INTERNAL SCORECARD #17: Operations and Organization
I write up these "Internal Scorecards" to look at production, productivity, habits. Some people like this, because you see the implications of long-term decisions unfolding in a real-world context. I like it because it gives me an accountability mechanism as well.
This one is a two-weeks-long edition. I've been too busy doing stuff to report on the stuff I'm doing! It covers 22 September to 5 October.
THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF ORGANIZATION
It's very easy to geek out on organization and productivity techniques at the expense of doing actual work. You probably don't want to do that.
See, getting organized feels like something worthwhile. It is worthwhile. But when you get organized theoretically, spending many hours putting systems in place that have never been tested in the real world, it's unlikely they'll stand up during tough times.
It's far better to start with, "What am I trying to do?", then get some minimum organization and operations around that, and then observe what breaks, and build systems/ops to fix that.
I'm, right now, about 20% less organized than I need to be to go to the next level. But I think that's probably close to optimum, because if you're growing rapidly and you're near maximum utilization, your organization techniques and operations are constantly showing the cracks in them that will take a while to improve.
THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF UTILIZATION TO GROW
Let's look at "utilization" -- how much of your time you're committing in service of your biggest projects and goals, and the various support/admin around those.
I like to think of utilization as a percentage of "sustainable utilization."
There's 24 hours per day, and 168 hours per week.
If you're sleeping 8 hours, that takes another 56 hours per week off the top.
Let's block out 14 hours per week for all your maintenance -- that's an easily sustainable pace that blocks plenty of time for showers, dressing, grooming, shopping, eating, etc.
Let's block out 30 hours for rejuvenation, family, learning, reading. And let's give ourselves 15 hours per week for flexibility and dealing with little fires and big opportunities that arise.
We're left with 168 - 56 - 14 - 30 - 15 = 53 hours.
You can pretty reliably put in 53 hours to your important stuff and still have plenty of time for maintenance, a huge chunk of time to relax and learn, and enough flexibility to deal with little problems or seize opportunities.
How many of those are going productively? I'm going to ballpark that the average person gets between 5 and 20 really good hours per week in, with the rest being the sort of half-engaged zombie-work that dulls and is very trying in life.
Now note, if you want to be an ultra high performer type, you could slice up some of those 45 learning/relaxing hours into activities that also suit your goals -- research and improvements on what you're doing, put your fitness time into that bucket, etc.
You could also start cutting sleep or doing maintenance much faster.
All of these are just very slightly dangerous. Some people do them, and do them successfully, but there is a certain risk to it.
Yet, going from utilization 10% (working 5 great hours per week) to utilization 80% (a great 40 hours of work) produces light-years of difference.
It's not 800% more effective. It's far more than that.
I think you have to be at utilization 80% or so before you even think about organization and operations. "Just work a bit harder" will straight-up dominate being more organized or clever when you're working not very much (or on not very important things).
You really start to see the problems and inefficiencies once you start getting up to 110% utilization, 120% utilization, and beyond.
That's when the hard lines of reality and your organization and ops start running into you. That's when you see the inefficiencies, and it's impossible to throw more personal labor at them.
I don't know if my "sustainable utilization" numbers are quite correct. But it seems to jibe -- 106 hours per week would be 200% utilization, where things are going to probably break quite quickly if left unchecked.
But I'll say, definitely -- if you got less than 40 hours of good work in last week, you need to work harder before you think about getting organized. Just do anything valuable so you're working. And then the next steps to organize better will start to become apparent.
[Note: Some people feel very busy, but are engaged in low-utilization tasks that are suitable to them. Scan to make sure some of your work is turning into tangible results, to see how utilized you really were. A lot of people think they're busy, but actually aren't putting in much good work. Make sure this isn't you]
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: 30W/60S/30FV
I've been rapidly developing my organizational ability, because my utilization is considerably over 100%. For instance, I look at next week which hasn't started yet, and I've got 30 hours of calls scheduled and about 35 hours of work to do. That doesn't include what comes up randomly through the week.
It's mean I need to be a good. A single off-day with no production makes the whole week look a lot scary. Thankfully, I'm not having any days like that lately.
Why? Well, I'll get to that in a moment.
Here's some personal operations I'm utilizing --
30W/60S/30FV -- I mentioned last time in Internal Scorecard #16 that I had begun doing each day,
*30 minutes of writing
*60 minutes of systematizing
*Clear 1 "Imminent" priority action
I updated the "1 Imminent action" into "30 minutes of FinalVersion which is frankly a marvelous system if you've already got your next actions worked out and just want to be choosing what to do. You can read about FinalVersion here --
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs004/1100358239599/archive/1109511856508.html
The prerequisite for FinalVersion is that you've got a list of next actions.
Thus my new breakdown is this --
*30 minutes of writing
*60 minutes of systematizing
*30 minutes of FinalVersioning
Every single day. I do that two hours every single day. It's marvelous. It means instead of just routine production at GiveGetWin (that's where all the systematizing goes), we're documenting and improving things at a core fundamental level. It's really a joy.
