Don’t Waste Time with Meetings

For a lot of folks, meetings are a regular part of work life, and one they’d as soon avoid if they could. There are times when gathering a few folks together is needed, but most of the time meetings turn out to be one of several things:

• Time for folks to catch up on personal interests completely unrelated to why the meeting was called.
• Time to hash and rehash a problem without coming to a decision.
• Time to discuss communications that could have been more efficiently handled as emails or attachments in email (if folks would actually read them).

I’ve read a lot of material on how to make meetings better. Here are the best suggestions I’ve seen:

• Have a concise agenda.
• Stick to the agenda.
• Go into the meeting to confirm or reject decisions. In other words, have the decisions ready before the meeting.
• Disseminate any applicable material for those decisions before the meeting in plenty of time for the attendees to read it.
• Limit the meeting to the absolute minimum number of folks needed. The more people in a meeting, the more likely a meeting will be to derail and drag on.
• Observe the time limits for starting and stopping strictly.

In my experience, most meetings don’t follow this set of rules. Now there are exceptions, such as brainstorming sessions, but that’s not really a traditional meeting. That’s to formulate ideas as part of a group think. That follows a different set of rules. So setting those obvious exceptions aside, imagine if almost all of our meetings followed these rules. Here would be the results:

• We’d have far fewer meetings.
• We’d have far shorter meetings.
• We’d have far more effective meetings.
• We would be able to do more work.

With our current model for meetings, we actually hurt our organizations. We don’t think of it in those terms, but look at it this way: if you effectively waste an hour in a meeting, that’s one less hour of productivity from you and everyone else in that meeting for the organization. If you attend just one meeting like this a week, along with 9 other people, that means the organization loses 10 man-hours of work. If you have average a meeting a day like this (averaging 10 people per meeting), the organization loses 50 man-hours a week. That’s more than the number of hours for a full-time person!

If you’re the organizer, don’t waste time with meetings. Make the most use of that time, both for your benefit and for the organization’s.

Push Through Discomfort

Life isn’t a series of ideal situations. Much of the time, the situation before us is actually far from being ideal. We cannot let that stop us from pushing forward toward our goals.

“Discipline is doing what’s right, even when no one is looking.” – quote from The Citadel

I woke up this morning with a bad migraine. I had balance and I wasn’t particularly light or noise sensitive. So as far as migraines go, this one was mostly pain. When I say I woke up, I was actually up before 4 AM. My alarms were set for 5 and 5:15 AM (second alarm to help ensure I got up). I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep. And I knew I was tired and hurting. But today I had slated to walk 3.5 miles for my workout.

I got some things done around the house and ate a quick breakfast that I knew would help fuel the workout. After that, right around 5 AM, I headed out the door. It would have been really easy to beg off today due to the migraine. I’ve done it before. However, I knew that whether I stayed or went, I would feel the same discomfort from my headache. Exercising wasn’t going to make it worse. Not going would mean I wouldn’t advance towards my fitness and health goals. And it was this level of reasoning that got me out the door.

We face discomfort and obstacles all the time. The natural response for most folks when this happens is to not want to move forward. After all, most folks don’t like being uncomfortable. It’s easy to go with this natural response and a lot of folks do. But we need to remember that whenever we do this, whenever we allow discomfort and/or other obstacles to win, we make no progress towards our goals. We stay stuck just where we are. And truth be told, there will always be obstacles in the way of any worthy or challenging goal. In these situations we need to acknowledge the reality of the discomfort, to spot the obstacles, steel our minds to face them, and push through with what we need to do.

Note that I didn’t say I had a knee injury or had tweaked an ankle such that it would have been a bad idea to go out and walk for that distance. I was dealing with discomfort and what I needed to do to move closer to a goal wouldn’t result in permanent injury or a long-term set back. If we were talking about something along the lines of an injury that could have been exacerbated, the right thing to do would have been not to press it, but to either get healthier or seek a better situation.

