmed some of the worst clinches. Continue Reading »

Here’s a refreshing new idea, a book about being happy at work. I’ve seen lot’s of things that indirectly lead to been happy at work, as a rule models like the “Seven Habits” result in a generally happier state of being, GTD reduces stress but  happiness is a by-product, not the goal it’s self usually.

What really caught my attention with this book is the fact it looks at a more holistic approach to happy work places, it’s not about building shared visions and mission statements and the normal rar-rar activity that rely more on hype then real genuine contentment with working. Or at least that’s the impression I’ve got from reading that parts available already.

It’ll be interesting to see where the whole project goes.

I’ve taken a pause in reading “7 Habits” to switch to the Audio Book, which means I wont get to the 3rd Habit till tomorrow. But a cycle of listening during the day on my commute, and then reviewing the text and writing/blogging my impression will continue from then and gives me a chance to go over the first two habits again.

In the meantime I got to thinking more about how I can actively improve my quality of life, right now. The most obvious next action is getting back down to base principles: Actually do something about it. (Be Proactive!)

So, from today on in I’ll make a point of doing one meaningful and practical thing each day that will improve my environment or situation in some way, I know there are a ton of little jobs I have to do around the house that I avoid doing because combined they are a huge effort, but on their own each can be done in moments and by looking at it that way, it becomes a manageable objective.

This is as always mostly common sense, but as a chronic procrastinator it’s a big step to start shuffling over all my outstanding jobs, most of which don’t even make my task lists, things like “Take TV to the repair shop and get it made safe, so I can make a fish tank” never feature in the forefront of my mind, until I once again trip over the TV getting into my bedroom, but rather then do anything with it, I just shuffle around it. Just doing that one simple thing would change the flow of a normal day quiet profoundly, and leads into a whole new opportunity at the same time. (That been: Getting some fish)

If I keep going with the one job per day routine then after a week things start to look positivity organized.

The second habit is a bit harder to skim over, as Stephen Covey said right in the start, there are no quick and easy solutions. So I guess I shouldn’t try and race ahead.

Habit two, “Begin With The End In Mind” is about self image, reflection and comitment to personal ideals. To take it to heart you can’t just read a few pages and move on, you need to actually think about what is been said. Not so easy to do when clunking along on the train, but the message is clear if you do not create your own reality, other people will create it for you. Continue Reading »

I’ve dug about half way into the first of the “Seven Habits” now, I’m not sure how I’m feeling about it right now, for a start I keep getting told there are no “Quick Fix” solutions. Damn.

Oh well, the first habit is “Be Proactive“. I was a little mistaken in what I though this meant at first, I sort of looked at it in lines of the Next Actions and the art of actually getting down to doing the things that need to be done. But it goes a lot deeper then that, suggesting that you should not just do all you need to do, but all you can do. Continue Reading »

I got to reading the first section of the seven habits book this morning, and while I’m not into the meat of it yet, the overview has kept my interest and the basic underlying theme is layed out plainly enough for me to get a feel for the direction I’m been taken in which keeps with my initial assesment. The book is about changing yourself and thinking about why you do things rather then how you do things (As a system like “Getting Things Done” is).

It’s a subtle but important shift in the focus of the material I have been reading lately, and yet better reflects my world view as a whole. After all, organization can only take you so far, and I guess recently I’ve started to put a lot of energy into reshaping my life even before I started reading the book.

Not that I’ve been waiting for something like this book to come along or anything, I can see how some people could pick it up and see it as a huge eye opener, if you haven’t put much thought into how you as a person fit into your enviroment as a whole, then it might offer a new way of thinking. For me it sits nicely with a path I was already on, and so gives me insight into someone elses thoughts on a similar path that I can draw on as I wish.

An interesting article over at lifehack.org points out “Productivity skills alone will not dramatically improve your life.”, and goes on to suggest that maybe it’s not productivity tricks such as “Getting Things Done” that some people need, but better life choices.

Now, I don’t disagree with the overall premise of the article. There is a whole lot of information and advice around in books and online all wanting to help you better sort out your life by getting organized and have more free time or being less stress. But obviously this information only makes up a fraction of the bigger picture, GTD offers for the most part very practical advice, for instance it’s common sense that writing things down in list form means you won’t forget to do them, so long as you look at the list. I don’t think anyone has ever read that and though to themselves “Why didn’t I think of that?!” - But sometimes you need to be reminded of things, or look at them in a new context to actually make the choice to actually do them. Continue Reading »

Yesterday I had the pleasure of looking around the end of year showcases of Huddersfield Universities Degree students, where they put on display ready for marking all their final year work. Obviously, the work is of varying quality, but even the ones that didn’t grab my eye were better then I could have done, so I can’t fault them on ability, and some of them were stunning.

However, every single student had put out a pile of business cards for you to take, a practice I wasn’t aware of, but it seems to be the done thing. Not one of them however struck me as been fully professional.

The single biggest problem jumped out at me time and time again, to the point it got me really angry: The all used free email accounts as they primary email address. At best, it was the just about acceptable firstname.lastname@isp.com - but far too many of them were nickname123@hotmail.com and the like. Even the students who had gone to the effort of getting their own domain name and website didn’t have their email address at that domain - which in my eyes was criminal.

I’m sure most of the students didn’t care, to them their degree was just something to do for 3 years and keep them busy before going to work in a call centre. But for the better ones, the ones who were going to be looking for jobs as professional designers, then just a little bit more attention to how they market themselves would go a long way.

My only lasting impression of the displays was the collection of cards I have, and should I have need of a designer, I would give the websites listed a look over - but as a graduating student, they should be acting like professionals in every way, if their card looks good to me, I’ll look at their site, if their site is professional, then I might use them. When you get down to heart of the matter, if someone presents themselves as a professional, they are a professional, and if you act like a student and don’t go that extra mile, you wont stand out from the crowd.

When the opening tag line of a post is “Don’t have time to read Steven Covey’s book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? Take a look at our summary articles written by Michael Gray.” I was pretty much compelled to take a look at it, more so because I actually own the book, it’s here right now on my desk, all but untouched.

You can have a look yourself at http://www.profitadvisors.com/7habitlist.shtml.

The summaries make for good reading, and though they are pretty lightweight they do give a healthy insight as to what is held within the book, and for me at least has reawakened my interest in picking up the book and actually making the time to read it fully.