Outside the Lines - The Business Edition

I’m striving for an effortless August. It’s summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, and that deserves things being slower, easier and more fun.

And heck, things should be slower, easier and more fun all the time.

Here are five ways that might help you get closer to that.

Five Ways work can be easier

==> 1. Get a grip on your email

You know the old story of “starting in the mail room and working your way up”? These days we’re all back in the mail room but we’re just working.

I’m a great fan of David Allen’s, Getting Things Done approach to productivity in general and that’s helped me with the email monkey. (That and not having a Blackberry.)

Here are some great tips from 43 Folders on how to get your email Inbox down to zero.

(By the way, I’ll be speaking at David Allen’s Global GTD Conference in March next year. You can find more information about it here.)

==> 2. Purge

This is closely related to #1.

You know all that paper you’ve got piled up and filed away and generally filling up space?

How much of it do you think you’ll ever look at again?

Maybe 10%?

Block out three hours and see how much crap you can get rid off.

If you need a boost, you can always check out the 6th Principle of the Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun here.

==> 3. Figure out what really matters

It seems that most of us are so busy doing stuff, we (occasionally) lose sight of what really matters.

Here’s the easiest way I know how to do this.

Go to your boss’s boss. And ask them what are there three most important priorities for the next 90 days.

I know, I know - there’s all sorts of reasons why you can’t do it. But find a way to do it anyway.

Use phrases like “I know you’ve explained this already, but I just wanted to hear it from you again …”

or

“Just to make sure I haven’t lost sight of the forest for the trees, can you tell me again …?”

By the way, I love Bill Jensen’s, The Simplicity Survival Handbook for tips similar to this. And I’m interviewing Bill as part of the Find Your Great Work interview series.

==> 4. Book in your vacations for the next 12 months now.

Time off is a rare and precious thing.

And (and I can hardly believe this) many of us don’t use our full vacation time.

Block it out and defend it fiercely.

Make it something sweet and juicy and full of anticipation.

If you’re up for adventure, here’s the National Geographic’s top 25 adventures for 2008 .

If you’re more into relaxation, Conde Nast Traveller is full of opinions.

And don’t forget the joy of just hanging out in your own neighbourhood.

==> 5. Remember to breathe

I’m convinced that we spend most of our lives at work holding our breath.

Tension, stress, the busy-ness of it all.

We hold our breath when we arrive and (maybe) exhale on the drive home.

Not only is that difficult to do, it stops oxygen getting to the brain. So we don’t think as well and we’re more easily knocked “off centre.”

Go on, take a full breath now: In. And Out. And tell me that you didn’t feel your shoulders sink down a little.

You might enjoy watching this lecture from Jon Zabat-Zinn on Mindfulness. This is a lecture he gave to the folks at Google. I’m also a big fan of his book, Full Catastrophe Living.

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Don’t take my word for it

Smart folks thinking out loud about taking it easy.

“Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more restful.”
-Mark Twain, American writer

“Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.”
-T.S. Elliot, British writer

“If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.”
-Herodotus, Greek historian

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From our newsletter Outside The Lines - The Business Edition

Smart folks thinking out loud about taking it easy.

“Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more restful.”
-Mark Twain, American writer

“Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.”
-T.S. Elliot, British writer

“If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.”
-Herodotus, Greek historian

“To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”
-Jane Austen, British writer

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.”
-Lin Yutang, Chinese writer

“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.”
-Satchel Paige, American baseball player

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From our newsletter Outside the Lines

In North America it’s summer and things have slowed down: lovely!

I’m on vacation, so I’m not doing things (such as writing a regular newsletter article) and I am doing things - four of which are mentioned below.

1. Connect…

I’ve rolled up my sleeves and I’m playing in the world of Social Networking.

I’m twittering on Twitter - a way of mini-blogging to keep folks who are interested up to date with what you’re doing. You can find me under my “handle” boxofcrayons.

I’m also on Facebook - and welcoming friends. Feel free to send me an invite.

And of course LinkedIn and Plaxo.

==> Who do you want to connect with? (Apart from me, of course!). How will you do that?

2. … and Escape

I’m reading some great fiction and nonfiction right now. I can highly recommend…

David Wroblewski’s, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Like Hamlet meets 101 Dalmatians - but much much MUCH better than that. Stephen King calls it “a novel about the human heart, and the mysteries that live there, understood but impossible to articulate.”

Smith Magazine (ed), Not Quite What I Was Planning. A collection of people’s life stories - in just six words. My current favourite: “Suburban girl tries to make bad.”