Writing, of course, is one of my favorite things in the world, yet one that's almost never urgent. I've carved out time for it, since it seems to make a noteworthy contribution to the world (for people that like my kind of writing, they like it a lot and it's a relatively uncommon style and set of topics) and I enjoy it a ton.
The 30 minutes of FinalVersion-style clearing out the to-do list has taken my average age of important to-do list tasks from ~3 weeks to everything being under 1 week old. Everything is getting done faster. Throughput. Nice.
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: SIX DAYS A WEEK OF CARDIO
I was totally embarrassed on a 5K run in Shanghai a few weeks ago with Greg Nance and some of his team, which brought the poor state of my cardiovascular ability to my attention.
It's funny, we tend to focus on things we're good at naturally and avoid things we're not, thus setting off a downward spiral of not wanting to do things we're bad at, because we're so bad at them, so we really don't want to do them, and…
I started at 15 minutes of cardio, any type of cardio, at reasonably high intensity. I mix up the exercise bike, elliptical, row machine (my favorite), running up and down stairs (least favorite), running outside, running on treadmill, etc. I plan to switch to swimming if my legs get too beaten up at some point. I'm trying to avoid running too much for risk of impact injuries while I'm training up, but mixing it at least once a week to build up some resilience to it.
I add 10 seconds per workout. So, 15 minutes on Monday, 15 min 10 seconds on Tuesday… the end of the second week was 16 minutes 50 seconds.
It's often miserable. I keep the pace fast and don't quit no matter what. As a strange technique, by the way, I've found it easier to do this when I have engaging learning material to listen to instead of music, and I just kind of disassociate from the pain once it really kicks in. I let my mind go do something else until the workout is over. I heard about a number of elite athletes doing that in training, and it seems to work.
It's a good time. I've got a lot more energy. I like that I'm correcting a weakness that I left unchecked for years. It's good training in impulse control. I originally was going to train every day, but my research indicated that's a bad idea. And indeed, after taking last Sunday off, I was much stronger on Monday that I'd been on Friday/Saturday.
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: OTHER HEALTH AND TRAINING
I'm still marching down towards single-digit bodyfat and leaning out. I upped my dosage of Piracetam daily and am almost quit entirely off caffeine. I had one day where I was in a complete fog, which I identified could be because of four possible things -- not enough calories, not enough fats, not enough choline, not enough sleep, caffeine withdrawal.
I wasn't sure which. The caffeine withdrawal will self-correct over time, but I went and ate some eggs which covers 3 bases -- calories, fat, and choline (which is utilized and consumed by Piracetam, so you either have to supplement it or eat eggs).
I examined my diet a bit, and saw it was lacking in fat. I was getting plenty of protein and some pretty good quality carbs (oats, fruit, a little rice). But fat was lacking from my diet. Not intentionally, but just because I'm keeping my calories at 1600 to 2000 per day (closer to 2000 with fitness) and eating mostly healthy low-caloric-density foods, I think fat was low.
It's interesting how, as you train, new problems emerge that you have to solve. I've started mixing in a fairly large amount of coconut oil into the oats I eat basically daily, and am going out of my way to eat more fatty fish.
Other health notes -- I'm learning and training in stretching and mobility exercises, which are really cool. It's fun to see my body's range of motion expand and be able to do more things. I also do a bit of abdominal training and one set of pushups to failure each day (at 33 military-quality, perfect form, slow pushups before failure now).
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: INBOX ZERO DAILY
I realized that a lot of times it takes many hours to connect with someone, especially to get a collaboration going (GiveGetWin, business, or just getting a good knowledge share going).
And I realized that taking 4-7 days to reply seems to reduce effectiveness of these communications by like 30%. Meaning, if you have a faster reply time, you get 30% more gains. For the exact same amount of work.
Moreover! It's actually a bit faster, because you don't have to look at an email more than once. And it's lower stress.
Yeah, it sucks when there's four hours of email to do in a day (it happens), but overall I'm incredibly pleased by this development.
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: ABSOLUTE REFUSAL TO FAIL
My new rule that I implemented is that I just don't fail. Whatever is getting done, I get it done. I do my writing, systematizing, finalversioning, fitness, and true inbox zero daily.
Tired? So what.
Screwed up earlier in the day? Doesn't matter.
I've been studying and watching as many talks and interviews by possible of veterans of the U.S. Navy SEAL Teams. These guys all went through a training that had an 85% attrition rate. 100 guys join, 85 of them quit.
And those are already pre-screened, hyper-committed, best-of-the-best guys.
So i've been following along and modeling what they do. The biggest thing is an intense focus on the mission of getting done whatever they said they would, and not on their own personal pain or suffering or excuses.
It's good.