Our motivation is key to pushing through. One of the things we can do to give us motivation is to remember what we’re working towards. Picture in your mind’s eye you having achieved your goal. In my case I want to get back to where I can do long distance running. Long distance running was something I once enjoyed and it is something I greatly miss. However, I still have quite a ways to go before I can begin doing so again. Images of me running along the seawall in Iwakuni, Japan or through Charleston, SC, memories from when I did run, provide the fodder to push forward. They give me a hunger to get back to that state. And that means I’m more than willing to face the discomfort so I can make progress.

Another thing to remember is that most folks won’t push through. They’ll let the obstacles or the discomfort stop them. So by pushing through, you gain an advantage. By pushing through, you set yourself apart. That’s something else you can use to motivate yourself.

 

Deliberate Knowledge to Overcome Weakness

In Talent Is Overrated, Geoff Colvin uses the phrase “deliberate practice” as the method by which one improves in a given domain or field. Deliberate practice isn’t fun. It’s mentally draining, it’s hard, but it’s necessary to get better. I’m going to borrow the “deliberate” part to coin a new phrase, “deliberate knowledge.”

When I sat down this weekend and thought about my fitness goals, I came to the realization that I have a lot of information available to me with respect to exercise. And, generally speaking, I know what I need to do on the exercise front because I’ve trained for both track running and long distance running just as I’ve trained (and trained others) for baseball and soccer. I also enjoy reading and learning about better training methods for both running and soccer. So studying that domain of knowledge is fun for me. It’s not the same level as “deliberate practice.”

What I don’t know well enough is nutrition and diet. I know the basic stuff, the general sayings, but nothing in detail. I don’t know the scientific reasons why certain foods are better than others and in what quantities. For instance, linoleic acid is essential for good health, but too much is bad. How much is bad and how much is needed? What foods contain it? This isn’t stuff that really interests me. Pouring through and processing this sort of knowledge is studying. It’s like I’m back in college taking a course required for graduation that I don’t really care about. However, in order to reach my fitness goals and be able to maintain an optimum level of fitness, this is the sort of information I need to know.

Enter the concept of deliberate knowledge. In order to get better, I have to have it. However, it’s not knowledge that I enjoy obtaining. To me it’s work, it’s not fun, and after a certain point in a given day, I can’t mentally process it any more. Now, if you want to talk about why the leading edge extensions make the F/A-18 and the F-16 more aerodynamic and maneuverable, well, I can do that all day. Nutrition and diet? Not so much. It’s going to require deliberate effort to gain and master that knowledge. Hence the phrase, “deliberate knowledge.”

Attack deliberate knowledge just as you would deliberate practice. You know it’s not going to be fun. You know it’s going to be hard. But look at your goals and realize you must put the time and effort in to gain that knowledge in order to progress. Use the same motivation you would use to push yourself through practice in order to work your way through knowledge. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck where you are. No matter how un-fun deliberate knowledge is, it’s better than not going anywhere and being miserable for it.

Your Weaknesses Don’t Define You

We believe too many myths about performance and ability. That’s why this quote is very applicable:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ― Albert Einstein

I’ve seen this in a few places recently, including from Garr Reynolds. What made this stick was I heard an example at an HR briefing recently where because someone was good at his field, the HR person referred to him as really smart. This is a mistake we often make about certain fields. We think that because they appeal to the intellect, that therefore someone who is in successful in that field must be smart. This is true of chess, of stock trading, of engineering, and of many other pursuits. But when folks in the field are tested, it’s not surprising to find successful people who are of average intelligence or less. Likewise it’s also not unusual to find folks who are not successful who are of greater than average intelligence.

The key to remember is that if we’ve put a lot of time and effort in a particular domain working on our weaknesses and intentionally seeking improvement, we should make progress in that field. We may become rather good in that domain. For instance, if I put in multiple hours each week working on tactical positions and chess and studying the different parts of the game, especially as my own play reveals weaknesses that I seek to improve, I will get better at chess. However, my ability to remember positions in chess, to remember multiple move orders in different openings translates only to chess. Scientific research shows that these gains are domain specific. They do not carry over.

