WEEK 19: QUALITY SYSTEMS

PLANNING (task, scheduling, and WT = DT):  This week I planned to expand out the first chapter in the book and also learn how to add digital resources to Scrivener. I scheduled to complete these tasks on Tuesday at 4:30 when Meggo and Tae are at play date. In terms of turning WT= DT, I uploaded the "learn scrivener fast" website into my browser, and an article on how to read more by James Clear. In addition, I put a reminder in gTask Pro to finish reading Tony Robbin's new book, Money...Master the Game.

IMPLEMENTATION (strategies used):  This week I utilized three main strategies and incorporated a new one. I have listed them below with their immediate benefits.

1. The 3-buckets system of writing. This has been a staple of mine for the past 5-6 weeks and I can't say enough about how it has made the process of writing so much easier for me. The system breaks down the writing process into three steps. First, you create a location where you can store all of your ideas. Second, you draft the first version. Third, you take some time away from your draft and then edit the document at another time. Before using this system it would take me much longer to try to do all of these things in one sitting, where as now I can pump out my weekly posts much more efficiently. I learned this strategy from Jeff Goins so go check out his page if any of your are aspiring writers.

2. The 2-minute Rule. Ever feel overwhelmed with a task even before you start? Well, this is where this strategy comes into play. Instead of thinking about all the things you have to do in order to complete a task, just focus on the first  two minutes of starting it. Then, just complete those actions, and then decide if you want to finish or not. Often times, I find myself completing the first two minutes and then realize that I have been working for 30 minutes. This follows Newton's First Law of Motion, which states that "an object in motion, tends to remain in motion." The hardest part is initiating the task, so if you just focus and complete what it takes to start, then you will usually complete more than you thought. This was learned from James Clear.

3. Got a minute? Additionally, I have also started implementing a strategy to work hand in hand with the 2-minute rule. It has had profound effects on my weekly task and post in the past two weeks. Like I said before, most tasks seems overwhelming as you think of all the things that you have to do before it is completed. This in effect, for me at least, would talk me out of completing the task. Usually, I would think there was not enough time, but the funny thing was that I would OVERESTIMATE how much actual time was needed to complete a task. This happens quite regularly and can be explained by Vierordt's Law, which states that when estimating a previous task, people overestimate short durationsand underestimate long ones. This connection was huge for me. The 2-minute strategy is great, but if I only had 10 minutes or even five minutes, I would not even try to start a task. Where as now, I know that in my mind I am overestimating how long it takes to complete parts (short durations) of a weekly tasks. In turn, any Waiting Time that I have, even as small as two minutes, I use to work on completing the weekly task. If I an not completing the task or a part of it, then I use this time to improve myself in one way or another through books, websites, or other material that I chose at the beginning of the week. Moral of the story, meaningful results can be achieved in small amounts of time.

4. Read More (NEW). With the access of information today, there in no lack in finding information from someone who has done what we want to do (Become a Pro). From videos, to blogs, websites and books, there is an abundance of resources. I have found that digital books are my preference of choice. I upload new books frequently and read during my WT during the week. The issue for me has been how to read more of  the books that I have downloaded and process their information, so I can turn them into specific actions. Enter James Clear. I was looking at a blog post and saw exact title, "Read More." This strategy is very straight forward, all you need is a timer and a book. His simple strategy is to read for at least 20 minutes a day. That is it. By reading every day the knowledge becomes like compound interest, or starts out slow but grows very quickly after the initial stages. For example, if you took a regular size paper and kept folding it in half, by the 30th fold the width of the paper would be able to reach from the earth to the moon. Our minds can not grasp that idea, but it has huge ramifications. This week I started implementing this strategy and uploaded books on Sunday and set the timer on my iPhone and read for 20 minutes throughout the day. He says it is better in one sitting, but for me I had to read 10 minutes in the morning and had to get the other 10 throughout the day. Let's see where it takes us.

REFLECTIONS (learnings and actions): Second week in a row that I was able to complete the task at the scheduled time and was able to do more throughout the week, as I scheduled to complete the task at a time earlier in the week. I am finding that it is becoming easier to complete the tasks on schedule and actually devote more time to additional work, which in turn accelerates my progress towards my goals. This, I feel is because of two main reasons. 

