VideoVoo: Online Video Marketing

Here are Marc’s main points, the full version is on his newly (June 2007) launched blog. There are only a few blog posts yet, and this one is a real marathon essay (the length is not very bloggish, but, luckily, there are really funny parts to make the text airy)

Maximizing personal productivity or GTD (getting things done) plus DTT (doing the right things) is for me a highly important approach to everyday scenarios. I like reading/writing articles while standing in a queue, sewing while watching videos etc. But GTD is more than “Phone and Mail Twice a Day” jingle-mantra. Let’s see what Marc enlists (excerpts) and if I do it (DONE) or need to learn it (LEARN) or think irrelevant (DIG).

• Don’t keep a schedule: refuse to commit to appointments at any set time in any future day. As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time. When someone emails or calls to say, “Let’s meet on Tuesday at 3″, the appropriate response is: “I’m not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can’t commit to that, but give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I’m available, I’ll meet with you” or “You know what, let’s meet right now.” A wonderful book called A Perfect Mess explains how not keeping a schedule has been key to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s success as a movie star, politician, and businessman over the last 20 years. This also gives you the best odds of maximizing flow. The other great thing about this tactic is that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing — there are quite a few things that still sneak onto my calendar that I really can’t get out of. But one is still able to draw the line between “must do” and “sounds interesting but I’m not keeping a schedule”. (DONE)
• Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List. Into the Todo List goes all the stuff you “must” do. Into the Watch List goes all the stuff going on in your life that you have to follow up on, wait for someone else to get back to you on. Into the Later List goes everything else. The email sorting is quite similar. (I think it’s DONE but in fact on the way to be done)
• Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3×5 index card with 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day. And then do those things. If I do, it was a successful day. Tthis is one of the most successful techniques ever tried. (LEARN)
• Every time you do something — anything — useful during the day, write it down on the back of your Todo List card and marvel at all the things you actually got done that day. Then tear it up and throw it away. (DIG - I trust my self-appreciation)
• Structured Procrastination from John Perry, a philosophy professor at Stanford. Read his original description, by all means. The gist of Structured Procrastination is that you should never fight the tendency to procrastinate — instead, you should use it to your advantage in order to get other things done. While you’re procrastinating, just do lots of other stuff instead. For example, I hate making phone calls. Hate it. Love sending emails, enjoy seeing people face to face (sometimes), but I hate making phone calls. I can get so much done while I am avoiding making a phone call that I need to make, I can barely believe it. In fact, that’s what’s happening right now. (DONE)
• The other key two-word tactic: Strategic Incompetence. The best way to to make sure that you are never asked to do something again is to royally screw it up the first time you are asked to do it. (DIG - plus I am very good at disarming other people’s strategic incompetence. :))
• Do email exactly twice a day — in the morning, and at the end of the workday. Otherwise, keep your email client shut. (with your key family members, set up a separate account just for them and leave that open all day, but keep your primary email closed.) The problem with email is that getting an email triggers endorphin hit — the one that a mouse gets when he bonks on the button in the cage and gets a food pellet. Work with your mail client open and you interrupt your work fracturing your time, interrupting your flow, and killing your ability to focus on anything long enough to get real high-quality work done. (LEARN)
• When you process email, either answer or file every single message until you get to the empty inbox state of grace. Only keep three standing email folders: Pending, Review, and Vault. Have to deal with again go in Pending. Read in depth when you have more time, go into Review. Everything else goes into Vault. (DONE)
• Don’t answer the phone. Let it go to voicemail, and then every few hours, screen your voicemails and batch the return calls. Say, twice a day. The best thing to do is have two cell phones with different numbers — one for key family members, your closest friends, and your boss and a few coworkers, and the other for everyone else. (DIG - I keep my phone muted for long preiods. I always react faster in email, and ask people to use email with me as a proactive step to minimize phone calls. LEARN - SimulScribe)
• Hide in an IPod. One of the easiest ways to avoid distractions in the workplace is to be wearing those cute little IPod earbud headphones. You don’t actually have to be listening to anything. (DIG - my job environment is quiet at the moment)
• No matter what time you get up, start the day with a real, sit-down breakfast. First, it fuels you up. Second, it gives you a chance to calmly collect your thoughts and prepare mentally and emotionally for the day ahead. (DONE, super-done)
• Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes. This one is from the great Robert Evans. (Hold out for the audiobook — trust me.) In my experience, it takes time to tell the difference between your head saying yes and your heart saying yes. I think the key is whether you’re really excited about it. (LEARN)
• Do something you love. As free as possible to pursue one’s core interests, and dreams. (LEARN, DONE I think both)

OK, clearly, I have to improve upon my email processing.

But I am quite proud to expand the list and add the ’simultaneous bits.’ It’s something like multitasking, but not nerve-racking. Instead, I think of it as a self-experiment: one physical task connected with a mental one (like washing up and learning foreign languages, e.g. phrases on post-it papers above the sink), or two physical tasks completed at the same time (I guess moms must be quite good at having sharp partial attentions), like drying hair and circling with my legs in different rhythms, or making similar excercises. It’s relaxing, which gives fuel to get things done. The other thing is that I keep relatively tight deadlines with important tasks. It gives a sense of urgency and helps keeping deadlines, even if unexpected events would hinder the planned completion.