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Show wherever you get your podcasts. Hello

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and welcome back to Beyond the

0:57

To-Do List, a podcast about productivity.

0:59

I'm Eric Fisher, your host as

1:01

we discuss the true goal of

1:03

productivity, living a more meaningful life.

1:05

This week I'm excited to share

1:08

with you a conversation I had

1:10

with Adrienne Belhumer. She is the

1:12

author of the book The 24-Hour

1:14

Rule and Other Secrets for Smarter

1:16

Organizations, and the topic this week

1:18

is documentation. Yes, I know. Exciting,

1:21

right? I know most of you, you heard

1:23

the word documentation and your eyes rolled into

1:25

the back of your head, but

1:27

I gotta say, this is where a lot of

1:29

the time suck or friction

1:31

comes from that keeps us from

1:34

being productive. Think about that for

1:36

a minute. Anytime you waste

1:39

going to try and find something

1:41

that somebody else documented, or for

1:43

that matter that you documented or

1:46

documented poorly, comes back to bite

1:48

you, and especially when it's

1:50

somebody else's fault, right? So in

1:52

this conversation, we're talking about the

1:54

interconnection of information management and

1:57

personal productivity. Adrienne's talking all

2:00

about how there are three components

2:02

that contribute to the art of

2:04

documentation. Yes, it is an art.

2:06

Yes, it is a skill. And

2:08

why understanding those principles can take

2:10

your organizational efficiency to a new

2:12

level, but also your interconnected organizational

2:15

efficiency to a new level. She

2:17

also talks about the 24-hour rule,

2:19

the name of her book, and

2:21

we talk about what that means

2:23

and why you want to do

2:25

as much as you can with

2:27

revisiting, reprocessing, or initiating action on

2:29

information within a day to

2:32

keep your momentum going. We're

2:34

going to talk about all these things

2:36

and much more, so let's not waste

2:38

any more time and jump into this

2:40

conversation with Adrian Bellhumor. Well,

2:44

this week it is my privilege to

2:46

welcome to the show Adrian Bellhumor. Adrian,

2:48

welcome to Beyond the To Do List.

2:51

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited

2:53

to be here. I'm excited to

2:55

have you because I don't think we've

2:57

touched on this topic specifically on this

3:00

podcast before. You've got a book out

3:02

called The 24-Hour Rule and Other Secrets

3:05

for Smarter Organizations, including

3:08

the six steps of dynamic documentation, and

3:10

that last word is the key. Although

3:12

for you, I think that the key

3:14

word here is dynamic because documentation

3:17

in and of itself, I

3:19

think a lot of people would be like,

3:21

I don't want to do documentation because it

3:23

can be a thankless job, and so

3:25

thankfully for them, you've written

3:27

this book. I'm curious,

3:30

I mean you probably have heard from a lot

3:32

of people when it comes to that thankless job

3:34

part of it. What are some of the responses

3:36

that led you then to say there's got to

3:39

be a better way to do this and

3:41

make, you know, smarter organizations happen

3:44

and more prevalent, more ubiquitous? Yeah,

3:47

well you hit right on the

3:49

head. Just in business, we do

3:51

it all the time. It holds

3:54

processes, how we operate businesses together,

3:56

but we have almost no strong

3:59

reference. We have very little guidance out

4:01

there that's actually practical that any business

4:03

can apply. So I always saw this

4:05

as a gap in the training in

4:07

our workforce. And I actually

4:10

do believe documentation ties perfectly to

4:12

productivity. The way I teach is

4:14

not about sort of really

4:16

stuffy corporate style of documentation.

4:18

It's about doing the little

4:20

everyday habits of documentation to make

4:23

you, your team and your organization

4:25

more productive. I'm originally a chartered

4:27

accountant and I've worked as a

4:29

business owner, as a consultant for many years. And

4:32

it's been a skill and

4:34

discipline that's sorely lacking in companies

4:36

of all sizes. So I have

4:38

seen this opportunity for a long time and

4:40

been talking about it for many years too.

4:43

Yeah, you've been doing this for

4:46

a long time. And I've heard

4:48

you say that documentation is the

4:50

intersection of information management, organizational

4:53

design, and personal productivity.

4:55

Now obviously I want to latch on to

4:57

that last part but pulling all three of

4:59

those, and I'm also again a Venn diagram

5:02

lover. Okay. Those three circles,

5:04

I'm like, yes, the sweet spot right

5:06

in the middle. How do those things,

5:08

you know, information management, organizational design and

5:11

personal productivity when it comes to documentation,

5:13

like how does that inform your

5:15

definition of what documentation is? Well,

5:19

first of all, the definition of documentation

5:21

or when you say documentation in a

5:23

company, a lawyer will think one thing,

5:26

your accounting team will think another, your

5:28

operations team will think one thing, your

5:30

information management team is off doing something

5:32

else. So part of what you just

5:34

described, I call it the holy trinity

5:37

of documentation, is really just giving that

5:39

definition of what it really means is

5:41

first of all, information management is how

5:43

we store, it's a big professional discipline,

5:45

but it actually has everything to do

5:48

with where we put things and it

5:50

can be just organizing the files on your

5:52

computer, it can be an enterprise wide content

5:54

management system, anything in between is the art

5:57

of information management and you need that for

5:59

great documents. You need to know where it goes

6:01

and how you manage it. Secondly, organizational

6:03

design is all about your process.

