Sharing the Productivity-Geek Love: Don’t Be An Email/Voicemail Black Hole

It’s no secret to my friends that I’m a productivity nerd, meaning I like to think about productivity and productivity systems (not that I’m necessarily a very productive person). So, on the occasion of my 30th birthday last year, my friends blessed me with a book filled with their own thoughts and observations on how to get things done.

Needless to say, I was really moved by this gift, and the contributors to that book probably don’t know that I read all of their entries and that I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from them. Some of them are literally productivity tips, while others are inspiring quotes or philosophical musings.

So as my 31st birthday quickly approaches, I think I’ll share the wisdom and inspiration of my friends with everyone, in the hopes that their thoughtful gift can bring a little bit more productivity and and inspiration to others. I’m not going to disclose full names – please don’t take that to mean that I’m not trying to give credit where credit is due. I made a choice to start writing this online journal, but not everyone has made that choice, so I don’t want to inadvertently give anyone any kind of web presence they’d rather not have.

Here’s the first entry, from someone I’ll just call “D”. D is someone who can, without question, get things done, and as far as I know, she does it all without any new-fangled system that she read about in some book written by a professional consultant, so she gets major respect for her innate productivity kung-fu.

here are my top ten tips:

10. Don’t make commitments unless you know you can do it for real.
9. build other people’s capacity by delegating stuff
8. file. everything.
7. follow up.
6. pound out email before breakfast. (wake and type)
5. talk less, think more.
4. think less, do more. (this one may just apply to me)
3. sleep less
2. sleep more
1. train yourself to be disciplined in your work and the way you live your life

True words of wisdom. I don’t know if I can follow number 6; I get pretty damned hungry in the morning, especially after a morning run, and it would be tough to maintain focus. However, I do appreciate the sentiment behind it. I think many of the emails we don’t write or that we put off are actually very simple and quick 2 minute action items that we procrastinate on because we have some emotional resistance to dealing with it, whether it’s unpleasant feelings associated with the subject or the sender or guilt for not having responded already, or guilt for not having taken care of something that the email references or inquires about. So this tip is really about picking a consistent time every day to focus purely on the act of banging out those necessary emails, no matter how unpleasant or guilt-ridden the experience may be. Responding to email is kind of like brushing your teeth or bathing/showering regularly – you just gotta do it. And if you don’t at some point, the people around you will probably start to edge away. And if that happens, it becomes harder and harder to be productive (and effective), especially if being productive and effective in your life requires working with others.

In the world we live in now, we don’t have the luxury of not being responsive to emails – not if we want to maintain our integrity in the eyes of others. Nothing is more frustrating than sending an email to which a response is required and not getting one – I’ve definitely been guilty of burying particular emails or not responding in a timely way and my relationships with friends, colleagues and clients have suffered for it.

So every day I try to remind myself not to be an email black hole [all of this equally applies to voicemail]. Sometimes I fail, and some emails still slip through the cracks, but for the most part, I’m much better about it than I used to be, and I’m always striving to achieve a 100% response rate. I know it’s achievable, and it really shouldn’t be that hard – it’s really just about discipline (see number 1 above).

Thanks, D!

Nintendo Wii: Probably Not Great Exercise

I had the opportunity to play a Nintendo Wii over the last couple of days, and while it’s loads of fun, I was skeptical of my parents’ claim that it was good exercise. So what’s a fledgling runner with a geeky penchant for gadgets to do? Strap on a heart rate monitor while playing video games, of course.

My findings? Well, at times my heart rate did climb to about 50-60% of my max heart rate, but I couldn’t sustain it. This was especially the case with games like bowling and golf, which almost require playing with a beer in one hand with all the downtime between activity. I’m also unsure whether my increase in heart rate was due to physical activity or frustration from losing while I played.

One interesting result I found was the soreness in certain muscles I felt this morning, which leads me to the conclusion that my Wii muscles are underdeveloped. My commitment to overall fitness requires me to exercise my Wii muscles to become a more well-rounded athlete.

