This week’s tip was inspired by an idea from Catherine Smith of Continuum Group.

I’m regularly asked for advice on how busy people can manage their time more effectively.  Every week there seems to appear yet another ‘tool’ to help us in our quest.   I’m constantly on the lookout for that special something which moves beyond a mere tool or process and transforms the way people approach ‘time management’ and work-life balance.  I love this idea from Catherine, both for its simplicity and for the transformational effect it had upon the group.

The stalwart of time management…the ‘to do’ list.

Like many, I benefit from simply recording my tasks for the day/week/month AND often feel frustrated that my lists just never seem to get any shorter!  Every time I review them I always find ever more tasks to add.  That’s just the thing with to do lists – there’s always something more to do.

On our recent workshop, the group were exploring various methods to manage their time better. A large number of the group discussed the benefits of listing when my age old problem surfaced.

“I have lists of lists…”, “I sometimes spend more time writing my next list than I can afford…”, “My list just never gets any smaller…”

We had earlier discussed my use of a technique called ‘Headlining’ – each day I write a virtual headline such as

Steve finishes tip!            Steve clears in-basket at last!

Which helps me to prioritise and focus my efforts. That’s when inspiration struck! Combining listing with headlining – Catherine created ‘To Finish’ lists.  Rather than dwelling upon the endless stream of new tasks, Catherine decided to list only the one, two or three things she absolutely must complete today (anything else would be a bonus).  We all enjoy the sense of closure when a task is finished so why not use this motivation more consciously?  Aside from the obvious benefit of its simplicity, and focus, this idea will also enable Catherine to enjoy a healthy dose of dopamine and serotonin (feel-good chemicals) each time she finishes an item on her list.

I loved the idea immediately – as did many within the group so Catherine – consider your idea well and truly nicked and shared.

Call to action

Next time you reach for the to-do list, why not convert it to a ‘to Finish’ list and notice the difference?

During last 20 years, I put huge effort on time management, personal productivity, and organizing stuffs. I read many books (GTD, 7 habits, getting organized, 20/80 principle, …). I tried many systems – methods such as Franklin system, Moody or GTD – tools such as  palm, blackberry, outlook, RTM, or plain note. Even I made my own planner pages. As far as for knowledge of personal productivity, I can write a book.

The effort is not in vain. My life is probably messier if I didn’t try. The lessons from those systems are carved in my brain. Every time, I ask myself “What are my values?” or “What is big rock for this week?” or “What should I do at this context?.”

However, my daily life is not well-organized. Still I forget things. I fail to meet my commitments. I find excuses for not doing things.  Worst thing is that I do procrastinate.

As I read ZTD (Zen To Done), I realized that I didn’t change my habits. Yes. My life style has been improved. At least, I pursue to be a better person. I continuously evaluate myself and try to find a better way. But many times I stop there.

Habit is the key. Habit can be the best friend or the toughest enemy. Wanting to organize is not enough. Knowing how to be productive is not enough. I must make them as my habits.

So I am making habit change as my top priority. One month is needed to make (or change) one habit.  In this month, I will focus on two habits. #1. Collect and #4. Do from ZTD.  ’Collect’ is writing down everything to empty my head, so that unfinished stuffs do not bother my head. ‘Do’ is to focus on one thing at a time and not to do multi-tasking. Both are my weakest points. Specially ‘Do’ part.

I start the change with writing down my commitment here. Anyone who read this posting, please cheer me If you know me personally, please provide your feedback. I really need it. Changing habit is not easy. It’s like quitting smoke or alcohol. A little push will be appreciated.

I think I’d stumbled upon Getting Things Done™ before, but reading about it again here made me want to give it a shot. And having access to the amazing Leeds Uni library meant that I could check out the book™, so I did.

Went through it in a couple of hours, and 90% of it is either common sense or irrelevant to me – what is indeed of value though, is the workflow diagram™ and the overall message, which can be summed up in one sentence: WRITE SHIT DOWN™ (effectively) SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO THINK OF IT.

