Productivity

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The Importance of the Drishti in Business

February 9, 2013 in entrepreneurship, Productivity, well executive by George | No comments

drishti

In yoga a Drishti is a focused gaze. You set your vision on something solid and stable in front of you, and, in so doing, are able to maintain your balance much more effectively than if your gaze is not focused; looking from thing to thing.

It’s amazing how effective this is. A pose that is almost impossible to hold while your vision is unfocused becomes do-able when you focus on something stable in front of you.

This is true in business too, of course.

I can’t recall any time in my business career when there wasn’t a swirling miasma of distraction around me; pulling at my focus and intention.

Whatever these things are that distract us they add no value with respect to our ability to keep our focus on the defined objective.

It’s incredibly easy to allow our business gaze to follow whatever shiny distraction enters our peripheral vision — the latest technological “tool” or management “approach” or simply the steady stream of “information.” Knowing when and how to ignore these distractions, and stay centered on the goal is everything.

For me, it’s helpful to think of my Drishti as my “Purpose.” I ask why I bothered to dive into this job/project in the first place. Then I strip away all of the things that are distracting me from moving that purpose forward. What I’m left with is my Drishti, and this is what I try to focus on. Doing so keeps me more balanced.

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10 Productivity Apps 2013

January 20, 2013 in apple, Productivity, tech by George | No comments

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about productivity tools. With all of the (continued) seismic changes in technology, it seems like a good time to update the list.

As always, my desire for tech is that it as transparent as possible so that productivity is accelerated.

To this end, here’s what I’m using:

1. I cannot stress enough that if you have a pre-Flash based MacBook, you should immediately, swap out your old Solid State hard disk for a Flash drive. It sounds hard, but it’s not, and this hack alone will boost your productivity by leaps and bounds. I detail the process here: Weekend Project: New Mac for ~$200 — Upgrade from HDD to SSD

2. Alfred. I still do miss my beloved Quicksilver, but it’s really gone unsupported in any meaningful way for so long now that (for me at least), it’s just not stable. Alfred fills the void nicely (if not freely when you add the sort-of-necessary Power Pack), and allows you to customize its functionality fairly well (the new Workflows in the Beta version show a lot of promise). Even if you don’t ever customize it to any degree, having an app launcher, calculator, iTunes controller, etc. all at your fingertips does save time.

3. 1Password. We’re bogged down with passwords. Wired recently ran a story about how we need to kill the password, and I couldn’t agree more. Until we get there, however, we’re stuck with the boogers. Therefore, having a great app that not only stores your passwords (across your devices), but also generates random passwords when you have to create new ones, comes in super handy. I use 1Password every day, and it saves me time and stress.

4. Google Drive. Sort of crazy to me that I have to even mention this, but I run into enough people who still aren’t familiar with how great and efficient this tool is that it merits inclusion. Google’s play at dethroning MSFT is at its most articulated in their apps. As companies move from an Outlook-based email solution to a Gmail solution, it stands to reason that the bloated, unreliable MSFT apps are next to fall, and the Google apps are ready to fill the void nicely. Combine the web-based Google apps with the Google drive on your phone/tablet, and you’re pretty well set in terms of content creation/sharing.

5. Speaking of content creation, as we move to more tablet-based content creation, having the right case/input method is crucial. As for me and my iPad, we’ll stick with the Touchtype iPad case (which I reviewed in detail for Paste) and an Apple bluetooth keyboard. Increasingly, I leave the laptop at home.

6. Cobook. With respect to software, Apple seems to be going the way of Microsoft. Apple’s Mail app sucks (replace it, of course, with gmail both on your desktop/laptop and your mobile devices), and so too does their Contacts/Address Book. Unusable, unreliable. Nightmare. Cobook is the first innovation in contacts since…ever. It pulls your social contacts in as well as your contacts from Google, Apple’s iCloud, etc. Their iPhone app is great, too.

7. Tweetbot. One of the biggest issues we face in a world of many screens is synchronization. Viewing Twitter on your home device, and then having to scroll through a bunch of tweets you’ve already seen when you check on your mobile device is a waste. Tweetbot, in addition to its many other great features, keeps your Twitter feed in synch irrespective of whatever screen you happen to be on at any given time.

8. Evernote. Everyone knows and loves Evernote, but it just gets better and better. You MUST install the Chrome Extension in order to really enjoy its full power. Clipping images, web articles, etc., pretty much eliminates the need for bookmarking. Of course, its mobile apps are killer too. Its Skitch integration was a bit rough at first, but the two now seem to play nicely, which makes grabbing and notating screen grabs (with Skitch) as easy as archiving them (with Evernote).

