Rock Hymas

With all of the great advice about productivity in the world, why aren’t we all more productive? Why haven’t we figured out the right system for managing our time, our lives, our actions, or whatever, so that we can stop reading more self-help books? Or at least stop feeling like we should read more self-help books. Why do we jump at new planning systems, then jump back to old planning systems, only to give up on anything for a while before we realize we need something to keep us from forgetting stuff? More importantly, why didn’t the last system we tried, which seemed so promising, fall flat on its face? And why is it that your current planning system will fail - you know it will eventually, all the other ones did - leaving you looking once more for the silver bullet to end your inability to get things done while feeling calm and at peace?

You are the problem

The answer is simple, but hard to accept. You are the problem. You are the common factor through all of the failures. You are the one who couldn’t keep up the practices of each system; the weekly planning, the regular review of next actions, processing your inbox to zero, or remembering to copy tasks from one planner page to the next. And when you think about it you have to admit that for almost any practice espoused by some particular system or style of planning, if you were doing that one thing consistently you’d be better off now than if you weren’t.

I’ve often asked myself the questions above and often avoided the answer I just gave. It’s far more satisfying to just assume that the fault is in the system. That’s easy enough to do by claiming that it’s too complicated, or it’s not worth the effort, or it doesn’t cover enough unique situations, or it’s not a complete solution to your problems, or it tries to solve every problem, even ones you don’t have. While any or all of these might very well be true, I’m going to claim that that is not the real problem. If you’re still looking for the right planner, the right tool, the right technique, the right practice, it’s because you haven’t accepted personal responsibility for your own past failures. You’re blaming them on the tools, techniques, and practices you were using at the time.

Different Questions

Once you do take responsibility, truly owning up to the challenge of managing your own time and life, you’ll start to wonder what you could have done differently with the tools, practices, and techniques, rather than trying to find different tools, practices and techniques. The questions you’ll ask will be different. Why didn’t I do a weekly review each week? Why were my next actions lists overwhelming to me? Why didn’t my weekly compass translate into a good week? Why did my inbox zero devolve to inbox ten, then inbox 100? Why did a tickler file seem so useful in theory but fall flat on its face when I tried to use it?

Notice that these question don’t contain the assumption that the problem was with the tools, practices, or techniques. They contain the assumption that you could have done something differently to make things work out. Once you and I accept and internalize that assumption, we change the way we approach the problem. The answers to those questions look different than our past excuses for failure. Why didn’t I do a weekly review each week? Because I didn’t make it a priority and underestimated how much effort it would take to keep doing it regularly. Why were my next actions lists overwhelming? Because I spent more time making lists than actually doing anything on them. Why didn’t my weekly compass translate into a good week? Because I wrote it up on Sunday and never looked at it again through the week. Why did the tickler file fall flat when I tried to use it? Because I could never get into the habit of looking at it on a daily basis.

Habits

The root of each of these answers takes us back to developing good habits. The key to most productivity gains is not the actions that any given author or system espouses, but that you make those actions into habits. It’s not doing a weekly review, but the habit of doing a weekly review. It’s not next action lists, but the habit of keeping next action lists up to date and reviewing and doing the actions on them regularly. It’s not having a weekly compass but the habit of making one each week and using it to guide your actions each day. Its not getting to inbox zero, but the habit of getting to inbox zero on a regular basis. It’s not keeping a tickler file, but the habit of checking it daily.

Now I have to apologize. It’s not completely your fault that none of these planning systems or tools worked out for you. Part of the problem is that the proponents of Inbox Zero, GTD, 7 Habits, etc. don’t always focus on the development of habit as the key to success. They may pay lip service to it. They may, as 7 Habits does, even spend a fair amount of time talking about the importance of developing habits. But they don’t offer a step-by-step approach to creating new habits in your life, or eliminating the bad ones. And they rarely call out which specific habits you should develop and in what order. The 7 Habits mentioned in Stephen Coveys book also present the challenge of being quite abstract, and other systems sometimes espouse equally abstract principles that make it hard to develop actual habits which translate the principle into daily actions that improve your life.

Take responsibility

Remember, though you may not be totally to blame, it’s still your responsibility to do these things, not some author who lives across the country. You’re the one who needs to recognize that any given tool or practice isn’t going to improve your life unless you develop the habit of using it regularly and correctly. You’re the one who has to do the hard work to develop those habits. You’re the one who has to pick yourself up and keep trying after minor or major failures. And blaming the tool or practice when you haven’t done any of those things is a cop out.

I know. I used it as an excuse for too long. Even after I started developing new habits using the ideas at 6changes.com, it’s still taken months to realize how the power of good habits takes away my excuses. It’s humbling but it’s also very empowering.