Daniela Gudith

The Input – Output – Noput Balancing Act: How to do what puts you back in balance

April 28, 2016 By Daniela Gudith 1 Comment

Feeling out of whack? Being pulled into a million directions? When we feel off, we can’t bring our A-Game nor do our best work. So what to do when the scales are off balance?

First, don’t panic! As Gary Kelly put it in his book “The One Thing”: “A balanced life is a lie!”. We are basically always out of balance, because time and science have both shown we humans can only do one cognitive thing at a time. If we pretend to do more than one, we are merely switching back and forth between two tasks – and essentially doing neither properly.

Seeing that we are hardwired for imbalance, what hence matters is to actively re-balance yourself. And because I like simple things, I tried to find a system for different types of activities, which can help you find a counterbalancing activity more quickly.

Input refers to the type of activities that have information streaming into your mind as a main focus. Examples are:

attending a lecture
listening to a podcast
reading your facebook stream
watching a TED Talk

Then we have activities where you as a person are putting out data and information and the outcome is the focus of the action:

giving a speech
writing code
writing a blog entry (I am in the blue zone right now!)
creating a sales presentation
cooking dinner

When information is neither coming out nor going in, we are in the yellow zone of what I call Noput. This is the time when we are dealing with what is already there.

sleeping
transcendental meditation
floating
mindfulness meditation

There are also activities that combine any of the states above. When Input and Noput are combined we encounter relaxing activities (orange) such as:

reading a fantasy book
getting a massage
guided meditations
playing a computer game for the one millionth time

Combining Noput and Output brings us in the green zone, some of you literally, when there is an outcome but it’s not the main reason for the activity:

coloring a mandala
knitting the millionth scarf
journaling
a walk on the woods
a work out
hobby gardening

When we have activities that contain both Input for us and Output from us, we are usually in a professional setting:

a factual discussion with a colleague about a problem
collaboratively editing a journal article

The sweet spot, that I have fittingly colored chocolate brown, is when we find activities that touch on all three types of information load. Here are a few activities I would put in that category:

meaningful conversation with a friend
laughing so hard your belly hurts
sex
and yes, even drugs and alcohol (rock’n roll I would put in orange)

I understand that this is a very rough and by no means scientific model. No information entering our system is almost an impossibility. Yet a simplified model like this one can help us understand why we do certain things.

Working with my clients I often find a dominance of Input (red) and Output (blue) in their lives that is counterbalanced with shortcuts to the sweet spot (drugs, alcohol). The Noput zone is often neglected, even when it comes to the most basic “activity”: sleep.

Luckily, we are seeing trends now that put the Noput zone back on the map. Meditation is no longer something only Tibetan monks do, but CEOs and kindergartners alike.

Now, as to the frequency of how often to re-balance your Put-folio (short for Input, Output Noput Portfolio – yes I’m a sucker for lame word jokes 😉 ), I think daily is best. There might be individual differences though.

So give me some feedback! What activities would you add where? How frequently should we re-balance?

Until next time!

Dani

Lag Tolerance: How to deal with delayed gratification in anything you do

October 7, 2015 By Daniela Gudith Leave a Comment

Have you ever walked into your freezing cold house and turned up the heat to medium, waited for the heater to get warm, which it didn’t do fast enough so you cranked up the heat to full power only to be sweating like mad 10 minutes later? Have you ever then turned the heat back to medium or even off?! I know you have; because I have and because we are human.

Not getting the feedback we expect from the environment immediately forces us into a spiral of more and often times unnecessary, even harmful actions. In the example above we have wasted money and burdened the environment.

As humans evolved we went from having immediate effects i.e. kill goat and have food that night to delayed and mediated effects i.e. go to the office, work for one month, receive money for work, go to supermarket, chose and pay for groceries and then have food that night. Pfhoo. That is a prolonged process because we are now part of larger systems.

