“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius
Sometimes as a Productivity Ninja you will seem to others like you have special powers. However, a Ninja is very different from a superhero. A Ninja is just a regular guy or girl, but with tools and skills and a very special mindset. There are no super powers and no kryptonite. Ninjas get things done in a way that seems, well magical. As a Ninja, what were once routine tasks become opportunities for fun, discovery, experimentation and the unleashing of your inner geek.
Thinking about the process of your work as well as the work itself will help you to love what you do, whatever that may be. You will gain excitement and a sense of magic from being better at doing what you were doing before; you’ll be less stressed about it; and you’ll experience a momentum in your work that you never thought possible.
Ninjas work in a unique heightened flow of relaxed productivity, brought about by hyper-awareness, calm and focus. It’s a magical experience that you won’t want to go back from. But it’s not all plain sailing either.
By seeking ultra-productivity, using unorthodox means and for a host of other more ‘human’ reasons, Ninjas are prone to screwing up once in a while. In old time management books, the time management ‘gurus’ would paint themselves as a picture of superhero perfection. They’d give you detailed planners to fill in, have you performing high fives in celebration of continuous massive achievement and leave you as the reader wondering how on earth they managed the impossible.
We’re all prone to screwing up – no matter how organised, how intelligent, or how seeming perfect we are or are trying to be. Yes, you too. We can aim for perfection and fail, or we can aim for Zen-like Calm, Ruthlessness, Weapon-Savvyness, Stealth and Camouflage, Unorthodoxy, Agility, Mindfulness and Preparedness, and succeed.
Yes, we’ll make mistakes. No, we won’t be perfect. But what we will do is increase productivity in ways you never thought possible before. It simply isn’t possible for me to make you a superhero and if you want that, there are plenty of other books out there that will promise it but won’t deliver. It’s an unrealistic dream, a fantasy never fulfilled. But it is possible that we can make you a Ninja.
This excerpt is from the book How to be a Productivty Ninja. Think Productive also offer time management training courses to help you become a true Productivity Ninja.
This is characteristic 7 of the 9 characteristics of becoming a Productivity Ninja….
Our minds are our most important tool. Being emotionally intelligent and self-aware are important for so many reasons, not least because they equip you to take action. For instance, a lot of the things that make up the Ninja mindset, such as remaining calm, being ruthless and pushing the boundaries by being unorthodox, aren’t easy. In fact, in many ways they go against our evolutionary design.
Our brains have evolved a lot since we were monkeys, but one thing has hardly changed: the lizard brain. A term popularised by Seth Godin in his brilliant book Linchpin, this part of our brain still remembers what it was like to need to survive, to blend in, to not make a fuss. In fact, the worst thing for the lizard brain to think would be that whatever we’re doing makes us stand out. Standing out from the crowd in evolutionary terms meant you’d get picked off by a predator and this is exactly how the lizard brain still thinks!
Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art is a revealing and personal account of his battles as a writer against what he calls ‘the resistance’. The resistance is a mindset, usually developed by the lizard brain, but characterised by stress, anxiety, fear of failure, fear of success and a whole host of other emotions that whir around our brains and tell us to stand still. “Stop. Don’t do it. It’s risky. Do it how others do it because that’s what we know is already accepted behaviour. Innovation and unorthodoxy is a crazy idea. Creativity is just wrong.” Your job as a Ninja is to silence those thought processes as much as possible.
This sounds easy but it’s not – mainly because they’re often so quiet that you don’t even realise they need silencing at all. Pay close attention to yourself and your gut instincts, but also objectively observe your productivity, noticing which tasks you’re drawn to and repelled by. You don’t need to be a psychologist or a counsellor to understand your own thinking, but you do need to pay close attention to it.
Many people will tell you that allowing time and space to listen to your emotions, listen to your heart and just be mindful is either a waste of time or somehow ‘hippy psychobabble’. The Ninja knows differently – knows that it’s all about perception and there’s a greater force inside of us that we can channel towards fulfilment, success and changing the world.
A bad day can be as much about what’s going on in your head as what’s going on in the office. Those that regularly practice or have even tried some form of mediation will know of its benefits. In fact, meditation can help sharpen all of the other aspects of the Ninja mindset we’ve just discussed.
