Mike Vardy's Blog, page 123

Resolve

I don’t do new year’s resolutions.

I resolve on an ongoing basis. I like being nimble. I enjoy the idea of being able to be resolute on big things throughout the year as opposed to making them all at once — like at the end of a year where all I should be doing (and want to do) is reflect and recharge).

Today I didn’t write anything other than this. I kept it short on purpose. I sat at my dining room table for a good, long while and simply thought about things. Nothing specific, but I just spent time thinking.

It felt good.

Having the resolve to do more of that when it’s needed is more important than any resolution i can make in the next day or so. Doing that kind of thinking allows to make much more out of the year ahead than stating that I plan to eat better, exercise more, journal regularly, and things of that nature.

Taking the time to do some deep thinking enables me to figure out how I can make the days ahead better. It actually strengthens my resolve because I’ve given much more thought to the bigger picture.

The best way to strengthen your resolve every day is to make the time to build that strength. Thinking does that. Deep thinking does that even more. Only when you strengthen your resolve can nay sort of commitment take hold and be fulfilled.

Remember that when you start to think about your resolutions. After all, intention without attention is nothing.

Want to start the year you want anytime you want? Pick up my new e-book published by Diversion Books The Front Nine: How to Start the Year You Want Anytime You Want for just $4.99 today!

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3 Things for the Next 3 Days

While I often suggest that you shouldn’t start your new year as of January 1st (in fact, I’ve written a book that suggests that you should start it anytime you want), I do think that January is a month where reflection and recharging is in order.

With that in mind, here are 3 things a productivityist should do over the next 3 days in order to get set for the month – or months – ahead.

Organize the hidden stuff

We focus a lot on the physical things we can see when it comes to removing clutter from our lives. But it’s the digital clutter that is becoming more and more of an impediment to productivity. That’s because digital clutter is far less apparent than the physical clutter, meaning it can get in your way a lot more. Even with the ability to search for these files being at our fingertips there’s often going to be duplicate files, revisions of documents, and other naming discrepancies that can get in your way despite all of your efforts to avoid that. And now is the time to fix that.

This is going to take the longest for most folks. It’s time to get tagging, creating sub-folders, and deleting dead files. If you use Evernote or another app that employs tagging (like Asana or Flow, for example), it’s time to make those items in there to have more meaning behind them with proper and consistent tagging. If you’re using a Mac and you don’t have Hazel, now is a great time to get it with some of that extra holiday cash so that you can get your digital house in order. David Sparks has put together some excellent Hazel rules here and if you simply search for “Hazel” on his blog, you’ll get a lot more on this stellar app. Even just going through the various folders you’ve got on your drive and either deleting files or moving them an external drive can remove some of the clutter that you just can’t see.

If you don’t do any of the other things I’m about to mention, then at least take the time to organize the hidden stuff.

Tie up small loose ends

Take a look at what you’ve got going on and start to tie up any of the smaller loose ends you’ve got available. Much like David Allen talks about “closing open loops”, this is a time when you can focus on completing what you can complete before the calendar shifts to the next year.

The key here is to really look at what you’ve got going on and connect with it all. That’s the only way you can really know what can be tied up and what needs to carry over. You may be able to tie up tasks, but not projects. You may be able to tie up small projects but can’t touch small tasks of bigger projects. But only you will know that – and you’ll only know that if you’re really in the mindset of understanding what you’ve got on the go. Just looking at it isn’t enough. You’ve got to spend time with it.

Tying up loose ends allows you to really get a better look at the rest of what you’ve got on your plate. Leaving too many things untied gives you so much to look at that you give them just a passing glance than much of a chance of getting done right.

Plan big

Now that you’ve tidied things up, you can start to set things up.

The best thing you can do is start to map out the big stuff for the next few months (or year) so that you’ve got some benchmarks to look forward to as time goes by. I make anywhere from 6–8 major projects happen over the course of a 12 month period because I don’t just plan ahead – I plan big. That’s the key. Make the things you plan now the big stuff. It’s those things that will get you excited, which will motivate you to make them happen.

These three things essentially mean the following: Remove the clutter first, then move ahead with a burst.

So if you want to do 3 things before we bid farewell to this year that will serve you best for what is to come, then give yourself ample time and space to do the above. They are the most freeing things you can do – and doing them will let you do so much more of the stuff that you really want to do.