My implementation of the system is simpler than what’s suggested in the book, because I don’t run corporations and because I’m a lazy asshole. I tried a couple of software solutions but didn’t like them, so I just went with the paper version: got a small reporters notebook™ containing a list of projects on one side and my “next actions™” on the other, separated by context – home, school, errands and groceries .

Then I’ve got a smaller notebook to quickly jot ideas which later I may process™ into actions. All this is coupled with reminders on my phone for date-specific actions, which I’d been using for a long time now anyway. This pretty much guarantees I’ll never procrastinate ever again!

My first accomplishment is this very blog update, yay. Let the life changing begin!

Not many task managers keep things simple.  Most over stuff features that a fair amount of us wouldn’t think of using.  Well, those of us without OCD.  Today, I want to share one of the three that I found to capture the iPhones simplistic UI and capabilities.

The first is Done [iTune link] by Chilli X [website].

I really love this app!  The look and feel are just “right” to me – possibly because I am a minimalist at heart.  The developers are clear in their approach: high functionality with simplicity.  Done definitely delivers on this.

The UI is sleek, sharp, and somewhat customizable with the two themes built in.  Key elements like buttons and text fields are standard size., unlike several other task apps which use custom designed UI elements that can be too small or too large for some people.  Everything down to the shades used for designating list colors and text fonts just seem so perfect for the iPhone.

At its core, the app is as simple and straight forward as you can get without becoming unusable.  Performance is snappy and transitions between lists are clean.  Navigation is simple and easy to pick up as the app relies on the native UI button set so everything is very familiar.

A helpful tip Chilli X themselves gave, was to incorporate Emoji icons into your lists and tasks.  This was a great way to add some color and variety to my lists and I found that it was a nice way to distinguish list subjects.  Plus, it makes me smile… putting a little guitar next to ‘Schedule next band rehearsal.’

I must say, the best and one of the biggest selling points for me, was how fast I am able to enter a task and move on.  It really is back to basics here.  Yet, not in the way where functionality is lost.  You still get the option for notes and a due date, which are displayed perfectly in the list view.  Everything seems to flow very natural to the thought process.

There is a pending update in the wings for Done, a full version upgrade.  So far, Chilli X has been releasing some feature previews on their site and the new version is looking pretty nice.  Still no sign of my desired feature (sync to something) but I can still hope!  All in all, this is one app I recommend daily to every iPhone user I come into contact with.  It honestly, is that good.

When we come up with something (awesome), some (if not most) of us have a bad habit of shooting our mouths on how it was done. Realise that what you have done is suddenly not so fantastic and special anymore, especially if it was actually trivial to achieve. If you keep how you got it done a secret, the mystery magically makes what you have done even more fantastic than it actually is.

Of course you don’t just put yourself across as a snob, you can just skim the surface. Tell the person what he wants to hear.

Note: I have trouble doing this myself.

Stressed person

Nesta quinta-feira, dia 19, tive a chance de fazer um treinamento em GTD (Getting Things Done) com o único consultor brasileiro certificado pela consultoria criadora da metodologia, o Daniel Burt. Para quem não conhece, o GTD é uma maneira de aumentar a produtividade pessoal. O principal lema do seu criador, o americano David Allen, é de que a mente não foi feita para armazenar informações, e sim ter idéias. Segundo ele a capacidade de sermos produtivos é diretamente proporcional à capacidade de relaxarmos. Para isto, o individuo precisa ter um sistema em que ele possa confiar, seja um software, um smartphone, uma agenda, etc.



