How to Save Time and Make Time with a Personal Assessment Activity

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Darin Eich

An IBM executive gave advice to graduates. He said to develop the skill of figuring out how to do something with data. This can be finding it, gathering it, organizing it, generating it, analyzing it, interpreting it, making meaning of it, communicating it, and innovating from it. I bet he means quantitative data (numbers). I enjoy taking qualitative data (observations, what people say, etc.) and turning it into quantitative data so that you can more easily do something with it. Innovation can be more successful if it is grounded in data. Here is an example of how to take stuff and turn it into data and an innovation. Lately I have been most passionate about helping people to innovate their own lives, solve their own problems, respond to change, and transform themselves at a higher level. This begins with identifying a challenge. A common challenge I see many people face is not having enough time. A similar specific challenge I have in my life is waking up early and getting somewhere early enough without being rushed. I love sleeping and I need an intervention to help me get up, moving quickly, and energized without being rushed. This is a challenge that if I could solve it it would improve my work and life as a whole. So I decided to zero in and keep asking what the problem is.
What is the problem? I’m rushing in the morning and just getting to early appointments in the nick of time. What is the problem with that? I don’t have enough time to get ready in the morning?

Now we have an opportunity to turn our observations into quantitative data. What is the quantitative or numerical measure associated with this challenge. It is time, specifically measured in minutes. I decided to keep track of the order that I did things in the morning and how many minutes each took. This was in order to arrive on time for an 8:15am meeting.
1. Wake up (usually woke up right away but did a 10 minute snooze sometimes). 7:00
2. Brew coffee 7:00-7:20 (20 minutes before it was ready)
3. Check all of my various email accounts while the coffee was brewing. 7:05-7:25
4. Bathe 7:25-7:45
5. Groom 7:45-7:55
6. Get Dressed and prepared to leave 7:55-8:00
7. Leave for meeting 8:00
The problem was that by the time it came to get dressed I was rushing and wasn’t happy about that. I only had five minutes to get dressed, gather everything up, and head out the door. This needed to change. I was waking up early enough…I had always been able to get ready in one hour…so something was different now. I needed to get to the bottom of it.
I reviewed my time list above and I saw two items that I was spending a lot of time on that I judged to be too much. I didn’t have a problem with 35 minutes for bathing, grooming, dressing, and preparing to leave. I did have a problem with what happened right after I got out of bed…the coffee and checking of email. When I focus on that part of the morning routine I notice the email checking happens because of the coffee brewing time. I have to wait for the coffee so I go online and sometimes linger there even after the coffee is ready. So that problem would go away if the coffee problem could go away. One problem causes another. So, I will next zero in on the problem that matters most…coffee taking 20 minutes to brew:

You now have to ask what is the problem with the problem.
Why was coffee taking 20 minutes to brew?
1. The coffee machine is small and old. It drips really slowly.

What are potential solutions?
1. Get a new coffee machine. This seems like a waste since the coffee machine works fine.
2. Brew the coffee and then bathe. Not a good solution because I want the energizing effects of the coffee early. Plus it is a nice reward when waking.
3. Clean the coffee machine with vinegar so that it is less clogged and brews faster. Great idea!
4. Delay brew the coffee so that I hear it 20 minutes before I wake up and it is ready the moment I step out of bed! Great idea! This will help me wake up more energized. The delay brew has two great benefits.

I implemented the innovation. It was simple. I loaded the coffee machine up at night and programmed it to start brewing at 6:40am. I decided to give it a difficult test the other day. I had the 8:15am meeting the first day after I arrived back from a trip to Chile and Argentina. It was a long flight and I hadn’t slept much so I knew waking up would be really difficult that day. I heard the coffee machine kick in at 6:40. I was up before the alarm. I enjoyed that first sip of coffee at 7am and started getting ready. I was ready early and had time to check emails before I headed out the door at 7:55. People were surprised to find me at the meeting early after my long trip and even commented about it. We talked about using data to innovate and I shared the story. The innovation worked!

All of this started from a challenge or problem…I’m rushing in the morning.
The solution was rather simple. What was needed though was the quantitative data to help me “get it.” Many times we cannot see what is most obvious. I couldn’t see that coffee was taking 20 minutes to brew or that I even had a delay brew function on my coffee machine.

What is a challenge you are having in your life? Is there a way to observe and assess it and turn it into data that is quantitative…like time, dollars, a 1-10 rating, etc? Doing this will help you compare in relation to other things and see what the problem is so that you can focus in on it and develop innovative solutions that may be simple once you have awareness.

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Ladder Infographic: Starting Innovation Thinking & Conversations

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Darin Eich

A metaphor and visual model can help us get started with innovation and the important, frequent, and necessary conversations with others about what we are working on. I’ve whipped up an innovation ladder model infographic to help you think about how to have your conversation with others regarding the innovation you are working on. The goal is to be able to move to a higher level in the innovation process…keep moving up the ladder with our project. Conversations with others can provide you with different valuable insight at each step of the ladder. Think about this. Where on the ladder are you with the project you are working on? Are you just getting started with thinking about the challenge or are you higher up with some ideas already? How can you share with others where you are at with the project in a way that they can give you feedback that can help you move up to a higher level of the ladder?

