Productivity is memorio-habitual in nature

A friend just shared this little article on productivity apps. The article raises questions on the claims of such apps.

The forms of internet-enabled communication have changed every sphere of life. Apps that offer good communication structures certainly help. But again different structures suit different kinds of people. And now there's also an issue of how many communication structures do people adopt to really stay productive, even if we debate the meaning of 'productivity'?

My observation is that folks that can work well with their memories (not the app ones or computer ones. One has to remember at least the name of the app or the location of the folder on the computer screen or hard disk to use the app or the folder) are productive. Mind you, I am not saying 'folks that memorize well'. I am saying folks that can work well with their memories. The way memories work, quite a bit of it is still a mystery. But the triggers you can offer your memory to respond to make the memories work anyway.

On the mobiles or computers, all apps, apart from communicational functions, trigger memories in certain ways. Cockpit Planner also offers triggers that helps one work well with one's memories.

Try the apps. Try the Cockpit Planner. See the difference.

I don't use productivity apps anymore.

Why Strangers adopt Cockpit Planner more readily?

That's quite a conclusive question.

It could also be that, in terms of absolute numbers, I meet more strangers in the context of Cockpit Planner than near and dear ones. It could also be that with the near and dear ones I am not as 'passionate' in pitching the idea of Cockpit Planner than when I am with strangers. It could just as well be that I've got an amazing geniusy rub-off on my friends that they don't need the very product of my genius. Or just the fact that I am likely to make friends with geniuses.

Since I don't believe the above to be true, let's get down to addressing the conclusive question. Why?

Cockpit Planner is a sort of meta-tool. Meta = higher order. It makes the mind work on itself before the mind allows itself to work on other things.

Looked at this way, a friend or a near and dear one would often feel offended by the fact that I (Siddharth Soni) could give birth to Cockpit Planner. He ('she' unlikely) would think,

"So now Siddharth (so fuckin familiar and such a snobby failure how many times I've witnessed him) will tell me how to use my mind! How to do my work! BS! Fuckin, I buy and he makes money."

"My mind's working super fine. Just yesterday I spent the entire day analyzing the entire stupidity of my work and make money out of it nonetheless. And he's telling me to plan. Stupid ass!"

"Bloody, I just bought this expensive smartphone and downloaded this hyper-cool app to prepare my to-do list and he's asking me to write with my fingers on a piece of paper! How absurd and retrogressive!

"Such a heavy pad! How many meters can I walk carrying such a thing!"

"One more rough pad. Let's hear him out anyway though!"

Without any familiarity, without any preconceived ideas about the planner or the originator or the origins, a stranger would instead marvel at the sheer existence of the tool.  He's more likely to thank himself for discovering Cockpit or for the chance to come across Cockpit Planner. He's just a little more likely to give it a try.

Some strangers are trying out Cockpit. Taking pains to write back how it's helping them. To convey that it introduces a little pleasure and a good amount of discipline and lots of anticipation towards the day's work early in the morning.

Your memory is a monster!

You heard it right.

I have a profound appreciation for this quote by John Irving:

Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!

I can, and perhaps even you can, vouch for this. You think you have a memory; but it has you! Your memory has a will of its own. Hard to digest but very very hard to refute.

I am active, I am agile, most often I am alert. However, for long I struggled to get a grip over stuff I would want to do during the day. Why? Because it would be strangely difficult to recall all the different things.

The 11 handles that Cockpit Planner shows on the daily page make it mighty easy for anyone to recall the different things that need to be done on a typical work-day. And when you recall, you are far more likely to do it. Yes, while 'your memory still has you', it offers good access and behaves rather congenially for all practical purposes.

Hope your memory allows you to recall at will in 2015. Hope you and your memory accomplish a good deal!

Pic found here

To work on a system that makes us work

It's needed but it's kind of weird.

Let's say we need to prepare for the preparation! The same thing can easily go like we need to prepare to prepare for the preparation. It's a strange loop, no?

Yesterday I was sitting with our neighbor-entrepreneur Hirenbhai. And while showing the Cockpit Planner to him I uttered, "We can't keep working on the system that makes us work!" And he gave an instant nod of acknowledgment. He added, "That's precisely the problem. We have a CRM installed but to work on the CRM itself requires too much of work."

Having shared the above however, I must also say, that we indeed have to build a system that makes us work. It is just that we can't be spending disproportionate time on building the system of work. Otherwise who'll do the 'work'. Yes, that's the quandary we often find ourselves in.

