Sunday 27 July 2014

Why I Am Avoiding The News


A habit I keep slipping into is spending way too much time following the news.  It is easy to lose track of just how much of the day vanishes into reading newspaper articles and catching the next news bulletin.  But there is also a hidden cost of wasting brain time trying to solve the world's problems.   The reasons for not doing this are obvious - but let's list them.

1.  You can almost never take any action  to solve problems raised by the news.

2. The news concentrates on the negative and talks up problems and conflict.

3. The news deliberately distorts the agenda in favour of the rich and powerful.

4. They get a lot of facts wrong anyway.

So basically the whole thing is more or less guaranteed to give you a false picture and one that is not going to do you any good.  

The big story at the moment is the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  The bones of this story are straight forward.  A group of people from Europe turned up in Palestine in the forties and started seizing control by force.  They have succeeded in creating a state there, but have infuriated the original inhabitants.  It is a blindingly simple problem, and the solution is equally simple.  The Israelis have to either return what they have taken or adequately compensate their victims.  Otherwise the conflict will continue.

But the news story never portrays it in this light.  While there is undoubtedly some pro-Israeli bias in the reporting, the bigger problem is pro-sensationalism bias.  The big horror stories dominate the narrative.  The attack on the athletes in Munich by the Palestinians; the massacres of Palestinian Refugees in Sabra and Shatila and the current attack on Gaza are all big and spectacular examples of man's inhumanity.  They get huge coverage.   They wind up your emotions.  But they don't help understand the problem.

I have wasted numerous hours over the last couple of weeks postulating imaginary scenarios whereby the two sides could be persuaded to stop killing one another.    Nobody is going to listen to my ideas, still less implement them.

This isn't to say that current affairs are unimportant or that actions we take are meaningless.  It is just that the news is a distorting lens through which to view the world.  So I have stopped watching and reading.


Photo credit: Lee Jordan via photopin cc

Thursday 24 July 2014

Time Management Good, Project Management Better


It is well said that life is a project and you are the manager.  We don't use such blunt language in these enlightened times, but the fact is you are not going to have a great life if you are lazy and disorganised.  Laziness is just short hand for poor time management skills and being disorganised is just another way of describing poor project management.

Sunday 20 July 2014

Steve Pavlina - You Got Dumped



Well not entirely dumped.

I have been writing this blog under the name the Steve Pavlina Reader for some time now.  Almost from the day I coined the name Steve Pavlina started to drift out of my consciousness.   I still read and recommend his stuff.  In fact at time of writing his most recent blog post is about giving up social media entitled  'Social Media You Got Dumped'.  It is as always a very well written and thought provoking piece.  Well worth a look.  This isn't about him, it's about me.  I have been looking at more and more different sources of inspiration, including my own experiences recently.  I realised that the name of the blog was making me give Steve Pavlina more attention than he deserved.  So from now on I'll work under the name "Personal Development For Sensible People".  This is still a respectful homage to Steve's "Personal Development For Smart People" so I haven't entirely rejected him.

Friday 11 July 2014

How To Write More



I have four blogs. I have a couple of training courses I need to write.  On top of that I want to start some newsletters.  I have also got a book idea I am working on that I think might be quite lucrative, and a novel I am working on that hasn’t a prayer of being read by anyone but which I would hate to not write.  And I want to fit all this in with my job as a consultant which is what actually pays the bills.

So I have a lot on, and I need to find ways of getting more writing done.  

Interestingly, the rate limiting step with writing is not simply typing speed.  Getting it into your head in a form that can be turned into a written document is the most time consuming part of the process.  It takes a special form of creative energy which cannot easily be summoned and which can be dissipated with great speed in the face of distractions or difficulties.  So what to do?

Here are the techniques I have applied to crank out more text.

Concentrate on one piece of writing at a time.

I have a list called writing.  I have all the things I want to write on that list.  I re-order the priorities regularly, but once a piece has hit the top of the list it stays there until it is done.  I make the commitment that whatever else I do I am going to finish that piece of writing and nothing is going to stop me. 

Wherever possible I break down large tasks into small bite sized chunks.  There is a natural, indeed a rational resistance, to starting big tasks so the smaller the blocks you set yourself the better.

Think through what I should write while doing other things.

There are plenty of things I have to do that leave plenty of space for thought.  I use these times to think through what I am working on and to mentally compose sentences.  It s quite a good way to make washing the dishes productive.  Unfortunately the actual written piece never quite matches the brilliance and eloquence that it seems to possess in my head - but that is the way of things.

Avoid Social Media.

I am addicted to Twitter.  I thoroughly enjoy the brilliant tweets that some people come up with, and I can get absorbed in the the uneven struggle to come up with stuff that might be considered to be passably insightful or humorous.  

Avoid alcohol

Nothing kills my ability to concentrate like alcohol.  I am maybe a lightweight, but I find that even the day after drinking enough alcohol to become intoxicated I am still incapable of writing anything.

Avoid all distractions

I can’t write while watching the television.  Music is okay, but it is certainly not the case that music speeds up my writing or enables me to concentrate more.  The only thing it is positively useful for is keeping me at my computer for longer periods of time than I might otherwise have stayed.  

Analyse the quickest way to complete particular types of article.