Therefore, if someone isn’t particularly good at one area, we cannot conclude that they aren’t smart, or aren’t capable, or anything else, except not good in that domain at the present time. If that person is you, don’t allow the lack of ability in one area cause you to think less of yourself. What scientific studies have shown is that our abilities in just about any field, unless related to physical attributes, are actually dependent more on our work in that domain, especially the proper type of work towards improvement. So don’t be like the fish who believes he is stupid because he can’t climb a tree. Instead, remember that you have areas of strength, too. And if there is an area that is a weakness that you want to work on, it is possible to improve.

Moreover, remember that you are more than the sum of what your strengths are. We often refer to ourselves by what we do or what we are known for. But we are more than that as individuals. Steve Jones (blog | twitter) has written on this multiple times in his blogging and as editor of SQLServerCentral.com, the largest community site in the world for Microsoft SQL Server professionals like me. Steve is and has been considered one of the top guys in our industry for a long time. But if you only see Steve as a SQL Server person, you miss out on a lot. That’s true of all of us. Don’t fall into the trap of defining yourself by your strengths and successes or your weaknesses and failures, or even a combination of the two sets. You are more than that. Also don’t fall into the trap of judging people solely on theirs.

Remember to Be Grateful

Life isn’t fair. Bad things can and will happen. If we focus solely on these things, we actually worsen our health. The key is to consider things and reasons to be grateful. There is a health benefit, as described in this Psychology Today article from 2009. Not only does being grateful help our physical health, it helps our mental health, too, but we tend to feel happier, too. The circumstances don’t change, but the weight we give to the negative aspects lessens and this balances out our perspective.

One simple exercise given in Enjoy Every Sandwich is to every day think about 2-3 things to be grateful for. This allowed a doctor knowingly facing esophageal cancer (with a 90% mortality rate) to face life head on, to make the most of each and every moment he had left. It was a practice he had before that fateful diagnosis and it served him well as he fought a disease that he beat once but ultimately lost to. While Dr. Lipsenthal did this each night, it might be better to do this each morning, to start your day. That way you start it with the attitude of gratitude.

Take the time each day to be grateful. You will be healthier and happier for it.

Seek Mastery

An interesting quote from Shinmen Musashi:

“Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.”

Then later I ran across a post from Ryan Holiday (blog) that had a quote attributed to Dr. Richard Feynman. As a physics major in college, I know all about Dr. Feynman. He certainly did put in the work to be one of the greatest physicists as well as one of the greatest minds of the 20th century:

“See, I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it really means to know something. And therefore, I see how it is that they get their information and I can’t believe that they know it—they haven’t done the work necessary, they haven’t done the checks necessary, they haven’t done the care necessary. I have a great suspicion that they don’t know how this stuff is done and they are intimidating people by it.”

It’s easy to sound like an expert. Unfortunately, in today’s world too many folks are ready to buy in that they don’t check out things for themselves. Don’t be this way. Whatever it is you are passionate about or have to be involved in, seek mastery. I think back to a Mathematical Modeling class I had back my senior year at The Citadel. It was being taught by the hardest teacher on campus, Dr. Kanat Durgun. And Dr. Durgun knew his stuff. He chose to leave NASA to give back and teach. Those are his words. I think he simply got bored and wanted to torture college age kids, which he did quite well.

In any case, I remember working every single example, going through the derivations, figuring out how populations changed based on the values of certain constants. We were studying predatory-prey relationships. That first week I must have poured a good 15-20 hours into those initial examples. For someone carrying 30 semester hours in classes (I was being stupid and trying to prove a point), that was a significant investment of my time. But that investment paid off because it made the rest of that class and a follow-on class easier. The follow-on class was me and Durgun, hashing away at graduate level texts on mathematical modelling. A full semester of his undivided attention. I loved it. But it required a tremendous amount of energy and effort on my part. Still, a lot of what I learned I carry into other fields today. Durgun taught me how to work hard and master the knowledge. Not just be familiar with it, but understand it. It served me well, because he set me up.

