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Organizational Systems

Mentors they're all around bill uh love the guy wrote some amazing stories that guy shakespeare and this next piece that we're going to take a look at this next element is really going to be around how you think and the perspective that you come that thinking things through through almost like a lens when that email comes in when that invitation to a meeting shows up when you have to decide am I going to apply to this program and give it the two years of my everything how we think through those projects is so I'm going to call it personality driven but we're going to go deeper than that now this third element will really demonstrate itself with this next little piece I want to share with you I write a weekly missive a little article that said many of you were subscribed to call the war mac report and my idea with womack report was let me just share a couple of things that I have seen over the past week that apply to making more thinking bigger working, smarter and so about a year and a...

half ago I put together a survey many of you have received these kinds of surveys will someone says, you know please take a moment of your time and let us know a little bit of information and I sent this out to about seven thousand two hundred of my connections on linkedin hey everybody, I'm doing a little survey what I would love to know is what would you like to be reading on sundays and here the kinds of things that I thought I could be talking about things that I'm pretty well versed in go setting this is something that we will be talking about have been talking about will continue to talk about managing energy you know, a lot of people look at me and I start off in the morning and I'm kind of high energy and they'll always ask, are you going to keep doing this the whole yes, yes and it keeps on going it's that that's with me and you can see some of these other topics that I ask people about now you know me a little bit some of you a little bit more, some of you a lot more. I could kind of think to myself where I wanted to go like what's what's in my pocket that I could write an article about no problem and the way that I think may have gotten in the way because what I heard shocked me I got two hundred people just over two hundred people to respond to the survey and you can see by far in large by far away what people were interested in was something that well, I hadn't done a lot of research about, but I found that I just did I have spent the last fifteen years self studying habits and then finding ways to change this, but I hadn't written about that I hadn't spoken about that I hadn't published on that, but look at what my community told me look at what they were sharing with him. Well, jason, if we could hear something from you, it would be, how do I take that habit that I know is tripping me up and then utilize, replace it or get rid of it was something that could help me move further and faster. Now what we found is that habits are simply indications of what used to work. It was amazing to me, the on ly reason that I ever would create a habit is because at one time it served me that activity, that action, that repetition, that comfort level. And so when I'm thinking about what's comfortable, what's easy when I'm thinking about changing habits, aa lot of this material demands that are not just have an idea sitting in a beautiful room and sunny san francisco for a couple of days, it demands it when I get back, I make some change changes, I do some things differently, and this led me to a little exploration where I just started visiting office supply stores at all of finding office supply store I've actually included enough started going to art supply stores uh, one just opened up in new york that it's got three levels and there's portfolios and colored pens and clay and all kinds of things, and I was walking through there kind of asking myself what of this place would help me with the purpose behind an organizational system? What I'm going to do is I'm going to ask that question of the in studio audience I'm gonna walk to the white bored, but the question if we could feed this to the online audiences in your experience, what is the purpose of having some kind of an organizational system? So that's the rt audience, the online audience question but let me walk to the white bored I'd love to get from some of the audience participation what what what are some things? Why would I create an organizational system allows you to forget things in the short term so you can revisit them when you have time I'm gonna put allows me to forget for now and that now kind of changes as we go to be more productive, okay? Check it like mitigates or limit some of the chaos in my life you know it's not about that is that they are too for you as you were telling me it's one was mitigate and one was limit on this I think is going to happen right? Chaos is coming on this helps him with that and the other one is like actually a connection it can actually maybe it could actually keep a little bit of the chaos at bay. Uh let me go to tony and then I'll be in it to win this's awesome. Yes, a new organizational system would allow you to revisit in the future uh information that might otherwise get lost it's like revisit the information I had just a moment ago I had that I would ever gotten up from one room of their house, got into another room and totally forgot why they were there just never happened anybody besides me and then you say that like you want to try you want to remember you like I could do this? I was like, no, you have to go back to the room that you had the original idea and determine this morning when I talked about the significance of context that's what I mean context drives, creativity, innovation of productivity and what I'm hearing you say is I khun