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Everyday Innovation: Applying 5 Innovator Skills to Building a Better Fruit Fly Trap

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Darin Eich

The Five Innovator’s DNA skills are observing, associating, questioning, experimenting, and networking. You can put these skills to use in everyday situations.

The problem. I had fruit flies one summer day. This is fine in the 10th grade biology classroom but bad in your home. I was OK with an occasional few flying around but when one landed in my glass of red wine I knew it was time to spring to action.

I networked online. Someone else posted something about it on Facebook. People had suggested creating a trap.

I questioned. I asked Google how to create a fruit fly trap. I saw examples that used funnels and red wine or apple cider vinegar.

I associated. I noticed the fruit flies enjoyed red wine. I noticed they like white surfaces. I noticed they like fruit (shocker!). I noticed they like to hang out on the edge of glasses. I could associate trap ideas from wine, white, fruit, and edges.

I now had a lot of ideas. The potential solutions were growing and developing…much like the fruit flies in my kitchen.

I experimented. I built a trap using red wine and a white card on top with a hole in it. I caught a few. I thought I would catch more. I had the wine for them but maybe I needed to have a separate area where the fruit flies could smoke too? I didn’t like this particular trap…wine is expensive! I observed the results and still saw that many fruit flies were hanging out elsewhere…they didn’t necessarily go through the whole.

I experimented again. I added a second trap. This one used a coffee filter style paper white funnel and led to a glass with apple cider vinegar. There was a hole for the flies to enter. A few came into this trap but not as many.

I experimented again. I added a third trap. I remembered the age-old wisdom. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I thought about this metaphor. I think it was getting at the value of using something sweet. Heck, fruit flies are called fruit flies for a reason. For the new trap I integrated this age-old metaphorical wisdom and my observations. I simply put the banana peel from the banana I just ate in the glass. I used a simple white index card on top of the glass. I left enough space on the edge (not a whole in the card) for the fruit flies to come on in to the buffet. Sure enough…within minutes I had more flies in that glass than in all of the other experiments combined. Of the three traps on the counter…the fruit flies had certainly cast their vote with their wings. I went to the banana trap and simply closed the index card on top of the glass and then brought it outside to release the flies. This was a successful innovation thanks to networking, questioning, observing, associating, and experimenting.

What ways have you been doing everyday innovation…using skills like networking, questioning, observing, associating, or experimenting? What innovative solutions have you developed? What experiments should you run next?

New Idea: What if 10th grade biology classes did a section on innovation using fruit fly trap building after their genetics section? They’ve got to catch the flies somehow, right?

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Plus One or Times Two Innovation?

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Darin Eich

incremental versus breakthrough innovation
Would you rather go +1 or x2 in your ideas and innovations? How about life? How about at work? When innovating and doing things better we have choices. Do we want a slight improvement, a +1, an incremental innovation? Or, do we want a x2, a drastic improvement? This is a breakthrough or even disruptive innovation. With the +1 approach things get slightly better. It is like a CD that now holds one more song, or is 1 inch smaller. The x2 approach is like an Ipod. It looks different and even operates different. It is a breakthrough or a disruption to the way things had been done before. It is a drastic improvement.

Perhaps you view the innovations you are working on in your life as a portfolio of ideas. You have some ideas that are +1s, they are slight improvements, are not risky, and have a good chance of success. This could be like reducing 200 calories in your diet just today by choosing a salad instead of fries. Make sure you are also working on some x2 ideas as well, those that may be drastically different, riskier, but also provide greater rewards. This could be like doing a full week detox or reboot to your body drinking only vegetable and fruit juices.

The process you take to generate and implement +1 and x2 ideas are quite different. Perhaps you are used to slight improvements but not deconstructing a challenge and reconstructing it from the ground up in a new form. These are new thinking skills to develop. Using idea generation tools like SCAMPER are helpful for +1 innovations, tools like metaphors are helpful for x2 innovations.

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Self-Innovation Keynote Speech Program

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Darin Eich

Here is a description of one of my favorite keynote programs to do for groups. We help individuals apply collaborative innovation to their own life and what they are working on.

Innovate yourself and what you are doing in your life and work! Get ready to point yourself in the direction of your destination and find the vehicle to get you there in this energizing and interactive keynote designed to accelerate your experience at this conference and then into your life! During this fast paced program you will connect fast and often with other participants. A variety of engaging activities will be facilitated to get you connecting & creating with each other and catalyze yourself to a new level of motivation, innovation, and learning!

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What I’ve been reading: Outliers, The One Thing, The Power of Less & Predictably Irrational

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Darin Eich

The past month I’ve been catching up on reading while traveling. Flights make for a great time to catch up on reading and long drives allow the chance to listen to audio books. I try to catch up on many of the business/leadership books that are bestsellers and come highly recommended. I’ve read four good ones lately.

Outliers: The Story of Success

The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life

The One Thing You Need to Know: … About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success

Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

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Remixed & Autotuned speech from Martin Luther King jr.

