7 Key Ingredients to My (And Perhaps Your) Productivity Workflow

I initially set out to write a post about 3 Things I Learned About Myself and Productivity this past week. However, I quickly realized that I needed to first explain my current productivity workflow. So in this post, I will explain some of the ingredients in my existing productivity arsenal, and introduce those who taught me about those ingredients:

Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero

The simplest policy, but so very worth it. Two rules: Don’t check your e-mail/text messages/voicemail often. And when you do, clear that bad boy out. Otherwise it adds up real quickly.

But how?

The answer lies in the second ingredient, the living legend:

David Allen and his GTD (“Getting Things Done”) Philosophy

There is more meat to these bones, but essentially GTD advocates that every time you come across a task, you either do it right then and there (if it will take only a few minutes), or you write it down to do later. Done enough times, and you have a nice inventory of tasks to be done, from which you can choose based on where you are or what you feel like doing (e.g., doing all of your phone calls at once, or isolating the most important tasks during the morning coffee high.)

But which goals drive my tasks? Without having specific goals, I might get lots of things done, but not the most important things.

And what tool(s) should I use to maintain this inventory of things to do? Surely there must be a better way than pen and paper, right?

Introducing:

Asian Efficiency’s advocacy for the trifecta of Agile Results, Eat the Frog, and Omnifocus

AE advocates the use of Agile Results, a system in which you choose 3 Yearly Goals, 3 Monthly Goals, 3 Weekly Goals, and 3 Daily Goals. These goals are meant to cover your life’s “hot spots” (e.g., Career, Family, and Finances.)

For the same reason, the Eat the Frog idea simply means to do the most dreadful, but important, task first. The idea being that, once it is out of the way, you will gain a huge boost for the rest of the day, content that you’ve already done something you were dreading.

So Agile Results and Eat the Frog help you choose which tasks to spend your time and energy on. But how to keep track of them?

In this increasingly interconnected and tech-heavy world, we have all sorts of stuff to do. Bills to pay every month, appointments to keep track of, oil changes, daily writing quotas, stuff our family members are bugging us to do, etc. Omnifocus allows you to keep track of everything and is more customizable than a Magic: The Gathering deck.

Omnifocus allows you to practice GTD, and at the same time, focus on only those tasks you want to see at any given time. And the Mac program syncs with your iPhone, iPad, and now, your Apple Watch. (But not your iPod.)

But you don’t always have (or want) access to your computer or devices. Personally, I like choosing my tasks from my Omnifocus system and placing them on:

David Seah’s Emergent Task Planner Notebooks and Notepads

Quite simply, the right side of these sheets have three lines for your day’s most important tasks (remember the 3 Daily Goals above?), and a few lines below those for less important tasks that you only write down AFTER completing the big three. On the left side of the sheets is a simple hourly calendar, on which you mark when you are going to do your most important tasks.

You might say: Okay, this seems complicated. After all this hard work to make your system, how do you maintain it?

A fair question. It's much easier to setup a system than to use it consistently. And if you don't use it consistently, or if you let it get all backed up or disorganized, it's very easy to abandon it.

For this reason, I prescribe to much of:

Kourosh Dini’s reflections on Workflow Mastery

His work is very comprehensive, but at its core, it suggests that all tasks--work and play--go into the same depository. A promising new Netflix series goes into Omnifocus much like "do your taxes" or "apply to job" does.

Kourosh Dini also emphasizes the importance of seeing only those tasks that are meaningful to you at that particular moment. Other tasks remain out of sight until they become relevant. In short: keep a clear mind devoid of anxiety about future tasks.

Why?

Simply so we associate the system with both the fun and the dreadful. This reduces the chance of us abandoning ship.

That's it. I also use Evernote, Pocket, and Reeder—along with a few other apps—as part of my workflow, but I'll save that for some other time.

Back soon with 3 Things I Learned About Myself and Productivity that tweaked the system described above.

Beat the Crowd but Don’t Beat the Guinea Pig

Last time, I mentioned how innovations ranging from "hard" technologies—-like the Internet--to the softest technologies--like the use of bedsheets--diffuse at a similar rate. This holds true for nearly every widespread diffusion ever studied.

But who diffuses when? Why do some folks adopt early, and some folks adopt late?