6:06

Everything from business analysis, project

6:08

management, even legal audit. We

6:11

are process-oriented beings of organizations.

6:13

That's how they run. And

6:15

you need great documentation to support

6:18

process, and process actually feeds into

6:20

documentation as well. But

6:22

the most neglected that we're talking about

6:24

today is personal productivity. Documentation

6:27

is actually deeply behavioral. If

6:29

you want to lose weight, you can write down

6:31

what you eat. I mean, it's like a very

6:34

simple... We actually respond to writing things down. If

6:37

we want to track what we're spending

6:39

money on, we write things down. If

6:41

we want to hone in on our

6:43

thinking, we write things down. Documentation changes

6:45

our behavior on a personal level. It

6:47

changes how we behave in teams. And

6:49

that actually escalates upwards. But that piece,

6:51

we don't talk about as much, especially

6:53

in the corporate world or the business

6:55

world, but it's actually the most

6:57

important part because we do document

6:59

to change people's behavior, to make

7:01

things better. And all

7:03

three components have to be

7:06

understood for great documentation and

7:08

really organizations to be successful, is

7:10

to have to understand these three parts

7:12

of what I call holy trinity. I

7:15

think that that's a great analysis there. And I

7:17

think that when you come to

7:20

talking about that word, document or documentation,

7:22

all the different roles you named out,

7:24

there's also just the average worker. I'm

7:27

not HR, I'm not legal, I'm not accounting, I'm not

7:29

this, I'm not that. Leave me alone and let

7:31

me do my job. And when I

7:33

need documentation, I will go grab it

7:35

if it exists, but don't make me

7:37

do it. I'm

7:39

trying to play that common man or common

7:42

person worker role here. And

7:44

I'm pulling from personal experience. You

7:46

tell me to document something, I'm like, oh, so

7:49

now you want me to write down every little thing I

7:51

do and track me? You

7:53

had a lot of backlash about in that

7:55

regard. And in fact, this is probably a

7:57

bed of weeds to get into that the

7:59

microscope. was zoomed in on, especially during

8:01

COVID time and remote work, when it's like,

8:04

well, can I really trust that they're doing

8:06

what they should be doing? And yet that's

8:08

when we needed documentation the most in a

8:10

lot of ways. Absolutely. My

8:13

book and my training is really about

8:15

bringing skills to everyone. I think it's,

8:17

it's a huge skill in the workforce.

8:19

I think it's a skill we don't,

8:21

we don't hire for well, we don't

8:24

train in ourselves. And you actually do

8:26

carry it your whole life, your ability

8:28

to go to a meeting and, you

8:30

know, take decent notes, very simple example,

8:33

taking decent notes and then converting those

8:35

notes into something of value, maybe it's

8:37

improvements for the organization, maybe it's a

8:39

new project, maybe it's a new sales

8:42

opportunity. That's actually what documentation is

8:44

about. It's about taking something that

8:46

isn't tangible and making it tangible

8:48

and making it actionable. So I'm

8:50

actually a firm believer that documentation

8:52

is not just for your lawyers

8:54

or your child, your documentation experts,

8:56

your business analysts. It's for

8:59

everyone to grasp the skills of

9:01

getting information onto paper, getting information

9:03

out of your head is actually extremely

9:06

powerful. A lot of people, I think,

9:08

have great ideas. We have a talented

9:10

workforce. We have highly educated people. We

9:12

have access to incredible information, but if we

9:14

don't have mechanisms of taking that information out

9:17

of your head, getting out of paper and

9:19

doing something with it, then we're not really

9:21

maximizing the value out of our people.

