I spend the better part of my work life framing out strategies, too, trying to provide a guiding and overarching path and plan for doing things. But aside from all of that, there *has* to be room for the unpredictable. The unexpected. The unforeseen.

Human connections – if you really want them as an individual or a business – are not forged on a map or outlined within a framework. Inspiration doesn’t strike within the bounds of the carefully tabbed spreadsheet you created. People come and go, and they evolve, too. Some things change underneath your feet. Some things don’t change when you expected them to. You have to be able to not only adapt, but sometimes just chuck the playbook altogether and go with the flow.

The magic spark of true innovation, friendships of affinity, emotional attachments to things or people are knitted through thousands of moments captured as they happen, when they happen, sometimes nowhere near the script we’ve written.

But too often, we try to harness spontaneous by taking a fleeting, special moment and “scaling” it, repeating it, or jamming it into our slide deck that outlines everything we’re going to do for the year and making it into a “strategy”. And therein lies our eventual downfall.

The intangible fabric of humanity is not made of formulas, but the everyday mingled with the absolutely un-scriptable. Happy, fun, and interesting are not things you effectively engineer. You can recognize it, you can run with it in the moment, but you can’t plan for it. You have to embrace it when. And you need to let the people around you – including your clients, your employees, your teams – do exactly the same thing.

We routinely kill all of that in our work. Stifle it. Policy the crap out of it. And yes, we “strategize”, because that’s what we’re supposed to do in order to prove that we do indeed have a plan. Somewhere along the way, we learned that if it isn’t deliberate, it has no value.

But if you have any interest at all in truly being “human”, “authentic”, or any of the other words we’ve made so empty through our manipulations? Be willing to say to hell with strategy, set aside your carefully plotted binder with the color-coded tabs, and recognize the value of being present in a moment that you didn’t exactly plan for.

I promise it won’t kill you to have a conversation that doesn’t have a discernible ROI. (In fact, it might even encourage someone to have a conversation back.) Let inspiration strike. Consider an idea that’s out of left field. Laugh in the middle of a meeting. Share a cat video. Jump in a puddle. Write something simply because it moves you. Wipe off the whiteboard and scribble.

Most of all, quit planning everything. Life – and business – often happen in between the lines.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
Not Everything Needs a Freaking Strategy

I get several hundred emails per day, but I’m in control of my email, and I promised someone I’d share my approach. Maybe you’ll find a hint or two in here that works for you. And as always, your mileage will vary, so if it doesn’t work for you, skip it and find a way that does. (Maybe Chris Penn’s method will work for you instead).

First, Break All The Rules

Like it or not, your email is no longer simply a distraction. It’s a core element to your work, because the more distributed our systems are, the more we rely on it to connect people and dots. So firstly, get your head into the reality that this is how we work now. We don’t have filing cabinets and binders and interoffice memos anymore, we don’t use the phone as much, we have email. Deal with it.

Secondly, you can set aside time to deal with email, or you can adapt to it real-time like I do (oh! The Horror!). The former means you have to be disciplined about your time, and have ruthless filters to find the things that matter in a definitive moment and set the rest aside. That’s fine if you work that way.

The second means you have to be willing to scan, process, and redirect your attention continually, and have a system for parking information for later. It also means making decisions on the fly and putting your head back where it belongs afterwards. Everyone’s different. Either way is fine, no matter what people tell you.

And for crying out loud, mess with the system when it doesn’t work. Hundreds of people will tell me I do it wrong. No such thing if it functions for you. Now, to the tools.

Gmail

Gmail is by far my preferred email interface. I’ve tried several clients, and none of them improve upon it in any exponential way. I like simple, so I stick with what I know and like.

