Productivity Voice

We all have people we are grateful. Sadly we failed when we don’t say thank you often. I have for a while a recurrent task in my system that said: Send a Thank You Note” and every week I make the effort to send one.
Many times when I start I sent more than one (that it is fine) but I try at least to send one per week, every week.
As of today, I had accomplished more than one smile. Mission Accomplished!

 

“Resentment is like taking poison and hope the other person dies”
Saint Augustine

How many times we stay mad with other people, to the point that we forgot the why? I still remember when I was going to get married and the priest told us that we should have an expiration on any disagreement of 24 hours. Once this time happen, we need it to start again.
That’s one of those rules that we had try to use for the last ten years and had been really useful. Not everyone had last 24 hours, but we had done a big effort so they last a limit amount of time and start over.

For those that know me for a while, know that there was a moment in my life that I drank more than 24 cans of diet coke, per day. Drink water had never been something easy for me. The characteristic flavor of plain water it is not something that really get my attention.
I had learned that the more water I drink, the more focused and concentrated I can stay in the work I had at hand. Even when my brain claimed that we should have another coffee, in reality I accomplish more drinking water.
I don’t love the idea of drinking water, simply like many things in my life I had learned to establish certain rules that help me to obtain better results. While I am working I drink coffee and water. Each time I make a cup of coffee I pour a glass of water. I can’t have another coffee until I finish the glass of water. While working I try to avoid anything else that it is not coffee and water. The result is interesting since now I had more than 5 cups of coffee instead of ten cups of coffee.

Many times I get asked how I can generate so much content and many times I had share what for many is a secret. Write can be a boring, tedious and frustrating. Equally it could be something fun, easy and interesting.
I have learned that I need to make the process fun. The reality is that if I make the process fun, I can relax and everything happen easier and much better. A soon as the process gets to be boring, tedious and frustrating I honestly prefer not to write.
I write at least five times a week, monday to friday at 4:30 A.M. What change is what I write, sometimes on the book I am working, others is a blog post, others is simply a journal entry. The reason is simple, that variety guarantee me that the process is going to be fun. I always write with music, even when in general I don’t listen to it, because I get absorbed into the process of writing, the music is always on the background.
What to Write more? What do you need to make the process more fun?

Most of our finantial information as well as the access codes are protected with passwords and if you enter that password wrong three times the file will self destruct itself. (that sound much better than the file delete itself and make you feel part of the Mission Impossible team)
The problem with this is what happen if some else need to access thar information? If something happen to you, others will be able to access that information?
This is something that we don’t consider and that I don’t have a perfect solution and I am constantly trying to improve it, but I am sure we need to have something in place in case that something happen to us and we can provide that information to those that we love that may need it.

The first time I think I heard about it was from David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done.
The idea is simple, “if anything is going to take two minutes of less, do it because it is more efficient than input the task on the system”
This is a really powerful rule, because allow us eliminate an incredible amount of things from our systems and our lists, but require that you are paying attention that you are doing the important ones and that you don’t spend the whole time only doing two minutes tasks or worst that we forgot what we where doing and spend the time doing things that really had no importance.
We need to pay attention to the two minute actions, because as it is possible to save a lot of time, it is also possible that we waste a lot of time that we could have used for more important things.

I love to spend long hours reading. Sadly sometimes my eyes get tired and it is not possible. At least wasn’t possible when I use to read paper book.
When I am reading ebooks or electronic articles I have learn that when my eyes get tired all that I need to do is increase the size of the font and continue with the reading process. This little trick allow me to continue reading for a couple more hours that it is fantastic!

The first draft ALWAYS is bad. Relax. Many people that are starting into the writing career hoped that they will be able to write a book like in the movies. They hoped that at the end of that manuscript they will type “The End” and sent it for publishing.
The reality is that when we write the first “The End” is that the real work begin. Write the first draft is just the beginning, from there you need to write it and re-write it, but it is that first step, the creation of that poor first draft that it is going to allow us to create a book that it is worth to be read.
Many people ask me about that first draft, how to make it better. In reality it is not important, loose the fear that it is going to be bad, no one need to see it again, but without this first draft you are never going to have a book.

How much do you need to do one load of laundry? In general people consider that it is approximately 30 minutes to wash and 30 minutes to dry, so One hour.
The problem is in that hour it is not considered the time that you will need to fold and put away that load, what always create piles that simply accumulates and in general never get processed for the simple reason that we did not stop for a moment to think on how much time we need.
Think about the following:

• Washer: 30 min
• Dryer: 30 min
• Fold: 15 min
• Put Away: 15 min

That it is the difference with the initial calculation, 30 minutes. Many times may be even less than that, but in reality unless that we take that time in consideration what we are going to do is continue generating piles of clean laundry that are not going to be put away by themselves. The next time that you need to do laundry, remember to consider the third part of the process: Fold and Put Away.

It is interesting that we get toys (tools) and the first thing we do is install a series of things instead of use it as it was designed, how is coming out of the box.
I understand that exist many things that simply worked better and we should use those that would improve our workflows. The problem is that in reality we assume that our current workflow it is always the best one.
Many times we should stop and reconsider if in reality is the best idea or simply we are wrong and we are wasting an opportunity to clearly improve.
One way is use for a little bit technology as it came our of the box and identify the real problem.