Cockpit Planner is a system that might work for you if you are looking for a work-system. It is self-explanatory. Fast. Covers all aspects of a typical work-day.

And if you are gifting, you might want to consider this. Bulk orders will be priced accordingly.

You can buy here. Or you can get in touch +91 814 000 2228. Call or Whatsapp, either way is fine.

Why don't we keep promises?

Every time we end a conversation, we say something to the other person. I call them little promises that, if kept, make things happen. Couple of examples... I'll call you tomorrow. I'll send you the proposal. And then?

You forget calling. You forget sending the proposal.

You might feel guilty. If you don't feel guilty, the other person might hold you guilty. May be it just isn't deliberate. It's natural to be forgetful. If this is believed, it's a universal condition. Forgetfulness is universal.

The sickness can be remedied. If it's Cue-dependent Forgetting, then what can be the solution? Cues! Cues like the ones we've presented to you in Cockpit.

Don't set goals in 2014. Create a system.

So what are you going to do next year? The question emerges out of nowhere as soon as one year comes to an end and the other's about to begin.

I am picking this little bit from Shane Parrish's blog post where he discusses 10 take-aways from Scott Adams' latest book.

Systems trump goals.

This was fascinating. I’ve long thought that the balance of organizational thinking towards goals versus systems is in need of some reflection.

Adams has looked for examples of people who use systems versus those who use goals. In most cases, he’s discovered that people using systems do better and they are more innovative. “The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways,” he says in the WSJ.

If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.
…
[O]ne should have a system instead of a goal. The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavours. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system.
…
Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous pre-success failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good every time they apply their system. That’s a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.
…

Goal-oriented people mostly fail. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds, you will constantly think that you are not at your goal until you reach it. If you fall short you’re still a failure. The only way to reach your goal is to lose the 20 pounds. It’s a state of near perpetual failure.

What you really want is a system that increases your odds of success. Even if that system only improves the odds a little it adds up over a long life. In organizations this means, for example, you should care more about the process by which you make decisions than analysis. It also means that you should focus on building a system that evolves, improves, and survives ego. Systems increase the odds of getting lucky. Or, if you want to put it another way, they reduce stupidity.

Goal seekers optimize whereas systems thinkers simplify.

Cockpit is a system. A system which puts you into a cycle of getting the important little things done one after another after another.

The Technology of Cockpit

Let me start with an analogy. Thomas Hughes writes in Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture (science * culture)

Landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn’s definition of landscape in The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design (1984) suggests a way of thinking about technology. For her, landscape connects people and a place, and it involves the shaping of the land by people and people by the land. The land is not simply scenery; it is both the natural, or the given, and the human-built. It includes buildings as well as trees, rocks, mountains, lakes, and seas. I see technology as a means to shape the landscape.

Cockpit is a technology to shape the landscape of mind to lead us to a good work-day. Yes, wire-bound sheets of paper printed in a certain format containing just 11-phrases/words (which we call prompts). And we all think it's bloody difficult, is it?

My cousin felt guilty

Yes, she said she felt guilty looking at Cockpit Planner and trying to use it for a couple of days! She also said that she knew that the prompts given in there are just what needs to be done.

On days when my biological clock isn't quite in rhythm and I hardly come to do anything that I can term 'work' and then I open Cockpit, I feel that same emotion. Guilty. And I banish Cockpit out of sight and sulk more. The next morning though, when I feel alright and Cockpit just throws the same prompts back at me, I am glad I'm on the job right away.

Feeling guilty is important. Like wikipedia states:

Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has compromised his or her own standards of conduct or has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation.

Not doing anything is also a kind of doing that ends up a violation. We know it. Cockpit will prompt you to make things happen. Every day. And it's alright to feel guilty at times.

Puppy pic source: http://healthychicks.wordpress.com

Soul Sharing - Gmail and Cockpit

By now, most of the Gmail users would've enabled the tabbed inbox configuration.

For emails, I conceived of a somewhat similar (though technically and practically I must admit, it could be tougher) arrangement quite a few years (more than 6 years) back. We would all agree, Gmail team has done this job beautifully though it's 2013 :).

While we couldn't execute the email stuff back then, what we've done with daily planning for an individual is very much the same as Gmail's execution of tabbed inbox. Care to find out the soul-sharing? Order a copy of Cockpit now! 814 000 2228.

