Re-reading Getting Things Done

Last week, I forgot to remind my students of a major milestone due that day in class.  I was able to send out an email after class, but I realized that my organizational system needs some tweaking.  Re-reading David Allen's Getting Things Done has been on my list of things to do for a while and I'm glad I did yesterday.  My original design and associated habits were not working as well as they could.  As I mentioned last year, I organized OneNote and Outlook based on this advise online.  It worked better than my previous system, but not as well as it could. 

After re-reading GTD, I realized that the setup I used did not stay true to GTD principles.  I rarely used the Lists section, mostly because I combined my Next Actions and Goals into the same page.  I had a Read/Review section that I did not devote enough time to reading and reviewing.  And I was guilty of leaving things in the inbox, rather than moving them to the appropriate list.  Most importantly, I didn't have a tickler file to remind me of things to do in the future. 

So I've already started making changes.  I started with relabeling my Lists folder as Next Actions and added pages for At Office, At Home, Agenda, and Read/review (moving it from a separate folder unto this page).  This is far more consistent with Allen's suggestions in GTD.  The advise I had followed had me splitting my Next Actions in different folders and different applications (OneNote and Outlook).  Things kept getting missed that way.  With my changes, I hope to better keep track of my Next Actions.  Also rearranged my folders, so that Next Actions is first, highlighting its importance. 

I'm also going to change my Goals folder into a Priorities and goals page.  Once a week, I'll review my priorities for that week and list the major projects, meetings, or roles that need my attention.  I want to avoid duplicates between Next Actions and Priorities/Goals, as that will kill me if I forget or get lazy. It can also be demotivating when I don't accomplish specific Next Actions in the week.  By changing my thinking on priorities, I can simply look at the list and remind myself what Next Actions I should focus on without guilting me to work on things that are listed by not priorities.

I really do not see a need to duplicate all of my next actions in Outlook.  Instead, I'll use Outlook tasks as a tickler file that may link back to pages in OneNote when there are specific things to review on specific dates.  This makes sense with the due date feature in Outlook tasks.

Now that I have used GTD for a while, especially where I have veered from the practices he recommends, I see just how good his system really is.  When I do veer from it, I generally run into problems.  When I stay true, the system rocks.  In fact, I'm adding a tickler item as I speak to remind me to review his book in 6 months.  I'm sure there are more gems I can gain by another review.

Creating an environment for classroom success, Part 2

As I stated in my last post, the goal of my web application development class is: To develop sufficient knowledge of web programming and e-commerce concepts to successfully start a career as a web developer.
How can help facilitate success in their careers?  There is the obvious knowledge component, which is a major part of my class.  However, habits and virtues can make or break the long term success of my students.  In this, Rand's ethics provides the perfect basis for developing the habits and virtues necessary.

To be successful, students need to be rational, productive, and proud.  Students must actively try to understand and integrate concepts in a meaningful manner so that they can utilize those ideas later in their career.  Rationality demands a respect for facts and a strict adherence to logic.  Abstract integrative reasoning is necessary to apply knowledge to new situations.  Students must also develop the habit of productiveness, consistently developing their knowledge in order to create web solutions to business problems.   Productiveness is not just about hard work, although hard work can often help.  Productiveness demands a focused effort to produce something of value.  Lastly, students should produce work they are proud of.  The results of their efforts should be something they want to show off - something they are excited they brought into existence - something that shows the best within them. 

Below are some of the things I'm considering in my class to facilitate the adoption of these virtues.  I'm always open to new ideas if you have them.

How can I encourage rationality?
1. Eliminate evaluations that depend on rote learning
2. Encourage abstract integrative reasoning with writing assignments
3. Require application of knowledge to real world situations

How can I encourage productivity?
1. Reward output, not time spent
2. Push them to create increasingly higher valued web solutions
3. Motivate them by keeping reality based and addressing real world problems

How can I encourage pride?
1. Give them a chance to fix their mistakes
2. Reward going above and beyond requirements
3. Do not provide a means for hiding in anonymity

While I could also identify Rand's other virtues of Independence, Justice, Integrity, and Honesty, those are often taken for granted in most classroom environments (I know... not all.  But most).  Those virtues are vitally important to success as well, but not interesting enough for me to write about today.

