How Going Down Rabbit Holes Helped Me Stay Sane

When we allow ourselves to get lost in our thoughts and explore every inch of a subject we are able to find details that we didn’t know existed. Allowing ourselves this time lets our minds wander and learn, which is crucial to problem solving and critical thinking. To keep our heads down all day and not let our minds explore new topics will ultimately limit our creativity.

The term “going down a rabbit hole” is a term used to describe an individual or a group that blocks out all other subject matter and hones in on one topic with zero distractions. We explore that singular idea forwards, backwards, upside down, inside out, and from all angles. We find out new things such as how it works or how it might work, and what we would have to do to implement it. In the business world when going down a rabbit hole, we keep our heads down and neglect to see how our ideas/plans/topics fit in line with the rest of our strategy.

This term stems from Alice in Wonderland’s experience of following the rabbit down it’s hole for an unforeseen adventure. We can often do the same, not knowing what we are getting ourselves into. This can lead to major breakthroughs or it can lead to major wastes of time.Rabbit Holes

I go down rabbit holes quite often, and if you’re reading this you go on those journeys with me. Today for example, I wanted to explore this term since Travis and I use it frequently when discussing our work with Epic Day. When I allow myself to get lost and write on a  particular subject I block as many distractions as possible, I reach back to my experiences on the given subject, and I explore as many angles of the topic I’m writing about. There is often research that is involved used to either reassure my thoughts or further explain them and this additional research adds to my knowledge on each given subject.

A rabbit hole usually has a negative connotation aligned with it because these obnoxiously focused bouts are not always planned and can be on unrelated topics to our work. However when we focus on the right things at the right times and block out unnecessary distractions, we are free to fall as far down the rabbit hole as time permits.

The key here being time.

It’s a disciplined stray, it’s allowing ourselves to go on these mental explorations but only when the time is right. I do my best to allot time in the early morning to fall down rabbit holes while keeping the rest of my day structured so I can focus and get things done. In my research for this post I came across another blog that explained how we need time to put our nose to the grindstone and we need time to have our head in the clouds to maximize our potential. I couldn’t agree more.

To stay focused on my work during the day I do my best to write out the most important task(s) for the day and get that done first, then prioritizing my tasks. Nowhere in my day-time work do I have scheduled “rabbit hole” time. However if I find myself on a subject I want to know more about I’ll clip it or write it down in Evernote and come back to it when I can allot the proper time – usually in the early morning or on the weekend.

Allowing myself this freedom of exploration has enabled me to stay focused during the day and still get into new and interesting subject matter in the mornings. If I didn’t have this time I would not be able to get work done and keep multiple projects afloat, I would go insane.

 

What is the most interesting rabbit hole you’ve let yourself go down? Was it applicable to the business?

Seven Creativity Tips that are Right Under our Noses

Nearly every job in today’s marketplace requires some sort of creativity. We don’t all need to produce oil paintings or music to make good use of creativity. It comes out in our day to day interactions with customers and peers, in our problem solving, and even in our accounting processes. If we are always giving our best to our work, we’re always looking for ways to improve it. If we’re always looking to improve it, we need to constantly view it from different angles.

As I talked about in my Top 8 Productivity Tips, I am constantly listening to and reading about productivity as well as creativity and how to apply these practices to our work. I’ve accumulated some tips and tricks to help bring the best out in us and they’re listed below. This is a list of practices that will help bring the creative side out of us, allowing us to focus on what message or ‘portrait’ we want to get across to the world. One of my favorite quotes is “A mind stretched by a new idea can never return to it’s original form” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Use these creativity tips to begin thinking about projects from all angles and don’t let the excuse, “I’m not creative enough for that” ever hold back!