I take a wide definition of meditation here that includes sitting quietly staring at a beautiful view, praying, free writing and other creativity pursuits, Yoga, walking (if the purpose is to walk, not to arrive!) and many other things. Again, the aim is to promote Zen-like calm and be focussed and fully present in your work.
As well as taking the time to listen to our own thoughts and emotions, active and effective listening is at the heart of great meetings and collaborative work. Listening to objections and hearing only feedback and connection rather than criticism and opposition is a crucial skill, too.
Productivity and mindfulness go together like peanut butter and jelly. Yesterday is history tomorrow is a mystery and the action is in the present. Think Productive time management training courses focus on the moment enabling you to get your inbox to zero.
This is characteristic 6 of the 9 characteristics of becoming a Productivity Ninja….
A Ninja needs to be light on their feet, able to respond with deftness to new opportunities or threats. Anything that requires a lot of shifting of thinking, quick reactions and decisions will of course need our proactive attention. And as we know, this is a finite resource. Our ability to react quickly and appropriately to new challenges really comes down to two things:
1. Our own mental ‘reserves’ or capacity to spend more of our days in proactive attention mode without getting tired. People do this temporarily through the use of caffeine or other stimulants, which is fine to an extent and in the short-term, but we need to think more sustainably than that;
2. Our ability to bring in other resources to aid this process – other people, more time and better technology. Keeping light on our feet.
Just as when we talked about tools we said there was a need to focus on these in the ‘fallow periods’ in order that we’re most agile when the going gets tough, the same process is true of developing our ‘response-ability’. There are some important steps we can take on a day-to-day basis to do this:
If we need to react, we need to be ready. Under-commit, don’t over-commit your diary: it’s always very tempting to bite off more than we can chew. At the start of the week or month, keep space and time in your calendar, ready and able to be filled by stuff you don’t know exists yet. That might sound obvious, but one look at how packed your own schedule is in the next few days will prove that it’s much easier said than done. This clear space in the diary is truly your ‘response-ability’.
Grown into, don’t grow out of: with any organising system you use, think one step ahead and develop systems far in advance of the capacity you need. For example, if you’re going to have an upsurge in business and new clients coming on board, managing client contact information on a scruffy Excel spreadsheet that’s bursting at the seams will slow you down at the crucial point.
Investing the time before you need to into developing a super-hot database will seem unproductive at the time, but is actually the smarter move. In London, the Victorians built the sewers and tube lines to be ten times the required capacity. People complain about the tube system now, forgetting how ahead of its time it really was and how wise they were to think so far ahead in terms of the additional capacity requirements. All I can say is, thank goodness they did that for the sewers!
Spotting an opportunity or threat, wherever it arrives from In order to react and respond well, we need strategic vision. We need to spot opportunity even when it knocks very softly at the door and see threats coming whilst they’re still relatively in the distance. Again, this takes some preparation and research and there are some useful shortcuts to use. Networking, for example, is a great way to keep your ear to the ground.
Different people will have a different policy on networking, but broadly I set out to tick off these criteria, in this order:
1. Am I likely to meet interesting and useful people?
2. Is this person remarkable? Do they have something to say, or a good track record, or good enthusiasm? (If not, move on – there’s nothing to see here!)
3. Can this person tell me something that informs my work and broadens my strategic sense?
4. Can we work together on something?
5. Is there an obvious win-win here that takes half the effort of the conversation itself?
Only when I get to number five do I commit. Often we get carried away with possibility, but delivery is another matter, so only pursue those that in conversation appear to be the ‘no-brainers’.
I hope you have enjoyed this article on improving productivity by developing the ninja skill of agility. Got any more time management training tips? Please feel free to share them below!
The Unorthodox Productivity Ninja
“How would Nelson Mandela tackle this?”
This is characteristic 5 of the 9 characteristics of becoming a Productivity Ninja….
What’s important is the end result. It doesn’t matter if you use the conventional route to get there or find an easier path. Just because a seasoned professional tells you something needs to take 16 hours, doesn’t make it true. Be willing to question everything. It’s important to be on constant lookout for every opportunity to take advantage of progress and innovation and do things more easily because the chances are, a lot of the people around you stopped doing that long ago.
