Don’t Just Read about AI, Use AI

I’ve done a pretty good job reading up on AI.

I know, for example, what The Atlantic and The New York Times think about the future of the college essay.

And I played around some with ChatGPT. Most memorable was the essay my son had it write. The output was an 80% approximation of the college essay he’d written last year, terrifyingly similar in structure and tone. I also tried to get it to write a post for this blog. The results were watered-down and uninteresting.

I also made sure to talk to my team members about how they were using it to save massive amounts of time coding qualitative responses to questions—at 60 Decibels, we speak to hundreds of thousands of people each year, and turning their open-ended qualitative responses into quantitative data is a core part of our business model.

But I hadn’t used it to solve any meaningful business problem that I, directly was working on.

Until last week when a team member described a thing she had done, and I decided to do it too.

She kindly outlined the steps and did a short Loom video to explain it.

Then I mucked around some, adjusted what she did, and worked with the output ChatGPT gave me.

The gap between what I thought the tool could do and what it actually does (and does not do) was pretty big. And I’ve just used it once—I’m positive I’m just at the beginning.

If you’re like me—if you haven’t done any real work using ChatGPT or another LMM tool—I’d encourage you to take that next step: find something real that you need to get done, and figure out / have someone help you figure out how to do it.

You’ll learn a lot, and you’ll also start noticing more and more situations where AI might be helpful to you.

Until now, I thought of this as a tool that was out there.

 

And I wasn’t actively thinking about how I could use it when a new task came along.

 

That’s a recipe for falling behind if there ever was one.

How to Heal

I have arrived at the age in life where being physically active coincides with a steady drumbeat of small but manageable injuries.

And I’m learning a lot about how to heal.

Most of all, healing requires finding that Goldilocks sweet spot of consistently engaging the injured part of the body but not overdoing it.

So, not complete rest.

But not so much activity that I make things worse.

It has to be….juuuuuuust….right. For weeks, even months, without a lot of clear feedback that I’m making progress.

Two things occur to me:

First, for better or worse, this is a new lifetime skill. This means that I need to shift my mindset from “now that I’m injured, I’m taking a temporary break from my normal routine” to “recovery and prevention is part of my normal routine.”

And, second, this approach and mindset applies to overcoming our fears or areas where we feel blocked.

If we want to make progress, we can neither ignore the things we find difficult nor go straight at them, full bore.

We need to engage gently, safely, and consistently over time, and keep at it despite not seeing obvious signs of progress.

Change happens slowly, imperceptibly, but it does happen if we keep at it.

One day we wake up and discover that we’re at a different, better place thanks to our consistent attention and commitment.

Charles Darwin on Why We Write

I came across this via Austin Kleon, quoting Charles Darwin (emphasis added):

“Let the collector’s motto be, ‘Trust nothing to the memory;’ for the memory becomes a fickle guardian when one interesting object is succeeded by another still more interesting.”

And:

[A naturalist] ought to acquire the habit of writing very copious notes, not all for publication, but as a guide for himself. He ought to remember Bacon’s aphorism, that reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and no follower of science has greater need of taking precautions to attain accuracy; for the imagination is apt to run riot when dealing with masses of vast dimensions and with time during almost infinity.

We write for many reasons, but the most important is to capture and crystalize our half-formed thoughts while they happened, because those seeds of insights are fleeting; and because the act of writing, over time, sharpens both our writing and thinking.

I’m constantly amazed to find that a few jotted notes can transform into some of my most impactful business ideas or blog posts.

And, despite this, I can easily trick myself into thinking that all the important stuff is “in my head” at the times that I don’t bother to write things down.

I know not everyone is going to write a blog.

I’d still encourage you to find a way to regularly capture your half-formed ideas, and to take the extra step of developing them into something—you decide what.

Inevitably, you’ll become a better observer.

And there’s nothing better than stumbling across an old thought you had and turning into something crisp, clear, and helpful.

What’s Holding You Back?

A senior Partner at Bain, who I used to work with often, maintained that decision-making ability was the best way to assess the long-term potential and effectiveness of an organization.

According to their research, good decision-making boils down to: speed, effort, quality, and yield. The best organizations make decisions that tend to be the right ones (quality), quickly (speed), with relatively low effort, and that they nearly always turn into actions (yield).

The thinking behind this is: you might do everything else well, but if your organization is bad at making decisions, that’s going to hold you back in a fundamental way.