I was one of the few undergrads presenting at the Southeast meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics that second semester. It just happened to be held at The Citadel. And he talked me into presenting a paper on predator-prey relationships when young prey are involved. Most of the folks in the room for my presentation were either applied math professors or professionals in the field. I was “ambushed” by one of the professors from The Citadel’s math department who asked hard question after hard question. During what felt like an interrogation, I was wondering what I ever did to get this guy angry at me. Finally it was over. I had answered the questions. They were hard, and I had to think a bit, but because I had worked so hard with Durgun, I could answer the questions. Afterwards, Dr. Durgun asked me how it went. I told him. He had a hint of a smile and said, “I knew you were ready.” That’s all he said, but those few words carried a world of meaning. It felt good.

Mastery is hard. Mastery takes time and large amounts of effort. But true mastery sets you apart. This is the point of both quotes. Seek mastery. Settle for nothing less.

Making the Most of Everything

This comes by way of David Kanigan (blog | twitter) from his post Friday Night (long week) Reflection…:

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, “I used everything you gave me.” – Erma Bombeck

Even if you don’t believe in God, ask yourself the question, “Can I take any of it with me?” We know the answer to that: we can’t. In my case, I have a strong faith in Jesus Christ and based on what I read in Scripture, I know that I will have to stand before Him and give an account of my actions, of what I did with what He gave me. Should my faith prove to be correct, I want to be able to answer as Ms. Bombeck desired, that I used it all. Therefore, I seek to maximize every opportunity, every gift, every talent, every experience from here on out. I’ve thought this way for some time now.

Admittedly, this is easy to say but impossible to do. Still, it should be the goal of every one of us to make the most of everything we have. That’s not to say that we’re looking to become CEOs and retire by the time we’re 45. We all have different goals. So what I mean is putting everything into the areas of our lives that are most important to each of us. We can’t take it with us, so we should use every bit of who and what we are. We must give it everything. Otherwise, we will never be able to reach our maximum potential.

Skyrim on productivity and relationships, Part II

This is the second in a 3 part series on lessons I’ve seen demonstrated in the game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Today’s post focuses on situations. The complete list:

• Part I – Me, the Individual
• Part II – My Situations
• Part III – My Relationships

You will fail.

In the main story line there is a quest you will fail. You can’t succeed. The failure isn’t a big deal, as it is really just an intentional plot twist, one that makes you realize that Skyrim tries to be more than a linear story line. But the point is that you will fail. It is unavoidable.

In life, there are times you and I will fail and we will fail at something important. If I fail to guess the answer for Final Jeopardy while sitting on my couch at home, it’s not a big deal. But if I fail at fixing my car there may be a substantial cost involved, not only to repair what was originally wrong, but also to fix what I’ve broken. If I fail at a relationship with my wife, then there is collateral damage to our respective families and to our children. These are important things, important situations. Some of these we must endeavor not to fail at, like our relationships with our spouses. Others we can’t help. For instance, if your job is downsized because your company is hurting financially, some would view that as a failure, even though it was beyond your control.

In the main story line, you must get over the failure and still push forward, making the best of the situation. In the end it leads to more allies to your cause and the potential for quests that make your character more powerful, quests that wouldn’t be available if you had succeeded. Often life is this way, too. Opportunities come into focus because of a failure. Failure doesn’t have to mean the end. It typically means there’s a learning opportunity as well as an opening to go a different direction. Yes, I realize that some situations result in the end. Those are the exceptions. And worrying about those cases doesn’t give you a leg up on preventing them. So here I’m talking in the general case, situations not involving death.

