Start Being Productive

Stephen Smith and I released the first of what looks to be an exciting series of podcasts on broad topic of productivity, this one on the topic of “Saying No.” 

Saying No and jealously gaurding one’s time so that it can be spent on priority matters is a crucial skill that so many of us find hard to use.  I know I’m the type that always wants to make sure everyone is happy, oftentimes to the exclusion of my own happiness and goals.  However, I am getting better.

If you find yourself in the same boat, check out our Productivity Podcast at

http://stephenpsmith.com/blog/2009/06/productivity-and-saying-no/

Click on the link and just press play on the embedded player.   Soon you’ll be carried away to Productiviy by the sounds of our voice.  Or something like that.

For a brief summary of what we discussed, Stephen found these seven great points (which I pared down for space) from Al at 7P Productions at Productivity in Context.  In fact, we liked them so much, they formed the basis of all our discussions.  (If you like them or like our podcast, feel free to leave a comment on the post, it’s truly excellent.) 

1.Up-front honesty: If they know the true reason why you aren’t saying yes, then they can judge
whether to approach you for the next situation.

2.Redirection: Point that person to a direction (another person, another
approach) where they will have a better chance of finding a yes.

3.Letting the other person say no for you: Don’t bear all the burden! If
you know that saying yes in this situation is saying no to a more
important situation, then just present your case and let the other person
say no for you.

4.Not now, but later: The word “maybe” is sometimes a good euphemism for
“no.”

5.Circumstances: Sometimes it’s not a choice at all… Circumstances is
saying no, not you.

6.Be Polite: If none of the above options are viable, then a polite “no”
should do the trick.

7.Be Blunt: This is the tactic against the persistent salesperson. Sometimes
the emphatic “no” is the only “no” they’ll hear.

You can read more about each tactic at Productivity in Context and hear Stephen and I talk more about it on the podcast!

Real quick, I wanted to let everryone know that I recently got the chance to talk with Stephen Smith about The PAR System™.  He recorded our chat and has put it up as a podcast for everyone to hear.

Check it out at StephenPSmith.com.

Talking with Stephen was great.  He knows a great deal about so many different productivity systems and really put me in the hot seat comparing The PAR System™ to other productivity pros and their systems.  Plus, it was a good time!  Have a listen.

Also, on April 1st at 11:00 Central, I’ll be talking The PAR System™ on Chicks Who Chat who have made me an honorary chick!  I’ll post more on that tomorrow!

The PAR System™ Logo

The economic downturn is affecting us all.  Money is tight.  Jobs are being lost.

But out of troubles comes opportunity.  Friends who have lost their jobs are now becoming entrepreneurs.  Coworkers who are asked to do more are finding that if they do well, they have more opportunity to advance.   So can you!  God never closes a door without opening a window.

That’s not to say taking advantage is easy.  Quite the opposite, actually.  You are going to need a good system of planning, organization and action to take advantage of opportunity when it knocks.  That’s why I created The PAR System™.

From my personal experience and trial-and-error, I have discovered the power of:

1. Writing my to-dos down and recopying them everyday
2. Figuring out what is most important and doing that first
3. Writing down my goals
4. Breaking down larger goals to make them actionable
5. Doing not just planning

This is The PAR System™!

And there’s never been a better time to check out The PAR System™ because on April 1st (April Fool’s Day, hrmm…), I will be re-launching the website. Check out Twitter at 9 Eastern/8 Central for our launch party!  Search for the #parsystem hashtag!

In addition, I will officially launch the  The PAR System™ Membership program, a 6-month course to teach The PAR System™.  For those who want one-on-one productivity coaching, I will also offer The PAR System™ Very Productive Person™ Membership!

