All Posts Tagged Tag: ‘focus’
Dealing with backlogs the MAD way
Recently I’ve read a book “Focus: Use the Power of Targeted Thinking to Get More Done” by Jurgen Wolff and came across very interesting approach in dealing with backlogs.
It’s called “MAD” which stands for Massive Action Day. The main idea behind this is that you make your self completely unavailable, set a side a specified amount of time and tasks to work on and don’t stop until the time is up or the tasks are done.
Although I don’t think it’s practical and useful to use it on a daily basis as it can be massive distraction for normal course of the day. Also maintaining this approach for longer periods of time will burn you out. It’s main aim is to let you catch up on things rather than make this a standard process.
How do you start with implementing this? There are three stages of using MAD.
Preparation
- In this phase you prepare your list of tasks to be completed.
- Gather necessary tools and materials to work on selected tasks with as little distractions as possible.
- Decide on the amount of time you want to dedicate to MAD.
- Tell any one that you’re not available and ensure all means of communicating with are limited only to emergencies.
- Prepare water and some healthy light snacks available. You won’t be able to keep going once your sugar hits low levels.
Execution
- Focus on one task at a time and work on it untill completed then move to the next.
- Avoid jumping from one task to the other.
- Take breaks every 45 to 90 minutes so your brain can catch a breath and relax for couple minutes.
- Continue to work on your task until you reach your time limit.
Review
- Once your time is up review completed work and summarise results.
- Mark off finished actions and list remaining items.
- Take a break from any further work by going for walk or meeting with someone ect. Give your body and brain especially some down time.
- Do anything that allow you to refresh and regenerate after making great effort.
- Celebrate accomplished actions. Most definitely you’ve completed many items.
If you know and use any other techniques to go through the backlogs please leave the comment below.
Work and swimming
Water is not a natural environment for humans, when we swim; there is a lot of resistance to overcome. To move forward and to limit the friction we need to streamline our body and ensure that maximum power is achieved from each stroke.
When you swim in chaotic and uncoordinated way you’re not getting far. The water is holding you back. To maximize efficiency of swim strokes need to be refined so that you rather slice through the water making as little movement as possible.
One of my favourite swim drills is to swim with a float between your leg and use arms to propel. I can focus in streamlining my body and making sure that each stroke gives me the best result. Because I like to drill so much I’m able to focus on it so much that I can swim 25m pool on a single breath. It’s a fantastic workout.
I’ve observed a very similar pattern doing my work, the more friction is in my work the less stuff gets done and the more disconnection and boredom I feel. The elements that cause this friction are mostly stress, lack of clarity, the nature of work. But pretty much anything that you can consider as "work environment" can create some sort of resistance.
Many times to overcome this friction I tend to stress more, put more pressure on, try to move in giant pushes of effort. As this is not leading very far, a feeling of exhaustion and burn out appears. It is like trailing the water in strong current, you exert lot of effort and power yet you’re not moving anywhere.
Reducing resistance at work is not an easy game but you can try. There are countless ways of decreasing stress and anxiety at work and some will work for one but not for the other. As I’ve been attempting to reduce the frictions that I experience, I’ve decided to try three items:
Focus – Most of the time, the work I do requires longer periods of time to achieve the right state of mind and concentration. I try to block out distractions as much as possible. Also I’m forcing myself to complete one single thing until it’s done. Sometimes technology can help you with that. You can use distraction free software (like Q10 my favourite) or work in the full screen mode. Other technique is to use a tool that’s so simple it can’t be any simpler hence I enjoy using Filofax or pen and paper in general.
Clarity – During the day many items will attract our attention, like an article in the newspaper, an email or a colleague. At the end of the day letting all these things to pull us in various directions leaves a feeling of incompletion and lack of progress. To counter that try to list one maybe three things you would like to complete in a day in order to be able to say that you’ve had a good day. Getting this sort of clarity even in such a small form definitely works and is a great start for introducing more direction in to live. Knowing what you want to achieve is much better that simply bouncing around like a free electron.
