Productivity

Technology Darwinism

~ Don Dalrymple ~ Leave a comment
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Automattic, the makers of this blogging platform, WordPress, bought Tumblr for less than 2% of it’s previous acquisition price of $1.1B. The hype has  died with another platform. And technology darwinism, survival of the fittest, the tried and true, is brutally pervasive.

Social can make you feel like something is happening. But, it’s hard to find a lot of testimonials of a complete stranger doing business through a social post.

We don’t have 5 different Facebooks with equal power. We have one that dominates. It’s still to be seen if it persists or if the world flips from privacy issues or attention fatigue to sink the ship.

Automation can be alluring and you can bring in so much technology that noone buys into using it in your company. Whether you move the needle of ROI can become overlooked by technology and the perceived power it holds.

Anyone can make their world more complex. And most people do. What if you could take a step back and remove what you have built up in your life. See what matters and doesn’t matter? The guys at Yes Theory deleted social media for 30 days and the outcome was life changing.

Maybe you find out that you can consolidate platforms. Perhaps you see a lot more time returned to you so you can put it to things like creativity and strategy.

We tend to like to add things to our lives rather than subtract. As technology consolidates and some platforms die or limp along painfully, I think of it as natural evolution on a hyperspeed pace. Our collective groupthink helps to filter and see what matters and doesn’t matter – what adds value and what does not.

In our own work and lives, we should speed up our decision-making so we can enjoy the outcomes of what is better at the end of the long cycle of technology darwinism that eventually weighs itself into our lives. Whether we are strategic or intentional can make the difference on reaching our goals faster.

Don’t Hold the Hot Potato

~ Don Dalrymple ~ Leave a comment

We remember the game as kids. The hot potato moved around the group and your job was to touch it and pass it. You were part of the game of movement. You lose if you hold on too long.

When you are dealing with information, you are holding the hot potato. The next person needs you to pass it. Your team member, boss, customer, vendor, or consultant needs the information you have.

If you hold on, you affect getting paid, creating opportunities or making customers happy. You become the bottleneck. And bottlenecks jam up the flow of deals and projects that keep moving despite your productivity or lack thereof.

Whether we like it or not, the game of hot potato never stops. We can just get better so the flow keeps going. It’s harder when you have to add more creativity to the flow of the game. It takes time, deliberation and accuracy if you have to come up with a creative solution to a problem.

If you are simply clerical, it can become boring. Getting paperwork processed, bills paid or HR forms filled can be tedious. That’s the temptation of letting robots do what we get bored of so human beings don’t hold the hot potato on critical path work.

Think about where you are in the game and how you handle information flow. The great news is that you can get better. You can become more effective by anticipating the work coming your way this day, this week or this year. You can be ready to execute.

Then when you get the pass, you can get the work to the next person that needs it quickly.

That’s how you play and win. It’s how you contribute when you are in the knowledge game.

How to Be a Resource Maven

~ Don Dalrymple ~ Leave a comment

Today, we have too much information and technology, not too little. And information and tools are cheap and accessible.

You can create value for others by curating information and sharing it specifically and personally. Sure, people share on social media, but it gets drowned out and is hard to consider in the scrolling sea of noise.

Here is what I like to do to provide value to the people I seek to help:

1. Save Helpful Content Using the Google Keep Chrome Extension

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I am a heavy user of Google Keep. It’s part of your Gmail or G Suite setup. It’s searchable and can easily hold lists, notes, links and research in a virtual sticky pad environment. It’s also now in your sidebar of Gmail to search as well.

The Google Keep Chrome Extension installs on your Google Chrome browser. When you are reading anything on a website, simply click the extension to save the link so you have it to recall anytime. You can also add notes on the fly and label those notes for categorizing. It’s fast, convenient and you are able to keep moving through information quickly.

When you want to find old information, simply search for what you are looking for. You can do this in your browser or your mobile app. All your knowledge, research and gathering ready to be found.

When you are seeking to be helpful to a prospect, client or friend, review content in your Google Keep to share. Be sure to share personally. If by email, add your insight, opinion or advice.

2. Read Blogs on Feedly

Feedly became the go to RSS feed reader after Google shut theirs down. It’s convenient in your web browser and mobile app. I like Seth Godin’s exhortation to Read more blogs and what the value is for you personally.

Blogs are deliberate, thoughtful and keep you current on your interests in your industry and in the world. Save articles. Share them with people you care to connect with and help. It’s easy to do with the social sharing or email controls in Feedly.

Organize your Feedly by topics and carve out a few minutes each day to gain insights and read powerful articles. You can add my blog from my RSS feed.

