All Categories - DAVE PLISKY

Inbox Zero vs. Inbox Infinity

4/2/2019

I feel strongly about keeping sound inbox management practices, and have presented on it multiple times to coworkers in current and past roles. My digital manager sent me this article yesterday:
https://zapier.com/blog/inbox-zero-good-or-bad/

Inbox Zero is not about having no emails in your inbox, it's about not thinking about email when you don't want to, because when you DO do email, you catch up entirely.

I fundamentally disagree with the concept of Inbox Infinity, not because it is the opposite of Inbox Zero, but because this person has decided that it is okay to declare that you use a particular communication channel, and then (often) not use it. If you don't want to feel tethered to a particular type of communication, don't use it. Know how to not feel overwhelmed by Slack? Don't use Slack.

You know who Inbox Infinity works for? Anyone who a/ is super popular and gets so many emails that the people emailing them won't expect a reply, even if they don't say it; and b/ Anyone who wants to shirk whatever they want, and not what they don't. Which I realize the article author does acknowledge about 2/3 of the way down the page. And he ends it right - having a system is the most important thing.

I get where Inbox Infinity person is coming from, because I totally agree with the concept that you have to know how to say yes and say no to stuff in order to get what is really a priority done. But if you think email is your saving grace, then you just aren't managing your inbox correctly. Email itself is an agnostic channel, and can be just as good or bad as any other channel. People just let it get out of hand and don't go in and catch it up and fix it for themselves so that they have a clean experience ongoing.

To misquote St. Francis DeSales, use the communications channel you say you use, and use them well.

Limits vs. Constraints

2/7/2019

I hit Spotify’s 10,000-song limit on My Music this week. I have strong feelings, which I would have written here, if Chris Welch hadn’t already done such a great job expressing exactly how I feel.

This is not a beautiful constraint. This is a limit which only stifles, instead of inspiring creative problem solving.

The next time you consider imposing a restriction, first think about what it’s for. If it’s for limiting your most interested, and perhaps vocal/influential, customers, think twice. Since we’re picking on Spotify today, I’ll continue to use them as the example. Spotify tests features by pushing them to some, then all users. This is not an unusual way to roll out software interface changes. What drives me crazy is when I adopt a feature wholeheartedly, only to find out Spotify has discontinued it, and it’s always without warning, or notification, or even a blog post explaining why. All the messages I’ve sent to friends through the Spotify platform, sharing songs and leading to music discovery? Gone.

Google does the same thing with entire products, but it’s handled appropriately. Google+ is about to go away. But we’ve known about it for months. And there’s an easy way to download all of your data.

Come on Spotify, don’t make me move to Google Music.

Authenticity on Social Media

2/6/2019

Robert Christian’s article “How Social Media Relationships Can Be Meaningful,” shows us is that authenticity is relative, like everything. And I don't think it's as simple as a continuum with authentic on one side and inauthentic on the other. Each person's life experience is formed differently. Someone representing his/her "true self" faithfully over a medium known for the glamour shots only, might feel really authentic to someone who doesn't draw a big difference between catching up with people they know over the phone or over social. (Harder for me to draw that same line between people they know and people they don't know, but that's a personal bias.) In the age of instant gratification and game-like feedback mechanisms, social media has excelled at making us feel like we are making progress in relationships (even if we aren't), more so than real relationships might do.

You might have an in-person experience with someone who lies to your face, or doesn't let on how they really feel. Meanwhile, you have this social media account that (seems to) present everything, warts and all. Without making a judgment on which is more rewarding in the end, I think we can say that the online experience felt more authentic. Was it? I don't know.

My Hometown

1/18/2019

Before it was the site of a shooting and then immediately ravaged by brush fires, my hometown of Thousand Oaks was largely unknown across the US. If you had heard of it, you might have known it for being the second-safest city in the nation, or that that’s where Amgen is. Before a few months ago, I would tell people I’m from Southern California, and if I needed to get specific, I’d say “between L.A. and Santa Barbara.” Now I can use my hometown by name, and it feels really bad. So I’ve gone back to answering the old way, not because I can’t be so specific, but because I don’t want the extra attention.