GTD Habits

A friend of mine posted an article recently about the dangers of blaming technology for a failure in your productivity system.  In this case, the system is Getting Things Done (GTD).  What's more important is establishing the habits of GTD and using technology to supplement those habits.  This struck home for me a bit because I found myself recently fiddling with a couple different technology solutions for GTD and not being fully satisified with any of them.  I kept telling myself that if I could just find that right tool, everything would be honky-dory.  Well, that just isn't true. 

After reading about how to integrate GTD with Outlook and OneNote, I have optimized my technology solution as much as I care to for now and want to focus on improving my habits.  So here are the habits I'm currently focusing on and specific practices I've identified to help me with them.

Daily habits

• Adding to my inbox. Practice - I need to keep OneNote open all the time to help me improve my useage of it. I may also need to start creating items in my OneNote inbox from emails. I'm still struggling with capturing everything here and need to focus more on developing habits for centrally grabbing all thoughts.
• Clearing my inbox. Practice - My email inbox I will clear 2-3 times a day. My OneNote inbox will be cleared once a day.

Weekly habits - Perform weekly review every Monday morning

• Ensure my week's goals move me toward my month and year goals.  Practice - created pages in OneNote for monthly and yearly goals.  Created subpages under month goals for each new week.
• Ensure that I am making progress on each project.  Practice - where I am not waiting for somebody, verify that I have a next action item in the weekly goals

I am adding reminders in Outlook to keep reviewing my progress with these habits.

There are also some habits that I know I will eventually need to improve, but they are lower priority to the ones above.  Once the above habits are working and ingrained in my system, I will work on the following issues:

• How often should I review "Someday/Maybe" items?
• How can I use eletronic references most effectively?
• How can I best plan projects within this framework?

With a bit of applied focus, I am confident I can improve these habits and my overall productivity.

Independence Day

One virtue my parents helped me to cultivate was the virtue of independence.  I'm not sure they did it consciously, but looking at both my brother and myself, I see that same streak of questioning authority, the status quo, or societal norms.  Whether they did it consciously or not, the end result was the same - my mind was self-made.

But I didn't truly appreciate the virtue of independence until the day I finished reading Atlas Shrugged.  That is truly my Independence Day moment.  That is when I fully realized that my knowledge, my decisions, and my life are fully in my power.  That is when I realized that I shouldn't believe anything anybody else says just because they said it.  That is when I realized that I should actively validate all new knowledge through observation and reason.  That is when I realized I can be - I should be - I am a self-made man.

If only it were that simple to state it and let it be true.  Unfortunately, I have struggled to verify that my knowledge truly is independent.  And by independent, I mean my knowledge is not dependent on someone else's say-so.  Even in areas where I am no expert, I must verify the statements of facts by "experts" with my own first-hand thinking.  Sometimes (many times) the experts are right.  Sometimes they are not.  The only way I can make my knowledge independent of some expert's word is by thinking and observing.  When I don't, I usually end up learning the hard way... by having reality smack me in the face.  I had to dabble with Libertarians to realize how unprincipled they were.  I accepted much of the Ayn Rand nay-sayers at the Atlas Society before discovering the fallacies in their arguments.

I would hazard to guess that the biggest reason individuals fail at achieving independence is that they were not taught how to think inductively.  When they cannot look at the world around them and discover.  They are not taught how to critically examine multiple, sometimes conflicting theories.  From politics to nutrition, independent thought is absolutely essential for successful living, yet very difficult for many people to achieve.

Am I mindful?

Its easy...
To let pain slide right off of you. 
To let fear of rejection control your actions.
To unfocus your mind when things become painful. 
To change the subject when you start to lose an argument. 
... and its easy to develop anxiety, become lethargic, or depressed by taking this easy path.

The loss of control over one’s consciousness is the most terrifying of human experiences: a consciousness that doubts its own efficacy is in a monstrously intolerable state.~ Ayn Rand, “Our Cultural Value-Deprivation,” The Objectivist, April 1966, 1

And yet, the greatest growth occurs when we can take on these "hard" challenges.  The habit of living consciously consists of constantly applying one's mind in the course of every activity.  Of using reason to integrate and deduce the appropriate actions to guide one's life.  To never let the moment slide by because we refused to think.  To be in focus, all the time, every time.  It is a skill of applying my mind to all situations. 

