A fascinating book about the serious business of play is “The Red Rubber Ball at Work”. It’s all about play at work. Kevin Carroll reminds us of our childhood connections to play and of how often we have forgotten  how to play and the fun of it all.

Using a creative mix of the book itself, internet links and video you are encouraged to discover your own game. Scoring in business is like play as  David Allen points out in his forthcoming book: its about “winning at the game of work and the business of life”.

In this book we meet many successful people who have not forgotten how to play at work. I particularly enjoyed reading the different perspectives of play taken from the various angles in people’s lives. Memories of childhood and how these children’s games and play went on to form the successes in adult life. Success in every sense, part and walk of life.

Challenge yourself! And challenge your children to learn to play (with) music and share a lifetime of ways “to tap into imagination, be more inventive and discover new things” as Kevin Carroll discovered when he took up playing the Cello again.

At whatever age music and singing is a very creative way of learning. Like a recent school concert that my twins gave of Mozarts Requiem. Rehersals started several weeks ago. These were disciplined, repetitive and structured, teaching the children to listen to their own voice and that of the whole choir.

I was taken by the enthusiasm with which this singing project was undertaken. Shown in little comments, like Thomas coming home from school one afternoon “I want to learn Latin!” “Why?” “So I can understand what I am singing!”

Singing in the adult choir, I was able to experience how everything came together with orchestra, choir and finally the concert. Mozart’s Requiem is a powerfully moving piece many will remember from the Film Amadeus. Days later the twins are still singing parts of the Requiem.

The Red Rubber Ball at Work needs to be understood from a child’s perspective. And remembering how I loved to play as a child, I share Kevin’s belief that play is essential to growth and development of healthy children.

At a young age, more important than learning to read or write, is learning to play. Many educators (and researchers) of young children realize the need for more playtime in spite of some worrying trends by national Governments.

Play is many things at work and Kevin shares interviews with authors such as Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell and Paulo Coehlo:

• Play is innovation
• Play is results
• Play is teamwork
• Play is leadership
• Play is curiosity

And now for something completely different! Monty Python - Office Sketch.

Please use the comments to share with us what your game is? Where is your ball? Which colour is yours?

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Editor’s Note:  Dr. O’Connor is an occasional contributor to GTD Times.  Her bio is here.  She sent me an email about this book and I was so intrigued and felt that other GTDtimes readers would be similarly interested that I asked Dr. O’Connor if she could share her thoughts with the rest of us.  Thanks Lynn!

I’ve been reading a fascinating book, Spark, by John J. Ratey. It’s a quick easy read, a popular book, describing the role of exercise in neurogenesis, cognition and learning. It describes a pilot program in a school district in Naperville Illinois. They discovered that strenuous physical exercise led to participating schools raising their scores in all the national tests measuring children and adolescent’s academic achievement.   One year they had 97% of their 8th graders take the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an international test of science knowledge/skills. Their young adolescents scored first, just ahead of Singapore. They have found that kids who participate in the program (they changed the name from PE to Fitness) end up with dramatic changes in their learning, concentration, memorization skills, cognitive flexibility, etc.

The kids are all given heart rate monitors and instead of competing with each other as they do in more traditional sports, they each are expected to keep their heart rates at 80% of capacity for an hour –therefore they are going for their own personal best. The effect on learning is remarkable. They found that the kids who arrive at school at 6:30AM to do their exercise are more able to learn in the classes that follow. Other research (on mice for example) is described, demonstrating the mechanics of this, with physical exercise leading to significant increases in BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) and other growth hormones which directly lead to neurogenesis –making new neurons affecting the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus (maybe other brain areas also, I don’t know yet, still reading the book).

This is not the emphasis in article below, but it is related. It made me want to resume going to the gym, and not just doing kundalini yoga although that probably works too –but I get the impression that the more strenuous exercise has a bigger impact. The children and adolescents are given a big choice of activities to choose from –running, cycling, climbing an elaborate wall, doing that computer generated dance activity (I don’t remember the name), etc. Ratey points out that in more traditional school sports, kids spend a great deal of time just waiting around, and some kids who are not “athletic” get left out altogether. Not so with the fitness emphasis, it’s a whole new endeavor.

