ProdPod, a Productivity Podcast

How does minimalism affect your personal productivity? And, is there such a thing as a minimalist approach to productivity? I believe ardently that our physical and digital worlds are a manifestation of our mental-emotional world, so I sought out some answers about these thorny questions. After about 30 hours of research and uncounted hours of pondering, here are my thoughts on these two questions. Read more.

In the last episode, I defined resilience, or emotional elasticity, as I like to call it. Here, I’d like to detail tactics for bending back into shape faster for more productive output. Read more.

A few episodes ago I covered several challenges that people face in their productive lives, including overcoming overwhelm, distractions, indecision, procrastination, and burnout. And, in this episode, I am detailing an important emotional skill that one hears in many contexts but is one consistent source of productive strength for those willing to build it: resilience.   — Quick announcement: I have launched my new podcast, ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. It’s a longer podcast show format. If you have productivity questions, please head over to the podcast website and ask it; maybe we’ll answer your question on the show! Check it out in your favorite podcast directory, or by visiting productivitycast.net. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy it!

In the last episode we learned that the scientific research that told everyone to think outside the box to overcome challenges and to be creative in life and work, was summarily misguided. We can be primed that a box exists, and we’ll still see a box as a limitation, unless we are guided to work within it.

So often I hear the cliché that you need to be an “out of the box” thinker. Creativity and problem-solving (which I feel frequently are synonymous in many circumstances) are, after all, great tools in any productive person’s toolbelt. But, is thinking outside the box really possible? (Hint: no.) And, if not, how can we effectively use thinking inside the box?

Intuitively, we know that focus is a fundamental of greater productivity. Broadly and less instinctively, focus manifests heightened productivity by training and straining any resource, including but not limited to attention, time, money, and other resources. In Episode 98, I spoke about using time-based challenges for sprinting toward such productivity. Now, I’d like to discuss some ideas about limiting one resource--the stuff we own--as a means to greater productivity.

Burnout is a systemic problem not a situational/circumstantial challenge. And, so overcoming burnout is more about how to build systematic “down time” and renewal into your life and work for sustainable productivity. Here are some suggestions for both rest and rejuvenation.

In Episode 22, I defined procrastination and even gave a few pointers about Procrasti-Doing in Episode 82. In this episode, I’d like to continue the dialog with some tips on overcoming procrastination.

Do you have a good idea of how well you manage uncertainty and make decisions? For most people, there is no well-defined strategy for overcoming indecision in their productivity systems. I think everyone should think about how to reduce distress and increase action through some basic components of good decision-making.

Without focus, almost nothing can get done. Yet distractions abound in our everyday work and personal lives. Here are some suggestions on overcoming distractions of each kind.

Overwhelm is a pernicious productivity detractor that affects us all in varying degrees. In my definition, overwhelm is a buildup of stimuli that creates anxiety which, in turn, blocks action or clear decision-making. Learn more here.

In all my years of management, I’ve learned a few things which have proved consistent, that I have wrapped into a developing, high-level leadership framework for organizations, so I thought I’d share it with you.  

In the last episode I spoke about routines that were primarily designed to facilitate personal and work life improvements. However, those are not my only routines and I wanted to explain another of my most helpful daily routines--my end of workday routine. Listen/read more.

For years I’ve spoken about the power of habits, and tangentially, I’ve spoken about many routines that I have--from meditation (Episode 32), to my Day Reset strategy (Episode 69), and more. I use a variety of routines to minimize distractions and maximize my productivity. None more than any others, I have three routines I use every day: my morning, midday, and evening productivity routines. Learn more.

Let’s discuss how the incorrect left and right brain paradigm impacts your productivity, and how, by thinking about it slightly differently and correctly, you can improve your productivity. Read/listen to the full article/episode.

In episode 102, I introduce the idea of managing up and discussed one leg of it--managing expectations and delegation. Here in this episode, we’ll cover the next two legs of managing up--managing collaborative time wisely and managing your manager. Read/listen more.

I’ve read extensively and have been honing my management skills over the past two decades, and something I’ve found to be universal is this: unless you’re at the top of the organizational chart, everyone must manage up in order to be most productive. Here’s what I mean by everyone manages up.

In the last episode, I spoke about using mind maps as a productivity tool. And, one of my favorite mind mapping tools is the free, Web-based software, Mind42. (Note: it is free and ad-supported.) Mind42 is a comprehensive mind mapping tool that allows you to create as many private and public mind maps as you’d like. Read on.

Mind maps are a method of capturing thoughts and ideas, dating back as early as the 3rd century BCE in Ancient Rome. The mind map is simply a diagram where you have a single, central thought in the center with branches off it in a freeform fashion. You can draw thoughts, use different colors, use symbols, and more, to be as creative with your mind map. This creates a highly visual and flexible tool for productivity. Read more.

