Wow, its been a little while since I last posted here on Babbling Engineer.  For that, I really must apologise!  The reason for my silence has been down to a mixture of illness and being super busy both at work and home.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Henry David Thoreau

Earlier this year I got a promotion at work, to be Deputy Head of Stress for the Engineering firm I work for.  That, coupled with the project I am working on starting to get really busy has raised many challenges. So whilst it has meant a few months away from the site, it has also given me a whole load of new learning opportunities.  Some of the aspects I intend to write up as I am learning - on subjects such as:

• Managing outsourcing work
• Handling Stress in the workplace
• Learning to delegate work

To kick things back off, I have been talking recently with Mans Denton over at The Hacked Mind, who is writing a guest post on Handling Workplace Stress. That article will be published next week and following that I will try and get back into my writing habit.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Image Credit: Merry Christmas & Happy New Year To You by Mohammadali F.

The post Merry Christmas appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

Just a quick post from me today, but I wanted to tell you about a really great tool I've found to keep your GMail account under control. Its called Boomerang.

I'd heard about Boomerang before, but up until now had dismissed it as something that I didn't need. However, now I've had a deeper look at both Boomerang and my e-mail inbox, the features in Boomerang are really appealing to me.

So, What Is Boomerang

Boomerang connects into your GMail account or is installed as an addin for Outlook and enables you to apply GTD to your emails. Here are just some of the features:

• Defer an incoming email till later. If the email is something that you don't need right now, but you will at some stage int he future, then you can hit the boomerang button and it will dissapear from your inbox and magically appear when you specify. A tickler file for your inbox.
• Delay sending an email. Not sure how often I would use this, but if you wanted to send an email later on (for instance, you want to send a birthday email), but you know you won't have time to write it on the day it needs to go, you could write it now and defer sending it.
• Follow up reminder. There is an option to boomerang hte message back to your inbox if you don't get a response within a certain amount of time.

Ways To Use Boomerang

• So, just some of the ways I have come up with to use Boomerang:
• Work as a tickler file for tickets you have booked weeks in advance of needing them
• Remind you that you are waiting for a reply to an email you have sent
• Send emails at key times to people in different time zones

Summary

I'm really excited about Boomerang now I have had chance to install it. I need to do a big clear out of my inbox, but Boomerang coupled with heavy use of filters should hopefully keep my email inbox to zero.

I am forever losing track of emails. Now I really will be able to fire and forget, and then get reminded that I haven't had a response from a question I asked, so I can keep on top of my correspondence.

I won't need to spend an hour searching my email for all my travel and accommodation plans before I go on holiday.

If you use either Outlook or GMail, you really need to check out Boomerang and see how it can work for you.

The post Get to Inbox Zero with Boomerang appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

There are plenty of articles out there on how batch processing can increase your productivity 10 fold.  Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger has covered it, Michael Hyatt has covered it.  Everybody tells you how batch processing is THE way to handle your tasks.  This isn't always the case though.

Krispy Kreme Portsmouth by Julia Manzerova

Please don't get me wrong.  I'm not about to say that batch processing is bad.  In fact its not.  It's a very good tool to use.  Its just not ALWAYS the best tool to use to get the job done efficiently.

What Is Batch Processing

Also known as Batching.  Basically, batching is the grouping of tasks of a similar nature together.  For instance, say you were decorating your house and you needed to paint 5 rooms.  You may go round and mask off all the rooms first, then do the undercoat on the woodwork, then do a coat of emulsion in them all, then do a coat of gloss in each of the 3 rooms and so on.  This is batch processing.

The theory is that it increases your focus by removing distraction - once you get into the rhythm of masking off rooms, then you work more effectively at that task.

Why Batch Processing Isn't Always Good

Batch processing sounds good, right?  Well, yes it is, in some situations.  However, take the above example.  All 3 rooms are out of action until you have masked all 3 rooms, under-coated all 3 rooms and so on, until you have got that final coat of paint and tidied up in the first room.  Lets look at that in a diagram.

