So long, Blogger . . .

The Higher Process blog has moved! Find us at http://higherprocess.com/blog/.

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Today, over 7 years since my first Blogger blog (now, thankfully, long-deleted), I must bid Blogger adieu. It has been a tremendous load of fun and I greatly appreciate this wonderful, free resource that Blogger and Google have provided to me and millions of others.

As of tomorrow, May 1st, Google is discontinuing FTP publishing in Blogger. This move appears to be based on the way the vast majority of users use the tool. It also strikes me as a very smart resource-allocation decision. They are offering some great solutions for most blogs, but I do not feel they meet my needs in terms of hosting, so as of today, Higher Process will move to a WordPress blog. I feel no animosity towards Google and Blogger over this move; I understand their reasons and, as I said, I am very grateful for all they have done for me.

So long, Blogger. It’s been real.

Friday, April 30, 2010 Posted by Max at 9:00 AM | Contact

You can’t manage time.

Time management by proxy.

The title above looks strange on a blog about time management, but the statement places me in good company. FranklinCovey co-founder Hyrum Smith wrote the same idea in his 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management. This idea survives today in FranklinCovey’s
current time management training program, which also stresses that the real goal is to manage your self within the time available.

FranklinCovey isn’t alone. In Getting Things Done, David Allen writes that the key is not to manage time, but action. Others stress managing attention rather than time; since early 2008, Merlin Mann’s work has shifted from “personal productivity” and its associations with time management to time and attention. Elsewhere, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz argue that the key is managing energy, not time.

In short, saying, “You can’t manage time,” has become something of a cliché in popular press writings on time management, which also offers a wealth of alternatives to manage in time’s place: ourselves, our actions, our commitments, our energy, our projects, our networks, and so on.

I am not aware of any empirical research on which of these approaches works best, but the scientific literature does acknowledge problems with a literal understanding of the term “time management.” In their review of the time management literature, Claessens et al. explain:

The term "time management" is actually misleading. Strictly speaking, time cannot be managed, because it is an inaccessible factor. Only the way a person deals with time can be influenced.

Time is not a resource in the same sense as money or raw materials. Time is, as Claessens and colleagues put it, an “inaccessible factor.” Hence, time management authors focus on “accessible factors”: our choices, actions, or attention.

All of this begs two questions. The first is pedantic: if time cannot be managed, why do we still refer to the field as “time management?” Perhaps because this is the best term we have, and it is already popular. Further, the diversity of proxies and metaphors makes a useful umbrella term—even a misleading one—desirable. Allen’s Getting Things Done, Smiths’ 10 Natural Laws, and Loehr and Schwartz’s Power of Full Engagement are different in content and worldview, but all share the common goal of helping the reader accomplish more in the time they have. Time management serves as a handy catch-all phrase for any system that aims to get a handle on time through one of these many proxies.

The leads to the second question: Which of these proxies or metaphors is most useful? Is it better to focus on managing action, or attention? Should we be concerned with self management, or should we start with energy management so we have sufficient reserves of willpower to manage ourselves? Again, I am not aware of scientific papers on the subject. My own instinct is that the best methods focus on managing our attention and our choices, but that reflects my experience and my own biased interpretation of it.

In the absence of research results clearly showing one of these management proxies to be better than another, I recommend going with what makes the most sense to you. If you have clear goals and action lists but you’re habitually too tired or lack the willpower to tackle them, then perhaps a system that emphasizes energy management would help. If you are constantly thinking of things where you can’t do anything about them—and forgetting them when you can—then perhaps an action-management scheme like Getting Things Done is appropriate. If, like me, you have clear goals and reasonably good systems for organizing action and information, but feel stretched too thinly across many interests and commitments, then the focus of an attention-management technique would be most useful.

If you lack the time to accomplish what you need or want to, acknowledge that you can’t manage time itself. Ask yourself what, among the things that can be managed, you could be better at, and choose a time management system that addresses that area. Perhaps the measure of a good system is not whether it does the impossible and allows you to manage time itself, but whether it helps you to get the things that “time management” promises: productivity, order, and peace of mind.

