Alexandersmap

    Tag: Productivity

    • The Bridge of Process

      “We’re not going to talk about what we’re going to accomplish. We’re going to talk about how we’re going to do it.” — Nick Saban

      I’d like to finish writing a book I’d started a while ago. I put it aside, changed media, lost said media, started over again, and here we are with an unfinished work. It will remain unfinished unless I bridge the gap between dream and reality with action. Otherwise it’s simply another unfulfilled wish that peters out one day along with all the other things we said to ourselves we were going to do one day. And so we must build a bridge of process that gets us from here to there and do the work every day to reach the other side.

      I thought it prudent to spend this summer getting fit again. I set a goal weight a week before an important date on my summer calendar and worked backwards to create a plan to get there. I’m nine days into the routine and seven pounds lighter. That’s good progress and well ahead of pace, but nothing to celebrate yet. The celebration will be on that important date after I’ve crossed this bridge. And this fitness plan I’m on is all process too. When we do what we tell ourselves to do, we reach the goals we want to accomplish. Simple, really, and yet so hard.

      We can’t control so much of what is happening in the world right now. We can get spun up about that and drift away from the focus required to reach our goals, or we can simply look at what’s next in our plan and execute on it. When we are process-oriented we filter out much of what we cannot control and just do the next thing we said we were going to do, then the next, and before we know it we’ve gotten somewhere closer to what we set out for.

      I began writing this blog for reasons I’ve covered many times in the process of writing it. It’s so much a part of my identity now that I hardly think about it unless the day is getting on and I’m feeling that bit of anxiety creeping in, telling me I haven’t published yet. And so I carve out some time no matter how busy I am and focus on writing the best possible thing I can muster given the circumstances. These blog posts will outlive me, and the Internet doesn’t care how busy I was in the moment. But the underlying process brought me to a place where writing it is so much a part of the identity I chose for myself that I’ll get it done again and again.

      When we stop talking about what we’re going to do and simply focus on the process to get to where we want to be something amazing happens. We actually start bridging that gap we once thought too far to get across. Once crossed, we can set our sights on something even more audacious, and keep crossing chasms again and again, far beyond what we once believed possible. Stop focusing on the gap, focus on the bridge.

    • Time Travel

      As we speak cruel time is fleeing.  Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow.” 
                                                                                            – Horace

      “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn

      January 4th.  Working this week is almost as challenging as working last week was.  Short weeks are always tough, but add in that most people are on vacation or working on their plan for the year and the productivity in a given week goes out the window.  Working the tools of the trade – Salesforce CRM, bullet journal, Getting Things Done methodology – helps but some weeks are more off the rails than others.  I’ve entered the Friday afternoon Bermuda Triangle of productivity.  I look up and it’s after 3 PM and I’ve checked one out of five boxes on my bullet journal to-do list.

      I’ve tried many methods, but to me the Bullet Journal combined with GTD methodology is working the best for me.  If I had all the money I spent on productivity tools over the years I’d be able to retire early.  Best to keep it simple.  Right it down immediately in a bullet form, cross it off when you finish it, move it forward if you don’t.  Keep it simple…

      For a short, unfocused week, I’ve managed to get a few things done.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty to do, but you need to celebrate the small successes when you achieve them.  After all, there’s always something else that needs to be done.  If you waited until it was all done you’d never celebrate anything.