Monthly Mulling💡
Productivity Frontlines: From WWII Espionage to Today's High Agency
Hi👋 Tapan here!
It's been a while 😬. For the past five weeks, I've been in India, celebrating Navratri and Diwali with my family for the first time in four years. Amidst all the chaos and festivities, I didn't have the opportunity to write. However, to make up for this month's delay, here are some pictures from my trip 🥹.
🌞 Today, Not Someday: Cracking the Productivity Code
I am currently reading ‘Someday is Today’ by Matthew Dicks. It's a self-help book so obsessively focused on productivity that it makes you question if the author's idea of a break is a power nap while sprinting. I'm usually not a self-help enthusiast – I tend to avoid them like we dodge doing laundry after a draining 9-5 workday.
Despite my reservations, there are a few gems in this book that nudged my thoughts on procrastination and productivity which I wanted to share:
⏱️ The Minute Mindset: Think about your day in minutes, not hours. Ask yourself, do you really need an hour for household chores, or can it be a quick 20-minute sprint?
Have 10 minutes before your next meeting? Will you doom scroll through Instagram or kick-start that pending email?
Adopting a minute mindset seems to clash with the idea of switching costs, but apparently, it works.
It's about making incremental progress. Instead of waiting for that elusive hour to read, why not read 4-5 pages in the 10 minutes you're waiting for the train?
Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most.
- Frank Ostaseski
🚗 The Parking Lot Method: I've been itching to start a digital sketching course, imagining the ideal setting with some Lofi tunes and a cup of chai. But here’s the thing, two months in, and my iPad's screen is as blank as ever.
I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity.
Matthew Dicks offers a reality check with a WW1 analogy. Soldiers weren't waiting for peace and quiet to journal; they wrote amidst the chaos of war, bullets and bombs. It's about seizing the moment, not waiting for perfection.
Individuals who don’t wait for the perfect environment and move things forward will subsequently get things done.
I’ve written eleven books and published nine over the past dozen years because I don’t wait for the right moment to write. I don’t waste time on preciousness, pretentiousness, and perfection.
- Matthew Dicks
🔄 The Non-Linear Approach: Starting a project often feels like a step-by-step journey. We think we need to complete A before moving to B, and so on. But what if we switch it up?
If Project X isn't sparking joy today, why not pivot to Project Y? If you're stuck on step B, maybe leapfrog to C.
The bottom line? Don't stop. Whether it's shifting between tasks or tackling them in a non-linear fashion, the goal is to keep moving forward.
😎 Embracing High Agency: The Power of Resourcefulness
Resourcefulness isn't just a skill; it's a superpower in today's world. It's the hallmark of high-agency individuals.
But what exactly does it mean to be high agency? Imagine this: when someone tells you something is impossible, do you accept it as the final word, or does it ignite a mental brainstorm on how to overcome the obstacle?
Here's another perspective, inspired by Conor Dewey's "Barrels vs Ammunition" model.
Think of people as either ammunition or barrels. In any organization, you can have endless ammunition, but if you only have five barrels, you're limited to five simultaneous actions. Add another barrel, and suddenly, you're capable of six.
Those barrels – the ones that can take an idea from inception to flawless execution – are rare gems.
High agency people are like those barrels. They don't just follow; they lead. They inspire their teams, navigate through challenges, and adapt without waiting for directions.
George Mack published a few other ways you can spot high-agency people:
🏃🏽♂️ Prison Escape: If you’re in a 3rd world prison cell and had to call someone to get you out, who would you call? That’s the highest agency person you know.
⚡️ Energy Distortion Field: A person is high agency, if you meet with them when you’re tired and defeated and you leave the room ready to run a marathon on a treadmill with max incline. Low-agency people do the opposite.
🤔 Unpredictable Opinions: The poet who's also a boxer, the advertiser fascinated by war history, the beauty queen engrossed in Nietzsche. When someone's interests defy stereotypes, they're likely exercising high agency.
😇 Niche Content: Low agency people look at the social engagement of content before deeming its quality. High-agency people just look at the content. They spot upcoming trends very early.
🥸 Honesty Against the Tide: It's easy to conform to social niceties, but high agency people often go against the grain. They are mean to you on your face, even if uncomfortable, but will not say anything against you behind your back.
In short, when your friend says “they know a guy” that guy is high agency. Usually. Potentially, could be a criminal. But high agency. 👍
🤦🏽♂️ Decoding 'Simple Sabotage': A Timeless Guide to Organizational Chaos
In 1944, amidst the turmoil of World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, crafted a unique guide titled "Simple Sabotage Field Manual". Its purpose? To arm European spies with tactics to disrupt the Axis powers from within.
Fast forward to today, and you'll be surprised how this 70-year-old guide still mirrors the quirks and inefficiencies in modern organizations. Let's delve into these eight subtle yet destructive tactics designed to cripple decision-making processes:
🚧 Insist on doing everything through channels. Never permit shortcuts to be taken that could expedite decisions.
🎙️ Make speeches. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” with long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
📋 When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
🔄 Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
🖋️ Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, and resolutions.
🔁 Refer back to a matter decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
🐢 Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassment or difficulties later on.
🤔 Be worried about the propriety of any decision. Raise the question of whether [it] lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
Now, some organisations do require increased scrutiny and some decisions require committees. They could be critical to an organisation and developed painstakingly as controls. But if they are not, detecting and reducing the impact of these classic “tactics” could help in improving productivity.
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