Secrets productivity Scott Hanselman: how to do what you thought was impossible

Do not be afraid to make mistakes

"Blunder sometimes useful. Do not be afraid of breaking anything. " Hear this advice from such a super-efficient man, as Hanselman, even strange. He is at the peak of a career, it seems time to everything: keeps a blog and Twitter, recording podcasts, a regular speaker at conferences. co-authored more than half a dozen books in the last six years. Besides that he has a wife and two children.

How did he do it? The answer is not only interested in you. Many wonder: "Scott, why such a flurry of activity? Do you even sleep, "Hanselman replies:" Because I have to dance! Whenever I start to think that we ought to stop and remember this meme, and this boy enthusiastically. "

"The less you do, the more can be done. This is a typical scaling law ", - says Hanselman. Scaling - a change in the boundaries of their capabilities by changing the approach to production.

Their productivity secrets revealed in Hanselman 42-minute speech. All of his advice, since the rules of writing and to finding his Robert Scoble's doable.

According to him, he just adapted the productivity methodology by David Allen (David Allen, Getting Things Done), Stephen Covey (Stephen Covey, «Seven Highly Effective People Skills"), JD Meier (J.D. Meier, Getting Results the Agile Way), Francesco Cirillo (Francesco Cirillo, Pomodoro technique) and Kathy Sierra (Kathy Sierra).

Written below - it tezisno summary speeches Hanselman at the October conference GOTO-2012 and a summary of his speech at the Webstock earlier this year.

Look at the signs warning of the danger

Be focused not always been difficult. Not always the Internet is replete with hundreds of pages of fresh, not yet read the content. Information flow, distracting you, was not always continuous. Hanselman says that when he first learned to program, all he needed knowledge were placed in two books.

The Internet has created exabytes of information, half of which - the trash. A third of the day eat distraction. We are overwhelmed, but tell ourselves that cope with everything, you just have to work late. Stop! This is a sign warning of the danger.

If you catch yourself thinking that you need to sit up late to catch up with the schedule, you have a problem. The big problem, and its solution is not as simple as "I hope I have cleaned up all Taxco in his to-do list».

"Hope - this is not the plan - says Hanselman. - Hope - this expectation, when you just floats down the river. "

So, what to do, seeing a sign warning of the danger? In Hanselman has a solution. But before I reveal it, Scott gives a definition of the concepts of "productivity" and "efficiency" and contrasts them.

Productivity vs. efficiency

Productivity is aimed at achieving the goal. It is important to decide what do. Productivity - it is primarily the choice of the right goals and objectives and then achieve them.

Efficiency - is the fulfillment of tasks in the most ergonomic, process-oriented way.

Productivity - do the right thing. Efficiency - doing things right. In other words, productivity is the choice of direction and effectiveness - a quick run in this direction.

When you understand that these are two different things, you will understand how this powerful tools.

Hanselman also focuses on the trinity of the concept of "work", described by David Allen.

1. Predefined job - the one planned in advance.
2. Emerging work - one that distracts you from the plan.
3. Defined work - that when you sit down and think about what you need to do.

According to Hanselman, it is necessary to devote more time to the third paragraph. How often in your schedule you select an hour trying to think carefully about future work? Instead, looking at the to-do list, we panic, to redraw the list of tasks in the hope to patch holes. But in fact this is only a list from growing.

Spend time thinking about the future work. In professional it takes an average of no more than an hour a day.

Do, throw, delegate, delay

Hanselman allocates another technique from the famous Allen Getting Things Done:

• do,
• throw,
• delegate
• or delay.

It is a perfect solution for e-mail. Makes the task of the email, if it takes a minute and it was planned. Otherwise, throw, delegate or postpone it - do it later, or entrust someone else.

"Do not be afraid of breaking anything" sounds unnatural. In fact, this approach makes it easier to focus on the work than a situation where the burden of responsibility is permanent pressure on the psyche.

Say "no" is difficult. But the sense of guilt, conjugate with the word "yes" much worse the discomfort of rejection. Everywhere, including on the Internet, you can monitor and sort the data streams.

To filter the information and plan things, Hanselman recommends time management matrix Stephen Covey.