Doing what you love – Being in a place that is not right for you and working on stuff you have no desire for feels like a great waste of time and energy. Due to social conditioning, our beliefs, lack of clarity (again) it’s probably the hardest thing to achieve. Yet, as many have proven it’s possible. Making your way from the point where you don’t like what you do to the point of doing what you love may take some time. Best way to test how it is to be fulfilled is try to do it in your free time. Spend couple hours a week on those activities you enjoy most and see where does it take you. Perhaps you won’t make a living out of it but you will introduce a positive change in your live.
Streamlining your body and refining your strokes makes you a better swimmer, focus, clarity and working on your passion makes you a more satisfied person. Just like you need to do drills in the water to improve your swim technique you need to exercise focus and clarity at work so that you no longer in trailing in one place.
I’m pretty sure it will take me a while to make sure that I use these things and I will fail many times but I’m also pretty sure that trying one time after another will pay off.
3 Lessons
In last couple weeks I’ve noticed a growing frustration with my productivity system and the little progress that I’ve been making at work. Things began to pile up and although no deadlines were missed I was not happy with the way things were going.
Obviously, I was looking who’s at fault and it appears that it was me (surprise). There are many reasons for this dissatisfaction and things didn’t move the way I wanted. One can be the fact that the tasks that I had to do were not that interesting. I had no incentive to make the effort and complete them except that regardless of when and how I would have to do them anyway.
In order to overcome this I jumped on the internet and visited many of my favourite sites for words of inspiration, understanding and hopefully solutions.
I’ve found many fixes but they are not easy. Well, they are easy in way they work but it takes some time and effort to see the results. This can be painful (mentally) and not less frustrating than the uncompleted tasks (and I wanted result now!). I’ve spend some time doing the research and there were three things that really clicked with me. Now, they appear so obvious solution that it’s almost embarrassing to admit that I didn’t use them earlier.
It seems like we are bound to understand things in own time. Anyway here are the three lessons.
Daily planning
This comes as classic time management technique. Basically at the end of the day I spend 15-30 minutes to plan my most important actions and projects for the next day. Although it’s seems like a simple solution completing this on a daily basis requires some will power. It also requires you to focus on the stuff that you "have" to do or you have committed to do. In some cases this may not be an easy thing to look at especially if you’re not a fan of your work.
Observations
Slight improvement in the number of tasks completed.
Definite surge in effectiveness of work. I can shape most of the day in a way I want.
Less stress and pressure form the fact that you have not completed anything meaningful.
Little more frustration with interruptions – this is slight contradiction to the above but interruption put stop to carefully laid plans. In most cases you need to "defend" your self form others and their requests until your happy with the progress of the day.
Focus
Deliberately focus on a single task/action and try to avoid interruptions. Try to firewall from all possible distractions and don’t allow yourself to look at other things until the task at hand is finished. In many cases this was surprisingly easy but there are time when it’s really difficult especially if the task is boring and feels like a total loss of time.
Observations
Noticed greater ease in completing tasks which were mundane and boring – didn’t work every time though.
Deliberate practice – "hold on there" type of thing – is necessary to switch off mind and internal voice that’s distracting you.
Time really flies when you get into the right zone
Breaks
My brain works in cycles, yours probably too. So it has a peak performance time and a down time. As deliberate practice to focus on single thing consumes quite a lot of brain power. To keep the brain in good condition you need to take breaks. What I noticed is that you need to take breaks even more when your are under pressure. As you push your brain further and further they return less and less but if you give them a break just for 5min it makes things a lot easier. I go to grab a cup of water, stretch etc.
Observations
Regular breaks (every 1h preferably) worked wonders for brain allowing to reset and refresh.
After each break it’s easier to maintain good quality focus time.
All three work well for me as I gradually work my way through the day. Even though I’ve been practising these lessons for a while now sometimes it’s difficult to remember to take break or not got carried away by some random unexpected tasks.
Here are some references that helped me learn the lessons and move forward.
-
Matt Cornell time management classics.
- Zen Habits and the book “Power of Now”
- Breaks via ezinearticles.com
Do you have any lessons you have learned recently? Please share them in the comments.