Há um ano e meio venho lendo sobre o assunto. Há muitas informações na internet, porém nunca tive a chance de ler o “best seller” “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity“, cujo o título em português é “A arte de fazer acontecer“. O meu primeiro contato com o termo foi pesquisando sobre mapas mentais. Posteriormente, ao escutar um podcast sobre produtividade, o “Get It Done Quick and Dirty Tips“, do americano Stever Robbins, aguçou ainda mais minha curiosidade em conhecer a proposta de David Allen.
O GTD é muito simples, não é nada de outro mundo, porém demanda disciplina para você fazer as coisas realmente acontecerem. Abaixo, segue os principais passos.
1- Coleta
Junte todos seu pensamentos, requisições, e-mails, tudo que demande a sua atenção e escreva-os. Aproveite e crie suas próprias “Inboxs”. Além da caixa de entrada do seu e-mail, você pode ter um local em sua mesa para todas e quaisquer requisições e/ou anotações que cheguem até você. David Allen recomenda que você tenha sempre a mão um bloquinho para fazer anotações. Já o nosso amigo Daniel Burd também usa um gravador para “capturar” todo e qualquer pensamento quando está dirigindo. Se você estiver concentrado em um trabalho e for interrompido, anote o pedido ou a informação para processá-la mais tarde.
2 – Processamento
Nesta fase você decide o que fazer exatamente com cada um dos itens que você coletou.
É recomendável que ao descrever cada item, você seja o mais claro possível, pois muitas vezes a pessoa não lembra exatamente do que se tratava uma anotação. Por exemplo, se a pessoa escrever apenas a palavra “carro”, ela corre o risco de pensar “o que exatamente eu queria dizer com isso, seria abastecê-lo, seria levá-lo ao mecânico ou seria pagar a prestação do veiculo?”.
Foque sempre na primeira ação que venha a sua mente. Se o item for “responder ao cliente”, mas inicialmente você tem que analisar um relatório, registre “analisar relatório”.
Caso a pendência requer menos de dois minutos, faça-a agora. Não perca tempo. Se o item não requer nenhuma ação, você pode guardá-lo como uma referência. (Ex.: boletos, artigos, informações que você julga importante). Caso demande uma ação em uma data determinada, você pode criar um lembrete para avisá-lo no futuro. Se você julgar que a tarefa pode ser delegada, delegue-a para a pessoa apropriada.
3 – Organize
Assim que você tenha claro qual é exatamente a primeira ação relacionada a cada item que você escreveu, chegou a hora de categorizá-lo. David Allen sugere criarmos sub-listas de acordo com o contexto de cada ação. Segue alguns exemplos:
- casa;
- escritório;
- rua;
- telefonemas;
- aguardando (para itens que você delegou e ainda esta aguardando uma resposta);
- algum dia (para itens que você ainda não tem certeza se irá fazê-lo);
- projetos (para toda e qualquer ação que requer mais de um passo);
- calendário (para ações precisem acontecer em uma determinada data).

4 – Revisão
Sempre que possível, reveja sua lista e seu calendário. Atualize-os a medida que novos itens aparecerem e a cada tarefa que for finalizada. Esta revisão pode ser feita diariamente ou semanalmente. Reserve um período na sua agenda para fazê-la. Busque manter seus “inboxs” sempre vazios.
Diariamente, invisto de uma à uma hora e meia processando e-mails, anotações e revisando minha lista e meu calendário.

5 – Ação
O ideal é que sua lista esteja sempre acessível. Com base nela você seleciona as ações que você queira tomar. Se por exemplo você estiver no ônibus, pode aproveitar este tempo e rever a sua lista de ligações pendentes e fazer algumas durante seu trajeto. Seja flexível com você mesmo. O legal do GTD é que não há prioridades pré-definidas.

Para ilustrar melhor as cinco etapas listadas acima, veja o diagrama abaixo.

GTD easy steps

Antes de fazer o couching com o Daniel Burd, eu tinha uma breve noção dessas etapas. Havia começado a aplicar o GTD com um caderno. Pouco tempo depois, como David Allen afirma, eu “caí do vagão”. Ele usa este termo para quando as pessoas perdem o controle do seu sistema. A vantagem do GTD é que você pode reimplementá-lo muito facilmente caso perca o controle. Depois do caderno, passei a utilizar uma ferramenta eletrônica chamada MonkeyGTD.