Lets say, hypothetically, that it takes an hour to do each task.  And lets simplify the say that the following tasks need to be done:

1. Mask off paintwork
2. Paint gloss work
3. paint walls

[caption id="attachment_596" align="aligncenter" width="413"] Batch Processing[/caption]

In the above diagram, all the masking is done first, then all the gloss and then all the walls are painted.  If it takes an hour to do each task, then it will be 7 hours before any of the rooms are ready to be used.

Alternatively, by not batching each of the jobs:

[caption id="attachment_597" align="aligncenter" width="431"] Not Batch Processing[/caption]

In this instance, the first room will be done and ready to be used after just 3 hours.

Whether to Batch Process

Now, it could be argued that with the above example, that the overall time taken to do all 3 rooms would be less, because each task has taken less than 1 hour due to the benefits of batching.  That is something you need to take into account when deciding whether to batch process or not.

Any repeatable task can be batched.  However, before doing so, weigh up the pros and cons and look at the big picture.  Some examples of when not to batch process are:

• You are starting a company selling widgets - by putting together one widget and selling it, your first money is coming in sooner.  If you make 50 widgets by batch processing them, you will have to wait until all 50 are made before any money comes in.  In this instance you may want to look at an optimum batch size.
• Somebody in another team is waiting on your work before they can start theirs.  By completing one item of your work and passing it on, they can start their work while you are doing item number 2.  In this instance, you are batching as part of the bigger picture, not just focussing on your part.
• Responding to emails - throughout the day, you respond to each email as and when it comes in.  Instead, you could batch process your emails at the end of the day - that way, you are not getting distracted every 30 minutes by another email.  This is an instance where batching is good.

I hope that this helps put batching into some sort of context.  Why not provide some examples of batching and when you decided not to batch in the comments below.

The post The Myth About Batch Processing appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

The majority of people would much rather be talking than listening. Unfortunately, many often exercise this preference. However, being a good listener can improve your life in a number of ways. In order to improve your listening, then read on – and stop talking at the back!

A study by Paul Rankin way back in 1929 showed that in a typical day’s communication, the average person spends:

· 45% listening

· 30% speaking

· 16% reading

· 9% writing

By improving your listening skills, you are effectively improving on almost half of your communication skills in one blast.

1. Remove All Distractions from your Head and Concentrate on the Speaker

Although often thought of as the realm of the nutty, we all have voices in our heads. James Borg, in his book Persuasion* refers to these as playing back tapes in our heads. They cover all the little preoccupations that are swimming around our minds and can be to do with thoughts, senses and emotions.

For instance, you’ve just got home from a really gruelling day at work and an incident from the day is playing on your mind. Your wife starts to talk to you about the shopping list, but you really aren’t listening because you are playing over the incident from work in your head. Because of that, you end up eating low fat, cardboard cereal for the next fortnight.

Practice taking your distractions and putting them in a box while the other person is talking about something that is important to them. It will come with practice.

The above example used is a common situation in most households. Something my other half and I do when we get in is we each vent about the day at work and things that are still weighing on our mind. We get it out of our system, while the other one listens, and then the other one takes their turn. It’s not quite as regimented as it sounds, but it does really work. It would only work, though, as long as the other one listens.

2. Distinguish Between Hearing and Listening

This is one very important point to make. So many people think they are listening, when in reality they aren’t… at least not actively listening. If you are thinking about other things while another person is talking to you, you might hear the words being spoken by the other person, but your mind isn’t processing them, because it is focussing on the afternoon’s football results. This is where mistakes happen. Take the following conversation:

Person 1: "So I’ve just realised that we need to get the car taxed. It’s due at the end of the month, which is this Friday. I don’t know how it happened."

Person 2: "uh huh"

Person 1: "You’re not listening to me are you?"

Person 2: "Yes I am, you were saying we need to tax the car. I’ll go to the post office next week."

Clearly, Person 2 could hear what was being said and recorded it on his internal tape recorder, but hadn’t processed it.  In most households, this would have resulted in a row - a row that could quite easily have beena voided if Person 2 had been listening and not just hearing.

