Personal Productivity Secrets

Do what you never thought possible with your time and attention...
and regain control of your life
Maura Nevel Thomas
Wiley, 2012 
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No one can manage time – everyone gets the same 24 hours each day. Productivity expert Maura
Nevel Thomas says to focus instead on managing your attention because what you focus on daily
will govern what you accomplish. She explains how to organize yourself to deal with the activities
that matter most. And, she discusses strategies you can use to be more productive under the
rubric “Empowered Productivity System.” The caveat is that her advice adds up as more of a
philosophical approach applied by heeding some practical recommendations than as a step-by-
step linear system. So while that misnomer may lead you to expect a literal 1-2-3 system, that’s
not exactly what you’ll find. However, her manual delivers quite well on the more important
promise in its title: Thomas’s “productivity secrets” are very solid. getAbstract recommends her
tactics to everyone who wants to become more productive.

In this summary, you will learn

 Why attention management, not time management, is the key to personal productivity and
 How the “Empowered Productivity System” can help you.

Take-Aways
 Personal productivity depends on “attention management,” not time management.
 Use the “Empowered Productivity System” to decide how to focus your attention.
 What you focus on determines how productive or unproductive you will be.
 When you feel hurried, you multitask, which makes you less efficient and less effective.
 Cut out disruptive chatter and clean up distracting clutter.
 Use technology to make you more efficient. For example, track all your dates, tasks, events,
activities and plans electronically.
 Set up your email client so you receive new messages only when you want them.
 Every week, review all that you have done and all that you must do.
 Set a daily time limit for using social media.
 Attend to what matters for your priorities, not for the priorities of others.

Summary
Living Life in the Fast Lane

Life is too complicated to try to keep track of it with a notepad. But, having the latest software,
apps and high-tech electronic devices isn’t even enough. You don’t become a great golfer because
you bought the most expensive set of clubs. Similarly, you can’t organize your life and become
more productive just by purchasing the latest personal information management (PIM) tools –
although that helps. For maximum productivity, you need a few guidelines for managing your
work.

The “Empowered Productivity System” is a “personal and professional workflow methodology for
managing and controlling commitments, communication, information, and all manner of details
necessary in the service of your life.” What you choose to focus on determines how productive or
 unproductive you will be. You can make sure that you attend first to the things that really matter
and “empower your productivity” by:

 Decluttering your work time and your work space.

 Using technology to help you “clear your mind,” handle details and focus your attention.
 Processing information in three steps – “capture, store, act.”

“It’s almost impossible to escape the demands on our attention.”

When you’re done, evaluate your productivity with objective testing, and polish your tactics based
on the results.

How does the lion tamer control the lion with only a whip and a stool? The whip looks scary, but
it’s the stool that intimidates the lion. The lion regards the four legs of the stool as four different
threats. Confused about how to deal with these apparent separate dangers, the beast retreats. To
conquer disorganization, you must gain control of some of the separate influences – including
emails, voice mails, social media, idle conversations, even a messy desk and an unruly calendar –
that sabotage your productivity. Try not to react constantly to such distractions. Instead, focus on
what is most important in your life, spend as little time as possible on extraneous matters and
strive daily toward your long-term goals.

Time Management

Time management depends on calendars and clocks. These are useful tools, but they’re not
enough to help you achieve maximum productivity. Entering an event on your calendar or adding
a task to your list doesn’t mean that the event will happen or that you will complete the task. To
be fully productive, forget time management and manage your attention so modern life doesn’t
swamp you with all of its demands – digital and otherwise. Dr. John Ratey, a clinical associate
professor of psychiatry at Harvard University, says that some people who are constantly
interrupted by digital information – the bombardment of constant messages in one form or
another – suffer from “acquired attention deficit disorder.” You don’t have to answer emails and
texts just because they arrive; govern when you want to give them your attention.

“‘Time management’ is a 20th-century term that has far outlived its usefulness.”
True learning occurs when you concentrate and control your attention. Focusing properly means
placing your attention exactly where it needs to be. Using the advice and tools of the Empowered
Productivity System helps you maintain this control by putting you in proactive charge of your
life. For example, usually when you deal with interruptions, you operate in a “reactive mode” and
spend your effort handling things that matter to other people instead of addressing your own
priorities. You must first give your attention to the activities that move you
productively ahead in your life, the items that are essential in your life, not what is
important to other people – including their emails, voice mails and text messages. As
philosopher William James put it, “My experience is what I agree to attend to.”

Multitasking

Many people deal with multiple demands by adopting a “split attention” approach and resorting
to multitasking, which never works well. The human brain can handle only a single conscious
thought at any one moment. Multitaskers must mentally switch from one task – one thought – to
another, a process known as “cognitive switching.” Thus, they need more time to complete each
 task, and that leads to a decrease in the quality of the work they achieve. Multitasking works
only when you are involved in separate tasks that do not require much mental effort
– for example, having a phone conversation while you wash the dishes. But don’t try to review
your emails while updating your checkbook. In that situation, you no longer are in control.
External influences – your emails – have taken over.

“One of the biggest challenges of our technology-driven lives is determining which

products and services add real value, rather than becoming an added distraction.”
Conversely, when you control your attention, you operate in a special state of focus that athletes
refer to as being “in the zone.” When you really pay attention, you’re able to make quick
connections between activities and events. You analyze confusing situations more clearly. You
break down complex ideas, understand them more completely and reflect more carefully. Such
attention management depends on behavior control. If you can avoid the siren call of life’s
distractions, you can focus your attention. This may require behavior adaptation. Diagnose
whether you have bad work habits, such as constantly checking your email. Visualize how you
want to live in the future and what behaviors you need to alter. Set firm behavioral-change
goals. Don’t let your emotional inner “doer” undermine your careful “planner.”

