Tag: Effectiveness

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Reentry is Always Challenging

No matter how many times you go through it, how ready you think you are, how much slack you’re prepared to give yourself: reentry is always challenging.

Reentry is painful, rocky, heated. The symptoms might vary –

  • You just can’t get yourself to focus on the work like you used to
  • Your mind is pulled to other projects, games, fun times
  • You feel overwhelmed at being so far behind
  • You lash out at those around you due to the frustration

You can’t avoid it. At best, you can minimize the impact. But really, the goal is simply to bear it compassionately while you build up momentum as quickly as you can.

Once you’ve picked up the flow, you’ll be good to go.

References

  • Walker Percy’s Problems of Reentry by Austin Kleon

    Percy points out that “the most spectacular problems of reentry seem to be experienced by artists and writers.” Percy then lists a bunch of reentry options, such as anesthesia (drugs), travel, sex, suicide, etc.

    One of the reasons I’m such a huge fan of a daily routine and the Groundhog Day approach to working is that it attempts to minimize these exact problems of re-entry that Percy outlines. By scheduling little doses of daily transcendence in which you work on your art, you can pop in and out of your everyday life without becoming a horrible parent or drug addict or total maniac. (Many argue that that’s just the price of Great Art, but I’ve never never bought it.)

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Don’t Check Email on Your Phone

There are a number of problems with having email on your phone. Here are some that I’ve experienced directly:

  • It’s like a slot machine to you brain (intermittent reward), so you will develop the habit of checking it frequently
  • Checking email on your phone when you’re not in a work mindset is disruptive. You risk pulling yourself out of what you’re currently engaged in. You might become distracted, feel compelled to go back to work, become upset in response to what you read, or otherwise disrupt your mood.
  • When you check email before you complete your most important work, you’re extremely likely to have your day hijacked by something in your inbox. It’s better to do your most important work, then deal with the outside world.

Don’t put email on your phone. Keep it on your computer. This way, you can actually isolate yourself from your phone. You can actually be free of work when you’re away from your computer – a proper break.

References

  • Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried and DHH

    Having created conditions that necessitate getting off your comfy couch to check work email, your laziness will win most nights, leaving you to recharge your mental batteries until the morning.

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Your Must Create Space for Your Brain to Generate Insights

Whether what you’re after is improving your effectiveness or improving your creativity, it is essential that you create space for your brain to generate new ideas and valuable insights.

In the modern world, this is difficult. Our phones are portals to an endless stream of news, social media feeds, notifications, text messages, emails, and more. We are connected to our coworkers 24/7 through chat-based messaging systems like Slack. Our calendars are over-booked, whether due to the demands of our job, working multiple jobs, or taking care of kids.

There is no more boredom – there is always something to do, or something to consume. The problem is, however, that we cannot be expected to come up with ideas if we are constantly filling our days with an endless, uninterrupted stream of tasks and consumption. You need room for ideas to actually percolate up into your consciousness. You need space to allow your brain to digest the information it’s received.

Stop consuming all the time. Allow yourself to be bored. Leave unfilled space in your day, however brief, to allow your brain to have ideas.

Your reaction might be, “but I don’t have time for that.” Either make time, or change the game you’re playing. You need space for creativity and insight to raise. There is no substitute.

  • Control your attention and information consumption
  • Schedule a regular “artist date” with yourself

References

  • The Art of Fermenting Great Ideas by Nat Eliason

    Our ideas appear primarily in one situation: when little else is occupying our thoughts. It’s as if it is a defense mechanism of our brain responding to the lack of stimulus. If you’re not engaged in hunting, gathering, building, mating, or socializing, then something must be wrong, and you need to fix it. So it starts shooting up ideas from the mailroom to get you back into one of those modes that will save you from dying alone with no progeny.

Good ideas require boredom. If you constantly ingest new information, the existing information can never be digested. It’s as if you’re looking at your fermenting jar on the counter every hour and wondering why nothing has happened, so you open it and stuff in another cucumber.

Think of your time as explicitly allocated to loading in information or towards seeing what your brain shoots out. Input time, output time. Input time is reading books, scrolling social media, watching the news, listening to podcasts, talking to friends and colleagues, or anything else that adds new stuff for your subconscious to process. Output time is creating the space and boredom for those inputs to ferment into something interesting. Staring at a blank page of your journal, opening a document to start writing, going for a (no headphones) walk with a notebook, working out without music, or sitting in the sauna. However you create bored, quiet space for your brain to finally get some processing room to spit ideas out; you must create that space if you want the ideas to form.