In comics, television, film, and now Netflix, there are superheroes who come to save the day when villains attack or bad circumstances befall the vulnerable, the voiceless, and the innocent. Superheroes give us hope, and they empower us with moral fortitude to do the right thing even when the going gets tough. Over the years, I have noticed a trend among some highly productive people that has me understanding a bit more about why they get things done, even in the face of great adversity. And, it all has to do with a bit of surreality and a smidgen of gamification (even if they can’t explain it in such terms). Basically, these highly productive people, when they need to, become the superheroes of their own lives. Here’s how you can too. Read on.

Have you ever entered a competition, or a race, of some kind? Whether it’s a science fair, marathon, triathlon, March Madness, or almost any kind of contest, you know the feeling of competing. You have a period of time that focuses a large portion of your time, attention, and resources in achieving something. These short-term challenges have a way of motivating you to action thanks to your competitive nature, accountability to others, and the potential rewards (including gratification in pushing your own personal boundaries). Read more.

In the last episode we covered the descriptions of time thieves, thugs and terrorists. Now, I’d like to detail how to counteract these time wasting personas so you can get back to your productive life. Read on.

Using your time productively means not only managing your time but also protecting it from others who may not have your most productive interests in mind. You may know who I mean generally, when I speak of categories of people I call time thieves, thugs, and terrorists. They’re not the only ones, but they are the majority categories I see in work and personal interactions. Let me explain to you the specific differences between the three so you can identify them in a moment’s notice. Read more.

While Robert’s Rules of Order may seem outdated, outmoded, prescriptive, and even restrictive, you’d be surprised what a little bit of parliamentary procedure can do to make meetings much more highly productive. In this episode, I continue my discussion on Robert’s Rules of Order and how this can be incorporated into your meetings. In the last episode I gave some productivity principles for effective meetings. Continuing on the Robert’s Rules of Order theme, I want to cover some steps you can take to run more effective meetings in the modern era. Here they are.

While Robert’s Rules of Order may seem outdated, outmoded, prescriptive, and even restrictive, you’d be surprised what a little bit of parliamentary procedure can do to make meetings much more highly productive. The episode is the first part, giving some context with important productivity principles for using parliamentary procedure in meetings. When Brig. Gen. Henry Martyn Robert proposed the use of parliamentary procedure for common meetings back in 1876, he likely didn’t foresee the future of meetings as they happen today. However, while seemingly an anachronism or overly formal to some of you listening/reading (unless you yourself are a parliamentarian), Robert’s parliamentary law was as needed back in the 19th century as it is relevant today for the future of work to be done in more transparent, collaborative, and productive ways. Here’s why and how.

A gamified life. For the productivity and technology geek that I am, it sounds like a pretty cool existence. I’d get to live the superhero lifestyle (minus the superpower-enabling lab experiment gone wrong) I should’ve been living all along. But can I live a truly gamified life? Over the past several years, that is something I have sought to find out, and here’s what I’ve learned.

One of the most unproductive outcomes of the last century’s shift from the Industrial Age to knowledge work in the Digital Age has been the loss of seeing the fruits of our labor firsthand. In the Industrial Age, Americans made things and saw them come to life. There’s an inherent satisfaction in creating products that come off an assembly line. Contrast that to our daily lives in the Knowledge Worker Age, and you may start to notice this missing element in your life. And, I think an example of a cultural response to this lack of tangible outcomes is the Maker Movement. People need extrinsic as well as intrinsic motivations. And, while not a perfect solution, I have found that establishing a tiered reward system for completing mundane tasks, habit development and reaching big goals in a Digital Age society increases productive output by pairing difficult-to-achieve outcomes with physical rewards. Read the full blog and listen to the podcast here.

Have you ever been in a situation where you lost all your worldly possessions in one day? I have. It’s a life-changing event, even for someone not too attached to material things, to find out it’s all been burned away, water-damaged or otherwise destroyed in a catastrophic event. Other than the insurance covering my personal property providing little emotional relief for lost baby pictures and irreplaceable artwork, I had one piece of solace--my home inventory. Before or if calamity strikes, you too should have a home inventory. Read full post and listen.

When the idea of self-actualization developed in the mid-20th century, far before the field of positive psychology was fostered by Dr. Martin Seligman, there was a desire to study and cure illness, mental and physical. Dr. Abraham Maslow tried something different; he studied the role model, the talented and the ingenious. By doing so, he hoped to unlock how we all could do more, better. He developed the hierarchy of needs (which most know by the pyramid with our biological needs at its base and self-actualization at its zenith), and expounded the theory of motivation starting in 1938 and in his 1954 publishing of Motivation and Personality. I’ve always found criticism of Maslow’s pyramid’s order as constructively lacking, but I thought it would be good in this episode I’d like to discuss my thoughts on how you might look at the pyramid through a different lens for greater productivity. Read more.