For the most part, I do it well.  When I work out, I think about my form, my times, or my goals.  When I read, I consider the implications of the ideas presented.  When I play games, I develop strategies to win the game.  When cuddling with my wife, I sense her every touch.  But I still have lots of room for improvement.  Areas where I can use some work?  One that I have been focusing on lately is dealing with my kids when they misbehave.  I go through spouts where I actively engage my mind during the process of addressing their misbehavior.  Then there are the other times :(   I revert to old habits where I am not mentally engaged, and this unfortunately usually results in an unhappy ending.  Lately, I have been striving ever harder to apply my thinking mind to these situations with my kids. Rational Jenn's blog has detailed a bunch of parenting skills I would love to improve in myself, many of them based on Positive Discipline.

How can I bring more consciousness to relationships with my kids?  Well, I first need to start accepting them for who they are and secondly start treating them as if they were adults in training.  Their wants and desires must be acknowledged for what they are.  That does not mean I cave to their whims, but I do hold them to standards of fairness that I would any other adult or kid.  This at least gives me a place to start.

Purposefulness

The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out of control of his own life. In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose—a productive purpose . . . . The man who has no purpose, but has to act, acts to destroy others. That is not the same thing as a productive or creative purpose. ~ Ayn Rand, “Playboy Interview”

I'm really starting to master the habit of living purposefully.  I define purposefulness as "The systematic identification of goals and objectives to achieve."  Over the past couple years I have done a lot of self-reflection to discover my central purpose in life, with corresponding long term and short term goals.  By systematically approaching goal setting, I  regularly review my long term goals to ensure consistency with short term goals.  By systematically approaching goal setting, I ensure the time I spend on activities is consistent with my central purpose.  By systematically approaching goal setting, I maintain a harmony in my life that is quite fulfilling and rewarding.

Done well, living purposefully leads to value-dense living. The goals and objectives chosen should integrate with your hierarchy of values to provide maximal happiness and fulfillment.  Your values specify what you want to gain and/or keep.  But in order to gain and/or keep something, you have to identify how you plan on gaining and/or keeping it.  Hence, goals.  To make things value-dense, you should strive to find goals that combine as many values together as possible.  Goals should not be developed in isolation, but should support and build on one another.  For example, I love technology and business so I became an information systems academic.  But I also love studying and applying philosophy, so I apply philosophy to my teaching and research where appropriate.  By setting appropriate goals, I achieve multiple values, thereby living value-dense.

There is plenty more to say about this, but it'll wait for another day.

Efficaciousness and 5 year goals

Part of the challenge with defining 5 year goals is that we are not stagnate.  We continuously improve our knowledge and capabilities.  So when defining those goals, we have to keep in mind that our skills will improve over time, allowing us to accomplish more 3 years from now than we can now.  Especially, if we systematically attempt to improve our skills during that time.

And we should systematically attempt to improve the skills necessary to accomplish our 5 year goals.  If a goal is that important to our life that we are willing to devote 5 years worth of work, then logically we should also attempt to do everything in our power to improve our capabilities in successfully achieving that goal.  That includes improving one's skills and knowledge over that time.

For my 5 year goals, I want to work on my scholarship, my teaching, and my productivity.  The first two require improvement in my writing and speaking skills, hence my desire to work on those skills.  I am also reading many books on the history of information systems, to build my knowledge and improve my classes.

Ambition in terms of risk/reward

When it comes to ambition, I tend to favor goals that are not so risky, but have high rewards. I've talked before about value-dense living. The basic premise is that my choices for activities, goals, and objectives should focus as much value as possible.  I want the greatest reward for the least amount of risk and effort.  With ambition, I strive for ever higher values, increasing rewards, and great achievements. The more ambitious I become, the more focused I must be on particular values and particular achievements.  The narrower the focus, the greater attention I can apply to one ambition.  People such as Thomas Edison had extremely narrow focus of goals, which allowed him to become perhaps the most prolific inventor in all history.  However, his focus on work made for an interesting relationship with his wife and kids (it doesn't sound like he had much of one).

In my previous post I noted that I don't wear myself thin much anymore.  I think this is in part because my ambitions have become almost a steady state of continuous improvement rather than a shot for the stars, mad-dash for extra-ordinary super duper large goals.  Now I try to balance my life to achieve value-dense living, pursuing values that add the most to my life and happiness.  This means cutting out many of the super large goals because they often don't bring any more satisfaction than the continuous improvement that I strive to obtain.  This doesn't mean that I won't find a place for big goals in the future, but they will have to offer extraordinary value above and beyond what I am currently achieving for me to adopt the goal and strive to complete it.

The sweet spot?