We can apply this thinking across multiple elements of our organizational DNA, and reflect on things like our:

Decision making

Internal communications

External communications

Who we listen to

How well we hire

How well we fire

Feedback

Time management

Quality and number of meetings

Management skills

Purpose

Trust

How much we are focused internally

How much we are focused externally

Strength and resilience of our external relationships

Risk management

Etc.

Each of our organizations is all over the map for this list of attributes—good at some, great at a few, OK at a handful. But, most of the time, one of them is the most important, rate limiting factor for us. One of them is the cultural elephant in the room, the biggest thing weighing us down and sapping the momentum we garner from so much other good work that we do.

As you lay out plans for the coming year, remember: culture eats strategy for breakfast  (meaning: the best laid plans will fall flat if our culture doesn’t support them.)

What’s the one thing that, if you could change it, would change everything? And what are you going to do about that?

25 Keyboard Shortcuts that Save You 5 Hours a Week

Since last week’s post was such a hit, I thought I’d follow it up with a very practical How To on getting faster using your computer.

If you’re a knowledge worker, these 25 shortcuts, once mastered, will save you five of the 10 hours per week that I promised you last week.

But first, a bit of backstory.

This topic has been on my mind because I got a fancy new keyboard a couple of weeks ago. The Keyboard.io is a split, ergonomic keyboard, similar in many ways to the very funky Kenesis Advantage I bought 20 years ago.

I bought the Kenesis because I was struggling with the early signs of carpal tunnel syndrome, and, having had a friend sidelined from typing for years by her crippling symptoms, I was not going to mess around. The Kenesis, combined with a trackball mouse that I learned to use with my left hand, solved my carpel tunnel problems, and I’ve been using both ever since.

The only problem with the original Kenesis is that it’s exceptionally ugly…as in, everyone who sees it stops and says “woah, what’s that?!”

Kenesis has, finally, upgraded the color scheme from the original Apple IIe beige, and you can now get an Advantage in a sleeker gray. Still, I was intrigued by the Keyboard.io when I saw it on Kickstarter two years ago, so I backed it and was eager to upgrade.

Out of the box, the Keyboard.io looked and felt amazing: it was the souped-up version of my old Kenesis, in burled wood, of all things!

But, while the Keyboard.io looked familiar, I discovered something terrifying when I plugged it in. While all the letters are in their normal place, everything else (the space bar, the Enter key, Control, Option, Command, all directional arrows, Page Up, Page Down, Esc and Tab) had been moved!

This might not seem like a huge deal…maybe it would impact me every now and then. But since I’m a relentless user of keyboard shortcuts, the new location of this set of keys ground my workday to a halt: while I could immediately type at a decent clip, I couldn’t do a single one of my keyboard shortcuts.

The result was that, for the first day with the Keyboard.io, I felt like I was operating at 20% speed when working. I was unable to use keystrokes to switch between apps. I couldn’t easily jump the cursor around, or highlight text, or switch channels in Slack. I was doing everything with my mouse instead, and it was tragically slow.

It occurred to me that this new pace is the pace that anyone who doesn’t use keystrokes has to work at. Terrible!

I was so frustrated, and also so unwilling to give up on my new keyboard, that I resolved to figure out and re-learn the essential keystrokes I use every day.

I’m happy to report that, four weeks in, I’m at about 90% of my original speed, and I’m loving the new Keyboard.io so much that I’m going to get myself another one (as soon as they are available.)

So that my pain and frustration don’t go to waste, I thought I’d share my list for anyone looking for more (free) throughput in their workday.

Master these (and, I’m sure, many many more that I don’t currently use but your friends/colleagues might) and you’ll be recapturing loads free time throughout your workday.

And yes, there are plenty of websites with lists of ALL the shortcuts for a given app, but you don’t want all of them, you just want the essential, must-use ones…these.

Managing Text / Cursor movement / Basics

Action Mac Keystroke PC Keystroke
Copy Cmd+C Ctrl+C
Paste Cmd+V Ctrl+V
Undo Cmd+Z Ctrl+Z
Select All Cmd+A Ctrl+A
Underline / Bold / Italic Option + U / B / I Option + U / B / I
Move to next cell in a table Tab Tab
Move to previous cell in a table Shift + Tab Shift + Tab
Move cursor to next word Option + Arrow (R or L) Ctrl + Arrow (R or L)
Move cursor to the end of the line (Word) Cmd + Arrow (R or L) Ctrl + Arrow (R or L)
Highlight next word Shift + Option + Arrow (R or L) Shift + Ctrl + Arrow (R or L)
Highlight full line Shift + Up/Down Arrow Shift + Up/Down Arrow
Close a dialogue box Esc Esc

