PPQ - Just Do It!
What is your PPQ? Have you measured it lately?
In case you didn’t know – PPQ stands for Personal Productivity Quotient.
I stumbled on it when I was engaged in my personal battle with unproductivity. I needed to ‘get up and go’ but couldn’t find steam to Just Do It. Buying a pair of Nike’s didn’t help. I knew something had to give and then I discovered all the interesting work David Allen had done helping people (like me) become more productive, more effective.
PPQ is a 2-minute fun quiz which measures current levels of productivity for individuals. It evaluates 2 elements of self-management: control & perspective. As helpful as it is (trust me, it did help me), it didn’t provide the steam I was looking for, but it did provide in-depth awareness of how low my productivity had been lately. It led me to something more amazing. Something I’m writing about now.
The PPQ exercise measures aspects of self-management which got me thinking about how hard it is to manage resources you have no knowledge of and how impossible it is to function without understanding.
A wise man said ‘make your ear attentive to wisdom and incline your heart to understanding, yes if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God’. The same wise man also said ‘Get wisdom and whatever else you get, get understanding!’
We study hard to become professionals - to qualify as a doctor takes unending years of rigorous theoretical and practical learning; to become a seamstress takes years of practical training and many more years following and understanding trends; how about bloggers? I’ve discovered books written to help professional bloggers understand the nuances of the virtual world and how to make money off social media. We are certified in different fields, some of us even in several unrelated fields. And sometimes in spite of all this knowledge we still do not hit the mark, our PPQ tells the story of how we can do so much more and yet do not.
Why then?
I’ve discovered a major disconnect between knowing what to do and actually doing it. A man that doesn’t know has an excuse and can learn, but what do we say about the one who does know but doesn’t do? That’s like a machine functioning at sickeningly low capacities. It’s deadly – eventually, it just quits functioning!
Self-management provides fuel for the steam we need to Just Do It! Understanding and governing ourselves, is a major step towards bridging the gap unproductivity creates in our lives, it connects the dots. But we cannot manage what we do not know and understand.
I’ve heard many people say “I know myself” in a context that excuses our errors and excesses. We easily critic others but bubble-wrap ourselves. We defend our behaviour but point fingers at others who do the exact same things. Our egos are self-protected while we bash someone else’s. ‘It’s my nature, it’s not my fault, that’s who I am, I was brought up that way’become defences that insulate us from the painful process of self-examination and correction.
And therein we lose steam.
The reluctance to peel our cover and face the ugliness and subsequent necessary clean up that gives us capacity to be and do, means that we are growing without momentum.
We are still…
Still in one place, moving around but making no impact, an adult externally a child within, gathering accolades but have no real achievements.
How well then do you know you? This is the next necessary step to sustainable productivity.
How well you manage yourself depends on how well you know and understand you.
“He who knows others is wise, but he who knows himself is enlightened” – Lao Tzu.
I guess it’s time then to turn inwards and quit measuring people around you. When you point one finger at someone, you’ve got four pointing back at you!
Examine your ways, test yourself, the bible says (Lamentations 3:40); Think about your ways and turn… (Psalm 119:59)
Start the Inward Search challenge this month. Here’s how:
You can use the David Allen GTD PPQ Model which is basically business driven and categorizes people into Visionary, Commander, Victim and Implementer. You could also use the popular DISC Model which similarly profiles people as either Dominant, Influencers, Supporters & Conscientious.
I used the good old SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). I used it because I’ve used it for years analysing economies, businesses and making recommendations. I just realised I’d never used it on myself. All this while I didn’t know… I didn’t understand…
Do you know?
Do you know how incredibly blessed you are?
Do you know that you are just like your Father have unlimited potential to create amazing things from nothing?
Do you know what trips you up all the time? Do you see the things that make you lose focus? Do you know how to defend yourself?
You need to know…
So before we measure our PPQ again, join me in this challenge… it’s just a start. And solicit help from family and friends, they see our blind spots. Accept criticisms joyfully. The bible says in Proverbs 15:31 – if you listen to constructive criticism, you will be among the wise. Only mockers hate to be corrected (Proverbs 15: 12)
We are going somewhere. Start Now. Just Do It!
ID
April, 2016
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@idogufere
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