What Would You Tell Yourself in HighSchool

I am giving a talk to a bunch of high school seniors about personal productivity and life skills as they prepare to enter college next semester.  I wanted to ask for some help. 

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself a few months before high school graduation?

Specifically I’m looking for productivity advice related to college and entering the work force.

Here are a few things I wish I had known:

1. Don’t expect other people to keep records for you.  Keep copies of your transcripts, employment agreements, paycheck stubs, homework grades, etc.  It doesn’t matter if other people are supposed to keep those records or not, take responsibility for your own paper trail.
2. Use a single calendar and keep it with you.  When you get an assignment for work or school write it down immediately. Do not expect to remember.
3. Study hard, but make friends. Most people under-estimate the value of college friendships and over-estimate the value of always getting an A. 
4. Be who you want to become. The habits you develop in college can be very difficult to break later in life.  If you find yourself always being late, don’t expect to be able to break the habit later.  Break it now.  Don’t start destructive habits thinking you will just stop them later.
5. Do some things that are hard. I remember taking a 3 hour US history course crammed into 5 days.  It was intense and for years later it was the most difficult class I had ever taken.  It stretched me and whenever I thought something was hard, I’d think to myself "but it isn’t nearly as hard as that US history class I managed to pass".

What suggestions do you have?  Are there anythings you wish you had known, but didn’t?  Are there any things you learned the hard way?  Please leave your suggestions and stories in the comments.

TIP: To-Do Email Folder

I gave up trying to keep a clean email inbox years ago.  Everything I had read said that I should sort anything I needed into folders and keep my inbox clean, but I finally just gave up.

I finally decided that keeping anything that might be slightly important in my inbox where I can search for it.  It turns out that for me this is far more productive than trying to move things around and categorize them, it was very liberating and I found that nothing bad happened by keeping older emails in my inbox.  In fact, I discovered it was easier to find things because it only required a simple search instead of trying to find the folder where I had filed something.

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It Isn’t How Much Your Do

It is very easy to confuse motion with accomplishment, but simply being busy doesn’t do anything toward reaching our goals.  Being busy can be addictive.  Look around and you will hear a lot of people complaining about how busy they are, but when you look deeper, it is clear that they like being busy.

I’m not sure why this is.  I think being busy makes us feel important. It is possible that we feel important because we assume that important people are busy or that people who accomplish a lot are busy.  While neither of these things are necessarily true, there is something about being busy that people like.

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Get a life, buddy.–Is it crazy to spend your drive listening to Podcasts.

Narek posted the following comment that made me realize that the focus of this blog might encourage people to shift the work life balance to the extreme side of work:

It’s sad that you consider everything in life must be done productively.

"Wasting Time in the Car — Subscribe to podcasts and get a connector for your MP3 player in your car. Spend your time learning instead of just sitting there driving."

That’s what pushed me over the [edge].. dude you just got to relax, just because something you are doing isn’t making your life more productive doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time.

Sometimes it is nice to just drive around to get out of the house or relieve stress. Listening to music in the car isn’t a waste of time either. Get a life, buddy.

Narek is right about one thing.  I do want to do pretty much everything as productively as possible.  When I work I want to accomplish as much as I can in the shortest amount of time.  When I relax I want to really relax.  I’m not focusing on being productive because work is the most important thing to me.  I love my job, but I work so I can do other more important things.

When it comes to listening to audio while driving, lets look at what I’m actually suggesting–that people take some of the time spent driving and use it to invest in themselves.  By making yourself more valuable you should be able to spend less time working each year to derive the same monetary benefit.

Here is my personal example:

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4 Day Workweek 3 Day Weekend

On April Fools day, I made a post about working all 40 hours of your work week at once and then having the rest of the week off. In the post where we discussed working from home, I mentioned that one way to reduce your commute is to work a shorter work week.

Before I go any further, let me address all the people who are poised to send me vicious hate mail saying things like “What type of world do you live in?!” or “My boss would never let me do this!” Please recognize that this won’t work for everyone–I know that. However, it is a good thing to keep in mind through out your career because there may be a point where it would work for you.

Ok now that that is out of the way …

When I was a teenager, the school I attended was on a 4 day per week schedule. The state requirements for school specified a certain number of hours each year and the school administrators found that by having longer days they could meet the requirements and free up Fridays. As a student it was very beneficial because I was working as a waiter at the time and could pickup a day shift on Friday which worked out very nicely. The extra hour or two that we spent each of the four days was well worth having a big block of time off (Friday).

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Time to Think

It is easy to get so involved in our activities and tasks, that we stop taking time to just sit and think.  Taking the time to think and plan for the future is rarely urgent, so it often gets bumped by all the little emergencies of daily life.

But taking the time to think is vitally important for your productivity. Thinking can lead to more efficiency.  Thinking can lead to new ideas.  Thinking can help make sure you are focused on the things that are really important to you.

If you aren’t taking the time to sit and think, I can guarantee that you are not reaching your full potential. Your ability to improve is going to be tied to your ability to be creative and creativity demands your attention and thought.

The Right Space for the Job

My work area has a comfortable chair, a nice desk, my computer, my large monitor, my phone, etc.  It is easy for me to get stuck at my desk and not want to go to other parts of the house because everything I need is right there. However, when I just stay in my office I miss out on some of advantages of the other parts of the house.

In fact sometimes the tools that make me feel so productive actually get in the way of what I’m trying to do because they are distractions. Trying to sit and think while I’m sitting right next to my computer is kind of like the teenager trying to do Algebra in front of the T.V.  My email is right there along with all of my other online tools. 