3. Don’t Interrupt

Too many times we think we have got the full story behind what somebody is saying, before they have finished talking. It could be down to impatience, an abundance of energy, or whatever, but people will jump in with an answer to the question that they think is being asked. A lot of the time they are wrong though. A former work colleague of mine is terrible for this. He’ll hear (note, I said hear, because he isn’t listening, he is only hearing) one word or phrase in my sentence, latch onto it and take the conversation off at a tangent.

Me: “So, I was looking at your analysis of the widget and whilst it’s good that you’ve started analysing for buckling, there really wasn’t much need, as the widget rib interfaces along the web, so you could clear it off with a statement.”

Colleague: “Ah yes, the widget. I’ve been that busy analysing the flimflam brackets, that I haven’t finished the widget. Anyway, I’m halfway through the buckling calcs.”

It doesn’t leave me with a great deal of confidence in my colleague, and leaves me wondering what else he doesn’t listen to. As a result, I end up checking his calcs a lot more thoroughly than I would any other analyst.  Most of the time, they are fine, but the doubt has already been cast.

4. Don’t Finish Other People’s Sentences

This isn’t always a flaw of not listening to the other person, but more not letting them finishing. You can’t actively listen if you are putting words in their mouths. Consider the following:

Manager: “So, I’ve got a few parts here that need some stress analysis doing on them. I’d like to give them to you, but I’m worried that….”

You (interrupting): “will mess them up, like I did when I applied the wrong loads to the widget? I’ve learnt my mistake there”

Manager: “Well, I was actually going to say I was worried that you won’t have time”

If you hadn’t interrupted, your Manager may have forgotten about you messing up on your last analysis. All you did was bring it back to the forefront of his mind. Let’s hope this didn’t happen right before your appraisal.

5. Paraphrase

So far I’ve mostly talked about what not to do, in order to improve your listening abilities. One positive action to take is paraphrasing.

What do I mean by paraphrasing? Well, basically you are summarising your understanding of what the other person has said. This has several benefits:

· It shows the other person that you were listening

· It reinforces the message in your own mind (similar to writing down notes)

· If there is any misunderstanding, it gives an opportunity for it to be rectified before you go off and take action.

· You may want to ensure that the speaker has heard what they have just said, and the implications.

An example of the last point would be:

You: “So, can I just be clear what you want? Although our standard product holds 16GB of data, you only want us to supply you with 8GB of storage? You realise that this will require modification of our existing product, so will be more expensive, and will make future expansion more difficult?”

Client: “Hmmm, you have a good point there”

By actively listening to conversations, we aren’t just listening to the words, we are listening to the meaning and reasoning behind the words. By practicing active listening, we are improving communication and the nature of our business and personal lives.

The post How to Improve Your Active Listening appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

I've done a lot of thinking lately about what works for keeping me productive in the workplace.  All seems to be working quite well.  I started capturing all my notes and actions in one place, At the end of each day I process that days notes and the first thing in the morning I decide my 3 Most Important Tasks.  I have also looked at how to craft an ideal next action item.

The next area of my life I need to tackle is my life away from work.  I am going to keep the same methodology as I do for work, but I need to look at the tools I use to capture, process and review.  I have created a shortlist of items for now, but I am still open to suggestions.

I discussed a bit about my requirements back at the beginning of this series.  In a nutshell, Either digital or analogue is ok, and I can rely on an internet connection at home, but not necessarily when I'm out and about.  I don't want to have to rely on a computer, but I can rely on my Android phone or tablet.

List of tools:

Pen and Paper

The classic approach.  There is something very romantic about a nice pen* and a moleskine notebook*.  The feel of the nib as it draws across the paper.  And as it is permanent, you take care over what you are writing.

This is also the approach I take at work, so it is familiar.  As I make a subtle change to how I work with one system, I can carry that over to the other.

The downside is that it is something else to carry around at the weekend.

Wunderlist
(web | Android | iOS  | Windows | Mac)

http://youtu.be/PhYruJX4ek8

Wunderlist is both simplistic yet powerful at the same time.  It is a basic list app available for just about all platforms out there (certainly for the ones that I use).  I can have as many lists as I like.  Within each list, each list item can contain a further checklist (ideal for projects), notes, due date and a reminder.  You can also attach files to each item too.