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: PUNISHING SELF-AVOIDANT BEHAVIOR
A lot of times, we get avoidant in the face of large challenges or things that are scary. The easiest thing to do at that point is to get distracted or procrastinate -- ideally with lower quality work, or worse, with something that's a total loss.
I've now got an absolute firm no-matter-what commitment to hitting my daily minimums, which in total take between 3.5 hours and 5 hours. That means that if I screw around all day and it's now 10PM, and I have my next call at 5AM, I'm looking at… 2 to 4 hours of sleep.
This is very painful, and I absolutely don't recommend this as a first step to anyone. But I'm making the leap on this and getting everything done, and it's conditioning my mind that avoidance produces no relief whatsoever.
Not only will I still have to do the work that day, I'm now going to have to do it while more tired and with more suffering and the next day is going to be hell too.
End result? When I feel an impulse to screw around early in the day, I think, "Wait! This might well cut into my sleep later in the day…"
It's a strong motivator. Don't start with it. Make sure your other habits are very healthy if you do this.
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: SELF-CARE, RELAXATION, REJUVENATION
I feel like I'm getting the very best out of myself, and that my trajectory and what I'm doing is perfect for what I want to accomplish.
Interestingly, paradoxically, I'm a little over-bandwidth and I have a number of tough days where I have to fight through, but I'm also able to fully and totally relax far more often.
I deleted the brief "meditate on my death" note from my daily time tracking. I always wanted to remind myself not to screw around, not to waste time, and that life is precious.
But now, it's all happening. That 20 seconds of reflection isn't necessary right now. And I'm just able to unwind and sit in a park and really appreciate life. I sleep better. Everything seems nicer and more pleasant.
I refuse to schedule anything on the weekend before Thursday, so I can be flexible on the weekend -- I can catch up on work if need be, I can think and learn and experiment, or I can just sleep 15 hours per night to catch up (had a couple nights like that).
I also focus on doing one self-care activity per day. Shaving, cutting fingernails or toenails, applying lotion, something like that. When I did some analyses of my productivity, I found it correlated really well with getting a lot done. So I take a bit of time out of the day to groom myself quite carefully, clean up my things, etc, and that's good.
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: TRAINING IN IMPULSE CONTROL
I'm meditating daily, a minute of 5 minutes, sometimes 10-15 minutes.
I'm also looking to train impulse control constantly. Fitness often gives a good challenge on that. I keep a fast pace that makes the body want to quit sometimes, and don't quit.
The various blocks of activities I do -- writing, systematizing, finalversioning, true inbox zero -- these all give a challenge. Any one of them could be something I don't want to do or give me a task that's unpleasant or confusing for that moment, and I use that as an opportunity to train. It's good.
CURRENT PERSONAL OPS: EXEMPLAR?
I've been thinking more about the virtues I want in other people, and thinking that I need to embody those virtues to the highest degree. That's one reason I'm looking to become faster, fitter, more consistent, more reliable, more strategic, more productive, more excellent, more helpful, more conscious, more aware, more organized, more precise, more fearless -- these are qualities I want in other people.
When i meet someone that also has these virtues, I want to be 100% on the same wavelength with them. And when I meet someone who has immense natural talent, I want to be able to credibly make suggestions and instructions. That means being beyond "good enough" at core things, and moving into really truly exceptional and remarkable. That's a goal, a target, and something never to take for granted, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot and it's motivating.
GIVEGETWIN ROLES WE'RE ACCEPTING HYPER-TALENTED PEOPLE FOR
We've got a pretty talented new batch of volunteers at GiveGetWin who are now running with some of the new project-planning and training programs we've been building, and it looks very promising. This new class of volunteers is really top-notch and I'm proud of the work we're doing together.
There's currently two specialist roles we're filling --
A systems-thinking specialist: Your role would be study, document, and make improvement guidelines on getting best-in-class… well, everything. Ranging from marketing, outreach and media relations, team management, etc. You've got to have a massive work ethic, great finishing ability, and good abstract thinking ability.
Write to me at sebastian@sebastianmarshall.com if you're really good in this roles. You're going to be responsible for a lot of production fast if you're a good fit, and you're going to have to push through some confusion and make strong recommendations. You're going to be in sometimes unclear territory and you're going to need to love that. You'll be working hands-on with me a lot on this, but you'll need to push things through between sessions. Tell me about a project you've done that you're proud of that requires conceptual thinking and a good mix of autonomy and teamwork when you email.
Social media running and experimentation: This role will help us get our social media running. You should have a good ability to spot what matters to people and connect with them about that, you should love doing outreach and connecting with people, and especially should love experimentation. You'll be operating and testing different social media channels.
Write to me at sebastian@sebastianmarshall.com -- tell me your current understanding of different social media channels, which you've used, etc. If you haven't used them as much, tell me about some marketing, community outreach, and/or general high-tech and webapps you've used. The particular skills here are learnable for someone with the right mindset.
QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?
I always appreciate the questions and comments -- let me know what you think.