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Leo Babauta has things just about bob on here don’t you think? Too much planning not enough doing?!

For at least a couple of years, Zen Habits was one of the top productivity blogs, dispensing productivity crack for a nominal fee (your reading time).

I’d like to think I helped people move closer to their dreams, but today I have different advice:

Toss productivity advice out the window.

Most of it is well-meaning, but the advice is wrong for a simple reason: it’s meant to squeeze the most productivity out of every day, instead of making your days better.

Imagine instead of cranking out a lot of widgets, you made space for what’s important. Imagine that you worked slower instead of faster, and enjoyed your work. Imagine a world where people matter more than profits.

If any of that appeals to you, let’s look at some traditional productivity advice, and see why we should just toss them out.

via » Toss Productivity Out :zenhabits.

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I recently took up cycling. I am not, and will never be, an excellent cyclist. That is guaranteed. But I am a very enthusiastic cyclist. It is quickly becoming a passion. When I discuss my cycling I discuss it with passion. How it makes me feel. Everything I love most about it. Other people who are passionate about cycling relate to it as I do to them. I am drawn to people who share this common and very real passion.

If all I had to focus on was being an excellent cyclist it would completely kill it for me.

Throughout our lives we are encouraged to be excellent. Be the best that we can be. Work as hard as we can.

From the day we begin our spelling tests at school before chasing A-grades in exams, or perhaps a hallowed first team spot in the school football team – we pursue and applaud excellent achievements.

The problem is that we often pursue excellence without ever quite achieving it. Or, the respect from peers, family and friends that our obsession with excellence craves.

We can be tough on ourselves too.

Especially if we don’t meet with our personal expectations on excellence. ‘Everyone else appears to be excellent at whatever-it-might-be.’ ‘Am I the only person who isn’t?’!’

Indirectly, the perceived trappings of excellence can be an issue too. How many people do you know who are miserable because people they know have a bigger car? Better job?

The problem with excellence is that all too often it delivers indifference. We can give up the ghost if we still aren’t excellent despite working as hard as we can for years. People achieving excellence burn out. Or, perhaps, when we are intimidated by others who already appear to have achieved it. ‘We’ll never be as good as them!’

It’s an obsession. And I don’t think it’s a healthy one.

We need an alternative to excellence. A shift of focus. We need to drive ourselves in a way that retains all the best elements of our obsession with excellence. We need to retain the healthy competition it encourages. And still enjoy the personal challenges it leads us on.

But, the solution needs to tolerate the plain fact that we can’t all be excellent at everything. And that it’s OK not to be excellent.

So what’s the solution?

A simple shift of focus. For me, just like my new-found love of cycling, the focus should be on passion and enthusiasm.

A focus on passion and enthusiasm will see us naturally seek out the areas of our lives we love. Why stick in a job we dislike, desperately trying to be excellent at it, when our passions lie elsewhere?

The irony is that by seeking out our life passions we have more chance of delivering results – sometimes even excellent results – too. I completed my first coast to coast cycle ride in two days earlier this year. Far from excellent I know. But a result. Passion and enthusiasm tolerates it when we don’t achieve excellence. Loving what you do justifies the achievement.

My passion drove me to compete too. I hated the idea of being the slowest rider on the coast to coast. But I tolerated not being the fastest. And delivered an outstanding personal achievement. Even if I do say so myself.

Passion is charismatic. Because it is a very human trait. Just like ‘not being excellent’ is a human trait too. And I find humans significantly more engaging than excellent automatons.

Don’t forget shared passions too.

Shared passions deliver relationships of real value. I initiate and maintain some of my best business contacts through my shared passion for football. I am not an excellent footballer! In my experience shared excellence can, at worst, breed mistrust.

Excellence is black or white. You’ve either got it or you haven’t. You can never be a little bit excellent. Or even very excellent. Passion and enthusiasm comes in degrees. Making it easier for it to develop and evolve as it becomes stronger.

And passion and enthusiasm are as far removed from indifference as you can get. Whilst even excellent people can burn out after all the effort their achievement has taken.

So let’s bin excellence.

And let passion and enthusiasm drive us. What will you be passionate about today?

All the best, Richard .. an excellent PR Guy!

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I used to advise my clients to prepare before hand. To make sure they got three key messages in the answers. (‘Don’t forget to mention the website address.’) And to rehearse.

More often then not I’d see clients in the interview offer stilted answers as they tried to remember what they should be saying. Not good.

The last thing you need is to be going through a mental check list of how to sit, what to say, perfect answers and messages to include. Above all you want to come across as open and sincere. And rehearsing and regurgitating answers will not achieve this.

My advice, in contrast to most of the advice I used to give clients, is simply this.

