Eiffel Over

Tag: productivity

  • Standardising decision-making in design

    Standardising decision-making enables companies to save money. A standardised process allows more junior staff to make decisions without needing to consult a more senior member of staff. Why might a more senior member of staff be required? Because subjective decisions require experience, perspective, and judgement, all of which take time to develop. It is therefore natural for a company seeking to increase profitability to look towards standardising its decision-making processes.

    However, we can also recognise the limitations of this approach. We encounter them when the service provider we rely on can’t make an exception in our case because their system won’t permit it, even though all that’s required is for someone to use judgement and say, ‘this is acceptable.’

    Our aim in construction should be to build far less that is new and to work much more with what already exists. Building new structures lends itself well to standardised processes. Working with existing structures is a much subtler art, requiring observation, analysis, and careful decision-making. Standardised decision-making will become significantly harder, and there will be no shortcut to careful judgement.

  • The Schedule

    I am sharing today a schedule I use in my work every time the noise from distractions gets too much and/or I don’t actually think I am making any progress in what I do. It was inspired by reading ‘The Secrets of Productive People’ by Mark Forster, a book which, while labelled productivity, has a lot to do with creativity.

    I call my process simply ‘the schedule’ and it has served me well for the last six years. Feeling stretched? Time to return to the Schedule. The aim is to keep work focused on a single task but also to allow structured time where the brain can wander and new ideas can come into the flow. 

    • 09:10 – 09:50
    • 10mins break
    • 10:00 – 10:40
    • 30mins break
    • 11:10 – 11:50
    • 10mins break
    • 12:00 – 12:40
    • 1h10 break
    • 13:50 – 14h30
    • 10mins break
    • 14:40 – 15:20
    • 30mins break
    • 15:50 – 16:30
    • 10mins break
    • 16:40 – 17:20

    The breaks are as important as the focus time. Both count as work. Both count towards time on a job. Often we only value the active brain time, but sometimes our best thinking happens in between. 

    One rule of the Schedule is to stop the task at break time, even if the task is almost complete. The temptation is to carry on, but as it usually turns out, an almost finished task is never quite as finished as you think. What ensues is a period of dwindling concentration and diminishing returns. Better to take the break, come back with fresh eyes and finish the task quickly, and move on.

    Of course, few days fully work out like this. There’s fitting in with other people’s schedules. And there’s caring responsibilities. But when things start to feel a bit chaotic (see my post on the Chaos Field), re-establishing some order can help me think clearly again. 

    My recommendation is not that you follow my schedule (by all means do if you wish) but to establish a pattern of work that works for your cycle of energy and attention, gives you time to think, provides structure and is something that you just do automatically without devoting mental energy to. 

  • Harnessing waves in our work

    Harnessing waves in our work

    Today’s post picks up on yesterday’s theme of riding the waves of human energy in our work. The idea is to create a cycle of working that tunes in to our own and others’ level of available energy to create better thriving for all involved. 

    For the regenerative designer, the living world often gives us a good template for how to create thriving systems. And so, whether the wavelength we are designing for is a day, a month, a year or even a lifetime, here are some modes of working inspired by the changes that living systems cycle through. I have organised these into five touch points.

    1 – Start of a new cycle 

    • Associated with potential and possibilities.
    • Might be a dream-like state.
    • Might be quite slow or dormant – possibly no activity visible on the surface.
    • Gradually shifting into planning.
    • Darkness, low levels of light or energy.

    2 – Ascent 

    • Gathering momentum.
    • Plans transition into action.
    • Gaining confidence.
    • Work becomes visible.

    3 – Peak

    • Maximum output or yield. Possibly a launch phase.
    • Everything is visible, a point of recognition.
    • The brightest part of the cycle, associated with clarity.
    • Celebration of achievement and milestones.

    4 – Descent 

    • Harvest, where outputs are gathered, enjoyed and shared.
    • Reflection on work done, evaluation. 
    • Taking apart or shedding in readiness for the next cycle.
    • Gather resources for dormant phase.

    5 – Rest and renewal 

    • Recovery and restoring. 
    • Lower visibility.
    • Less action, slower movement.

    Of course, how we spend our time is a negotiation with others. The invitation here is to look for opportunities to acknowledge the cyclical ways in which we work. And to acknowledge more widely the cyclical pattern to the living systems that enable us to thrive.

  • Downhill to the weekend – time for writing

    I’m just noticing that I’m entering that perfect groove of Friday afternoon. I’ve stopped travelling for the week and I’m back at my desk. My head is buzzing with ideas from the week’s accumulated activities. I have got Fip.fr on the radio and for a precious few moments, there’s no barrier between me and the page.

    I talk quite often in my creativity training about finding the right moment to do the right kind of work. A few years ago I heard Tim Ferris interview Dan Pink about his book ‘When’. Pink was writing about trends in what kind of work suits what times of day for different people. If memory serves correctly, he was suggesting that for many people, the morning is a more analytical time, the early afternoon is a post-lunch slump (ideal in my mind for doing expenses) and the late afternoon and early evening are ideal for more creative thinking.

    He doesn’t say this is true of everyone, but says it is a common for many.

    In my thinking about regenerative design, the idea of working with living cycles comes up often. I see this tuning into what work suits what time of day as another manifestation of this idea of a living cycle. Right now as I settle into my Friday afternoon groove I know that I’m working with the cycle, everything aligns and it is little extra effort to carry on moving forwards.

    For me the questions are: where are we working with the direction of a system and when are we working against it. Sometimes we need to against the flow to make change. But working constantly against the flow is hard work and comes with an energy cost that one day we must repay.

    The only problem I have with listening to Fip.fr in the afternoon is that the times are in French and every so often I forget and think it is one hour later than it really is.

  • Four reflective modes for engineers and other humans

    Four reflective modes for engineers and other humans

    I once worked for a client who said his ambition for his firm was that it should become a learning organisation. That thought stuck with me. What if, through every action you took, you were learning. Every action could be an opportunity to learn to take the next action in a better way. Whether you are working alone or working with others, every day is an opportunity to learn and add value to your process.

    The way to do this is through reflection. I use four reflective modes, loosely based on Kolb’s Learning Cycle.

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  • Reading fast and slow

    Reading fast and slow

    I’m a slow reader. The problem is I can’t seem to retain things unless I write them down or sketch them out. It means that I read very few books each year, but it also means those ones I do read I know really well. This is great when you want to be able to recall a concept while standing in front of a workshop, but it is not so good for reading new content. The pile of books I now want to read is now far greater than I’ll ever get through. The smartest stuff I’ve read about productivity tells me that doing things quicker is a fool’s game. So maybe I need a different aproach.

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