Daniel Burt afirma que no geral as pessoas tendem a ser boas em apenas uma etapa do GTD. No meu caso, eu era muito bom em fazer “coleta”, porém eu me perdia no “processamento”. Eu falhava em listar projetos. Minha lista “próximas ações” era muito grande e eu perdia o foco. Eu também falhava em adotar um calendário. A ferramenta corporativa que eu usava, o Lotus Notes, servia apenas para anotar reuniões. O trabalho do Daniel foi bem bacana para corrigir estas falahas. Hoje, anoto todo e qualquer compromisso além do tempo alocado para fazer algumas tarefas com prazo determinado.

Não há como negar o ganho que se tem ao centralizar seu calendário, sua lista de pendências e seus e-mails em uma única ferramenta. O Daniel forneceu dicas preciosas e simples sobre organização e produtividade usando ferramentas que já tinha em mãos. Após uma semana do meu couching, senti que tinha dado um upgrade no meu GTD. Eu senti que tinha o controle sobre o meu calendário. Por mais que eu tenha explorado sozinho os primeiros passos na implantação desta metodologia, o couching seriviu como um shortcut e aprendi muito em poucas horas de conversas. O meu GTD ficou ainda mais produtivo.

Caso queira saber mais, recomendo algumas fontes de informações:
- O livro: Getting Things Done;
- A lista no yahoogroups: GTDbr;
- O termo GTD no Wikipedia;
- Palestra que o David Allen deu no Google;
- E mais uma vez, o Daniel Burt, o consultor que tem me auxiliado na metodologia.

This article is a cross-post from the Shopzilla Tech Blog.

The way we build software has changed fundamentally. From waterfalls and schedules to backlogs and iterations, we deliver more – more quality, more technology and ultimately more value.

Still, we sometimes miss the point. It happens every time we focus on progress as a first-order goal.

In the “old days”, a project kickoff would mean an extended brainstorm followed by a “scoping” discussion, ultimately resulting in a schedule nobody believed anyway. Inevitably, the teams would fall behind and since the schedule was our only measure of interim success, the frustrated project stakeholders lost faith in the “under-performing” team.  Well before the software had a chance to succeed, the team often had already failed – ironically not because of bad software but because the team were not clairvoyant.

I argue the real failure was a focus on progress instead of the point.  Even in an Agile/Scrum process, we can easily lose sight of the point if we aren’t careful to measure the right thing.

I’ll give an example from Shopzilla’s recent site redo.

In 2007 we redesigned our site delivery platform.  One of the most important decisions we made was to release our new site one “page” at a time.  This approach, coupled with our ability to selectively meter traffic to the newly released site infrastructure, allowed us to move much more quickly because we could limit our risk by % of traffic.

Sounds great – what went wrong?

Releasing page-by-page was fantastic for momentum and risk management, but as it turns out we never released more than a small percentage of normal traffic to the new pages.  Once we completed the functional development we realized that we had been so focused on incremental releases that we had never performance tested the entire system together.  Did it really matter if each page of the site met its SLA when the overall site did not at full-scale?

To a point, we were following the best spirit of agile development with our incremental releases.  However, “done” for a page – or even for every page – did not mean “done” for the site.  We simply never had to consider the performance of the site while releasing one page at a time.  It’s only after we tested the entire system for the final release (at 100% of scale) that we saw serious performance issues and took another month to fix them.

–

Some argue we did exactly the right thing by only addressing issues (like full-scale performance problems) as they came up.  From my perspective however, the whole point of the initiative was to release our new site to 100% of our traffic.  Missing full-scale system performance until the end was a great example of us getting so wrapped up in our page releases that we forgot the point – the business value of a new extreme-scale site infrastructure.  This goes double given that one of the three goals of the project was 1.5 second full-scale page loads.