Seriously, though, I think there’s real potential for the Wii to make fitness more fun, especially if they could incorporate heart rate monitoring into the system somehow and create a game that would vary the intensity of activity to make sure you were staying in a good training zone. There must be folks out there working on developing games and accessories to make the Wii into an ideal exercise/entertainment machine.

Of course, it would probably be better to just encourage people to get fit the old-fashioned way so they don’t become dependent on a game console to get their exercise, but given the choice between sitting around and mashing buttons with your thumbs or standing up, moving around, and waving your arms wildly to knock out your virtual Pops in the third round of a family grudge-match, I think the Wii is much better than no exercise.

Today I Ran, and I Ran Angry

Course: Treadmill Heart Rate Zone Intervals
Distance: 2.9 miles
Mood: aggravated

Completed this run after lifting weights, so I wasn’t 100%. I was aggravated because I was watching CNN as I ran and they had an Asian journalist and an Asian Virginia Tech student talking about how the Asian community in general and the Korean American community in particular all feel a collective sense of shame over what happened. “All my Korean friends, they all seem to be very unified and do lots of things together and are really tight with each other, so, yeah, they feel, like, ashamed that this happened.”

Bravo guys. Way to go. Way to reduce this horrible incident to identity politics, and thank you so much for feeding the flames of ignorance and bigotry. I applaud you Mr. I’m Asian and a Journalist So Therefore I’m An Authority and Speak for All Asians, and you, Mr. I’m Asian and a Virginia Tech Student and I Know Lots of Other Asians Including Some Koreans (But I’m Not Korean) So Therefore I’m An Authority and Speak for All Asians (including the Koreans).

I can’t even begin to understand what goes into making someone do what Cho did. I don’t think anyone ever will, especially now that he’s gone. All we’re left with is a lot of pain and grief and “what if’s” and disturbing writings and recordings by someone who clearly needed some help. I understand that our country grieves collectively through the media (we seem to do a lot through the media). For the most part, I’ve been very surprised by the integrity of the reporting – I haven’t seen anything reported that gives undue focus to the fact that Cho was an Asian or an immigrant. Most of the coverage has been focused on trying to understand what happened and has rightfully given respectful air-time to the grieving students and families.

But then these two yahoos got their airtime.

/rant.

So It Begins

Last year in June when I was in San Antonio for a conference – and on the eve of my 30th birthday – I decided to go for a jog. Out of shape and heavy, I huffed and puffed my way through 3 miles of a torturous run along the famous Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio. Looking at my watch, I quickly crashed head-first into a pre-midlife-crisis crisis when I realized that it had taken me over 30 minutes to run 3 miles. I know that may not sound like a big deal, but as someone who used to be able to run 3 miles in less than 20 minutes, it was a serious blow to my morale.

So, I did what any normal 30-something (or close to 30-something) person in our day and age would do. I made a Decision. I was going to lose weight, get in shape, get my life in order, become the captain of my ship, the master of my domain. I was going to get things done.

It all went fairly well for a few months. I was going to the gym, I lost 10 pounds, I was feeling pretty good about things.

Then through November, December and January, I sort of lost steam. A few of the pounds crept back, I lost a lot of my aerobic endurance, and I started to feel a little bit out of control again. I think maybe I started too fast out of the gate, saw some immediate results, and started to rest on my laurels a little bit. Plus I think I was trying to do it to much in isolation, without really any kind of support.

So fast forward to today: I’ve started working out again, started running. I’m getting back on top of my Getting Things Done system. (If you don’t know what that is, do a google search for Getting Things Done. No, really.). My hope is keeping this journal will help me stay on top of things as I track my progress, not only in my fitness goals, but in my life goals. Also, I figure it’s good place to write about all the gadgets and geekery I’m sort of known for.

So welcome to my online fitness journal/personal productivity tracker/gear-and-gadget log. Feel free to leave comments. And go ahead, throw some rotten tomatoes at me if you like. I’ve been training, so you can’t hit me anyway.