My-Bite of HOW TO BE A PRODUCTIVITY NINJA BY GRAHAM ALCOTT
Engers Fernandez
Executive Technology Leader Specialized in Innovation & Digital Transformation
Graham Alcott discovered the low level of productivity caused by information overload in twenty-first-century workers. This discovery led him to take a deep dive into his book, How to be a Productivity Ninja, showing how to worry less, achieve more and love what you do. In this book, Graham combines teachings from his public productivity workshops from all over the world into a simple and practical guide to working faster and smarter.
The goal of this book is to teach you how to overcome procrastination, how to use email more effectively, new ways to increase your personal time and how to de-clutter information overload.
Graham identifies stress as one of the critical components of procrastination. In the first chapter, he goes into detail about how stress agents are created and our ability to deal with them. The author identifies several causes of stress agents among which he listed conflict, overload panic, and fear of being foolish among others. He continues by highlighting the aspects of developing a mindset of a ninja to use in your productivity. Being a ninja is about living in the present moment and not thinking about what you need to do or worrying about tomorrow. People’s best work happens when they are present and in the moment.
One of the key components of the book is attention management. We often read about how important our time is, but attention is finite and should be used as a precious resource more than our time. At the end of the day, time alone has no real value; it is the action in time what gives value to time. He went further to state that the key to productivity and ultimately the application of this precious resource will determine your success. He developed an equation to back up his point which is:
TIME + THE RIGHT ATTENTION AND FOCUS = DONE
He categorizes attention as follows:
● ACTIVE: Ticking along but flagging a little.
● PROACTIVE: Fully focused and alert.
● INACTIVE: Light is on but no one at home.
The author also proposed several strategies to maximize periods of proactivity. This includes taking yourself away from distraction and improving concentration, then using a mechanism for managing tasks and determining what to do at any given time. Graham proposed the CORD Model: Capture, Organize, Review and Do. The first two: "C" and "O" require you to operate in what he calls the “BOSS mode” while the last two, "R" and "D" require you to perform in what he calls the “worker mode.”
CAPTURE: means collecting ideas and new tasks quickly and efficiently. This allows you to quickly remove distractions and get back to the task at hand.
ORGANIZE: deals with the appropriate filing of the collected tasks. Tasks are organized in lists and give a sense of scale; therefore activities spanning months are not mixed in with tasks requiring minutes. The goal of this model is to ensure that when operating in execute mode, we are clear on what needs to be done and what is committed to at the moment of executing.
REVIEW: The review process is a formal and regular look at the tasks to be done, taking all things into account like context, priorities, what is needed, waiting for items, etc.
DO: After the review is complete, the next step is doing.
Graham outlines an excellent separation between the worker and boss views when he explains the different dashboards that are available to each. The dashboard contents for each are the following:
Boss mode:
● Waiting for list
● Masters action
● Calendar
● Good idea list
Worker mode:
● Master Action List
● Calendar
● Daily list
THE BIG THREE - KEYPOINTS
Key point #1: Say NO to as many distractions as possible
Key point #2: Knowing what tools to use and being clear about what the tools are will save you time and not provide distractions.
Key point #3: Have a good system to help you react and respond quickly.
One Last Thing
A productivity ninja is not a superhero, but they often do a great job in appearing so. Graham Alcott, Productivity Ninja