• I use Mailplane for Mac to manage Gmail, and I have several email addresses there. I can log in or out of them easily. I also manage several from a single inbox.
• I use Priority Inbox. It *dramatically* cuts down on the noise for me, and I can demote or promote an email with a single keyboard shortcut.
• When I’m processing email in a big whack – say, after travel or an extended time away – I start with the oldest first and work backwards. Email is temporal and sometimes time sensitive, so this way I can go back in time and work forward rather than missing something older that needed my attention.
• I use the “Super Stars” function in Gmail Labs. I use a checkmark for actionable items, blue stars for actionable things I’m waiting on for other people, red stars for things that are overdue. Things that are FYI or sources of information get archived immediately using a label. I’ll find them later if I need the information, and if someone adds more to the thread, it’ll resurface.
• Thank heavens for the “Mute” function in Gmail. Buh-bye, abusers of the Reply All function.
• I use the Do, Delegate, Defer, Delete system. If it’s less than a couple of minutes *and* relatively important, I do it now. If it’s for someone else, I forward and delegate, and archive the email. If I need to act on it later but it’s a longer thing (or if I simply don’t have the couple of minutes right now), I use the SuperStars and defer it but leave it in my inbox and add it to my task list. If not any of the above, I delete it. More on that below.
• I process meeting requests in batches to try and avoid conflicts and assess priorities as a group. I use “Create Event” from emails in Gmail liberally, even if it’s just a task or reminder to myself for something that needs to be done at a certain time.

Evernote

I live in Evernote, and it’s probably my most heavily used application. Here’s a bit about how I use broadly here.

It collides with my email in one simple way: a task list. I’ve tried a zillion different task and to-do list applications, and I don’t care for any of them. Mostly because they don’t work within or aren’t habitual to my existing system, so I don’t adopt them fully, ever. (Too many apps decreases rather than increases productivity for me). All I really need is a simple checklist.

When I have an actionable thing from my email, I go to my to-do list (it’s the same one all the time, just maintained continually) and add a task with a check box. If it’s important, it goes on top, bolded, with a simple **. I know that things on my list that correspond to emails will be in my inbox with a checkmark star so I can find them quickly, and see at a glance how unruly my task list is.

When something’s done, I delete it. Simple.

In General

Get comfortable with the delete button. Some stuff you’re honestly not going to do or answer, yet you hang on to it out of guilt or fear you’ll lose important information you just might need later. Get over it, and delete it or archive it. If it’s really important, it’ll resurface. Remove it NOW so you don’t have the visual clutter in your inbox.

Unsubscribe from the noise. I mean now, right when you get the email that’s clogging up the tubes. Take two seconds, unsub, and reduce the volume of garbage you need to process. Do you really need to know immediately when DSW is having a sale?

Turn off email notifications from your social networks unless you need them as part of your work. They’re going to distract and interrupt you, period. Either get comfortable with that and quit whining that you get too much email, or stop letting Facebook email you cat pictures and go to the site itself when you have time to do so.

Email overload is as much psychological as it is real. That’s why you get the clutter out. We judge the magnitude of our obligations by what we can see in our inbox, and get overwhelmed when we just don’t know what’s in there awaiting us. Get out the clutter, leave behind only the stuff that really needs attention, and you’ll have a much better handle on what’s really waiting for you in there.

Unless your work is a matter of life and death, it’s not. It won’t kill you to miss an email, and if it’s really that damned important, the person reaching out to you needs to employ other mechanisms to track you down.

Now? Breathe and dig in.

* Not a typo. See here if you didn’t catch the geektacular reference.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
How I Pwn* My Inbox At All Times

There’s an entire industry of books, gurus, and other stuff around being more productive, getting more done, being more efficient. I don’t particularly subscribe to any one system because, well, I haven’t found one that works for me. So I guess I’ve created one of my own, more or less.

But when I think about it, this isn’t a system. It’s not fancy. It’s four deceptively simple ideas that I put into play, every day, in order to manage the work I have to do. I’d love to hear what works for you, but here are four “secrets” I use every day.

1. Schedule meetings with yourself.

If you’re drowning in meetings, there is only one way to make sure you carve out the time to dedicate to project work.

Schedule it.

