Reader Survey Results

Thank you so much for participating in our recent reader survey.

Survey results are presented below, along with the related actions I will take. At the very end of this article, I also make an observation about mental models, and pose a question for you to consider in your own lives. Hence, you get a freebie out of this.

What the Data Says

The following bullets summarize what I saw in the data. If you would like to see the raw results yourself, feel free to give this spreadsheet a look. There have been 19 responses so far. Hopefully this is enough to be representative, but I will also leave the survey open and will review it periodically to see if different trends emerge.

• Most of you work either 40-50 or 50-60 hours per week: a few work 70 hours per week.
• Most of you appear to be interested in a mix of productivity, technology articles, and thought pieces. There seems to be a bit more interest in productivity than in technology.
• The productivity areas of most interest are procrastination, weekly review, and work-life balance. Prioritization and Project Management also got several hits.
• The technology areas of most interest are web apps and mobile devices. There is also interest in Mac, Windows, and Linux applications.
• About half use a custom time-management system (example = GTD + 7 Habits), with the other half using pure GTD.
• Most use a Pocket PC and/or Outlook as the primary productivity tools. A couple use pen and paper exclusively or primarily.
• A few of you use Facebook and/or Twitter, but it appears that most of you are not interested in social media applications.
• Most of you prefer the current design in use at Keener Living, compared to past designs. (Makes me glad I bought it.)

Only a couple of specific recommendations for improvement were made:

• “Less is More.”
• Create some YouTube presentations of me speaking on various topics.

My Planned Use of the Results

First off, I am glad that my areas of interest coincide with what you are looking for. We all share an interest in productivity, technology, and thought pieces. So, it does not look like any sweeping changes are needed. Whew!

However, the comment of “Less is More” really struck a chord with me. To whomever made the comment: Thank You! It is clear to me that all of you are very busy and do not have the time to wade through a lot of articles to find a few good gems to use. Hence, I should focus on providing 2 or 3 articles per week, instead of a half-dozen. That will be a challenge for me. My restless nature, and the fact that I have more time to spend than most of you do, has put me into a mode of writing an article almost every day. I can see now that doing this is not the best thing for you. I’ve realized this before, but have slipped. So, I need to really work on this. Thank you for the reminder! I know that only one person made the comment that “less is more,” but I think it is a fundamental truth. Let me know if you disagree.

The amount of interest shown in procrastination, weekly review, and work-life balance has not been matched by a proportionate number of articles on this site. These topics do interest me, a lot, but I realize now that I have not written many of them so far. It seems to me that more articles in these areas would be useful to you, and I will keep that in mind every time I set down to develop a list of topics.

By the way, I added a “category” of procrastination to the list of tags I use on articles. So far I have tagged about a half dozen articles with this new tag. I also added a category of goals.

• An argument could be made that I should add even more categories. However, presenting people with too many categories can be worse than not presenting enough: Our minds dislike long lists. Hence, this may be an area where improvement can be made, but it should be done with good judgment and a lot of research and need not be a high priority. (Producing quality content at the right frequency has to be the top priority.)

As to the suggestion for YouTube: I am flattered, but I am not good at that sort of thing. It’s been almost two years since I have had to do any public speaking, so I’m guessing any podcast or YouTube by me would go over like a fart in a space suit.

And, since I generally do not like videos that much myself (preferring text that I can scan), I don’t see how I could put my heart into it, which would almost certainly doom it from the start.

Of the few times that I have provided you with a YouTube video on this site (such as one of David Allen’s), I have done so only because I thought the video was exceptional. They take time to watch, so I always try to be mindful of that before recommending one. Having said that, though, I will keep the recommendation in mind. I have serious doubts that I could pull it off well, but I appreciate you getting me to think a little differently. I preach to you to be open to thinking differently, so I need to make sure I do the same.

An Additional Insight

As I looked at the data, it confirmed the mental model I had of you as being hard-working, busy people. In my mind, I had pictured most of you as working 70 hours per week. After all, many of my friends do just that, beginning meetings at 6:30 am and ending them at 5:00 or 6:00 pm, having to do “their work” after that. The data showed that not all of you work 70 hours per week, but all of you work a lot.

But, even though I had this “model” in my head, I was not really paying attention to it. I was writing articles at a pace that is more suited for reading by retired folks, like me, who have plenty of time to read what any blogger wants to write. But this survey drove home to me that you do not have the luxury of time that I do.

I mention this to you for two reasons:

• I like to share with you what I learn.
• I hope you will use this example as motivation to think about whether you have mental “models” that are (1) wrong or (2) right, but are being ignored by you.

Closing Remarks

So, that’s my take on what the survey results were, along with the actions I plan to take in response to the results. Please let me know if I missed anything in interpreting the results, or if you feel that any of my actions are wrong-headed.

Again, thank you very much for participating in the survey. It has been enlightening to me and I hope to use the results wisely enough to continue to improve Keener Living.