Best Results Organizing

When you love what you do, it’s easy to make connections with people involved in the same things. This is especially true for me when I get around people who like to talk about organizing and productivity. (I mean, who wouldn’t want to talk about productivity and organizing?)

DO YOU HAVE AN ORGANIZED PERSONALITY?

At the start of May, I saw that my friend, accountability partner, and friend-of-the-blog Dr. Melissa Gratias had posted that she was a guest on Jon Tromans’ Triple “T” Productivity Podcast in an episode called Productivity. It’s all in your mind! A chat with Dr Melissa Gratias. Jon’s in the UK, Melissa’s in Savannah, and the conversation was out of this world!

(You know Melissa from many posts, but especially Paper Doll Interviews Melissa Gratias, Author of Seraphina Does Everything!)

Melissa and Jon pondered the age-old question of whether we are born productive (or unproductive), or whether it’s matter of environment and training. As Melissa is a trained in psychology (she has a Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology!) she offered insight based on “the Big Five personality traits” in the Five-Factor Model of Personality (also called The Big Five Model), and particularly the role of conscientiousness. I found this fascinating and jumped in to read more!

For those who haven’t taken a Psych class since college, the theory (which can go by the acronym CANOE or OCEAN) says that personality can generally be examined in terms of five core factors, each along a continuum:

• Conscientiousness — You might think that being conscientious is just a good policy. However, as a character trait, one can over- (or under-) do it. Too high on the conscientiousness continuum, and you might be a perfectionist or workaholic; too low and you might give in to impulsiveness,  irresponsibility, and disorganization. The goal is to be organized, responsible, and productive without going overboard into the toxic productivity realm we’ve been talking about lately here on the blog. Melissa talked with Jon about the correlation of the conscientiousness personality trait in seeming to be “naturally” organized.
• Agreeableness — Understandably, the continuum here ranges from those who are too trusting, selfless, and possibly even gullible on the high end to being overly suspicious, uncooperative (or — eek! — manipulative) on the low end. Someone striking a balance will be compassionate, respectful, and trustful to a logical degree. 
• Neuroticism — Note that this refers to the tendency to experience negative feelings. Neuroticism feels like the one odd duck in the model, because one would assume you wouldn’t want to be neurotic at all! As you’d expect, at the high end of neuroticism, someone might be anxious or depressed, pessimistic, and even filled with shame. But on the low end, it’s apparently possible to have too little neuroticism, leading to a sense of shamelessness. The safe harbor here is being confident and calm, 
• Openness to Experience — Those toward the high end may be seen as imaginative or creative, spontaneous, and curious, while those in the comfortable middle may be prefer practicality and routine, and at the low end might seem inflexible. 
• Extraversion — The range of extraversion is wide, and someone might range from attention-seeking to reserved. Basically, you want to be out there but not too out there! (Someone should have discussed this with 7-year-old Paper Doll.)

If you’d like to read more about this model, these articles offer a good start:

Big 5 Personality Traits (Psychology Today)

Big Five Personality Traits: The 5-Factor Model Of Personality (Simply Psychology)

What Are the Big 5 Personality Traits? (Psych Central)

For what it’s worth, I did a self-test at BigFive-Test.com (having searched for a free test, I picked one at random) and got the following results. As you can see, I score highest on conscientiousness, which would seem to validate Melissa’s wise thoughts on Jon’s podcast, given my field of work. 

The results also looked at various characteristics within each trait. For example, extraversion looked at friendliness, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity level, excitement-seeking, and cheerfulness. Conscientiousness broke down the score for self-efficacy, orderliness, dutifulness, achievement-striving, self-discipline, and cautiousness.

And speaking of caution, this was just a free internet test, probably more valid than Which Grey’s Anatomy Character Are You? but not as valid as working with a psychologist or expert in this kind of testing. Also, in case you’re wondering, at least according to the internet, I’m Lexie Grey. 

Lexie Grey via GIPHY

(Even considering the dangers of the Red Wedding, something tells me I should have gone with a Game of Thrones character quiz!)