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The 2012 Persons of Internet

Every year since I started this blog, I’ve been naming several people every year as my Persons of Internet. These are people who have made a strong impact on me during the year (Persons of Internet is a play on Person of Interest, after all), and also people who I expect to see and hear more from in the years to come.

Rather than explain anything further (other than to say that, like in 2011, I’ve settled on 5 “Persons” per year), I’ll reveal the list now so that they can hopefully start to have a similar impact on you in the days, weeks, months, and years to come as well.

I had the chance to meet Erin Feldman through one of last year’s Persons of Internet, my good friend Michael Schechter. I’ve been following Erin’s work over at Write Right and she even did me the honour of “chibi-fying” me this year. She’s speaking at South By Southwest this year and while 2012 was a rock-solid year for her, I can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store for her – and for those of us who enjoy her work.

James Gowans is a fellow Canadian and he’s been doing some pretty stellar stuff online for a while. But his interactions over at App.net (you can follow him here) really helped me take even more notice of who he is and what he does. He has experimented using his iPhone with as little beyond the stock apps as possible, chronicling his progress over at his blog.1 James is one Canuck I’ve yet to have a beer with (although he did recommend a fine one to me this year), and in 2013 I am going to make every effort to make that beer drinking excursion happen.

Over at The Geek’s Companion, Devir Kahan has been posting more and more interesting stuff as the year went by. He adds a completely different voice to my RSS feed because of how he approaches what he offers, and I think that 2013 will be an even better year for Devir and his site – he’s one you should definitely watch..

Discovered rather late in 2012, Nick Wynja has made a serious impact on what I read – because I’m reading more of what he delivers (which hasn’t happened very often in recent years with many people). His blog, Hack/Make is truly excellent; the design and content are top-notch. I’m so glad I found his work, and while I don’t let many sites infiltrate my inbox, Nick’s is one that not only lands there – it gets read there.

Cal Newport has been someone I’ve read for a long time, but his latest book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, made such a strong impact on me in the later part of the year that he simply has to be on this list. Not that he didn’t deserve to be on both the 2010 and 2011 lists, but this year he was just so good that he couldn’t be ignored by those well beyond my level either. Cal is incredibly smart and insightful – and he unleashes content that is profoundly powerful every time he hits “publish” on his blog. If you’ve yet to get his latest book, you need to do so. If you’ve yet to subscribe to his blog, you need to do so. He is just too damn good at what he says and does to be ignored by anyone.

1 I’m a fan of experiments, as you know.

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A Different Take on Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day in Canada.

It’s a day where many Canadians hit the malls and box stores searching for bargain prices for the gifts that they either failed to get other in time (read: non-productivityists) or failed to get themselves. I am not likely to take part in the traditional practices of Boxing Day, mainly because I have my own ritual that I undertake: I start to reflect on the year gone by – and the boxes I checked off during the past year – so I can make sure I can check off the right boxes in the year to come.

This kind of practice is different than establishing new year resolutions – because I simply start to reflect – I don’t establish any resolutions per se. If anything, I begin to shape the year to come by starting my January a little bit earlier than most. I don’t start my year in January. I’d say I use it as a transitional month instead. I don’t take on new massive projects. I don’t set goals for the entire year. I don’t do anything of the sort.

I simply recharge.

Today I’ll be looking back at the boxes I checked off and I’ll see how much further they have taken me. I’ll also see – if applicable – how much they have set me back. Then I’ll adjust accordingly. I’ve got the time and space to do so – and I’ve set myself up in such a way that I’ve got clarity because I’m not looking to set anything else up over the next 30-odd days – I’m setting things aside instead.

Remember when we were kids and we spent this day reveling in what we had? And I’m not saying it’s what we just received, either. I’m saying what we received and what we already had received in the days, months, and years prior. I can recall playing with all of the great new Star Wars toys I had just received in tandem with the ones I’d already added to my collection in the past – and the experience wouldn’t have been the same with either one of those ingredients missing.

Enjoy what you have and where you are. Look back to what got you there and where you were. Without doing both, you won’t have the bigger picture in mind…which is exactly what you need to make marked progress.

So instead of braving the malls and shopping, be brave and start reflecting. You’ll get far more value for your time – not just today, but for the days, months, and years to come.