1.) Varying experiences

Before we even sit down to hone in on our work, we need to have varying experiences to pull from if we want to maximize our
Creativity Tipscreativity. We have all heard of people having ‘ah ha’ moments that lead to breakthroughs or inspiration, right? Many times these don’t come while actually working on the projects that demand our attention and creativity. An example of a new experience for me was last week when I went rock climbing at a local bouldering gym instead of normal gym routine. I got to do something new and fun while still getting a workout in, and it was not time I had to create in my schedule since I already planned on going to the gym. The climbing experience helped me note some great things about climbers as well as pick up some new vocabulary terms so when we put out our “Rock Climbing 101 Guide” with Epic Day, I’ll have some user knowledge. We tend to amaze ourselves when we step out of our comfort zones and try new things.

2.) Good In: Good Out. Bad In: Bad Out

What we intake has an effect on our output, this is well documented. Just as who we surround ourselves with affects our how we act, we are all influence-able. I loathe mindless reality TV shows like The Kardashians and every one of the Housewives shows. If they are even playing in another room as static noise I feel like I’m getting dumber just from the echoes. What we put into our minds does not just sit there, it has to come out in some form. So when we spend our time watching ‘E’ and catching up on gossip, we find our minds wandering to those topics in conversation and slowly that’s what becomes important to us. Fortunately this is easy to fix: stop doing things that don’t bring you value. Instead of playing PS4 for hours on end pick up a book, or watch a documentary about something you’re interested in, go do something interesting that you’ve never experiences before, or maybe try having a conversation with . When we put good in, we push good out. The more we compromise on what kind of materials we put in, the lower of quality we will put out.

3.) Physical Care

This is a simple concept: when we feel bad (i.e. sick, overweight, lacking sleep, etc.) we focus more on how bad we feel rather than what we’re producing. Making time for ourselves is so important and is a topic I’ll soon be tackling, if we don’t take care of ourselves how can ever expect to bring our best to others or our work? Making time to take care of ourselves with physical activity, proper sleep, and diet can help produce a clarity of mind that allows us to focus in on producing our best work. There is no secret to this one, it takes time and it takes effort but it brings up our quality of life in all areas, not just creativity.

4.) Alone time
When we’re constantly in crowds, we can never find our own voice. It is important for us to know who we are if we want to produce great work. When we know who we are and where we stand on issues, it’s easy to make tough decisions at work or in our personal lives. Seven Creativity TipsWhen we have alone time we allow ourselves the time necessary to work on or at least think about, what it is that we want to accomplish or what problems we’re trying to solve. It’s good to have influence from the right people at the right time, but working alone on certain things builds confidence and helps us explore our creativity from within. I get some of my alone time while running, some people get it in the cars on a commute to and from work, and still others will make time for it on the weekends when they can unplug from the world completely. These first two are good, but not enough. We need to create time for solo work with no distractions and complete focus. If you’ve never done this, here’s how to start: pick 1 project, turn off all unnecessary forms of distraction (phone, Spotify, TV, etc.), give yourself 1 hour to do nothing but focus on this project, and do not let yourself get up until that hour has passed. You’ll be blown away what happens when you just do the work and don’t let yourself make excuses.
5.) Collaboration Time
Just as we all need alone time, we all need collaboration time. It’s obvious when people are not used to working in groups; they are childish in their demands, they do not take other people’s perspective into consideration, and they apparently don’t know what the word ‘compromise’ means. It’s important for us to work with others so we continue to practice our social skills, to practice that whole ‘compromise’ thing, and for us to be open to objecting points of view. When we are able to see ‘both sides of the coin’ we are able to make better decisions, products, and processes. I don’t want to focus on the dangers of group-think, because there are some, rather the positives of differing points of view and more brain-power. Be sure to schedule any group work on projects after everyone has had their time alone to get the best out of the collaboration time and do everything possible to make sure everyone’s voice is heard in these collaboration times. The biggest #FAIL with collaboration is when one person dominates a group because they’re the loudest, not the one with the best opinion to offer.
6.) Side Projects
I spoke previously on how having side projects can help us in our day to day work. This is because side projects force us to go through new experiences and use our brains in new ways. When we force our minds to work in new ways it allows us to view projects that may be stagnant in a new light, helping us get that breakthrough we’ve been looking for. It also allows our minds to create connections from experience to experience so we can fully understand what we’re working at from every imaginable angle.
7.) Take a Walk
This can be metaphorical or it can be literal, but taking a walk will do wonders when we’re stumped. Physically it keeps us active and helps us to relax. Mentally it gets our mind off the project(s) we’re working on and allows us to press ‘reset’ for a bit. It’s OK to leave a project and come back to it, nothing worth while was finished in one sitting (I took a 4 hour break in writing this post). When we get engulfed in our work we often go farther and farther into the depths of a topic, some call this going into a rabbit hole. When we take a break from the specifics aka take a walk, we are able to pull out of that realm and let our minds look around for a bit. We will constantly have that big project in the back of our minds, and the important things never really go away, but many times the insignificant blocks we come across will fall away when we allow ourselves to take a break. When we return to the task at hand we are able to jump in full force with a renewed sense of focus.
For a more structured view of creativity, check out Todd Henry’s book The Accidental Creative. I liked it, but I don’t agree with every little thing in the book. I am of the opinion, just as with productivity tips, that everyone needs to find their own way and figure out what works for them. The more we learn about the subject, the more of an expert we can become at honing those skills.
What creativity tips can you share with the rest of us? Leave a comment or send me an email to share!