Reading is the same way.  I’ll get more out of a book reading it on the couch, recliner or somewhere else than I will in my office.  I’m not saying it is impossible for me to do any reading in my office–it just isn’t usually the most productive place for me to read a book.

The question is not only are you doing the right things, but are you doing them in the right place?

12 Tips for an Organized Desk

Here are twelve quick tips for organizing your desk. These are things that have worked well for me. Most of them are probably applicable to others as well. If you have any suggestions of items to add please add them to the comments.

(Update: If you  are interested in seeing my desk, checkout this post for photos.)

1. Get rid of pens and pencils you don’t need. - I have one type of pen I like to use, but every month or my pencil holder gets filled up with other random writing instruments. If you aren’t going to use it, don’t feel bad about throwing it out. It is just clutter.
2. Have a place for pocket stuff. Your keys, phone, PDA, wallet, bluetooth ear piece, etc. should have a home. My ideal setup is to keep them in a drawer with wires already run for charging the various items. Unfortunately my current desk doesn’t have drawers, so I have set aside a small amount of space under my monitor that isn’t really usable for work anyway. I have all my charging cables right there so I don’t have to hunt for them.
3. Proximity based on frequency of use. If you use it every day, it should be closer than something you use only a few times each week. This is common sense, but it is easy to arrange are desk for aesthetics instead of usefulness.
4. Move electronics out of sight. Your cable modem, wireless router, firewall, battery backup, etc. shouldn’t be on your desk. Even if you have enough room in introduces visual clutter.
5. Easy to access files. Without moving your chair or getting up, you should be able to grab an unused manila folder, label it and put it in your file cabinet. Easy filing is one cornerstone of good organization. The more effort it requires the more difficult it will be to stay organized.
6. Scanning documents. This is something I’m experimenting with. I have a scanner and I’ll turn important documents into PDFs and keep them on my computer. I use OCR so the documents are searchable. This is wonderful if you travel a lot because it keeps everything right there with you. The problem is trying to figure out what to scan and what can just be filed. If you are good at guessing what you’ll want to have electronically this can work very well. I haven’t figured out how accurate I am just yet.
7. Cleaning supplies. If you clean your desk with Windex and a paper towel, make sure you have some nearby. This will help encourage you to wipe down your work surface which will encourage you to clean it off more often. It is all about making things as easy for yourself as possible.
8. Scratch notepad. During the course of the day you will have telephone numbers, names, addresses, order confirmations, flight numbers, etc. If you can keep these all in one place, you’ll be far more productive if you need to look something up later. I have the bad habit of grabbing a nearby envelope and writing a telephone number on it. By keeping a notebook, specifically for these types of items, I don’t lose nearly as many things. The Franklin Planner method is to keep all of this info in the diary page of the planner which is probably an even better option.
9. Organize those wires. It is easy to have half your desk covered with wires for various pieces of electronics. Moving some stuff off your desk can help. Some pieces of velcro wrapped around wires can go a long ways toward cleaning things up. Also make sure that you have wires that are long enough to tuck out of the way. If they are too short you won’t be able to arrange them neatly. Sometimes wireless is an option. With more and more devices supporting bluetooth and WiFi, you may be able to get rid of some wires simply by enabling the wireless settings.
10. If you don’t have enough drawers. My current desk is large, but it is a sheet of glass over a metal frame. While it looks really cool, it doesn’t allow much in the way of storage. To compensate, I’ve brought in a dresser for storage. I also use bookshelves with a bunch of boxes with lids to help give me some more drawer like storage. I have a two drawer file cabinet that slides under my desk to help make better use of the space.
11. Lighting. Make sure you have enough light on your desk. Maybe it is just me, but a bright work area is easier to keep clean than a dark one.
12. Organize as you go. As we discussed the Iron Chef Fable, it is more efficient to stay organized as you work instead of trying to do it all at the end. You should be constantly working on keeping your desk neat. If it gets disorganized in the middle of a big project, take small steps. Clear a 1 foot by 1 foot area before you leave for the day. Make a small effort toward organization may not seem like much, but if you do it everyday, it will keep things headed in the right direction for you.

Prepare Ahead for Tax Season

In the US, April 15th is tax day.  Hopefully you have your return filed already and everything is taken care of.  I’d like to make a quick suggestion:

Take some time today to prepare for tax season next year.  There really isn’t any better time because right now you probably know exactly what would have made your life easier for tax season had you done it 1 year ago. So at a very minimum, get some folders out and label them with whatever groupings you wished you had of had this year. 

If you have a place to put the information ahead of time, the chances of it ending up in the right place is much higher.

Internet–Friend or Foe for Productivity?

The internet is a valuable tool that can let us do things faster than anything we imagined 20 years ago.  But at the same time it can be a very big time waster.  The internet is kind of like a dictionary with beautiful illustrated pictures.  It is wonderful to look at, but it can take 10 times longer to actually do anything up because of all the amazing (and distracting) pictures:

Lets see how do you spell "artichoke"….neat here is a nice little drawing of an airplane…wait what was I…oh yeah "artichoke" ok that will be a little further…what is that a picture of?….oh an anteater.  I didn’t realize their noses were so long. Ok now focus…."artichoke". Hm.  How do they know what Aristotle looked like? … Arghh…. Ok focus on "artichoke" … I think it will be back a ways.  Ok lets see A R.  I went to far … wow that is a pretty good drawing of an aardvark.  I wonder if they have a picture of the Dodo bird (flip, flip, flip).  Cool. What about a platypus. (flip, flip, flip). Hmm.  How do you spell "platypus". Oh here it is. Pretty strange little creature. Wait…  Now what was I trying to lookup?

It is easy to get caught up in this type of thing when looking stuff up on the internet.  Here are a few tips to help stay focused on your work.

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