Humans have five common senses. (We actually have several more senses not commonly discussed.) Your sense of touch is mostly dedicated to your largest organ, your skin, comprising 22 square feet (or, 2 square meters), which holds millions of touch receptors of various sensitivity to map your physical surroundings. Your five fingers on each hand alone contain 3,000 touch receptors of the highest sensitivity on each finger tip. Then, there’s your sense of sight, which is the reigning champion of information collection for the brain, provided for by your eyes’s millions of light-sensitive cells. Next up, we have our hearing from our ears and second-most valuable information-gatherer. Finally we have smell and sound caught by our noses’ six million receptors and our tongues’ 10,000 taste buds. Altogether we have a sensory experience unrivaled by any other animal on the planet because of our remarkably curious neurocognitive abilities. Thanks to this, I think we should pay more attention to how we can be more productive in multisensory ways. I’d like to provide the benefits and some examples in this episode. Read more.

As I’ve written about before, “happiness” is a terrible word to me. It’s my version of a four-letter word in regard to positive psychology and personal productivity. And yet, we continue to keep using it; I’m guilty of it as well from time to time. While it seems like a universal term, it’s actually a rather confusing word. If the purpose of communication is to convey information clearly to another, why circumvent the process with vagaries? Dr. Daniel Kahneman, who I’ve written about before, agrees with me in his famous TED talk, “Riddle of Remembering and Experiencing Self.” What does it mean when you say you’re happy? And, to what degree? Difficult to interpret, right?Read full post here.

Learning, in the way that humans can, is one of the fundamental ways that set us apart from all other species on Earth. Skills acquisition is one of those kinds of learning that we do really well, and many of us want to do more of, better and faster. I’m one of those people, and when I picked up The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast by Josh Kaufman, I was skeptical. However, he outlines successfully a 10-step process for rapid skill acquisition and I think he’s onto something potent. Here are the principles of the book.Read more.

Welcome to Episode 86 of ProdPod, the podcast of productivity lessons in two minutes or less. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith and I have Professional Organizer Sally Reinholdt here for Part 2 of our discussion of One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by psychologist [ http://amzn.to/1lKpijP ], by Dr. Robert Maurer. We’ll be covering the elements of Kaizen. Sally, take it away. Read full transcript.

Welcome to Episode 85 of ProdPod, the podcast of productivity lessons in two minutes or less. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith and I have Professional Organizer Sally Reinholdt back on ProdPod to tell us about One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by psychologist [ http://amzn.to/1lKpijP ], by Dr. Robert Maurer. So, Sally, what is The Kaizen Way? Read full transcript.

I first became aware of Shawn Achor as the funny, charismatic presenter of the popular TEDxBloomington Talk, "The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance.” And, subsequently, I came to know his eponymous book, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work. His book’s premise is, I quote,Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn’t just an empty mantra. Read more...

If you are familiar with Getting Things Done by David Allen, or the GTD methodology, you probably know about the 43 folders concept. If you don’t, basically, it’s a tickler file-like tool where physical, time-based items can be managed. There are, you guessed it, 43 folders, constituting 12 file folders for the 12 months in the year and 31 folders representing the maximum number of days in any given month. In this episode I’d like to detail how I simplified this powerful paper organization tool, and hope it’s useful to those out there that still have much paper-based organizing in their worlds like I do.Read the full post here: http://prodpod.net?p=444

There’s a common misconception about procrastination that it only means you’re not doing something you planned to do. Many times we are unaware that procrastination is usually coupled with doing something, if not the thing we planned. This is what I call “procrasti-doing.” And there are some practical measures you can take to procrasti-doing when you want, and when you don’t, so I thought I’d explain them here in this episode.One of the frequent stories I hear is something like this: “I was supposed to be working on my project, but instead I found myself rearranging the pens and pencils in my drawer.” This is the first classic case of procrasti-doing. One tactic for overcoming this is to think about whether or not your pens and pencils really do need organizing. If that is the case, then perhaps putting that on a project or task list for you to handle later would help you free up the mental bandwidth to get back on task. That goes for any other tasks or projects that might be floating around in your head as you set yourself up to handle any project. This minimizes procrasti-doing and maximizes your brain’s energy to focus.The other case where procrasti-doing takes hold of us often is when you start doing the tasks in a project out of order or unimportant tasks associated with a project that really won’t move the project toward completion. This might include re-labeling all the project support folders for a major project. Or, one might take to Social Media to engage there about the project instead of actually working on the tasks toward the project’s completion. In this situation, the best approach is two-pronged: first, allow yourself a set amount of time to close out the current activity when you find yourself doing the unproductive procrasti-doing, then re-focus back on starting the next task toward project completion. Remember, it’s about (as Dr. Neil Fiore says in “The Now Habit”) persistent starting. One final thought I have about procrasti-doing: many times your unconscious mind needs time to problem-solve the project or task you are currently trying to work on. In these cases, it might make perfect, productive sense for you to let your mind wander to other activities while your unconscious does the heavy lifting necessary to help you craft an effective solution. Organizing pens and pencils never sounded so productive.