They just do things the old way and they’re happy not to change it too much. We must avoid getting stuck in a rut and doing things less efficiently than we could, at all costs. Don’t be afraid to stand out when the time is right. Doing things differently is risky, even when we’ve got a good hunch that we’ve got a better way of doing things. But this isn’t about chasing glory (although we’ll reluctantly and graciously accept it when it comes along); it’s about doing things in a better way and the satisfaction that comes from pushing boundaries to improve the process and increase productivity.
Pushing boundaries is easier when you’re not really pushing boundaries. This is one of the Ninja secrets. The exact problem you face at work today is a problem that someone in another industry faced yesterday and that someone else will face tomorrow. So just as we can model decision-making, we can also model innovation from elsewhere.
Injecting some fresh thinking into a situation and trying to see the problem through the lens of someone in a completely different area of work can be a useful technique.
If, for example, you’re looking to communicate more creatively, why not ask yourself, “How would an advertising agency do this?” or, “How would Nelson Mandela tackle this?”, or if you need more method in amongst the madness, ask how a surgeon or engineer would approach the task. And, if you know people who do those kinds of jobs, call them up and ask for their perspective. You’ll be surprised how effective this kind of modelling can be. Genuinely pushing boundaries is exciting, but can be a lot more time-consuming and takes a lot more effort than simple modelling. Innovation in one industry or job role can be the status quo somewhere else and vice versa.
An obsession with unorthodoxy and innovation also means ditching some of the foolish creations of the ego: never be afraid or embarrassed or too proud to ask for advice, even if that means you needing to show weakness. And never resist an opportunity to learn something new from a trusted source. Modelling the success of others is crucial.
Mentoring is a great way to do this: take advice from those who have travelled the road you’re setting out on, avoid making the mistakes they themselves made, and shortcut to success. Along with mentors, think about your ‘partners-in-crime’. Who are the people travelling a similar road at the same time as you? Chances are, they all have mentors too and are learning equally important things.
Never be afraid to share your learning with others as you’ll be amazed at the priceless lessons you get back in return. Sometimes we resist such collaborative approaches because we believe, like some kind of superhero, that there is some added virtue in achieving things on our own or in being competitive. Remember, the only thing that matters is whether you get there; no one cares how.
Whilst certain rules are worth upholding – and there are certain rules that would get you fired if you broke them – a Productivity Ninja approaches work with the mindset to focus on the end result first and work back from there.
Questioning of rules, especially in relation to bureaucracy, is a great skill. Remember that if the risk of serious repercussions is limited, it’s usually easier to apologise than to ask permission. There are times when we just need to show some leadership and crack on. Don’t be afraid to rip up the rulebook, especially if you can trash some tired old bureaucracy along the way.
This is an edited extract from How to be a Productivity Ninja. Read more buy the book….
Stealth & Camoflage
This is characteristic 4 of being a Productivity Ninja….
Protecting your attention spans and keeping focussed is hard to do. This is where the Ninja needs to employ a bit of old-fashioned stealth and camouflage. If you’re in the limelight, you might get caught in the crossfire. One of the worst things you can do is make yourself always available. It’s an invitation to some of your biggest enemies: distraction and interruption. Here are a few examples:
As well as protecting our attention from others, we must recognise the need to protect our attention from ourselves. We can be our very own worst enemy. There’s a phrase in software development called ‘Going Dark’ which refers to the time when a developer is ‘in the zone’ with their programming and has subsequently stopped answering emails or responding to other communications. They can be extremely difficult to find but there’s probably some amazing productivity happening… somewhere.
If your attention and focus is likely to be impeded by unlimited access to the internet and you’re likely to be tempted by its millions of distraction possibilities (and who isn’t?!), disconnect once in a while. Yes, a productivity book is telling you to turn off the internet! If I turn off my wifi connection for two hours, I know there will be no new email arriving during that time, and that it will be annoying enough having to fiddle around with turning the connection back on to keep me from doing so.
