In the popular productivity bible, Getting Things Done, Dave Allen suggests writing everything down on a notepad so you won’t forget.  The purpose, according to Allen, is to take the burden off your memory.  While I think this is important, it only touches on one of the reasons to write things down.

Writing Keeps You Aware

Writing focuses your thinking.  When you write something down, you aren’t just creating a paper record, you’re changing the way you think about it.  Writing down a goal changes a whim into a conviction.  Writing down your expenses changes excessive spending from a bad habit to a conscious choice.  Writing down your idea turns a vague suggestion into a clear concept.

Writing is like an upgrade to your thinking.  In the normal flow of thought, you can’t edit typos and make adjustments.  If you get distracted, it can be hard to return to your place.  And since your short term memory is only about 5-9 items long, you can’t think over more complex ideas.

When you start writing things down, you have an upgraded level of thinking about them.  Writing things down makes you more aware of opportunities and problems, like a temporary boost to your IQ.

The Virtue Isn’t in a Record

Over half the things I write down, I never look at again.  For the other half, about three quarters of those, I’ll only look at once or twice, usually briefly.  Only a small amount of the things I write down are needed for keeping records I’ll look at repeatedly.

If you’re stuck in the record-keeping mindset, writing everything down won’t make sense.  It just doesn’t seem practical to write down every idea, expense, meal or to-do item. But, if you appreciate the role writing plays in keeping you focused, you can see why it is valuable, even if you throw away the writing soon afterwards.

What Should I Write Down?

Obviously you can’t write down everything.  You can’t write down everything said in a conversation.  Writing down everything you eat or everything you do can eat up a lot of time.  Writing is valuable because it forces you to focus, so writing down everything would ruin the purpose.

You should write down anything you feel needs more clarity.  If your finances aren’t doing well and you want more clarity, start writing down everything you spend money on and all of your income.  If your studying habits need work, start writing down when you study, what you studied and for how long.  If you keep getting distracted on important goals, write them down too.

Writing is sort of a universal productivity tool.  It can focus your thinking in just about anything, so using it frequently is a good way to stay focused.  Even something as simple as writing down when you procrastinate can be enough to stop it.

Where Do You Need to Focus?

If something is important and worth getting done, it is probably worth writing down.  Ask yourself what things could use more focus in your life.  Writing isn’t an instant cure that will immediately make you more productive.  But it makes you far more aware of what needs to be done and how well you are doing it.

The first time I started writing out exactly what I needed to do, I finished three times as much work.  When I started writing out my goals, I was able to focus on them far more than when they were just in my head.  I’ve also found writing down my expenses, how I use my time or what I eat to increase my awareness of any problems.

If there is a part of your life that is unknown, inconsistent or in poor shape, you should consider writing more down about it.  Write down ideas and make records while you’re working on it, and spend time writing your thoughts when you’re taking a break.  If you can keep writing for a few weeks, it can reveal solutions to problems you didn’t even realize you had before.

I suggest committing yourself to writing something down for at least a month.  Writing isn’t a natural habit, we weren’t born with the skill and it’s one of the first pieces of technology we had developed.  As a result, if you don’t commit to continuing it for a few weeks, you probably will return to relying only on your short-term memory.  Thinking is good, but writing plus thinking is even better.

Don’t try to write down everything.  Pick just a handful of things you want to keep your focus on.  And if you’re planning on making a commitment to write, you will probably want to write that down too.

Life is full of contradictions.  People say they want health food, but McDonalds still makes billions of dollars each year.  People say they want to work satisfying jobs, but end up chasing after the biggest paycheck.  People say they want news on world affairs, but tune into 24/7 coverage of Anna Nicole Smith.

I’m no different.  I have plenty of contradictions between what I truly believe and how I behave.  And I think anyone who says they don’t is lying to themselves.  Practicing what you preach isn’t easy.  It may be impossible to do it completely.

But even if you can’t escape the contradictions of modern living, you can lessen their impact.  You can consult what you know to be true, and use that to guide you, instead of rationalizing your behavior and living a lie.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is a fancy psychological term for something incredibly simple: when people hold two contradicting ideas, their minds start to fry.  This can be something simple like, “I believe health is important” and “I just finished eating a bag of potato chips.”

Your mind can’t handle the contradiction, as a result it has to go through one of two directions.  The first is rationalizing: “I deserve the bag of chips, it’s been a hard day.”  This is the easiest option, but it has long-term consequences.  Eliezer Yudkowsky has said, “Rationalization is an odd word, because it has nothing to do with thinking rationality.  It’s like calling lying ‘truthification’.”  Whenever you start rationalizing a decision, you’re taken a shortcut that might make you feel better, but often ends in a poor choice.