Thanks to the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and father of behavioral economics, Daniel Kahneman, the scientific community has a deeper understanding of well-being. To wit, Kahneman revealed that humans live with two minds--our experiencing and remembering selves. In this episode I'd like to discuss these two selves and how it relates to your personal productivity. EXPERIENCING SELF The experiencing self is that which answers the question, "How do I feel right now?"…what you sense is most important to your experiencing self. Sensory-specific, the experiencing self is mostly focused on the present view of sights, sounds, smells, physical sensations, and tastes.   REMEMBERING SELF The remembering self, on the other hand, is a past-focused mind and makes decisions intuitively based on what our brain memorializes of our experiences. It answers the question, "What happened?"...what you perceive happened becomes the story you remember and reenforces it as reality. One way of looking at it is that the experiencing self renders facts now while the remembering self tells stories about what happened. YOUR PRODUCTIVE SELF Do you remember the last time you worked on a really difficult project or task? Well, it turns out that Kahneman's research explains why we dread, procrastinate and even remember projects or tasks as difficult. You see, Kahneman writes about moment-utility (which I've provided a link to his paper explaining it below); the idea is to capture much more in-the-moment data as you experience a situation, such as working on a really difficult project or task. It turns out that when your experiencing self does the tracking and analysis, you have a better assessment of your experiences and you also have a better feeling about positive outcomes. Using Kahneman's findings, I recommend that when you're dealing with a difficult project or task to answer these three series of questions: 1. "How do I physically feel right now?" (The likelihood is that physically you're fine.) 2. "What does success, accomplishment or complete look like for me in the next five to 15 minutes?" (This gives you a more realistic view of the project or task.) 3. At the point of ending a project, task or a period of finishing some part of either, ask yourself (and even better, write it down somewhere), "how good/accomplished do I feel? What have I learned that I can use in the future?" (Ending on a positive message will give your remembering self something to look back on to equate your productivity with a positive affect.) You see, ending on a high note, or on a less negative tone, than the initial upstart difficulty will inevitably teach your remembering self that difficult projects or tasks usually only start off that way. And, even if there are challenges along the way, it's usually only difficult in peak periods. This rewriting of your brain patterns will make you leap at new challenges instead of sulking when you look at your project or task list and see something that might be tough...and this will make you sincerely more productive. See also: Dr. Kahneman's research paper on moment-utility: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s11/sh/8a5a784a-c945-4259-91e0-f76186e7073e/4e927594f4170378dd60ab03217d3617

Having just finished the ProdPod series on Hoarding, I've got workspaces on the mind. And, when it comes to personal productivity, there's nothing like showing up to your home or work office workspace and seeing it set up just for you. So, in this episode, I'm going to discuss a method for making your workspace work for you every day. Assess Your Workspace Organization doesn't naturally happen. So, the first step is to assess your situation. Do you feel like the way things are set up in your workspace flowing well? Or, do you find there is friction when you try to access your files, when you see clutter or piles of things in particular places in your workspace, or do you trip over a coat hanger when you enter the office every day? These are the things to note that need to change to make your workspace more productive. Brainstorm and Design Your Ideal Workspace Now that you know what needs to change, create a new project in your productivity system. Rome nor your workspace was built in a day, so you can't fix all these minor nuisances or hiccups in your productive flow in a day. Now, what do you physically need to do with each problem you noted? Do you need to call an electrician to move a light switch? Do you need to call a carpenter to put a bookshelf in just the right place for your reference books? Write down or input those actions on your written list or in your task management software or app.Create Your Workspace RitualsFinally, one of the most productive moments of your day is setting yourself up for success tomorrow. At the end of every day, I have created a checklist of the things I need to physically do so that I leave my workspace (desk and office) in exactly the way I need it so that I start tomorrow productively. I put away anything I'm not working on or with tomorrow. I clear my computer of any software apps that are running that don't need to be. And, I make sure to put out the very first thing that I need to work on in the morning (or the next time I'll be in the office). You can revisit episode 30 where I discussed the End-of-Day Ritual by Peter Bregman. In addition, I have created Morning and Midday Rituals that help me break my day into productive chunks and makes sure that I'm tidying my workspace, filtering through my RSS feed reader and then purging that inbox at least daily midday, and creating time to process my email inboxes as well as making outbound phone calls to clients, vendors, staff, colleagues and my family. Once your physical workspace is in order, and you have the morning, midday and end-of-day rituals designed to keep your workspace in tip-top shape, you'll quickly start to reap the productive rewards of flowing effortlessly through your days. Let me know your successes and challenges by email or in the comments!