You will have to choose.

In life we sometimes have to make choices we don’t want to make. We can’t always have all the options. Skyrim carries this through, especially in two sets of quests related to the Daedra Lords and the Dark Brotherhood (if you don’t play the game, those names aren’t important, but for Skyrim players, those quests are recognizable). Also, to complete the Civil War quests, you’re obviously going to have to pick a side.

In life, we have to make choices. Choosing not to make a choice, ironically enough, is a choice. It’s a choice to remain inactive, to do nothing. Typically, when we’re faced with a choice we have to make and we try to avoid making that choice, things don’t go well. In Skyrim, if you don’t make a choice and carry through with the Civil War quests, it will impact the main story line. You will have to do something about it then, and it’s nowhere near as much fun because you have to change from adventurer to diplomat. And you still have the Civil War quests to finish at a later time.

You won’t always have all the information.

There are a couple of quests where you have to make choices and you just don’t have all the facts. There is one quest in particular where you must choose a side and it doesn’t matter what side you choose, you will never know who was telling the truth. From the game’s perspective, it’s pretty irrelevant as it’s not part of the main quest nor is it a part of any of the faction quests. However, if you’re the type that wants everything laid out for you before you make your choice, you will never complete that quest. It can’t be done.

There’s a concept in the real world called paralysis by analysis. It’s where we hold off making a decision because we want more information. Or it’s because we hold off on making a decision because we have so much information that we keep hemming and hawing as to what to do. Either way, at some point you  just have to go with what you know. If there’s no good probability of getting more useful information before you need to make the decision, you accept that and make the best decision you can. At times, you will fail because you made the wrong decision. Also, if you have too much information, at some point you’ve got to draw the line and make the decision. Again, there’s always the possibility that you will make the wrong decision and therefore you will fail, but failure is not the end.

Strategize your engagements.

I said in the first post that my character is an archer/scout type. Stealth and long range sniping are the rule. Close assaults are not. Wearing light armor with the bulk of your combat expertise in archery means hand-to-hand combat with types in heavy armor is typically a bad idea. Therefore, I’m naturally looking for sniping spots, places to duck into for hit and run tactics when I am spotted, etc. Because I do this so much, I naturally see these in the game and it doesn’t take me a whole lot of actual additional time. My strength is sniping. However, I know that I can be detected at any time. Therefore, when I am I immediately switch to hit and run mode. This allows me to do damage but keep distance between some big heavy intent on smashing in my skull (in character).

In life we need to play to our strengths whenever we can. Even if we play to our strengths, we should try to find way to compensate and overcome our weaknesses. There was a lot of talk leading up to the Super Bowl about how both teams had to cover up specific weaknesses in their defenses. That’s because the teams’ weaknesses could undo any gains made from their strengths. We have to consider real world situations in the same manner. What are you strengths? What are your weaknesses? How might a given engagement reveal each? How can you approach each engagement to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses? This is important to consider because life is far more important than a video game. And while we will fail on occasion, we want to keep those occurrences to a minimum.

 

A Little Ambiance

Like a lot of IT folks, my working environment is a cubicle. There’s a mixed group around me, all IT types, and there’s quite a bit of foot traffic down the “hallway” beside my cube. This is mainly because of a concentration of management offices near where I sit. With as much traffic as goes by, it can be rather distracting. Add to the fact that I don’t have a door or any other way to break up sight lines into and out of the cube and sometimes it can be a fight to focus. If you’re a cube-dweller, you’re probably thinking, “What else is new?”

One of the easy ways to counter distraction is to put on a set of headphones/wear ear buds or the like. The question then becomes one of what should I listen to? I tried audiobooks, but generally, I tune those out as I focus on specific tasks, meaning I’m not getting any usefulness out of them during that time. Driving to and from work or sitting somewhere when I have to wait? Then they are useful. Not while I’m working, though. Music is okay, but music can be distracting, too. So I sat down and thought about when I was most productive. What was the environment like?