The second option when you face a contradiction is to realize that one of the two ideas is false.  Either your belief that something is true is mistaken, or your behavior was incorrect.  Either you don’t believe health is important, or you shouldn’t have eaten that bag of potato chips.

I think this second direction is much harder to accomplish than rationalization, and why it’s easier to rationalize a mistake than it is to use that mistake to make changes.

Start With the Truth…

You can resolve a lot of personal conflicts by starting with a simple question: “What is true?”

Based on your personal experience and knowledge, ask yourself what is true.  Answer this question before you factor in your current behavior.  If you feel drinking or smoking is bad for you, recognize this first.  You can worry about your habits later, the first step in fixing a contradiction always has to be with your current beliefs.

It’s important to recognize what is true, even if you’re powerless to change it.  You might hate your job, but be completely financially committed to stay there.  That’s okay, it’s better to know the truth of your position than to constantly lie to yourself that it isn’t so bad, or that work is supposed to be distasteful.

Resolving contradictions can be hard, because most people try to prevent any gaps in their behavior and beliefs.  So if they can’t change their behavior, they sacrifice their beliefs, lying to themselves about what they know to be true.  This is why separating the truth-acknowledging step from the behavior-changing step is so important.

…Then Fix the Habits

Once you fully acknowledge what you know to be true, you can start the process of changing your behaviors.  This isn’t easy.  Changing habits can be difficult, especially when the habit has been interlinked into much of your life.

It can be even more difficult to fix situations that are based on more than just behavior.  A job isn’t just a habit, it’s also a financial commitment that can be difficult to sever, especially if you don’t have the resources to.

However, the job of practicing what you believe becomes infinitely easier if you have first acknowledged the truth of the situation.  If you can realize the truth, you will eventually adjust your behavior and life to coincide with it–even if that is difficult at first.

Begin With Little Steps

I made the switch to a vegetarian diet three years ago after reading The China Study and similar books emphasizing the health and ecological benefits.  (Don’t worry if you’re a carnivore, I’m not interested in changing your mind.)  Before I made the switch, I still ate a lot of meat.  As soon as I realized I believed it was healthier, and that health was important to me, I didn’t magically change.  It took time to shift my behaviors and habits towards what I felt to be true.

The same thing happened when I first learned about running an online business.  I didn’t immediately change all my plans and start building a business.  It took time and patience to change my goals and even longer to succeed at it.

I think the most important step to fixing your contradictions is to realize you have them.  Many people rationalize them away so there is never a gap between behavior and truth.  Only the people who have gaps, the ones who aren’t living at their ideal capacity, are the people who can grow and improve.

If you perfectly practice what you preach, then you probably aren’t doing either very well.

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Like it or not, life is sales. Even if you aren’t anywhere near the sales department in your work, I’d bet that almost every day you need to persuade, convince or find an agreement with another person.

A key sales (and life) lesson is simply this: just because you don’t get a response, that doesn’t mean the other person isn’t interested. Although we all dislike the pushy salesperson who goes for the hard sell at our expense, I’d say the majority of people are too passive. The assumption usually is: if people don’t respond immediately or come to me, it means they aren’t interested in what I have to offer.

I can think of countless examples where this kind of flawed thinking plagues people:

• The person who assumes nobody wants to talk with him because he sits quietly in a corner during a party.
• The person who thinks that her offer is not wanted because the email wasn’t replied to.
• The person who believes he isn’t wanted at an event, because he didn’t receive an invitation.
• The person who feels the customer isn’t interested because she didn’t reply to the first sales message.

I think there are some reasons people are biased towards being too passive (more on that later), but I think the effect can be dangerous. By misunderstanding the feedback given, many people give up too early in going after what they want, and assume a lack of encouragement is a sign of failure.

Lessons in Fundraising

I spent the past summer as a volunteer, seeking sponsorship dollars for University events. In many cases I needed to call, email or voicemail a dozen times before I would hear a response back. However, when I finally did reach the person I wanted to speak with, that person was often happy to participate in the program.

My instincts told me not to step on toes. If I left one voicemail, missed call or email message, that should be enough to compel the other person to want to speak with me. I felt it would be rude to contact multiple times without hearing a response.

My instincts were wrong. People are busy. Unless something is a personal priority, it can often take several messages, several contacts before you can get a response. And, when you do reach the person, they aren’t angry at your persistence, they are usually thankful for your extra persistence.

Although I learned this in fundraising, I believe it applies almost anywhere. How many times can you remember yourself stopping because you didn’t immediately receive a, “yes”?

