Tara Rodden Robinson :: The Productivity Maven

TGIF: Weekly Review edition

It’s Friday! That means its time for a weekly review.

Seems like it’s been a week with some themes.

Theme 1: Your number one priorities are duking it out. They are using you as a punching bag.

Theme 2: There is too much to do for one you to handle. Overwhelm Overcommitment. Overload. Ohmy.

If only there were actually two you’s! You could take some of the load and the other you could take the rest. Wouldn’t that be great? Until cloning is perfected (and actually, not even then), you’ll have to make do with you. And make some hard choices. Like how you structure your routine. And what you say ‘yes’ to.

It was Read an Ebook Week!

And the monkey minds had something to say about that. You’ll need bigger pockets.

Today is unofficial GTD Day!

By popular decree, worldwide celebrations have begun. We celebrated a day early here.

I started the St. Joseph Novena yesterday

And asked for his help finding a personal assistant. He worked really fast.

This You? Two.

Maybe this is you, too? All that urgency we talked about last time makes you wake up at say, 2 AM, when no sane person would be trying to start their day. Except that your task list, the one that’s supposed to keep your mind like water, is standing next to your bed, jabbing you in the ribs. It’s saying something to the effect of, “Hey, you think you got time to sleep? Think again, buster.”

So you toss and turn until 4 AM and then crawl out of bed, wishing that intravenous coffee was actually an option, and thinking about all that stuff you gotta do. And so you drink your coffee and open your email and then realize it’s 7 AM.

Whaatttt?!!??

Now you’re late. And you’re frankly pissed because you could have gotten something done but you didn’t because you got sucked into email. (And you’ll never admit it to anybody but you got distracted by Twitter or Facebook, too, didn’t you? Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you.)

You get to work feeling really grouchy and jittery. Not enough sleep. Too much caffeine. And there are three monkeys on your back: anxiety, worry, and urgency. And waiting for you at your desk is all the stuff you were fretting over at 2 AM. Crap. It’s at that moment you realize that your child’s soccer game, the one where she gets to finally be a starter, is coming up that afternoon.

Cue music: Theme from Jaws. Daaa-dunt. Daa-dunt.

Despite what you may be thinking, there is hope. Let’s rewind.

You wake up at 2 AM, acknowledge the task list, and turn over. You deliberately lull yourself back to sleep by using your imagination (in this case, you mentally re-read the same bedtime story read to your child a few hours earlier).

When you awaken at 4 AM, you make your coffee and open your task list, spending ten minutes reviewing what has to be done and when. Then you do the same with your calendar. You finish up by journaling for a few minutes, reviewing the day before, thinking ahead to the day to come. Last, but not least, you use your smart phone to eyeball your email--not to actually read and respond--but to triage and make sure there’s no huge fire or smoking something that might sneak up on you.

You engage your morning routine from there until you get to work, doing the same set of tasks you do every morning. Like making up the bed. Putting together yours or the kid’s lunches, feeding the pets, and so on.

When you arrive for work, you feel a sense of control and order because you got some, using those sometimes poopooed routines. And you’ve already thought through what’s most important at both work and home so you’re not freaking out. No drama. You’re well prepared to take it on.

Cue music: It's a Beautiful Day!

Which one of these you’s would you like to be? You really do get to choose.

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Want some more stuff like this? Read these:

Seven Dimensions of Productivity: Why you need them all

Focus, organization, and being in control

What does "under control" look like?

This You?

“People tell me how amazing it is that I accomplish all that I do,” Amy said, “But I feel like I’m screwing up everyday.”

What Amy Cueva, co-founder of Mad*Pow, was referring to was getting pinched between work and life. Being a mom is challenging. Being an aspiring professional is hard. Combining the two? Even harder. And so moms and dads like Amy wind up feeling bad. If they’re at work, they’re worrying about their families. When they’re with their families, they’re fighting the urge to bury their noses in their smart phones.

And it’s not just parents. A lot of us feel this way.

We’re running faster and faster. We tell ourselves, “If I try just a little harder...” So we work longer hours. We get new technologies that are meant to help us keep up. We latch on to GTD as if it were a life raft in a stormy sea. Yet the sense of drowning continues. Spitting and sputtering, gasping for air.

It should come as no surprise that all the fun goes out of it. And by it, I mean practically everything.

One dad responded by putting a poster on his wall with a photo of a little boy who looked like his son. The word on the poster was “Priorities.”