Bill Bryson’s, A Walk in the Woods. Bryson’s very funny tale of walking the Appalachian Trail. I was inspired to pick the book up after my recent hike in Newfoundland on The Appalachian Trail. Click on the picture to reveal tuckamore and me. (tuckamore - forest too thick to walk between, and really hard to crawl over or under.)

Peter Block’s, Community. A call and an approach to us all to get involved with our community, whether that’s at work or your neighbourhood.

==> How do you escape? How could you escape sometime in the next 48 hours?

3. Be an Expert…

I’m already a pretty good facilitator of groups, and I’m seeking to expand and refine that expertise. I spent a wonderful week training with Michael Grinder on non-verbal facilitation and I’m currently reading Peter Brook’s, The Empty Space, a book about deadly, holy, rough and immediate theatre (and about how we use space).

==> What are you an expert at? How can you refine that expertise?

4. … and a Beginner

==> I’m watching a TED video a day. It’s no more than 20 minutes per video, and so far I’ve been learning (amongst other things) about biomimicry ,what’s wrong with what we eat, the next 5,000 days of the web and about our priorities for saving the world.

==> What would you like to start? Give a go for the first time?

The blog question

I’m already noodling about vacations in 2009. I say: book ‘em early and fight to hold the space!

What would make a great vacation for you? Let me know your thoughts in the Comments section.

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Find Your Great Work

One of the best things about the Find Your Great Work book is not in the book at all.

It’s the series of interviews I’m doing with cool and wise and funky people about their take on Great Work. They are from business and beyond.

So far I’ve talked to David Allen (Getting Things Done); Steven Pressfield (The War of Art); Ron Dembo (CEO of ZeroFootprint.com) … and I’ve got a bunch already “in the can” and a whole lot more yet to come.

Curious?

They’ll be available for download soon - and all you need to do is register here.

The bonus is that you’ll also get notification of pre-publication offers for the book when it’s launched.

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From our newsletter Outside the Lines - The Business Edition

Don’t take my word for it

Smart folks thinking out loud about doing just enough to get the job done.

“It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?”
-Ronald Reagan, American President

“A man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied; he must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word, he must be able to simplify his duties, his business and his life.”
-Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss writer

“Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify, simplify!”
-Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher

“Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.”
-Floyd Dell, American writer

“Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.”
Walter P. Chrysler, American automaker

“Efficiency is intelligent laziness.”
David Dunham, American actor

“Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.”
-Andy Rooney, American writer

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Outside the Lines -The Business Edition

Ever think you’re working too hard?

In my Coaching for Great Work courses, I spend a fair amount of time talking about the value of being “a lazy coach.”

I’m not talking about being slack. I’m talking about not overworking the work you’re doing.

Part of the challenge of doing more Great Work is that you have an ENORMOUS amount of Good Work, in fact an endless amount. What complicates this is that most of us come to all we do with a determination to do an excellent job. (Personally I blame the need to get “A”s at school.)

And “excellence” is more often a curse than something useful.

Abandon “excellence”

Most of the work we do doesn’t need to be excellent. It needs to be adequate.

And by over delivering on what needs to be just OK, you pay a price. You spend too much time, energy, focus and effort on work that doesn’t matter. And in doing so you lose the time to invest in work that does matter, your own Great Work.

Brad Bird, the genius mind behind Pixar’s The Incredibles (pretty much one of my favourite movies ever and Ratatouille addresses this when he talks about his ability to create movies that are not just complex and brilliant but also on budget and on time.

“Not all shots are created equal. Certain shots need to be perfect, others need to be very good, and there are some that only need to be good enough to not break the spell.”

(You can buy a copy of this article here or find a free summary of the interview here.)

What’s the easiest thing to do?

So what “shots” are you taking? And, thinking about which of these shots need to be perfect, which need to be very good and which need to be adequate?

==> Where are you over delivering?

==> Where are you under delivering?

I’m a fan of these two questions:

==> What’s the easiest thing to do?

==> What’s the fastest thing to do?

And to give you a little inspiration, here’s a brilliant role model

If I had to recommend just one resource

Bill Jensen’s, The Simplicity Survival Handbook is a practical guide to focusing on the work that matters. Worth getting just for its tips on managing your email.

Don’t take my word for it

Smart folks thinking out loud about doing just enough to get the job done.