Ray: In this final episode of this ProdPod series on hoarding, I asked Professional Organizer Sally Reinholdt to detail how hoarding is treated and managed. Sally, take it away.   Sally: The treatment and management of severe hoarding is very complex and needs to be addressed by a comprehensive team that can include mental health professionals, professional organizers, as well as junk removal and environmental clean-up companies. From a mental health aspect, traditional talk therapy has not been found to be helpful. Dr. David Tolin [ http://www.drtolin.com ], a psychologist who has worked extensively with hoarders, uses a cognitive behavioral approach that is active and solution focused. The hoarders he works with learn to sort and let go of their possessions in conjunction with thinking through their urges to constantly acquire. Hoarders are also taken on non-acquiring trips where they learn to see and touch items without keeping them. Using these methods, the majority of Dr. Tolin’s patients show significant improvement in their levels of clutter and their feelings around the clutter. That being said, a low number of patients are considered cured. Most patients will still have more clutter than the average person and will need ongoing support to prevent backsliding. Ray: If you're interested in Dr. Tolin's work and how it may help you, check out his fantastic book, Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding [ http://amzn.to/18FCpdx ]. Also, Dr. Tolin is the founder of the Institute of Living [ http://goo.gl/5sRsgK ] in Hartford, CT, so you may want to seek them out if you happen to be the greater New York metropolitan area. Ray: Well, thanks so much for joining me on ProdPod for this series about Hoarding, Sally. If you want to learn more about Sally Reinholdt and her professional organizing services head over to her website, COSOLVA.COM [ http://www.cosolva.com ].

Ray: We're discussing hoarding in the ProdPod series…and I have Professional Organizer Sally Reinholdt here to define hoarding and how it's classified.  Sally: Hoarding is considered compulsive if it meets three criteria. First there is accumulation accompanied by great difficulty in discarding items that most people would consider useless or of limited value. The second criteria is that the clutter is to the point that the intended use of living spaces is severely limited or not possible. The third and last criteria is that the cluttering in combination with the acquiring and difficulty discarding causes significant impairment and distress.   Sally: The Institute for Challenging Disorganization classifies hoarding with a clutter measurement tool called the Clutter-Hoarding Scale. Homes are classified from Level I through Level V. A standard household is considered to be a Level I. Level II homes can have some narrowing of household pathways and inadequate housekeeping. Level III to Level V homes present increasingly serious situations. Clutter can be present outside as well as inside the home, there can be insect and rodent infestation and generally unsanitary conditions. Individuals working with hoarders in these types of situations need to have backgrounds ranging from but not limited to mental health and financial counseling to professional organizing, pest control and project management. Ray: If you believe you might have hoarding issues, click on the link in the show notes here on ProdPod.net to download the Clutter-Hoarding Scale [ http://goo.gl/dy9xWf ] tool to see where you fall in the scale.  In the next episode we'll cover how hoarding is treated and managed.

These next three episodes will be on hoarding and I have with me to help explain hoarding, Sally Reinholdt, owner of Commonwealth Organizing Solutions [ http://cosolva.com ]. Sally is a Registered Nurse and professional organizer who uses many of the skills she learned as a nurse to help her clients become more organized and productive. Sally: The short answer is that it can be anyone. Hoarding doesn’t discriminate. In some cases it appears to have a genetic component as hoarding can run in families. It can be the result of a traumatic experience but sometimes there is no clear trigger. Sadly, hoarders are many times very creative people who see all sorts of potential in the things they collect. Unfortunately their potential for using that creative energy is stymied by their need to constantly accumulate. There are also high levels of anxiety, depression and perfectionism associated with hoarding.   Sally: The number of hoarders in the United States is very difficult to calculate because in so many cases hoarders are able to hide their situations from family and friends until some sort of event or crisis brings the hoarding to light. Depending on the literature estimates for the number of hoarders in the United States ranges from 1.2 million to as many as 6 million people.   Sally: May, 2013, was the first time hoarding was included in the DSM-V with its own discrete clinical definition. It was previously categorized as symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Ray: Not that sweeping all your stuff under the carpet is the solution, but putting your clutter out of sight is a productivity hack in which you can reap immediate benefits. Princeton University Neuroscience Institute found that when you clear physical clutter in sight, you are less likely to be distracted and are more productive. If you're feeling distressed from physical clutter, take as much as you can and put it away so you see less of it…the more clear surfaces in sight the better. Try it. [ PUNI article, "Top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in biasing competition in the human brain": http://www.princeton.edu/~napl/pdf/BeckKastner2008.pdf ] In Part II in this series on Hoarding, Sally and I will discuss how compulsive hoarding is defined and classified.

