I was listening to a podcast by Tony Schwartz and he recommends not to check email in the morning because then you are catering to other people's priorities. I may have misstated that, but I think it's part of the same premise. He also recommends to focus for 90 minute sprints / intervals. If you can focus or channel your energy for 90 minutes, then the idea is that you'll probably be more productive than you typically would be in an entire day.
I would have to say that I tend to agree with that. I remember watching Aziz Ansari on David Letterman talking about how he was researching for a role and then got distracted by something on the Internet and ended up learning everything about Joe Pesci. I can totally relate to that. I don't know how many times I've clicked on videos of tornadoes tearing through trucks or trying to find who is broadcasting the Champions League final when I'm supposed to be doing work online. As an aside, there's one risk to cloud computing -- and that's everyone having ADHD because everything online is so distracting!
Anyway, back to the point.
In a world where everyone is trying to demonstrate themselves as a Manager or a Leader, it's really easy to cater to everyone's request. At the end of the day, what have you accomplished except fulfilling everyone's demands? What happens is that you've now made everyone appear more productive while you have now pegged your own self as the guy that fulfills everyone's requests.
Part of being stuck in a job is permanently being on demand for the powers that be. The question is how to get unstuck. How do you balance managing up, managing down, and being productive without getting caught up in the "saying yes to everything" scenario?
Who knows... but I do know that I will refuse to check email first thing in the morning because I don't want other people's priorities to become mine....
I would have to say that I tend to agree with that. I remember watching Aziz Ansari on David Letterman talking about how he was researching for a role and then got distracted by something on the Internet and ended up learning everything about Joe Pesci. I can totally relate to that. I don't know how many times I've clicked on videos of tornadoes tearing through trucks or trying to find who is broadcasting the Champions League final when I'm supposed to be doing work online. As an aside, there's one risk to cloud computing -- and that's everyone having ADHD because everything online is so distracting!
Anyway, back to the point.
In a world where everyone is trying to demonstrate themselves as a Manager or a Leader, it's really easy to cater to everyone's request. At the end of the day, what have you accomplished except fulfilling everyone's demands? What happens is that you've now made everyone appear more productive while you have now pegged your own self as the guy that fulfills everyone's requests.
Part of being stuck in a job is permanently being on demand for the powers that be. The question is how to get unstuck. How do you balance managing up, managing down, and being productive without getting caught up in the "saying yes to everything" scenario?
Who knows... but I do know that I will refuse to check email first thing in the morning because I don't want other people's priorities to become mine....
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