Your list is stored in the cloud and then syncs to each device you use it in, so should I forget my phone, I can still access it from the web.

I'm not sure this will work at work though, due to IT filter policies and the rather old copy of Internet Explorer that we currently have installed.

You can also email tasks to wunderlist too, but only from the email account that is connected to your Wunderlist account.

I really like the simplistic nature of Wunderlist though.

Remember The Milk
(web | Android | iOS)

Remeber The Milk is a freemium app, with more control over your lists than Wunderlist.  In addition to the features that Wunderlist has, you can add tags, locations and more.  This could be useful if I decided to use GTD contexts such as @phone, @computer etc for my tasks.  As I have decided not to do that for now, then this is irrelevant.

I like the locations feature though.  This allows you to set a location to a task, for instance the drycleaners for your "pick up drycleaning" task.  Then, when you are near the drycleaners, the app will remind you.

You can also sync with your MS Outlook tasks.  However, you have to pay for premium membership for this.

ToodleDo
(web | iOS)

For even more customisation, there is Toodle.Do.  I used this service once before and for the ultimate in control over your list, then this is it!  You can assign priority, folder, context, due date, start date, status and more.  What is good, though, is that you don't have to use these features and you can turn them off completely.  You can also filter on each column and

Apps are available for both Android (albeit third party) and iOS, as well as the web interface.

What I didn't like about this, the first time round, was the complexity.  Its great being able to control all these features, but it just gets a bit overwhelming.  With great power, comes great responsibility and all that!

Any More?

Right now, I think I'm leaning towards Wunderlist for its simplistic approach.  The simplistic task management approach is really appealing to me right now as I don't want tos pend my time managing my todo list, I want to spend the time clearing items off it.

However, I'm not going to make any final decisions just yet.  Are there any other suggestions that anybody has for me to look at?  If there are, I will update the post.

The post Rebooting My Personal Productivity System appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

I've been struggling recently with my to do list.  I've tried GTD, and recently I discovered Leo Babauta's essays on a modified approach to GTD. I much prefer this more laid back, simplistic approach to task list management. However, I've been struggling to knock items off my to do list.

by Emily Raw

One of the main reasons for this, I believe, is the quality of the item on my to do list. Some items are simply too generic and too big to get done in one day. By the time I've got through the day and struggled to knock off one item off my MIT list, let alone three, it's quite disheartening.

I clearly need to make some changes to my to do list items, so after a bit of research and thinking, here is what I am proposing I do.

Differentiate Between Projects and Actions

My to do list essentially started off as a dumping ground for all the notes that I had collected through the day that needed me to follow up on them.  This works quite well and I don't feel I need to change how I handle that.  Scanning down my list at the moment, I have items like:

1. Reply to email on panel buckling
2. Check initial stress dossier / report
3. Verify sandwich panel analysis method

These are all tasks that need completing.  However, item 1 is a standalone action.  It only has one step to it.  Items 2 and 3 are much bigger tasks.  The stress dossier is an 800 page report.  And the sandwich panel analysis method I know would take about a week's work.

These items are projects and can be broken down into several steps - e.g. Check chapter 1 of stress dossier.  This is a much more manageable task to handle in a day.  It could even be broken down further, for example, to "check first 10 pages of dossier".

Marketing Professors David Gal and Blake McShane looked into the psychology of checking off smaller goals and they found that completing smaller subtasks motivates individuals to complete the final goal.

So, in future, when I am processing my daily notes, which I do at the end of each day, I shall look at the stages needed to complete each project.

First Task Board by Alan Dayley

I should also note down that I will not be putting "big ticket" projects on my to do list.  Items such as "Show A350 Leading Edge To Be Structurally Sound" is not an item for my todo list.  That belongs ona  completely different list, which I will deal with in a later post.

Only Actions Make it to my Most Important Task List

So, now that I have broken down my larger projects into more manageable chunks, it is only my actions that will make it onto my Most Important Task (MIT) list.

Its important that I have MITs that I can focus on straight away, rather than staring at it pondering what the action I need to do to complete it is.

