Productivity

Review: Indistractable

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

A friend advised me to get the book Indistractable by Nir Eyal, a guide to productivity and effectiveness. My take is you should buy it and read it.

There, done. Ok, not quite, but still – this is the rare “must buy” book on productivity that warrants a mention.

Eyal’s idea is that we have two things in our life – Traction (gets us where we want to go) and Distraction (yanks us away from where we want to go). By understanding what triggers our behavior, how to avoid distraction, and how to address specific life concerns, we can be more effective and happier. This summary doesn’t address just how far Eyal goes.

Eyal acknowledges that humans aren’t made to be happy all the time – discomfort and disatisfaction is part of evolution. With this semi-Buddhist acknowledgement of suffering, he’s able to zero in on why we’re distracted – discomfort. We get distracted as something feels bad.

Knowing this is powerful, because then we don’t have to chase the distraction. We can see it, acknowledge it, sit with it, understand it, and avoid feeling bad about it. We can give ourself some compassion and then figure how to adapt productively.

It may seem simple, but ask yourself how many distractions you have that are just trying to avoid something because you feel bad. Probably a lot.

With this thesis Eyal explores triggers that set us off, how we build Traction, and then specific triggers and parts of our lives to address. It’s hard to explain all his ideas or do him justice without recapping the entire book.

Fortunately he’s not just analysis and advice. He gives serious methods and techniques to use, often highly specific ones, to address Distractions. From keeping a distraction diary to see what’s happening to visual reminders, he’s got something for everything. Trust me they work.

I don’t just say they work because I’m using them (though I am), I’m saying that because some of them are things I’ve seen or used before. I was surprised to see some of his advice were things I’d used anyway, with success. That only further confirmed he knows what he’s talking about.

Finally, one of the best parts of the book is that unlike some books, I found you can get use out of either the text format (which I got) and the audio format (which I ended up listening to during workouts). Rare is the advice that works in both formats, but there you go.

So, simply, buy it, use it. You’ll find it gels with all the advice I’ve given very well.

Steven Savage

Organization Is Inspiration

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

This is a bit of a personal take on things, not advice or anything. But I was talking with a friend about organization and planning and wanted to share something.

I find Organization inspires me.

Planning, scheduling, breaking work down, and so on gets me going. There’s something about it that gets my imagination going and gets me inspired. So yes, I preach a lot about organizing and Agile and the rest, but I want to note how it helps me imagine.

I realized in that talk that sometimes when I’m down, planning gets me going again.

For instance, recently I was feeling uninspired and didn’t have a sense of what I was doing. So I made some finer-grained plans on my major projects – in fact, I felt driven to do it. It made me a lot more aware, a lot more organized, and a lot more “into” what I was doing.

I think there’s two parts of this.

First, when you plan and organize projects, you get into them. You feel what made you want to do them. You imagine ways to do them. You become aware of them and experience them more intimately.

Secondly, when you plan and organize projects, you can see how to get them done. You see the end goals, you see the path, you know your challenges and your workarounds. You know how to get them done – which probably energizes you as well.

So ironically, now I the planning and organizing guy, realize I may need to do it a little more now and then. That’s a useful realization – sometimes even I need to do a little more work breakdown for reasons over work breakdown.

But that’s why I share these things. Putting it into words makes me think, feedback from you the readers helps me process, and we learn together.

So let’s get organized – in an inspiring way.

Steven Savage

The Importance Of Not Doing

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Do you have a schedule and plans? Daily plans? Weekly plans? Do you do them – them decide “well, I’ve got a bit more time” and go farther? Do you then realize . . . maybe you’re overdoing it?

Then do you try to not overdo it and still fail, going beyond your plans to do even more and burning out?

I had a realization about this recently as I was trying to keep up my daily schedule. I use schedules to keep myself focused during the Pandemic, and they’ve helped me “anchor” myself in these strange times. But I noticed on a day I was getting everything done, I asked what more could I do.

Then I caught myself. Why did I want to do more? Why couldn’t I stop?

Then I realized something. Schedules are not just ways to ensure things get done – they’re ways of setting limits so you don’t burn out. Part of the reason you have a schedule is to tell you what not to do or when to stop.

And of course, this ties into two parts of the Agile Manifesto. If you didn’t think I was going to tie this to Agile, you must be new here. Welcome aboard.

Anyway, in the Agile Manifesto, the tenth Agile Principle states “Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.” I always liked this as it was a good reminder to avoid unneeded tasks and technology. But recently I realized this applies to your schedules and plans – there’s a time to stop and not do things.

This also ties into the eighth Agile Principle: “Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.“

Good, sustainable work is at a pace you can keep up. This means not just being sustainable, but asking if you need to do something, removing things from your plans or not putting them in. Make a schedule that works for you, and remember that there is a time to not do something. Sure you may do it later, but you don’t have to do it now.

In fact, celebrate the fact you set limits! That should be one of your goals. Being able to not do something effectively is a success – you have time to rest, recuperate, and come up with the next neat thing to do . . .

Steven Savage