9:23

That's a great point about everyone. I am

9:26

a huge believer that documentation is really

9:28

for everyone. And my training, I've given

9:30

it to administrative staff, to CEOs,

9:32

to business owners. There isn't

9:34

one group that doesn't need it

9:36

at all or that doesn't benefit

9:38

from some reminders of best practices

9:40

in this area. People that

9:43

are listening to this can remember that I've

9:45

made reference to Ted Lasso a number of

9:47

times. And one of the things that is

9:49

said in there is this whole phrase of,

9:51

be a goldfish. Because goldfish, I think, if

9:54

I'm not mistaken, it's like it's a 13

9:56

second or 12 second memory. And it feels

9:58

like we have that sometimes. A

10:00

short-term memory is fairly weak and I think it can

10:02

be a benefit as it is portrayed in that TV

10:04

show It's like hey, you're lost you have 13 seconds

10:07

and then you move on but that can come back

10:09

and bite you too And I think that's what you're

10:11

saying is like one of the best things you can

10:13

do is Take notes, but

10:15

not just notes because notes is just bare

10:17

bones minimum of what documentation is And there's

10:20

so many different types of documentation. We probably

10:22

should list off some of those There's a

10:24

bunch of different variants when it comes to

10:26

that But yeah, the short-term memory is so

10:29

weak especially sometimes

10:31

for people with ADHD or Symptomatic

10:33

of ADHD because they are on their phone

10:36

too much and they've trained their attention span

10:38

to be just so much less useful Yeah

10:40

So I mean the title of the book is the

10:42

24-hour rule and the 24-hour rule is that you have to

10:44

rewrite reprocess

10:48

information in 24 hours

10:51

or even rethink it too in

10:53

simpler terms It just means do

10:55

something with information and 24 hours

10:57

and it is actually, you know,

10:59

slightly Controversial message

11:01

in today's run-and-done Environments

11:04

where we're running back to back to back

11:06

to back meetings to actually

11:08

take time to process What

11:10

we heard what ideas we had what

11:13

opportunities came into our day is actually

11:15

sometimes not a popular Topic

11:17

to talk about but when we talk about Productivity

11:21

like I'm a productivity Chantee

11:23

myself. There's so much good

11:25

productivity advice But one piece

11:27

of advice and I think you know My

11:29

idea of the 24-hour rule is that we

11:31

have to activate information in the right amount

11:33

of time or the information Actually

11:36

loses its value and our short-term

11:38

memory declines or even we're not

11:40

as energetically connected to information in

11:42

24 hours I mean the

11:44

biggest example of this is meetings in the

11:46

corporate world to be meetings I mean you

11:48

can be a small business owner and still

11:50

do a lot of meetings So my small

11:52

business clients get it immediately But we're often

11:55

in a scenario where we're going to meetings

11:57

we get great ideas great information comes

11:59

out and we don't

12:01

really activate that. We just kind of

12:03

go off to headboard meetings as opposed

12:05

to actually do something with that information.

12:07

Of course, there's huge debate now about

12:09

recording everything and chat GPD to get

12:11

things on paper, but I still actually

12:14

don't think it replaces just taking action

12:16

on information because we are very connected

12:18

in information in the last 24 hours.

12:20

That's why we will think about last

12:23

night's hockey game, or we'll think about

12:25

last night's Netflix special because we actually

12:27

aren't good in that window. So it

12:29

is my little tip to add

12:31

into the mix of productivity.

12:33

Productivity isn't just about managing your

12:35

schedule. It's actually about being really accountable

12:38

for information and opportunity that comes

12:40

into your day. And I do

12:42

think it has a ripple effect

12:44

in many areas of business and

12:46

your life, especially if you're in

12:49

information. We have a lot of

12:51

information workers nowadays. Managing relationships, managing

12:53

sales, projects, all these things where

12:55

that ability to activate information is

12:58

very important. Yeah, and

13:00

I think some people would think, oh, when you say

13:02

that I need to act on

13:04

this information in 24

13:07

hours, they feel like you mean one

13:09

thing when you really mean another. In

13:11

other words, they think you mean, oh,

13:13

I need to do all the

13:15

action steps that came out of that, let's

13:17

use the meeting for example. They think you

13:19

mean, oh, I need to do all my

13:21

action steps that come out of that meeting

13:23

within 24 hours. When what you really mean

13:25

is process and park that

13:27

information that came out of that meeting

13:30

in the next 24 hours before you

13:32

can't remember what it was those notes

13:34

even meant or what to do

13:36

or where to park them or fresh questions

13:38

that would have come up and you can

13:40

quickly email or text or flack, whatever. People

13:42

that were in that meeting to lean

13:45

in on the momentum within 24 hours versus 48

13:47

hours, 72 hours, the

13:50

momentum's basically gone. That's a

13:52

great point, of course. And I do get some

13:54

kind of negative, what do you mean? We don't

13:56

have time to process everything in that time. And

13:58

I agree, I go, I have. days of

14:01

the week where I'm in way more

14:03

meetings than others. I mean a very

14:05

simple trick after a meeting is to

14:07

take like a three bullet recap. It

14:09

might not be exactly what you wrote

14:11

down but sometimes it's even the stuff

14:13

that wasn't said that is more critical

14:15

or the thing that you think geez,

14:17

I just you know if I go

14:19

to a sales meeting sometimes it's something

14:21

they didn't say. That's an example of

14:24

processing information and it's an example of

14:26

stuff you really can't you know all

14:28

the recording and tools can't totally replace

14:30

your ability to think about what you heard

14:32

and what it means to you. It's often

14:35

lacking in our business and corporate world where

14:37

we're so obsessed with running to more and

14:39

more meeting for more courses, more and more conferences

14:41

as opposed to actually processing what we

14:43

did. That's where I see a lot

14:46

of loss of productivity is not really

14:48

taking advantage of all those opportunities that

14:50

came into your day. All that good

14:52

information and what you could have done.