Monday, April 26, 2010 Posted by Max at 10:27 AM | Contact

What do we really know about Time Management?

Claessens et al. on the state of research in the field of time management.

What do we know about time management?

We know that there is a large amount of material on the subject. Stephen Covey and Roger and Rebecca Merrill conducted a survey of the field for their 1994 book First Things First, covering, “well over a hundred books, hundreds of articles, and a wide variety of calendars, planners, software, and other time management tools.” Today, a similar survey would find many more. I would bet that a single book that didn’t exist in 1994—David Allen’s Getting Things Done—has inspired more software tools and articles (if we count online publications and blogs) than existed for the whole field in 1994.

Covey and Merrills may have conducted a rigorous analysis of the material that existed in the early 1990s, but one thing missing from their assessment is empirical science demonstrating whether or not (and how and why) time management actually works. They make assertions about what does and doesn’t work in “traditional time management,” but few findings are presented to back these claims up.

Indeed, this is a broader problem for time management books, trainings, and tools: the many claims of increased balance, higher productivity, decreased stress, etc., rarely (in my experience) are accompanied by non-proprietary evidence. It seems a great deal of what we know about time management—as knowledge workers, managers, or even as “time-management experts”—comes from time management vendors, not from empirical, peer-reviewed research.

So, to restate our initial question, what do we know about time management from empirical research? Birgitte J.C. Claessens, Wendelien van Eerde, Christel G. Rutte, and Robert A. Roe provide an excellent summary of it in A review of the time management literature, a Personnel Review article published in 2007. Here is the abstract of their paper:

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to provide an overview for those interested in the current state-of-the-art in time management research.

Design/methodology/approach – This review includes 32 empirical studies on time management conducted between 1982 and 2004.

Findings – The review demonstrates that time management behaviors relate positively to perceived control of time, job satisfaction, and health, and negatively to stress. The relationship with work and academic performance is not clear. Time management training seems to enhance time management skills, but this does not automatically transfer to better performance.

Research limitations/implications – The reviewed research displays several limitations. First, time management has been defined and operationalised in a variety of ways. Some instruments were not reliable or valid, which could account for unstable findings. Second, many of the studies were based on cross-sectional surveys and used self-reports only. Third, very little attention was given to job and organizational factors. There is a need for more rigorous research into the mechanisms of time management and the factors that contribute to its effectiveness. The ways in which stable time management behaviors can be established also deserve further investigation.

Practical implications – This review makes clear which effects may be expected of time management, which aspects may be most useful for which individuals, and which work characteristics would enhance or hinder positive effects. Its outcomes may help to develop more effective time management practices.

Originality/value – This review is the first to offer an overview of empirical research on time management. Both practice and scientific research may benefit from the description of previous attempts to measure and test the popular notions of time management.

Perhaps the most salient feature appears in the “Findings” section of the abstract: time management relates to a sense of control, health, job satisfaction, and stress, but effects on performance remain unclear. This raises a question I asked earlier this year: must time management make us more productive, or is “feeling better” enough to justify its use? Empirical support for claims of “getting more done in less time” is clearly lacking, but Claessens et al. seem to think the other effects offer sufficient value. They report, “The popularity of time management is justified in as far as it has some favourable effects on people’s perceptions and feelings.”

The full text of the article—available in the link above—should be required reading for anyone interested in conducting further research into time management. Trainers, life coaches, authors, or others who teach time management should also familiarize themselves with these results. Though it gets technical at times, I think even a layperson would be well-served by slogging through the paper—if for no other reason than because the layperson will be a likely target for marketers of time management programs.

What do we know about time management? Given the small number of empirical studies on the subject—and the many gaps in the research identified in the paper—perhaps the answer is “not much.” But thanks to Claessens et al., we at least know what we know.

Friday, April 23, 2010 Posted by Max at 9:12 AM | Contact

Mind Like Squirrel

What do Sarah Hughes, Squirrels, and Getting Things Done have in common?