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Darin Eich

This is inspiring and engaging. I’m impressed with what technology can do to make a classic speech sound new, different, and current. The autotune videos from The Gregory Brothers accumulate millions of views (The Bedroom Intruder song has over 66 million!). I’m glad they are remixing some classics and educating as well as entertaining. It brings some important messages back on the radar to new audiences.

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The Awesome Things Story Video from TED

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Darin Eich

Neil Pasricha started the 1000 Awesome Things blog. It is a great visual blog that helps us to have the right perspective–a perspective that lets us see that there are many awesome things in our world–and we can focus on those to be happy. Many of these things are simple and make us laugh. In this TED video I enjoy most Neil’s authentic story about starting his blog…how it began as something that had visitors that counted in the tens to become a Webby award winning blog and successful book. His story reflects our own journey we take to improve life and create something new that is meaningful. I hope this blog can have a similar ripple effect in helping people to innovate their own lives for more happiness and meaning.

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Reflect, assess, & innovate this year by creating a “year in review report” for your life

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Darin Eich

You may have to do a “year in review report” for your job, department, or organization at the end of each year. Why not do one for your own life? What if you were to take assessing and improving your own life as important as you do your work? You probably spend 40 hours each week on your work. This usually involves giving of yourself to create value for another entity…the organization you work for. Why not spend some time on creating value for yourself? You achieve this through doing some of the key activities that organizations do to improve and innovate. Apply them to yourself. Spend some time looking back at the year and identifying the successes and opportunities for improvement in the different “slices of your life.”

I spend each December 31st afternoon at a coffee shop doing my “year in review report” to myself. I begin by thinking about this question: What were the highlights and successes of the past year and how do I want things to be better in the next year? After reviewing the highlights of this past year, I did an activity where I cut a metaphorical pie up into slices that represented different parts of my life. You can draw and divide up a circle or even create a pie graph with labels.

For each slice I identified how I was doing in that area and which slices of my life needed some innovating. Some pie slices I identified were: Career – Friendships – Love – Health – Financial – Family – Social – Spiritual – Hobbies – Home

The focus is on each individual slice. How much of that slice did you enjoy, did you take in, did you allow to nourish you? Were you fully engaged with it and ate 100% of the slice or did you barely try it…maybe only nibbling 10% of that pie slice and leaving most of it untouched in the pan? For each of these slices or parts of my life I was able to give it a rating for how I did in the past year. How would you rate each slice of your life with 100% being the maximum…meaning you ate the whole slice that year and it was a very successful slice of your life? This will help you see how balanced you are, which slices you are excelling in, and which need more focus. I identified which slices I wanted to make my focus for innovation for the next year. Each one of these life slices can also be a paragraph or two in your “year in review report.” You can not only give them a rating but you can go deeper identifying the highlights in the past year and where you want to go for the next year.

You can also reflect on your reflections. What kinds of highlights did you identify? For me it was travel…you learn about yourself by seeing what stands out to you and brings pride as you look back on the year. Do more of the highlights in the next year because they make you happy and are how you measure successful living. In sum, do a “year in review report” for your life each year. You can take it up a notch and do a quarterly report too. Use the pie slice activity as a starting point to help you deconstruct your life, rate the areas, and write with more depth about the past year and what you hope to do in the next year.

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Sleep, Dream, Shower, & Exercise for Solutions: Subconscious Ideation

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Darin Eich


If I really want solutions, decisions, or insights I will sleep on the challenge, dream on it in the morning while half awake and half asleep, shower on it, bike to the woods with it in mind, and then hike through the trees and sit on a tree stump to visualize the challenge. I do this all with my idea journal at my side to capture the insights I get. Many people say they get their best ideas when they have thought about the challenge a lot but then stop thinking about it. They sleep, shower, or workout and then great ideas come to them. They disengage from a high level of mental engagement on their problem and let their subconscious mind work on the challenge for them while they do something else…like sleep, shower, or workout! Try some of these techniques for generating ideas. Many times I find that the ideas you get are more highly developed…they are a concept that is more helpful for a solution or decision related to your challenge.

1. Sleep on it. Have your idea journal and a pen next to your bed. Think about your challenge in your mind. Jot down ideas you get in the morning or if waking in the middle of the night.

2. Wake on it. Don’t have to be up early? Linger in bed in a half sleep-half awake state and play with your challenge in your mind. Jot down your ideas in your journal. This is related to lucid dreaming where you have a little bit of influence in your dreams.

3. Bathe on it. Many people say they get their best ideas in the shower. Archimedes had his “eureka” moment in the bathtub. Place your challenge in your mind and then focus on relaxing and bathing. Jot down your ideas when you towel off.

4. Exercise on it. Go for a walk, jog, bike ride, or hit the cardio machine at the gym with your challenge in mind. Have your idea journal handy to jot down ideas.

5. Visualize on it. Get into an awake but relaxed meditative state with your challenge and see where your mind takes you. Jot down ideas.

The key with all of these techniques that are more subconscious/disengaging in nature is that you have your idea sheet ready to capture your ideas at hand because you may not remember them long. What techniques do you use to get your best ideas? How can you let your subconscious mind work on the challenge for you?

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