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When there is something both urgent and important, such as giving birth or wife had an attack of appendicitis, you should act immediately. If the case is non-urgent and unimportant, it is generally better not to do. And, alas, often we spend time on something that is urgent, but not important. To act without delay - the addiction of many of us.

Working with e-mail

Scott Hanselman daily receives hundreds of emails and shares his approach to work with "Inbox".

Rule one letter

Inbox settings change fundamentally changes the approach to work with e-mail. Create a folder for emails that you are standing in a copy (CC), and a separate folder for messages, where you are the sole recipient. Letters falling in the first folder, a priori unimportant.

But what if the boss will send you a copy of the task, and then asked: "Why do not fulfill my order?" The answer is simple: "I was up, I thought that you just inform me." Head over never do.

As a project architect with the community at Microsoft, Hanselman uses another folder in the mailbox - "Outside» (External). "These are people who do not work for the company, but are important to me. I answer all their letters, "- said Scott.

Do not check email in the morning or at night

It's simple: answer the letter in the morning, immediately got the answer, again answered... As a result of the correspondence to which you plan to spend less than an hour, it can take half a day.

Checking email in the morning, if you are traveling through time. 9:00 - lifting, check the mail. Awake - have lunch, it's time to go eat. And here the clock already 14:30, it's time to work... How did this happen? You just opened the e-mail client in the morning.

Moreover, responding to a letter in the morning (or night), you accustom people to that time. One answer to the letter at two o'clock in the morning, you have created a reputation for writing a letter at two o'clock in the morning, and yet signaled his habit of urgency.

Check your email at noon, according to your routine, and you will be amazed at how much time to do during the day.

Find your Robert Scoble

It is not necessary now and then to check your mail for fear of missing something. "Usually I have an empty" Inbox ", but when I'm on holiday, there may be 500 letters," - says Hanselman.

Often at conferences, you can see the speakers, who just finished his speech, rather flee to the laptop to look into the e-mail. One gets the impression that their job is to just delete messages.

To eradicate this habit, Hanselman recommends use of so-called trusted aggregators. This fellow who is always aware of the current situation. In Microsoft such was Robert Scoble (Robert Scoble).

I was signed on thousands of blogs. But why? Who is the best reader in the world of blogs? Robert Scoble! For myself, I decided: I - not Scoble read as unnatural blogs. And you know what I did? I began to read his blog. Of the thousands of blogs, followed, I leave five, they perform for me the role of the news aggregator. It's the same thing as watching all the newscasts during the day or in the evening just to see the final program.

Locate in the company of his "trusted aggregator". To do this, just ask yourself, who is the man who is always aware of what is happening and is happy to share this with you?

Remain in stream

What would be important no matter what happens in the world and your life, you will certainly know about it. If it happens the next September 11, you will be informed.

So try remain in a state of fluxAs in a cocoon. Do not let the attention dissipated, constantly pressing Alt + Tab in Gmail.

Save keystrokes

Following the example of journalist and Microsoft evangelist John Udall (Jon Udell) Hanselman calls to "save strokes on the keyboard." What does that mean, explain the following example.

When Brian sent me a letter with a really interesting question about ASP.NET, and I say, long and enthusiastically (five paragraphs with sample code and so on), I do not just give him a written response to the unwrapped, who decided his problem, I give him 10 thousand of their taps on key. But life is short, the number of clicks is limited - I'll never go back their own, I just gave them to Brian. At the same time I do not even know if he will read my message. How, then, to be? How not to spend, and increase their pressing on the keyboard? I write a blog post and send the link to Brian. Then my press will multiply even after my death - whenever someone is viewing my blog page.

Write short letters: three or four sentences. All that long must have a blog, "Wikipedia», FAQ, knowledge base, or any other document. E-mail is not the place to save the knowledge your keystrokes it "die".

Inbox life

Sort - means to separate, sift or select anything.

A continuous stream of information comes not only in your e-mail, but also in the «Inbox life." Notifications for social media, the release of a new episode of your favorite series and so on - all of these events, we pay the fine time. So, they too need to be sorted.