I knew that exercise promoted better mood and countered stress. What I didn’t know was that exercise has profound effect on cognitive function. I recommend the book for anyone who wants to get inspired to engage in more regular strenuous exercise, while strengthening cognitive apparatus.

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To the black-belt GTD practitioner, Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
may not offer any new principles, I nonetheless still highly recommend it as a motivational read to get a boost on whatever task it is that you’re deffering action on.

Brian Tracy has taken the catchy title from an analogy of Mark Twain. Mark Twain said that suppose tomorrow morning, the first that you do, is catch a live frog, stuff it into your mouth, munch it down and swallow it all up. Once you did that, the day can’t get much worse now can it? Therefore every morning, find the ugliest most repulsive task that you have on your to-do list (i.e. your frog) and knock that off before getting on to doing anything else. Once you’ve got that done, the rest of the day when you’re doing the easy-peasy tasks, would seem like relishing your favorite dessert.

Below are a few my favorite excerpts from the book, that got me eating my ugly frogs:

Taking the Frog analogy forward:
If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long.

When you’ve got two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.

You cannot eat every tadpole and frog in the pond, but you can eat the biggest and ugliest one.

How do you eat your biggest, ugliest frog? The answer is: “One bite at a time.” i.e. you break it down into specific step by step activities and then start on the first one.

You should never be distracted by a tadpole when a big frog is siting there waiting to be eaten.

On the Pareto principle or 80/20 rule:
There is never enough time to do all the tasks, but there’s always time to do the most Important task.

The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.

A Question to ask yourself for maximum productivity: “What can I, and only I, do that if done well will make a real difference?” ~ Peter Drucker.

On Goals:
Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. The bigger your goals and the clearer they are, the more excited you become about achieving them. The more you think about your goals, the greater becomes your inner drive and desire to accomplish them.

On Creative Procrastination:
The fact is that you can’t do everything that you have to do. You have to procrastinate on something. Therefore, procrastinate on small tasks. Put off eating smaller or less ugly frogs. Eat the bigest and ugliest frogs before anything else. Do the worst first! Everyone procrastinates. The difference between high performers and low performers is largely determined by what they choose to procrastinate on.

One of the most powerful of all words in time management is the word no! Say it politely, Say it clearly, say it regularly as a normal part of your time management vocabulary.

On Continuous Learning:
There are frogs you can eat, or learn to eat, that can make you one of the more important people in your business or organization. Keep asking yourself: “What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”

“Why am I on the payroll?” This is one of the most important questions you can ever ask and answer, over and over again, throughout your career.

As it happens, most people are not sure exactly why they are on the payroll. But if you are not crystal clear about why you are on the payroll and what results you have been hired to accomplish, it is very hard for you to perform at your best, get paid more, and get promoted faster.

Guard your Physical Health:
Feed yourself as you would feed a world-class athlete before a competition because in many respects, that’s what you are before starting work each day.

photo credit: TimmyGUNZ

On Technology:
Discipline yourself to treat technology as a servant, not as a master. Technology is there to help you, not to hinder you. The purpose of technology is to make your life smoother and easier, not to create complexity, confusion, and stress.

On Leaders:
The world is full of people who are waiting for someone to come along and motivate them to be the kind of people they wish they could be. The problem is that no one is coming to the rescue.

Only about 2 percent of people can work entirely without supervision. We call these people “leaders”. This is the kind of person you are meant to be and that you can be, if you decide to be.

See yourself as a role model for others. Raise the bar on yourself. The standards you set for your own work and behavior should be higher than anyone else could set for you.

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Editor’s Note:  The following post was generously contributed by GTDtimes reader Erik Hanberg.  A writer and web developer with a strong interest in the arts Erik makes his home in Tacoma, Washington.  In addition to his principal freelance work,  he is also a founder of a co-working space and the creator of the Horatio Theater.  You can read more of Erik’s excellent work at his blog: erikemery.com.