3. Keep a List of Article Ideas

When I am in conversations, engaging the world or reading, new article ideas pop up all the time. I keep a list on my Gmail Tasks called “Articles” and add to it regularly. It keeps me attentive to what is going on around me. I am a writer and I love finding insights and creating content around those insights.

I like Anne Lamott’s thoughts on being a writer, thus an observer in the world:

If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days – listening, observing, storing things away, making your isolation pay off. You take home all you’ve taken in, all that you’ve overheard, and you turn it into gold.

You notice more by keeping thoughts in a convenient, accessible place. Letting your eyes observe and your mind wander and make connections happen when you are out in the world. Having a system where you keep ideas for content is powerful for keeping a pipeline of worthy content going. You can write an article or an email to someone elaborating on your thoughts.

Being Valuable to Others

There are a few ways to create value, but having resources that you can share in personal ways does require a process that is easy to manage. I keep my resources continually building and try to match those in timely ways for my clients and friends. I try to add a bit more than might be reasonable to each interaction with people.

You can share resources in one-to-one emails, newsletters, blog articles and on social. In a crowded world, it is valuable to bring solutions, insights and focus to people’s problems. Be that resource and you become valuable. You become that person people know help them and not waste their time and attention.

Be a Ruthless Pruner

~ Don Dalrymple ~ Leave a comment

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We are always working on yesterday’s commitments. And when we have committed, it’s so easy to make those decisions sacred. Such reverence for our past commitments builds up continual clutter, drag and mediocrity in our work and lives. Without knowing it, we are managing many subpar projects, possessions and relationships at the cost of what could be the best. We don’t have room to invite, entertain or adopt the best.

Pruning cuts out what is less than optimal so the main part of what matters can grow stronger. It’s a habit that has to be practiced daily in order to make room for the best.

If you find yourself in a slump, prune. You will gain energy from getting lighter.

If you need new creative direction, you don’t simply get inspired with more creativity. I don’t think there’s even a lack of creativity. In fact, creativity shows up when you make more time or free up resources.

Ruthlessly prune projects that simply don’t have a payoff anymore. Your brain wants to fill that time and space with new options. The brain can’t help it.

Nature hates a vacuum and when you prune, you create a vacuum to be filled.

In the process of pruning, you might also discover the things that really matter. Double up on those commitments, projects and relationships. The pruning revealed what is gold and truly matters. Frittering away your life, energy and resources on things that don’t matter or create high value simply spreads you thin at the cost of what is best.

It’s a hyper-competitive world with millions of people. You likely have a few things that you can go big on and add real value to carve out a place for yourself or stand out. How can you get there managing, struggling and emotionally attaching yourself to commitments that don’t have any potential of big payoffs?

What’s one thing that doesn’t matter right now you can ruthlessly prune? 

The Weekly Checklist

~ Don Dalrymple ~ Leave a comment

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I like to keep two checklists that I execute to keep my business moving:

  1. Weekly Checklist – Actions that have to get done each week for operations
  2. Daily Checklist – What is foundational to my personal and business goals

Business tends to run on a weekly cadence. The ritual of keeping a weekly checklist ensures that you have attention on items that keep your cash flow, project delivery, relationships and key metrics met consistently. It is an opt-out approach for things that are important. You want to pay attention to these items and choose to ignore them intentionally, if that is what makes sense in your priorities.

Here are a few items I have in my Gmail Tasks for a weekly checklist:

  • Accounts Receivables
  • Blog article writing
  • Proposal Follow-ups
  • Team Skills Training
  • LinkedIn article writing
  • Client Project Updates

After I check off each item, which I like to get done on Mondays, I uncheck the items the following week to start the cycle over again.

This ensures I keep what is important moving along in a habit and don’t miss both the mundane and important details.

In my daily list, I do the same and focus on critical daily activities such as:

  • Exercise
  • Share value with target prospects
  • Read
  • Write

Those are items that keep me locked in on effectiveness.

Again, I check them off and uncheck them with a new cycle.

Winging it is hard. If it’s important, you should make it an opt-out.

What kind of weekly checklist and daily checklist would make you more effective?

Loving The Main Thing

~ Don Dalrymple ~ 2 Comments

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“The main thing Is to keep the main thing the main thing.” ~ Stephen Covey

Keeping on the rails is so hard when our brain loves to pull us to distractions. It’s not only the distractions, but we are barraged by other people’s demands and priorities continually.

The main thing  to do can easily get buried or rationalized away.

I keep checklists to stay focused. Those things will get done. The timing and energy are part of what makes the main thing the main thing. If I’m low on mental bandwidth, I take care of physical actions to move around. If I feel energized, I will tackle that big hard task which requires long mental focus.

Part of the challenge is to pay attention and decide on what the right thing is to do at any given time in context.

What is your highest contribution?

