The "Lights Spreadsheet" concept is pretty well-covered at this point. This was Week 8. I think you understand the general concept of what's going on here.
I'll definitely keep using this; it's a wonderful control and it promotes good action.
But I ask myself, "Is this still worth covering on the blog weekly? It works, but is it interesting to read about?"
You're welcome to weigh in -- actually, please do comment and let me know if you find these posts worthwhile in particular, I always appreciate more feedback on what people really like -- but my basic thinking is that picking a specific point or two each week would be more fruitful and actionable.
This week I'm thinking -- Continual Readjustment.
I think people who are brand new to productivity-type things start imagining -- fantasizing, really -- about the day that they're going to be invincible and indestructible, and always do precisely what they set out to do.
This is folly!
It never, ever, ever happens. Read any memoirs of anyone training in anything.
Something always goes wrong, and you have to adjust.
I created the whole concept of a Lights Spreadsheet when I identified a set of behaviors that correlate extremely well with thriving and achieving in life -- things like following my morning routines, eating well, exercising, walking, napping, working on the biggest thing each day, thinking of others, staying on top of admin so it doesn't pile up, planning enough, sleeping well, and so on.
My original intent was to use the Lights Spreadsheet to try to get myself to do more of these behaviors.
It turned out to be even more valuable than that, because it served as a useful objective diagnostic tool. If things are going wrong, I could literally -- with just a glance at the color-coded cells -- see where I might be in a funk.
It's easy to think "oh, I'm tired and unproductive and my life sucks..." -- but then realize, wait, I'm sleeping badly, not exercising, and not napping at all. This is probably the problem.
We humans are kind of stupid about overlooking obvious things and instead getting into fantastical and over-reaching explanations of what's going on.
The Lights Spreadsheet, as a diagnostic tool, prevents that.
It also shows me really early where things are at risk of going off the rails.
Take the above week. This was one of my most productive weeks in ages. I absolutely killed it this week. I think you'll find the quality of blog writing was exceptional this week (at least, most people like it) -- you might not realize that I also wrote 50,000 more words between a couple essays and finishing parts of my next book which will be out soon.
And got in great operations work in personal ops and organization building for GiveGetWin, and brought major wins online for two consulting clients, and took on a new very high-impact project which will be finished quickly, and -- I mean, it was one of those weeks.
This is not to brag or boast -- I'm genuinely proud of this week. It comes as a result of getting everything upstream correct in terms of setting up habits, having finally chipped away and eliminated and streamlined some confusing stressful stuff, and -- this one isn't fully within my control -- having a perfect environment of a couple smart people around here in Istanbul to collaborate with, great cheap food nearby, an ideally set up neighborhood near Taksim Square which provides the right inspiration, and -- in full disclosure -- Turkish pharmacies sell some relatively potent stimulants legally over the counter.
(Hydration, fitness, good sleep, planning the next day, working in solid cycles, and having good people around accounts for the bulk of the production. Performance enhancements are maybe a +20% boost on what one is currently doing, whereas daily fitness is +100% boost and sleeping well is a +200 boost, and good project planning is a +1000%. You obviously should do these basic things before getting into more eccentric finishing touches.)
So, okay, all is well! Right? High production! Yes!
Well, sort of. The thing is, you'll notice that ugly red bar across the "Declare->Complete" box. I got 0 successes in 7 days on that.
Declare->Complete is a very useful technique to set an objective and revisit it every day until it's finished, refusing to let is fail. It's great for getting a particular stuck item un-stuck. It works well for me.
In this case, I had a Declaration set, but it turned out that the seemingly simple action was more complex than I thought. I didn't understand the general case of what I want to accomplish on it.
So it dragged out, and dragged out, and eventually I got avoidant of it.
NOTE WELL!
The task dragged out, dragged out, and eventually I got avoidant of it.
This is where little problems turn into big problems, and this is where the Lights Spreadsheet comes in handy on the topic of Continual Readjustment.
Looking at that ugly red line cutting across my Lights Sheet shows a lurking problem. If left alone, this task will become a stalking zombie super-monster.
And this is precisely the kind of thing I would avoid in a week where I was en fuego as I was this week.
Come the first day of Week 9, I started to address it. The ugly red line, calculated out, is a big warning sign that this particular area could wind up leading to catastrophe further down the road.
Productivity and production rely heavily on chaining the right decisions together. Yes, I was on fire this week, but it would be foolhardy to claim that it was my particular brilliance or will this particular week that led to the high production. No, not so -- it's a result of doing things right in the past.
But the actions I'm doing wrong in the present are risking the future. Thus, Continual Readjustment -- you always want to spot not just where things are going wrong now and firefighting them, but spotting where they can go wrong and adjusting slightly. My productivity mix was intense last week, but if I run hard at that pace, I'll likely burn out in 3 to 8 weeks or so.
I'm actually going to put in another intense week of similar caliber this week if all things go well. But even then, I'm provisioning a bit more time to get stuck stuff that will be a problem downstream tuned up.
Gradual little readjustments as the landscape shifts. That's the way with production. And Week 8 of the Lights Spreadsheet is in the books; it was a good week.