I write in quite a few different styles and formats, and they all have subtle differences in the best way to approach them.  I have looked carefully at how I can squeeze a bit more productivity out of them all.  For example, with blog posts you have to not only write but do some SEO work, tag and categorise and find a suitable illustration and schedule a good time for it to appear.  I have found that doing all these ancillary activities before starting to write is a lot more productive than writing first and tidying up later.  I am not sure why this is, but I think it is because it gives you time to think through what you are writing even if you aren’t consciously trying.  I also write straight into the blog software.  I don’t want to introduce yet another step into the process of creating the post.

Other things I have found is that is best to write a draft of factual articles before you do any research on them.  This means that you can do all the research in one single session once you have highlighted all the stuff you need to find out.  It also cuts down on the kinds of meandering I am prone to when I research.  In fact meanders is an understatement - I am well on the way to creating oxbow lakes.

Increase typing Speed.

Although typing is not the rate limiting step to producing text, it is nonetheless the thing that will slow down the actual drafting process.  It is best to get your typing speed as fast as you possibly can.  I spent many years under the impression that the speed I typed was some kind of predestined personal quality like my eye colour.  Recently I have learned that it is possible to overcome years of bad habits on the keyboard and to increase your typing speed.  The trick is a surprisingly easy one.  All it requires is that you take the time to study carefully how you are using your fingers and to find ways to use them better.  One thing I noticed was a big time sink for me was that whenever I used quotes I would pause and decide which ones I would use - single or double.  Now I just use single.  ‘Sorted’.  

Use a timer

Setting a timer and choosing to write for a set period of time can be a very useful technique.  I often use it to squeeze out a few hundred words between other tasks. I used to use 15 minute bursts.  The pomorodo technique advocates 25 minutes, and I think I find these to be better.  I am not sure whether this is because there is anything inherently good about 25 minutes, but it suits my current concentration span.  I have a feeling this varies over time and with how much you practice it.

Lower standards.

It is easy to get carried away with the search for perfection in writing.  A single paragraph can take hours to get just right.  While this aiming for literary perfection is in some ways admirable not everything that you write needs to be worthy of the Nobel prize for literature.  Settle for good enough and get on with finishing the job.


Raise standards.

This is not a contradiction of the previous one.  Keeping an eye on grammar, spelling and word order as you go along saves a lot of time in later editing.

Blitz.

I try and get as much as possible written to fit around my everyday life, but sometimes you just need to blitz it.  If I have a piece that just has to be written, stop everything and just write for hours on end if need be.  I call this a blitz and the object is much like the historical blitz.  Use speed to break down the barriers and reach the final draft before reality has time to realise what you are doing and put a stop to it.

I once got a request to write a piece for a trade journal.  I didn’t have any spare time and I realised that if I put it on my todo list it would simply sit there until the deadline had passed.  Instead I decided to just write it there and then.  I actually wrote it as a reply to the e-mail requesting it rather than switch to a word processor.  It wasn’t the best bit of writing I have ever done.  In fact I wince when I read it.  But it did the job.  It was published and led to a number of opportunities arising as a direct result, not least of which is an expenses paid trip to Sweden later this year to give a talk on the subject matter of the article.

Get Finished.


Nothing is a bigger waste of time than an unfinished article.  If I start one, I aim to finish it.  And finishing it for me doesn’t mean just getting to the full stop at the end of the sentence.  Everything I write has some kind of end use, and it isn’t finished until it is scheduled to appear on a blog, on its way to a paying customer or ready to be marketed.  
Photo credit: LĂ­via Cristina via photopin cc

Thursday 10 July 2014

Self Help Is A Form Of Entertainment



I had more or less stopped reading Steve Pavlina's stuff from just about the time I started this blog.  Whatever else you think about his writing, it is a little repetitive.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Repeating the familiar with a new twist is the stock in trade of large parts of the entertainment business.  Sometimes even the new twist is dispensed with.  But I realised that I had forgotten some of the stuff that I had found valuable, and missed the bits that infuriated me.   So I had a look at what he had posted recently and went through and bookmarked some stuff to read in spare moments.

Wednesday 9 July 2014

Lessons from the Germany Brazil Game



So I sat down hoping for an exciting game.  Germany usually plays according to its national stereotype of being well planned and well organised.  Brazil has a reputation for being more mercurial and creative, able to produce goals apparently out of nowhere.  Which approach would prevail.  I had an inkling that it would be the Brazilians who would come out on top.  My reasoning was that at the end of the day anybody can train hard and plan, but what Brazil does is somehow magical and would transcend the workaday.

Tuesday 8 July 2014

Getting The Most Out Of Twitter

I recently wrote about how I have discovered that Twitter is not a good promotional tool for my blogging.  I enjoy using it and want to keep on using it, but I can't justify the amount of time I spend on it.  In fact I think I would probably enjoy it more if I spent less time on it.  It is so easy to simply log on and see what is going on that I do so every couple of hours.

Sunday 6 July 2014

Short Term Productivity Tactics



My current situation is that I want to create a company that I can sell in about 10 years for a largish lump sum to fund my retirement.  That is the real priority, but I have a fairly urgent need to pay the bills in the short term.  The plan had been for my job to do that but when I lost it I decided it made more sense to earn short term cash as a consultant.

Saturday 5 July 2014

Pomodoro Technique

I have been vaguely aware of the pomodoro technique for a while.  I didn't look into it because I thought it was something I already did.  I have for many years now used something rather similar to it that I devised myself so I didn't really pay it any attention.

But I was on the new Lifehacker UK site a couple of weeks ago and it offered up a 2 minute video on the subject.  I could risk that amount of time so I gave it a try.