How Not to Be a Spam Artist

I’ll admit, there is a danger here. Be too aggressive and you become a spam artist. You become the guy (or gal) who invites himself to parties where he isn’t wanted. You become the obnoxious Lothario who won’t back off.

I don’t think the solution is to just go in the middle ground. Whenever there is a compromise, you lose something, and I think this is no different.  I think if you follow just a few simple rules of thumb, you can have the enthusiasm and zeal to go for what you want, while respecting the interests of other people.

Here are a few of my personal rules:

Never invest less in an interaction than the other person.  If you want something, commit the time. Sending a bulk email to 100 recipients is easy, and that’s exactly why most people ignore them. Handwritten notes, personal calls and emails you write individually all show you care about the interaction and not just the success percentage.

No means no. While no response doesn’t mean you should give up, always allow the option of a clear no. I suspect most people wouldn’t care as much about spam if the “Unsubscribe” links actually worked. When fundraising, I would be persistent in my calls, but I backed off as soon as I had an unambiguous answer.

Provide an exit. Don’t corner people. Give them a polite, socially acceptable option of refusal. Some marketers and salespeople twist the social norms to make it difficult to get out of an interaction. Success coerced isn’t success at all.

Always provide a fair deal. In an equal transaction (where you offer as much value as you take), there should be no need to feel guilty. It’s the times when you offer less than you’re asking for that being pushy isn’t ethical.

Beyond Selling

I think this idea has merit beyond the world of sales and persuading other people. I believe it is an idea that fits with how life often works.

Think about the last time you gave up on a project because you were getting mixed feedback.  You assumed that a lack of response meant a lack of interest. When often, a lack of response simply means a lack of persistence on your side. Many goals, even those you eventually achieve, have moments where it seems like you aren’t making any progress.

The people who succeed in life are the same people who don’t give up before they hear a clear “no”. Even if you aren’t remotely involved in sales or marketing professionally, be the kind of person who doesn’t leave before a decision is made. If you want something, go after it, and don’t let mixed feedback stop you.

“I’m too busy to exercise.”

Even if it were true, it isn’t a reasonable excuse. Exercise gives you more energy to do work. In many ways, most people are too busy not to exercise. But still, a lot of people feel they don’t have time for starting new habits like exercise, reading or doing extra work. Being able to find time is a big obstacle in starting new habits.

I’d like to make two arguments. These are generalizations, so while they may not be true in specific cases, I’d say they apply to most people, most of the time.

1. Time is never the most limited resource in your day.
2. A lack of attention, not time, is what prevents you from adding new habits.

You Have Enough Time

Even when you’re extremely busy, you aren’t using your time with 100% efficiency. There are gaps in everyone’s schedule where they aren’t doing anything important. Even if your schedule has no gaps, there are probably chunks of time where you aren’t working as fast or as effectively as you possibly could.

Why aren’t you completely efficient? It’s because time isn’t the limiting factor. If it were the limiting factor, people could work non-stop without breaks or any unproductive distractions. Instead people, even those who are highly productive, need to take breaks, occasionally procrastinate and slow down on tasks throughout the day.

The real limiting factor for productivity is your energy levels and ability to pay attention. Energy levels limit your productivity because when you’re tired, you can have ample time and still not get everything done. Your attention span is even more limited, because even if there are a million things that need to be done, you can only focus on one or two at a time.

You might not be able to insert another 4-5 hours into your schedule without making some sacrifices. But even extremely busy people can add an hour or two into their schedule without eliminating something. The reason it’s hard to “find time” isn’t a lack of time. It’s because you don’t have the attention span left to focus on something else that needs to fit into your day.

I first suspected time wasn’t the real problem during an extremely busy period in my life over a year ago. I was insanely busy, but at this time I still exercised regularly. I had daily to-do lists with over twenty items, and I still found time to exercise.

However, after a few weeks off, due to illness, I stopped exercising. I was not busy by any standards, in fact, my schedule was incredibly light. Despite this free time, I found it hard to find time to exercise. It seemed to get pushed later and later into my schedule until it was gone. How could I explain this odd experience?

Paying Attention is Expensive

Some studies estimate that there are close to eleven thousand sensory inputs into your brain during any second, but you only process around forty consciously. This means out of everything you could be thinking about, you are reduced to examining less than one percent.

Even when you do think, you’re handicapped. Your short-term memory, or active memory, can only hold about 7 items at a time (why do you think phone numbers are typically 7 digits long?). Your attention is extremely limited, and given the amount of things you do each day, paying attention is very expensive.

I believe this lack of attention is the main culprit in finding time for new habits. You may have very little time, but you have even less attention. Even if you could find an hour or two to spare for exercising, reading or a new activity, it’s mentally costly to keep reminding yourself to do it. New habits have a start-up cost that you pay with attention.