“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” ~Anthony Robbins Tony Robbins should know a thing about being thankful. When he speaks to audiences, he tells frequently of his humble beginnings, the gratitude he had in those who helped him survive then thrive, and the self-beneficial results of his giving back to his community and others. During this Thanksgiving holiday week, now's the time to think about how your productivity is enhanced by being grateful. Don't believe me? Dr. Robert Emmons, psychology researcher, at UC Davis, has studied gratitude and well-being, and it shows that productivity toward goals increases with exhibiting more gratitude in your life. As the studies summary of findings states on the research department's website [ http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Labs/emmons/PWT/index.cfm?Section=4 ], those "who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals." And, "daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) ... resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy."  So, how might you use gratitude practically in your own productive life? Lisa Peake on her blog at PeakeProductivity.com offers a great suggestion: "write down a few things you are grateful for each evening. Start with this evening and see where it goes from there. You may be surprised at how much you have to be thankful for." Jason Womack, author of Your Best Just Got Better [ http://amzn.to/1crZDmn ], has a practice of mailing a daily thank-you card…this brings tangible rewards in responses of offers to collaborate, keeping you top of the mind with your audience, and the brain's release of dopamine (those are the good brain chemicals that make you feel great) that you get from making someone's day brighter. While I opt to sending out thank-you emails more often than printed cards to mail, the technique is still quite powerful for me. And, with all this talk of gratitude let me take this time to say, thank you for listening to ProdPod! I am grateful everyday for the thousands of listeners a month who encourage me with compliments and stories of how ProdPod's advice has helped them, recommend new topics, and suggest improvements to the podcast. You all help me make this possible. I hope you've enjoyed this ProdPod episode, Happy Thanksgiving and here's to your productivity success…in two minutes or less!

Steps for Setting Up Your Personal Advisory Board:1. Perform a strategic analysis of your situation, including a business and personalSWOT Analysis.2. Set clear, written goals and objectives for your PAB: Vision and 6-month missionstatements.3. Make a list of potential board advisers. Be broad in your list; think of all yourrelationship categories (academic, personal, professional, extracurricular and more)and make note of individuals you believe have skills that complete weaknesses orprovide connections to opportunities from your SWOT analyses. This is an ongoing listand should be continually updated and reviewed for potential board advisers at leastsemi-annually.4. From your list of potential board advisers, select six individuals. You should decideon the group that (a) best fits your needs for the coming six months that you'veplanned through your mission statement, (b) has the best chance of collaboratingwell, and (c) have no apparent reasons for not being able to serve on the board forthe next set of terms.5. Create a list of possible substitutes (usually up to three), in case some of yourpotential board advisers are unable or unwilling to be a part of your PAB. Begracious, positive and compassionate with anyone who does not or cannot be on yourPAB. Be sure to ask them if they'd like to be considered for future PABs; that way, ifthey say “no,” you can remove them completely from your list of potential boardadvisers so you don't bother them again in the future.6. Reach out to each potential board adviser, introduce them to the concept of the PABand yours and their responsibilities (see the outline below), and ask them if they'd beinterested in joining the PAB.7. Once you have six yeses, you are ready to schedule your first PAB meeting.

Decide on a communication platform with which everyone can be comfortable and explain how you will communicate to them en masse (via email, text, Google Drive sharing, or otherwise). Try to keep your communications effective by being consistently substantive, positive and as few as needed (but no fewer).Try to schedule the meetings and circulate the agenda with any preparatory materials to be reviewed as soon as practicable to your TAs. Remember, they have personal and professional lives in addition to your PAB, so make it as easy for them as possible to help you. You can try a tool like Doodle.com to schedule your meetings.It's important for everyone to be empowering you, not just pointing out your faults. If anyone has something negative to say, ask them to re-cast the statement in the form of a question. If it does have to be stated, guide board advisers to use constructive criticism only (that is, no complaining or whining; have a solution ready to propose to the problem they are observing). If a board adviser has a problem with another and would like to address it but is not sure how, please encourage them to bring it to your attention confidentially so that it can be determined the best way toward a productive outcome. Public, positive discussions and praise are wholeheartedly welcomed and encouraged. Praise publicly, and often!