The 4A'es of Planning

That's a hoax I could perpetrate.

Actually it's RCPS.

Those are the broad stages in the order given - top to down - that the mind would follow if it gets down to planning really really meticulously.

Also the thing is, for us to schedule, it becomes imperative consciously or unconsciously to pass the 3 stages. Without that, scheduling could often be a real pain and it often is.

Interesting point also is that the typical 'calender', 'to do list' diaries and apps, and the annual dated planners directly ask you to schedule. Really speaking, they haven't figure out how to make us recall and categorize. Obviously, if it's difficult to recall, it's difficult to prioritize anyway. If you can't prioritize what's the point of any schedule. In essence, work still happens rather haphazardly.

With Cockpit, the first two stages become so obvious and simple. Recally and Categorizing. Once the first two stages are crossed, you'll see that Prioritizing and Scheduling also become very easy to pull off.

No one took you seriously, any idea why?

Everyone wants a good laugh. That's tough but it's also difficult to believe you are serious.

That's the problem with execution. Your intention, conviction, seriousness - all these are difficult to believe for the other person. Forget the greatness of your idea. Some guys would respond only if you really showed the persistence to follow up like mad. Your madness proves that you are serious.

On the other hand, for quite a few of us, following up with some one is kind of embarrassing. Perhaps if following up once isn't so, doing that twice or thrice, definitely so. In effect, the (assumingly hurt) ego serves as a good barrier to show really that you are serious.

Cockpit offers a space and a mechanical framework which strips the process of following up of its emotional embarrasive charge. By making it mechanical, Cockpit sort of spurs you to follow up like crazy, once, twice, thrice, today, tomorrow, day after and prove yourself mad and dead serious about what you are up to.

It is when you are believed to be serious, execution begins.

Ontology of Daily Planning

It's easy to recall things which have a form. Visible form.

What's the form of 'doing' in the context of work? We have words for those forms because we utter them day in and day out. And yet, when it does come down to planning the day early in the morning, those words don't appear on paper so obviously. And those forms are strangely elusive. Of course, the form of 'doing' is so often invisible, unless actually performed.

Cockpit is an answer, a visible form for that invisibility.

Sustaining the execution loop

Loop isn't a seat on a merry-go-round seat that you climb onto a seat and then it takes you round and round and round and then you climb out and say, "It was fun".

When we execute anything, unless we are endowed in the godly ways, we have to work with or take help of others. And that requires getting into the loop of conversation.

Business being business, and people being people, it takes effort to stay in the loop of conversation. Sometimes, others don't do enough to stay in the loop. You've to gather them and push them enough to stay a part of the loop.

And if you are the one to take initiative, it goes without saying that you have to initiate the loop. And if you have initiated the loop, in all likelihood at least for a while when the natural tendencies propel others to stray off the course, you have to follow up to keep them into the loop. Once, twice, thrice. May be more.

Sometimes, the incessant follow up could be too much to handle and you might've to accept that others do not stay in the loop. Respect your failed effort and move on. Get yet others into the loop.

The Italians surely have a Cockpit-like mechanism in place

Here's a piece of a letter (which forms a part of their book HERE & NOW) J.M. Coetzee wrote to Paul Auster:

I've been to enough cultural events in Italy by now not to be unnerved by the chaos that seems to envelop them. No one is sure exactly where the session is to take place, the man who looks after the sound system cannot be located, the interpreter is up in arms because no one has informed her of the running order, etcetera, etcetera. Yet when the hour arrives, everything goes off smoothly: the audience miraculously knows where to come, the sound system works, the interpreter does a first-class job. The chaos turns out to have been spurious: we can run an event perfectly efficiently, the Italians seem to be saying, without fetishizing efficiency - in fact, we can turn the running of an event into a diverting little comic drama of its own.

Guess, this sounds familiar for a lot of events that we ourselves have arranged or have been a part of.

Strict scheduling format like that of a Franklin Planner for day to day work is over-rated. And we know efficiency resulting out of that scheduling effort surely is way way over-rated. Guess, we've observed and experienced that too.

Before any effort at scheduling for the purposes of efficiency, one ought to recall what exactly it is that needs to be undertaken. One will notice that as compared to Franklin Planner, the Cockpit AIT Planner is far far better at scooping out of our heads what needs to be done.