Finding Time for New Habits

There isn’t much you can do to free up more attention. But you can be smart in your usage of it. Forming a habit makes continuing much easier because, after several weeks, you stop thinking about it. My exercise during the busy period in my life was easy because it no longer required thought. When I stopped for a few weeks, I suddenly needed reminders, which made finding time more difficult.

You can reduce the attention needed to start a new habit by writing it down. Write it into your to-do lists, and place it on Post Its around your house. If you allow the environment to remind you of your habit, you can cut down on the amount of internal attention you need to use to remember it.

The best way to find time is to focus on it. If you can focus on a new habit for a few weeks, you can find the attention to make it a habit. Once exercise, reading, studying or whatever you want to do becomes a habit, it won’t cost you anything to keep going. Attention is the currency of productivity, so if you want to find time for anything, find the energy to pay attention first.

Studying for exams, freelance contracts or working on bigger projects can mean freedom with your schedule. But it can also mean procrastination, stress from deadlines and an organizing nightmare. Working on your own schedule can be easier. However, there are more ways to waste your time if you aren’t being paid by the hour.

Setting Up Your Work Schedule

Whenever you start a new project, start taking classes again, or simply run into a block of flexible work time, you will need to set up a schedule. A good schedule is one that accomplishes the work you need to do and you actually stick to it. Unfortunately many people forget the second step and make impossible schedules that would require a machine to follow.

If you need to set up a new work routine, I prefer the top-down approach. The top-down approach focuses you on deciding what work needs to be done, and by what deadlines. Once you know the time limit for the work you need to do, this automatically creates the pressure to come up with a productive schedule.

Many people, however, try to go the bottom-up approach when they need to structure their time. They start by setting aside blocks of time, and micro-managing how time will be allocated to different tasks. This method only ensures you spend a lot of time working. It doesn’t ensure you get a lot of work finished. Bottom-up approaches make it easy to waste time, and they can cause stress if your work doesn’t fit neatly into your pre-arranged schedule.

Avoiding the Bottom-Up Curse

Students often take the bottom-up approach with their study habits. They start by defining how many hours a day they need to “study”. This is a recipe for wasting hundreds of hours re-reading textbooks in the library.

Although it’s less obvious, a top-down method would make studying more productive. If you started by defining the grades you want, then moved down to what you need to know, then moved down to a list of tasks and activities designed to learn that knowledge, you wouldn’t need to assign arbitrary hours for “studying” in the library.

Students aren’t the only people who get trapped in a bottom-up method. Bottom-up approaches are popular whenever the actual work tasks are vague and finishing points are not clear. If your job is to improve the performance of a website, for example, it seems easier to start with a certain schedule of working each day, rather than tasks and projects with specific deadlines.

Scheduling Freedom = Productive Laziness

Another trap that is easy to fall into when you control your own schedule is to assume that the time spent not working, is unproductive. While hours spent not working may be frowned upon by employers who pay by the hour, it isn’t important when you control your own schedule.

The only thing that matters when you control your schedule, is whether the work gets done.

If you aren’t able to meet the deadlines you set, you aren’t being productive. It doesn’t matter whether you spend ten hours a day working, either the deadlines are unrealistic or you aren’t working effectively. But the opposite is also true. If you’re meeting your deadlines, working fewer hours each day isn’t something to be worried about.

Setting Up a Top-Down Schedule

Setting up a work routine from the top down, means you need to start with your end results. If you’re working for an employer or client, those will probably be given to you. The end result is the completion of your project or reaching a specific target set by your employer.

If you’re a student on you are working on your own projects, this means you need to figure out what the final outcome should be. If you can clearly define this as a starting point, you can work backwards to figure out the tasks and deadlines you need to set in order to reach it.

Part of the challenge can be picking an end result. If your job is increasing traffic for a website, you might want a million visitors a day. But that might not be realistic if you’re only getting a few thousand a month. Picking an end result means cutting off vague possibilities and creating one target.

Once you have the end result, you need to work backwards setting milestones and tasks designed to reach that target. Except for goals that are completely within your control, this will often mean adjusting the plan frequently to meet your milestones and deadlines.

At the end of the process, you should end up with a list of tasks. For projects completely under your control, like writing a book or finishing a design, the tasks to complete won’t change much from your initial plans. For goals that have some uncertainty, such as getting A’s or increasing website traffic, the tasks may vary from the initial plan as you get more feedback.

When you end up with a list of tasks, you have the chance to be far more productive than with a bottom-up set of assigned hours. You can work whenever you want, with flexibility, but you stay accountable to the end result. Working on your own schedule can have challenges, but it also gives you the opportunity to do more while working fewer hours.