A Personal Advisory Board is a group of persons who know you, your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, and who you feel comfortable sharing your goals and unique vision, and individuals who are committed to your success. There are several advantages that people (as well as companies) with advisory boards have over theircolleagues. A PAB offers you:• An unbiased outside perspective.• Increased accountability and discipline.• Enhanced self-management effectiveness.• Help in avoiding costly mistakes.• Rounding out skills and expertise lacking in your skill-set and experience.• A sounding board for evaluating new professional and business ideas and opportunities.• Enhanced community and public relations.• Strategic planning assistance and input.• Brings together centers of influence for networking introductions.The best way I can describe who should be on your Professional Advisory Board is stating who shouldn't be on your board. No current professional vendor, employer, client, potential client, competitor, direct supervisor/manager, staff/employee, romantic partner/spouse, or other relationships with whom there could be a conflict-of-interest should be allowed to sit on your PAB. Likewise, term limits are also a good way to not only keep everyone's commitment well-defined but also a way to rotate people out so that fresh ideas and personalities can intermingle.Although the reason for these individuals to sit on your PAB should be charitable by design, you might want to think about how you are going to thank board advisers at the end of their terms, or if/when they need to leave the PAB prior to their term's end. A small sign of appreciation for their dedication to your success will reap compounded benefits for you in the future.These are a few guidelines for making this a successful network of personal and professional contacts that are assisting you to move forward in your life and work. Please feel free to add to these guidelines for yourself and selectively publish appropriate guidelines to your board advisers.In the next two episodes, we'll discuss some guidelines for running an effective Personal Advisory Board. 

The late Dr. Stephen R. Covey wrote in his 1989 best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People [ http://amzn.to/15mtOXK ],Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality. Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players. They're not coming from the paradigm of interdependence necessary to succeed in marriage, family, or organizational reality.One of the great insights of the past twenty years is our appreciation of interdependence, the support network required of every knowledge worker to survive and thrive. As a term I first heard while reading works of Mahatma Gandhi and then Dr. Covey, it has developed into my deep understanding that the compound, mutual benefit of giving to, getting from and connecting others is a maturity we all must embrace in order to succeed. You need to be able to leverage this wisdom of the crowd in your social network. A Professional Board of Advisers (or, as I commonly will refer to it, Personal Advisory Board), is similar to that of a corporation's board of directors, in that it is a small team that you assemble of your personal and professional contacts with expertise in areas that you need assistance. Corporations and large organizations all have boards, most of them are not surprisingly required to by law, but some also have advisory boards used to help CEOs and other executives make good and better decisions. You might actually sit on one such board yourself. The reasoning behind having an advisory board is pretty simple yet brilliant. Companies are made of people and people need support and accountability. I approach this same concept when managing my personal and professional life; my interdependent world is the sum total of the people I've included in my life. In many ways, everyone has used at least a partial Personal Advisory Board in the past, when they have held family meetings, asked friends for relationship advice, sought out a mentor relationship, or gathered anyone together to help with a specific situation. My thought is to have a Personal Advisory Board that gives you the ability to reach your potential through a consistent framework.  In the next few episodes we'll discuss what comprises your Personal Advisory Board, and how to run an effective Personal Advisory Board.

Veteran social psychology researcher and professor at Florida State University, Roy F. Baumeister, with journalist John Tierney, joined forces to write Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength [ http://amzn.to/1eTrs7h ]. This is supposed to be a definitive guide on self-control, which many consider the heart of personal productivity. If you can control your self, then performance improvement potential is a sky's the limit proposition, right? Well, here are the most salient points that I lifted from Dr. Baumeister and Mr. Tierney's book, so you can make your own decision on the matter.Willpower (or, self-control) undergoes something Professor Baumeister calls ego depletion, or the loss of self-control. Willpower is divided into four broad categories: control of thoughts, control of emotions, impulse control, and performance control. All willpower depletes from one reservoir for all tasks and is a finite source. And don't be overly confident in your willpower, as studies show it actually contributes to ego depletion. Front-load tasks that require high amounts of willpower. Things that replete and conserve willpower: sleep, foods with low glycemic indices, and making realistic goals.What matters with self-control is the exertion, not the outcome. If you struggle with temptation and then give in, you’re still depleted because you struggled. Also note that giving in does not replenish the willpower you have already expended. The key is to concentrate on changing a habitual behavior. Building self-control in one area seemed to improve all areas of life.Successful people use their willpower as a first line of defense to better arrange (that is, plan for) life's challenging situations so they default into predetermined paths toward success.Correction: In the episode, I mention incorrectly the subtitle as "Unlocking the Greatest Human Strength." It's on my Someday/Maybe list to go back and correct this episode!