build the context so that I can have a big idea about making mohr about engaging in my community about keeping things at bay and limiting them all together I can have that idea here and then I can pick that up again later on I was ah ah apprentice carpenter years ago I got as far as apprentice um it was great that the my manager he says you know you could be a journeyman in six years no but what I learned from that event when it came to organizational systems was we had three sets of tools I had my belt and that was what I wanted to reach for and we got kind of a cz much as we could holding there we had the truck and that was where we could store bigger things and then we had the shed back at the office and there were things that I had in the shed that I would not put on my belt but when I needed that I needed to go out and get it I've got room for a couple of more here what are some other things that from its instant recall I totally schooled that run did not there's a company called recall and that's how they spell and that's how I'm used to it so our e see a know it takes a village sometimes let's go one and then two and then three we'll get these pretty quick effortless focus village you know that one out it's for me it's power hak is your great assists other people like partners our colleagues so that they have a better understand really you know when we get into tomorrow looking at how in collaboration we work well together I'm going have that assistance and it's how doe I hand something off when we get to through this element you're going to see that there's two different ways of handing something off and it all starts with this what am I handing off how will my handing that off okay, yes I was thinking about efficient sharing ok, I'm going to do one more than out of room on this one so what? We got predictable results so I'm looking through my notes because I tried to get it down to one word and I could make the case that that's what we've got up here but the whole purpose the whole reason I would want to create some kind of a structure of some kind of a system around the ideas I have here to pick those up again later on would be to focus in and kind of like those new digital cameras where they have a smile finder focus built it on if you've seen one of these yet to me this fast I mean the technology now right crazy hold up a camera you pointed a group of people you hold the shutter down the shutter doesn't fire until everybody's smiling wow well I like you when I was a kid it was like, you know click and hope and taking a look at what goes into those organizational systems that's we want to do right now so before the break if you remember I asked everybody to make a list or just dump down some things that were on your mind we had some of you come up with eight, ten, twelve anybody adding to that list by the way, is anybody continuing on keep on keep on going because there's more there's more but what I want to do right now is I want to take a look at this idea of miscommunication I'll miss communicating and ask yourself, who do you communicate with and who might you miss communicate with? And I know for me it's easy to miss communicate with myself, anybody they talk to themselves anyway don't talk to yourself, right? We'll have a conversation up in there and sit down in the desk and part of you says, let me go check email another part says let me go check voicemail another part says let me start on that agenda another part saying, don't check email don't check it's the whole debate and then of course with others, how do I communicate my mohr? And this goes back to a question that we had earlier, which is how do I get from my spouse? What his or her more isn't? How do I express what mine is to them? So I kind of take a look at of all of this conversation off what I write down off what I'm putting into my organizational system, what of that? Can I control and so I went through my photo album, and I brought a picture that kind of tells me about the significance of being able to look up and see a whole bunch of information. At one time, we got invited to speak at the milton hall air force base just outside of london, england, and I don't know who pulled what lever or who signed what docket, but we got to go into the flight simulator of a, um, uh, the airplane that carries the gas that fills up mid air, that holding the tankers. And so here I am, sitting next to the guy who heads up the entire training program at this air force base and he's, having me take off the airplane and land the airplane the third time we landed. So it was, you know, give you he helped a lot. I mean, he was doing things with his feet and here's what I remember he was looking out, not at every single dial he was looking for, the ones that indicated he had to look at the next one and the one that indicated he had to look at the next one if that first one didn't fire, he did not keep looking and with fascinating to me how this plays, because with all the information we have coming at us with all the e mails with all the ideas that are landing in the journal with all those conversations over either a glass of coffee in the morning or a glass of wine in the afternoon or whatever you choose that whenever you choose my question, I'm always accurate office. Which one do I not have to keep looking at? And so there's really two ways of taking a look this for the in studio audience? What I need you to do is to flip back to that page that you were just in where you're making that list of things you were thinking about. Some of you had a list that was very short with very big things. There's you have a list that's growing with smaller things, but my question to the audience and we're going by show of hands, so watch that camera when you raise your hand on this side, my question to you is as you look down that list, take a look at the first