A teensy problem. Priorities compete. They jostle and fight for attention and bandwidth and energy and time. We attempt to referee the contest by prioritizing. That would work great if your priorities ranked neatly one, two, three. Except they don’t. There are ties. Which is to say, there are many number ones and the rest are number two.

There’s good news: there’s really only one Number One Priority. No matter how good you are at multitasking, you only have one number one priority at a time. Because if you’re not doing it, it’s not a priority.

If being with your family is a priority then when you’re with them, turn the Blackberry or iPhone off. If being reliable is the priority, then do your review and know what the deadlines are far enough in advance to meet them or renegotiate.

Time passes so fast. Don’t wait until your children are grown to figure this one out. Don’t wait until your marriage founders. Don’t look up one day and say, oops, I forgot to have friends or kids or vacations.

Friday Roundup: Video, collaborations, and new horizons of focus

Yeehaw! Time for a Friday round ‘em up! Here’s what’s been happening around the Maven’s world lately.

The podcast got an update recently with an excerpt from my conversation with co-author of The Promise Doctrine, Craig P. Womack. You can hear it here. If you’d like to get the whole conversation (plus all the previously recorded teleclasses and tons more), skip over to the Community Portal and subscribe. For the price of a couple of lattes each month, you’ll get tons of yummy productivity content as podcasts; for less than the price of lunch for two at a place like this, you can enjoy the live calls, too.

I spent an afternoon with videographer extraordinaire, Clint Bowers and he produced this bio from our conversation. Now that I’ve got a YouTube channel, more than one video, and a subscriber, I’m thinking I need to start producing more videos--let me know what you’d like to see.

And speaking of video, take four minutes and enjoy the creative prowess of OK Go. You know them from their viral treadmill extravaganza. You’ll love this even more after watching this other one. (And then stop, otherwise, your whole day will be spend on YouTube.)

Over at Mind Like Monkey, I and my fellow primates have been waxing rhapsodic over the five phases of workflow. Check out Dan’s, Augusto’s, and my posts on collecting, processing, and doing.

Two new teleclasses are coming up.

• In the Seven Dimensions series, we’ll be thinking about how to be more strategic in taking on decision-making. That’ll be on April the first. No foolin’. Join the fun here.
• On March 23, I’ll be hosting a complimentary call on what I’m calling Prayerful Productivity. If you are a spiritual person--no matter your denomination, your faith, or beliefs--this is your invitation to talk about the spiritual side of productivity. We'll discuss meditation, prayer, discernment, and much more. This is the spot to get all the details. It's a different horizon of focus--deeper and wider--and I look forward to exploring it with you.

It's time to get along with the little doggies. Have a great weekend, y'all!

Productively Wealthy: Get Your Financial Life Organized

“I’m a big believer that orderliness begets wealth. ... When [you’re well organized], you are connecting with your money and taking control of your life.” --Suze Orman

Just about every year, right about this time, I hear the same refrain coming from folks far and wide. If you’re repeating the chorus of “Next year, I’m going to be better organized,” then take heart--here’s some advice that will make next year’s taxes a lot easier to deal with and far less procrastination inspiring.

• Organize your documents. You should have separate files for your bills, bank statements, pay stubs, and tax returns.
• Tired of entering items by hand? If you have a smart phone, there are tons of apps (especially for the iPhone/iPod Touch) to help you keep up with things like business mileage, business expenses, and so on. Most will allow you to email a report (as a spreadsheet or table) to yourself.
• Consider a personal finance program. By entering items each month and using the program to track your spending, you’ll get more bang for your buck: better financial management and superbly organized info come tax time. Some programs allow you to link your software directly to your bank accounts eliminating the need to enter numbers by hand.
• Depending on your situation, you can consolidate all your expenditures and pay all your bills electronically. This is not for everyone--however, if you’re in good shape financially, and have the means to pay off your credit card in full, every month, this is a great way to keep all your records in one place.  Many banks and credit card companies will allow you to download your records in various formats (e.g. Excel, Quicken, etc.) to allow you keep your bookkeeping up to date easily.
• Finally, add to your weekly review, a financial checklist. This would include any repeating tasks regarding bill paying, record keeping, and so on. By taking on small tasks each week, you won’t face big backlogs at the end of the year (or as April 15 draws near).

Being productive means being well organized. When applied to finances, being well organized paves the way to financial well-being.

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Want more help in getting organized? Try these related posts:

Where is your favorite place to think and prepare?

The last paper list

Or attend the next teleclass--check it out here