Wednesday, 29 October 2003
11:22 PM
Spent the day today in a seminar entitled "How to Balance Priorities and Manage Multiple Projects." As a rule I am pretty skeptical of the whole seminar thing and more generally of the entire culture of self-improvement that is such a big industry in the U.S. I think part of my issue with it, for starters, is that there's a presumption that there is a kind of mythic Perfect American toward which everyone of course should be striving -- a thin, well-exercised, nutritionally careful, goal-oriented, self-disciplined, hyper-organized, time-efficient, tasteful, financially savvy, self-actualized and above all ambitious creature. More-or-less by definition, if you're not constantly seeking ways to improve yourself, lose weight, and get rich, yer a slacker. There are vague overtones of religion in this thinking; we're all imperfect beings (born sinners) who have been offered the opportunity, should we be so enlightened as to seize it, to overcome our natural limitations and seek to enter the Kingdom of the Special People. To do so, we must follow certain important rituals -- eating right, exercising properly, investing wisely, working smart-not-hard, organizing all our tasteful crap cleverly, setting and measuring our goals in all things.[1] It follows, of course, that no one is ever really just fine, thanks. You could be so much more. And we have just the seminar/book/tapes/TV show/diet/exercise equipment for you.
Nonetheless, even I recognize that I could make my life easier by learning a few basic life skills, such as organizing my time, and to a lesser degree, my stuff. I have a tendency to manage my work time on a crisis-du-jour basis, which really isn't that pleasant and sometimes makes for sleepless nights.[2] So I recognize that I can use some insights here about how to get a handle on things like scheduling and priorities. Although I am not a manager at work (lack of ambition, a venal sin), I have been around long enough to have a senior type of role and a lot of stuff floats across my desk (Inbox, actually), often informally.
This particular seminar seems popular with people at work, and in fact, my manager Megan not only recommended the class to me but took it today also. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed the seminar and feel like I actually got a lot of good information from it. To some extent, of course, much of the information in a seminar like this is an exercise in stating the obvious, or at least, in reiterating things we've all heard a hundred times. Efficiency is a matter of establishing measurable goals, prioritizing them, and following through. There, you just got a free seminar.
The value, to me and I suppose to most people who take seminars, is in having a charismatic and funny fellow ("Travis") at the front of the class tell you all this and walk you through a workbook of exercises that drill down (to a shallow depth, admittedly) on various points. For example, we spent a few minutes writing down five to-do items and then Travis walked us through three ways to help us determine which were the highest priority. There, that was easy, wasn't it? Let's move on now to planning your calendar.
But I don't mean to say that this type of light work has no value. On the contrary. At least, in my case; I found the exercises and suggestions, lightweight as they were, to be illuminating. I can now go back to work and apply some of the suggestions, such as scheduling my calendar only to 60% full and front-loading all the important tasks in the first three weekdays. Presumably, to people who are already well organized, this type of suggestion is so simple-minded and obvious that they would think that anyone who doesn't already know and do this is a retard. Ahem.
Most of the issues he brought up seemed realistic and the suggestions likewise practical. One of the strong suggestions, for instance, is that you have a single, centralized calendar that contains all your commitments, both work and home. This rang particularly true with me this morning, because just yesterday I had tentatively agreed to a work gig and then realized only when I got home that it conflicted with a family event. Travis also had a personal style -- or perhaps this is designed into the seminar -- that gave the whole thing some credibility. He emphasized various times that everyone has to find the particular tools that work for them. Use a Daytimer, a PDA, a ratty old notebook, whatever you want and whatever works for you; just learn to use it and keep it with you at all times.
It occurred to me at some point that the seminar was really a self-help book in person. Every point in the seminar had a corresponding anecdote, as is the favored style of popular self-help books, each a mini-drama: exposition; conflict; resolution. Let's call them parables, but easier to understand. In each and every case -- trouble with the boss, with a coworker, an employee, a family member -- Travis applied the principle under discussion and there was always a Happy Ending. The boss saw the light. The employee took ownership of the project. The kids learned to work out their own conflicts. Travis learned the importance of listening to his wife.[3]
Because the seminars are not overtly religious, or more accurately, they are lessons in the religion of self improvement, the holy words come from psychologists, and there is a scientific basis for our sins. The one I liked best today was based on the "Platinum Rule" work of Tony Alessandra, who identified four personality types: Directors (results oriented), Socializers (yackers), Thinkers (analyzers), and Relaters (empaths). We got to identify our own types, which was lots of fun, sort of like reading an astrological profile and saying, "Man, that is so the way I am!" Not surprisingly, I turn out to be a Socializer; my personal measure of this is that it takes me 20 minutes to walk to the bathroom because I end up talking to people all down the hall.[4] Megan and I also had some fun trying to assign types to different people in our group. The practical application of this information is that you're supposed to recognize that others are different than you and learn to work with their type, rather than assuming they're like you. Whether people can actually do that is perhaps the big question here.
I'm actually looking forward to trying to implement what I've learned. Travis said that most people don't ever follow through on seminars; I can believe that. He also noted that no one can just apply everything right away ("It's like a 12-step program," he said). The two most valuable lessons from today, I think, were to apply the prioritization exercises and to learn to use a calendar religiously (heh). By golly, maybe this would be a good excuse to buy a PocketPC, wouldn't that be keen? Fortunately, this was not a seminar on financial prudence.
One observation that Megan and I made was that a lot of the work conflicts or problems that the seminar alludes to did not apply to us, or at least, not to our group. Contrary to the assumption in the seminar, most of our meetings are not in fact a waste of time; the work environment is already conducive to productivity; we don't suffer endless phone interruptions; we don't have a lot of paper to push around; the company already explicitly sets short- and long-term goals; and so on. But a lot of people nodded knowingly when some of these issues were brought up or alluded to work problems. It is a reminder once again of how fortunate we are to work where we do, a company that consistently ranks among the Best Companies to Work For types in surveys. Which I heartily agree with.
[categories]
personal, work
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