But I digress. We were talking about Jon Troman’s Triple “T” Productivity Podcast.

JON TROMANS’ CAST OF CHARACTERS

I was charmed by Jon’s interview with Melissa, which mixed fun and lively conversation with a deep dive into philosophies of productivity. Although I did not know Jon, I recognized his name as a fellow Evernote Certified Expert, and made a point to learn more about him.

The next week, he profiled a professional organizer, Lucy Milligan Wahl, owner of LMW Edits in San Francisco for the episode Maximizing Productivity through an Organised Life. A chat with Lucy Milligan Wahl.

Lucy is a NAPO colleague, and while she and Jon did discuss Evernote and organizing, I was most taken by her approach to making a symbolic (and clear) division between life and work through ritual. It was a compelling chat, and I felt like I was listening in on a cool conversation at the next table in a café.

By the next episode, Me And My Evernote With Ray Sidney-Smith, I was definitely hooked. Ray being on the podcast was a double-delight for me. First, you’ve already met my productivity buddy Ray in many Paper Doll posts, so you’ve read how much I respect him, like in Paper Doll Picks: Organizing and Productivity Podcasts. He is one of the kindest individuals I’ve ever met, with a wicked/quick/clever sense of humor, and a wisdom surrounding productivity concepts in general and Evernote and David Allen’s Getting Things Done in particular.

But Ray is also special to me because he was my very first Evernote friend. We were in the same certification class, way back in 2015, and I am always agog at how much he manages to do, because is he reminds me of that movie title, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

He works a day job, he knows everything there is to know about Evernote, he leads in-person and virtual productivity meet-ups, and as he disclosed in the episode, he’s read more than 400 productivity books! According to my Goodreads book list, I’ve read a lot, but 400?!

For what it’s worth, I messaged Ray to see if he’s got a written, sharable list of his books, but sadly no. To be honest, I’m a bit shocked he doesn’t have an Evernote note listing every title, but he’s taken my request on board and put it on his Maybe/Sometime task pile. I’ll be sure to let readers know if he comes forward with a full accounting of all of the titles!)

MEETING THE MAN HIMSELF

At this point, having listened to three of my friends and colleagues get to chat with Jon (and then going back to hear his convo with our fellow Evernote Certified Expert Vlad Campos, maker of fascinating technology, productivity, and Evernote videos), I had to let Jon know how much I appreciated his stuff.

I did a little poking around and found that, like me, he had a whole prior career in broadcasting! (You can be sure that, off-microphone, had and I have now had some rollicking conversation about that era of our lives.) He also builds websites, develop marketing campaigns, and works with businesses to improve their digital content. Plus, he hosts the Not Another Marketing Podcast that covers the whole realm of digital marketing.

On top of it all, which is what made me realize he was more than just the guy I knew from the Experts forum, he started the Taming the Trunk newsletter and community. (The “trunk,” for the uninitiated, is the Evernote elephant logo’s trunk.) And from there, I guess creating the Triple “T” (get it? “Taming the Trunk?) Productivity Podcast was a natural extension.

Jon’s located on the Welsh border in Shropshire, West Midlands, and while I did get to go to England, Wales, and Scotland on my 2019 tour of the UK, I never got that close to where he is, which is a real shame because (as you’ll hear if you listen to any of these podcast episodes) he and his charming accent are a delight! 

Once we realized all the connections between us, Jon was lovely enough to invite me on his show, and we recorded the episode, Me and my Evernote with Julie Bestry, last week. I think you’ll be able to tell that we had a ball!

Jon asked me about all my favorite topics, from my take on paper vs. digital to what I really think of the idea of scanning all of your papers. Plus, Jon’s got a short list of questions he asks all of his guests, including a knockout of a question about life advice, which gave me a chance to share the always-brilliant wisdom of Paper Mommy.

You can listen to all of these episodes at the website episode pages to which I’ve linked above or at the episode archive, but for the full experience, subscribe and listen to the Triple “T” Productivity Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and (as they say) wherever you get your podcasts.

I invite you to listen to my episode and let me know what you think.