inspiration

Turns out that the folks at TEDx Vancouver had enough foresight to invite me to participate at their inaugural edition this past weekend, for which I commend them. I applied in the most eventual way I could, with less than 5 minutes before the deadline. Oh, Mike!

Once there, I ran into such luminaries as Kris Krug and Dave Olson (whom I also ran into the weekend before at Island Tech in Victoria; I’ve decided to stop running due to these happy accidents), who were there to cover the event. It was good to see them again, although I still don’t get why Dave kept saying I looked like I was barefoot or something to that effect. Oh, Dave!

I’d never been to the Electronic Arts building in beautiful Burnaby, British Columbia, but believe me it was a tremendous sight to see. The general common area took place in The Think Tank, which I had initially imagined was like a Genius Bar. Yet there was no alcohol, and I had the feeling I was going to be in for a long day…

But it wasn’t at all…so to speak.

As I sit here in one of the vibrating massage chairs on BC Ferries dictating this tome to Xerxes (who is doing an excellent job of translating my reverberating voice, I might add), I feel that TEDx Vancouver may be the most eventual experience I’ve ever had – other than fatherhood and marriage.

I’m not going go into the details of each and every talk; you can eventually find them here, but I am going to say that many of them resonated strongly with me in ways I’d never suspected. One had me thinking to myself, “I have to see as much of the world as possible before I’m not around, not so much the world not being around” – not that I don’t care about the world…I just care about me more. The talk wasn’t even really about that. But it seemed to speak to me that way. I, too, am a pretty good translator.

The impact of eventually meeting most of the other participants was what really worked for me. That’s not exactly easy for me to admit, either – using the word “worked.” However, as the Michelin Man said:

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.”

I take two ideas from that quote:

Work should be play and vice versa.
Never underestimate the philosophical nature that may reside in every auto mechanic.

I’m sure one of these can be applied daily, perhaps both if your car needs work.

I’ll end with this, as I’ve been writing for nearly 18 minutes so my time is almost up. If you have a chance to apply to a TED or TEDx event, do it. You can even do it eventually as I did – in fact, I’d prefer it. If you get in, go. The eventualistic nature of the overall experience will permeate everything else you do going forward. Everything about TED is about “forward”; forward thinking, moving forward, even Terry McBride’s talk had me thinking about how I used to “fast forward” through songs on my cassettes. Afterward I was even feeling “forward” since I’m on a boat that has a “forward” deck.

Maybe those last two examples are a stretch, but TED encourages one to do just that. Stretch your limitations as far as you are willing to let them go. Stretch your abilities as far as you are able. Stretch your life. (I suppose you could use the word “test” here as a suitable synonym, but I hate tests. Heck, I barely liked stretching until now.)

As expected, my closing here has been eventual. Now that I’m done I’m going to move forward. I think it’s time to write the foreword to my book. I’ve waited eventually enough.

Thanks, TED. I owe me one.

While I’ve had my hand in every eventual effigy out there, I had the opportunity to have a chat with a gentleman who has his hands ties up in everything productive. Michael Sliwinski is, among other things, founder of the popular productivity web application “Nozbe – Simply Get Things Done!” and the editor-in-chief of the “Productive! Magazine”. Despite all of the stuff he has on his plate, he found the time to get back to me fairly quickly, and I returned the favor in my own time.

Me: Michael, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to discuss things with myself and my ever-growing congregation of Eventualists.

MS: Thanks Mike, I’m happy to be able to finally have a talk with you. Let’s hope this conversation adds value to your “congregation of Eventualists.”

Me: You seem to be a man who wears many hats, yet only has one head. How do you manage to get all of the stuff you have on your plate done? Please say eventually.

MS: Eventually it all comes down to doing the things you love and making job less “work” and more “fun”. I used to be a consultant for many companies and had many projects running at the same time. To help me cope with all this I read the GTD book by David Allen and it inspired me to create Nozbe – a tool that would help me implement the GTD techniques and manage all of my stuff.

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only person in need of an app like Nozbe and it started to be my main business. Now everything I do is kinda Nozbe-related as helping people getting stuff done is a very rewarding experience and keeps me inspired and motivated to, as Guy Kawasaki would say, “change the world”.

Me: What does Nozbe stand for? NO Z’s Because of Efficiency? Never Out of Zen Business Excellence?

MS: It was a game of words. One evening me and a friend of mine started playing with a phrase “To Be Organized”, after a couple of hours of tongue-braking brainstorming (and a couple of beers along the way) we started coming up with phrases like “be org, be oz, oz be…. and nozbe” and then we decided it should stand for “to be NOZ = to Be Naturally OrganiZed”. Don’t laugh.

Me: (chuckles heartily) Why did you start up Productive! Magazine? Xerxes read it to me and the first thing that came to mind was “How do productive people have time to read it?” Is the bi-monthly release a way to combat that?

MS: Eventually you need to be inspired. Eventually you need to get a kick in your … to get stuff done and to learn new habits and improve your life. It’s just great to see so many blogs about productivity and getting things done… and although it may sometimes appear as “productivity p0rn”, but what I found out is that in these blogs there are so many great pieces of advice that I thought, why not compile the best of the best and put them in a magazine-like format.

This way productive people won’t be subscribing to zillions of blogs, they’d just read the productive magazine once every two months and move on, hopefully improving their life along the way.

Me: I’d like to congratulate you for being the first to mention “p0rn” on my site – even before me.

What did you get out of the GTD Summit, other than a great gift bag and the realization that I should have been there as a devil’s advocate?

MS: The cool thing about the GTD Summit was the fact that it wasn’t a gathering of a sect praying to Mr Allen. It was a gathering of really bright people, mostly very accomplished individuals, very often executives from many different companies who’d love to learn something new and share their ideas.

Unlike any other conference, there was no “competition” there, no “one industry” thing and looking at each other as potential enemies…. just friendship and sharing… and gadgets. I finally got my notetaker wallet and bought a red one for my wife.

And you should have been there, I’m sure you’d love it there.

Me: I have every eventual intention of being there sometime. What is the first piece of advice you’d give someone who is trying to be more productive? What is the last piece you’d give?

MS: Something I need to remind myself every day. Try to learn new habits, work on your bad habits and recognize the good ones. And try not to change too much at a time. Take it slowly.

And there is also a great piece of advice from one of the friends I made on the GTD Summit: “If you’re starting with GTD, remember that the weekly review has to be done at least once a month” (laughs)

Me: Did answering these questions take you 2 minutes or less?

MS: Not really. It didn’t. I took the interview too seriously (laughs). To all the Eventualists – the “2-minute rule” is a godsend. When you know you can do something in less than two minutes, you’ll start doing that. After all, it’s just two minutes. Examples from home: make the bed, throw out trash, prepare coffee, etc. It’s just 2 minutes, just do it.

My EventuaTEDx Experience

EffTD Interview: Michael Sliwinski from Nozbe