Don’t over rehearse or over-prepare. If you do your answers will often appear stilted and insincere.

If you don’t know about the subject you are being interviewed on you shouldn’t be being interviewed. Be confident in your ability to give open and enthusiastic answers the same way you would if you were in conversation or business networking for example.

Be confident in your ability to say what you think and use common sense as your guide as to what not to say.

Manage your expectations. You, of course, will hang on your every word. But the TV viewer will not. The viewer will only really remember HOW you answered the questions with most of the content going in one ear and out of the other.

How much of the interview content on the last news bulletin you saw today do you actually remember? But if anyone asks, you probably have an understanding of whether you liked the interviewee or not based on how there demeanour was. If people like you after the interview has finished, then this is a desirable outcome.

If you want to practice, engineer opportunities to be interviewed in local community radio stations. This is potentially less intimidating than a TV studio and helps you to become comfortable with real life interviews. Focus on answering spontaneously and share your passion and enthusiasm for the subject.

Go into the interview aiming to enjoy it. And the rest will follow on

My answer via What are tips for coming across as calm and sharp while being interviewed on live TV? – Quora.

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Wow! If the events of the past month or so haven’t convinced you of the need to communicate openly and authentically – then you never will.

I’ll give you a quick summary of some of the scumbags who have been lurching and weaselling their way through personal crises in the UK media.

It’s a blue print to how to get crisis communications fundamentally and comprehensively wrong. With bells on.

So, what do you think of this lot now?

Ryan Giggs

What a buffoon. The world at his feet. Then makes a monumental cock-up when exposed as an alleged serial cheater. His public communication through third parties has seen him try to weasel his way out of it and pass blame onto others. No public attempt to take accountability. Apparently no remorse. He has successfully secured a massive legal bill though! So well done for that.

That French Bloke from the IMF

The lasting perception is that whether he did or he didn’t, he did. He then called in all his friends in high places. Massive work behind the scenes to discredit the alleged victim. No attempt to take accountability. Apparently no remorse. Massive legal bill.

News of the World Phone Hacking Scandal.

Massive UK media scandal. Finger pointing at major players include Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, Rupert Murdoch and his son. No attempt to take accountability other than a few hollow words which are perceived as desperate attempts to hopefully safeguard the BSkyB takeover.

The Public Demand for Authenticity

Perhaps the most serious of the lot, this hacking incident, has revealed the worst of humanity apparently engrained in the culture of News International using personal tragedy to sell papers at all cost. And it once again brings to the fore all the public figures and decision makers who schmooze like leaches hoping to suck a little powerful media influence from this media giant’s lifeblood.

But their influence is waning. Consumer journalism and a rapidly fragmenting media means that decline in power will continue.

And when the dust settles, these incidents along with the ones which will undoubtedly follow, should crystallise public demand for authentic communication.

We shouldn’t tolerate public figures trying to manipulate what we think. We should close our attention to it in the same way we hang up on a burglar alarm telesales call ‘doing a survey on crime prevention in our area.’ Do not insult us!

People can make mistakes. And we can forgive people who take accountability.

But if you want my attention? If you want my permission to give me information that will add value to conversations I participate, and am interested, in? If you want me to forgive you?

Then, I demand you are authentic, passionate, humble and genuine.

If you enjoyed this post  follow me and say hi on Twitter. Http://www.twitter.com/richardglynn

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This phone hacking story is a tragic state of affairs isn’t it?

It really demonstrates how low journalists will stoop to use personal tragedy to sell papers.

But here’s the thing. If there wasn’t a demand for stories about personal tragedy amongst readers, would they be driven to use such underhand tactics?

We can all sit here and judge. But I’ve read the Daily Mail (did I say that out loud?) and winced in perverse curiosity about the stories of human suffering they feature.

Check out the BBC’s ‘most read’ or ‘most shared’ section on the website. It’s always the stories including the words ‘death’, ‘tragedy’ or ‘sex’ that feature highly amongst the celebrity tittle tattle.

I’m not saying readers are responsible. But, imagine if a national newspaper set up as an antidote to all the death, murder and rape stories – concentrating on positive news only – how long would it last? Would you buy it??

No, me neither.

The News of the World will carry on in some form or other. They’ll need to be a positioning statement of some kind. Possibly even a re-launch. Someone needs to demonstrate some accountability and remorse and a sincere desire to put things right. Perhaps they could take the lead in a Charter for Journalism – this way encouraging the perception that the way journalists seek out stories is a challenge for journalism as a whole? Perhaps a high profile appointment of a trouble-shooter to ‘clean up this town.’

But as far as the content is concerned, it’ll still be the same mix of sex, death, celebrity and human tragedy. Because it sells papers and that’s what we like (although never admit) to read about.

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