I have struggled over the years trying to find a sweet spot for ambitiousness. I do not want to set my goals to low and fail to reach my potential. Nor do I want to set my goals to high and frustrate myself with never reaching them. In general, I have not been a risk taker. I always seem to pick goals that are a challenge, but always doable without significant struggle. Sometimes, after reading books like Atlas Shrugged, I am motivated to push myself to my limits as Dagny does over and over. But I don't.

Some of my goals, such as completing my undergrad in Physics or my PhD in Management, were challenging and time consuming, but never to the point that it stretched me. I was fortunate that I did not have to work part-time outside of my PhD program for extra income. As an undergrad, I did have a part-time job, but I lived at home and my parents took care of all my bills and managed the house.

The hardest goal I set for myself was starting a career in web development. While living on my own, I changed careers from teaching/tutoring to something that I had zero experience doing. So of course no body wanted to hire me. Yet, I needed someone to hire me to get experience. My solution - I offered my services for free. I built websites for organizations I knew and for family businesses. But of course, doing this work for free meant that I had no income. So I picked up some part-time jobs here and there while I struggled to make ends meet for over 6 months. Finally, I was able to find a job at a .com company willing to take a chance on me. With experience in that company, I was easily able to transition to work at other companies when the .com went belly-up.

My second hardest goal was completing a marathon. This really did push me to my limits, but only for a few hours. The first half of the marathon was easy (as most marathoners will tell you). But around the 18 mile mark, the arch of my foot became extremely sore. I slowed to a walk, then a slow jog, back to a walk, back and forth for the next 8.1 miles. All the while, my foot throbbed. That last hour was extremely difficult, but I pushed myself through it and made it to the finish line.

The older I get, the less motivated I am to push myself to my limits. I no longer want to complete an Ironman. I no longer want to work 70 hours a week, week after week. I no longer want to take large financial gambles. Yet, I know that if I do push myself I can achieve much, much more and potentially bring myself immense happiness. This is definitely something I will have to give a lot more thought too.

Why Ambitiousness?

In a world where ambition is sometimes frowned upon, why would I explicitly focus on such a habit and more so, consider it a virtue?  I agree with Ayn Rand's definition of ambition: "the systematic pursuit of achievement and of constant improvement in respect to one’s goal" By this conception, hopefully you can envision a positive aspect to ambition.  I want to improve my understanding of the world.  I want to improve the education program at my school.  I want to improve my family's financial situation.  I want to improve my productivity.  I want to improve my ability to communicate effectively.  I want to improve my relationship with my wife and family.

It is imperative to have and pursue goals in order to stay alive.  When these goals are rationally based in reality, we have the framework for developing these goals towards higher and higher achievements that are fulfilling and meaningful.  I could not and would not be satisfied with my current income level for the rest of my life - not because I am not making enough to enjoy life, but because I would be a sign that my life has become stagnate.  Once I achieve today's goals, I set my bar higher to achieve tomorrow's goals.  As I continually push myself to be the best that I can be, I increase my enjoyment of life.  If I am a better professor, my students and colleagues should hopefully respond positively.  If I find ways to increase my income, I will be able to experience better life's wonders or prepare myself better for emergencies.  If I am a better husband, I will have a more fulfilling relationship with my wife.  If I am a better father, my children will have a better chance at becoming fully independent, virtuous, happy adults.

When ambition turns to irrational goals (political power, prestige, etc.), the dark side of ambition rears its ugly head.  I have no desire for power over others nor care about my prestige because neither of these things will improve my happiness.  Nor should anyone.

Saying "No"

Perhaps one trait I have learned well from my parents is how to say "No" to requests of time and money.   When it comes to friends and family, there is a temptation to say "Yes" to every request because it feels good to help the people you value.  But often times it comes at the expense of your own personal goals.  There is definitely a time and place to say "Yes".  But the difficult part is figuring out when to say "No" and do so gracefully.  "Yes" to that new car, "Yes" to helping out at the bake sale, "Yes" to picking up your friend from the airport.  All of these things can be great values.  But what if the new car comes at the expense of your children's college?  What if the helping at the bake sale means skipping a date with the woman of your dreams?  What if picking up your friend from the airport means losing your job because it was the 5th time this month you left work early?  