One of the things I realized is that when I’m exposed to natural sounds, I tend to focus better. I saw a review for a small iPhone app called Ambiance and went and grabbed it from the App Store. I am not actively hunting for apps to use, so I didn’t realize how popular it was. If you’re like me, then you don’t either. It is very popular, as in top ten of paid apps. It’s inexpensive. On the website right now they are showing the iPhone version is $2.99, which is what I believe I paid. If you have an Android phone, there’s a version of it for those phones, too.

The nice thing about Ambiance is that there are a good number of excellent quality recordings. They are categorized in everything from ground water to different categories of urban sounds to rural ones. There are even some military sounds. A lot of these are free downloads once you pay the initial cost of the app. The ones I tend to use the most are:

• Soft Marsh
• Autumn Woods
• Deister Forest

That’s the order of preference, especially when I have a lot to do. They allow me to tune out most of the distractions around me and just focus on the work at hand. Also, when I don’t have any particularly pressing tasks but I can’t get outside, I’ll use these three “sounds” to just tune out and think. Taking time to think about goals, about interactions, about previous events, about relationships, and a whole host of other things is helpful and makes me more productive. In a house with teenage boys, there isn’t a lot of quiet. So I use Ambiance there, too. That $2.99 I paid has been entirely worth it. I only wish I had found the app sooner.

Skyrim on productivity and relationships, Part 1

This is the first in a 3 part series on lessons I’ve seen demonstrated in the game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The complete list:

• Part I – Me, the Individual
• Part II – My Situations
• Part III – My Relationships

If you’re not familiar with this game, it is the latest in the Elder Scrolls series, a set of RPG games available on PCs and console machines like the XBOX 360. Of the series, it is certainly the most expansive, with a huge environment and a partially non-linear system of quests to keep you entertained for hours and hours and hours. Because of the graphics, the size, and the sheer immensity of all that you can do, a lot of folks have rated it one of the greatest games ever. Others, not so much. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in Skyrim and as I played, I noted a series of lessons that come through time and time again. Today’s lessons focus on the individual. You. Me. Jim. Mary.

So here they are:

You aren’t going to be good at everything.

Skyrim’s character creation is incredibly simple. You spend more time in designing the look of your character than anything else (including war paint). Still, with the various races, there are some skills your race is better in than others. Your race may be better at weapons while another race will be better at magic when first starting. Also, all races have a particular perk that sets them apart. For instance, one race is particularly resistant to cold while another race can’t drown. So right from the start you learn that you’re not going to be good at everything. It’s just not possible. Some races are better at magic. Others are better at swinging swords and heavy gear. And still others are better for scouts and rogues. While you can play a race in a way that it isn’t well suited for, you should do so with the understanding that by going against the grain you’re making it harder on yourself. And as a result, you’ll need to concentrate even further in a few areas, thereby making you more specialized.

With my first character, I really tried to spread out my skills and perks (choices in the game that make you really good at certain things). However, the way the game scales based on your character’s level meant I eventually reached a point where my lack of focus meant the game is too hard for that character. Having learned that lesson, I created a second character and chose what areas to be good at and what areas to neglect. For instance, the second character doesn’t use heavy armor and therefore has not acquired any of the heavy armor perks.

This is like real life. We’re not going to be good at everything we try. Also, we can’t master everything we’d like to. There’s simply not enough time to do so. Therefore, we have to come to terms with the fact that we’re not going to be good at everything. We should try to work on the things we are weak in as they pertain to our goals and desires, but if it isn’t relevant to what we need or want to be, then it’s probably a good candidate to be put aside.

Plan your advancement.

This goes along with the previous point. With my second character, I wanted a stealthy scout/archer type. So that meant I had to focus on a few key areas:

• Light Armor
• Archery
• Sneak

Since you can’t completely avoid hand-to-hand combat, I wanted the character to be able to do as much damage as quickly as possible in order to get out of hand-to-hand combat. Standing around and trading blows with folks in heavy armor is a great way to get killed when you’re running around in light armor.  As a result, I also concentrated in Two-Handed.