A whole branch of science within Psychology called Human Factors aims to find out how we as humans represent technological systems (i.e. how that heater works) in our minds and interact with them. Have you ever seen a machine get beaten up by its user? Hit that computer screen that started flickering? Clicked the refresh button of your browser 50 times because that makes it load faster? Written a second text message to your crush asking if he or she got the first message, because they didn’t respond within the first minute? I know you have, because I have and because we are human. Don’t beat yourself up though, it just means that the machine didn’t have a Human Factors expert involved in its design process.

So scientists figured out that feedback from the system is crucial to guiding the user and to avoid machine-al abuse. The heater from earlier didn’t let us know that it needed about 10 minutes to get to the set temperature. And we didn’t have the accurate map of how the heating system works saved in our brains. User error is preprogrammed. But when we see the blue double check marks on a WhatsApp message, we know it was delivered and seen! Which does not guarantee a second message isn’t sent asking why the other person hasn’t responded yet – no technology can be blamed for that 😉

But I didn’t want to give you an intro into Human Factors really; I wanted to tell you about the inevitable lag that happens when you operate in any system especially online publishing systems aka the Internet. I want to show you how to deal with lag and delay in a more constructive way.

Take for example my hobby blog andcute.com, some articles didn’t get much feedback until months after they were first published. In fact, one of the most popular posts on my blog had zero views on the day it was posted but 13000 about 4 months later. In a way, we as small online publishers, bloggers or the like are painters whose art and talent are often discovered late in life or even after they are dead – I hope this won’t be the case for us 😉

What this has taught me is that the Internet is not as fast lived when it comes to quality content as we might think. Obviously this does not apply as much to news articles that need to be recent and up to date. But it does apply to a deep analysis of a certain topic that was in the news recently. People will come back to it years later.

So what are the take-aways?

Create like an artist: Do it for yourself. Do what you want to do for the joy of doing it; make it independent of external feedback. I could have gotten discouraged making dishes, styling them, photographing them and writing down the how-tos when I didn’t get any feedback (comments or massive referrals to the article). Instead I started looking at the blog as my own cookbook, a website that I can refer back to for the recipes of my tried and true dishes, a place where I can send my family and friends to who compliment me on something I made. Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comics put it this way recently on Tim Ferriss’ podcast: “Think systems; not goals!” This means you focus on the process – the doing – not the goal, because you will always learn something or grow even if you don’t reach a set goal. In short, make your doing have an internal purpose.

Live at your own pace: When I first started blogging all the classes about great blogging included a “publishing or editorial schedule” and the notion to publish at least several times a week. And there is some truth to it – especially if you strive to be a magazine. But beware that quality articles take time. I have always been amazed by food bloggers who publish 5 new recipes a week – all of them styled to perfection and delicious?! If you know anything about statistics this is impossible for one person to run a blog! In my mind it is more important to publish a few quality articles whenever I feel inspired then forcing myself to pump out anything just because the schedule says so. In short, if you don’t have anything of value to add, keep quiet!

Get to know the system! Whether you are trying to get the house warm, want to blog about your passion or build a professional network do your homework and figure out how the system works. Purposefully use trial and error to figure out the system not waiting for the perfect plan before starting. Find the response times, the interconnected links and moving parts of the system you are trying to master. In short, figure out the rules as soon as you start playing the game!

Do your part! After you have figured out the system to the best of your abilities, you now know in which radius you can act. You know you have to set the temperature gage of your heater to the temperature you want. You know you have to share your blog content on social media to increase your chances of being found. In short, smartly do your part!

Let the system do its part! After you are done figuring out the system (see step 3), this step will be a lot easier for you. When you turn on the heat you will know that in 10 minutes you will be comfortably warm. When you sent out an application, you will know that it takes HR a certain time to review your packet and get back to you. When you write a blog entry, you now know that it might be a while until a like-minded soul from across the world shares your article with its 100000 followers. And you also know what lag time is tolerable. When the DVD won’t eject 5 minutes after you have pushed the button, it is time to take action (non-violent action that is 😉 ). In short: take it easy!

Hopefully these tips will help you bumping up your lag tolerance and freeing yourself from the knee jerk stimuli-reaction madness.

PS. Did you know that one of the most popular blogs Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings with millions of unique views a month has her comments disabled?