Everyone can get into a rut. What starts as one day where you don’t get much done, can turn into a week or two. Avoiding these streaks of laziness is the best solution, but what can you do when you’re stuck?

Getting Unstuck

The best way to get unstuck is to figure out how you got stuck in the first place. If you drive your car into a snowbank, the best way to get out is to get outside and look at the problem. But despite this suggestion, the first reaction is often to step on the gas, wasting more energy as you get even more stuck.

There are many ways you can get yourself into a streak of laziness. But I’ve found there are three big culprits that often cause you to get stuck, even though most people only blame one of them.

#1 – Low Energy

A common source of laziness is simply being drained. This is a silent cause of getting stuck, because human’s aren’t equipped with a fuel gauge. Until you’ve been running on empty for miles, it’s often hard to see that your procrastination is caused by a lack of fuel.

Whenever I’ve been stuck for more than a few days in a row, there are a few questions I try to ask myself to see whether a lack of energy is the problem:

• Have my eating or exercising habits changed in the last month? Even small changes can lead to an impact in your energy levels that you might not notice immediately.
• Have my sleeping patterns changed in the last month? Fewer hours of sleep or lower quality sleep can mean you start each day with less energy.
• Have other areas of my life added extra stress? Unfortunately, you’re only drawing fuel out of one tank, so if one area of your life is siphoning it away, you won’t have much left.

The solution to a low energy crisis is to fix whatever is the source of the drain. This isn’t always easy to do, but sometimes it is necessary. If you’re not getting enough sleep, you might need to set that as a priority before you try to drive out of your slump.

#2 – Forgotten Motivation

Why are you doing this again? Every project usually begins with inspiration. However, if you’re working the same tasks for months, some of the initial motivation for starting might be gone. Your big plans get replaced with smaller frustrations and it can be hard to find the motivation to keep going.

If there were good reasons to get started, there are probably good reasons to continue. Spending time to go through those reasons again can help you bring back your past motivation. If you’ve been stuck for more than a few days, this is a step that can’t be easily washed over. I’d suggest spending at least an hour or two going through your plans, long-term vision and initial motivation before you try to get unstuck.

Sometimes, however you’ll try to retrace your initial motivation and realize it’s not there. In this case, you stumble onto the third culprit for a slump.

#3 – It’s Not Worth It

You don’t like the work. You can’t see a long-term vision from the work. You can’t find a reason to be productive. This is a genuine reason to be in a slump. While a lack of energy or motivation can be a temporary road block, when you face this challenge, you truly are stuck.

When you reach this point, I think there are only two choices you can make in order to get unstuck:

1. Quit.
2. Keep going, but design your exit strategy.

The first solution is just to quit right there. I’ve done this before on project where the motivating reasons to continue couldn’t be found again. I’ve also done this with jobs that I had no motivating reasons to get started in the first place. Quitting isn’t a dishonorable move when staying means you’re draining your life away.

Unfortunately, quitting may not be so easy. Even if you can’t find an inspiring long-term vision connected to the work, you might be attached for short-term reasons. When this happens, many people try to ignore the long-term desert staying affords them and grudgingly accept what needs to be done.

I don’t think ignoring is an option. If you ignore your slump will only get worse. It may even get worse to the point that you can’t even continue your work for short-term reasons.

I think the only acceptable third-alternative is to continue for the short-term, but plan an exit strategy. If you’re in a career you don’t like, this might mean something drastic like getting new training on the side. If your crisis is smaller, it might mean finishing a project that drains you by planning a better project on the side.

If you can fit your current situation into your long-term vision via an exit strategy, you have a chance to get out of your slump. When I needed to take work I didn’t enjoy before I could support myself through a small business, I used my exit strategy as a means of motivating myself throughout the unenjoyable work.

I’ve listed the three major culprits of a slump in this order, because I think they are the order you need to check. Not every slump is a crisis that means you hate your work. It can be, but I’ve found being drained or temporarily losing your motivation can be equal enemies in a slump.

Image by kygp.

Some Selfish Reasons to Listen More

It’s easy to think of the selfless reasons to listen. People want you to listen to them. By listening, you can help someone with a problem, or help them come up with new ideas. But listening also has selfish benefits that make it worth the investment.

The biggest selfish benefit is that you learn more with your mouth closed. You’ll learn more about other people, and often, about yourself, if you stop talking. Those ideas are useful if you want to improve yourself. Going without feedback is improving in a vacuum, it’s almost impossible to do.

Listening also helps you think. When you’re truly listening, not just waiting for your turn to speak, you can chew over your ideas more. You can mull on points of the conversation longer. In the end, you’ll appear a lot wiser if you explain a fully-digested point of view, than if you just blurt out the first response that comes to mind.