First, is because of quality systems. What I mean by this, in the beginning of this process I really had really no other system in place, other than completing one task a week towards my goal. There were no strategies I was using to make the the work easier. Today I have been able to learn new strategies that have helped me become more efficient, and although the weekly tasks might be getting harder, the overall process of completing them is getting easier. Counterintuitive, I know. 

Second, is the "aggregation of marginal gains." I talked about this last week, but it is the concept that making 1% improvements in areas of your life that you want to improve, if done on a consistent basis can produce meaningful results. In short, just by showing up every week and devoting time to discover, pursue, and achieve your dreams in small ways can lead to some amazing results. I think back to the beginning when I had no idea how I might write this book, but now have gained the necessary knowledge, but most importantly, executing this knowledge to help me pursue and achieve my dream of sharing this knowledge with you. This would have never happened if I would have taken a few weeks off, but the discipline to complete the weekly tasks has compounded my knowledge and ability to complete the tasks. As I reflect, I know this is the toughest thing for us today to understand, as we live in an era of instant gratification. For example, if you want to know the capital of Slovakia, you can Google it and know in less than a second. Where as in the past without internet, you had to go to a library, checkout a book, and then find the information two hours later. But I am learning that meaningful things take time to grow and often times you are not able to see the fruits of your labor instantly.  So wherever you are on this journey of discovering, pursuing, and achieving your dreams have faith that the work you are completing fits into a larger picture, and I can guarantee you that if you consistently show up every week and put in the time to Plan, Implement, and Reflect about your weekly tasks, things will begin to change in amazing ways. So I leave you with this huge challenge to be disciplined and committed to showing up every week, and letting these 1% gains take you to places you never thought possible. 

Thanks for tuning in and see you in week 20...which will be the post for 5 months...wow!

WEEK 18: SMALL IMPROVEMENTS FOR MEANINGFUL RESULTS

Photo Credit: Tour de France by 2014 Stage 1 by Marc

PLANNING (task, scheduling, and WT = DT):  This week I chose to expand out the topics within the current outline that I created and scheduled to complete it onTuesday morning. In addition, I uploaded a 5-Bullet Fridays from Tim Ferris' blog and also an article on "Aggregation of Marginal Gains" from James Clear's blog to turn WT = DT. 

IMPLEMENTATION (strategies used):  This week I completed the task on time and used various strategies to help me. The good thing is that these strategies are now becoming a natural part of what I do. I have listed a brief description of the benefits of each below:

*Schedule Early: By scheduling the task as early in the week as possible you get two benefits. First, you get a sense of accomplishment if you complete the task in the beginning of the week. In addition, it allows you to devout more time to do additional tasks to reach your goals within the same week. Second, it provides more time to complete the task if something comes up during the original set time, which often times do. 

*3-Bucket system of writing: This strategy has really transformed my ability to write more efficiently. It allows me to gather ideas during the week, which in turn makes writing an initial draft on Saturday much easier. Lastly, I have less of an inclination of constantly judging my work and trying to make it perfect by writing and deleting multiple times since I know I am going to edit the draft on Sunday.

*2-Minute Rule: This has taken a while for me to really use this strategy properly, but it is something that really reinforces my discipline and commitment to my weekly tasks. Every time I look at all that I have to do, or do not feel MOTIVATED to complete something for the 52n52, I just focus on what the first 2 minutes of undertaking the tasks requires. Often times, I work more than I thought I would just by completing the first few actions required for the task.

