Building the Success Habit

What you do repeatedly becomes a habit. You want to build the habit of success by making sure your daily behaviors end with a success.

One "success" that I'm working on is always completing the tasks on my daily todo list. I've gone through many, many cycles on my todo lists. I used to start with a short list and then think of other things I could add, and then I would add some more. Of course, some of the items didn't get done, so I would carry them over until tomorrow, which made the next day's list longer.

Usually after a week of this, the todo list would get too daunting and I would stop looking at it. This meant that what I had been doing, eventually, was practicing failure.

What I'm doing now is limiting the list. I'm writing up my list the night before, and only adding items I'm certain that I can complete. In this way, every day, I check off the items on my list, and I build the habit of success.

I can do other things, of course, but by making a short list the focus, I get the important tasks completed, and I build the habit of getting things done. And as I go, I learn what I can pack into a single day and I can slowly add more items.

Don't let your todo list grow out of control. Prune it, and manage it, and above all build the habit of finishing it every day.

Analysis Paralysis

As I said before, analysis paralysis is one of my favorite anti-patterns for getting things done.

The problem is, of course, some analysis is required, the question is when to stop. For me, setting time limits on the planning phase is a good way to compromise between "no planning" and "paralysis".

If you spend time each day reviewing your plans, you can identify areas that may require more though and schedule them, without ever going into the free form time sink that is perpetual planning.

A Virtue, Carried to Extremes, Becomes a Vice

I worked at a company once that would re-organize itself every few years, like clockwork. I think Scott Adams (Dilbert) talks about this phenomenon.

With me, I think re-organizing is just something I do when I don't want to work on the current task. It's a common way out for me, when I need to think more about something. If I stop to clean my office, it's not goofing off, right? And yes, my office usually needs cleaning.

Now, there are times when more thought is necessary. But, since you know that getting blocked is going to happen, you just need to have a plan for what the next task on the list is. If you just look around the room for something to do when you have you'll end up doing something that might not need to be done.

Once again, be aware of situations that might derail your productivity, and plan for them. You'll do much better than if you just react when they happen.

The World is Full of Wonderful Ideas

The one issue I really don't have a handle on yet, is my love for the new idea. As a new idea occurs to me, I have the urge to take it an run with it. This happens even though I am still not through with the last fascinating project that I thought up.

Unfortunately, it's much faster to think of an idea than finish a project based on it. So lately, I've been perpetually skipping from one idea to the next, without taking any of them to completion.

I think that an answer to this may involve going back to visualizing the current project every morning, to regenerate my enthusiasm for it. It also may involve scheduling time to evaluate, but not start, new project. But I'm still working on this one. Suggestions are welcome!

Managing Distractions

Like just about everyone in the modern world, I act like I have ADD. The cell phone rings, I answer. An instant message shows up, I read it. I check email fourteen times a day, and I always have blogs I could be reading.

By the time I've started working, I find it too late to deal with distractions. The key is to deal with them BEFORE I start working. Leaving the phone off during scheduled working times is an obvious first step. Another good step is making a commitment to a period of time without surfing, and without IM. Doing this before you start helps prevent those little interruptions that happen when you tell yourself "only one quick note", and three hours later, you are still IMing.

I'm working at home now, too. So I have to deal with all the additional home based distractions. Getting out (Starbuck's, Library, etc) can help deal with these.

Think of other distractions that may occur, and design strategies for dealing with them before you start working, and they will be much more effective.

Diving Too Deep

This work-avoiding habit is related to the previous one (Leaping Before Looking), but it's the next step.

When I tackle a project, I tend to pick an easy or interesting aspect of it, and dive right in. A great example can be found earlier in this blog, where I talk about learning Adobe InDesign. It was fascinating, and I spent a lot of time on it. Time that I should have been writing. But it was something new to learn, and I love that. But it wasn't the most effective place to start.

One of my more effective friends once told me that he likes to start a project with the most difficult part. That way, once he's done that, the worst is done, and it's all downhill from there.

I think I'm going to try that on my next project

Overcoming Procrastination

There's a nice article on overcoming procrastination on ThinkSimpleNow. I hadn't seen the blog before, but it's really good.

I'm reading through their archives now. (Oh drat, I think "reading productivity blogs" was one of the methods mentioned for procrastinating!)