Can Figure Control Productivity?
Summary:
If you’re in a job that has too much pulling at you, you have to face that productivity dragon. Capture cand figure control is the best way to do it. Do not let your n e male in box be a long term capture system. Have a better place where obligations are clarified and stored. You need time block plan daily. It’s always better to face the dragon than just ignore it....
Transcript:
Speaker 1
is the capacity of the brains you employ, through bio chemical, nerological processes, to take information and produce more valuable information. We have to think about how those brains actually funct. And if you want the highest return on that attention capital, you actually have to design work environments and work processes and work obligations that are compatible with how the human brain actually functions. Humans are not computer processors. They don’t just blindly execute any task you give them. It’s is just a matter of giving them the right task you want done. It’s messy. They’re biological. They have human brains actually producing this work. And these human brains function better in some environments than others. Ok, that’s my rant. So dexter, you you can pass on that, that impathy to your girl friend. Butl let’s get to her specific problem, what she can do while we’re still waiting for the world of knowledge work to get their act together. Well, my answer here is, you’re going to have to do standard capture. Can figure control productivity. Now, if you’re in a job that has too much pulling at you, you have to face that productivity dragon. The way to face that productivity dragon is to actually get your arms around and organize and do the best you can with what you face. You might not like it. You might not have the time you hope you would have, but you will be better off trying to do that than just being haphazard than just ignoring it, then just run in from the cave with the smoke billowing out and an hope that you survive another day. It’s always better to face the dragon. Capture cand figure control is the best way to do it. So capture, you really got to make sure she is not storing any obligations just in her head. I would add, do not let her e mal in boxes. What i would suggest to her, i’m hoping yours going to have her listen to this. This is a little bit of a weird game of telephone dexter that you are going to tell her, oyou were going to tell her my answer here, i must going to assume that she will be listening to this directly. So my advice would be, also, do not let your n e male in box be a long term capture system. Have a better place where obligations are clarified and stored. Stuff that comes in over emal, stuff that’s mentioned in meetings, stuff that you think up on the fly, stuff that just pops up during the classroom. Have good capture systems, and then get these into a storage system that’s not your inbox, and is not just your brain. I recommend using virtual taskboards, tools like trello, for example, so that you can have these tasks, you can have information attached to the cards. You can move these cards between columns to capture their status. That’s the configure step of canfigure capture control, so you can really get your arms round what you have to do and what their status is. And then the control step is control your time. You need time block plan daily. Not only is that going to help you get the most out of the limited time you have available, not only is it going to help you aggressively or strategically carve out time for yourself in a way that’s not going to happen if you’re instead just waiting for a moment where you feel like you don’t have much to do, it’s going to teach youe ironically, given to your teacher, it’s going to teach you about the reality of how long things really take. And that’s really rtant, because that allows you to make better plans going forward. So now when you realize this type of grading takes me two hours, not an hour, now you know you need to start it two days earlier if you’regoin to make your plan work. So that’s the control aspect. So that’s really the best you can do, is you have to have your productivity act together much more than other office workers because your demands are much worse, and because your job is so cognicelly demand nding the toll you’ll pay, the toll you’ll pay. If you have lots of open loop obligations just in your head and not in ta system, you trust that toll is going to be larger. If i’m an average office worker that doesn’t actually do that much deep work, it might stress me out a little bit that i’m keeping track of things in my head, but look, it’s not going to affect my output that much. If i’m a teacher, it is. So you really have to have your act together, capture can figure will get you there. It’s unfortunate that you have to do this all yourself. I actually have an article coming out soon that gets at this question of, why did we decide in office work that individuals have to figure out how to be productive on their own? Why is this not an organizational issue? That’s a whole ofther discussion we’ll get into later, once that article comes out. I’m just saying it’s unfortunate that you have to figure this out on yourself. It’sn nate that you have a higher burden than other office workers, but this is the reality. You have a very hard job, a very important job, but a very cognily demanding job. You really have to have your act together in productivity capture can figure control is going to allow you to face that productivity dragon and make the best out of what you actually have available. Allright. So thank you, dexter, for asking that question. And dexter’s girl friend, hope you found that useful. Excuse tho, rant in the beginning, but that is a topic that i do sometimes get worked up on. Ok, our next question comes from jonathan.
Speaker 2
I help. My name is jonathan, and i’m a university administrator. I’ve been following your work since so good tey. Can’t ignore you, and i’ve put your ideas to work in my own professional life to great effect. O, so thanks. I’ve a questioned for you about two kind of broad approaches to improving productivity. And i’ve heard you talk about both, and i’m wondering if you have thoughts on when each is appropriate to apply. The first is the idea that we need to be looking for ways to make difficult work easier. You know, we need to be working deeply when the task is cognitively demanding. We need to be batching shallow tasks together, that kind of thing. Verses realizing sometimes that a work hard, and sometimes you just need to sit down and get to work. And so i find myself struggling to know which of those broad approaches i need to be taking at a given time. And i’m wondering if you have thoughts on that. Thanks.
Speaker 1
So, jonathan, the way i think about the type of advice i give, like how to set up an environment so that you can actually do deep work when facing a task that would benefit from it. Conversely, how you get more organized about your shallow tasks if they don’t take over too much time, so they don’t prevent deep work from being possible. (Time 0:18:59)
Do Lets Do Better - A Recipe For Satisfaction And Success
Summary:
Do less, do better is a recipe for both satisfaction and success. Go to scenic or aesthetically pleasing places to actually do your reading. Put more energy into the things you do. Take more pride in the small number of things you do. Do it really well. And know why? I have a clear vision of why i think this type of project is important. Here’s how it fits into vision of my life. But have your own motivation. Hike, my name is grace. The concept of deep work can be at the core of a satisfying student life. A little bit of minimalism could go a long way....