Building the listening habit also makes better friends than trying to be an impressive conversationalist. People like the guy who listens more than the guy with the best jokes or funniest anecdotes. Be interested, rather than interesting.

How to Build the Listening Habit

The amount you talk is a function of your conversation style. Some people won’t have trouble holding back comments and can easily listen in a conversation. If you’re like me, you’re instinct is to treat conversations like a battleground, loading ammunition and firing ideas to match the wits of whoever you’re competing against. Unfortunately, unless you meet up with a person of the same style, the other person may have to surrender to your barrage of comments.

Building the listening habit doesn’t come easily to everyone. But, even if you never run out of things to say, you can improve. I’ve used a few strategies to become a better listener that you may find useful.

Bait Them

If the person you’re talking with doesn’t feel too chatty, bait them with a comment. Throw something at them which will make it easy for them to talk. The most common route for this is to ask them questions about themselves. “Me” tends to be the most popular subject, so getting a person to talk about themselves is an easy target for conversations.

Going the “me” route isn’t always the best strategy. If the conversation steers away from things you both have in common, you may have a hard time listening. It’s hard to have a twenty minute conversation with a sailing enthusiast if you’ve never been on a boat before.

In those cases, I suggest picking conversation points which are easy to relate to. This will be different in each person, but sports, travel or work can all be common threads.

Master the Short Anecdote

I remember being taught that listening was making comments like, “I see,” and “Uh-huh,” while nodding my head. This is one of the worst ways to carry on a conversation. Listening shouldn’t force the other person to do a monologue.

A better strategy to listen is to master the short anecdote. This is a 2-3 sentence comment on something that the other person has said. If they are telling a long explanation of their work as an accountant, you could comment on someone you know that does accounting or something you know about accounting.

Short anecdotes are better than blanket signs of listening (“I see…”) for a few reasons:

1. They break up the conversation. You give the person long enough to think of new ideas, without hijacking the conversation thread.

2. They show you are genuinely listening. You can make blanket statements without actually hearing anything. Short anecdotes show you are actively listening to the other person.

3. They give the other person a chance to conclude or switch topics. Instead of letting a conversation die off, small comments offer the opportunity for that person to switch topics without an awkward pause.

Watch the Conversation Balance

If you’re having a longer conversation, pay attention to how long you talk. If you notice you’re starting to dominate the conversation, step back and bait the other person. This way you can sit back and listen.

All of these tactics might seem a bit too detailed for regular conversations. Shouldn’t you just be natural, and not worry about the exact percentages of who says what? In that, I’d have to agree with you. Conversations should be natural, so worrying about the details of who is talking or explicitly trying to bait someone is stupid.

However, listening is important. You might not even realize that you’re ignoring the other person or dominating the conversation. Listening helps you learn, think and make connections. People who accidentally trample the conversation may be missing out on opportunities they would have, if they just learned to listen.

Getting over activities you hate means combating a special type of procrastination. Everyone procrastinates. Even on things that they normally enjoy doing. I occasionally procrastinate with writing, even though it is one of my favorite things to do.

While a few minutes or an hour of procrastination for a neutral task happens occasionally, you can procrastinate for years on the jobs you really hate. If there are things on your to-do list that never make it to the top, you probably know which jobs these are.

Stomaching Unappetizing Work

There are a few strategies you can use to make bad tasting tasks a little more pleasant. The first is simply to focus on it. You might have noticed that you chew a lot more when you don’t like the food in your mouth. This is probably an instinctive reaction to force you to carefully examine what you’re going to eat before you swallow.

You can do the same thing with the work you don’t like. By focusing on boring or awful work, it is easier to overcome your reflex to spit it out and work on something else. I’ve often found that focusing on work intensely can even make me like tasks I once hated. I normally hate cleaning, but if I invest 100% of my attention towards it, the chore becomes a lot more fun.

Normally, the first reaction to unenjoyable tasks is to “get it over with”. Finishing as quickly as possible so you can move on to something better. However, with this attitude, it is a lot easier to never get started at all, and procrastinate forever.

Try taking a reversed approach. The next time you have an activity you hate, commit to focus on it completely. Invest all of your mental energy and concentrate on the activity until there is nothing else in the world. You might be surprised how much easier the task becomes when you do this.

Make it an Art

Sometimes tasks can be unenjoyable simply because there is no quality in doing them. For me, writing an article is more enjoyable than cleaning dishes. While an article has incredible depth, ranging from complete trash to life affirming, dishwashing is a narrower activity. I either clean the dishes or they stay dirty. That on-off approach usually makes a task incredibly boring.