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A Very Merry Christmas Indeed: The Front Nine is Now Available

Today’s a big day for a lot of people all over the world. This year, however, Christmas is especially big. That’s because today also marks the release date of my first e-book published through a manner other than on my own.

Today is the day that my e-book The Front Nine: How to Start the Year You Want Anytime You Want hits the virtual shelves.

And you can order it here.

I’ve written about the book on many occasions here (and you’ll even find some nuggets from this very website that made it into the book), but today is the first day that it’s been made available to the public.

Writing a book is hard. But another challenge for me is about to begin: promoting it. And I could really use your help to get the word out and sell a bunch of copies. (I mean, those new Kindles and iPads that people received today need to have some content put on them, right?)

I’ve never been great at asking for help from friends, but I’m trying to get over that and ask point blank if you can do whatever you can to help me out.

If you plan to use Twitter to help spread the word, I’ve tried to make it a bit simpler for you by providing some sample tweets to use below:

Looking for an e-book to put on your new Kindle or iPad? Pick up The Front Nine by @mikevardy http://mikevardy.com/thefrontnine Click to tweet thisWant to start the year you want anytime you want? The Front Nine by @mikevardy can help http://mikevardy.com/thefrontnine Click to tweet thisWant next year to be your year? The Front Nine by @mikevardy is a great place to start. http://mikevardy.com/thefrontnine Click to tweet this

You can also put together anything else you’d like, and I’m using the hashtag #front9book to help with tracking.

The book is available in a variety of formats for your e-reading device of choice — and pricing will vary depending on which store you buy it from (although all have been under $5 USD). It’s been available for pre-order for iDevices for about a week now – and I’d like to offer thanks to those of you who went ahead and picked up a copy or two. I truly appreciate it.

There’s not much else I want to say about the book today. It’s out, and I certainly don’t expect a ton of purchases to happen today – it is Christmas after all. But if you find the time to spread the word anytime between now and January 1st, I’d be grateful. I really do think there’s some stuff within the digital pages of The Front Nine that can help people get their productive footing on whatever they want, whenever they want.

Thanks for your support during my writing of The Front Nine – and thanks for reading my work here and elsewhere. I wish you and yours all the best today and in the days and years to come.

Happy holidays!

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Take it Slow

This week isn’t your typical week. So take it slow.

Still, you might feel the pull of your to-do list. But still…take it slow.

The quietude may be unsettling, and leave you jittery. Notice it…but take it slow.

Enjoy the downtime. Take it slow.

You’ll have time to get up to speed once you’ve taken care of the time you need.

Take this week…and take it slow.

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How My Minutes Fits Into My Workflow

Ever since I wrote about my workflow apps over at The Next Web, I’ve been working on writing up how I use them here at Productivityist.com. Next up on my list is an app that combines the timing power of 30/30 with the goal tracking elelemtns of Lift (but without the social sharing). My Minutes is the app that lets me track the amount of time I spend working on what Cal Newport calls “deliberate practice” (in a book I mention quite a bit here because it is so good that it can’t be ignored).

My Minutes is basically the third app I use in my regular workflow, with my task management apps coming up first in line followed by 30/30 afterward. Any of the things I list in 30/30 that are tasks I want to focus on improving on – such as writing for this site or playing the guitar – are also placed in My Minutes. The tasks that go in My Minutes are ones that I intend to work on consistently – tasks that require deeper work to get better and better at so that means it will take time to do so.

For example, you can see I’ve got four of the things I want to spend time in deliberate practice on in the image below.

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With My Minutes I can set a time limit for each, decide whether I want to spend “at least” a certain amount of time on them or cap the amount of time spent on them, and also select what days of the week I’ll be doing this. Every time I reach one of those goal times, one of the 7 dots displayed beneath a task will turn green. If I don’t, it will turn red. And if you’re big on notifications, My Minutes can keep you on track by reminding you what you need to do at the start of your day and give you “running notifications” during your day as you hit – or near – milestones.

While you can leave the app and work on other things on your iPhone, you can’t work on more than one task within My Minutes. I think that is one of the best aspects of the app – you can only get better when you focus on one thing at a time. (The little quotes at the bottom of the timing screen are a nice touch as well.)

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Cal recommends keeping a spreadsheet to tally your deliberate hours of practice, but with My Minutes I need not be so regimented with that. At the end of the week, I just look at my dots and add that to a spreadsheet instead. I usually do this when I’m doing my Weekly Review, as I’m in the right mindset for that sort of thing during that time.