How can you get things off your plate that get in the way of contributing?

What are things you can do to make executing easier?

Sometimes knowing what matters most comes from getting away and seeing things from afar. Other times, you have to work a bit and get in the details to appreciate what you are not seeing.

It’s wasteful to be working on the wrong things. A bunch of busyness with no impact, result or contribution kills opportunity. You can’t get those hours back.

We have this luxury of choice that starts with the right thought, translated into the right action, at the right time. Make your work count.

Too Many Moving Parts

~ Don Dalrymple ~ Leave a comment

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You may have to build a business with 100 employees. Maybe a 1,000. That’s the manpower tax to help get your product into the hands of your customer.

Instagram had 13 employees serving 30 million users at a $500M valuation at one point. That’s leverage. Compare that to the 145,000 people Kodak employed in the industrial age in 1988.

We are lucky today. Technology allows us to do a lot more with less. I am not sure, even with that leverage, why human nature, when given a choice between the complex and the simple, tends to choose complexity. It’s one of those boggling mysteries to me.

When you build a business with too many moving parts, you have a lot of cost and management. It’s common and easy to do. Adding takes much less mental and emotional focus than subtraction.

There’s likely a simpler business to be in than the one you have designed. You may have to be more thoughtful about what you are doing, but that may be what is holding back your ability to grow.

Can you work with a vendor and get rid of a lot of headaches in your business instead?

Are you moving irrelevant information around?

Do you have systems that you have outgrown?

Are you living in the past?

Constant pruning is a necessary business skill. It allows for the new. You can get rid of dead weight and functions that simply don’t add value any more.

What moving parts are you currently managing that doesn’t make sense to have around anymore?

Set Important Decisions to Opt-out

~ Don Dalrymple ~ 3 Comments

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There is such a thing as decision fatigue. Your willpower and ability to make effective decisions changes over the course of a day from mental weariness. When it comes to trying to respond and keep up with the demands of knowledge work, it’s hard to stay sharp and it’s easy to push out things that are important in exchange for the urgent.

There are important things I want to happen regardless of the tsunami of inputs. I want to spend time with my wife and kids. I want to fit into my pants and be able to climb a mountain without problems. I want to enjoy good friendships and fun. I want my responsibilities as a business owner, family man and consultant to be done well and on time.

Thus, I put the important things in my Gmail task list and my Google Calendar. They are recurring and for me to skip an appointment or task becomes a decision to opt-out. I think important things should be opt-out. Otherwise, the decision has to keep being evaluated, and depending on circumstances, I may bypass what I already decided was important.

It’s better to see that date, my workout or my weekly list of deliverables in my calendar and task list. I show up and get it done. The decision was already made and it’s one less item I have to think about.

What do you want to get done every week or month? How about making a list and getting those things into your calendar. Book that room, pay for that membership, send the invitation or develop a weekly list you have to opt-out of each week. You have effectively saved yourself some decision making fatigue in this crazy world that can easily topple you off your game.

Updating My Daily Routine

~ Don Dalrymple ~ Leave a comment

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“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” – Darren Hardy

Our habits define us. I like to tweak how I approach days and I experiment with my habits continually. These days, I have a few things that get me mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually engaged with the bigger goals I am pursuing:

  • 30 push-ups
  • 30 sit-ups
  • Prayer
  • Brain dumps
  • Checking and managing lists
  • Long walks
  • Researching and sharing
  • Writing
  • Reading

I didn’t get there abruptly with my daily routines. I started with just one thing first and focused on keeping consistent. I’ve also weeded out things that don’t give me high return on my energy or revenue.

This is largely my unseen life and what goes on when I am alone. And it has been foundational to helping me grow personally and help others grow as well.

If you are stuck, perhaps it’s time to add to your daily routines or subtract time and energy wasters.

You have to be intentional. Everything is changing and working against you. And your collective value comes from your daily routines.

What results do you want? What are some small daily habits that can get you there emotionally, mentally and physically?

Always Monitor Relevance

~ Don Dalrymple ~ Leave a comment

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I went through a lot of old digital files recently in my Google Drive as part of a pruning day. I had everything from client projects from years ago to books I was working on to consulting and coaching tools for strategy.

The vast majority of information was irrelevant to what I am doing today. I would never use those files or information again, though they may have been building blocks to where I am now. What was highly relevant ten years ago had context. Furthermore, innovation has created an immense amount of new tools and ideas that make sense for me and doing business now versus before.

Relevance has to always be questioned. Otherwise, we are stale and holding on to what doesn’t matter anymore. The habit of relentlessly getting rid of the old to make room for the new keeps you in the game.

I want to focus on now and the future. And the last thing I need to clutter that pursuit is entertaining irrelevance.