Now, to get this site kicked off in style, there will be some fanfare, a few laughs, and a lot of great giveaways including:

2 FREE The PAR System™ Memberships (a $95.94 value)
1 FREE 6-month The PAR System™ Very Productive Person™ Membership (a $99.00 value)
1 $50 gift certificate from Rachel Ferrucci at Touchd
2 FREE Zero2Novel Memberships (a $68 value)
1 hour of FREE novel consulting from published novelist Lonnie Ezell
2 FREE 1 hour consultations with Shelly Kramer (a $150 value)
1 FREE article/blog edit with Gina LaGuardia

All you need to do to have a chance at winning these prizes is:

1. Leave a comment for 1 entry
2. Retweet this post and telling me in a comment is worth 1 entry
3. If you get someone else to comment and they tell me, you both get 1 entry.
4. If you are really excited about these prizes (who wouldn’t be), you can write a blog post on why you need to be more productive and link back to this site and you will be entered 5 times for the drawing.

On the 1st we’ll draw for all the free prizes.  Retweet and tell me and you’ll be entered for a second time.

Check back for more prizes and more info!

If you are interested in a The PAR System membership, read more at StartBeingProductive.com or order now!

Get productive,
Chris

This post officially announces the PAR System(tm) Membership program is up and running!  The PAR System Membership Program is a 6-month productivity course that will allow you to do more every day, how to work towards your goals and dreams, and how to do only those activities which allow you to achieve your dreams.

Please check it out.   You will learn:

• How to plan your day with the Write, Prioritize, Review (WPR) Method
• How to decide which activities to work on first
• How to determine your DUMB goals (your dreams and things you truly want to work for)
• How to avoid things which might get you off track

The program is worth checking out and it’s got a 30 money-back guarantee so there’s no risk!

Thanks,

Chris

The question of the best marketing advice I ever received was posed on Sparkplug CEO as part of one of their always awesome contests.  It is a really good question and one I should answer, even if a free wireless printer and logo were not at stake and even if I did not have a world of respect for the gang at Sparkplugging

Marketing and Personal Productivity?

At first, the topics of marketing and personal productivity may not seem to be related.  If I had any advice about marketing a Fortune 500 company, it might not be.  But my experience in entrepreneurship has been promoting Hi Fidelity IT, Inc., some thoughts about Fireadi, and several of my own ventures, all of which are small companies, and all of which required that I market myself.

The Greatest Marketing Advice Ever

Which leads me back to the greatest advice on marketing I ever got:

“YOU are a brand.  Make sure your brand is order before you do anything else.”

There is nothing mystical about this advice.  It is basically the same thing as saying “Be the friend you want to be.”  If you want others to do business with you, you need to be someone you would want to do business with.  There’s also a lot of the Golden Rule in this bit of advice (You know: “Do unto others as you’d have done to you.”  If you want customers to keep doing business with you, be someone they want to keep doing business with.

Getting Yourself In Order

It’s hard to say what getting yourself in order means because we all have our strengths and weaknesses.  For instance, I am very analytical, but sometimes I do not see the forest for the trees.  Other people are so good at generating ideas, they forget someone has to execute them.  Some people are hot headed, while others are not emotional enough.

But ultimately, no matter the journey, overall, the road towards being a good brand is pretty much the same.  And you probably learned it in kindergarten.

• Be trustworthy
• Be honest
• Be professional
• Be courteous

However, the devil is in the details.  I know what is professional in computer software and what is professional in writing for women’s magazines are not the same.  (In one of those disciplines, having a thick beard is considered an advantage, guess which one?)

Still, the secret to success lies in those four precepts.  Master their subtleties and you will master self-branding.  Master self-branding and then you can master business.

Sadly, I cannot blaze the trail for you, not in this blog anyway.  However, you can contact me if you would like and we can start laying down a plan together.

Branding and Personal Productivity

Oh, and since this is a personal productivity blog, I would be remiss in not at least mentioning how branding and personality productivity mix.

Of the four precepts above, being professional and trustworthy are the two most directly linked to good personal productivity.  Professionals accomplish tasks assigned to them and those for which they volunteer.  Those who are trustworthy do what they say, when they say.  Which means not forgetting To Dos when things get hectic.  (Which are areas that the PAR System can address directly.)

In terms of being honest and courteous, these are two areas when the PAR System is less directly applicable.  Still, there is something to be said for writing down on your To Do list or having a DUMB goal that you want to control your temper or that you always want to be upfront when dealing with others.  Writing something down like that every day and prioritizing it certainly cannot hurt.