word of each line, the first word of each line the first word of each line now there's was this eight people in the room today by show of hands, how many of you? The first word of each line or the on ly word on each line is a verb it's an action it's, a task it's a to do? Who are you and we're talking about three out of eight on the other side. How many you have wrote down? Someone's name an event or a project? And these are the two perspectives that I see people work through. One's not right ones, not wrong ones, not better ones. Not worse ones, not more ones, not less. We all do them both. But I know we all have a preference naturally left to my own devices. You give me a piece of paper and a pen and you say, hey, jason, write down what you're thinking about. I tend to write down this righthand side attend to because what's on my mind oh, that san francisco event and working for boeing with the navy gig. We have the book that we need to. And I start thinking in these terms of big announce of big events, of places of people of things, side by side, I co founded a company with my wife, who, when she left to her own devices, given a piece of paper, depend and asked what's on your mind. She naturally spills upon that piece of paper, the calls we have to make the e mails. We have to send the errands that we have to run the follow ups that we have to do, the things we have to print a sign now low self disclosure jodi, I've been hanging out now for almost twenty one years, and there was a good six year run where this drove us crazy because she'd sit down and we'd start talking about the tasks of the weekend, the two duis that we need to manage the things that had to be done before nightfall, and then I would come in with the new vacation I wanted to take of that next new article that I was thinking about that next new meeting that I wanted to create. Now, this always brings up some questions, so we're going to turn to the in studio audience. But what I want you to be thinking about I'm gonna pop promptly with this is when you step out into that world old, especially when your demographic is beyond you, the community, the co founders in the co worker's on your mind, or you naturally seeing people as you're thinking, wow, their strength is toe look at one side or the other, and then the other question that I can answer if there's anything that you want to know about howto work with the two different sides more effectively, more efficacious lee, we'll start with the kind of commentary what what stands out to you about just this distinction here? I was surprised. I read your book and I've done this activity before in last time everything that hit the page was over but I was very verb oriented today I looked down I was like thrown out it's entirely announced and I wonder if it's the prompt what's on your mind and on my mind are announced like you explained it and potentially in the book was like what's your to do list and er nai wrote dues actions I wonder if that's a two things on my mind one is that the prompt itself convict eight what shows up the way I asked it earlier today was what is your unfinished business you know those of you who look at things through the verb of sorts yeah through that verb lens what is your unfinished business have to call some people have to email some people right so the mere prompt I can play around with that a little bit and the other thing tony that doesn't surprise me at all and you saw my smile as you were sharing yours is you just launched a website this morning that lets me know that he has to be thinking in noun language ing what has he been doing for the past four weeks the verbs edit this finalize that create this pick that choose this download that and just this morning you shared with us when we started off you said well fifteen minutes ago I just launched a website and so now you're thinking traffic product the next event I know you're taking a trip to italy in about a month and go do some on site research bad milan to do some research so the takeaway for me would be when you go back to new york when you go back to the office when you go back to the home office simply sitting on a different side of the desk, we'll bring in different prompts context drives this thing, speaking of context, one of the things that I do and I did this yesterday when we were walking around in the pre production is I shared with you that you were all put in seats yesterday kind of I thought to myself, who is going to be sitting? Where on dh there was a point where in my mind you all left and then I put other people in your seats and these are the people that are always rolling along with me. So in the room today we have mother teresa, abraham lincoln, albert is always with me and bill shakespeare he's usually in the room as well and what's fast is when I look out and I go, you know, I mean, rick, you're there, but you know, who's really they're like, oh man, I got the more serious now context will change what I focus on I want to say I want to be thinking from both perspectives so who came up with lot announce again? Who is at the camelot unknowns? What I do is I take that piece of paper, I just flip it over and for every one of those now nhs on the other side let's pick a verb now another piece of this was one that you shared where your verbs were big where some big verbs and I'm going to bring those back down my favorite my favorite ones are these ones right here? Those are among my favorite if I could share one tactic with those of you who are watching online for those of you were sitting here if I could share a tactic over the next week if you can identify the four to seven verbs that actually keep you busy during the day, you go a long way toward a really creative, productive work flow the way I asked this is, um although this way the way I put this prompt out there is most of the people