14:54

That is a good point. It's not

14:56

meant to be overwhelming but sometimes even

14:58

simple habits as you know in productivity

15:01

can go a long way to accelerating

15:03

productivity in many areas of your life

15:05

and business. I think some people would

15:07

say we need less meetings then. I would

15:09

say halfway true yes. We need

15:11

less meetings but really we need less

15:14

bad meetings right? It's meetings

15:16

that are not productive. In other words there's

15:18

information happening but it's you know anyway we

15:20

won't go into that. That's a whole other

15:22

podcast episode. That's another podcast and a lot of

15:24

people I could talk about that. I mean I

15:26

think one thing I will say if you are

15:28

going back-to-back to back meetings and

15:31

you don't really have any information to process,

15:33

you don't really have anything right now, you

15:35

don't have someone to add to your... When

15:37

I say notes I have a very broad...

15:39

Sometimes I just add a note to my

15:41

CRM or I have an idea that came

15:43

out of it. It doesn't have to be

15:45

like a long set of like consulting notes

15:47

although we do do that. If you're going

15:49

in tons of meetings you don't really have

15:51

an action that's probably an indication of not

15:53

great meetings. Yeah that's true. If you're

15:56

coming out and you don't have action items it's like well

15:58

why was I even there right? Yeah,

16:00

one or two meetings that might be okay. But if

16:02

that is, if you say, well, I don't

16:04

really need to do the 20, I don't need to action.

16:06

I don't have any ideas. Then, identification something is off. What's

16:10

something that works so well, it

16:12

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18:34

it basically feels like magic. For

18:36

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18:38

canceling headphones, definitely. Meeting free Fridays.

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own stuff anymore. With Shopify Collective, you

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can curate products to sell from brands

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you love and give your customers more

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variety in your business, more sales. Shopify

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is your no excuses business partners. Sell

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without needing to code or design, just

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bring your best ideas and Shopify will

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agency, which I would say, okay, you always

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have more agency than you think. But yes,

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sometimes it can be frustrating that you maybe

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don't have as much as you want. Again,

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that's another whole podcast episode, you know, specified

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to that. But I would say you

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do have the ability to block off

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20:07

time in between if you feel like

20:09

you've got tons of meetings where

20:11

you can then say, okay, I'm going to

20:13

go and review, you know, whether it was

20:15

a Zoom call, catch all term for video

20:17

conferencing that you had a dictation thing in

20:20

there that was recording it and then, you

20:22

know, gives you a summary. You need to

20:24

go over that summary or you need to

20:26

have while you're sitting here. Some people don't

20:28

like this, but I mean, I've got literally,

20:30

I've got a mini legal pad sitting

20:32

here on my desk where I can

20:34

write down quick little scratch notes that,

20:36

you know, people aren't watching and it's

20:38

not making a really loud typing noise

20:40

distracting or it doesn't look like I'm

20:42

typing so that people don't think I'm

20:44

actually here and engaged and present with

20:46

the meeting. But in other words, that

20:48

buffer time, you can create those buffer

20:50

times. And if you can't do it

20:52

in between the meetings, then you're going to have to do

20:54

an admin chunk, you know, front or

20:56

back end or both of the, you know,

20:58

day or front and back end of the morning

21:01

or the afternoon or whatever your workday looks like.

21:03

I'm very flexible here. But you

21:05

have to create those pockets of time to do

21:07

this processing, like you said. And

21:09

you know what? Most days you don't feel like doing it.

21:11

No, no, you don't. And it's

21:13

the days where you've been in the most

21:16

meetings and you've collected information from clients and

21:18

you'll have to like go, you know,

21:21

at night or in the morning to process it.

21:24

I would say it's always enjoyable, but

21:26

it is a habit that once you

21:28

develop it, it becomes second nature and

21:30

you understand the limitations of the short-term

21:32

memory and you're very upfront about it

21:35

and you'll actually be more productive as

21:37

opposed to just kind of most of

21:39

us actually deny that goldfish syndrome. I

21:42

mean, there's lots of research. Goldfish is

21:44

a great example. They do think the

21:46

iPhone is one of the reasons why

21:48

our attention span has dropped dramatically.

21:52

And there's the forgetting curve as well.

21:54

But we really do, our recollection does

21:56

decline dramatically between 24 and 48 hours. there's

22:00

actually a scientific reason for

22:02

why you want to process information

22:04

just to be more productive actually.

22:08

Are there any tips that you

22:10

are aware of for during a

22:13

conversation or a meeting where we can

22:15

be documenting as we go or passing

22:17

that baton to our future self so

22:20

it's less of a, okay, let me

22:22

reorient back to what was happening in

22:24

that conversation or what they told me.

22:27

Are there any processes for in that

22:29

real-time time, real-time processing? Let's call it

22:31

that. So that's

22:33

actually interesting. The way you take

22:36

notes and process information is

22:38

actually aligned with our attention span. So

22:40

our attention span, first of all, the

22:42

first mode is called the spotlight. So

22:44

if I go into a crowded schoolyard

22:47

and I'm looking for my one child

22:49

in 100, my brain is

22:51

actually really good at finding my child even though

22:53

there's like 100 kids there. That's

22:55

how the brain works. So if you're going

22:57

into a meeting and you have specific things

22:59

you're looking for, you can literally train your

23:01

brain to look for those things.