Ultimately, make self-branding a goal and you can acheive it.  Writing down the steps you will take to meet your goals and keep them prioritized and you will become the brand you want.  Then marketing, sales, and being a busines will all fall into line.

I was having an interesting discussion with my mentor the other day in which we got on the subject of organization.  This was the same mentor who taught me the necessity of having a good way to keep track of my to do list.  This was in no small part due to the fact that I reported directly to him at the time and he was an amazing delegator…

That being said, we were talking about keeping ourselves organized and he told me that he spends 30 minutes every night before he goes to bed organizing himself for the next day.  These 30 minutes had become so ingrained into his routine that if did not spend the time to organize, he would not sleep well.  I found this to be interesting and quite different than my approach of taking 15 minutes at the start of everyday to rewrite my task list and prioritize my to dos.

Perhaps I am simply too set in my ways or perhaps he and I just attack our work differently, but I do not see myself switching anytime soon.  However, I do see that his method offers several distinct advantages.

1. The value of the time spent.  Normally, the 15-30 minutes before I go to bed are not billable, whereas the 15 minutes at the start of my work day could be (since I always do my organization at my desk where I am in the work mode.)
2. The urgency of the workday.  There are many days when the first thing that greets me in the morning is some fire I have to put out or some client call I need to take or an email I have to answer.  This can delay my organization time by a few minutes or a few hours.  During that time, I always feel less in control of my day because I am being reactive instead proactive.   Managing my day by addressing whoever is screaming the loudest is a poor way to be ultimately successful.

Still, spending my 15 minutes organizing in the morning (or as close to it as I can) works for me.  But I would like to know, what works for you?

Sometimes productivity hints strike when you least expect them.

I was listening to a sermon today in which the preacher recounted one of the other parishoners talking about he remembered to do things.  The parishoner in question said that when he needed to do something, he wrote a note down on a piece of paper, folded it up, and put it in his left pocket with his change.  That way whenever he went to pay for something, he would have to first pull out the notes before getting to his money.  The sheer annoyance would of having to pull out those pieces of paper would mean that sooner rather than later, the gentleman in question would do whatever needed to be done.

I looked at this as a validation of the PAR System.  Instead of notes in my left pocket (which isn’t a bad idea except that I tend to pay for everything with a check card), I use my to do list which I recopy every morning.  This keeps what I need to do always top of mind and the sheer annoyance of not accomplishing things…well…it keeps me motivated.

So, how do you keep notes in your left pocket?

Another issue that arose on Sparkplugging’s topic list was when to stop working for the day, a problem that face many who work in a home office.

At first, this may seem like a strange question.  There are days when, if asked, I definitely believe work should be stopped at 8:15…and I don’t start working until 9.  However, there is the small matter of clients and clients are important because they pay.  Paying is important because it means money…  So sadly, I have to put in a solid 8-12 hour day rather than the -45 minute day I of which dream.

Also, I find that once I am in the groove, it’s hard to stop.  There is always one more thing I can do.  Herein lies the beauty and the curse of the PAR System: I have a list.  I know what needs to be done.  So if I am done with priorities 1,2, and 3… I know priorities 4,5,6,7,etc. They’re right there in my list.

Which presents two unique challenges.  Either I am motiviated to get a lot done, but need to stop in order to Reward myself for accomplishing my goals, let my batteries recharge, and spend a little time with the family or I am completely unmotivated and need to get work done so I can afford to give myself a Reward, let my batteries recharge, and feed my family.

This is where I let the PAR System be my guide.  I have my task list and each task has a priority next to it.  My goal in an average day is to finish my top priorities (this is usually priorities 1-3)  Once I am done with that, I know I can stop.  If I need the extra time to recharge, I can kick back and relax knowing that I have done what I needed to for that day.   I also know that if I am feeling motivated, that I can stop guilt free anytime after my highest priority items are accomplished.  Then I just ride the wave of motivation I am ready to stop.

Of course, this is not an absolute answer.  But it works pretty well most days.

When do you stop?  You do stop, right?  You’re not burning yourself out, are you?

So as you can see I’ve been a bit lax on posting here recently.

And there’s a good reason for that…I’ve been busy.  Really busy.