I work with don't actually do that much during the day. The more senior people are, the fewer verbs keep them busy, they're busy making phone calls all day they're busy submitting proposals they're very busy drafting, but what I like to do is sit down and look through that email inbox go through these notes tonight and ask yourself how many verbs can I get this down to? And then jackie something that we were talking about a little bit earlier is are those the right ones that are going to get me to that place that I want to be in that area that I wanna hang in anything else on your minds about this dual perspective do one and then two yes oh my take away from this if I'm understanding it correctly is that your advises that if you have a lot of now is you tend to think more announce try to find more verbs that address those now nes because now it's contend to be rather big like you know right on nautical lore but you're right coming event right? So try to kind of focused down on some of the tangible to do verbs is and red and then in relationship to some of your comments before our break. Now you're surrounded by people and you see the vision right? You see the festival and the music and the musicians and the art and the jeweler you see that in there in your head and there's someone on your team wondering how many hours do we have the venue for where we renting the tables from? Are we going to buy plastic or we're going to use silverware, metal silverware and they're they're we call it in the weeds that's their strength so when we look at projects with with our little team on always looking for well, I'll put it this way if I'm in a meeting with all now nes I stopped the meeting, I stop it hold on, we need other influencers hear how would I know? I was in a meeting with all now nhs we keep talking about what it will look like later about how incredible this will be then about if on ly we had something, then we could do something that noun perspective pulls us out and delays things. Now what I want to be careful of is I don't want to impose my weakness on the structure I'm not a strong verb thinker I'm willing to can I do it absolutely isn't my strength no, my strength kind of going back to something a little earlier is that sixty to one hundred twenty month view and then I want to surround myself I want to share that view with the right people with the right environment so that someone can say, hey jason, have you thought about calling this person still a noun person? But they're feeding me with that action that activity towards the end later this afternoon I'll share with you how we've gotten down my creative productive to his few verbs as possible that is, if I'm working, if I'm working, I'm really only doing two things and I measure everything that comes in against those two things that don't know my two things will be different run ginny than your two things or four things or six things. By the way, if I'm in a meeting with all verbs, I usually just start crying because before I know what my names on a list and next to my initials with a box it's open, and I want to make sure that as busy nous shows up in those names are written down on that list, I need to have someone in the room who is willing to look downstream. What will this give us? What will this bring us? What would this provide thing that the noun perspective is more likely to be the idea utter and the verb perspective is more the implementer in terms of creativity, and when you look at what you guys have done and you look at when you had to have the idea that cast out that didn't exist in reality, and then you had to look at what we're going to do to make that idea become reality. The vocabulary we give it is totally inside of you to me, it's what's the vision and how do we make that happen? I think what I'm standing on more and more what I'm seeing out there is people willing to allow themselves not to think they I have to be it all biology catch that way that I phrased it, not do it all but to be it all if you're running a solo show and I know a lot of you watching online, if you this side business, if this kind of late night hustle you got your day job and in your building, this thing you may have to be both. In that case, I'm gonna do anything I can to change that context up. Ah, when I need to go into a verb mode, I actually will go to the white bored wanting to go into now mode. I usually go to one of my notebooks and I'll play around with notebooks about every three to five months. I'll take on a new kind of notebook, sometimes it's, a small journal sometimes it's, ah, grated piece of paper, sometimes it's a beautiful leather bound, sometimes it's, ah, legal pad, but I'll run about three to five months in that envisioning, but I know me if if I if I need to produce today, I put myself in that mindset of what would done look, sound and feel like conversations. In this cyber sphere, we got a lot going on, a lot of people reacting to what you're saying, but do you want to jump back for just for a second because you're asking a earlier on about walks? Having some kind of organizational system means to people we got a lot of answers to that run through a few quickly sure, k poma says, to provide more space to be able to focus on what matters and then, flower said, an organizational system equals work smoothly despite having a dhd apology says allows you to communicate and execute with the team ally, williams says. I live for systems. They give something to fall back on. It makes it easier for others to help and make it easier for you to grow. Yeah, we have a couple more yes and girl, to be sure, you can grow your businesses soul in a positive way, just the one in the song, you said for a feeling of peace and to keep your track a lot of variety in there, some of which mirrored what the studio on yourself for some other different takes that