I want to finish this short series of time travel inspired posts with one more specificallly referring to Doctor Who. Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of the show, it’s just a jumping off point for some general ideas that remain applicable even if you’ve never heard of Rose Tyler or Davros!

The specific Doctor Who concept I want to talk about is regeneration. When an actor decides to leave the show, the Doctor “regenerates”. The new actor plays the Doctor his own way and there have been many very different portrayals over the years.

Yet despite the many differences between Doctors, the character’s fundamental personality remains the same. He changes whilst remaining the same person. That’s the idea I want to discuss here.
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In my previous post I talked about motivation through time travel. Today I want to continue the time travel theme and look at another way this particular thought experiment might be able to help: overcoming fear through perspective.

We all have fears, some are rational and helpful. Those we need to listen to act on accordingly.

Others fears are irrational and unhelpful, they simply hold us back. Usually these are in some way a fear of failure or rejection. In many cases even if we do “fail” then no real harm will be done except, perhaps, to our pride and self-image. In other words, the only thing we really have to fear is what we do to ourselves.

A few simple examples: we’re worried that our date might not go well, that we don’t know anyone at the party, that people might laugh at us, that they might not laugh at our jokes. We worry about public speaking in front of friends, we keep putting off trips to the dentist. I’m sure you can think of many more examples to share.

It’s these situations, when there’s really nothing to fear except what’s in our heads, that perspective can help. So here’s what I do:
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Today I want to do a little time travel. Don’t worry, it’s just a thought experiment – we won’t be meeting any Daleks! The experiment is in two parts, the first of which is probably familiar to you. The second might be new.

Let’s start by assuming you can travel back in time to have a word with your earlier self. How far back you go is up to you – one year, five, ten, whatever. What advice would you give your earlier self?

I’m not talking about the winning lottery numbers here! I’m thinking more in terms of general advice (“You need to change career” or “If you don’t get fit you’ll have major health problems”) and priorities (“Spend more time with your family”). In particular I’m thinking of things that you probably knew at some level back then, but either ignored or were just “too busy” to implement.

If you’d had that advice back then, advice from yourself of all people, would you have acted on it? I suspect you would. And that could have changed your life today for the better.

OK, on to part two. You can probably guess what’s coming next…

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The Milgram Experiment is one of the most famous – or infamous – in the history of social psychology. In essence it shows how easily people can be persuaded to perform reprehensible acts if instructed to do so by an authority figure: volunteers administered what they believed to be a painful and potentially fatal electric shock to another “volunteer” simply because a man in a white coat told them to do so.

Of course that’s just an experiment from the 1960s. We’re enlightened, self-aware 21st century individuals. We wouldn’t do anything like that.

Would we?
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Like many people I’m a fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) organisation and productivity system. However it’s not quite perfect for me – fortunately it’s flexible enough to be personalised.

The problem I have is with “Context”, and from what I’ve read I’m not the only one. The idea of the Context is a good one that probably works well in a traditional office. It might be a place you need to be (eg client site or broom cupboard) a person you need to see (eg boss or someone important) or an object you need to have (monthly sales figures, key to stationery cupboard, etc). This model doesn’t work so well for those of us who work at home for ourselves. My main conext for the day is simply “Mac”. I’ve tried splitting this into things like “Mac: research”, “Mac: email”, “Mac: fun” etc but this feels like a fudge.

I could just drop the idea of context completely, however most of the GTD software tools out there support it so it seemed more sensible to try and make some use of it.

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If you’ve an interest in human psychology and self-improvement then you’ve probably heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Basically this is a simple pyramid model of human needs with the most primitive at the bottom and the most advanced at the top. Whilst our lower level needs remain unfulfilled, Maslow proposed, we have difficulty concentrating on and fulfilling the higher ones. So for example we’re likely to find it easier to write our great novel if we’re not constantly worrying about money.

That’s not to say that we can’t work on higher level needs before securing the lower ones (ask J.KRowling!), just that it’s more difficult. It’s far easier to achieve our potential if we first to ensure that our basic needs are met.

It occurs to me that a similar model can be applied to blogging. There are basic primitive needs such as a working server, then higher levels such as good content and subscribers. Whilst it’s theoretically possible to have (for example) subscribers without quality content it will be very difficult – and without a reliable blog host it will be more difficult still.

Following Maslow’s original five-layer model I’d like to suggest the following five layers, starting with the lowest and most primitive:
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Photo Credit: g-hat
(Creative Commons)

External events have meant I haven’t had time to update this blog recently. Which is a rather embarrassing failure of my own productivity systems. I had – still have – many ideas and draft articles for this blog, unfortunately none were in a suitably complete state to post. Lesson learned: in future I’ll try to make sure I have not only draft entries but also completed ones that simply require posting.

There’s also a wider point here: compensate for future situational volatility by optimising temporal resource allocation.

Which is management-speak gobbledygook for: “Make hay while the sun shines”.

Many workers in traditional day jobs are highly inefficient. Not through any fault of their own but through systems that force them to do certain things at certain times – even if that isn’t the optimal use of that time. So periods of creativity are interrupted by deaing with trivial telephone calls and stifling meetings. Brainstorming sessions are called at a time when many of the participants are still half asleep. Detailed jobs requiring concentration are scheduled for the post-lunch dip.
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Charlie
You scored 69% kindness, 26% courage, 55% seedy past, and 84% secretiveness!

Your polar opposite is: Michael.
You are similar to: Claire and Kate.

Link: The Which Lost Character Are You Test written by ack_attack on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Which Lord of the Rings character are you? Which Naruto character are you? Which Digimon character are you?

Such quizzes are hugely popular. Partly this is because they’re great fun, however they also tell us something about ourselves. They do this in a non-threatening way with no technical psychobabble!

Fictional characters vary in depth but usually represent certain archetypes (or, if badly written, stereotypes). Archetypes have been around since the earliest mythology and Jung introduced the concept of the psychological archetype (child, hero, trickster, etc). Identifying elements of ourself in characters from Lost or whatever is simply a modern version of such archetype analysis.

So what can we do with this knowledge? What action can we take?
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I’m a great believer in the power of the keyboard as a productivity tool. Mice are great pointing devices, and if you spend your day working with graphics then they’re probably your best friend. But for people like me who mainly deal in words, whenever our hands leave the keyboard it’s both a waste of time and an interruption to the flow of thought.

Another criticism of the mouse as a control device is that it’s fundamentally serial access rather than random access. To perform a function you need to move the pointer from A to B via all pixels in between. Keyboard shortcuts allow you to effectively jump through a wormhole to your destination.

As a Mac user I’m pretty lucky, OSX supports the keyboard pretty well out of the box. However not quite well enough for me, so I looked for ways to make it even better.
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I do some of my best work with my eyes closed. I know, I know – pull the other one. OK so I admit that sometimes I also need to rest, however the fact remains that some of my best idea moments come when my eyes are shut.

Being focused on actions and tasks is usually a great way of maximising productivity. However there are times during any day when I feel the need to step back. This might be to consider a particular issue in depth, to brainstorm ideas, to take time to get the big picture, etc. All valuable actions that rarely appear on the standard “To Do” list.

For me the best way to do this is to put on some light classical music and close my eyes. The cynics can tell I’m not asleep by the way I’ll frequently be mouthing what I’m thinking or opening my eyes to jot down a note.

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