How do you feel at the end of a day of work? Do you feel like you accomplished enough? In the current work environment, more tasks are created than the capacity for the individuals to complete. This makes us feel like we need to do more, work longer days, check one more email before we…
Category: Miscellaneous
Josh’s Crazy Productivity System Step 4
Getting Started Step 4 The last step is planning and setting aside time to work on your planned tasks avoiding stress-based prioritization. You have tasks that occur on a repeated basis. Go into your calendar and block out time to work on these tasks. I call this your standard work. For instance, I have 45…
Josh’s Crazy Productivity System Step 3
The primary step here is to get to inbox zero. I target a completely empty inbox at least once a week. This will remove that feeling that you are missing something and ensure incoming tasks and information will not be lost. Finally, you will save time so you don’t have to regularly wade through a…
Josh’s Crazy Productivity System Step 2
Now that you have reduced distractions by following step 1 you need to develop a system to capture all tasks and information. Your tasks can come from emails, meetings, discussions, phone calls, and messages. When a task is created you need to determine the due date. If it is not related to your current goals…
Josh’s Crazy Productivity System Step 1
If you work with me for any length of time you will learn that I have a very rigorous (maybe crazy) productivity system that I have been refining since 2007. I share my system with anybody who will listen like a drug dealer trying to get others hooked. Coming into this system cold can be…
Free Taters in Tennessee
As a leader (you are likely a leader in some aspects even if you don’t have it in your title) you need to be aware that when some people are given a benefit, even in extreme circumstances, they may expect it to continue. I used to work at an aluminum smelter in Tennessee. There were…
Why do you work?
I like to explicitly state the reason we do many things at work. It allows me to determine if the goal is being met and it keeps me from doing things because of momentum. For instance, by defining the goals of a meeting you can then determine if the meeting is meeting that goal. Why…
Projects Need Time to Breathe
Recently I was leading a brainstorming session to downselect improvement projects we will take on. There was a lot of discussion and meandering around the related topics. By the end of the meeting, we had only reviewed about a quarter of the projects. When the meeting concluded one of the participants asked if we could…
Are We Rewarding a Behavior We Don’t Want
“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome,” -Charlie Munger When there is a problem it is great how teams can come together and solve that problem. It is exciting to be part of a team to resolve the crisis and it feels good to receive recognition from senior leadership. In the long…
Halfs and Doubles
When you make a plan for what you want to accomplish today, cut it in half. You can always pull in more tasks if you get it all done. When planning the time it takes to complete a project make your determination then double it. Stop white-knuckling your projects.
Why are we so hurried?
I used to work at a company that supplied engineering services to refineries. One of the engineers told a story comparing a refinery start-up in America to another country where the refinery was on an island. In an American refinery start-up, they would work extra hours to complete the start-up in time but on the…
You Need to Calculate Your Real Hourly Wage
I am intrigued by the FIRE movement where people work to get expenses as low as possible to retire early. I don’t adhere to the practices but some concepts can be borrowed from the movement. When considering changes related to our careers we tend to rely on vague criteria to determine if we should take…
Frustrating Work
The hard part of the job is the job. You were not hired for it to be easy.
Delayed Improvements
When does a delay in an improvement (like a software upgrade) at a company hurt the company?
Crafting the Perfect Email
If you are working to craft the perfect email or text to make sure you cover all of the bases and ensure there is no misunderstanding then you need to make it a phone call or a meeting.
Two Types of Quality Work
There are two types of quality work. The first type is meeting expectations (like no errors). This type is when the outcome is clearly understood. The second type is the type that means going above expectations and always trying to do better. This is applied to pushing your limits in tasks with unclear endpoints. An…
What I Have Learned in Quality
Your Manager Is Not Always Right
Your manager is not always right (that includes me as a manager too). They have good intentions and think they know what is best based on their experience and knowledge but a lot of it is based on their opinion.
Emailing like a Child
When a child wants something they blurt it out. It does not matter what is going on. You could be in the middle of a conversation or asleep. They don’t consider the situation or if what they have to say is important. They are impulsive and lack discipline in their communication. Many of us are…
Artist Version of Activation Evergy
Those of us in the technical world are not the only ones who struggle with activation energy in projects. Artists do too. Steven Pressfield wrote a book called The War of Art. In it, he calls it The Resistance, almost like an anti-muse. Artists are trying to make a career of the big projects but…