Too Much to Do

In April of this year, I left my full time job to “go freelance.” My schedule has been all over the place as a result. Between writing and doing web development for my fiancé’s graphic design firm,  managing my coworking office space in downtown Tacoma, operating my small theater production company, presiding over my condo association,  trying to get a novel published, and last - but most certainly not least  - getting married at the end of the year; you could say I’m a pretty busy guy.  While no single one of these activities takes up a full work week, the number and variety of things I needed to do made me feel like I was dropping the ball on all of them.

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Since the last book I gave away garnered so many requests I’ve decided to do it again.  Actually, I’d been meaning to write about Jim Clemmer’s Moose on the Table for some time now it’s an enjoyable story that in spite of its entertaining disguise contains some very useful techniques to help improve your communication skills.

With the exception of those few people that seem to have the magic ability to communicate effectively seemingly under all circumstances and with anybody, most of us occasionally struggle with one of the most crucial aspects of our day to day lives - communicating effectively with others.  Whether with an employee that you are hoping to motivate to step it up a notch, to a surly teen that thinks she or he knows everything (after all they heard it on MySpace, right?) or your grumpy division director who always seems ready to make life miserable just because she can; the higher the stakes in a given conversation the higher the likelihood you won’t be understood the way you wished.

Anyone that has ever had a conversation do the dreaded 180 (read any guy who has had their girlfriend ask if she looks fat in something) knows exactly what this feels like and I’m certain I’m not alone when I say that any resource that can help you learn ways to prevent this from happening in the future is well worth the time spent to gain that knowledge.  (when it comes to the dreaded “Do I look fat in this?” I suggest running from the room screaming “the dog is on fire!” or anything else bizarre enough that you can make the door before your loved one figures out you don’t wish to have this particular discussion at this time - however this advice is much less likely to be effective in a board meeting when asked for this month’s sales numbers)

All humor aside, Jim, who has penned multiple other works including “Vip Strategy“, “Firing on All Cylinders”, “Pathways to Performance” and other books takes us on an entertaining journey featuring an individual who looks like he’s got it all but who is really barely holding it together.

In many respects this book parallels “The Myth of Multitasking” in the way it delivers the knowledge the author wishes to impart upon the reader.  While I wouldn’t call this great literature I would definitely say that it’s a fun way to learn some new and very useful methods to get your point across, lead more effecitvely and build consensus among co-workers.

So…if you’re a GTDtimes reader who would like one of the two copies of “Moose on the Table” here’s what you need to do:  simply write to me via email at editor at GTDtimes dot com and provide me with the answer to the question below as well as your full name and mailing address.

Here’s the question:  Recently David Allen come up with a brand new set of concepts related to software for GTD.  He referred to this as “the five I’s” of software.  What you need to do is be one of the first two people to write me who correctly provides the five I’s in the correct sequence.  (and no, I’m not going to make it easy by providing a link.  You have to find the information for yourselves.  Good luck to one and all.

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By Steve Borsch

In a time when uncertainty is accelerating, budgets have been cut and revenues downtrending, threats from terrorism and epidemics (e.g., avian flu) are increasingly driving companies and individuals to better anticipate and manage risk, we all need better tools. The embrace of the Getting Things Done system by an ever increasing number of individuals and organizations — and those of us who recognize that collaboration is more critical than ever before — continue to seek tools that are easy to use, fast, intuitive while helping us to be more productive, creative and efficient, especially as we’re increasingly mobile.

The mobile reality is that more of us are accelerating our mobile and multiple internet-connected device usage (e.g., laptops or smartphones accessing over wifi or wireless cellular networks) — while still desiring the use of data that originates on our desktop machines or that which resides online in the ‘cloud’ — and you have the key motivators that were behind the creation of a new, collaborative application with a GTD twist.

