The Most Organized Man in the World [HD BizBlog- The Blog: Productivity in Context]
No, it’s not me, although I am working on it! It’s from the Jan/Feb issue of Mens’ Health, in an article about Douglas Merrill, CIO and VP of Engineering for Google.
Merrill’s job is to “organize all of the world’s information”. Okay, that’s not subtle.
With such a vast, high-pressure mission, you’d expect him to have lost most of his hair, carry a bulging briefcase, be flanked by assistants, juggle multiple PDAs, have a tie that’s askew, talk to himself, and even have a twitch or two. But instead, Merrill has 3 earrings, 4 tattoos, and looks like he’s just ordered a second glass of merlot at a blues club.
Merrill says, “The point of organization for me is to clear my head.” Now that is a worthy goal, and one of the cornerstones of the GTD practice. DoesMerrill practice GTD? Not exactly, unless you take GTD to stand for “Google Things Done”. Admitting to being forgetful, partially deaf, and dyslexic, Merrill follow four rules for keeping up with his many activities.
1. Empty Your Head
There is just too much information coming at you to keep track of it all. So don’t. Give in to the tide and let it go. A human brain can only remember about 7 things at a time, and of course we all have more than that going on.
The brain’s other organizational flaw is its tendency to dwell on incompletion. This is called the Zeigarnik Effect, after the Russian psychologist who first noticed that people remember incomplete or interrupted tasks better than finished ones. Worrying about what needs to be done puts the brain in a sort of subconscious reminder loop that instigates stress.
Write everything down, and use a system for tracking it. That is step 2.
2. Swap Filing Cabinets for Scaffolding
Wrap your mind and lists of activities in a structure of access that allows you to get to the things that you need, when you need them.
“…Organization is learned, and it’s learned in a way that’s special to you. For me to cram you into the traditional filing-cabinet model is a disservice. A much richer way of helping organize someone is to give them a set of tools that can be personalized.â€
Merrill calls these tools “scaffolds†and encourages us to think of the information we’re accumulating as an ever-expanding building. This scaffolding represents the means for quickly gaining access to any floor or room. It’s your network of virtual assistants or, to continue the analogy, ironworkers.
Merrill has wrapped 7 (that number again) scaffolds around his world. Naturally, they’re all Google products and include: Calendar, Notebook, Reader, Documents/Spreadsheets, Gmail, Gadgets and iGoogle.
Remember, though, that a filing cabinet can be part of your scaffold, and you do not have to go all-Google-all-the-time. If you are comfortable with paper, then do it that way!
3. Redefine Organization as Search
Unsurprisingly for someone who works at Google, Merrill sees being organized less as a filing system and more as an index. Who cares where something is when you can search your Index? He uses the “cloud” to store all of his information, which is an option that has only recently become available, and is currently the zone of the early-adopters.
“For example, when I come across something interesting on the Internet, I don’t worry about whether or not I’ll ever use it. I just dump it into my personal cloud. Organization then becomes this big, long, loose pile of information that’s growing forever and you don’t care, because every time you ask a question, you get everything back that’s relevant.â€
There are practical advantages to this. If your office catches fire, your system is hacked or your laptop is stolen, your life goes on with minimal interruption. You have neither the worry nor the stress involved with warehousing and protecting information the conventional way. However, like all forms of letting go, this approach entails trust—trust in technology, trust in security.
Not everyone is ready for that level of trust.
4. Leverage Other People and Their Ideas
This is definitely one of Merrill’s most useful and universal tips. While the “cloud” is not something that everyone is comfortable with, personal relationships with people who possess strengths to offset your own weaknesses is a powerful tool.
One of the secrets to Google’s success is that it’s an exquisitely diverse company unafraid to attack problems from different perspectives. “My job is essentially to hire great people with fascinating, unusual backgrounds and facilitate their working together,†says Merrill. […]
The organizational benefits of such a corporate strategy are twofold. First, once you recognize who you are and what you do best, you’re free to surround yourself with people who are not you and have different skills. This eases the pressure on you to do it all and simplifies life.
What do you think? How do you use the “cloud” for storage? Are you ready to make that leap, or do you still prefer a terrestrial solution? Leave a Comment.
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Original post here: Stephen
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