Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams

I’ve had a recent change in my thinking when it comes to ‘getting things done’ and productivity… I no longer rule my day based on ‘priorities’… it’s now all about ‘context’

This new outlook is comes from David Allen’s book ‘Getting Things Done’, where David outlines the way to get more done is by focusing on context; such as your location, time and energy levels. Obviously phone calls can only be made when I’m near a phone… I can only reply to emails when I am near my laptop (or iPhone)… etc etc…

And it’s this focus on ‘actions’ and ‘contexts’ that have changed my productivity so dramatically.

But before I go on a big rant about ‘contexts’, let me outline the core principles to Getting Things Done:

1. Collect

The first step is a pretty obvious one, but like most ‘obvious success principles’, it seems to be overlooked due to it’s simplicitly…

Anytime anything crosses your mind that requires some sort of response or action from you, Write It Down; carry a notebook, a little tape recorder, email yourself or put an in-box on your desk… Any tool that gets it out of your head and into the ’system’.

2. Process

Next you clear the items from the memory bucket(s). Start at the top of the list, deal with one item at a time, and do not move onto the next until one of the following things are done and never put anything back into the in-box, every item on the list has one of the outcomes below.

So with every entry ask yourself one simple question “is there an action I need to take about this item?”

• If an item requires action:
1. do it right way (if it takes less than two minutes*),
2. delegate it to someone else, or
3. defer it for action later (using the method below).
• If it’s not something that can be ‘actioned’,
1. file it,
2. toss it out, or
3. save it for possible action later.

The underlying rule of this is The 2-minute Rule: If it takes less than 2 minutes to do something, do it right away.

3. Organize (The Defered Items)

The foundation of this entire GTD system is lists. I love lists - it gives you structure and makes your memory redundant (something I really need)

The first set of lists you need are Projects. A project is anything that will need more than one action to complete. Think; ‘create new website for X’ or ‘Prepare presentation for Y’ or ‘Relaunch MCG Carpet Business’ etc etc.

Just to clarify here - ‘creating a website’ or ‘Relaunching MCG Carpet Business’ isn’t an action; it’s a project made up of a bunch of little ‘actions’.

And it’s in this principle that I had one of my biggest ‘awakenings’ - One of the major reasons I wasn’t getting through my to-lists is that my to-list was filled with projects, not actions… and I always felt overwhelmed… But as I outlined in a previous post “It’s this focus on actions rather then goals , that allow us to get started and see progress, which stimulates motivation and instills habits.

Instead of looking at a project or goal as a result, try looking at it as a series of small cumulative actions; and if you do those ‘simple’ actions the result will take care of itself.

So once you have all your ‘Projects’ outlined, you need to list all the Actions required to complete that ‘Project’…

So for every item/project/goal requiring your attention, decide what is the next action you can take. (For example - if the item is ‘Relaunch MCG Business’, the next action might be ‘count how many MCG Carpet squares are locked in the safe’, or ‘call Ken about framing cost estimates’, or something similar.) No matter the number of steps and actions required to complete the project, there will always be something that you need to do next/first, and this should be recorded in the next actions list under each project. .

Next (and and the most powerful step of GTD) is to give each ‘Action’ a ‘Context’. And the context is based on what/where the action is completed such as ‘@office’ for actions that can only be done in the office, ‘@phone’ for actions that require a phone call, or ‘@email’ for email related actions.

And if you’re super anal give it a time context based on how long it *should* take to complet; @10m, @30m, @2h etc etc

4. Review + Do

Now that you’ve processed your actions and organized your projects, you need look at those lists. You need to review the lists throughout the day, and choose what needs to be done next based on:

* context (where you are)
* time available
* energy available

By breaking down your to-do list into projects and actions there are two amazingly freeing outcomes:

1. By sitting down and focusing on single project and working through those already planned actions.. the cumulative effect principle kicks in, and you begin to see progress and build momentum.

Not to mention the benefits of sitting down and focusing a solid block of time on one project… as opposed to doing what most of us do, and jump from project to project based on what’s on the top of the pile and the ‘biggest’ priority.

2. Plus by focusing on ‘contexts’; if I am in an ‘email mood’ I can simply filter my ‘next action list’ by @email and just knock off all the emails I need to send across a series of projects very very quickly….or I can still work towards my goals in a sequential manner based on ‘Where I am’ or ‘What I have available’… So if I am driving between meetings I can simply filter my actions by @Phone and make all the calls needed.

With the power of context, whether you want to work through a projects actions, or want to focus on a type of action (like make a bunch of phone calls in the car) the ‘context’ tag gives you flexibility and never leaves you asking “What should I do next?”

The Do lectures are all about getting a handful of speakers together in one place, in the hope that they may inspire you to go Do something. To give you the tools and the desire to change the things you care about.

