Monthly Archives: December 2020

productivity

Personal Goals

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It is the end of the year, and people will talk about what their resolutions are for the next year. The reality is that most of these resolutions will be abandoned within the next month, if not within a few days. I know very few who write them down.

In previous blogs I’ve challenged you to get uncomfortable. This exercise might help you to think about how to get uncomfortable in the next year. Set aside your experiences of SMART goals at work, though you need to put some feet to each of these. Set aside a couple of hours, and using this template as a guide, write down your thoughts. If you don’t like a section, skip it. If you have another section you want to add, add it. Full disclosure – I am sure I stole parts of this from others over the years, but as I have been using a similar template since 2012, I can’t give any credit there.

Once you complete this, have it some place that you can look at regularly, weekly if possible. It keeps your eyes on what you want to do, which helps you focus on being efficient so that you can do what you truly love. If you find you are not progressing in March, start over. If you realize that your passion for one of the goals fades due to life changes, adjust. And very importantly, don’t go from 0-60 immediately. If you never read, don’t aim for 52 books, try for 4. If you don’t exercise, don’t start out with 7 days a week, maybe just walk 3 days a week. This is for you to grow, not become frustrated.

Here are some thoughts on the sections:

Overall: I like to come up with a theme for the year. This can be a Scripture that I want to memorize or live out. It could be a quote that has been overly meaningful. If you like to assign a single word to your year to live out, put that down and why.

Professionally: This is different from your goals at work itself. This may be networking, finding a speaking opportunity, going back to school, refreshing your resume, finding a mentor.

Personal Spiritual Growth: I talk with people who never think about their personal spiritual growth, but want to improve it. Depending on your faith, this could be memorization, intentional meditation time, scheduling a retreat, regular attendance at your place of worship.

Family: I list out members of my family and how I want to engage with them during the next year. This could be planning a vacation or putting down specific activities to do with them.

Physically: I put down health goals, whether losing weight, going to the gym with a friend 2x a week, cooking at home so that I eat out less.

Personal Growth: I’m a reader, so I track what I read. I have put some ideas if you want to set goals to stretch yourself out of what you normally read. Maybe you just set a goal of reading two books on productivity and putting those down here. This might be a good place to say that you are going to spend less than 30 minutes a day on social media and how you want to track that usage.

Organization: Just an idea if this is something you want to get done. It can be your honey-do list.

Hobby: Whether fishing, photography, bird-watching, hiking, put down some ideas or challenges that you want to do this year. Maybe joining a club, maybe doing a 30-day challenge.

There are two other pieces for each section that I add. One is Ideas, which is something that I want to put on paper, but don’t know how to put it down as a goal. The other is Summary, which I fill out at the end of the year as I prepare my goals for the next year.

So think about what you want to do in 2021. Write it down. When I come back in 2021 I am going to talk about how I block my schedule in a job where I don’t get 4 hour blocks. Happy New Year!

productivity

Books on productivity and life

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I am an avid reader. I wanted to share some of the books that that have impacted me most greatly and a few of the key insights that I got from them.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (book | website) is one of the books whose principles define many of the books below. While I was a goal setter prior to reading this, I started to understand SMART goals better, becoming less scattershot.

  • Beginning with the end in mind made me define my roles and create a mission statement.
  • The circle of influence helped me to think about where to focus my attention.
  • The Urgent vs Important quadrant made me think about my tasks within my circle of influence to know which ones I should be doing.

Getting Things Done by David Allen (book | website) is my favorite productivity book, and was my next step beyond the Franklin-Covey tools. One of the key points is the need to “empty your mind,” which means actually getting everything that you need to do in a system. By doing that, I was able to collect everything that needs done by a category or project. This reminded me of my project management training and breaking the larger projects down into smaller tasks. This even involved the routine of task review becoming more detailed, involving not just work tasks but what I wanted to do personally.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (book | website | podcast) was recommended by several leaders I read or listened to (Michael Hyatt and Seth Godin being two of them) which drove me to pick it up. I was enamored from the time I heard his story of why he wrote it. “Essentialism isn’t about doing more things, it’s about doing more of the right things.” One of my favorite podcasts right now. It has me asking questions about my goal setting, dreaming, and best yeses.

The One Thing by Gary Keller (book | website | podcast) I found out about from The Essentialism podcast. He has a key focusing question to make sure our purpose and priority are in line: “What’s the one thing I can do such that by oing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary.” Still working through a part of this as I finalize my 2021 goals, so more to come here. It is helping me to refine my mission statement and is bringing it into one solid focus.

Linchpin by Seth Godin (book | blog | podcast) is my favorite of his books. I read his blog regularly, short and to the point, and his podcast will make you think. Early in my career I would keep my head down and hope that things would pass by me. I was challenged to become critical to the organization I was in, to stand up and be noticed. This has put my career on a very different trajectory by not staying in the shadows.

Two books that I have read this year that have made an impact are Conscious Business by Fred Kofman (book | website) and Start with Why by Simon Sinek (book | website). Both books can be read from both a business perspective as well as from a leadership perspective. They encourage some of the same things in having a clear mission that is centered around values that YOU have defined for yourself.