“It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?”
-Ronald Reagan, American President

“A man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied; he must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word, he must be able to simplify his duties, his business and his life.”
-Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss writer

“Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify, simplify!”
-Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher

“Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.”
-Floyd Dell, American writer

“Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.”
Walter P. Chrysler, American automaker

“Efficiency is intelligent laziness.”
David Dunham, American actor

“Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.”
-Andy Rooney, American writer

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From our newsletter Outside the Lines

The power of imitation

Evolution tells us that success lies with the species that can best adapt to its changing environment.

One of the best strategies for doing that is to find out what works - and then copy it.

Animals have been role modelling this for us for millennia.

Watch and listen to this clip from David Attenborough’s BBC series The Life of Birds of the lyre bird. You’ll hear not just its own song, but the lyre bird’s incredible impersonation of a range of other sounds - kookaburras, chainsaws, cameras….

Who are you already copying?

The truth is that you’re already copying a bunch of other people’s behaviour.

– Your parents, almost certainly. (I keep catching myself imitating my Dad’s mannerisms, which is both cool and disconcerting.)

– The leader (formal or not) of the people with whom you work.

– And a range of other people who’ve influenced you (for better and for worse) in your life so far.

In fact, you’re a little photomosaic - a big picture made up of small pictures. (Click on the ‘click for detail’ link below The Birth of Venus, Starry Night or Guernica.)

So here are some questions to ponder:

==> Do you know who you’re imitating?

==> Are these still the people you want to be imitating?

==> Are there others in this world that you could channel who set a different, higher standard?

==> Are there others who could “call you forward” to be a better version of yourself?

Who would you want to copy?

By moving from unconscious to conscious imitation, you can help change your own behaviour to become more “congruent”, more in line with how you are when you’re at your best.

Let me give you an example.

As I prepare the strategy to launch my next book, Find Your Great Work , I find I’ve got three “imitation” questions I’m asking;

1. What would Malcolm Gladwell do?

Malcolm Gladwell is best known for his two books, The Tipping Point and Blink. I’m a fan of his because his writing is personal, humorous, based in solid research, and accessible. As I write (what I hope is) the last draft, I ask myself: how would Malcolm Gladwell write about this?

2. What would Seth Godin do?

Seth is a giant in the post-modern marketing world. His book Purple Cow is one of my favourites. Seth is always deeply customer-focused, committed to being different, and willing to take a risk. So asking “what would Seth do?” helps me stretch my plans in getting the book out into the world

3. What would Kate do?

My friend Kate is an outstanding consultant around leadership and strategy. Amongst other things, I admire her tenacity and willingness to keep searching for people who challenge and inspire her and her ability to find business opportunities with her clients. As I prepare to meet people who might help make the book successful, I can centre myself by asking, “What would Kate do?”

Action time!

Who are three role models you know and admire?

They may be people you know personally.

They may be people who’s work you admire. (You can check out the roster of great folks on SoundWise for some additional inspiration.)

Pick one of those people. What do you see in how she or he behaves that you find admirable and influential?

Pick one of those behaviours … and practise incorporating into your own way of acting over the next week.

Don’t take my word for it

Smart people thinking out loud about imitation.

“Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”
-Voltaire, French writer

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
-Confucius, Chinese philosopher

“Imitation is the sincerest form of television.”
-Fred Allen, American comedian

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From our newsletter Outside the Lines

Smart folks thinking out loud about imitation

“The human is indissolubly linked with imitation: a human being only becomes human at all by imitating other human beings.”
-Theodor Adorno, German philosopher

“Imitation is the sincerest form of television.”
-Fred Allen, American comedian

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
-Confucius, Chinese philosopher

“Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”
-Voltaire, French writer

“Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.”
-James Fenton, British writer

“Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.”
-Mason Cooley, American aphorist

“Imitation is at least 50% of the creative process.”
-Jamie Buckingham, British writer

“Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.”
-Gertrude Stein, American writer

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HIPPO ROLLER UPDATE from Emily Pilloton, founder of Project H

“For all of you who so generously funded Hippo Rollers, we have promised you a video/film/dvd of the project and we haven’t forgotten! The video will likely be done by the end of the summer. But please let me know if you’d like one, and send your mailing address so that we can send it. If you’d like to save postage, money, and mail truck gas, it will also be posted to YouTube and available as a digital (email-able) file. Send your requests to Emily Pilloton. at Project H Design.

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Outside the Lines - The Business Edition

Hear This!

For my birthday I got an indulgent and very cool present from my parents - a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones. They have a built-in microphone that listens to the ambient noise around the wearer and then creates the opposite sound wave that cancels out that excess noise. They’re particularly good on airplanes, as they cut down that persistent whine of the engines - which means you don’t have to watch the substandard movie at a volume louder than your average rock concert. They also work really well, by the by, when vacuuming the house…

Would it not be brilliant if Bose would design a similar set of headphones for work? Not for cutting out the ambient noise, but for reducing the excess of information that gets thrown your way. The headphones would cut out all that white noise that fills up the atmosphere, causing an unpleasant buzzing, knocking you off balance and distracting you from your Great Work.

