H Bay

The newly released text editor iA Writer is using a minimum amount of features in order to make writers focus on the essential and being more productive in what really matters… writing. iA Writer re-invents the text editor. Watch the video.

Icons and menu tool boxes are OUT, shortcuts (which are faster and therefore increase productivity) are IN again. It reminds me of the old days when I was using the simplistic text editor vim in order to write C++ code. However, with iAWriter there are much less shortcuts to learn than with vim as the main task of iA Writer is not to code, but to write. I was a great fan of vim as it is one of the most powerful text editors for coders while being extremely simple. Now, I am a great fan of iA Writer for similar reasons. Simplicity and focus, which both increase productivity.

What I also like is the courage of the inventor Oliver Reichenstein (Twitter: @iA) to underdo his competition. He was aware that with the given resources he could never beat Microsoft Word by building a software with even more features. Therefore, he built a really simple tool with almost no features, stripped down to the essential, but still extremely powerful.

iA Writer is not the only tool I like because of its siplicity. The productivity tool Things is probably the most used app I have. I use it for Desktop and on my iPhone where I use it more than phone calls, or text messages. It is just great.
I am not paid by iA Writer, and I don’t know Oliver personally even if we are both Swiss and Switzerland is small . I write this because I like iA Writer and because I want to test my new gadget. Meaning that this post is obviously written with iA Writer . There is one thing missing. A shortcut for links. I am tired of writing href=”http://…

“Interruption is the enemy of productivity” as stated in the book Rework by the 37signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. But working for hours without interruption is also very bad for high productivity, as described by Tony Schwartz in his book Be Excellent at Anything. So, this sounds like a contradiction, right?

However, it makes totally sense, if we define an interruption as an unwilling interruption of the work in progress due to an external influence such as an incoming phone call, incoming emails, your working colleague asking a question, or your boss requesting an update. They all are productivity killers. On the other hand, we define a break as an intended interruption of work after a certain amount of time (best is after 90 minutes) in order to recharge your batteries with food, drink, breathing, and/or relaxation. Interruptions are poison, regular breaks are the fuel for more productivity.

Why are interruptions bad for personal productivity? Because it takes time to focus your mind on a certain task. For example writing a business plan, or financial forecast, or to code something takes a lot of brain power and complex thinking, seeing the whole picture. You need to think of everything and be creative and efficient at the same time. At the moment of an interruption, your brain is interrupted in its creative process and has to change focus (often to something very different). Then after the interruption, it takes time to get focussed on the “real” work again. The brain has no time to “think” about the given task. It always has to change from one topic to the other. This is not only bad for productivity and creativity, it is also very tiring and doesn’t lead anywhere. Therefore, avoid interruptions.

Why are breaks good for personal productivity? As perfectly described by Tony Schwartz in his blog post,

As every great athlete understands, the highest performance occurs when we balance work and effort with rest and renewal. The human body is hard-wired to pulse, and requires renewal at regular intervals not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

This said, Schwartz proposes regular breaks after 90 minutes of intensive and focussed work.

What to do during a break? Take five to ten minutes for active relaxation while breathing consciously. Don’t use your break for checking emails (productivity killer #1).

Everybody can control regular constructive breaks, just set a timer at 90 minutes. That’s basically it. The question, however, is how to avoid interruptions?! This is more complicated as we cannot control interruptions directly, they just happen. However, they can be avoided resulting in fewer interruptions. There are several approaches to avoid interruptions.

1. Redirect phone calls to a voice mail box during the hours you want to be productive. Then you check the voice mail box twice per day, for example at 11AM and at 4PM and call back the urgent calls, or follow up via email the less urgent ones. If the caller doesn’t leave a voice mail it was most probably not important.
2. Check emails only two or three times a day. Can be combined with the voice mail consultation. Answer emails directly, which take less than two minutes to answer. The other emails you can either delegate or create a todo item or even a project if there are multiple todo items related to it.
3. Set fix quiet times during which you plan not to be interrupted. This means that during the quiet times, you are switching off your phone, or redirect it to the voice mail, you quit the email client, and tell your colleagues to only interrupt you if it is really important, meaning that they would also wake you up at 1AM for the same reason. This sounds nice in theory, but is more difficult to realize in practice. It is not always possible to tell your boss not to interrupt you. Managers often think they can interrupt at any time because they think that their things are much more important and urgent than your stuff. However, in most of the cases this is not the case. So try to speak with your boss and explain the concept. If that doesn’t work, try working at home (if possible).
4. Start wearing head phones during your work. This indicates that you are listening to some music even if you are not. As a consequence, people will think that you don’t hear them and wont interrupt. However, this doesn’t always work.