Have any of these books struck a chord with you? What insights did you gain? Any books that you would add to this list?

productivity, Uncategorized

Let’s get uncomfortable

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My journey in trying to be productive started with trying to find the perfect tool, the perfect process, the “10 steps to productivity” if you will. Some of this was pre-internet, so I read books and magazine articles on the subject. As the internet exploded, I did searches for the best blogs and productivity experts. I had my Franklin Planner, I integrated the Franklin-Covey methodology, I had software to manage my to-do list and print it out and keep it with my schedule. I built my mission statement and did my goal setting. As the electronics came up to speed, I had my Palm Pilot and my Blackberry, an Android and then an iPhone. I played with Microsoft Outlook Tasks, Google Tasks, Things, Nozbe, and others.

But my mission statement wasn’t complete. I thought through my roles (husband, dad, son, friend, co-worker, manager…) but there were two issues. One was that I had not gotten completely honest with parts of myself. The second was that I was not being consistent in that mission in all aspects of my life.

For the first issue, while my wife was helping me learn to say “No”, it took a bit longer to be able to understand that I was a people pleaser, and it was destroying me. In 2000, I spent some time with a life coach who helped me understand the people pleasing part of myself. This helped me to better voice my wants and desires to others, as well as do better at saying “No” to those things that I wanted to do but drove my productivity down. Aaron Rubel commented on my previous post about effectiveness vs efficiency, and I had to learn that.

It took until 2015 when I almost had a mental and emotional breakdown to understand that while at the time I was being very efficient in managing a staff of people and processing 500+ emails a day, my effectiveness was at a low point. I was putting in too many hours, the self-care was lost, and my perfectionism and procrastination was taking its toll at work, while I was not enjoying the rest and relaxation that I needed.

I had to get uncomfortable. I had to look at myself even deeper. I had to make some hard decisions about my career. I had to be ok with failing and disappointing people at the right times.

And I did. I chose to work less hours and be ok with things being undone. I was let go from my position during some restructuring, and I was ok with it. I took a new position that was very different a few months later with a lower pay, and I was excited about it. I joined the Hobie Fishing Kayak Team, which was a stretch in some ways, but a joy in so many others. All of these led to some amazing growth opportunities.

For the second issue on consistency across all aspects of life, we’ll get into with future blogs.

Next week I want to look at some of the books that have made an impact on me, and why. But until then, what about you? Have you been ok with being uncomfortable, or do you need to dive into that further? Here are a few thought starters and potential actions to get uncomfortable:

  • Fear of missing out (set a time limit on social media; don’t finish that book that you are not enjoying; cancel a podcast subscription that is no longer serving its purpose)
  • Lack of trusting others, which may mean unwillingness to delegate (identify something you are doing that somebody else could do)
  • Perfectionism, either spending too much time and never being good enough or overwhelmed and unable to start (launch it!; put pen to paper)
  • Procrastination, maybe due to a proliferation of hobbies or it could be caused by your perfectionism (either schedule time to do it or set a hobby aside for a time)
  • Fear of failure (ask somebody to have a conversation; try something new)
  • Saying “Yes” too often, even to good things (next person who asks you to do something, tell them you need to think about it)
  • Trying to please everybody (list out the important people in your life)
  • Lack of self-care (identify one thing you can do differently: health, exercise, eating, emotional imbalance)

Who can you talk to about these further?

Uncategorized

Another post on productivity?

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Do we really need another post on productivity and time management? How is this one going to be different than all of the others? My day doesn’t lend itself to blocking out chunks, I’m not my own boss, I add more to my to-do list than I check off. This stuff just doesn’t work! And I don’t have time to read all of the other books that have come out! And why in the world is it in a fishing blog?

If you’re still with me, here is what I’m going to do. Today I am just going to introduce myself and how I do some of what I do. Over the next few weeks, I’ll throw a topic or two out there that has worked for me, including the books and podcasts that I have found most helpful in my journey. And I’ll issue a challenge for you that some will find easy, others will find hard. But I want to be practical.

My name is Ed Roden. I’m a husband, a dad, a leader and teacher at my church, a technology leader, and I love to mentor others, fish, kayak, read, travel, and be outdoors. I don’t consider myself super organized or an exceptional productivity guru, but I tend to get stuff done. And a friend challenged me to figure out what I do that is different. So this is it. It’s a journey, not a destination, and I’m still learning.

My wife Esther and I have been married for 27 years. We (read: Esther) have homeschooled three kids, with only one college student still at home, meaning two are launched. We have worked in youth ministry, taught at my church, mentored teenagers through adults, and traveled around the nation and the world.

From a business perspective, I have owned a small technology business, I have managed infrastructure for Fortune 500 companies, and I have built process and governance for IT organizations. This has involved leading teams, being on call 24×7 in a very reactive world with hundreds of email messages to process, learning new technology, and still not only finding time for family but trying to keep it first.

I love my hobbies. Flyfishing is my favorite relaxer, and some of my productivity tips are just to allow me to have time to enjoy them. This means I have had to learn to delegate, prioritize, and let go of some things.

I am a Type-A introvert who loves people and relaxing. I like my routines and checking off the items from the to-do list. But I can also procrastinate. I probably could have launched this a month or so ago. I am a guy who hates to say no and disappoint people. I struggle with FOMO (fear of missing out). I have days that I live successfully and feel as if my goal of taking over the world (ala Pinky and the Brain) is working. Yet more often than not, I live other days where life overtakes, and I lay down at night thinking I accomplished nothing.

So I have an outline of blog posts ready to go, but my ask is for you today is to respond wherever you see this (on the site, on LinkedIn, or on Facebook) and tell me what your biggest productivity struggle is, your favorite book on the topic, or your most successful tip. I want to have a conversation.