You get what you measure, so beware focusing too much on progress when the “point” is what you really care about.  Sometimes this pitfall shows up as a missed design principle like our example above.  Worse, we can find our teams more focused on things like 100% “commitment” rates in their iterations without regard to their actual yield (business value created).

At Christmas time BScene brings you free things

Here are the next three upcoming free BScene Events.

Bscene is every other Tuesday at Westwerks 41-43 Portland Road, Hove BN3 5DQ. 6 – 8pm

Secrets of Successful Selling – Week 7 Tues 1st December

David Foster of David Foster Associates will be running a highly interactive and entertaining workshop the title being “an introduction to the consultative sales approach”. In the session you will learn about and discuss, how you can make it easier for your prospects and customers to buy from you, rather than a competitor. You will learn how to increase business and make more sales.

Time management, productivity, efficiency in your life and work – Week 8 Tues 15th December

Local entrepreneur Simon Scott shares techniques he’s learned, used and applied with great success from the book ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen (recommended reading before the event – if you have time! ; ))

Body Language – Week 9 Tues January 12th

With over 30 years experience as a theatre director, actor and teacher, Mike Carter brings a refreshingly practical approach to his Body Language workshops. His sessions concentrate on understanding and adapting our own body language so that it is always appropriate and never misleading. He also gives clear and useful advice on how to interpret the body language of others.

Getting Things GNOME! also known as GTG aims to be a simple, powerful and flexible organization tool to the GNOME desktop environment. It is a productivity tool which aids you in organizing your work flow into tasks and sub-tasks, uniquely tagging them so as to get things done in a more efficient manner.

GTG Interface

Getting Things GNOME (GTG) sports a simple, albeit powerful interface. When you first open GTG, you will be presented the following window where you can add and schedule your tasks.

GTG user interface

Double clicking on a task will open it in a separate window where you can add details of the task, including any sub-tasks.

Enter details in the tasks editor

GTG Terminology

GTG supports a simple syntax which helps it recognize metadata such as tags and subtasks. The following are a few things you need to know to start using GTG to organize and manage your workflow.

Tasks -  A task is some work or goal you have to complete in a set time period.

Tags – A tag is a simple word that begin with “@“. All tags are by default highlighted in Yellow color in the editor. You can provide unique tags to all your tasks.

A few examples are @Work, @Home, @Play, @Hobby

Each task can be associated with multiple tags. You can toggle Tags sidebar by pressing F9 key.

Sub Tasks – A sub task is a task that “is related to / a part of”, another task. You can create a sub task within a task by entering the ‘-‘ (hyphen) followed by the sub task name. The following are a few examples of sub tasks.

- Buy groceries
- Shop for footwear

When you type the above lines and press Enter, each line will be automatically converted into a link. Clicking on the link will take you to that particular sub task’s window where you can add details specific to that sub task.

Workview – If you have lots of tasks pending and you want to zero in on only actionable tasks – those which you can immediately start doing, then Workview is GTG’s way of making it easy for you. When you click on the Workview button, it will show only those tasks that you can start doing right now.

GTG user interface has a lot of similarities with Tomboy. It is not surprising, given the author of GTG has gone on record praising Tomboy as his favourite application.

How to install GTG in Linux

Getting Things GNOME! or GTG is available in the repositories of most main stream Linux distributions. For instance, you can install GTG in Ubuntu Karmic Koala by a simple command as follows -

$ sudo apt-get install gtg

You can also download GTG package for your Linux distribution from its official website.

GTG is an excellent productivity tool for GNOME that aids in organizing your tasks, thus helping you stay focussed on getting things done.

Was uns oft über den Kopf hinauswächst und uns wirklich Urlaubsreif erscheinen lässt sind nicht die großen, organisierten Projekte, sondern viele Kleinigkeiten, die uns sowohl die Zeit, als auch den Nerv rauben. Mit unzähligen Gedanken im Kopf sollen wir uns dann konzentrieren und effizient arbeiten. Aber das funktioniert so nicht.