Categorize for Efficiency

You can’t be productive if you attempt to keep all of your life’s details just in your head. To be
productive, you must organize your daily, weekly and monthly schedule with an
exterior system. Begin by sorting out all of your reference materials and filing them in
alphabetical order. Then, enter all of your appointments on your personal information
management calendar. Make a clear task list, assign due dates to all of your task items and enter
those dates into your PIM calendar.

“We all have days that seemingly fly by and at the end of which we know that we were busy, but
we can’t really articulate exactly what we accomplished.”
Identify and categorize all of your tasks using these classifications:

 “Next Actions” – Pending chores that you can finish in one step.
 “Projects” – Jobs that take several steps and a longer time span.
 “Waiting For” – Tasks that require material or information from others.
 “Talk To” – Items you must review with clients or colleagues.
 “Future” – Long-range matters that you have decided to complete, but not at present.
 “Someday/Maybe” – Tentative pending actions for the future.
 “Location” – Matters you can take care of only in a particular place, like at home.

Establishing Your “Brain Dump”

Electronic tools are much better at keeping track of your tasks, appointments and schedule than
any paper systems. Select a PIM tool or system that offers a “calendar, to-do list, contacts and
notes” as well as email. Buy a system for your computer or use the cloud to store your information
on a server you access over the Internet. Popular PIM tools include Microsoft Outlook, the Apple
productivity suite (iCal, Reminders, Apple Mail and Address Book) and Google Apps (Calendar,
Tasks, Contacts and Gmail). Numerous free online videos teach you how to use the PIM you
select. No matter which tool you choose, remember that the tool should always be the
servant to your process.
 “Storing too many details in your brain is inefficient, but it also causes stress.”
To be truly productive, you must clear your mind. This involves setting up a brain dump. Stop
trying to store all of your life details in your head. Transfer that task and all that information to
your external PIM system. Carefully choose the right categories and put everything into some
category, no matter how trivial. When you know that the data you need are well-organized and
instantly available, you will stop worrying about them.

Clear out your personal space by organizing the physical items in your life. Arrange your paper
files into “action files” on your current activities; “reference files,” including separate financial
records, medical records, school records for your children, and so on; and “archive
files” for necessary records. Once you segregate your files, organize them alphabetically. Put
your working “letter-sized file folders” into “legal-size hanging files” and label them clearly.

“Ambient Information”

Information comes to you in various ways from an infinite number of sources. Intrusive data
arrives via push channels – most emails – to distract you from your work. Information that you
proactively seek out arrives via pull channels because you made a special effort to receive it.

“As long as you remain in control of your technology, the advantages far
outweigh the disadvantages.”
Data can arrive as ambient information that does not distract you – for example, checking the
weather by looking out the window. The more information you convert into ambient data, the
more productive you become.

Color-code appointments and events on your planning calendar so you can recognize urgent
matters immediately. Mark a specific period of time on your calendar to deal with your list of Next
Actions.

Incoming! Get Ready for Your “TESST”

The Empowered Productivity System helps you reduce clutter in your mind and in your life.
Streamline your life by controlling how you process data that come to you either by push or pull
by using the “TESST Process.”

Sort incoming data into these categories:

 “Take immediate action” – Apply the “two-minute rule” – that is, can you accomplish
the task in two minutes or less?
 “Empower yourself and others” – Pass the task along to someone else.
 “Suspend” – If you don’t have all the data you need, hold further action until you do.
 “Store” – You may need to keep the information, but not act on it.
 “Trash” – You do not need the information, so get rid of it.

“What is important is rarely urgent and what is urgent is rarely important.” (US
President Dwight D. Eisenhower)
If your email inbox is a virtual deluge of correspondence, review it only at certain times during the
day. Set up your email client so you receive new messages only when you hit the
 send/receive button. This prevents the automatic downloading of emails. Read your email on
your smartphone or a similar handheld device. Skimming emails on a phone is more cumbersome
so you will be less likely to spend extra time doing it.

Later, go through your email with the goal of emptying your inbox. Afterward, deal
with emails that need your attention. For instance, you might transfer active jobs into your tasks
list. File your emails according to the primary areas of your life – various tasks with work, your
social life, your children’s needs, and so on. Set up a secondary email address for less-crucial
emails, like messages from utility companies, financial institutions and retailers. Periodically
process the emails in your extra inbox. Don’t fall into the social media world unless you have a
specific purpose to accomplish there, and never worry that the flow of posts and tweets is
somehow passing you by. What takes place there is seldom urgent, and you can jump in whenever
you have time. Don’t let social media’s “push notifications” and pop-up alerts divert
your focus.

“Your days are the building blocks of your life.”

Organizations should plan, develop, communicate and publicize sensible email
policies for employees. Otherwise, your personnel may waste many hours weekly bombarding
each other with needless emails. Be judicious in the number of emails that the company sends out
to employees. Set a good example.

“Weekly Updates”

To make your Empowered Productivity System work, perform a weekly update to keep your
activities, plans, goals, to-do’s “at zero” – that is, put all your information in your PIM system, not
in your head. Activate a weekly update as a recurring event on your planning
calendar; Fridays work best. Do the following on every weekly update:

 Review your tasks and update them as necessary.

 Conduct a brain dump.
 Use the TESST system to handle your inbox items, both paper and electronic.
 Review all action items that are still open for the week.
 Review your next week’s activities.
 Remove any extraneous (unnecessary) paper from your Next Action and Waiting For files.
 Back up all electronic files, and copy your all-important PIM files.

About the Author

Maura Nevel Thomas developed the Empowered Productivity System and founded
RegainYourTime.com, a productivity training company. She blogs on productivity issues.