REFLECTIONS (learnings and actions): I planned on expanding the outline topics, but actually changed the task once I started, as I had to stare at three notebooks full of ideas from the past four months that needed to be transferred into Scrivener I dreaded the idea of going back and doing all this, but I implored the 2-Minute rule and just started. In what seemed like a short amount of time, I had finished with the first notebook without even noticing. Naturally I felt pretty good about this and then immediately tackled the second notebook. In addition, by completing a lot of work on Tuesday I could have stopped for the week, but on Wednesday I transferred the third notebook and now all the ideas that I have been collecting from the start of this project are in Scrivener. I learned two valuable things from this. First, it does matter what task you complete, as long as it takes you to what you want to accomplish. I was a bit frustrated this week when I was not able to tackle what I originally wanted to do, but actually going over all my notes was quite interesting as I was able to see all of my progress up to this point. Additionally, I was able to transfer these notes into the specific topics in the outline, which really gave me an idea of the areas that I need to beef up with research. The second learning was that I seem to over estimate how much time it takes to complete a task. This led me to researching why we often error in estimating how long it will take to complete a task. This led me to Vierordt's Law, which states that when estimating a previous task, people overestimate short durations and underestimate long ones. This is exactly what I did when I dreaded the idea of transferring the notes to Scrivener. I thought in my mind that it would take A LOT of time, where actually the task itself was not that long. This is where I had an AHA moment as well, because often times I think that it is going to take more time to complete tasks (usually that are good for me) than it actually does. For example, I have been trying to complete three different exercises everyday to help with my posture, I try to do them in the middle of the day, but often times am not able to complete them until the later afternoon. The funny thing is I always think that it is going to take much more time than I think. On Monday I timed myself and they take less than 3 minutes to complete. WOW! So this led me to my big learning to just start tackling a tasks by using the 2-Minute rule. We often times overestimate how much time it will actually take to complete something and the consistent completion of these short tasks can actually create meaningful results. This led to what I learned in my WT this week.

I also learned about the "Aggregation of Marginal Gains," which I read on James Clear's site this week during the various times that I was waiting for something. This strategy comes from Dave Brailsford, who was the coach of the British cycling team. In 2009 he was hired to help the SKY (British team) capture a Tour de France title, as this had never been accomplished before. His strategy was simple, Brailsford looked for ways to improve all areas of cycling by 1%. Some were obvious improvements towards equipment and nutrition, but Brailsford went even deeper and found other ways that he could improve his cyclists' performance, such as which pillows would give them the best night sleep. By aggregating all of these 1% improvements, his team won the Tour de France in 2012, just 3 years after he started. In addition, the British cycling team won 70% of the medals in the 2012 Olympic games and won the Tour de France in 2013 as well.

Today, we often just look at the results of an event to see if a change is meaningful or not. What I mean, is that we see people lose 100 lbs or a student getting an A and say that they have made a positive change. In reality, these were produced by small improvements done consistently before they reached these results. Additionally, this is similar for bad habits. We get to unhealthy places by doing small, harmful things over a long period of time. This idea of aggregating marginal gains ties back to the learning from this week of just starting a task. By completing the task, you are in turn improving your self in a small way, and by consistently doing this every week, you will put your self in a position to produce a meaningful result during and at the end of the process. 1% by itself is almost insignificant and even unnoticeable at times, but imagine what you could do if you consistently made 1% improvements in different areas of your life? 

Thanks for tuning in and see you for Week 19.

WEEK 17: SCHEDULE TASKS SOONER IN THE WEEK FOR MORE BENEFITS

PLANNING (task, scheduling, and WT = DT):  This week I planned to create a new outline for the book by using the guidelines from Book In A Box. I planned on doing during Tae's nap time and took pictures of past outlines in advance so I had them available to use. Lastly, to turn WT = DT, I uploaded Tim Ferris', 5-Bullet, http://fourhourworkweek.com/blog/, so I could learn new information and strategies to become more efficient with my time.

IMPLEMENTATION (strategies used): In order to complete the task and the post this week I properly used the 3-bucket system of writing. First, I create the format for the blog post and add ideas throughout the week, next write a draft, and then finally edit the draft. In addition, my wife ,Meggo, bought me a passion planner to organize my week. I had been using the gTasks pro app exclusively to organize daily tasks, but the passion planner is a great tool to plan out the whole week and identify certain tasks for each day. In addiiton, it allows me to incorporate the Seinfeld Rule that I learned from James Clear. It is called this because a young comedian asked Jerry Seinfeld how to become better at their craft. Jerry said take a huge calendar and place a big X for everyday that you write jokes, and if you can place an X for every day of the year, then you will become a better comedian. For me, the passion planner allows me to see the whole month and allows me to place a big X for each day I complete tasks that take me towards my goals for this year. This makes my progress visible and helps me understand what is and is not working.