In lieu of a pair of magic headphones, here are three suggestions on how to improve reception at work.

Listen to what’s good

I recently finished a series of the Coaching for Great Work training programs in Amsterdam. The feedback was very positive indeed, with one exception. And that wasn’t even a big exception, merely a suggestion of a different approach I could take to one part of the course.

Did I pay attention to all the positive feedback? Of course. A bit.

But did I gnaw and worry and fret over and generally harass the piece of not so good feedback? Absolutely. I stomped around Amsterdam ignoring the great sites of the city, being nearly mown down by the cyclists and generally stuck in my own head.

What got me out of my funk was this: remember to listen to what’s good. My bias is to give undue weight to any negative or neutral comments and to dismiss what’s good as not that relevant or somehow less important.

It’s summed up nicely in the movie Apollo 13 when Ed Harris, playing mission control director Gene Kranz says, “Thank you. I hear what’s wrong. Now tell me what’s good.”

The devil’s advocate

And having said that, let me contradict myself by saying this: be wary of all feedback, both the good and the bad.

In particular, be wary of feedback that projects a judgement towards you (”you’re terrific!” “you’re rubbish”). That can be difficult when the feedback sounds positive, but remember that such feedback is not the truth, it’s someone’s opinion, someone’s judgement. As tempting as it is to buy into the positive feedback, it’s no more grounded and useful than the negative feedback.

Feedback becomes valuable when the person giving it is specific about what you did, and then specific about the impact on them. That then lets you know the impact of your behaviour - and gives you the choice as to whether you’d like to shift it or not.

Want more?

Peter Block’s new book Community is a (typically) wonderful piece of work. He speaks very powerfully of the need to move away from focusing on the problem and the powerful impact that can have. The best business book I’ve read all year.

Another powerful resource on this is Marshall Rosenberg’s core work Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Rosenberg’s insight into how confused our typical communication is - and how you can restructure it differently - will change the way you relate to people at work and beyond work.

Listen to your intuition

With the busy-ness of business only picking up pace, we’re often in a place where we stop over-thinking things and just get on with doing them. Work becomes all about processing, churning through the work that needs to get done, punching out replies to the emails that clog the Inbox.

I’ve started thinking that one definition of coaching is as a pause button from this hectic pace, a way of stopping for a moment to get a new perspective on what’s really happening. One thing this “pause button” helps to do is to reconnect with your intuition, helps you realise the power of your subconscious to understand and decide about a situation before you’ve really thought about it.

To bring that to the surface so you are more consciously using your subconscious (if that doesn’t sound too confusing), the best question I know:

“Is this a yes or is it a no?”

Putting things in such blunt terms makes the choice clear and it somehow can override our big brains that often over complicate the situation.

Want more?

Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink looks at the power of intuition and the subconscious in his usual elegant and entertaining style.

There’s a bunch of other great books on the marketplace about the power of the brain. I also really enjoyed Stumbling On Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology.

Don’t take my word for it

Smart folks thinking out loud about what to listen to.

“People say I don’t take criticism well, but I say ‘What the hell do they know?’”
-Groucho Marx

“Intuition is a suspension of logic due to impatience.”
-Rita Mae Brown

“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”
-Ray Bradbury’s advice to writers

You can read more quotes and add your own favourites here.

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From our newsletter Outside the Lines - The Business Edition

Don’t take my word for it

Smart folks thinking out loud about what to listen to.

“People say I don’t take criticism well, but I say ‘What the hell do they know?’”
-Groucho Marx

“Intuition is a suspension of logic due to impatience.”
-Rita Mae Brown

“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”
-Ray Bradbury

“Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.”
-Florence Scovel Shinn

“It would be very easy for us to do a collection that everybody would like and not criticize. But criticism is a part of life. You have to take it.”
-Donatella Versace

“No matter how deep a study you make. What you really have to rely on is your own intuition and when it comes down to it, you really don’t know what’s going to happen until you do it.”
-Konosuke Matsushita

“If it’s free, it’s advice; if you pay for it, it’s counseling; if you can use either one, it’s a miracle.”
-Jack Adams

“Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.”
-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It’s my partner.”
-Jonas Salk

“Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.”
-Kingsley Amis

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”
-Winston Churchill

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