Fear of Death

1/17/2019

When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.

When I think about death, which isn’t often, I’m afraid. I fear what will happen to me, and that says a lot about where my relationship with God is. People who are living in right relationship with God are at peace with death, and will welcome it, whenever it comes. People like me aren’t there yet, because we don’t think that death is here yet, and that we have plenty of time, that we’ll get there … later.

There’s no reason to wait.

Energy is Energy

1/16/2019

Energy is Energy

In college, I used to stay up late with my friends playing video games. Mario Kart 64, Goldeneye, and Halo. You need all four players for a great game. Of course we wanted to maximize the fun factor, but we were in college and also had to pay at least attention to, you know, our education. So we had a rule that determined when we would stop playing: whoever had the soonest test, the soonest due paper, or earliest morning class, got to decide. It worked well, but it made us all tired.

Which brings us to our second, dumb, only-in-college rule (which at the time I think we called a philosophy): energy is energy. Meaning, both food and sleep give you energy, so if you can’t sleep, eat. We would munch on snacks while we played, keeping us awake.

Fast forward to the present. I’m on a diet. Go figure. It’s the first one of my life. Hopefully the last. It sucks, but I did this to myself, so I’m trying not to complain about it. (Although a coworker pointed out that part of being on a diet is getting to talk about it. Not sure where I fall on that one.)

Anyway, I had a very hungry moment last night before bed, and ended up going to bed exhausted. But I realized that old philosophy might be true after all: energy is energy. And it’s time to reverse it. Now that I can’t eat, I must sleep.

MBTI

1/10/2019

I can’t say enough good things about discovering, learning about, and sharing Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) psychological preference information with my team. We all took the 15-minute test at https://www.16personalities.com, and we discovered what a unique bunch we are. And by getting more personal and more comfortable sharing this kind of information, we’ll be able to be more in control of conflict, more understanding of others’ actions, and perhaps better able to work with each other overall. Even the act of talking about it with one another served more as a team-building exercise than a meeting. We plan to make it a series of an hour each week until we’ve wrung as much learning out of it as we can. And then next year, we’ll try a new one, like StrengthsFinder.

What’s your personality type? What’s your boss’s? What’s your employee’s? The answers may impact you more than you think.

Business Casual

1/9/2019

I don’t like dressing up for work. Years ago, when I was working for a fancy beauty brand, a flatmate of mine asked me why I dress up, if I don’t like to. I explained that I have to. But, I didn’t have to. I chose to take that job, and keep that job, regardless of the dress code. I found the other elements worth it.

The business school I attended was overly traditional too. At the end of college, during interview practice sessions, I was told I would have to cut my shoulder-length hair if I wanted to get a job. I told them I’d be working in the music industry, and that it’s not like that in LA. Well, it wasn’t, and I got the job.

Now I work with a guy who once mentioned that he sometimes wishes he could grow out his beard and hair like mine, but can’t because of his job. We have the same employer—a company whose business it is to promote the values of long-haired, bearded, Jesus Christ—but my coworker’s responsibilities and contacts seem to dictate a different set of standards.

What are you sacrificing, and what opportunity costs have you shored up at some other expense? Are you willing to change? What’s it worth?

Practice

1/8/2019

Practice doesn’t make perfect. “Perfect practice makes perfect.”
- the late, great Mr. Massey, my middle school band director

He also said, “Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.” Wise man. Also, a gig musician.

Practicing Gratitude

1/5/2019

Do you have trouble feeling grateful for what you have?

Why is it that some people seem to have any easy time feeling content and grateful for their lot in life? Why do others spend so much time ungrateful and so much effort satiating greed? Gratitude is directly linked to contentedness, and contentedness is an ingredient in happiness. Don’t we all want to be happy?

Like most difficult/slow/long-road-but-worthwhile endeavors, it takes practice.

Have you practiced gratitude today? If you haven’t, there’s an app for that. As a starting point, try Fabulous.