Thanksgiving

I have had blessings beyond belief in my lifetime, and now is no different. Even as I write this I have no shortage of food, a roof over my head, a woman that loves me, as well as friends and family that would be here to help me if I needed them at the drop of a hat. I have nothing in this world to complain about, very few of us in a first world country do.

I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t use the “microphone” I have to express my thanks for everyone and everything in my life. I hope that each of you has a very Happy Thanksgiving, that you get some great relaxing time with friends and family, and that you do not go shopping today. I’m all about some capitalism, but not at the expense of our values.

Tell someone you’re thankful for them today, you never know when your words will change someone’s day!

I’m thankful for each of you!

Why heroes are bad for us

We all need things to aspire towards and people to look up to, but too often we see those we people we long to emulate in a jaded lens.

By now it’s no secret I’m a huge advocate of setting and following through with goals. Goals to accomplish specific tasks and creating baby steps that helps us get there. And many times with these goals we pick up heroes that inspire us to do great work. This can be a good thing to help motivate us if we stay grounded or it can be an obsession that we continually let beat us down.

We pick heroes because we want to accomplish what they’ve accomplished or stand for what they stand for. The dangerous part is not picking heroes and looking up to them, that is a good motivator to get better and I’m all for pushing ourselves. The danger comes when we directly compare our work to that of our heroes.

I have some literary heroes of my own such as Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin whose books have helped inspire me to begin writing. I stumbled upon both of these writers in the past 2 years and have since read many of their books and blog posts. Great inspiration for me to get started on this, however I found myself comparing my first few blog posts to their current work. I found that I was beating myself up because my work was not on the level of theirs. They were more concise, I was more wordy. They were more entertaining, I was straight to the point. They had thousands of readers, I had 2….

I got down on myself for about a day until I realized I was comparing my early posts to a lifetime of work from these two giants. Tim published The Four Hour Work Week in 2007 and was working on it for years prior to that. Seth Godin has been blogging every single day for over 10 years now and has published 17 books. And I was directly comparing myself to their works from today! That’s the equivalent of comparing Peyton Manning to a middle Quarterback that played in one game. And I got down on myself for a time until I realized I am just beginning my journey and these men are in the prime of theirs.

We cannot compare our entry-level work to that of a CEO. Instead we have to compare our current work with our work from yesterday. If we spend our time comparing our own current work with yesterday’s work, we know whether or not we’ve improved (and daily improvement is the key). If we spend our time comparing our work to our heroes work, we’ll fall short every time.

We can’t get better if we’re constantly falling short, we need confidence to grow and be bold. So will today be better than yesterday?

Tell me why, and I’d love to hear who your heroes are as well, I’m always looking for new case studies.

Memorable is Bad

We have interactions every day with various businesses from coffee shops to hardware stores to beauty salons and everything in between. Many of these experiences are exactly what we expected, and some of the special ones are even memorable for a period. But what we don’t encounter every day are unforgettable experiences. Experiences that make us tell friends and family what it was like and why they should go experience it too, even years after their story happened.