The ways we fail at this are obvious. We never give ourselves output time because we’re terrified of silence and boredom. We need a podcast while working out. We need music while working. We keep social media up in another tab. We have notifications on our phones. We let ourselves be interrupted.

So give the great ideas time to pop up. Even if you know you have weeks or months to figure something out, start priming your brain with those questions now so it has time to process them.

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Do Not Let Problems Linger

Prefer addressing problems right away rather than letting them linger. Often, problems can be quickly fixed when first encountered. As they linger, the consequences often become much more severe and more difficult to fix.

  • Fixing a small leak when it is noticed is better than fixing a serious leak, structural damage, or long-term mold exposure.
  • Technical problems left to linger can become “load bearing”, meaning that other parts of the system depend on the erroneous behavior.
  • Not making the phone call to address the fact you need more time to pay a bill can result in fees or repossession.

Letting problems linger has a momentum of its own. If you’ve neglected a problem for a while, you’re more likely to keep neglecting it rather than fix it.

Ignoring problems rarely makes them go away. Significant problems never vanish, but become worse with continued neglect. The cost of inaction may be delayed, but it will inevitably come.

  • Good leaders take meaningful action to solve problems

References

  • Empty Words, Empty Gestures, Empty Actions by Quintus Curtius

    The failure to solve problems inevitably means they will aggregate to dangerous dimensions.  According to the historian Will Durant, we see this in the perilous situation that confronted Greece around the time of the death of Plato in 347 B.C.  Greed and selfishness rose to perilous heights.  A fanatic chasing after money and riches (called by the Greeks pleonexia) became a feature of public life.  The rich upper classes (the neoplutoi) occupied their time with frivolities and extravagance; and some of these oligarchs took oaths never to share their riches with the public.  Durant quotes Isocrates as saying in 366 B.C.:  “The rich have become so unsocial that those who own property had rather throw their possessions into the sea than lend aid to the needy, while those who are in poorer circumstances would less gladly find a treasure than seize the possessions of the rich.” 

    Greece was severely weakened by this economic strife and political paralysis.  Nothing could be accomplished; squabbling and bickering became the key features of public life; and the energies of the public were divided between the struggle for survival and diversionary entertainments.  The end result was that Athens was unable to coordinate a coherent defense when its militaristic neighbor to the north, Macedonia, came knocking at its door.  Philip of Macedon conquered Greece in 338 B.C., and brought an end to Athenian freedom. 

    The cost of inaction may be delayed, but it must always be paid.  Those who wish for pretty words, for dog and pony shows, and for form over substance, will learn their mistake in time. There is no way to escape the consequences of moral corruption.

  • 3-2-1: Paying Attention, Staying Hopeful in Bad Times, and Ten Year Plans by James Clear

    Many problems are minor when you solve them right away, but grow into an enormous conflict when you let them linger.

    As a rule of thumb, fix it now.

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The only person you need to be aggressive and straightforward with is yourself

Jocko Willink made a comment roughly along these lines in a podcast episode (which one, I failed to note).

The only person you are allowed to be aggressive and straightforward with is yourself.

Being aggressive to others is not a good tactic. It does not work; it only makes people enemies.

Be covert and use influence.

This makes me think of my younger self – he was definitely guilty of being aggressive and straightforward with others. I can confirm that, as Jocko says, it does not work. In the best case, such an attitude results in intimidation. In the worst case, fear. Neither leads to an endpoint of being effective. Even in cultures that claim to operate in an aggressive spirit, this type of approach only serves to build enemies.

Play the game, even if it seems painful or offensive to you. Building up relationship capital is the best path to success in your interpersonal endeavors.

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Don’t shoot down other people’s ideas

Humans, in general, are so keen on shutting down other people’s ideas. Especially when what is being suggested sounds wrong or stupid to our ears.

Adopt Jocko’s attitude instead: don’t shoot down ideas, or crush people, or insult. Swallow your pride. Don’t voice pointless disagreements. This applies whether or not we are in a leadership or creative role.

These people are sharing information. You can learn from anything you don’t shut down blindly. Perhaps there is the seed of a good suggestion even in the seemingly stupid comment. Perhaps you are learning something about the person making the suggestion. Perhaps, if you swallowed your own ego, you would see that the suggested idea is even better than what you were thinking of.