 

Moving between Apps

Action Mac Keystroke PC Keystroke
Switch between apps (forward) Cmd+Tab Alt+Tab
Switch between apps (backwards) Cmd+Shift+Tab Alt+Shift+Tab

 

Gmail (full list here)

Action Mac Keystroke PC Keystroke
Send email Tab, then Enter Tab, then Enter
Add someone to Cc: Line Cmd+Shift+C Ctrl+Shift+C
Add someone to Bcc: Line Cmd+Shift+B Ctrl+Shift+B
Mark an email as read Shift + I Shift + I
Mark an email as unread Shift + U Shift + U
Return to Inbox from msg U U
Add a hyperlink Highlight the word, then Cmd+K, then paste in the URL Highlight the word, then Cmd+K, then paste in the URL

 

Slack (full list here)

Action Mac Keystroke PC Keystroke
Search channels Cmd+K, then type Ctrl+K, then type
Line break in a message Shift+Enter Shift+Enter
Close a preview file Esc Esc
Add a hyperlink Highlight the word, then paste (Cmd+V) Highlight the word, then paste (Ctrl+V)

 

I Hate the Ivy League

I dropped my eldest son off at college on Friday, which was bittersweet.

Lucky for him, he is focused and passionate in a way I could not have imagined when I was his age.  He’s found his way to a small, specialized school that is uniquely suited to his talents, and I’m hoping that it turns out to be the perfect place for him.

On the drive there and back, my wife and I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s 9-podcast compilation, “I Hate the Ivy League.”

The thesis is that the U.S. higher ed system is failing miserably at being the great equalizer in a country that calls itself it is a meritocracy. Instead of a higher-ed system that is evolving towards more access for more students for better results, we instead have one that is driving inexorably towards exorbitantly-priced exclusivity…a hyper-capitalist version of education.

I don’t know which episode I liked the best.

It could be the one where Justice Antonin Scalia boasts that he only considers Supreme Court Clerk candidates from the T14 (“top 14”) U.S. law schools, and then goes on to say that the single best Clerk he ever had went to none of those schools. And he fails to see the irony in that.

I also liked the one where Gladwell takes on Stanford’s president and almost blows a gasket explaining why a $400 million gift to a college with a multi-billion dollar endowment is just plain wrong.

But probably the best of all was the one that talks about the U.S. News and World Report college ranking system. While I knew it was flawed, I never fully appreciated how each and every element that drives up college ranking is correlated with exclusion, wealth, and privilege.

I listened from the edge of my seat to Gladwell’s exposition on what it would take for Dillard, an historically black college and university (HBCU) in Louisiana, to climb the US News and World Report rankings: admit fewer students with Pell grants, fewer students who are first-time college-goers, recruit more rich white students, etc. etc. etc. (Oh, and if you’re wondering which college, Harvard or Dillard, graduated more Black physics majors last year, it’s not even close: Dillard wins in a landslide.)

This all got me thinking, again, about the power of data to shape (or mis-shape) a system. While the U.S. News rankings are not the only cause of the perversion of higher education in the U.S., they are a major catalyst that reinforces and accelerates a fundamentally flawed status quo.

I’m sure we can all think of other areas where bad or nonexistent data are either accelerating us towards a bad outcome or holding us back from facing the real, tough questions.

If you’re looking for better data, real data, data from the source, let’s talk.

A Different Walk Every Day

My 2-year-old dog, Birdie, needs to walk at least five miles a day to be calm, relaxed and happy.

My wife and I have concluded that the best way to make this work is with lots of walking first thing in the morning. I’ve been taking her 3 miles right when I wake up, and my wife takes her another mile or so when she walks our youngest daughter to school.

I’ve chosen to walk the same route nearly every day. This makes the timing predictable, and it also helps for training purposes (especially if I let her off leash).

A lot of days, the walk/run is great: the air is cool, dew is on the grass, it’s quiet and beautiful, and I feel lucky to be out.

And some days it feels like drudgery. Not only the same walk as yesterday, but the same walk I’ll do tomorrow, and the day after that, until forever. And then I’m bummed and a little overwhelmed.

The good news is that this thought—“am I really going to be doing this same walk every morning for the next decade?”—gets obliterated immediately when I find myself, say, in some high grass with Birdie, and I start watching her: nose twitching like crazy, tail wagging, searching each tuft of grass and thicket of plants for a squirrel, chipmunk, bunny, or turtle—or just to figure out what that great smell is.