Each Action Should Contain a Verb

A verb is a doing word.  Similar to only having actions on my MIT list, by describing what I need to actually do, I can get straight on with the job, without sitting there for 10 minutes pondering what to do.  The pondering should be part of my inbox processing job.

It may be at the beginning of the day, whilst I am declaring my MITs for the day, that I do some further processing to tweak my actions - I may have an urgent task that needs completing, but a lot of meetings that day, so I change one of my actions in order to delegate that task.  Either way, when I set up my MITs, they need to be rock solid and ready for me just to start doing.

Be Aware of My Time and Energy Quota

And speaking of busy days, I have had a number of days recently where everything has come at once.  For instance, the other day I had a podiatrist appointment first thing in the morning, then I was at a client's offices the rest of the morning, so I lost half of the morning for doing work at my desk.

I've also had days when I've not slept too great, so my energy levels haven't been wonderful (particularly with the recent heatwave we've had here lately).

I need to be aware of this when setting up the remainder of my day.  Pick off the smaller tasks that I know I can fit in.  When my energy levels are low, pick off the mundane tasks that I don't need to think too hard about.  Ask myself if I can delegate any of the work.

There are a lot of ways of doing this, such as scheduling it on my calendar, noting down energy levels required for each task, limiting the time required for each action.  However, these are all adding complexity to a system that I want to keep as simple as possible.

Summary

I've got a few bits to take away there, so I shall start actioning them over the next week or 2 and see how I get on.  I shall also have a think about whether I want to do something more formal with managing time and energy levels when deciding my MITs.

The post The Perfect To Do List Item appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

We will be moving over our feed provider over the next 24 hours.  Hopefully there will be no disruption to the service, however, if you don't receive your regular Wednesday post (on Wednesday funnily enough!) then you may need to resubscribe.  If that does happen, then my sincere apologies.

Hopefully, I will see you all on the other side!

Best,

Matt

The post Moving Over Feeds appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

I've been building up my productivity system for a couple of weeks now. Following a read of Leo Babauta's Zen to Done, I decided that this could form a good foundation for my to-do system. Check out this post for details of what I planned to do.

If you couldn't be bothered going back to that post, in summary, Zen to Done is a simplified version of GTD, with the focus on building a set of habits that stick.  Sticking with the habits is what I struggled with, the first time round. Leo recommended taking on only one habit at a time and so I chose the collecting habit. This worked very well for a few days, but then I had a big long list of notes that was stressing me out.

I decided that I needed to go against Leo's advice on this and build in some more of the system sooner. I needed to get my actions out of my list made up of meeting notes, phone notes, general ideas and to-dos. I decided to take on a few more of the habits that I need to build. So, I added in the following:

• At the end of each day, I process that day's notes to pull out any actions that I need to take care of. These go in a big list at the back of my notebook.
• At the beginning of each day, I decide on 3 Most Important Tasks (or MITs as Leo calls them). These are 3 tasks that I want to get done that day.

This is similar to the system that Leo uses and has been working much better. The information is flowing much freer and I feel much more in control. I can still sense some areas of resistance, but for now I am happy that I have got something in place that is working. I shall carry on with these three habits for a little while whilst I get into a habitual routine with it. Then I will start adding in more habits.

One thing I have found, though, is that I am not completing my three MITs a day. Possibly because my MITs are too big. There are several ways I could handle this:

1. Carry them over to the next day - whilst this isn't a show stopper in terms of my workload (I've already accounted for when they are going to finish), I don't want to be leaving unfinished items on my todo list for each day. Psychologically, this is failing (even if I tell myself it's ok).
2. Do fewer MITs each day - again, this isn't ideal. Sometimes I have struggled to do even one of my MITs.
3. Break my MITs down into smaller MITs - some of my to-do's have been horrendously huge. Review a 400 page document for example. There is no way I could do this in one day.

Option 3 sounds like the ideal option, but I'd like to do a bit more research on what other people have found to be the best way to set tasks. I will report back on this next week.

The post Handling My Actions At Work appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

I've been discussing habits a lot recently. It's become incredibly apparent to me that it is habits that have been the reason that my previous attempts at improving my personal productivity have floundered. I need to build some good habits, but what are the best ways to do that?

