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Today’s show topics:

• exploring personal and business productivity
• How can you look for purpose-driven accomplishment and not simply get more stuff done
• Is there an ideal system of productivity for you out there?
• The starting point is to understand yourself, your talents, and your mode of operation
• Tools and tests to identify your mode of operation and strengths (www.kolbe.com & www.strengthsfinder.com)
• See a current blog post on this topic here.

Well, many presenters and pitchers (of ideas that is) have a love affair with keynote or powerpoint.  Sometimes, though, this fetish leaves our presentations wanting and adds pointless “clutter” to the audience experience in the presentation.  One master of the presentation is good ol’ Steve Jobs.  His use of keynote is simple, clean, and powerful, often by leaving nothing but a blank slide on th screen.  That’s right, sometimes its just a nice clean background and thats all.  Other times, its one phrase or a number that he then explains.  It is not meant to compensate but to accentuate.  It is not meant to distract but emphasize and focus.  He often uses pictures and no text at all… Check out the iPad intro:

Sean Silverthorne made the following points regarding the application of Steve Jobs style into our own presentations (get his article here):

1. Does each slide convey just one idea?
2. Are images sometimes used instead of words to convey those ideas?
3. Do the slides make use of empty space?
4. Does the deck sometimes disappear, leaving nothing between you and your audience?
5. Have you minimized bullet lists, distracting effects and eye charts?

Think about these, the next time you are creating your big pitch.  You may use powerpoint but don’t abuse powerpoint…

Many systems of productivity exist today. Thousands of bloggers, experts, consultants, and organizations exist all with their own prescribed system of ultimate productivity.  But often, it is THEIR system and not one that works for you.  So what does work for you? Is it simply an excuse to say that it doesn’t work for me because it wasn’t designed specifically for me? Or are we simply failures for not being able to hold to every written rule within the system that dictates our breathing patterns? Well, to start developing YOUR system, your meMethod to productivity, you need to first understand yourself, and that is often simpler said than done.  Most people think they know themselves but when it comes down to it, they are as clueless as a stranger who just met them.  In fact, the stranger can be more accurate as they come in with no specific biases or desires or preconceived images of you.  Our own image often skews the perceptions we have about ourselves and this then affects our ability to design or operate within a system for personal productivity.  Once we understand where we are, we can move on to the next steps in designing our system or approach.

The following steps describe an approach to this design process:

1. understand yourself, your strengths, passions, and desires, your mode of operation, YOU.
2. Identify your responsibilities, projects, desired habits, etc… all the things you need to, or would like to accomplish
3. Analyze the current system or process you use. What works? What doesn’t?
4. Gather the information, tools, tactics, and possible strategies together that you have come across or thought up
5. Identify what fits within your “you” from step one. How do the current processes that are working fit?
6. Drop what does not fit or has not worked.
7. Identify the remaining areas of responsibility that are not taken care of by the viable tactics and strategies identified.
8. Delegate as many of these as possible. This may be through outsourcing, coworkers or other individuals internally (within your organization or family), or complete automation via technology.
9. Eliminate as many other responsibilities or tasks as possible since you likely will not do them anyhow.
10. Items that are left… well, you might just have to buck up and do them!  Have specific times and approaches to get the things done that need to be done but can only be done by you…even though they are no fun and don’t “flow” with YOU.

So, the question now arises… how can I understand myself more fully? There are many tools and exercises to assist you in doing this.  I will list and briefly describe a few of them.

Kolbe A Index – This index identifies your MO (mode of operation). It essentially identifies how you like to get things done.

StrengthFinder 2.0 – This test identifies 5 areas of talent which may be developed to become strengths. It is accompanied by a book that explains them in more detail.

VALS survey – This survey is short and sweet, designed to identify mindsets distinguished by 8 categories or types.

Myers-Briggs – Identifies personality traits such as habits of communication, patterns of action, and characteristic attitudes and values.

Each of these tests will reveal valuable insights into how you operate, where you derive passion and energy, and where you ought to explore or focus.  Remember this, it will be more valuable if you attempt to shed your ideal vision of yourself while taking these assessments and try to respond to each question as if in a vacuum.  Don’t over-think them.  For example, if the question states, “do you find yourself moving to the center of a big group or staying toward the edges of the group?” Don’t attempt to think where the question is leading and what the result might be one way or another, simply reflect back on past experiences in groups and realize where you gravitated or where you found to be more comfortable and where you gleaned energy.  Was the middle too stressful awkward for you? Did you feel alone when on the edge? Again, don’t over-think it.

With the results from these tests and some time spent contemplating them, you will be much more prepared to design your ideal system of accomplishment.  Take the steps above and discover yourself, then start designing!!