That meant I put aside all the magic, the heavy armor, the social skills, and the item creation areas. I focused in on what was important to this character’s design and as the character has advanced, I have resisted the urge to generalize beyond the skill set I’ve chosen. As the character has developed I’ve had to expand the list slightly, but always intentionally and in keeping with my overall goals for the character.

We need to do the same thing in life. Otherwise what happens is we spend a lot of time working on many different skills and abilities and what happens is we do improve at a much slower rate than we should have for what is really important. Often times because we are so scattered in our efforts, we get discouraged in our progress towards those goals and we give up, telling ourselves it’s something beyond what we are capable. For instance, I may want to be good at both golf and racquetball. However, if I split time between the two, I may advance each one too slowly for my liking and end up giving both up.

That’s why we have to be intentional in our efforts towards our goals. That does mean saying, “No,” to areas that won’t help us or areas we need to invest in later. I should pick golf or racquetball, but not both. With that said, there needs to be some flexibility in our plans. However, when we make changes to our plans, we must do so intentionally. Otherwise, we’re back in that scattered effort cycle and we will bog down. So while I may have decided I want to learn racquetball, my wife decides she wants learn golf, too. Since golf would be something I could do with my wife, which improves our relationships, I may need to change and decide to work on golf first. I’ve been flexible to change, but the change is intentional.

Make sure you have the right tools.

Imagine an archer without arrows. Not very effective, right? As an archer type in Skyrim, I’m looking for the really good arrows. As a stealth type, this is critical because if I can’t put an opponent down with one or two arrows, especially when dealing with a mob, I’m in trouble. My character isn’t designed to survive by wading into the middle of the fray slashing away. That’s how Brian’s character dies suddenly and brutally. Skyrim rubs it in as you see your character lying there in a crumpled heap while the game continues for a few seconds past you. Therefore, I need to avoid running out of the good arrows. Yet there have been a couple of times in the game where I’ve run short on arrows and ended up scrounging lesser quality arrows from my opponents, thereby making the game harder than it should have been. A quick equipment check and a resupply run would have made a world of difference.

There are tools we need for our lives, too. For instance, if I’m preparing for a professional certification, I likely need the study material and I may even need some equipment. If I want to learn how to do cake decorating (and I do) then I have to have the proper equipment (which isn’t cheap, by the way). Tools should be considered in a generic sense, because it may not be an actual tool you go and pull out of a toolbox. It could be a skill you have to develop or a set of knowledge you must gain. For instance, if you want to be a SQL Server DBA, you absolutely must understand how backups work. Once you’ve identified what you need, make sure you do an equipment check. If you don’t have a tool, go get it.

Prioritize and filter.

In Skyrim it is easy to have 30 or 40 quest tasks to complete, all at the same time. Naturally, it’s very easy to lose focus of what you’re trying to do and get lost in the minutiae. I know I have. Thankfully, I’m at a point with my character where I’ve only got a few big things left. The way I got there was by picking certain paths through the quests that were advantageous or doable by my character at the time. In other words, I prioritized what to focus on and I filtered everything else out. As a result, I was able to carve out big chunks from the overall list, making them manageable, and I am almost through… at least until they come out with new downloadable content.

In life, not only can we get scattered with how we develop ourselves, we can also get scattered on what we’re trying to do. Studies are showing that multitasking is less efficient than single-tasking. Focusing one task at a time means you will get the overall set of tasks done faster than someone trying to multitask through the same list. That means we have to prioritize what we’re working on and filter out the rest. It’s not that the other tasks aren’t important. Some of them may be equally important to what we’re working on right now. However, we need to remember that if we split our attention, then neither task is getting the attention it should. Prioritize and focus is key to our success.