One solution I’ve found is simply to take that on-off task and give it more depth. See your boring activity as a previously unrecognized art form you can master. When you give an activity more depth, the interest level goes way up. More importantly, it becomes easier to focus on the task completely, making it easy to swallow.

Several years ago I did part-time work as a janitor. Although this wasn’t a glorious position, I found I was able to enjoy it by doing this step. Instead of seeing my job as being an on-off task, I gave it more depth. I saw that there were many ways I could increase the quality of what I did. Taking on those little steps made the work far more enjoyable.

Leverage Yourself With Another Goal

Despite your best efforts, the first two steps might not work. In those cases, trying to transform an ugly task into a beautiful activity won’t help. You might be better off just trying to get the work done, instead of wrapping a bow around it.

The first way you can push through the muck is to use your goals as leverage. Reconnect with why you started important projects and how any activity fits into your bigger picture of success. If you can do this, you can bring some of the motivation towards your final goal and use it to finish an ugly task.

This is why it is important to constantly remind yourself of your goals, and why they are important to you. Those reminders are often necessary to push through the tasks that don’t excite you.

Don’t Do the Work at All

The best solution is to simply not do the work you don’t enjoy. This may sound like a fantasy, but there are ways you can get away with avoiding the stuff that doesn’t interest you:

• Outsource or delegate it to someone else.
• Eliminate it from your project. (Is it really necessary?)
• Find a better way to do it. Technology and tricks can often help you shortcut boring steps into ones that are more interesting.

Ultimately, you should try to minimize the amount of work you need to do, but don’t enjoy. Productivity shouldn’t be about pushing through the muck, but enjoying work you love. However, if you can’t get yourself to stop procrastinating on an ugly task, these are a few ways to move through it.

How do you motivate yourself to complete tasks you hate? Please share your tips in the comments below.

Also check out: 12 Key for Building Trust

1. Being comfortable with groups of people.
2. Meeting people easily.
3. Having conversations without wondering what to say.

I used to be incredibly introverted. My social life was lagging behind and I used to blame it on my personality. While I can’t claim to be an expert in charisma, I have made big improvements towards the three skills I mentioned earlier. Best of all, I still get to keep the best parts of being an introvert, like being able to focus during time alone.

How to Boost Your Extroversion

I found there were a couple of key steps I took that helped me learn the best parts of being an extrovert, without changing my personality. Everyone needs to take their own path, but hopefully by sharing the steps that worked for me, you boost your extroversion as well.

The most obvious first step is simply to spend more time with people. If you feel uncomfortable in social situations, that’s probably because you aren’t in them frequently. This advice is so obvious it hardly deserves mention, but it’s a step few decided introverts take on. If you aren’t extroverted, you won’t feel motivated to meet people, and if you don’t feel motivated to meet people, you can’t become extroverted. It’s an unfortunate Catch-22 that can stall self improvement.

If you feel stuck in this cycle of isolation, I think there are two main places you can break it. Both strategies work, and doing both at the same time might be your best option.

Find Social Activities You Enjoy

One barrier that forces many people to be introverted is if they don’t see any enjoyable social activities around them. If you don’t like going to bars, and all the people you know are party animals, you might feel happier staying in.

Realizing this was a big step in helping me become more extroverted. I realized that there were certain events and groups of people I could be a lot more outgoing with. There were other people who I didn’t connect with. You won’t connect with everyone, so finding different groups of people is a good starting point.

The best way to find new groups of people are through clubs, volunteering or small classes. Activities with a sign-up sheet. Although you can meet people anywhere, it’s way easier to connect with people if you already have a shared interest and you’re in an environment designed to help you meet new people.

Push Your Comfort Zone Limits

The second strategy to become outgoing is to crush any social fears you have. Everyone has limits at what they consider too gutsy. For extreme extroverts, these limits are pushed far back. For introverts, they might be a lot closer. Pushing your comfort zone backwards makes it easier to socialize.

Once you’ve gone past your comfort zone, it’s easier to do it again. Last year, when I moved to a new building, I took the initiative to go around and say hello to everyone. This is something that would have terrified me four years ago, but was only a mild fear at that time. A month ago, when I moved again, I did the same thing. This time the introductions were even easier to do.

My philosophy is to do the smallest step possible. Don’t beat yourself up if introducing yourself to hundreds of strangers in one day seems terrifying. Build up to it by slowly picking bigger challenges. The key to this tactic is to find the intermediate step between what terrifies you and what you do every day.

Learn the Art of Talking

Listening is an important skill. It is probably even more important than talking. However, if you’re in a conversation and you’re fighting an awkward silence, listening only magnifies that fact. Another skill to become extroverted is to be able to talk non-stop.

