How To Do It Now Because It's Not Going Away

Finished August 3
How To Do It Now Because It's Not Going Away: An Expert Guide to Getting Stuff Done by Leslie Josel

This book is written for high school and college students to help them with their schoolwork. As the cover indicates, it deals with issues like procrastination, time management and other skills relating to studying and homework. The introduction really lays out the purpose of the book and how to use it. Students can read through it in order, but the author really encourages them to focus on the chapters that deal with the things they struggle with most, and not to try to make too many changes at one time, which can be real issues. I liked the approachability of the language here, how it was directed to the students and the case studies that she used to illustrate particular issues. She notes that every individual is different and the student should think about what works and doesn't work with them to pick new habits that will work most successfully.
The chapter titles are phrases that students often use that relate to each topic.
* I Have Time
* It's Not Due Till Friday
* I Read Over My Notes
* I Don't Need to Write It Down
* I'll Remember
* I Know Where Everything Is
* Five More Minutes
* I'm Not in the Mood
Various options are given to address each circumstance and topic and there are lots of great ideas. Wish something like this existed back when I was a student!

Smarter Faster Better

Finished January 4
Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

I loved this book just as much as his previous The Power of Habit. Here, Duhigg looks at productivity. As Duhigg describes in his introduction, this book began with him asking a prolific author he admired, Atul Gawande, about his productivity. When he learned that Atul was busy with his family, Duhigg realized that he hadn't taken time off in months, and that there was a lot he could learn about productivity. Thus came the germ of the idea for this book. As usual, Duhigg interviewed people in many professions and successful project teams. He was looking for concepts that repeated across these diverse groups. He found eight ideas and a powerful principle that connected them.
That principle is one of making choices in certain ways. He shows how many of us have spent too much time looking at the tools of productivity, gadgets and apps and systems, rather than drawing lessons from these tools.
The chapters here examine each of those eight ideas in succession, starting with motivation. Duhigg looked a medical cases of people who had lost their motivation, at behavioural studies looking at the role of having choice, and at the way our society has changed from one where the majority of people reported to a supervisor to one where more people have the ability to make their own choices about setting goals, prioritizing activities, and choosing projects. This led him to look at the skill of self-motivation, something the military refers to as a bias to action.
The second chapter looks at teams, from study teams at universities to more goal oriented school teams such as case competition teams and work teams at organizations like Google. One study showed the importance of group norms in a team's success. Another found a correlation between psychological safety in a team and the team's success. Productivity is about how teams work rather than who is one them.
The third chapter looks at focus. Duhigg looks at instances where failure to pay attention, to remain focused while still being aware of the larger situation, caused larger failures, including fatal ones. He shows how reliance on technology, such as automated functions, GPS navigation, and . He points out the dangers of cognitive tunneling, where one becomes overly focused on one thing, even as other things are going on around them. Another study looked at why some people stay calm and focused in a tense situation and others don't. Another looked at the role of mental models, and the way some people tell stories to themselves about the way the world around us works. Both these things help when something is out of place or doesn't look right. The dangers of information overload can cause confusion and irrational actions. Too much information coming at once can make one unsure what to focus on.
The fourth chapter looks at goal setting. In one example Duhigg looks at the need for cognitive closure, and how a high need for closure can create negative situations. It creates a need to be decisive and act in a confident manner, and can lead to premature decision-making. He looks at the rise in the use of SMART goals in the workplace. The use of this type of goal setting is useful, but if those setting goals get too focused on the tool and lose sight of whether the goal described was meaningful, meeting goals isn't productive. He looks at stretch goals and how they can lead to new ways of thinking about problems and processes. Combining SMART goals and stretch goals can take the positives of both.
The fifth chapter looks at managing others. Duhigg looks at a number of factors: respect, trust, listening, and acknowledging expertise. One study looked at corporate culture in companies. They found five types of corporate culture: star model; engineering model, bureaucratic model, autocratic model, and commitment model. They found commitment model firms were the most successful overall. This was due to the sense of trust that developed. Distribution of authority means that more people feel they can make a difference, and thus they care more. Empowerment leads to commitment.
The sixth chapter looks at decision making, from analyzing the decisions of a tournament winning poker player to looking at a study that aimed to make everyday people better at forecasting the future. Duhigg looks at how experience makes us better at forecasting, and how varied experiences increase our success. He describes how experiencing and knowing about failure increases our success as well.
The seventh chapter looks at innovation, from the team creating the Disney movie Frozen to the making of West Side Story. Duhigg looks at a study of the tactic of taking proven ideas from other settings and combining them in new ways. It's about making the creative process welcome in your environment.
The last of the eight ideas is that of absorbing data. In our world today, there is a plethora of information, but to turn that information into useful knowledge is the key. Because of the vast amounts of data available to us now, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the data and not take it and use it to our advantage. Duhigg looks at information blindness, a study of debt collection teams' success rates, a school that started thinking about the data they collected and putting it together in different ways, and the teaching of a engineering decision process to struggling students. He also looked at a study showing the importance of frames as context, and thus the importance of being able to reframe a question to look at it differently.
I loved the use of real life situations to show these ideas and how they are important for success. I also loved the appendix provided that showed how to use these ideas in my own life to increase my productivity. A great read.