The art of camouflage is an important skill in keeping us productive. We may be off the radar, but that certainly doesn’t mean we’re not working. Quietly hiding away is not for everyone and it’s not something you can’t do all the time. But it does focus the mind on the task at hand and avoids so many of the interruptions and distractions that we place in front of our own eyes.
Finding other people to do your work for you is a great way to get more done. The problem is that the world is pretty scarce with people who actually want to do your work for you! Hence, a bit of stealth delegation is in order. This is unorthodox for a number of reasons, but consider first that you are unlikely to be able to claim credit for your actions and also that things may turn out differently to how you had imagined.
If you’re prepared to tolerate that, it’s a great tactic. Better still, work out from your project list which of the projects you could afford to have others work on in different ways, or that you care least about. These are the ones to consider stealth delegating. Here are three common forms of stealth delegation. As a Ninja, you might well discover your own techniques, too.
Setting boundaries with meetings and your email etiquette is one of the topics we cover in our Think Productive Productivity workshops www.thinkproductive.co.uk.
“Begin with the end in mind.”– Stephen Covey
This is the second in a series of posts defining the Characteristics of a Productivity Ninja….
As well as needing to make more and better decisions, we need to be choosy, processing information to sort the wheat from the chaff and the big opportunities from the even bigger ones. Ruthlessness isn’t just about how we process information, it’s also about our ability to protect our time and attention, focussing only on the things that add the greatest impact, even at the expense of other things that are ‘worth doing’.
With abundance of information such a problem, being choosy is the only way. It goes against the western, protestant work ethic culture that we’re so familiar with to decide not to do things, but that’s exactly what we must do. Being much choosier about what we say “Yes” to is an important skill – and learning to say “No” to ourselves means not biting off more than we can chew. If you do get into situations where you’ve bitten off more than you can chew (and I do this regularly,by the way!), it’s about realising that renegotiating your commitments to yourself and others is better than burning yourself out trying to meet them all.
Picture this. You’re in a meeting that you thought you were attending purely to contribute to, and the meeting discussion begins to come around to some decisions and commitments about actions people could take at the end of the
meeting. There’s a particular set of actions that you’re renowned for being good at, and just as it’s mentioned, several pairs of eyes turn and focus on you. Saying “No” to others is tricky. It requires steely resolve, a ruthless streak and some great tactics so that you come out smelling of roses.
Our attention – particularly that proactive attention when we’re most alert, in flow and on top of our game – is arguably our most precious resource. It needs to be nurtured and valued. At the same time, there are a million interruptions out there: emails, phone calls, thoughts, stress, colleagues, social media, the next big crisis, the next big thing.
We often like to be distracted because it’s the perfect excuse for procrastination and thinking less. Facebook or Twitter win over the report we’re supposed to be finishing simply because it’s easier to be in those places, having conversations, than it is to get into the difficult thinking we’re supposed to be engaged in.
Using the 80-20 rule, we can start to recognise that not all of what we do creates an equal amountof impact. 20% of what we do accounts for 80% of the impact. Often, there’s a temptation to aim for perfection. In some areas of our work, this perfection is healthy and even necessary but in other cases, it can be avoided and the impact on the final result hardly even noticed. So we need to be ruthless in our planning. What are we trying to achieve? Has someone else solved this problem before? Could we beg, borrow or steal?
I hope you enjoyed this article on increasing productivity by developing the ninja skill of ruthlessness. If you have any other time management tips, please feel free to share them below!
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“The mind is for having ideas, not for holding them.” – David Allen
This is the first in a series of posts defining the Characteristics of a Productivity Ninja….
So you want to be a Productivity Ninja? The first characteristic you need to nurture is Zen-like Calm. Good decision-making comes from the ability to create the time and space to think rationally and intelligently. The Ninja realises this, remains calm in the face of adversity, and equally calm under the pressure of information overload. You might not believe this, but it is entirely possible to have a hundred and one things to do and yet still remain absolutely calm.
How do we beat stress and remain calm? I answer this question more fully in my book as well as the practical skills needed for Ninja-mastery of email, tasks, projects and meetings. Here are a few basic principles:
Be sure that you’re not forgetting important items by keeping all of your support information in a system, not in your head. Be sure that you’re not distracted and stressed by what you could be forgetting – by using a system instead of your own head as the place where information and reminders live.
