Little daily steps to GSD

Really the only problem I had with Peter Bregman's 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done was that I kept expecting it to only take me 18 minutes to read it.  I was impatient with some parts of the book, wanting him to get to the point already, so I could move on to other books in my list, to all the essential work this book was making me want to tackle.  That said, I definitely think it was the right read for me at the right time and am recommending it in the following context.

I've been wanting to read this book for a few months, ever since I "discovered" Bregman via a link on my LinkedIn homepage to an article of his on the Harvard Business Review on-line.  The piece was useful, I subscribed to his email list and added a used copy of his book to my Amazon.com cart.  Now, 14 days after delivery, here we are.  I'm done, have a few pages of notes and am ready to make some changes to how I approach every day, thanks to 18 Minutes.

My two-page annual plan? Not enough.

The first thing I learned was that my two-page annual plan is a good start, but doesn't really help me move concretely toward the changes or growth I want.  In Chapter 20, "What Is This Year About," I learned I should have 5 clear goals for the year, to which I should commit 95% of my time.  Which meant I should probably get a whole lot more specific in my annual planning, go from a general category to a statement of goal.  Which is very business-y and which I've never done when it comes to my personal ambitions.  I've done annual goal setting, tactical and strategic planning at work tons of times, but never spent the time to do the same in my own life. 

In a lot of ways, I think, this book is written for entrepreneurs, CEOs and people who run their own businesses and have very integrated To Do lists, the business being personal and vice versa.  Maybe it's not quite for people like me who have ambitions and who have jobs, the two things being utterly separate.  What's funny is how little my job actually enters into my goals at all, except insofar as I apply my general standards of performance.  My job isn't on my two-page chart at all -- in fact when I think of it it's primarily as a bit of an interruption in the accomplishment of my real goals.  That eight-hour daily interruption is the whole reason why I get up at 4am in order to have 4 hours to work toward my "real" goals and then have another 4 hours after 5pm to do the same. But, as always when I talk about my job, I digress. 

The whole reason I read this book was nothing to do with my job but everything to do with everything else in my life. 

So back to my goals, my two-page 2012 Plans chart has a category titled, The Force Expansive, with several bulleted items under it.  Thanks to Bregman, I started from that category and ended up with this statement of goal: "Refine The Force Expansive by writing consistently and better, upgrading the web presence, building an email list and readers, and exploring new features like producing e-book to expand reach."  That's a hell of a lot clearer --  delusional maybe, but clear at least -- and translates well to daily achievable tasks that over the course of a year will add up to lots of growth and change.   

The heart of the book begins in Chapter 22, "Bird by Bird" -- setting up each day so that it tracks to those five annual goals.  Each day's To Do list should be structured so that most every activity in the day has a direct relationship to the 5 annual goals.  That way, daily, incrementally, you're moving toward accomplishment of whatever it is you want.  You devote 18 focused minutes a day -- 5 first thing in the morning, 1 every hour (setting your watch or phone or computer to beep a reminder at you), then 5 more minutes at the end of the day, to review and evaluate progress, jot notes for the next day.  What I loved about the notion of the hourly beep is what he writes about using the sound to "reconnect with the outcome you're trying to achieve, not just the things you're doing."  Super-useful!  It's so easy to get lost in tasks and forget the bigger picture reason Why you're doing them in the first place.

As a list-making goal-obsessed nerd, let me just say that I love this idea.  He's not coming up with some magical way you can accomplish everything on your list.  Au contraire, mon frere.  [Not so, my bro.] He's very clearly saying you can't possibly get everything on your list done, so you better be discerning, strategic, then focused, to Get Shit Done. 

To be honest there were times in the book that I didn't see the connection of a given chapter to the topic at hand, like it was a collection of pieces he'd published to his own blog or to HBR's and then gathered under one title.  There are chapters on change management, on leadership, on supervision, that at first read, didn't seem to be pointed in the same direction.  In the end, though, they stuck. Of course, I realized that it's not enough for me to be focused on my goals.  I have to bring a whole lot of people along with me, especially if I'm thinking about my job, rather than just my personal ambitions.  There I can really apply a whole bunch of what I underlined and took notes about during my reading of, for example, the super-useful Chapter 33, which advises:

When you want something from someone, ask yourself what story that person is trying to tell about herself or himself, and then make sure that your role and actions are enhancing that story in the right way.

I'm crazy about that because it's so true that everybody has a story, and that understanding that story -- and my role in it -- makes it so much easier to work with others.  Plus since it's about story, then honestly it's more fun for me (much less irritating) to sit back and consider, "wait, what's their story," and go from there.  And even though I keep my job separate from my life as much as possible, success over there -- defined for me as a total absence of work-related stress crossing over into my real life -- can only help me as I step, day by day, ever closer to world domination.  

Kidding.  But day by day ever closer to making a living from words, maybe, or to not having to have a job that pays the bills but that I have to work around in order to do what I know is right for me -- sitting here writing, expressing me, in the wee hours of morning.

Bregman's 18 Minutes was just what I needed right now to kick my goals up to the next level, to help me really make some profound and lasting changes early this year.  It makes so much sense to approach each day with my goals in front of me, to break the big dreams down into bite-size daily morsels and move steadily, consistently, strategically forward, eye always on the prize of what I really want my life to be about.  

So yeah, it required more than 18 minutes to read the book, but the time spent in its pages was well worth it.  Pick up Peter Bregman's 18 Minutes if you're looking for a kick in the pants to get your own shit done.  I'd offer to loan you my copy but I colored in it (literally: used an assorted of colored pencils to highlight and annotate).  And also I have the feeling I'll be referring back to it in the months to come, opening its pages as a bigger beep to remind me to reconnect to the outcome I've trying to achieve.  Time well spent for sure.  Do the same.  It'll pay off!