Everett Rogers and his heirs (who I mentioned last time) identify five perceptions that influence whether a potential adopter becomes an actual adopter:

• relative advantage
• compatibility
• simplicity
• trialability
• observability

Relative Advantage

the degree to which a potential adopter perceives the innovation as better than the idea it supersedes

The status quo might be an existing idea, process, or object (e.g., atheism, the Dewey Decimal system, and canned beer.)

The status quo can also be the absence of an innovation, such as the Internet, which has no clear predecessor.

The classic example comes from the 1940s. Two agricultural sociologists (do they still exist?) studied the diffusion of the use of hybrid corn seeds by farmers. Farmers perceived them to be advantageous over the seeds they used because of their profit potential and cost-effectiveness. Many farmers shared this perception, and use of the new seeds diffused quickly.

Compatibility

the degree to which an innovation is perceived as consistent with existing values, experiences, and needs—in other words, consistent with the ‘big picture’

“Sure, this gun is more effective than my sword… but will my wife let me have a gun?”

Simplicity

how easy (or difficult) the innovation can be understood and effectively used

I am typing on a ‘QWERTY’ keyboard rather than its long dead, but arguably more efficient, rival: the ‘Dvorak’ keyboard.

The QWERTY keyboard was designed without much thought to efficiency, whereas the Dvorak’s keys were placed according to how often they were used together. Despite its relative advantage, the Dvorak never supplanted the QWERTY because switching from a keyboard to which you are accustomed to a different setup is really, really hard, and the benefits of changing are not immediate.

Dropbox functions essentially the same as FTP uploading and downloading that has been around for as long as the Internet has. But Microsoft simplified the process by automating it, and making the process more user-friendly. As a result, use of FTP diffused in 2010 and 2011 rather than in 2000 and 2001.

Trialability

the potential for experimentation and “learning-by-doing”—if an innovation can be tweaked after adoption, it is more likely to be adopted than if subsequent modification is difficult

The Obama Administration considered a proposal to lay the Keystone Pipeline, designed to move tar sands oil from northern Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Louisiana. Opponents argue that the pipeline poses unacceptable environmental risks, particularly as it would pass through the U.S.’s largest water aquifer. Once installed, it will be difficult if not impossible to modify the path of the pipeline.

Thus, very little trialability with the pipeline. We do it, and that’s it.

This is markedly different from an innovation like Dropbox, in which 2.0 can replace 1.0.

Observability

the extent to which potential adopters can learn from early adopters

It’s like a haunted house. No one wants to go in first.

This factor also explains why sometimes being second or third to the market is advantageous.

Google was able to improve upon existing search engines like Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves.

Remember when America Online came around and kicked Prodigy and CompuServe to the curb?

(Other times, it doesn’t matter how much you can observe your predecessors. For examples, please see Saved By the Bell: the New Class and Zune.)

What the Internet, Kindergarten, Hybrid Corn Seeds, and Lottery Tickets Have In Common

Everything that was once “innovative”—The Internet, kindergarten classes, the use of seeds, and thousands of other innovations—diffused at the same approximate rate.**

Think about that. Maybe it’s just me, but when I learned that, I had a moment akin to when you first learn about gravity and feathers.

Plotted over time, diffusion tends to follow the following five-stage pattern:

(1) After a period of research and development, the innovation is ‘invented’ by a small group (2.5% of the all the eventual adopters)

(2) A slightly larger group of early adopters view the innovation favorably, and adopt it. (13.5%)

(3) As the innovation proves successful, critical mass is reached, and the early majority join the crowd. (34%)

(4) Rapid diffusion continues until the late majority adopt the innovation. (34%)

(5) The laggards adopt the innovation. (16%)

To use an example literally right in front of me:

• In the 1970s, computers were few and far between, and what we now call the Internet was a very basic e-mail and file exchange system operated by the U.S. Defense Department.

• In 1994, 3% of public classrooms had access to the Internet.

• In 2004, that number is 94%.

• As of 2010, that number was near (but not at) 100%.

One more example:

• Puerto Rico adopted a public lottery system in 1934.

• New Hampshire followed in 1964.

• New York adopted a state lottery in 1967.

• Today, 44 states and most of the territories have lotteries.

There are interesting reasons why 6 states do not have public lottery systems. The story of what doesn’t diffuse is just as interesting and telling as the story of what does. More on that some other time.

**Everett Rogers is the seminal diffusion of innovations scholar. Google his name. He is a big deal.