Nicholas Bate

The Seven Tools of Deep Productivity. 7, The Stop-and-Think

The back-story is here.

Tool 1, The Personal Compass is here.

Tool 2, The Master List is here.

Tool 3, The Timetable is here.

Tool 4, The Wallplanner is here.

Tool 7, The stop-and-think is to be employed frequently. Too often, ‘productivity’ is seen as urgency and the rush. But losing the gaps between activities is where the quality is achieved, where the breakthroughs arise and where creative surges lurk.

Stop-and-think on the hour, every hour: what’s really, really important now?

Stop-and-think on the time period change (day/day; week/week; month/month): what are the critical issues for tomorrow/next week/next month?

TBC: tools 5, 6.

More detail in You, Only Better.

Just One Thing, 81 of 101

Never measure your happiness. Like the position of an atom, once measured it changes. But do measure your health in full (mind and body), your wealth in full (money sure but career, relationships...) and you’re covered.

TBC

and try Meet Molly for a fresh perspective. 

Just One Thing, 80 of 101

Badly defined and managed projects don’t just deliver poor results and deliver them late, they de-energise a team. Get it right up front however keen everybody is ‘to launch’.

TBC

Strategies, tactics and ‘how to’ in Being the Best.

The Seven Tools of Deep Productivity, 4=The Wallplanner

The back-story is here.

Tool 1, The Personal Compass is here.

Tool 2, The Master List is here.

Tool 3, The Timetable is here.

At this point you need perspective, you need distance, you need available time. The things to address on your Master List cannot be fitted into today or this weekend. But they can be scheduled into the long-haul. Get the biggest and the best wall planner you can. A year at least. Big. And start scheduling: allocating task to date. 

We now need a couple of refinements. Stay tuned.

TBC

(more detail in You, Only Better)

Escape the Zoom Zoo and Mobilise the Metabolism.

All days are special. Monday: fresh start. Friday: whooopeee!. Wednesday: almost there......But Saturdays. What a day. A-slippin' and a-slidin' between the world of work and the world of play and rest. Some chores, some catch-up. Fewer deadlines, fewer crises, less ‘concatenation of support silos’. Action, not Zoom Zoo. Chats, not conference calls. A real meal, not a baguette at a keyboard. Saturdays are the air-lock of transition from craziness to sanity, the 'hey-you-can-stop-running-and-look-up-from-your-phone' days. Saturdays allow you to breathe deep and full, mobilise after a sedentary week, wash your socks, listen to music, spend time at stuff, drop him/her a note, lie on your back and think. And then play ball to detox those slide-decks from your metabolism.

The Seven Tools of Deep Productivity, 3=The Timetable

The back-story is here.

Tool 1, The Personal Compass is here.

Tool 2, The Master List is here.

Draw up a timetable. Yes just like school. A matrix which contains subjects to be addressed by day and time. Choose these by pay-off and value to you. Not ‘whether you have the time’. You’ll remember at school teachers who complained there was never enough time for their subject? If you had given them more, they would have wanted more. They managed and you addressed the material. The ‘always demanding more’ is like e-mail and zoom. It’s too easy, it’s too cheap. Such supporting activity must once again become support to the main show: your timetable. Your real objectives at work not just ‘busy time’. Your health. Your interests. Your big plans. Your art, your novel, your start-up.

TBC

(more detail in You, Only Better)

The Seven Tools of Deep Productivity, 2=Master List

(The back-story)

Once you have reviewed your Personal Compass (tool 1), capture those actions on your Master List (tool 2). A Master List-in its simplest format-is a sheet of paper on which you capture all you have to do, all you want to do for both your work and personal lives. Review your Personal Compass once a month and refresh the Master List at that point.

TBC

(more detail in You, Only Better)

Stop Press

Amazon (UK only) is doing a 24h promo on Meet Molly. Free for 24h.

Thursday Melange 31

1. The Writing Primer.
2. My new-and first-novel is now out.
3. How to Start your Very Own Business.
4. 22 Essentials.
5. How to Create your Covid-19 Home Office.
6. plus The Start Up Myths
7. Stay STRONG
8. Crazy Bold Experiments
9. Just say NO to PPT
10. Post Covid Business Essentials.
11. The Marketing Primer.
12. Redundancy
13. Covid-19, 101
14. Hunter-Gatherer 21C
15. Tackling Stress.
16. Manage that career
17. Be Bold 101
18. You still haven’t read Being The Best?! 
19. Things They Don’t Teach at Business School
20. the secrets of success
21. Life Tips 101
22. Zen & Art of Cubicle Freedom
23. Be Bold 101
24. Carnage At Kodak
25. The Very Best Drugs You Need
26. Billions of Light Years Away In Another Galaxy
27. 22 Routes To Your Non Fiction Book
28. Lists For The Life You Love
29. Her Notes To Herself
30. How To Lessen E-Mail Pain
31. Professionalism 101

Just One Thing, 79 of 101

‘Zoom fatigue’ just highlights the same problem that e-mail reveals. You can’t connect through screen, electron and 1-dimensional representations or only by suffering exhaustion. To truly connect you need heart and soul and body. And that energises. 

TBC

Strategies, tactics and ‘how to’ in Being the Best.