How do you perform at your peak when the stakes are high? According to humorist and coach Robert Evans Wilson, Jr., “The trick is to take your mind off the prize, and focus instead on enjoying the project at hand.” In Chill Out, Wilson recounted an exchange between himself and his Little League team. When they were mired in a deep losing streak and losing hope, Coach Wilson offered a pep talk about Olympic skater Sarah Hughes and her 2002 gold medal:

[S]he barely made the team. She was one of the youngest members, and she would be competing against the biggest names in figure skating - women who had already won world titles. No one expected her to win. No one expected her to even place in the top three. Sarah wasn’t expecting to win either.

“So,” I asked the boys, “what is the point of competing when you know you cannot win?”

“Well, it would be pretty cool just to be in the Olympics,” offered the first baseman.

“And, that’s what Sarah thought.” I replied. “She was just thrilled to there; and she made it her goal to simply do her best and have fun. When it was her turn to skate, she chose to do some of the hardest spins, jumps and footwork that an ice skater can do. Why not, she thought, because no one expected her to win. There was no pressure on her to win, and because there was no pressure she did all of those difficult moves perfectly.”

The pep talk worked—the team, with three wins and eight losses before that day, went on to win the game and the next four. And while both Hughes’ achievement and Wilson’s application of it are still anecdotal evidence, some performance experts’ work supports Wilson’s interpretation.

Enter performance psychologist John Eliot, PhD, whose book Overachievement draws on neuroscience and case studies of high achievers in fields as varied as sports, medicine, music, and business. His first chapter, “’The Trusting Mindset’ (Or How to Think Like a Squirrel),” might explain why Wilson’s pep talk worked (and illustrates one possible reason why his book isn’t a runaway best-seller).

Eliot describes two competing states of mind. The training mindset is active, calculating, effortful, analytic, judgmental—focused on the goal or outcome. The trusting mindset, in contract, is playful, instinctive, accepting, patient—content to allow things to unfold. According to Eliot, the trusting mindset allows our training, knowledge, and experience to create extraordinary results; meanwhile, the training mindset traps us in plans and worries, often leading us to choke.

Eliot also describes the trusting mindset as “empty.” This calls to mind a central metaphor from David Allen’s best-seller, Getting Things Done. Allen’s personal productivity system promises less stress, higher productivity, and a clear mind. Allen describes this state with the Zen-like phrase “mind like water”; calm, at peace, ready for anything.

Eliot has his own nature-themed metaphor, imploring readers to think more like squirrels. Eliot appeals to neuroscience, describing closed-loop processes, in which sensory input from the environment trigger either automatic motor responses or very rapid sorting into instinctive patterns; according to Eliot, this is the mental life of the squirrel. Human beings share these closed-loop processes, but thanks to our well-developed cerebral cortex, we also have open-loop processes. In these processes, incoming stimuli lead to cascades of thought, as memories, worries, ideas, and calculations.

So what’s wrong with this additional thinking? Eliot points out that an average human being would have little trouble walking across a board placed on the ground without losing their balance, but would hesitate to even attempt doing so if it were suspended thirty feet off the ground. Why? The stakes are higher. This would show in most people’s behavior: they would inch carefully across, arms outstretched for balance, rather than striding confidently as they would back on the ground. However, in this state of mind, second-guessing their footing with each sway of the beam, a person with insufficient training and experience would likely choke and fall. A trained tightrope walker—or a squirrel—would not have any such worries, and would cross as automatically and smoothly as when the stakes (and the board) were much lower.

Eliot applies this metaphor to performance in any field: art, sales, sports, the space program, etc. When the stakes are high, those who trust their abilities will play just as if they would when the stakes were lower—which, ironically, gives them access to the world-class performance the high stakes demand. This might help explain Hughes’s gold medal and Wilson’s team’s wins.

Still, I don’t expect to see Overachievement overtaking Getting Things Done any time soon. After all, who would trade the Zen cool of mind like water for mind like squirrel?

Monday, April 19, 2010 Posted by Max at 10:24 AM | Contact