Publix grocers are great. They have all the food we need, it’s fresh, and the staff is extremely friendly. And it’s always like that, it’s what we’ve come to expect. There’s usually a slight grin on people’s face as they walk out of the automatic doors pushing their buggies full of groceries and household supplies. But we rarely go out and continue to talk about how great Publix is to our friends and family. We rarely attempt to convince someone to switch from Harris Teeter or Bi-Lo to Publix because Publix is so far superior. Instead we go there each week and we get our groceries and we smile and have small talk with the employees and we go home. We have memorable experiences that fade out after time.

There is nothing wrong with this, Publix is a great company and has a great model. They have one very loyal customer in me, but they don’t stand out head and shoulders above the rest. Many people go to Harris Teeter or Bi-Lo and experience the same thing, it often comes down to preference and geography.

Then there are companies that create unforgettable experiences. These are the places that we walk out of with an open mouth because we’re in awe. These are the places that prompt us to call friends and ask, “Have you been here before? Why didn’t you tell me about them earlier?” These are the unforgettable experiences that people talk about, not just smile about.

When I did sales training I would preach about a ‘wow experience’ for customers from start to finish. Since it was not a traditional furniture store the possibilities were endless, people did not know what to expect so the bar is relatively low for newcomers. The sales people had great influence on how to create that experience and the best ones took advantage of it; combining personal charm with a bit of smart-aleck customer service, and great values in the furniture. This paired with the methods people would find the stores like unforgettable experienceCraigslist, word of mouth, and even seeing paint markers on someone’s back windshield made for an unforgettable story that customers could tell their friends. Plus when people find a great bargain, they are ready and eager to boast to their neighbors about how much money they saved. This made for the perfect storm of referrals for the company.

So how is that replicated in large stores that have been around for years? Or in places like Publix whose customer base might frequent the store multiple times per week. How can they continue to create those ‘wow experiences’ for customers?

Continue to push the limits. Continue to experiment. Continue to make our organizations stand out. The risks are worth the reward to create something that is unforgettable.

What if Publix gave out “Customer of the Month” to the person they see the most or the one that spends the most? Will that be a customer for life? Will that make some people want to win that and frequent the store more often? What if the furniture store sales people all wore bright green polo shirts to work EVERY day with no exception? What if they then added bright green hand-written thank you notes in the mail to their customers after every sale to reinforce their experience? They would begin to stick out even more to customers and encourage them to keep talking. These types of things reinforce the experience and can turn a memorable experience into an unforgettable one.

What can we add to our businesses that will make us unforgettable?

Informational Bottlenecks

Any piece of general information we could ever imagine needing is readily available with the click of a button. It’s easy and fast for us to get the answer to anything we want, just by pressing “search” on a screen. So it stands to reason when we’re in a position of managing others that we have the inclination to want any and sometimes every piece of information at a moment’s notice. Since technology is so advanced we have become accustomed to this urge, but it is a quick path to slowing down the processes of a business.

When we demand to know every detail of a person’s job that reports to us at a moment’s notice, we slow down the flow of work. In manufacturing a bottleneck is the the slowest performing area in a series of operations that affects throughput. Throughput is how many widgets can be completed in a given time period from start to finish. In turn, a “bottleneck” sets the pace for a manufacturing process since it is the slowest process. The fastest that a manufacturing process can move is the slowest operation. If we are the informational bottlenecks in our organization, we are inhibiting the daily throughput of the company.

For example, if a principal wants to know each and every lesson plan of every teacher prior to instructing their kids, the teachers cannot begin to prepare until they have their lesson plans approved. And if they have to wait in line to be approved by the principal one by one, the principal is holding up throughput and the teachers aren’t able to do their jobs effectively, lacking the proper time to prepare.