9. Reeder. I still enjoy RSS feeds, though, admittedly, my usage has gone down. In terms of best of breed, there’s no single choice for both laptop/desktop and mobile. While people love Flipbook, it’s never done it for me. On my iPad I use Mr. Reader, on my MacBook I use Reeder, and on my phone, I use the Google RSS reader. I’m hopeful that a more unified solution will emerge (Reeder does have mobile apps, but I haven’t felt compelled to switch). In the mean time, this solution works in so far as that – like Tweetbot – each does synchronize with your Google Reader streams, and therefore marks items as read universally.

10. Notational Velocity and Simplenote. Notational Velocity is, hands down, the simplest, fastest way to take quick notes, and keep them easily organized on the desktop/laptop. It synchs (relatively) seemlessly with the Simplenote app for mobile. I use them both multiple times a day.

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Productivity Food

September 2, 2011 in cooking, Productivity by George | No comments

Try this.

Blend the following:

    handful of blueberries
    one small avocado
    some coconut milk or coconut water
    some ice

The world has been a happier, clearer, more manageable place since I’ve been drinking these.

I just bought some bee pollen, and plan to chuck some of that action in too.

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The 2 minute rule

October 1, 2010 in GTD, Productivity by George | No comments

If you can get something done in two minutes or less, don’t write it down on some list, don’t let it rattle around in your brain…just do it. Right now.

I’ve written a TON on David Allen’s Getting Things Done book. (Here’s a Ten Minute Crash Course on GTD I put together.)

Having used the system for a long time, I’m convinced that, while the whole system is valuable, there are two things that are the most essential.

Happily, both of these things are easily applied, and will provide great results (higher productivity/less stress) with minimal effort.

The first is the two-minute rule.

Simply put, it states that if you have an “open loop” (i.e. something that you’ve thought about more than once, but have taken no action towards completing) that you can close in two minutes or less, you should just do those things, as opposed to writing them down on some sort of list.

It sounds simple, but it’s surprisingly powerful.

We all have these little “open loops” that occupy the same amount of space in our minds as the big things. In this manner, these small things keep you from accomplishing big things.

Some examples of things that fall under the 2-minute rule category for me:
1. Short email replies (I’m trying to adhere to the “Twitter approach” for emails; i.e. whenever possible, keep them under 140 characters)
2. Clearing the desk: filing/scanning the crap that collects on my desk
3. Paying a bill online
4. Scheduling/accepting meetings on Google Calendar
5. Synching/backing up iPhone/iPad (the actual backup may take longer, but I can do what I need to do in way less time)

Again, the point is to get these things that will often nag you at the worst possible time (i.e. middle of the night) out of your head, and done (and, again, don’t put it on some kind of list; it’ll often take longer to put these things on a to-do list than to just do them (by the way, to do lists don’t work).

As for the second easily-implemented-but-powerful GTD tip, watch this space.

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iterate, don’t (over) cogitate

September 8, 2010 in entrepreneurship, marketing, Productivity by George | 3 comments

I gave a lecture on entrepreneurship last night to a group of incredibly creative students. One of them made the statement that he was conflicted about the idea of merch. In particular, he felt that selling t-shirts at gigs didn’t align with his values (my words, not his – his words were more along the lines of: “selling out.”)

I told him I understood, and referenced the fact that I had recently had a conversation with Zoe Keating, and she told me she doesn’t sell t-shirts; she doesn’t feel that they fit with her values (again, my words/paraphrase).

This student was clearly swirling around on this issue, and as Mr. Hitchcock has taught us, “Swirling takes up all [your] time.”

The student followed me to my office after the lecture, where an overly-tired version of myself listened as patiently as I could, before saying, “Look, man, sell t-shirts, don’t sell t-shirts…who the hell knows? Try it. If you try to sell some, and people buy some, and it feels OK, keep doing it. If you try to sell them, and no one buys them, stop and figure out why. If you try to sell them, and people buy them, but you feel like you’re “selling out” – whatever that means – then stop, and come up with something else. In the amount of time we’ve been discussing this – let alone the amount of time you’ve been debating it with yourself, your bandmates, etc. – you could have tried it out, and gotten some data/feedback/learning, and either embraced or moved on. Instead, here you sit, not doing anything, not moving forward…just cogitating.” (This is the version of myself that Lauren Markow calls my “evil twin.” So it goes).

I don’t know if selling t-shirts is or isn’t right for this artist. The reality is, he doesn’t really know. How could he?

A wise man taught me that the thing to avoid is the “big mistake;” making small mistakes is the transaction cost (the toll) on the road to success.

When we get bogged down and worry about making any mistake, we are stuck in cogitation mode. There’s a reason why Deming put “do” in second position in his Circle (before “check” and “act,” and just after “plan”).

“Mistakes” are part of the iteration process, and iteration is good; it leads to feedback, refinement, and eventually success.

I hope this student makes some t-shirts and sees how it feels (both internally (to himself) and externally (to his customers)), and then moves on.

The alternative isn’t good.

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