23:04

And most of us do this very naturally. I'm

23:06

an accountant. We work at a dentist. They go

23:08

to meetings and they'll tell me, hey, I'm thinking

23:10

of accounting impact. A lawyer will sit and they'll

23:13

think of legal impact. If I'm going to

23:15

a sales meeting, I'm thinking about how to make

23:17

the sale. If I'm going to a client meeting

23:19

where I'm trying to solve a problem, we do

23:21

this very naturally. I'm going to give a very

23:24

low tech way. I

23:26

do think you should recognize this is one

23:28

mode. When you are conscious of what you're

23:31

looking for, we actually will hone in and

23:33

we'll take notes and we actually document better

23:35

and we will focus our attention span. The

23:37

second mode of the human attention span is

23:40

called the floodlight. And that's where our brain

23:42

is actually quite broad. It also is

23:44

how we take notes. Sometimes

23:46

we do go into, maybe you have guests

23:48

on and you don't really know, maybe it's

23:50

a little more fluid and you're going to

23:52

have a broader conversation as opposed to a

23:54

guest that you might go in with. That's

23:57

an example. You might go to a seminar in

23:59

my office. case sometimes I have new clients, I

24:01

need to sit there with kind of a broad

24:03

and open mind of what they're going to say,

24:05

or you're learning something new. So in general,

24:08

we use that less as we progress

24:10

in our career, but nonetheless is actually

24:12

kind of how we take notes. You

24:14

can almost call it like a modified

24:16

stream of talking kind of style of

24:18

notes. And it's actually very effective at

24:20

wording more faster, just even minimal notes

24:22

as people talk. The third mode

24:25

of the attention span is called the juggler.

24:27

And we juggle between tasks. And you could

24:29

even use that to write your to do

24:32

list up and I just what's called the other

24:34

to list. When your mind is in

24:36

that juggler mode, this is a very

24:38

low tech way of answering. But actually,

24:40

when you're documenting or writing notes for

24:42

yourself personally to get productive, how your

24:45

attention is working will help to bring

24:47

sense and really channeling into that attention

24:49

span does help have better notes and

24:51

better focus at the same time. That

24:54

makes sense. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that,

24:56

you know, spotlight, floodlight and juggler. And we

24:58

do all those at different times because at

25:00

different times we need to use those. In

25:02

other words, we don't always need the high

25:04

beams. And in fact, when people have them

25:06

on and they're going past us, we

25:08

wish they weren't. We

25:11

put a lot but yeah, we

25:13

do shift between those modes. Yes,

25:15

exactly. And we have others around us

25:17

shifting as well. So it's kind of

25:19

you know, it's a collaborative effort, if

25:21

you will. In fact, actually, this makes

25:23

me think of a friend of mine

25:25

who is a college professor, he was

25:27

talking about how this wouldn't have been

25:29

something that would have been possible in

25:31

our day as classmates, but that he's

25:33

seen older students, graduate type students,

25:35

but they would be in his class and

25:37

he would find out about this later, where

25:40

they were all in the same Google Doc,

25:42

and they all had different roles. One

25:44

was to just type down any and everything

25:46

they could think of. Another was coming through

25:48

and like spell checking, or bullet list, taking

25:50

a paragraph and

25:53

then making it a bullet list underneath.

25:55

Another was taking that and creating some

25:57

sort of visual aid that would go with

25:59

it. it, another was going and grabbing related

26:01

links and dropping them in. So they were

26:04

all going through and it was this living,

26:06

breathing Google Doc that was happening while a

26:08

lecture was happening. Now it's a little bit

26:10

different scenario, but at the same time it's

26:12

kind of like that. It's everybody pick and

26:14

choose your role that you're strong in and

26:16

then we all come out ahead at the

26:18

end with this document that we can all

26:20

get so much more out of and

26:23

it's richer and it's deeper. That's

26:25

a fascinating example. It's certainly not

26:28

how I was trained in school. I mean we were bringing

26:30

in much more group training, but

26:33

it's it's gonna go to a different

26:35

level. I mean I believe in like

26:37

I call it skill stacking in documentation.

26:39

We actually there's a lot of skills

26:41

that go into great documents. Some people

26:43

are great writers, some people can capture

26:45

information well, some people are great with

26:47

visual design, some people know how to

26:49

organize really well. So there's actually quite

26:51

a few different skills that you stack

26:53

together and that's a neat example of

26:55

how content can come together even in

26:57

a class from stacking these different

26:59

skills. But that that actually should

27:01

be thought of. Another piece

27:04

of the documentation puzzle is

27:07

understanding those skills, building them

27:09

in yourself and building them in your

27:11

team or organization as well. So

27:13

very cool example. Yeah, what I really like

27:16

about it is that it kind of does

27:18

exemplify that whole, hey we are processing this.