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Advice from General Gronski: Know Your Person Core Values

On Jocko Podcast episode 302, Gen. Gronski advises you to know your personal core values. This isn’t just having them written down – you need to be able to list them off if asked. Without knowing them, they can’t factor into your decisions. Take the time to identify them. When you go to make a decision check – does this decision align with your core values?

The same thing applies for your business’s core values: does your company view decisions through these values, making sure they are aligned? how do you check that?

This is the critical part, and cannot be emphasized enough: know your values and then use them.

Gen. Gronski also suggests that you go on to identifying behaviors that map to those values (e.g., organizational behaviors that you want your employees to adopt). This means identifying pre-scripted behaviors that are aligned with your values. Create your own situational playbook: “When X we do Y. We handle Z by C.”

References

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Allow Your Mental State to Drive Your Work

It is common practice to outline a schedule of work to do in advance. Whatever is next on the list is what you try to tackle, regardless of the mood or state of mind you are in. Some days, this works wonderfully, and you enter into a flow state. Other days, it feels like you are trying to lead a team of pack mules uphill through deep mud.

As a creative, it is a mistake to fight against your current mental state by trying to force particular work. Instead, adapt your work to fit your current state of mind.

Your mental state influences how much energy it takes you to finish a given piece of work. When you are in alignment with your current mood, tasks can feel effortless to complete. Misalignment can cause them to take longer, be more painful to execute, and result in a lower quality output.

Of course, you don’t have to rely purely on your mental state. You can also generate momentum intentionally, making it easier to enter into a flow state.

States of Mind

In his Just-in-Time Project Management series, Tiago Forte provides some examples of states of mind and work that benefits from it:

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Note that each of these states favors a certain kind of activity, which produces a unique kind of value:

  • Mischievous cleverness would be good for hacking a piece of software to do what you want
  • Geeking out is good for late night projects tinkering in the garage
  • Appalled incredulity can inspire wonderful reserves of anger and motivation toward a goal
  • Righteous indignation is very useful for writing passionate thought pieces arguing for a change you care about
  • Melancholy has long been used by artists to tap into deep reserves of creativity
  • Motivated curiosity is great for exploring a rabbit trail through Wikipedia to try and understand an idea

The problem is that creating these states of mind is often expensive and difficult. You might require long periods of waiting, investment in rituals, or working in a particular environment. They are also unpredictable, and can come and go at moment’s notice. Even worse, attempting to force a particular mental state often pushes you further and further away from it. Because we cannot produce states of mind at will, it is better to adapt your current work to your state of mind.

References

  • Extend Your Mind by Tiago Forte:

    Our moods are extrapolation engines, putting us in the appropriate state of mind to take advantage of fleeting opportunities, without having to wait for full information. You can think of a given state of mind as a temporary bias, increasing our sensitivity and responsiveness toward a certain kind of reward that seems to be in unexpected abundance.

  • Just-in-Time Project Management (Series) by Tiago Forte

    I believe that our states of mind have become our most important assets as knowledge workers. In an economy based on creativity, it is the state of mind that we enter through our creative process that is even more rare and valuable than any product or deliverable we produce while in it. Our ultimate competitive advantage is a way of thinking.

    Because of this, it is worth designing a way of working that puts us in certain states of mind as often and for as long as possible, and leverages what we produce during that time into tangible results.

    Let’s start with a definition for “state of mind.” A SOM is:

    • difficult or expensive to reproduce (in contrast to simple emotions)
    • illegible and more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts (in contrast to cause-and-effect habits)
    • primarily somatic and affective, not intellectual (in contrast to belief systems or worldviews)
    • temporary and ephemeral (in contrast to mindsets or attitudes)

    There are a few important things to understand about states of mind. They are:

    • Expensive
    • Unpredictable
    • Valuable
    • High leverage

    States of mind give us tremendous leverage, because they dramatically influence how much energy it takes to complete a given task. When you’re in Errand Mode, running an additional errand doesn’t take much extra energy. But if you’re in the middle of a deep focus session, even the simplest errand can feel like a harsh imposition.

    Motivation has a direction. Performing a task in line with your motivation is easy and satisfying (reading a book when I’m feeling quiet and introspective), whereas trying to go against my motivation is difficult and frustrating (reading a book when I’m feeling social or scatterbrained).

    In other words, moods drive us to act opportunistically – to do more of what’s already working. Our brain extrapolates that what has just happened will keep happening, forms expectations of the rewards it will encounter, generating anticipation, which is the key motivator of action.

    Instead of trying to force our state of mind to fit the task at hand, we can change the task at hand to fit our state of mind.