18 Minutes

Finished May 9
18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman

This very helpful business book outlines a process that helps you manage your productivity. Because we are living is a world of constant change, it is easy to lose focus and get caught up in expectations that can limit you.
The first step Bregman has you take is to pause briefly. This pause serves to refuel, refocus towards what is important to you, and create an environment to aim yourself at your goals more accurately. During this pause you need to look around, and see things in a way that is open to the unexpected, that lets you take a step back and include yourself in that examination.
The next things you have to do is look at the upcoming year and find your focus. This isn't always easy, and to get you started he has you start with four elements, The first element is your strengths, and to do things suited to those strengths. The second element is your weaknesses, and to embrace them and act in a way that these are an asset rather than a liability. The third element is your differences, what you bring to the game that is different from what others bring. Don't try to blend in. The fourth element is your passion, which again sometimes we have to stop to figure out. Pursuing something you desire, focusing on wants instead of shoulds to the extent that pursuit of that will persist through those times you feel you aren't making progress. For our passions, hard work will feel easier. Bregman suggests around 5 areas of focus with 3 work-related and 2 personal, and to aim at spending 95% of your time on them. These should be things that will make the most difference in your life. One line I really liked from this section is "The time to judge your successes or failures is never."
There are a few things to watch out for when doing this and Bregman gives some pointers in how to deal with them when they arise. These are: fear of failure, paralysis, tunnel vision, and a rush to judgment. Life will get busy and obligations will appear to distract you from these areas of focus, and this leads us to the next step.
Here, Bregman has us focus on the day, taking one day at a time. It is important to have a plan for your day to keep moving in the right direction. This means making an organized list of tasks, focused in those five areas you identified. Choosing what to ignore is important in this. For those things that are important, setting a time and place to do those tasks will help you to get them done. As he says, when looking at a task you have four choices: do it now, schedule it, let it go, or put it on a waiting list. He suggests never leaving things on a to-do list for more than three days without doing one of these things with it. It is easy for things to fall through the cracks; calls that we don't return, emails we don't answer, not really listening to others. Bregman says that many of us live in a constant state of dissatisfaction where we feel ineffective, insufficient, and so disappoint ourselves. One way he suggests tackling this is interrupting yourself on an hourly basis to refocus. Another tactic he suggests is taking a few minutes at the end of the day thinking about what you learned and who you should connect with. He supplies a few questions to ask yourself at this time.
This is where the next step comes in, the one referred to in the book's title, 18 minutes. Here where those minutes are: for the first five minutes of your day, before turning on your computer, sit down with your to-do list and decide what will make the day successful, then schedule those things into your calendar. For one minute every hour, refocus. At the end of your day, take five minutes, shut off your computer and review the day.
By building each day's plan on your annual focus areas, making choices about where to spend your time and energy effectively, paying attention to those things daily to keep yourself on track, you will get the important things done. Bregman could have ended the book here, but he knows human nature and so he included a section on dealing with distractions. The first set of distractions are those around getting started. Dealing with these, Bregman calls this "mastering your initiative." You need to create the right environment that naturally compels you to do the things you want to get done. You only need a few seconds of motivation to get started on a task, and being aware of when you need to turn this motivation on is key. One insight here is that we are not motivated by money, we are motivated by fun and by fear. Fear can be a catalyst to change, but pleasure is what keeps you going. Choose both. Tell yourself a good story that inspires you to move in the right direction. Venturing into a fantasy world in your mind can provide support.
The second set of distractions is those brought to us by others. Dealing with these, Bregman calls "mastering your boundaries." He provides a set of three questions to ask yourself when faced with these. In addition, he counsels us to mean it when we say no, to not wait too long once something arises so that others are aware of our boundaries, and to allow a few moments of transition time when changing tasks. Mastering boundaries involves paying attention and he offers several pointers here. He also discusses the issues around disconnecting when away from work, giving some strategies.
The third set of distractions are those we create ourselves. Bregman calls dealing with these "mastering yourself." Again he provides several strategies: use intentional distractions as an asset; don't multitask, don't be a perfectionist, and define the situation,
As he concludes, your next step in one thing. Do it.

