One of the most helpful frames we’ve found at work for focusing meetings or presentations is:

Know – What do you want them to know?
Believe – What do you want them to believe?
Do – What do you want them to do?

Effective is doing the right things for the right results. Efficient is optimizing. It’s the least waste of time and effort.

Before you try to be more efficient, first try to be more effective. There’s no point in optimizing ineffective things. I think of this as first asking, “What do I want to accomplish?”, then asking, “Where can I optimize?”

My manager pointed out to me a while back that today’s problem isn’t information overload, it’s filter failure. Here’s a quote by Clay Shirky, New York University new-media professor, writer, and consultant …

What do we do when we get overwhelmed? We we’re up to our neck in stuff, or worse, in over our head, we shut down, compartmentalize, or we channelize.

The military knows this and they know it well, because lives are at stake. Hospitals know this well because again, lives are at stake. Yet this simple pattern can affect us at home or on the job.

You can use stories and The Rule of 3 to simplify your day and make meaning. Three is just the cap so you can boil your day down into three simple stories (e.g. win a raving fan, have a four star dinner with a friend, and write a game-changing post.)

“The problem of information overload, therefore, may not be the quantity of it but our inability to know what to do with it.” – Danniel Tammet

One of the most important skills I mastered early on at Microsoft, is information management. My ability to organize information directly impacts my success. For me, information management is the key to daily productivity from researching to learning faster to keeping my email inbox empty.

A friend sent me an article about what gets us out of bed each day. It’s “Seeking.” According to Jaak Panksepp, “Seeking” is the granddaddy of our emotional systems. It goes beyond fulfilling our physical needs. We end up in a crazed state of foraging, curiosity and expectancy. The rewards we seek don’t have to actually solve our needs and they don’t need to be physical. Just exploring ideas or coming up with new “ah has” is enough to keep us going.

Being different is a good thing. We all have unique skills we bring to the table. The key is finding your unique 20 percent spike. Your 20 percent spike is your super power. It’s that skill that people can count on you for. Maybe for you it’s writing. Maybe it’s figuring out the business of things. Maybe it’s designing things. When you know what your unique 20 percent spike is, you know your most powerful tool for creating impact or earning a living.

Who doesn’t want more time? We all want more time to do the things we want to do. The reality is, we have to make the most of the time we’ve got. The real problem is we spend time on the wrong things, we do things the least efficient way, or we simply let time expand to fill its container (see Parkinson’s Law.) The real key to improving time management is first changing how you think about your time and taking steps to own how you spend it.

At Microsoft, we use the term “frame” or “framing a problem” in the context of project management. You might hear somebody ask, “what’s the frame?” or “how have you framed the problem?” A Frame is simply a way to partition a problem. The heart of a frame is coming up with a context to understand the dimensions that matter and figure out how to prioritize and scope. I use frames a lot here on Sources of Insight to chunk bigger problems down, as well as to organize and share information. It’s a lens.

Hot Spots are a simple approach I use to organize and prioritize where I put my focus. They help me put the spotlight on what’s important. Hot spots are a heat map for my opportunities as well as for my pain or friction. By focusing on the hot spots, I can unleash the best results. The sum is more than the parts. I can use hot spots to identify, clarify, and simplify where to spend my time and energy, before I maximize and optimize. It’s first stepping back far enough so I can see the forest from the trees, but then getting close enough to know the differences that will make the difference. It’s figuring out where my levers are in the system.

Productivity is a spectrum from day dreamer to achiever. What if we named these various flavors of productivity? Then when you recognize you have the wrong hat on for the job, you can switch hats. For example, maybe you’re thinking “details” when it’s really time for “big picture.” I’m calling these personas, but they’re really just behavior or thinking patterns. I’m highlighting some of the more common personality personas that you’ll easily recognize.

I’ll use personas as a simple way name the different types of behaviors. Anybody can be a mix of some or all of the various personas. No persona is good or bad. Some are more effective than others depending on the situation. The key is to use the personas as a lens on behavior.

The 20 percent spike is a distinctive strength. It’s unusually powerful. Using your 20 percent spike generates exponential results. It’s a way to amplify your impact and maximize results. My 20 percent spike is information artistry. I use this skill to create, organize, and share complex information in a simple way. At work, it helps me write more effective books. At home, it helps me learn faster and turn insights into action. From a service standpoint, it helps me unleash the best in others.

I’m always on the prowl for useful insights.  A colleague, Dustin Andrew, has a useful post, Learn to Get Traction in Your Team.  I like his collection of tips, and I found myself using the phrase, “iterate more, plan less” a few times.  When I joined Microsoft, one of my rules was “avoid analysis paralysis.”  I avoid analysis paralysis by taking action, producing results, and changing the approach as I learn.  I’ve learned to improve by versioning perfection over time.  I find it’s easier to settle for “good enough’ for …

You can use the 80/20 Rule to improve your life. The 80/20 rule simply means that you focus on the 20 percent of the activities that produce 80 percent of the value. This means letting go of the activities that bog you down, in favor of the activities that lift you up. To do this well means first knowing what you do well and then being able to let the rest go. Once you’re willing to let things go, you open up a lot of options.

Knowledge workers can change the game. Knowledge can be used as an asset to improve the effectiveness of your business. Exponentially. You can use knowledge to improve your process or product. You can gain efficiencies or create differentiates. It’s not about having people just spend time in their jobs during the week. It’s about creating enough space where knowledge workers can think of new ways to do things. It’s about harvesting those ideas and turning them into results.

This is the heart of my results system. It’s a pattern I call Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection. It’s probably the single most important thing I teach everyone I mentor. It’s the same approach I use to lead myself and my teams. It’s a way to help set yourself up for success each day. It’s also a way to keep learning and growing. It’s simple, but it’s powerful. In fact, it’s power is its simplicity

This is a follow up to my post, Manage Energy, Not Time. A few folks have asked me how I figure out energy drains and catalysts. Some people jazz you. Some people don’t. Some tasks jazz you. Some tasks don’t. Just paying attention to this fact can help you start to get a handle on your energy. Energy is your premium resource in today’s world. You need to know where your passions come from, just as much as you need to know what gets in the way. Simply noticing this will help you start to see patterns of things you do or who you spend your time with.

This a practice I learned long ago and it’s actually helpful whether it’s day to day or building software. It’s doing worst things first. Rather than save a hurdle to the end, do it up front when you’re you’re strongest.

I use a simple frame for life to help me spend my time and energy on the right things. I call this frame, my “Life Frame.” My life frame is simply a collection of “hot spots” that I invest in. Or put it another way, I think of my life as a portfolio and I try to invest wisely in my key hot spots: mind, body, career, emotions, financial, relationships, and fun. The beauty of having a simple frame is that you can balance your life through thick and through thin. If you have a life frame, you can more thoughtfully allocate your time and energy for maximum results. More importantly, when things aren’t going well, you have a tool to help you spot where you are not investing enough.