Now, I know that seems like an odd statement for someone writing a productivity blog.  Don’t I have the PAR System to help me manage things?  Sure.  Aren’t I trying to advocate higher levels of productivity?  Of course.

Frankly, I’ve looked at the last three months as research.

First, in the past three months, my planner was stolen so I went to using a spiral notebook, just like I advocate in my guidebook.  So now I can say I officially eat my own dog food.

Secondly, in that time, I also accomplished the following:

1. Established a vegan blog
2. Wrote a book
3. Edited another book
4. Created a large web app for a client
5. Released at least 7 episodes of my two podcasts
6. Put together the media blitz for both the game I wrote and the game I edited
7. Gained a new SEO client
8. Wrote 7 articles

So you get the picture. 

What fell by the way side are this blog, Blog Well Done, and my personal exercise regimine.  (I am not happy about that last part.)  Fortunately, family obligations were largely met.  I have a tendency to ignore the fam when I get busy.  This is not a Good Thing.

Anyway, what the past three months have proven to me is that productivity is a choice.  Over the past three months, I did what was important to me.  I did not do what was truly not important to me.  (I am still chapped that my personal health turned out to be unimportant.)

But it also showed me why prioritization is so important in the PAR System.  For most of my life, I have planned what I am going to do for the day.  I never just made lists.  I thought about the tasks on the list and figured out the order in which I was going to do them. Now I understand why.  I was doing what was important and taking note so that I would not forget what was not.

Of course, there is a lingering issue that I need to deal with personally…getting my judgement of what is important inline with what I want to be important.  That’s another post.

A TRIP TO THE BOOKSTORE

I was walking through the bookstore tonight when I ran across this: The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About–Because They Helped Cause Them (Hardcover)

Now, I am not going to muddy The PAR System with politics.  I have other places for that.  Still, I was struck by the masterwork in the title.  It was taking a political issue that liberals have traditionally championed and that has recently become front of mind for many Americans and tries to derail the debate.  Instead of dealing with the issue, it points fingers.  It politicizes and stratifies the issue along party lines.

And you know what is going to suffer?  The environment.  There’s no way to affect positive change while bickering.

WORKPLACE PARALLELS

Unfortunately, I see too many parrallels in the modern workplace.  How many coworkers have you had whose reaction to a crisis is:

1. Spend 30 minutes finding who to blame.
2. Spend 10 minutes ensuring EVERYONE knows it’s not their fault (or 30 minutes when it just might be.)
3. Spend 2 minutes trying to fix the problem.
4. Spend 30 more minutes ensuring everyone knows it’s not their fault.
5. Call a meeting to “discuss the problem”
6. Go to lunch
7. Spend 2 minutes trying to fix the problem
8. Send out an email, CCing the President, Vice President, and Board of Directors about just how much it’s not their fault.

And so on…

What’s worse, how many managers have you seen ask the question: “Who screwed up this time?” or “Whose fault is this?” the minute they catch wind there is a problem?

IT DOESN’T MATTER

I cannot stress this enough.  Until the problem has been resolved, knowing who caused it, or worse looking for a scapegoat is irrelevant.  Companies that want to have excellent customer service, be a people-first organization, have empowered employees, or just generally run a good business should shelve the finger pointing until well after the problem is fixed.

Then look at mistakes as (get ready to groan) a teachable moment.  Good managers foster trust by honestly and openly reviewing mistakes and getting their people to understand why things went wrong and how to avoid them in the future.  However, this is a two way street.  Recipients of such teaching should be open to honest coaching IF it is given in an environment of respect.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY?

Good question.

1. If your first reaction to a problem is to point fingers, you are not being productive.  Check the ego at the door and get the problem resolved.  That is being productive.  In a healthy organization, you garner more respect for fixing your mistakes than for avoid taking responsibility.
2. If you work for an organization that is more interested in finger pointing than fixing the problem, you are not in a healthy organization and you are not going to be at your most productive since you’ll be too busy looking over your shoulder.  Thinking about finding a place at work that truly empowers you to be productive.

If you want to know more about being productive, download the FREE PAR System Guidebook today!