Hanselman offers several terrifying analogy: in the parking lot was an emergency, many of the victims. We need to act! Your task - to hang on every finger of the label: alive or dead, and how it should be handled. Inbox With our lives, we always humane: impose a bandage on a cancer patient while someone else is about to lose the hand. We do what we burn time, but has no value.

Sort and refine the flow of information noise (Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS, instant messengers, and so on) depending on the value. If there is something you can safely discard, do it.

Get rid of unnecessary mental burden

Imagine you subscribe to Netflix, rejoicing that now at any time be able to see the second season of "House of Cards." For example, tonight, after putting the children to bed.

The truth is that by subscribing, you give up a proactive behavior. You do not decide over what and when you do. Fluffy and various subscription subordinate your external circumstances and forced to perform tasks outside. The new series? You need to look - do not disappear as a subscription!

All this puts pressure on the psyche. You bear an unnecessary mental burden, which infests the mind and hinder productivity.

Leave Friday for reflection

Reflecting on upcoming events, always ask yourself the question: what are the three things I can do today, which in the current week, and which this year? This so-called rule of three. His Hanselman learned from his friend, the head of Microsoft software Jay Dee Meyer.

Write three objectives for:

• Today,
• week,
• year.

On Monday, at the beginning of the week, you will have a clear understanding of the next days. Friday should stop, look back on the last working week, and think. Ask yourself: "It was a successful week? Could I do something else? What can I change? "It is important to end each day without feeling guilty for taking the time spent.

Try Pomodoro technique

This time management technique proposed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The idea is to focus on a task for 25 minutes and then do a short break.

Hanselman recommends this methodology. However, he advises to keep track of all the distractions that have arisen at you for 25 minutes. Make a mark in a notebook, when I think of something else (internal distraction) or someone else, such as a colleague, you distracted (external factors).

First, you will have about six distractions, then one, and then they disappear. As a result, you will measure the amount of their productivity "tomatoes" performed during the day.

Realize that permanent employment - is a form of laziness

Be busy - is a form of laziness, lazy thinking and indiscriminate actions.

Tim Ferriss (Timothy Ferriss)

Busy does not mean productive. Some insanely busy nature will be surprised, but be creative and create something - it is something opposed to just hang out.

Hanselman gives the following example: a person actively "tweets" - such as very busy, and then disappears for a month when there is a really significant project. When engaged in business on Twitter and stuff just do not have time.

Accept as fact: multitasking - is a myth

According to Hanselman, the optimal number of one-time tasks - one. If you think you can cope with many tasks at once, you're wrong.

multitasking - it is simply switching between tasks, requiring the change of context. Here is an example. Have you ever had this: you work on something and suddenly the phone rings? You are angry. This is your father, but you are still angry, so he is calling you to work at three in the afternoon, at a time when you're fully focused. You pick up the phone and say something like, "Sorry, but I've been kind of work ..." Then you still feel sad for 10-15 minutes. Then you need to switch back to work: "So what, I thought there?"

Context switching does not work.

permissible multitasking

Things that can be done at the same time:

1. Walk and chew gum.
2. Train and listen to podcasts.
3. Drive a car and listen to voice mail.
4. Go to work and read (public transport).
5. Go to work and think.
6. Good use downtime.

Get rid of the mental noise

If anything does not help me to make money, it does not improve in some way my life - this mental noise, from which you want to get rid of.

Hanselman advises to change the first part of this quote by Christopher Hawkins (Christopher Hawkins). "If this does not help me to expand the business (to pay the mortgage, spend time with his family - substitute something that is your main goal) - a mental noise."

For Scott, this priority is the family: "Everything I do, every decision to be made, it is to get back home to my children."

Homework

Ends speech Hanselman following homework:

1. Sort your information flows.
2. Plan working sprints.
3. Get rid of distractions.
4. Think about it: working with his life Inbox, you are effective or productive?
5. Consider your wish list tools.

Note Hanselman did not say a word about Evernote, and other fashion systems. "You can spend more time reading books on productivity and the creation of the system, though perhaps all you need is a list of tasks." Maybe you just need to understand the difference between when you are "busy", and that when doing a coveted job.