The value proposition lies at the center of your business model.  Even with all the variations of what academia calls a “business model” it typically is the center piece and rightly so.  The value proposition ties all the components of the model together.  What is a value proposition? It is what your business offers that creates value for your customer by fulfilling some need or desire, whether initially recognized or not.   This offering is the means by which your customers achieve their goal.  It is rarely the value in and of itself but is the tool to achievement (e.g. Advertising is not value but the customers obtain, brand recognition, etc. are the value while ads were the tool).

There is another important aspect to the offering.  It must also be the tool by which the business’ need is fulfilled.  In this instance, the need of the organization ought to be defined in its core purpose, i.e. the mission, vision, and values.  This is best served beyond simple monetary compensation.  One “hot” area in business today that demonstrates this openly is the socially-conscious enterprise. For example, an organization trumpeting solar energy may have a goal to minimize pollution, save the planet, etc.  So, in this case, the offer must be the tool by which the planet is saved through them.  If it is not, it will not last within the model.  A proposition that offers money alone is unsustainable.  For long term business success, the business must define its core purpose and do so with some social goal in mind, something greater than themselves and their financial success.

The indirect benefits of doing so are substantial as well.  These include customer loyalty and buy-in, powerful brand development, and product/service differentiation.  Your cause or goal can become part of the value proposition.  Again with our example, customers may buy not simply because your product solves their initial need for power or even sustainable power but they buy for your core purpose of saving the planet as well.

Start by identifying your business core purpose, then work with the possible offerings and customer needs to find those that best align.  Which offers the most upside potential, scalability, etc. while meeting our standards within our purpose? Define the customer needs you are striving to fulfill.  Now identify the characteristics of your offer that meets the criteria.  This is the beginning of your business model.

With countless blogs, books, and best-practices (pardon the alliteration), maximized productivity is a common pursuit, especially for the ambitious ones among us.  Many have even dedicated themselves full time to this unachievable endeavor, the perfect level of self-management and productivity.  But why?  What is the purpose to improved productivity.  The obvious, yet superficial, answer is to get more done, to create, to accomplish.  This is partially true, yet, lacks, and simply reveals the next question: why get more done, create, or accomplish?  Ultimately, it brings us to the pursuit of happiness, particularly lasting joy.  For whatever number of reasons, we are happy when we are productive, when we create, when we participate in the progression of ourselves and, as a secondary benefactor in many cases, society.  With an understanding of this core purpose, we can more fully explore methods of productivity with a higher context that promises the results we seek.  But why do we want to be happy?  All I know is I do, so that’s where we’ll leave the philosophy for this post.

With this obsession toward productivity, we find ourselves seeking methods and sharing methods for doing so.  Each person or guru introduces a set of principles to productivity with tools of the trade such as calendaring systems, to-do lists, technology, etc.  We read the book, try it out, do it for a week or so, maybe a month, then slowly drop parts of each method until we are left back where we were or close to it.  Don’t get me wrong, I like many of the systems available and commend their creators for contributing to the world of productivity improvement only have yet to find the system that truly works for me.  Maybe those of us falling into this trap are simply undisciplined and we need to quit blaming the system, or maybe not.  I don’t question a tendency toward laziness, especially if the system adds a list of new daily tasks simply to manage the system itself!  What I do question is whether that “laziness” is the problem!

Enter the meMethod…

What I have noticed is that with each failed attempt at systematically enhanced productivity improvement, we tend to retain a piece of that system, even if only a memory of something we liked.  If we attempt several and explore blogs, books, and gurus for more, we are left with a plethora of ideas that have left an imprint on our memory.  We create, even subconsciously and unintentionally, our own set of productivity best practices.  So why are we all not ultra-productive happy folk?  Well, just because a lot of ideas are chaotically floating around in our clouded memories does not mean a single one is even implemented or works complementary to the others.  We may not have ever connected the dots!  How do all these ideas relate?  How would they work together?  I mean, what are they?!?!

So the meMethod enters as the method that works for ME.  Each person may have their own meMethod, what works for you is yours.  So I add my own ingredients to the already overflowing productivity stew, in a kitchen with far too many chefs and the clamor over which recipe to choose.  Well, the recipe depends upon each person’s tastes and that, my friend, will never be agreed upon.  The pursuit for productivity is an individual one, each person to choose their path.  This does not mean we are on the journey alone, only that our specific path will be ours.  Many have trod the path before and even more are doing so today. Each has something unique to offer and each ought to be explored.  In the future, I will post various resources that I’ve found useful as well as a complete meMethod guide that will be available likely within 6 months or so.  I look forward to sharing more on this topic.

What are some resources you’ve found helpful regarding productivity?  Any favorite blogs, books, or tools?