Recently, there has been a lot of research about personal efficiency. It led to great insights and practices to getting more done in a given amount of time. Various experts such as David Allen, Leslie Perlow, Tim Ferriss, and Tony Schwartz propose solutions that work when correctly applied. In this post, I would like to summarize some of the key ideas and present some of my own learnings of effectiveness. I believe that getting things done is not only about the professional life, it is about being an athlete. Here the key points of efficiency (at least the ones that work for me).

Write it down. As proposed by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done, the basis of productivity is to create todo lists. Not only the todos of the day or the week. No, the lists should contain the todos for the whole life. Therefore, whatever I want to do one day, I write it down. Starting with writing email to team, or reading Marc’s monthly report, until subscribing to Japanese classes, or crossing Pacific Ocean via Marquesas islands. Multiple lists sorted by projects or fields of responsibility guarantee some level of overview even with thousands of todos. The greatest fun is when defining my most ambitious projects (or dreams) and then break them down into single, feasible todos. The fun part is that the first todo converts the dream into reality. For example, if the project would be to sail around the world then the journey already starts with looking up sailing courses on the Internet. Read more about this approach on my previous blog posts about productivity.

Start eating frogs. In his book Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy proposes to start the day with the most annoying todo item in the list. The idea is actually simple, it is all about discipline, regardless whether you start or finish the day with the todo that sucks most. Without discipline and rigorous execution, the best plan remains nothing than a plan and there will be no outcome. Discipline is the first and last ingredient to effectiveness. Define goals (projects) and work towards achieving them (one todo after the other) needs discipline. Often it’s fun, but sometimes it sucks. Best way for me to be more disciplined is called “don’t think, just do!”. It’s a similar state of mind as before jumping into cold water. Allow your body to jump while your brain says “No!”. This state of mind lasts only for a short moment when you have to let go. Once started, you can start thinking again. That’t the best way I can describe it. If you want to feel it, just do 10 push ups, go, right now, don’t think, do it.

Add some rhythm. Nobody can be 100% productive, 12 hours a day, 24/7. This would be unnatural, and not really sustainable. The rhythm of our life starts with the first heartbeat about 21 days after conception. The heart alternates contraction and relaxation in order to transport oxygen to all the organs. Oxygen comes from respiration, another rhythmic movement. Everywhere is rhythm. Also working needs rhythm. “More than 50 years ago, the pioneering sleep researcher Nathan Kleitman discovered something he named the basic rest-activity cycle — the 90 minute periods at night during which we move progressively through five stages of sleep, from light to deep, and then out again.” Our work rhythm is 90 minutes, Therefore, Tony Schwartz proposes a break after 90 minutes for energy renewal. For me personally, this one needs the highest level of discipline. However, it really works. But I don’t stop here. Rhythm is not only important during the day, but also during the week, the month, and the year. As for athletic training units, I try to start the week slowly and increase intensity during the course of the week to result in maximum workload on Friday. In order to guarantee a slow start, I try to fix meeting on Monday and some on Tuesday. Business trips, which are most exhausting, I try to schedule for Thursday and Friday. The monthly rhythm is difficult to realize. Athletes often have 5-week rhythms. First week easy, second week hard, third week harder, fourth week full steam, fifth week recovery. The yearly rhythm again is easier due to European summer holidays and Christmas. Typically, the year starts slowly and increases in intensity when approaching summer holidays. Then after summer holidays, same story again until Christmas. Feel the rhythm!

Live a healthy life. Live like an athlete. This means, in order to be highly productive, our organism needs to run at 100%. We therefore need things such as a healthy sleep (quality and quantity), healthy food, healthy drinks (avoid alcohol during the week and even on weekends), and some physical exercises. The physical exercises should be well balanced and include endurance, muscle training, stretching, and physical relaxation. Living like an athlete favors hormone production, quick regeneration times, strong nerves, less sensitive to tress, enough oxygen in the brain, etc.

Breathe. One can live for weeks without eating, several days without drinking, but only a few minutes without breathing. In general, eating and drinking gets a lot of attention by any athlete, but breathing is highly neglected. However, it is by far the most essential action. Therefore, one should pay more attention on breathing. Controlled breathing leads to shorter recovery times, more active metabolism, higher level of attention, and better brain power. The effect is immediate. But proper breathing has to be learned. Several Yoga exercises (Pranayama) help to learn correct breathing techniques. Start breathing, you will love it.