Over the past decade I have heard people talk about their rising stress levels. More information, more responsibility and the same 24 hours a day to get it all in and done, respectively. What I don't see many people doing is distinguishing the unhealthy stress from the healthy stress. Much of what positively motivates us is stress not its absence. As Barry Lenson writes in his book, Good Stress, Bad Stress [ http://goo.gl/3zDTK0 ], there are two types of psychological stressors. He characterizes them as positive or negative using some practical criteria so I thought I'd share them.Bad Stress, as Lenson calls it, can be identified by the following traits:It stifles your creativityIt distances you from dealing with conflict in a healthy mannerIt closes doors, metaphoricallyIt saps you of emotional energyIt makes sleeping feel less restfulOn the other side is what Lenson calls Good Stress, and can be seen as:Opening communication lines and deepening relationshipsIncreasing your capacity for compassionConverting conflicts to solutionsMotivating you to actionRefueling your mental, emotional energy storesThink about the positive, productive sources of good stress in your life. How do you gravitate good (and bad) stress toward you in your work and life? How can you work to bring more good stress into your productivity at the most opportune times? How can you repel more bad stress?Remember, too much of any good thing is not likely. Too much any kind of stress can be limiting so don't bite off more than you can chew.In future episodes I look forward to covering how to further engage good stress in your productivity.

Most days I awake feeling gratitude for having another day to be alive and that alone is motivating to get my day going energetically! However, there are days when things just don't go well. You've probably had those days, and will in the future. The opera of family, professional and personal life mess with our productive and contented mindsets. Well, in this episode, I'd like to offer three steps to restarting your productivity day when things aren't going your way.The most valuable aspect of resetting your day is to know when to do it. What is the criterion or the aspects of your current day that warrant your decision to hit the Day Reset button? If you know when the day needs to re-begin, whether that's because of distraction, procrastination or some other specific situation, it helps you put that list of conditions together so you know when to take action before the rest of your day is lost to inaction, worry or other unproductive, unhealthy paths.So, how will you restart your day? You must have an action plan template. For me, as an example, I have a checklist dedicated to my Day Reset and when I realize that I am going to restart my day, I access the checklist, copy it to my Tasks list, and start doing the tasks. I start with a specific music playlist, read some of my favorite pieces of poetry and literature excerpts for about 5-15 minutes, and then do a mini-review of my new day. I move what isn't going to happen today forward to other days, and I alert interested parties of the change. Then, I figure out what is going to happen today and make sure that it makes sense. This gets me going on a well-worn path to success in any day, but especially on days like this.At the end of your new day within a day, this is an important time to recognize the gratitude for your awareness to trigger your Day Reset, and to write down what caused you to initiate the Day Reset. With this information in hand, you can hopefully know what the standard operating procedure is for your life when this happens again. And, it will help you possibly know when to restart your day earlier or faster by knowing the telltale signs.

In this episode, I propose a three-phase approach to assessing our digital clutter…an initial step to understanding that just because we don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there and isn't affecting our personal productivity.===In Episode 43, I talked about digital clutter, and the reality that we are compounding digital information about ourselves on our computers, laptops, mobile devices and the Web each and every day. So, what should we do about this digital clutter (some of which we don't even have control)? In this episode, I propose a three-phase approach to assessing our digital clutter…an initial step to understanding that just because we don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there and isn't affecting our productivity.I. Assess where you currently have data. (storage and likely majority of it is reference)First, you have digital information hanging out on several devices if you start to think about it For example, whatever device you're listening to this podcast, which may be your computer, laptop, mobile tablet, or smartphone, you have stored information about yourself. This includes passwords, profiles or personal metadata and files. Think about where you interact daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Visit your most often browsed websites, smartphone apps and electronics. Write them all down (or the ones with the most important information about you). You may want to write down next to them what information is stored and available to you.II. Assess where you currently create data. (working memory type items)Next, we need to assess where you currently create data. This may have begun in the first step as you realized that the places where you access information about you. However, you may have different applications at work and home that you regularly create data (think text documents, photos, video, and audio/music files). Don't stop there, though. If you volunteer, have a hobby, or work with analog data (vinyl records, microfiche, photo negatives and more), you may want to consider this part of your digital information. Also, don't leave out places that are temporary holding places for information, perhaps your desktop or in work-in-progress folders that may not be on backup drives or cloud storage accounts.II. Assess where others are currently creating data for you. (inboxes)Finally, applications, websites, financial institutions and more are collecting or collaterally making more and more information about you every day. This isn't to frighten you over privacy issues, but empower you to take control of that data, know where it is, and use it to your advantage should you desire. Review all the digital tools in your life and see whether or not they are creating information about you. If they are, take note of them and note if you can easily export or back up the data.With your new current digital inventory, you will now have the knowledge to start purging, organizing and harnessing the power of your digital data.  In future episodes, I will talk about some strategies to reduce digital clutter.