A successful entrepreneur and chief technologist (he was formerly CTO of HighJump Software), CEO Steve Kickert’s Riverock Technologies recently launched OnePlace, an online collaboration and GTD tool that has a good shot at being a hub positioned directly in the sweet spot of what’s needed today.

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Back in college I, like so many students, took an introductory psychology course.  Unlike most students, however, I still remember exactly what the professor said first in the first lecture of that course.  He said:

“Psychology is unique amongst the sciences for one particular reason.  That which we strive to comprehend - the brain, and that which we use to comprehend it - the brain, are of equal complexity.”

Perhaps to other students this revelation was less insightful or more stupefying or perhaps I was the only one in the hall insufficiently hungover to have failed to grasp what was said, but regardless of the reason, this simple opening statement made an indelible impression upon my brain such that two decades later I can conjure up in my minds eye nearly every detail imaginable about this moment in time.  I may never know why those words said at that precise moment had such an impact on me, but for the first time I have a clearer idea of what was happening in my head to make such a recollection possible.

That is the beauty of John Medina’s Brain Rules, a work of such scope and clarity that I believe you’ll feel, as I do now, that for the first time ever I’ve had a glimpse into the inner workings of my own mind and gained a new level of understanding for much of what is happening inside my thick skull.  Even for those of us that don’t have a science background this work is exceptionally accessible.  Medina brushes aside the typically incomprehensible words and the dozens of insider acronyms common to the language of neurologists, molecular biologists and other learned individuals with lots of letters after their names.  Medina synthesizes the jargon and the science and brings it down to a level where it is understandable to the layman.  More importantly, from this information he distills  practical concepts that can be put to use to help us maximize our individual intellectual capabilities.

To say I enjoyed this book is to put it mildly.  The truth is that I lost all feeling in both feet I was so wrapped up in reading I didn’t notice that the way I was seated was cutting off the circulation to my lower extremities for the better part of 200 pages!  (which I am certain will form an indelible memory of its own)

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If you happen to have an iPhone I have a treat for you. Ambient composer and artist Brian Eno in conjunction with Peter Chilvers and application developer Opal Limited have just released an application for your device that truly demonstrates what happens when a prodigious creative talent like Eno is given a blank slate I’m imbued with the capabilities native to Apple’s evolutionary hand held platform.

Bloom is part do it yourself composing tool, part ambient sound generator, part relaxation and meditation and a complete pleasure to use for personal entertainment.  Bloom is, in my humble opinion anyway, the most creative use of the iPhone to date. Without question worth the $3.99 price tag from the iPhone App Store.

Eno and Chilvers call this unique combination of composition and machine iteration Generative Music.  Although it is quite simple actually in terms of functions it is nevertheless capable of nearly infinite variation making for a piece of software that can entertain and at the sane time provide some health benefits for as long as you have your phone.The application provides a combination of aural and visual stimulus incorporating pastel circles that appear atop a contrasting but also pastel background. The circles are produced in response to the touch of your fingers upon the screen and will vary in size and persistence based upon how long your touch lasts and apparently also to how much pressure you apply.  The tones generated vary in pitch depending where upon the screen you place your fingers.

The result is a tonal and visual composition of your own creation that can be saved if pleasing or deleted with a quick shake if less than sonorous. What’s more there is even a setting that allows the application to take your original piece and if left idle will evolve your work over time. In addition to the creative mode you can also select a passive listening mode where the program will randomly create ambient music that is pleasant to hear combined with colors peaceful to regard.

The one complaint I do have about Eno’s creation is simply that it intuitively begs to do even more. One wants to explore beyond the simple touch / tap interface into other more complex movements; to smear one’s fingers, one, two, three at a time -to drag out certain notes or stifle others. Those with a good ear will long for the ability to move beyond pitch and gain more complete tonal control while visual artists will undoubtedly wish for the ability to change color, to alter hue, depth, intensity and luminosity.Don’t let that dissuade you from purchasing this delightful little application though; after all this is only V-1.0 and knowing Eno he craves the added functionality worse than anyone meaning the application will likely evolve just like the compositions you make with it do.

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