Some books related to work

Finished this Fall
I've been some reading lately around work topics: planning, assessing; etc.

Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers by Peter Hernon and Ellen Altman
This one covers several related topics. It covers the whole idea of library service and what that means to different people. It looks and how you determine the value of a library and the services it offers. It looks at different ways of measuring those services, both qualitative and quantitative. It looks at the difference between service quality and customer satisfaction and shows the relationship between them. And it looks at what to do with the information you gather of both to improve and change what the library does.
Lots of tools, but also a lot to think about.

The Patron-Driven Library: A Practical Guide for Managing Collections and Services in the Digital Age by Dee Ann Allison
This book covers even more than the title suggests. On the collections side, it talks about how to enhance and improve the experience of those who use the collections. We see the power of collaboration, whether it is through social networks with our users, through collaboration with our colleagues in other libraries, or through a number of channels in terms of advocacy. The old "how we measure our success" raises its head again here in the discussion of metrics to base decisions on. It covers the various tools and add-ons available in terms of making the collections more visible and getting people interested in using them. It covers the various formats digital content comes in and how to manage and make choices. We also see how changes to the world of publishing, and about how data is stored and shared all influence the collection.
On the service side, we see experiences from those in the field to see that using real-life experiences when teaching information literacy gives better learning outcomes. We see how experimentation when linking services to collections adds value. There is discussion on how to assess the services the library offers and how they are tied to the collections. The last chapter also offers a look at the future of the library and what kinds of uses will be provided.
There is also a chapter on the "new professional librarian" that looks at different workplace opportunities, the competencies we now expect from our professional staff, and how to take advantage of the skills and abilities we have on hand as well as developing staff.

Productivity for Librarians: How to Get More Done in Less Time by Samantha Hines
This book was extremely practical. It started by looking at productivity and how it relates to libraries and librarians. It then looks at various influences on productivity: motivation, procrastination, and time management. The following sections looks at various systems of productivity, as outlined in popular management books. I found the summaries of each system, and the quiz to help you determine which systems might work best for you very interesting. Some I knew well, and others I was less familiar with. The next chapter looks at productivity for those with management responsibilities, again with many good points and approaches to situations. The next topic was very useful indeed, "sticking with productivity", and could be applied to more than just this topic. It really discusses various ways to keep with a program of change, ways to stay motivated, and tactics to deal with barriers that may arise. The final section includes information and links to resources that may be helpful in terms of changing your productivity habits, or learning more about different topics covered here. An extremely practical and useful book.