Good Morning Thinkers!

Finding Time Suggestions

I have previously mentioned Heron Dance, the small nature and spirit, words and watercolor publication of Ann O'Shaughnessy and Rod MacIver but I recently chanced across a back issue with two quotes that touch on our conversation about time to think so I am interspersing them with your responses. 

Thanks to everyone who shared your ideas.  We hope you enjoy and that you claim your time to think, to reflect on your life and world, to enjoy. 

Is Your Email Inbox Empty?

"How does a major project get to be a year late? One day at a time." -- Tom Peters

When someone says "time management," do you immediately have a "been-there-done-that" reaction? If so, you’re probably among those of us "over-30s" who experienced the mandatory time management classes in our early careers. However, here’s a question for you:

How many emails in your Inbox folder came in yesterday, last week, last month, or even last year?

If your answer is anything but zero, you may want to read this. Until last Thursday, my answer was hundreds ... today it is zero. Do you know what it feels like to have ZERO emails in your inbox? It is definitely cool ... a small weight rolled away, a gentle sigh of relief.

And all of this from an article in Atlantic Monthly about organizational guru, David Allen, dubbed "the Henry Ford of the Digital Age." I’m not sure why I read the article since I usually avoid them but by the time I finished I had picked up a SIMPLE idea that transformed my inbox. Most of the stuff we leave in our inbox because we’re going to come back to it later is something we should do but isn’t critical or stuff we should read but again isn’t critical. After months of new, non-urgent emails dogpiling on top of each other, they create such a guilt-clutter that they never get looked at again.

So here’s Allen's process:

1. Create two new folders (A-Action and AA-Read – this puts them toward the top of your Inbox). 2. Every email should be:
a. Deleted
b. Responded to immediately if it’s less than a 2-minute response.
c. Filed in A-Action or AA-Read.

Presto! An empty inbox ... it does help, of course, if you check you’re A-Action folder regularly and browse through your AA-Read folder occasionally.

Allen does have more ideas but I can only get so organized, so fast. Here’s his website in case you're ready for more:

Fish Tank Desks

Wouldn't this be a cool way to add some serenity to a hectic environment? This photo is circulating on the Internet so the photographer is unknown.

Make Your Partner Look Good

"Man is most nearly himself, ... when he achieves
the seriousness of a child at play."
-- Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher, 500 B.C.

"Make your partner look good" is one of the basic concepts of improvisation, a technique that is rapidly becoming a powerful change process in organizations. Alain Rostain, the founder of CreativeAdvantage, a firm that helps organizations develop new ideas, discovered improvisation in 1991 while working as a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is also the founder of Applied Improvisation Network, an organization formed to help members share ideas and experiences about using applied improv.

Improvisation, while normally thought of as a comedy process, provides a safe playing field for spontaneity, creativity and the emergency of new ideas. It is defined by the concepts it embraces:

- Pay attention and be present.
- Make your partner look good.
- Don't censor yourself.
- Say, "Yes, and ..." instead of "Yes, but..."
- Listen generously
- Take risks and embrace failure.
- Say the obvious thing -- in other words, the first thing that comes to mind.
- There are no wrong answers.

I especially like "make your partner look good." What if everyone worked from that perspective? What if each of us considered it our responsibility to make our partners and co-workers look good?

For more information about improv in business, contact Alain Rostain.

Drive-by Ideation

Agnew Moyer Smith (AMS)is a Pittsburg firm that specializes in information architecture. If this is a new term to you, here’s the description posted on their website:

Information architects fashion raw information into structures that reveal relationships, provide visual models, express user scenarios and processes and, in general, make the act of understanding an engaging, compelling, pleasant, and rewarding experience. Like traditional architects, information architects are simultaneously concerned with the overall design and with the details of the individual elements used to compose the whole. They design micro-information environments such as matrices, graphs, and diagrams, and weave them into macro-information environments, such as books, magazines, brochures, catalogs, and Websites.

Jerry McNellis told us about a practice of theirs we thought was intriguing and could be used or adapted by any organization. They have a space where they put representations of on-going projects. This could be a layout, a poster, or just a project box inviting people to throw in ideas, artifacts, pictures or anything else that might relate to the project. People are invited to view, think about and contribute ideas and suggestions that are prompted by the displays. They call it their "drive-by space."

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: This great practice prompts this question: How do you invite ideas and feedback? Please share your ideas or experiences in the comments section below.

The AMS site has two very interesting articles.