This type of behavior is often seen in micro-managers. Often times they don’t necessarily do anything with the information, they just want to feel important and exercise their power. Sometimes the check-ups are needed, but the very act still slows down productivity. Fortunately there are ways to combat this if we’re the ones doing the micro-managing AND if we’re the ones being micro-managed.

First off, pinpoint the areas that are the most often identified as the most coveted information (in the teacher analogy it would be the lesson plans) and make this information readily available on some form of multi-user platform such as Google Drive or Evernote. These platforms, and a number of others like them, allow multiple users to view the same document(s) simultaneously and leave notes to each other without having to email or transfer them back and forth. Begin working on one of these types of platforms and “share” the work with the people that are always asking for the information. When this is done, the person in need of the information (whether it’s us or someone managing us) can easily and immediately access the work to “check up on things” without being a bottleneck to the process. The manager gets the information they’re seeking and the workers can work with fewer interruptions, everyone gets what they want.

Utilizing the technology available to us is key in today’s work world. We live in a fast-paced society and speed the speed of our organizations can be a competitive advantage. Micro-managing can and will always happen, but this is one way to slow it down and keep our throughput at a premium.

How do you prevent bottlenecks in your organization?

Stand Firm

I went to Seacoast Church this morning and the message was powerful and inspired me write this today. It’s funny how we can draw inspiration from the varying experiences in our lives if we just look for the connections. I was inspired on one level from the biblical message, but what struck me was their celebration of 25 years since inception. They have been standing firm and growing their church in amazing ways and today they reflected back on the journey.

I am not a regular at Seacoast, however I will be attending much more frequently because of today’s experience. This type of growth can (and does) happen to many organizations, this one just happened to be a church. They began in 1988 with 65 people as what they called a “traveling band” and have since grown to (from what I can tell) 11 campuses, Mount Pleasant being the hub. They have also planted hundreds of churches across the world and continue to do so. And although it is what most would call a ‘mega-church’ it still feels like a small community. We attended a satellite church that showed the main message through a live video feed while the worship was help directly in front of us. Did I mention we went to this service at a rented out movie theater? The entire experience was awesome and the people were warm to newbies, a very welcoming environment that we will undoubtedly be back for.

stand firmBut how can they replicate this experience so well? And what can be applied to our businesses from this? Lots of companies grow fast but cannot sustain that growth and it eventually shrivels back. It’s the organizations that grow steadily and carefully that are the most successful long-term, not the ones that get ‘there’ first. In my brief experience I could see two things that allowed them to grow like this and still make their growth effective.

A.) Solid Culture

B.) Having a central platform

Great people don’t just waltz into organizations, they have to be molded, mentored, challenged, and most importantly retained. When this is repeatedly performed, a great culture emerges and remains present. When the culture is strong in the lead office/church/location it can then be branched out. If the that lead office, church, or location doesn’t know what it stands for and satellites are being planted everywhere, the company culture becomes weak and doesn’t have the same effect in the satellite. Seacoast knows who it is, what it stands for, and what it wants to do. In turn, the same culture is present at each of the campuses. Just as we would find the same setup in a franchise like Subway, we find the same attitudes and smiles in each Seacoast location.

They have been standing firm in their place for 25 years while the world whirls like a figurative (as well as literal it turns out) hurricane around them. The physical representation of this is their live video feed that allows each of the 11 locations to view the same message from Pastor Greg simultaneously at each of the different services. This is genius for many reasons such as keeping costs low and a larger outreach that in turn generates a larger influence. The more heady representation of this is their beliefs: “We exist to help people become fully devoted followers of Christ.” Plain and simple, but most importantly non-wavering.

What do our organizations stand for? Can we boil it down to a simple sentence like Seacoast has done? When we know what we stand for and we are firm in our beliefs we attract people to us like that solid structure during a hurricane. We all need something to hold on to and stand firm in.

Seacoast knows what it stands for and they have been doing so for 25 years. Their growth is amazing, but with such strong beliefs it’s not a surprise.