My Minutes is simple and effective, and allows me to be simply more effective when working on mastering skills and getting better at getting the right stuff done. My Minutes actually allows me to take back some of that lost time and make it my own once again.

I suggest you give it a look and see if it can do the same for you.

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A Case for Getting Personal with Productivity

Productivity is a very personal topic for me. At times it has gotten too personal, but that has helped me develop such a close understanding with the art and craft of personal productivity. It’s what has helped me become a productivityist. Task management apps have simply helped me along the way.

Now I’ve made no secret about the fact that I’ve used numerous task management apps – I’ve gone through a similar journey as Gabe over at Macdrifter is writing about as of late. I am able to move between them – either by abandoning them or simply testing them and using them for specific purposes – because “what’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander”, as they say. Apps like Asana come to mind, along with IQTELL. I’ve used Things and The Hit List, and I pay for and use Flow.

I test apps. I play with them. I even have a workflow set up so that when I do use a new task management app, I can copy and paste the details of that workflow in there so that each one is evaluated on on an even playing field. It took me a while to get the place I’m at now, where I can shift almost seamlessly from app to app. I think that a lot of it has to do with what Cal Newport wrote about this week: I use the apps I’m testing for the shallow work. I use the ones I’ve added to be workflow for the deeper work

So what task management apps allow me to do the deeper work?

For individual task management, I always come back to OmniFocus. I like having a separate app for myself and myself alone. I like how OmniFocus gives me both the time and space I need to create – the things I need to make great work happen. I think that adding a collaborative component would take that much-needed space that I need, which would result in a lack of focus. I’ll leave my collaborative task management to the apps that do those well (such as the aforementioned ones) and let OmniFocus be my productivity safe haven. So my deeper work generally begins with capture and ends with a checkmark in OmniFocus. As for the other apps in my workflow that help me get the deeper work done…I’ve written about them over at The Next Web.

There’s nothing wrong with using multiple tools as long they are being used with the purest of intentions in mind. Going against that mindset will result in failed experimentations (see my Evernote experiment) and friction that simply is there of your own design. I use all of my tools for the reasons I use them. I know what they are to be used for and i use them for that. My goal – to put it in lifehacking terms – is to hack life, not hack the things that hack life. A productivityist’s goal is to be productive…not do productive.

This week on Mikes on Mics, we spoke with Ken Case (CEO of The Omni Group) and the conversation revolved around the current iteration of OmniFocus…and even waded into the waters of what we might be able to expect from Omnifocus 2. You can listen to Episode 47 of the Mikes on Mics podcast here.

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4 Paragraphs on The 4-Hour Chef

I’m not going to detail a lot that The 4-Hour Chef (Hardcover link|Kindle link) covers, or the review would take 4 hours to read. So I’ve decided to condense my thoughts to a snack-sized format of 4 paragraphs. Here we go…

Timothy Ferriss’s latest book isn’t so much a guidebook on how to become a chef in 4 hours. It’s more about getting to an expert level at a variety of things in a short period of time using a variety of techniques. From learning to build a fire by thinking in reverse to learning how to cook a gourmet meal in less time than ever before, The 4-Hour Chef has a lot packed into it.

Ferriss is definitely a larger than life figure. I had the opportunity to watch him facilitate his 4-Hour Life creativeLIVE workshop and he not only talks the talk, he walks the walk. The 4-Hour Chef demonstrates this in spades.

After reading both The 4-Hour Work Week and The 4-Hour Body, I can safely say that The 4-Hour Chef resonated the most with me. The book has a lot in it to digest (pardon the pun), but it’s well worth devouring every word.

The post 4 Paragraphs on The 4-Hour Chef appeared first on Productivityist.

Home

I’m writing this late in the evening…shortly after I returned home.

I spent the later part of tonight with a good friend, listening to a live bluegrass band. I had nachos. I drank some beer – two to be exact. I had a great time.

But when I got home, I realized that going out tonight truly made me appreciate what I’ve got going on here. If anything, by going out for the night I was better able to recognize that I was balancing – or shifting – things quite well.

So whenever you feel like things are getting out of whack, whenever things are not aligned with what you really want…go home. Because as clichéd as it sounds…home is where the heart is.

The post Home appeared first on Productivityist.