27:20

I mean in fact that's what you want

27:22

to do is you want to be, I

27:25

mean again if we're going to go

27:27

with the classroom versus a meeting. In

27:29

some ways there the dynamics are different

27:31

and yet the same. We all we

27:33

were meeting because collaborative

27:36

effort, we're meeting for a reason. Otherwise

27:38

we'd all be off doing our own

27:40

siloed thing. But the emphasis is on

27:42

we're all together so let's do the best

27:44

that we can. Now in a lecture that's one thing.

27:47

In a meeting it's collaborative or at

27:49

least you hope it is because no one wants

27:51

to sit in a meeting where it's just one

27:54

person talking at everyone. That's the whole phrase of

27:56

this meeting could have been an email. So in

27:58

that lecture though it's like that. is one

28:00

of the ways to process is to tap actionism

29:04

but also you want something at the right level

29:06

for feedback and yeah, certainly with

29:08

my team, we're constantly going to

29:10

each other for feedback and collaboration.

29:12

We're never waiting till the end.

29:15

So it's always becomes living

29:17

and breathing for the long or the

29:19

duration of the project and even beyond that.

29:21

Okay. How do you decide though? This is

29:23

where some people they're thinking, okay,

29:26

but for me, I would always

29:28

lean way too into the

29:31

past when ready. They'd be

29:33

like, oh, it's not too ready. I got way

29:35

more to do on this. I don't want

29:37

anyone to see this yet. Like that

29:39

window, that threshold, that percent of done-ness,

29:42

so to speak, is going to be

29:44

different for different people. How do you

29:46

decide when it's okay, it's

29:48

ready enough, but not too ready? Well,

29:51

I have a lot of people that work with

29:54

me on clients and if it's

29:56

good enough that I can see their initial thinking,

29:58

then I'll look at it. at it. You

30:00

know, not a nice term, but I say,

30:02

you know, puke it out. But it's true.

30:04

Sometimes we cannot start the process of understanding

30:07

what's in people's heads and what they're thinking

30:09

unless I see it on paper. I mean,

30:11

meetings are just so inefficient. So I do

30:13

like to see things a little bit raw.

30:15

I actually think the corporate world that does

30:17

stall them, this idea that everything has to

30:20

be gorgeous before it gets passed for review

30:22

is not good on products you'd be in

30:24

general because things stall for a very long

30:26

time. So my personal belief, I'd

30:28

be on one side of scale where as

30:31

long as I can understand the thinking and

30:33

see where it's going, I'm good enough to

30:35

look at it. It doesn't mean I could

30:38

say, yeah, that's great. I love these four

30:40

points, but I think these two, we need

30:42

to rethink where we're going. I work with

30:44

an editor as well to get content out.

30:47

And I can give some very rudimentary ideas

30:49

to just test the water. Does this sound

30:51

right? I'm actually believe her in pretty early

30:53

review to give you a little bit of

30:56

validation of where you're going. Productivity is

30:58

so broad, but one of the

31:00

big pillars of productivity is when

31:02

we stall and start overthinking. So

31:05

if you can get things on paper good

31:07

enough for people to weigh in, obviously, these

31:09

are trusted parties that you work with. And

31:11

I actually think that's a sign of a

31:13

good team where you can show them something

31:16

rough and they can weigh in. It sits

31:18

you in the right direction. That's my approach.

31:20

I would say I'm almost a little different

31:22

than like, you know, sort of the traditional

31:24

consulting firms so that people, juniors typically hand

31:27

things in when they're gorgeous. That's not how

31:29

I operate. I think you lose a lot

31:31

of efficiency in trying to wait for someone

31:33

to hand you something fabulous. I will look

31:35

at things a little bit earlier probably than

31:37

my competition. Yeah, I was going to say

31:39

you're kind of hinting at something that I

31:41

think is really cool here, which is maybe

31:44

you have somebody that is your

31:46

most trusted and able to

31:48

see the most like, okay, it's really

31:50

raw, but it's only this person that's going

31:52

to see it. And if they can even

31:55

get a glimpse of what I'm trying

31:57

to get at here and they can point.

32:00

hey, don't forget this, this and this or

32:02

I don't get it. Like they're the first

32:04

trusted like one circle out

32:06

from yourself person before anybody beyond

32:09

that would see it. Yeah,

32:11

I mean, we can talk forever about

32:13

team productivity and all these other lovely

32:15

things. I actually think when you have

32:17

a productivity buddy or you have and

32:19

I'd funny and even the way my

32:22

business is structured, I have a lot of people or

32:24

do individual work with but those trusted

32:26

relationships where you're bouncing information

32:28

back and forth in the

32:31

right cadence, it's extremely powerful.

32:33

You can go a long way with having

32:36

one or two people where you get momentum

32:38

off each other from that feedback loop or

32:41

going in a different direction than pure documentation we're

32:43

talking about it is and very much linked to

32:45

the same idea of generating. Yeah, well, okay.

32:47

So one of the other things that is

32:49

in the title of the book, we've talked

32:51

about 24 hour rule, we've talked

32:54

about a lot of ways that organizations

32:56

can and should be smarter. But

32:58

also you say, including the six

33:00

steps of dynamic documentation. Again, let's

33:02

give a quick definition of what

33:04

dynamic especially means in that and

33:06

let's talk a little bit about

33:08

those six steps. Sure.