Transcript:
Speaker 1
this means, tactically speaking, sure, have to right strategies in place. And obviously had written books and lots of articles on how to be a good study or how to take notes, how to write papers li get your act together on the actual tactical aspect of being a student. But also psychologically, invest in the topics. Go to talks. You don’t have to go to read books on topics that aren’t assigned. Go to scenic or aesthetically pleasing places to actually do your reading. I remember i wrote a blog post around this time called hydeger and hepewisen sik yet. Go to pub style bar. You’re going to read time and bean as long as you’re not going to be understanding, heydeger, you might as well do so with a pint in your hand. But there is something symbolic. It seems like, i don’t know, a sort of british intellectualism, to be sitting in a pub with a pint trying to grapple with english philosophy. You kno, transform this into something you’re trying to do well. That’s important to you. And then to know why is like half a foundation of motivation. Is why i’m doing this work. This is why i’m investig in my education. This is what i want to do with my life. Those three things for a recipe for a very satisfying and successful student life. This motto do lets do better. Know why, i think, applies just as well to the world of work. It is a recipe for both satisfaction and success. So, satis, you’re probably doing too much. Do less projects, but do those projects better, like really hone your craft, really invest psychologically into it. That i’m not just working on this thing, but i i read about people who work on this type of thing. I’m immersing myself in the world that surrounds this type of project. And know why? I have a clear vision of why i think this type of project is important. Here’s how it fits into vision of my life. Here’s why i think it’s important to my community, to the world, to my organization, whatever it is. But have your own motivation. Do it really well. Do less things. Now, tactically speaking, as i was telling adam earlier in this episode, this type of thinking can be codified in your quarterly simester plan. This is where you lay out the bigger term projects or initiatives that you’re working on. Go to that plan and do some pruning. You know, get more selective. I just really want to work on these two things for my personal life. These are my two initiatives. And my working life a beyond the work that i have to do in terms of my optional, aggressive initiatives. Maybe i’m just doing this between now and christmas, right? This is my main project. I want to make progress on this most days. Or i have two s i’m doing. But aggressively prune that back. Put more energy into the things you do. Take more pride in the small number of things you do. Doing less will actually make you feel better, right? So, and i think that’s good advice for everyone. Do less, do better. Now. Why? I wrote a blog post about this a few months ago over the summer, where i made this pitch, that idea is more applicable now than it has been fore that that idea can be at the core of a deep life, just like i used to say it was at the core of a satisfying student life. So i’m glad i have a chance to return to those ideas, because i think in a time of overwhelm, in a time of unforced business, a little bit of minimalism, it can go a long way. If we’re running a little longer. Let’s try to fit in one more quick question. This also will have to do with some of the psychological obstacles involved in building out your deep work habits. Hike,
Speaker 2
my name is grace. I’m a ten year business school professor at an r two school, and my background is in the social sciences. The concept of deep work improved my understanding of how i process my work and think about my capabilities. But i struggle with the emotional regulation side of things, more specifically, managing disappointment when i do not or cannot stick to my deep work schedule, and also managing to be, frank, the hies of a great session. After one of those sessions, i get it in my head that i should be doing deep work every day, all day. Well,
Speaker 1
grace, i don’t know if this is maybe just a professor issue, but i got to tell you, i suffer from both of those issues. So for example, what you’re talking about, there this notion of when you have a great deep ork session, it can become frustrating when you are no longer able to replicate that more often. I feel that frustration all the time. I think university life is designed as a sort of cognitive torture chamber. Sometimes when it comes to productive cognitive work, it gives you thes tastes of i’m with my collaborators, i’m at the white board. I’m solving big problems. We made ta break through in the problem. This is great. This is what i’ve trained for. My brain has been honed into a deadly intellectual weapon to try to solve these proofs. And then the next day it’s emale out of your ears its committees, its filling out merit review forms and reimbursements and trying to do journal corrections in the funding for your post stock because money was pulled from the wrong grant and and now people from the grad school need to work with you, understand how that goes. And there’s nothing more frustrating. And then i get really mad. And, you know, look, when i get mad, i wrote, last time i got really mad about this, the way i let out my frustration is i wrote a big feature piece for the chronicle of higher education called, is emale making professor stupid? Because i was jus’t geting so frustrated by this. It’s frustrating exactly because the stakes are so high. I think if i was, if i was in an office job that was normal, not like the stuff you and i do grace, but like a normal job in which you, you, i don’t knowyoure you’re moving paper more, and you’re not really expected to do incredibly high in thinking and belicans the job, whatever. Have too many meetings, but whatever. I’m count aging that done. But in the academic world, you’re asked to do these giant feats of intellectual engagement, and in the same breath, make it very difficult to do. So i tryng osay, i think that frustration is justified. So how do we deal with it? Well, i’l tell you what i what i’ve been working on recently, o i’ve been working on making sure that i have a sustainable background rate of depth, and from that i draw satisfaction. Now, if i can get periods where i have more, you know, like in georgetown, we don’t teach on days, so if there’s a friday with no teaching and no faculty meetings, and its kind of open, and i make progress all day on a problem, that’s great. But then i try to see that as a bonus and get my satisfaction, slash frustration dampening, from hitting a background rate of x hours of deep work every day. I think two, maybe three hours is a good target. I mean, maybe not right now, exactly now, depending on where you live and the pandemic and child care and home sing buti’m just saying more generally, outside of our exceptional circumstances, i think for most professors, (Time 0:33:59)