I've dug into a lot of the research on psychology of habits. If you want to build a good habit, then keep reading.

Start with Small Habits and Build On Them

One of my favourite writers on Habits, Leo Babauta, suggests starting small and building from there. For instance, if you want to eat more healthy, then get into the habit of eating one piece of fruit a day. Once you have ingrained that into your daily routine, build it up to 2 pieces of fruit.

If you take on too much change in any one go, for instance by immediately changing all your unhealthy chocolate and crisps for apples and oranges, you will find it a struggle and you will reject it at the slightest obstacle. Whereas, if you switch out just one packet of crisps for an apple, you will slowly build a solid foundation for your healthier habit.

This builds on the theory of micro quotas and macro goals. We often tend to thing big and aspire to huge goals. However, these can often be intimidating elephants to eat! So break down the goal into smaller chunks. Goals and quotas are defined thus:

• Goal - What you want to accomplish. For instance, you might want to write a book
• Quota - This is the minimum amount of work that you need to get done each period in order to get it done.

So, for instance, you may want to write a book. Wow, that's quite a big task. A typical book is about 80,000 words. However, if you can write 500 words a day, which should take you about 30 minutes, you will have written a book in under 6 months. When you look at it like that, its not as scary as you first think!

Also, by setting yourself a low commitment, often you will be motivated to carry on. For instance, I have recently been trying to build up my fitness by cycling. I have been building up my mileage on each trip following a knee injury. My last journey, I set myself a target of 10 miles. However, as I was approaching my 10 miles, I was feeling pretty good and that I could (and wanted to) do some more miles, so I took a detour and ended up doing 13 miles in total. I didn't have to. If I had carried on and only completed 10 miles, I wouldn't have been disappointed.

Similarly, I have set myself another goal of writing 1000 words a week, as I would like to develop my writing and communication skills. I quite regularly write far more than 1000 words for various websites and at work, but sometimes I'll get busy and I will only do my minimum 1000 words.

The 21 Day Habit Myth

There is a common belief that you can form any habit in 21 days. Or sometimes 30 days. Numerous books spread this myth with titles such as "We Can Make You Rich/Thin/Pretty/Anything You Want to Be in 21 Days". Their research often goes uncited as to where they get this mythical figure from.

Researchers from University College, London, conducted a study using 96 volunteers to study how long it took them to form a solid habit, with the final figures ranging between 18 to 254 days. The conclusion gleaned from that research is that the length of time it takes to build a habit depends on the individual. We aren't all the same, so just as one productivity method won't fit everyone, neither will every habit forming method.

Decide Why You Want to Form a Habit

You need a motivator and you should keep your motivation in mind regularly. The last thing you want is to end up just carrying out your habit for the habits sake.

For instance, if your goal is to build a business buying and selling antique widgets, you may then build a habit of going to widget markets every weekend. However, if the price of widgets drops significantly due to the market being flooded with new widgets, you need to re-align your motivation as to why you are going each week. It could be that you enjoy your widget collecting, which is fine, as long as you are aware of that. However, if you are still going because you have become robotic with your habit then you need to give yourself a kick.

Use Triggers For Building Your Habit

Triggers can be a significant key for building habits. For instance, I bet the majority of us have a bed-time routine - lock windows and doors, turn lights downstairs off, put PJs on, wash face, brush teeth etc. Thinking in logical terms, this is an "If.... Then...." routine. For instance:

If Bedtime
Then lock windows and doors, turn lights off etc

The same could apply to habits you are trying to build. Have a look at what habit you want to build and what triggers would be good. For instance, I book my hours every morning at work, as soon as I boot up my computer:

If just booted up computer
Then book hours

This is a similar principal to Pavlov's Dog. A trigger incites a reaction, so we use that to our advantage in building a habit.

Recognising triggers can also be effective to stop you breaking habits. For instance

If I feel too tired to go out cycling
Then I will have a drink and some sugar and go for a shorter ride

Chances are that I will end up doing a longer ride. After all, the secret is to just get started.

Identify Obstacles

There is an interesting phenomenon known as the "What The Hell" effect. Basically a minor setback makes you think "Ah, what the hell, its not worth it". These minor setbacks and frustrations can be habit killers and make you completely abandon ship.