33:11

So dynamic. So documentation has

33:13

traditionally be looked at as like,

33:15

you know, pile the paper over

33:17

there or data in a database

33:19

that no one's looking at or

33:21

stacks of files in a drawer

33:23

or something like that. But

33:25

when documentation is done properly, it

33:28

is the opposite of static, it's

33:30

dynamic, it moves you forward. If you

33:32

write call bomb on your to do

33:35

list, are you more likely to do

33:37

it? Yes, you are. You're more

33:39

likely to do something you write

33:41

down the best documentation, whether

33:43

it's for you as an individual, even

33:46

going to to do lists or, you

33:48

know, simple, very basic things like journaling,

33:50

to do lists, writing down

33:52

your ideas, simply on a personal

33:54

level, and on a

33:57

big corporate level, the best documentation is

33:59

documentation. that drives companies forward.

34:01

I mean, having a strong CRM

34:03

system that's practical will drive sales.

34:06

Having strong change management practice will

34:08

drive better change. Having the right

34:10

content will drive, like there's, it's

34:13

such a, you know, Marie Kondo

34:15

has, you know, cheap clothes that

34:17

bring you joy. Okay, and that's

34:20

kind of an interesting one. It's

34:22

you document to

34:24

drive you forward. So it's a different way of

34:26

thinking. We get a little

34:28

caught up in making documentation all about

34:30

compliance and legal accounting that we forget

34:33

actually the reason we're doing it in

34:35

the first place. So that's the first

34:37

part of my answer. It's the simple

34:39

metric to whether your documentation as good as

34:41

if it moves you to a forward state. And

34:44

the same sets of documentation. You can

34:46

think about this as a way of

34:48

solving a problem or actually a way

34:51

of building your skills and documentation. And

34:53

the first step is capturing. And

34:55

capturing, we've talked a bit about the 24

34:57

hour rule, taking notes. We

35:00

didn't really talk much about getting information out of

35:02

your head, but there's, you know, even there are

35:04

a lot of low tech ways to capture information

35:06

that we can do every day. You

35:09

can't really do great documentation. So you

35:11

have good skills of getting things on

35:13

cheaper in whatever way. Saber or digital

35:15

forms. Saber was just a metaphor

35:17

there. Number two is structuring information.

35:19

Once we have it, we have

35:21

to do something with it. That

35:23

can be as basic as

35:25

taking notes and moving them into like

35:28

a document format, but you know, it

35:30

can be much more complicated moving lots

35:32

of different stuff around. Number

35:34

three is presenting. And presenting is

35:37

about, I teach some really great

35:39

tips in dynamic writing, which is

35:41

kind of a hybrid of writing

35:43

that I steal from a lot

35:46

of different styles and also strong

35:48

visuals. Your documentation, it needs to

35:50

be well written. It needs strong

35:52

visuals to be effective and to

35:54

be dynamic. Number four is communicating.

35:57

So again, even this technique we're

35:59

talking about about the past

36:01

when you're out ready. That's one

36:03

small example of communicating. Communicating can

36:05

be how you report out, how

36:07

you make documentation, a living, breathing

36:09

exercise, and not just a shelf

36:11

exercise. Number five is

36:14

store and leverage, which is sort

36:16

of like our information management bucket is

36:19

how you store where you eat some

36:21

basic rules and how you

36:23

store it. There are best practices. This

36:25

is a huge discipline of information management,

36:27

it's huge. But I've tried to

36:29

simplify it, because not everyone needs

36:32

to be an information management expert,

36:34

but everyone, every knowledge worker, does

36:36

need some basics in how to

36:38

store information. It's kind of also

36:40

an area of the workforce we're

36:42

not well trained in, but there's some really

36:45

simple things that you can do to up

36:47

your skills. And the last

36:49

one is lead and innovate, and

36:51

that's kind of like the bonus step. And

36:54

I do think documentation

36:56

is a subtle, but powerful

36:58

form of leadership. I

37:01

talk about getting rid of groundhogs.

37:03

Groundhogs are conversations that you have

37:05

over and over and over again

37:07

in organizations, and to use documentation

37:09

to stop these groundhog discussions is

37:11

a small act of leadership. Doctor

37:13

Titian has more power than you

37:15

think. I mean, the Secretary of

37:17

State, the Secretary of Labor in

37:19

the US government, for example,

37:21

a large part of their portfolio is documentation.