Understanding the impact of frequency of 'responding'

Source: http://thisisindexed.com

My eyes light up every time someone talks about 'responding'.

Suppose, in the above graph, you replace the word Stimulus with Execution. And suppose, likewise, we also replace the phrase 'rioting in the streets' with 'quality execution at the workplace'. Or perhaps use a bigger buzz-phrase 'innovation in the organization'... Yes, we get how 'responding' affects the execution of plans.

Too much of it, and there's disturbance instead of execution. Too little of it, and there's almost nothing happening.

Cause-Effect mapping to diagnose the effectiveness of a daily planner

Source: funnytimes.com

Every tool, device, machine is structured/designed to deliver something based on certain hypotheses. The structure itself gives us clues about causes and effects which formed the bases for creating the tool in the first place.

Daily Planners are tools. And the most popular planner called the Franklin Planner is based on a certain thinking. And so is Cockpit AIT Planner, which is going to be launched pretty soon.

Here's a cause-effect mapping of both. For you to judge how it works better.

Franklin Planner
You have 9 working hours every day. You divide them every day into hourly or half-hourly time slots so that you can schedule your tasks, and do them one after another according to the schedule.

Cockpit AIT Planner
You have many important tasks, but they are difficult to recall from your memory day after day after day. You refer to certain prompts every day so that you can easily recall and note down the important tasks, and do them during the day, according to a schedule or according to your convenience.

Recalling from memory is a necessary condition. Strict scheduling, not necessarily so. If you can recall, you can schedule. If you can't recall, there's no question of scheduling.

Our take: Time's always there. You have to recall all that you've to do, before you schedule some things that you've to do. 

Origins, two and a half years back

That's how my day planner based on Franklin Planner format looked like at one point in time. Here the day is Friday, 25th Feb, 2011! Yes, about 2 years and 4 months back!

Those who are particular about getting things done might be scribbling such things down in their planners on many days. And yet, just a little laxity or lapse in attentiveness (or foraging into one's memory) would mean a lot of important little stuff/steps just wouldn't happen. That surely happened with me on many many occasions.

Though the format didn't quite facilitate it, to plan to be able to execute well day after day, I made a simple distinction between scheduled tasks and fluid tasks (the ones which could be done anytime during the day). I also noted down the habits/skills I wished to develop right on top. And below that, the projects that needed attention every day.

While setting up my own venture, as I sensed the issues of execution and the nature of activities we all do day after day, I came to identify and name the universal prompts that helped develop the Cockpit AIT Planner.

Making music out of a workday

Image Source: www.wired.com

We can wish that our day turns out like music. Though, like in the picture, the orchestra isn't arranged so beautifully. And the notes aren't written in advance to weave the baton and conduct the making of soul-stirring music.

Actually the scene has changed a bit. A few days' worth of time sitting in the Cockpit and you'll write the notes, weave the baton, orchestrate, beat the drums, make music and inspire some dancing around. Wanna try?

A Perfect Mess

Franklin Planner, the scheduler which sells in millions across the world (but which doesn't necessarily benefits its users), finds its nemesis in A PERFECT MESS. Or maybe not, because the two products are different. One's a planning diary (more a scheduler, I'd say), while the other's a book on the benefits of disorder. In spirit of course they seem inimical but in material, there's been no option to the Franklin Planner.

As seen on the cover above, the book's premise is 'a little disorder helps more than perfect order'. In the context of planning, in general, perfect scheduling might not be a great way to stay effective at work. Franklin Planner, the way it is structured, tends to impose strict perfect scheduling.

Moreover, Franklin Planner, though calls itself a planner, surely doesn't help in planning all the necessary tasks because, like we've said earlier, it doesn't go beyond offering scheduling slots. It certainly doesn't aid in recalling stuff that needs to be done.

Converting the criticism into material form, here's an alternative to Franklin Planner. Something that introduces flexibility and that little 'disorder' without foregoing or forgetting the essential tasks needed to be accomplished during a typical workday.

Formula for relationship building?

Image Source: michellelaurie.com

Formula is that have no formula but do all that has good chances of building one.

Since we are talking about a phenomenon between two individuals, it involves interaction. If you initiate a conversation, you would require a response or an acknowledgement, right? If the other person initiates, in all likelihood, it would move further only if you respond or acknowledge.

If you initiate but there's no response, you can't forget. Following up might be necessary. Or even meeting up.

In different situations, Cockpit will aid in keeping that important conversation going.