Take for instance my cycling goal. At one point I was cycling once a week into work quite regularly. Then the cold weather started. And my bed was nice and warm. I still needed to make sure my tyres were pumped up, go and find my cycling clothes, prep my lunch and bag it up. So I rolled over and thought "Ah, what the hell, I can cycle tomorrow". But I didn't. I was just using all those minor details as an excuse.

If I had identified that as my "What the Hell" moment, I could have countered it by doing my prep work the night before. Then in the morning all I would have to do would be get up and put on my clothes. And so that's what I do now.

So, hopefully I can use some of these tools to build my productivity habit.

What tools do you use to build habits?

The post How to Build a Habit That You’ll Stick To appeared first on Babbling Engineer.

Following on from last week's post, I've done a lot of reading. I've been reading Leo Babauta's book, Zen To Done.  I've been skimming back over David Allen's book, Getting Things Done. The conclusion I came to last week is that in order for my organisation system to stick, I need to build solid habits. In order to do that, I can't just jump straight into a full new system, where everything is new.

The general consensus is to build 1-2 habits at a time in order for them to stick.

It's overwhelming and it's too hard to focus on your habit changes if you do too many at a time. Instead, focus on one at a time, and adopt the system in phases. - Leo Babauta, Zen To Done

SO, WHERE DO I START?

That's the big question! I think the first thing that needs to be done is to clear the decks. That will be one of the biggest stress relievers. Get everything out of my head and onto paper. It doesn't have to be sorted for now. If it's not sorted and organised in my head, it's going to be in no worse a state if its in a big list on a piece of paper.

This will be a chance to organise all my inboxes and make sure they stay clear. A chance to get my thoughts out onto paper and keep my mind free for concentrating on the job at hand, rather than worrying about trying to remember what it is that I need to remember. Now I've written it down like that, it sounds crazy that that is what the majority of us do, we use our brains to try and remember what it is that we need to remember.

We use our brains to try and remember what it is that we need to remember.

MY FIRST HABIT TO TACKLE

I've already covered how my life is pretty much split into two, between work and my personal life.  Both will require separate systems unfortunately. But in a way, that is a good thing. It means I can experiment on which methods work best more easily. Split-testing if you like.

For ease, I'm going to start off concentrating on my work system. Initially, I think I will get the most benefit from that. It is also possibly the easiest to organise. I have limited constraints on what I can and can't use (pretty much limited to paper/pen, MS Office programs or plain text). There are also only limited areas that I go - around the office building and customer sites.

So, as I need to be able to carry my capture system with me wherever I go, I am going to try the pen and paper approach. I will set up a notebook and jot everything down in it that comes my way.

I have set up a legend so that when I am inputting notes in, I can see at a glance, whether it is an action, an idea or a general note:

Again, this is something that I will evaluate over time. I will document how well this works as I am going along.

INBOX TO ZERO

The other part of my kick off will be to assess my current inboxes. These are any source that I receive my information from. So, a quick assessment of my current situation:

•  E-mail
•  Telephone (I don't have voicemail)
• Face-to-face meetings
•  Post
•  Memos

These should be pretty simple to combine, by using the notebook:

So now I am essentially down to 2 inboxes to process:

•  Notebook
•  E-mail

INBOX OVERFLOW

One of the problems with only taking on one habit at a time and by doing the collection process first, is that I am worried I will let my notebook overflow with information. When it comes time to take on the second habit of processing, it will be a mammoth task that I will procrastinate over. For that reason, I need to do at least some minimal processing.

For ease of future manipulation, I will simply carry any actions from my e-mail into my notebook, so that all my notes are together. That will buy me a reasonable amount of time to address how and where I should store my action and project list going forward, whilst still keeping items in a semi-organised state.

Each day I will set aside some time to process my inbox, rather than checking it adhoc and get actions into my "system". I will note down any obstacles I encounter and they can be addressed in future posts.

However, my key focus for now is going to be on building my collection and clearing habits. Next week I will discuss how I intend to build these habits using tried and tested methods.

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