We walked through this high grass yesterday, and we will tomorrow, of course.

But this smell, right here and right now, is new and fascinating.

Where I’m getting things totally wrong is my “this walk” construct: an artificial mental shorthand that incorrectly equates today’s walk with yesterday’s and with tomorrow’s.

This is nothing less than lazy thinking by my lazy mind. In my effort to simplify the world, I completely disconnect from the present, and completely miss what is really going on.

This mistake is easy to make, and it’s the reason why we lose momentum and enthusiasm around the work we set out to do.

You can see the conundrum: there is literally no task that we can master without long-term, repeated work.

This means that we need a mindset that will allow us to walk the path of mastery.

This mindset doesn’t begin with commitment or work ethic.

It begins with remembering to stay present and curious.

When we are present, when we are curious, we can see our reality anew. We are constantly in a new moment and always exploring. We are forever on the cusp of discovering what is different about this specific thing at this moment of this day.

Even, and especially, if that different thing is us.

A little bit every day

More often than not, we’re comfortable with “a lot,” and we’re comfortable with “nothing.”

It’s easy to make a big push for something when we’re feeling inspired: a New Year’s resolution; after reading a great article on the benefits (or drawbacks) of coffee; while on vacation.

Often, that big push either overshoots (we overdo it and get tired), or our inspiration wanes.

Which is why “a little bit every day” is tougher, and more valuable, than it appears.

It requires us to find out what “a little bit” for this new thing means to us: the smallest possible dosage that will make a difference.

And it requires us to do this meaningful thing each and every day.

My natural inclination is get inspired, overdo things, fall short/get injured, and then get frustrated. Then I give up.

The biggest changes I’ve made have happen when I’ve made small, consistent, long term commitments to things that really matter: from generosity to running to listening to recovering from injury.

This isn’t a conceptual point or a conceptual blog post. I encourage you to pick something that matters to you, figure out what “a little bit” would be, and commit to doing that for 30 days. You can even use Austin Kleon’s 30-day challenge printout to keep track.

A little bit every day adds up to a lot. And it’s rarer than it appears.

The problem with skipping Tuesday

Hopefully you noticed by now that I publish this blog once a week every Tuesday.

Except for last week: I got back from my first big international trip post-COVID, and returned to such a mountain of work + jetlag that I didn’t put up the post that I’d written. I wanted to give it another turn, and I was shot by the end of the day on Monday.

Of course the week stayed busy, and then it was a holiday in the US yesterday, so again, no post. And, since I schedule all my meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I’ve got very limited quiet time until the end of the week.

From where I’m standing, I can see how easy it would be to let another week go by.

And, in the tradition of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, pretty soon one thing leads to another…

I think people often confused routine and discipline, and the role that they play in long term projects and how we structure our days.

Discipline by itself is awfully hard: doing all the mental work of deciding to do a difficult task, prioritizing that task, fighting through the resistance, and getting the job done.

Phew.

Whereas routine is a lot easier: discipline is involved, but it is simply the discipline of walking a well-worn path.

That’s much, much easier.

Until next Tuesday.

 

The Invisible Fence

We have an invisible fence set up around our yard for our dog. To mark it, we’ve put up little white flags and taught her not to cross them. Since we live on a busy street, it’s doubly important that my dog understands and respects these boundaries.

Of course, she needs to get out of the yard a few times a day for her walks. Any time I walk her, the first thing I do is take off her Invisible Fence collar. This means she could easily cross the line without our help.

But, because she’s a dog and I want to keep things simple for her, I never walk her across the line. Instead, for each and every walk, I carry her across the line.

It’s quite a sight, me or a family member lifting up our long-legged, muscly, 55-pound dog to cross a line that won’t shock her because she’s not wearing her Invisible Fence collar.

The message: it’s only safe to cross the line when in our arms.

Now, my elaborate charade exists because she’s a dog and I can’t explain the whole fence / safety / car situation in another way that she can understand.

But charades exist all around us: elaborate dances designed to reinforce boundaries and to create the mirage that we must rely on certain people to cross them.

I’m confident that my charade is keeping my dog safe. And other charades may be equally well-intentioned.

But, most of the time, these rituals get so grooved that everyone involved forgets where and why they began, and loses sight of whether they’re real or imagined.

Often, the first step to breaking through is seeing clearly: we’re being kept in by story told by others, one that we’ve repeated to ourselves enough times that it’s indistinguishable from reality.