In practice, you won’t want to talk non-stop. In fact, the best conversations I’ve had are when I do little of the talking. But, as a reformed introvert, I can say that the worst feeling is standing in a group of people and having nothing to say. Even if you don’t speak all the time, having the ability to do so gives you a lot more confidence in social situations.

You can get the gift of gab by learning to continue conversations even when you aren’t sure what to say. Just say anything. Although you may feel awkward, usually any conversation attempts will be good enough. If you can practice this, then you’ll always have a backup in case the conversation hits a road block.

The Joy of Introversion

I’ve been promoting the side of being an extrovert, but there are benefits to introversion. As an introvert, you can get the benefits of peak productivity while working by yourself. Solitude is also useful for thinking and creative work, so being introverted can enhance your other skills.

The ideal way to live is to capture the best of both. To have the social skills of an extrovert with the quiet discipline and peace of mind of an introvert. If you can do that, who cares what a personality test says you are?

Image by B D Solis.

But there is only one problem, GTD is too complicated. When I first tried to set up GTD, I found it clunky and hard to stick with. The systems that Allen developed over years were being put in my lap on one day. Some of the ideas were immediately useful, others were wasteful and difficult to maintain.

GTD: The Swiss Army Knife (When All You Want is a Fork…)

Only several years later did I realize the source of my problem with GTD. The organizing system was robust, but it wasn’t tailored to my life. Keeping a notepad and calendar was a great idea. Keeping a set of dozens of folders to track action items over a period of months wasn’t.

To be fair to Allen, it wasn’t really his fault. GTD is a great system, but it’s difficult to create a system that suits everyone. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company has completely different productivity needs than a grad student. One person might need to track hundreds of pieces of information, while the other might need minimal tracking but a high degree of focus on one task.

Just saying “tailor it to your life” is a bit trite too. Obviously if everyone was born with the understanding of what productivity needs they have, they wouldn’t need to read books on productivity.

Evolving Productivity: The Branch Method

My suggestion is to adopt a leaner productivity system. Dave Allen’s suggestions are great, but there is too much variety for it to work for everyone. The Branch Method isn’t a productivity system. It’s a way of thinking about how you organize things, so you can always have the most effective organizing system tailored to your needs.

The principles of the Branch Method are simple:

1. Start with the simplest organizing system possible.
2. Reorganize your tasks, files or items into this system.
3. When a folder becomes too large, branch it off into component systems.
4. Review your system every month.
5. If a folder isn’t being used, merge it back into the other folders.

By “folder” I mean any location for storing elements of your productivity system. A filing cabinet is a large “folder” as is your to-do list and calendar. They are all baskets you can put stuff in. I’m treating the physical organization of paperwork and non-physical organization of tasks and events as being the same, so I’m forced to use the word “folder”.

Now let’s look at each step:

Step One: Start Simple

This first step can be skipped if you already have GTD or some level of organization. But if you’re currently a complete slob, you need to start somewhere. Try to design the simplest organizing system that is one step above complete chaos. Don’t make speculative folders for holding things you might not use.

Making too many folders initially creates added waste. This was my problem when initially setting up GTD, and is the reason many people are scared off by the highly in-depth system.

Step Two: Organize Into Your Simple System

Now go to the work of putting everything in it’s place. This can take some time if you don’t already have a previous organizing system. However, this step only needs to be done once, so the time is worth it.

Step Three: Branch Bulky Folders

When a folder becomes too bulky, branch it into a more refined mechanism. I used to keep receipts in a simple folder. As more receipts piled up, I realized that the folder was getting bulky. I split the receipts into a binder, with separate organizational tabs for different categories.

If your to-do list or calendar becomes overloaded, split them into separate lists or calendars. Google Calendar has the added feature of storing multiple, color-coded calendars on the same screen. From one, I branched off into four.

Step Four: Monthly Productivity Review

Every month, ask yourself whether your productivity system still holds. If your lifestyle has adjusted in that time, you may need to create new folders or destroy old ones. Finishing a project might lead to simplifying one aspect of your system. Without monthly reviews, your productivity system slowly drifts back towards chaos.

Step Five: Merge Unused Folders

This step is often forgotten. Maintaining a folder has a mental cost. You need to remember to check it regularly, otherwise it will be useless. I’ve frequently forgotten tasks because I placed them on infrequently used to-do lists. Without merging folders, you are likely to forget where things are.

Branching for Simplicity

The Branch Method works because it helps you maintain the simplest productivity system possible. There is no extra fat or waste with folders that aren’t specifically adapted to your life. Instead of planning for every foreseeable organizing need, you get a system that fits you.