Follow Through – Goals Won’t Just Attain Themselves (2/3)

Wednesday was the beginning of our series on goals and I wrote of the importance of goals as well as how to come up with them. Today I want to elaborate on how to set them in stone, what to do with them once we’ve set them, and how to actually achieve them. The point of setting goals is to complete them, deciding them is first step. Fortunately, if we’ve already decided our goals, the hardest part is out of the way! Now it’s time to follow through.

Since deciding on what we want to accomplish is out of the way, we can now set our goals in stone. Up to this point we have goals that are pretty flimsy and need to be solidified. Everyone has heard of S.M.A.R.T. goals and it seems cliche but it’s true, our goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. If we’re not Specific and the goals aren’t Measurable, how do we know if we’ve ever achieved them? If they’re not Attainable or Relevant, than why bother working towards them in the first place? And if something is not Time-Bound, we can procrastinate forever and fool ourselves (and others) into believing we’ll get it done ‘someday.’

  • Bad Example: “I want to save money”
  • Good Example: “I am going to put away $250 each month into savings for a year”

Follow ThroughMy Goals are broken down into two categories: Things I want to accomplish by a certain date and things I want to accomplish every day. This is what works for me and this is how I have learned to form good habits. I have longer-term goals such as owning a home on the beach in my hometown by the time I’m 35 and finishing a marathon on December 14th, 2013. I also have daily goals to read, write, do a devotional, and call my Dad. I track these things so I don’t forget to do them on a whiteboard in my room. These serve as daily reminders of what I need to do each day to shape myself into who I need to be. I must do these things each day if I want to accomplish those life-long goals. The daily goals tie into the longer term goals and reinforce them, helping me take baby steps each day towards moving mountains. For example I write every day because I need to practice if I ever want to finish my book.

So up to this point we have set our minds on something and it’s more than likely been all thought. But what is the difference in thinking about something we want to accomplish and thinking about that taco we had for lunch yesterday? Not much… It is easy to have a thought, it is harder to clarify it in conversation, and it is even more difficult to write it out. So a goal is not a goal until is is written down. Writing a goal down A.) Helps clarify what that goal is B.) Serves as a reminder of what we committed ourselves to C.) Is the second step in our process.

Goals can be written down anywhere that is prevalent and they should be written out by hand, not typed. There are scientific studies behind this, but I won’t elaborate here, I just know I my goals are much more attainable when I write them versus typing them. We can write them on an index card and laminate it to carry around with us, we can post it on the refrigerator to see each day, or my personal favorite is to take an dry erase marker and write them on my bathroom mirror so I have to see them each day. This is my way of ‘looking my goals in the face’ each day.

follow through goalsOnce a goal is set, a plan of action needs to be taken. For someone that wants to lose weight, the first thing to do is clear out the fridge of all the mayo, carbonated drinks, sugars, etc. and replace them with fruits and vegetables as soon as possible. For me it was to start the blog and commit to writing each day, setting time aside for the book each week. For the person that wants to save money it’s to start a budget immediately and take out that first $250 from the paycheck before any other expenses are covered. Our paychecks, just as our time spent at work, will expand to the allotment we give it.

The next part of the plan to meet our goals is accountability. Writing out the goals is the personal accountability part, but telling others is the public accountability part. In Goal Setting I gave an anecdote about the sales guys and asking them to set goals for themselves, this was my way of making them accountable to me. We would review their goals from the previous meeting to see what they had done to meet their goals, if they had met them, and what their next steps were. One in particular wrote that he aspired to having his own store some-day, and he was able to achieve that goal not 12 months after he wrote it down and we discussed what it would take to make that happen and I have never been so proud  in my life. My way of public accountability is to send out this blog to as many places as I can find. All I needed was a few readers to text me or email me and say they liked what I had to say and to keep it up, and now I know I have people that are expecting me to write. THANK YOU!

I hope that the length of this post has made us fidgety to get working on our goals and that it has given a full spectrum of how to do it effectively. If not, please leave me a comment or get in touch with me for any clarification that you’d like to see on the blog. Thanks for reading, now put these words into action!

– – –

Here is an amazing podcast on goals from the Entreleadership Team of the Dave Ramsey Network about goals that helped inspire me to write these.