REFLECTIONS (learnings and actions): This week I was able to make some more connections and found ways to improve the weekly process of completing the task. First, I was able to combine the Sunday planning period and the 3-buckets system of writing. I did this by actually creating the blog entry and then write in what I PLAN on doing for the week. This completes part of the post and also allows me to add in learnings from the week as I go (which is the first bucket of the 3-bucket system). I will continue to follow this format in future weeks. 

Second, I was able to identify a tip in terms of scheduling your task. Lately, I have been scheduling time in the middle of the week to devout to my task, but I had an AHA moment while journaling on Monday. It occurred to me that there would be more benefits by scheduling tasks sooner in the week. The first benefit is that by scheduling and completing the task earlier on in the week, you feel a sense of accomplishment and hopefully it drives you to do more before the end of the week. Second, is the fact that if something comes up, as life usually presents others things that we must attended to, then you also have more time to complete the task as you are only in the beginning part of the week. Lastly, I feel rushed and out of sorts if I wait until the end of the week to complete the task then draft and edit the blog post, so this new strategy of scheduling earlier on  in the week helps me avoid procrastination. 

For my last learning it is the idea that you will never know until you start. At the beginning of this process I had no idea where to start writing this book on how to discover, pursue, and achieve my dreams. But, ideas came together and steps were provided as I consistently completed the tasks each week. It is very difficult in todays instant gratification era to see the benefit of completing action consistently and using the cumulative effect to create something meaningful. But as I completed my fourth outline ideas for chapters came more easily and these topics would have never come to me without me showing up every week and completing the tasks. So, if you are on the path to achieving something great, show up every day and complete the actions, especially when you don't want to, and the results will take care of themselves. 

Thanks for dropping by and see you week 18.

Sweet 16: IT'S A PROCESS

PLANNING (Task, Schedule, WT = DT): This week I wanted to buy, download, and learn about Scrivener. I scheduled to do this during my wife and sons' morning nap time on Wednesday. Also, have learned to download an article or video onto my mobile device inorder to turn Waiting Time = Development Time. This week I uploaded the site Learn Scrivener Fast by Joseph Michaels.

IMPLEMENTATION (Strategies): This week I implemented the strategy of high traffic areas by placing the task in my gTasks Pro App ( a great To Do List Manger) so that I would se it every time I checked what I needed to complete for the day. In addition, I properly used the 3-buckets of writing strategy. I learned this from Jeff Goins and thought I had been implementing it properly, but had a breakthrough this week. Jeff recommends you always use three different buckets to write during a set period of time. The buckets are gathering ideas, drafting, and editing. I used it properly this week and have a full understanding of how beneficial it is. From now on I will create the format for blog post on Sunday, which is my planning day, so that I can reference it anytime in the week to gather ideas. Next, I will draft, which means not to judge it while writing it, the post on Saturday. Lastly, I will let the draft sit for a while and then edit it later on Saturday or early Sunday morning.

REFLECTION (Learnings and Actions): I was able to complete the tasks on the scheduled day and like I mentioned above, had a breakthrough using the 3-bucket system strategy for writing. At the beginning of my 52 in 52, I decided that I wanted to write a book and although I had a lot of inspiration to do it, I also felt a little overwhelmed in how I could possible WRITE enough for a whole book. Especially since I do not think of myself as a natural writer to start out with. What I learned this week is that writing can be a complex process as in the past I always would sit there and write a sentence five or six times before it sounded perfect, and this process would continue for the rest of the project. The break through this week was that the process of writing is not just sitting down and writing continusoulsy, it involves the gathering of ideas, writing an initial draft (without judging and making tons of changes), and then going back and editing. Trying to do all three at the same time is overwhelming, at least for me and others who find writing challenging. The process get much easier if you collect ideas for yoru writing separate from the actual drafting, and then the eventual editing of the draft. The process actually became more efficient as I collected what I wanted to talk about during the week at random times, then writing the first draft (without continuous typing and deleting), and finally editing after I took some time away. I now will implement the 3-bucket system weekly and hopefully this will help me and any of you undertaking a large writing project to become better writers.

Thanks for tuning in and see you in week 17.