37:24

There's enormous power actually, even

37:26

in politics and business, that is

37:28

in documentation that we don't think

37:30

about on a daily basis, but

37:32

it's actually, it's absolutely there. This

37:34

is a wealth of information. Those six

37:37

steps alone are worth grabbing

37:39

the book for. I think one of the things

37:41

that's key here, I mean, we could spend on

37:43

a whole other separate episode just on,

37:45

well, actually, we could probably do a

37:47

single episode on every single one of

37:49

those six steps, couldn't we? But we

37:51

won't, maybe that's bonus. I think that's

37:53

something in the future. I think for

37:56

me that the key here is documentation,

37:58

it is the process of documenting. but

38:00

it's also having all those documents and

38:02

those processes, those workflows all in one

38:04

place, or not all in one place,

38:06

in the right place is the better

38:08

way to say that, sorry, but not

38:10

only having those, the right information in

38:12

the right place, but knowing how to

38:15

find it, look for it, grab it,

38:17

access it, share it with the right

38:19

people. I mean, there's so much more

38:21

here. And I think the key here

38:23

is that because information is so easily

38:25

created and or generated either by us

38:27

or someone else, and just all thrown

38:29

up into, let's use

38:31

the phrase the cloud, that is

38:33

why what you've got here in

38:36

this book is so important, not

38:38

just for again, you call out

38:40

secrets for smarter organizations, but it's

38:42

smarter organization of yourself as

38:44

a one person organization, the personal productivity

38:46

side of things. So I'm really glad

38:49

to see that you've created this book,

38:51

even if it's not your full intention

38:53

of going and drilling down into the

38:55

individual as much. It's definitely

38:57

a cumulative and an individual. It's a

38:59

micro and a macro thing. I

39:02

also call it the little d and

39:04

big d documentation. And it also helps

39:06

to frame what we talk about. We

39:08

talk a lot about big D initiatives

39:11

and companies like information management, policies, big

39:14

content systems, legal process,

39:16

all this, I would say this big

39:18

D corporate stuff, but documentation is only

39:20

as good as your little d and

39:22

little d is the little everyday habits,

39:25

like how you take notes, the

39:27

skills your team has to write how

39:29

they share information, how they communicate how

39:32

they get information out of your head,

39:34

how actually is what will lead to

39:36

success in big D. You know, very

39:39

simple example, you can implement that sales

39:41

system in the world. If

39:43

your sales team doesn't have habits of

39:45

writing down sales calls and opportunity, your

39:48

sales system will flop miserably. And I'm

39:50

actually this is an example I've seen

39:52

many times in organizations. So I'm

39:54

a huge believer. You have to actually

39:57

balance both. It's not talking about corporate

39:59

versus. Arsenal the to are deeply canucks

40:01

and and the more we see that. Canucks

40:03

and the more successful we are involves.

40:06

I. Love A You are not making

40:08

a distinction per se between those two

40:10

and that they're incredibly interconnected, so that's

40:12

great. I would love to play people

40:14

were they can find out more about

40:16

what you're doing it for your organization

40:18

as well as grab more information about

40:20

the book and dive deeper into this.

40:23

That's great for my web sites and

40:25

you add site by a hundred thousand

40:28

humor, power.com and may I might imply

40:30

it's businesses called say that See A

40:32

as well. I lost connecting with people

40:34

on Went Ten so please I hope

40:37

they can add the the book is

40:39

available everywhere else on Penguin, Random House

40:41

on Amazon every every major. it's a

40:43

good less. Many others see should be

40:46

able to find that easily if anyone

40:48

wants to reach out to discuss. Thought.

40:51

Vince's and I have a nerdy habits

40:53

as a loving talking about that I

40:55

speak and lot of organizations and love

40:57

discussing it with people are helping them

41:00

out with any talks, insists and challenges

41:02

that they're facing. That's. Awesome

41:04

Adrian Thank you so much for vineyards been

41:06

great or the with you and great to

41:08

get your perspective in your expertise. Great.

41:11

Well thank you so much! I really enjoyed being

41:13

care. Well,

41:15

that's another podcast crossed off your

41:18

listening to do list. I hope

41:20

that you took did notes. I

41:22

hope to do practiced good documentation

41:24

while you were listening to this

41:26

episode. I know that the word

41:28

again documentation comes across as a

41:30

boring it's must have must do

41:32

in an organization or with your

41:34

own stuff. But trust me. The.

41:36

Amount of time where you're trying to

41:38

decipher what it is even you meant

41:40

or somebody else meant in terms of

41:42

properly documenting something or trying to in

41:45

the first place find where the crap

41:47

you put. It or somebody else put it's

41:49

oh it's must be in that folder know

41:51

it's in this google drive? Oh no it's

41:53

the here to hear exeter us all of

41:55

that stuff is such a time suck and

41:58

a slow down and honestly that busy. Work.

42:00

It's not proper true meaningful work, so

42:02

I hope that you found this episode

42:04

helpful. Yes, you did. Would you do

42:06

me the favor and to somebody else?

42:08

the favor. Share This episode shared out

42:11

on social sure it directly to somebody

42:13

and the share button Wherever you're listening

42:15

to this your pots has player app

42:17

of choice or even head on over

42:19

to the show notes at Beyond the

42:21

To Do list.com That's where you will

42:24

also find a list of tools that

42:26

I used to make the show. Many

42:28

of them with discounts for you to

42:30

use and they're not I pod testing

42:32

tools. Some of them you're going to

42:34

find to be really good productivity tools

42:36

for you. Thank you so much for

42:39

sharing this episode. Thanks again for listening

42:41

and I'll see you. Next steps.