PPS. Did you know that we can dive deeper into this topic when we start working together? Shoot me an email hello @ danielagudith . com

How to effectively make and use a To-Do list

April 28, 2015 By Daniela Gudith Leave a Comment

Writing things down unburdens the brain – this is news to noone. To-Do lists are also a very old concept, I would assume one of the earliest of its kind were the ten commandments (I might have to retract that, those commandments were probably more of a what-not-to-do-list?!). Anyway, in recent years a whole industry has built around stationary and papieterie – systems of planners, templates, sticker, tags, clips, neon pens and fancy fonts – all at our finger tips to help us be organized and stay on task. If you are more of the digital type you also get your choice of apps and programs to help your brain’s memory out.

I love to-do lists (I will call them TDL for short – remember it’s all about efficiency 😉 ) My first order of business each morning is to sketch out what I want to accomplish that day and writing that down on a bulletin point list. Easy as pie, one might think. But behold, there are plenty of things that can go wrong! Below I have gathered some mistakes I have made when creating my TDL. I am sharing these with you in hopes you can avoid them and rather follow my tips:

spend the night before thinking about all the things you need to put on your TDL tomorrow:
-> rather, make the list the night before, so your mind is free to doze off into wonderland (I know, mindblow! 😉 )
too many things, for too little time: i.e. painting a whole room, baking a cake, cleaning the fridge all in one hour
-> determine how much time in total you want to spend on checking things off of the list
-> estimate how long each item on your list will take to complete
-> put only as many items as will fit your available time on your list (basic arithmetic applies here 1+1=2, 1+1+1+2+4+6 does not equal 2 – not on planet Earth!)
item size is unspecific: i.e. a bulletin point that says “work on website” could mean anything from opening the CMS and changing a headline to redesigning the whole thing
-> have specific tasks that are rather small in chunk size, back to the website example that could mean a bulletin point “adjust font color and sizes”
-> at first glance this might bloat your TDL but essentially you won’t have to DO more (ok, a little more writing when making the TDL) and you get to check more things off the list!
-> have an extra notebook for broad ideas or unspecific projects you want to tackle in the future
roll-over items: Similar to cell phone roll-over-minutes (those minutes you don’t use and get to take into the next month) – not sure if that is still a thing in the US?! – here it means taking items you didn’t check of today and putting them on tomorrow’s TDL. That’s a no go! “But, Daniela, it has to get done!”, you say?! “Sirs and Ma’ams,” I say, “Really?!”
-> evaluate the item that was left over and figure out why it was left behind? Was it too big and not broken down enough in single tasks? Was the time allocated to it realistic? Is it too early in the process to have this item on the list? Is it really important? Chances are it’s not! Only put a revised items back on your next list, that have a fair chance in life to get ticked off – you don’t want to make them your eternal hostage!

That’s all fine and dandy. There are about a million more check lists on how to make check lists on the internet. Here comes the real kicker though and essentially what this post is really about. This has been my personal experience and I might not be alone with that. After having worked long and hard, the whole TDL is checked off. I feel a short phase of elation when I cross off the last item (I don’t do check marks, I am really making a point – get it, point!? – to have owned and defeated the item with several long and hard pen strokes all across it!). Then I fall into a big hole of emptiness. Now what? What’s next? Should I add more? Get a head start on tomorrow’s list?

Then it dawned on me that all the lists in the world would be useless unless I FELT accomplished. So the accomplishment in itself (having done all the things I wanted to do) is from a memory and emotional perspective nonexistent unless I acknowledge it as such. No adding more items! No more chasing after the carrot! Stop the madness!

not feeling accomplished: done and forgotten, on to the next! Not so fast!
-> read over your whole checked off (or crossed out) list and feel the difference, evaluate how much time you have spent on each item, see how much further you are in the whole process! Did you enjoy what you did? Which item was the most fun? What could you do better next time?
-> reward yourself for creating an accomplish-able list and working on all the items on it. How about some iced tea? Or a Latte?

Hope this was helpful and you will find yourself feeling accomplished after you’ve tackled your TDL!

Until next time!

Daniela