It takes self-discipline to avoid the immediate gratification in order to achieve your long-term goals.  It does not mean you can't help others, and in fact, figuring out how to say "No" gracefully can be beneficial to both you and the other person.  Instead of buying a car, you and your kids can learn how to fix the car you have.  Instead of helping at the bake sale, maybe you could recommend 3 other people who might be interested.  Instead of picking your friend up from the airport, maybe you could recommend a shuttle or taxi service - something your friend may not have been aware existed.

In academia, I have seen how the failure to say "No" has affected students' and academics' ability to do their job well.  Some academics fail to say "No" to their co-workers and end up working on 20 different committees.  Students fail to say "No" to their family or friends and neglect their homework until the last minute and have to spend an all nighter in order to finish.  

Emotions and Self-discipline

Perhaps the one virtue that I need the most work in is self-discipline.  I need to stop letting my emotions limit my productivity.  When I'm feeling bored or fidgety or frustrated, I need to discipline myself to either deal with the emotions quickly or file them away until I have time to fully work through the issues that are causing the emotions.  I have found that I use common procrastination techniques when in these moods - reading favorite blogs, perusing Facebook, chatting with co-workers. Not that these activities are not purposeful in their own right, but they should not be used as distractions when I need to complete other goals.

It means more time focused on weekly and yearly goals.  It means truly believing that my goals are important and worthy of the time I put into them.  I may need to remind myself of the happiness that completing goals brings to my life (especially if those goals are life affirming).

Developing habits, part 2

Earlier this month, I stated I was reviewing habits that I would like to develop.  Over the past few days, I have been reviewing what habits/virtues that I deem appropriate for cultivating.   I used several sources for evaluating various virtues, including Ayn Rand's virtues in Virtue of Selfishness (VOS), Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steve Pavlina Personal Development for Smart People, Branden's 6 Pillars of Self-Esteem (as much as I hate the guy, he did write some useful things on developing habits), and The Virtues Project (which mostly helped me review a list of virtues that I may have forgotten).

In compiling and organizing this list, I tried to develop a hierarchy of virtues, with four major virtues, Rationality, Productivity, Integrity, and Justice, and lower level virtues that best capture the totality of the top virtue.  While this does not perfectly match Ayn Rand's conception, my goal was to put this in my own terms.  However, her influence is readily apparent.  For each, I considered habits in developing of ideas, habits with staying true to ideas, and habits applying ideas consistently.  I tried to stop at thirteen virtues, so that I could use these virtues similar to Ben Franklin did (as I described  in my last post on developing habits).  Because of that, I'm sure this list is not comprehensive, but serves as a practical starting point.

So without further ado, here is my list along with a brief explanation of each.

Rationality - applying reason to all my thinking

• Living Consciously:  Applying my focus and mental awareness to all situations. 
• Independence:  Verifying all ideas in my mind with first hand research and thinking.  When multiple perspectives exist on a subject, I must independently evaluate each perspective to discover the truth of falsity of those perspectives using logic and the facts.
• Honesty: adherence to the facts of reality. In this sense, honesty applies to both with myself and with others.  It includes having the courage to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without undo fear, particularly in being true to truth.
• Self-confidence: being true to my own consciousness.  

Productiveness - consciously chosen pursuit of a productive career, in any line of rational endeavor, great or modest, on any level of ability.

• Purposefulness: The systematic identification of goals and objectives to achieve.
• Ambitiousness: The systematic pursuit of achievement and of constant improvement in respect to one’s goal.
• Efficaciousness: The systematic pursuit of the knowledge and skills necessary to produce desired effects
• Self-Discipline: the ability to get myself to take action regardless of my emotional state.

Integrity - loyalty to rational principles.  Never comprise on my morals.

• Principled: the pursuit of living by principles.  In my case, I refer to this as the systematic identification of principles for optimal living.
• Responsible: Strive to be accountable and respond rationally to principles consistently.
• Moral ambitiousness: Always strive to be as moral as possible.  This includes discovering what my values and virtues are and pursuing them with all of my effort.  Ayn Rand described this as "pride", but it makes more sense in my own mind when I refer to it as moral ambitiousness.
• Joyfulness: pursue joy in the little things so as to make the pursuit of the big things bearable.

Justice: Improve my judgment capabilities of others and apply that judgment consistently. I will "regard strangers as innocent until proved guilty, and grant them that initial good will in the name of their human potential. After that, [I will] judge them according to the moral character they have actualized." ~ Rand, VOS, "The Ethics of Emergencies".  My focus is on identifying and rewarding the good in people.