You need to have trust that whatever systems you use will work. There is a danger that additional stress will be created by the uncertainty of not knowing whether your systems will help you deliver. Sticking to what you trust and trusting what you stick to are crucial. The way to foster this trust and promote the Zen-like calm you need is to regularly consider not just your work, but the process of your work too. Briefly but regularly reviewing how you work will help you to promote clearer thinking in the work itself.
Realise that you’ll never get everything done. That’s not the game anymore. Be safe in the knowledge that you’re in control, selecting the right things to do. This does not mean ‘don’t be ambitious’; it does mean that if you have a sense of ambition, you’ll probably experience some times in your life with more on your plate than you can physically do. The truth is that worry, stress and negative thought patterns are tiring and completely unproductive.
Eat porridge. Keeping fit and healthy will not only reduce stress and give your brain the focus and energy it needs to produce clearer thinking and decision making and it means you’ll look hot. It’s a win-win-win! There are hundreds of theories about why physical fitness positively impacts the brain. I discuss a few of them in Chapter 3 of the book.
“I don’t have the time to be organised,” is a common objection I hear when coaching clients towards Productivity Ninja status. But the truth is that when we experience periods of ‘flow’ – the times in our day or week when we’re most productive – the last thing we want to do is be thrown off track by being unable to find some crucial piece of information or by not having the tools we need readily available.
Usually, those people who naturally resist the idea of being organised are the very same people who experience the greatest mindset shift from getting their paperwork, projects, email inbox and everything else under control. It’s immensely calming if you do it regularly, but probably even more so if you don’t normally experience it very often. The realisation that after each battle comes a period of rest and realignment, and the strategic value of preparedness for the battles to come, are central to the Ninja philosophy.
This is an edited extract from How to be a Productivity Ninja. Read more buy the book….
Last week was the launch of “How to be a Productivity Ninja”, a culmination of the last three years of thinking and getting things done from Graham Allcott. Adopting the mind-set of a Ninja offers very useful ways to approach your work. This week we thought we’d give you a taste of the nine characteristics of a Productivity Ninja described in the book….
Do you have a system to store the information, actions, task lists, checklists and files? What could be improved to make it easier to access? Zen like calm is an ability to remain focused and not be stressed by all the things you’re not doing.
Saying ‘no’ to as many distractions as possible. Could you afford to be more ruthless in your focus?
Knowing what tools to use, but being clear that the tools are there to save you time, not provide distractions. Do you have good communication systems in place and is it easy to track who does what?
Get out of the chaos once in a while. Are there times when people working alone, away from the limelight, might be more productive.
Challenge the status quo. Think how would Nelson Mandela make it, or how would Amazon.com make it? Take inspiration from unusual (as well as usual) places.
Have good systems to help you react and respond quickly. Are there opportunities to discuss the storm during the calm before it? Plan ahead!
Ask youself good questions and avoid stress. Are you a good listener – to yourselves and to others?
Knowing that rest, relaxation and good organisation skills are important. If you’re over-stretched, can you see light at the end of the tunnel? If not, change it!
Last but no means least, one of the loudest messages in the book is that in order to be a Productivity Ninja, you don’t have to magically become a superhero. Superheroes only exist in the movies and you’ve got real work to do, back here on planet Earth.
You might be surprised to learn that to be a productivity ninja is not like being a superhuman. Essentially we are human beings not human doings. Humans make mistakes and we shouldn’t try to be perfect.
Aiming for perfection is often the quickest way to get stuck. The important thing is to finish, not to be perfect. Celebrate your mistakes – use them for good. Adopting a Productivity Ninja mind-set is a great way to create a safe space to innovate and ultimately, to change the world!
“How to be a Productivity Ninja” is available on Amazon buy your copy today. The e-book is being sold in aid of READ International.
This is Part 1 of a series of posts describing the characteristics that will help you to become a Productivity Ninja. Look out for new posts everyday this week. How many characteristics do you relate to? Please leave your comments below…