That means that just like other meetings on your calendar, the time you block off for that work is rendered unavailable. I understand that some meetings you can’t say no to, but sometimes, you can push back a little on the need for a meeting or a call, or ask for clarification around the urgency and schedule accordingly. Sometimes, the answer is just that you aren’t available.

I try to keep Wednesdays meeting-free unless that’s the only option for something that’s important or time sensitive or both. That way I know I have big blocks of time where I can buckle down and plow through meaty projects.

2. Keep a deadly simple to-do list.

I’ve tried every to-do list program known to man on my computer. And every time, I come back to a handwritten list in my Moleskine. I spend 45 minutes or so at the start of each week reviewing last week’s list, combing through my email, and building a new, fresh list for the week.

That’s just what works for me, but what you have to do is be willing to keep that list of priorities somewhere. For some people, it works to ONLY put on the list the top 5 things that have to get done for the day, and then they’ll look at the whole list. For me, I put a little ** next to the items on my big list that have to come first. I don’t even look at the rest until those are done. If something comes in that has to trump something else, I adjust, but stick to the same mindset.

Knowing what has to get done first is the only way to stay focused. It’s a matter of carefully weighing priorities and understanding what gets the choice position on the list relative to the other things. That balance will shift constantly. And the stuff you WANT to do and the stuff you NEED to do aren’t always going to be the same things.

3. Turn off the email, Twitter, Facebook…whatever your devilish distraction is.

The trouble with the constant flow of information from these places is that they’re interruptive. It’s too easy to get distracted by an incoming email or a Twitter reply that feels urgent, but probably really isn’t. It feels that way because it’s RIGHT THERE, but if you’re dedicating time to something concrete, those messages can send you down rabbit holes and you’ll never get back on track.

Because of my job, I keep Twitter up in the background. When a message for me comes in, I glance. If it can wait, it does. If it can’t, I deal or delegate, and go back to what I was working on. But for most of you, your job doesn’t depend on split-second response to messages like these. So you need to evaluate when you can shut it off. And do it.

I don’t do well with “scheduled” blocks of time to check email or do Twitter, but that might work for you. I deal with it more spontaneously but with a concerted focus. So I’ll say ok, next on my list is to process email for 15 minutes or so. And I do, then I go back to the next thing on the list. Find a way to fit in the stream of messages that doesn’t totally derail you when you’re in Flow.

4. Make hard choices.

I don’t watch a lot of TV. I spend a lot of evening hours writing after my daughter goes to bed, or early morning hours before she gets up. I sometimes skip out on the after parties at events (or the pre-parties) in order to work and get stuff done while I have the luxury of a hotel room free of distractions. I don’t play Angry Birds for hours, though it’s hard to resist.

There is no magic in this. And some people simply aren’t willing to sacrifice their family TV time or their weekly book club or whatever, and that’s fine. It’s all personal choice. I’m a single mom, so I have to balance work with time I spend with my kiddo. But regardless, if the goal is producing more or being more efficient, something has to give. I know that no one dies wishing they worked more. But for me, big deposits now will hopefully mean bigger return later, and the ability to rework the balance in favor of more time for me. We’ll see if I’m right.

What Are Your Secrets?

There’s probably nothing in here you haven’t heard before. The trick is – like anything else – you can’t just read it. You have to do it. That’s the biggest secret of all. Actually making the changes to your daily workflow to do these things. Taking the time to evaluate your current work patterns, and adjusting where you need to.

Most people’s productivity problems aren’t because they don’t have enough hours, it’s because they manage them badly. They spend way too much time trying to refine the system or chasing unimportant or distracting items, and not nearly enough time to do the work itself.

So when the chips are down, the big secret to productivity is to quit making excuses for our own lack of discipline, and just get going. That list over there isn’t going to check itself off. Tough love from the Tacks. But that’s why you come over here, right?

Now go make things happen. Off with you.

image credit: Ross. Simply because I thought it was fun.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
Four Secrets of the Super Productive