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295 |365 Productive Travel

Since implementing GTD last year, I have learnt to make my travel more effective and productive. The key to effective travel is actually spending time planning and prepping days or sometimes weeks out.
 
Some things I do to improve my travel time are

• Have reading with me, if I get downtime, it’s a great fall back and I catch up while flying.
• Have pod casts downloaded for travel in the car.
• Book solid days of meetings in advance.
• Prepare agendas and key outcomes of meetings while travelling.

And then sometimes, travel time just needs to be used to process and make decisions.
 
The result of effective planning was two very productive days of travel into four of our branches.

Took this photo on the way home to Hamilton.

268 |365 Overnight Fog

Had a super productive day on Friday, albeit an early start.

Clearing my inbox, is like clearing fog. It brings a crisp fresh feeling that makes me more productive and better leader.

217 |365 A messy desk causes stress

I can still remember Sharon a colleague at New Zealand Couriers walking into my office, seeing the paper and piles everywhere and boldly proclaiming she had no idea how I could find anything or how I got anything done.
 
It was my first office, and on reflection, to call it organised chaos was gross misuse of the term. It was anything but organised.
 
I took this photo of my desk one evening after four days of unexpected and intensive investigation into deep dark hole of bad stuff. In amongst the crisis, things started to pile up and I reverted to my naturally messy state of operation.
 
I have learnt over the years that messy is very unproductive.

• A messy desk leads to a cluttered mind.
• A cluttered mind leads to heaps of ‘open-loops’. Things that are not captured in a place I trust.
• Open-loops lead to a greater feeling of stress and pressure, as I am subconsciously aware of all the commitments I am missing.
• Stress and pressure, burn energy at triple speed and make me unproductive.

It has taken me a full 10 days to get my systems back on track with my GTD system. Inboxes empty, tasks captured, notes reviewed.
 
The difference in the clarity of my mind is undefinable.

152 | 365 - A new day

E. B. White once wrote, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
 
How often that describes me. I want to make a difference, to change, to improve the world and the lives of the people in it.
 
And yet.
 
I want to enjoy life, have fun, and to be honest park myself somewhere obscure and do nothing but wax lyrical about making a change without actually doing anything.
 
Planning when I have both desires is difficult indeed.
 
Today I took this photo of the Agoge Support Office just before our management meeting. It’s the start of another week. A week in which I plan to make a change.
 
We will see what happens…

I think I do…

Imagine you’re at a wedding and the Minister asks the Groom. “Will you take Jane to be your wife?” and then the Groom responds, “I think I do”.

To that question there is only one correct answer. One of action. “I do!”

How many people do you know, that know the right thing to do? They could fix the process, eliminate the stress, mend the relationship, change the world and yet do nothing.

Doesn’t it really bug you when other people don’t take action and just complain about the problem. It is so flippin annoying.

Yes flippin I say!

The problem is not that they don’t think, but that they don’t do. Why cant they just get on and do something. Anything. Now!

Why do some people have all the knowledge I ask myself, and yet do nothing?

Why? In a John Campbell voice.

Clearly, I have decided, there are two kinds of people. “I think” people whom think and never do. And “I do” people who actually make things happen.

Two kinds of people.

And for the record “I think” people really flippin bug me!

So with that in mind which one are you?

                                                   Unfortunately …

           I am both …        and I flippin bug myself.