Here is Matt Jones’ (Designer. Creative Director. Web guru. Blogger.) presentation:

“The lesson of the internet.. The internet is for bringing people together who thought they were alone and didn’t have a voice” -Matt Jones

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This blog post is a culmination of a few events of late…

Firstly, my good pal Brent Hodgson has seen the light and made the jump from PC to Mac. (come to think of it Brent ‘kinda’ looks a little like the MAC guy).

Secondly, I’ve implemented a few changes in the way I manage my time and the way I get things done… which has resulted in some amazing results… and these changes have primarily come from threes sources: David Allen’s book ‘Getting Things Done’, Eben Pagan’s ‘Wake up Productive‘ Course and the book ‘Power Of Full Engagement’

And thirdly it’s largely thanks to some MAC software I am using to implement the ‘lessons and actions’ drawn from the above resources, that’s resulted in my ability to get more done, and I wanted to share some those Mac programs with everyone.

So here is my list of the top productivity tools and Mac Software for getting things done.
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Whether you run a traditional bricks and mortar business or an outsource focused web-based business, one of the biggest challenges we face is documenting the process and procedures needed to run the business.

So much intellectual property inevitably gets stored in the individual teams heads…. which not only results in you keeping an ineffective employee on the payroll because they ‘know too much’… but what happens when a new member joins the team and needs to learn the processes and procedures? Someone inevitably has to take time away from ‘bottom line value’ tasks to walk the newbie through typically ‘basic’ processes.

No matter how big or small your business is you will be faced with this problem on some level.

David Jenyns (The other guy who sold the MCG) gave me one of the most impactful pieces of advice I’ve received this year. See Dave runs some very successful internet-based info-marketing businesses and has implemented an office wiki of sorts to combat this problem. We’ve since implemented these in all my offices/teams and the results have been beyond my expectations.

Unlike a ‘traditional wiki’ where everyone chips in and contributes to the entire documentation, we’ve encouraged every team member to create short ’screen capture videos’ covering each of the individual tasks/processes/procedures that make up a persons role.

These videos cover everything from ‘how to create a new proposal’ to ‘how to set up an email account for a new team member’ and even ‘how to change a products price in our various online stores’

So not only does this mean that all the ‘procedural IP’ is now stored, backed up and out of the teams heads… but as the team grows people can learn from (and always refer back to) the office wiki. People learn so much better by simply watching what needs to be done, as opposed to reading and interpreting from a dry procedures manual. And as we grow our interstate offices (or outsource more), we can simply send links to the videos stored on our intranet to those team-members.

Plus this style of office-wiki is cheaper, faster and easier to create then traditional procedure manual - we simply got each person to list all the ‘tasks’ they go through on a given week, and then ‘the next time’ they preformed one of those tasks they put on their headphones, hit record and captured a video of them performing. It was that simple.

We might even throw a little Infiniti-Emmy party.

Here are a few software suggestions for creating your screen-capture videos:
CamStudio - Free Windows based program.
Camtasia - Paid Windows based program
ScreenFlow - Mac based program

And just for kicks, here is the Wikipedia definition of a Corporate Wiki:
“A corporate wiki is a wiki used in a corporate (or organisational) context, especially to enhance internal knowledge sharing. Wikis are increasingly used internally by companies and public sector organizations, some as prominent as Adobe Systems, Intel, Microsoft and the FBI. Depending on the size of a corporation, they may add to or replace centrally-managed content management systems. Their decentralised nature allows them, in theory, to disseminate needed information across an organization faster and cheaper than a centrally controlled knowledge repository”

Hey There 30DC’s,

Pete here… and I have the honor of letting you all know that the much anticipated 30 Day Challenge Merchandise is now available.

You can check out the store here: http://www.cafepress.com/30daychallenge

We’ve opened the store today in conjunction with Blog Action Day and the best bit about the store is that all the proceeds raised from the sale of these cool items (including an awesome 30DC Flip Mino) contributes to the 30DC Kiva Account - and helps fight poverty.

During this years auction we raised a whopping US$7,776.50 for KIVA, which is fantastic… and you can continue to help this great cause and look very sharp at the same time.

Here’s a quick look at some of the gear that’s available.

Now a big ‘THANK YOU’ goes out to Aussie 30 Day Challenger Luke Martin, who created this awesome design. If you would like a wallpaper version of the design, he’s made one available over at his blog - http://designbus.net/

Make sure you check the store out at: http://www.cafepress.com/30daychallenge

Speak Soon…

Pete

p.s. There has been some more progress with the 30 Day Challenge Book aswell… We are almost at the ‘ink on contract’ stage, which means we will be finalizing all the content very shortly. If you have a story that you feel the world would benefit from, please make sure you leave your story in the forums at http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/forums/thirty-day-challenge-experiences/