Es gibt eine Methode, die mit einem ganzheitlichen Ansatz genau diese Probleme aufgreift und Lösungen mit erstaunlicher praxistauglichkeit und Einfachheit anbietet: Getting Things Done – GTD (Dinge erledigt bekommen) von David Allen.

Der wesentliche Erfolgsfaktor beruht auf der völligen Entleerung des Denkapparats durch Festhalten aller Gedanken in einem System, in dem keine einzige Aufgabe verloren geht. Dies wird erreicht durch eine Inventur in sich selbst. Alle offenen Projekte werden aufgelistet und die nächste zu erledigende Aufgabe festgelegt. Diese wird in einem System, das regelmäßig überprüft wird abgelegt. Die regelmäßige Überprüfung dient dazu, dass unser Gehirn darauf vertraut, dass auch wirklich nichts darin übersehen wird. Erst dann schaffen wir es, nicht mehr daran zu denken (bis es soweit ist) und können unsere gesamte Kopfleistung auf das konzentrieren, woran wir jetzt gerade arbeiten möchten.

In der Konsequenz führt dies dazu, dass wir nicht ständig an die noch offenen Projekte denken, sondern einmalig über die zu erledigenden Aufgaben, die dann erledigt werden, wenn der Ort und die Zeit richtig sind. Beispielsweise hilft es nicht ständig daran zu denken, dass man noch ein bestimmtes Dokument ausdrucken muss, wenn man gerade unterwegs ist oder an die privaten Einkäufe, wenn man gerade im Büro sitzt.

Die Methode ist leicht verständlich und auch in Teilen anwendbar, d.h. man muss nicht erst die gesamte Systematik erlernen und wendet sie dann doch nie an, sondern man kann in kleinen Schritten voran gehen, die man nach und nach verinnerlicht und in seinen Alltag einbaut und geht dann immer ein wenig weiter. Von Anfang an lassen sich die Vorteile bereits erkennen und jeder Schritt bringt mehr Effizienz und reduziert den Stress - bis auf eine Ausnahme:

Wenn man am Anfang richtig loslegen möchte, muss man zuerst bei sich Inventur machen und dies nimmt eine gewisse Zeit in Anspruch. Aber der Aufwand lohnt sich.

Ein kleines Beispiel:

Halten Sie immer genügend Platz in Ihrem Ordnungssystem!

Es kostet kaum Zeit einen Ausdruck, ein Schreiben oder sonstiges Papier zu lochen, und in einen Ordner an der richtigen Stelle abzulegen. Damit ist die Ordnung garantiert. Sie haben alles, was sie noch benötigen an einem Ort, wo sie es (sofort) wieder finden. Es liegt nicht auf dem Schreibtisch oder in irgendwelchen Ablagesystemen herum (die mehr als Ablage, denn als System genutzt werden).

Voraussetzung dafür ist, dass Sie in Ihrer Nähe sowohl Platz für Ordner haben (auch evtl. neu anzulegende), als auch Platz in den Ordnern, um etwas abzuheften (mal davon abgesehen, dass in die Ordner auch ein Inhaltsverzeichnis und zusätzliche Trennblätter gehören).

Füllen Sie einen Ordner dehalb nur zu 75%. Dann legen Sie einen neuen Ordner an und teilen die Inhalte sinnvoll auf.

Wichtig sind die eben genannten Voraussetzungen! Wenn in dem Ordner kein Platz ist, mach Sie sich gar nicht erst die Mühe alles einsortieren zu wollen, weil es keinen Platz mehr hat. Haben Sie keine leeren Ordner zur Verfügung oder keinen Platz im Schrank für neu angelegte Ordner, können Sie dies auch nicht auf die Schnelle erledigen. Die Dokumente werden wieder schnell irgendwo hingelegt, um sich später darum zu kümmern (was wegen chronischem Zeitmangel nicht passiert).

Hört sich einfach an und ist es auch. Es ist auch leicht umzusetzen und das ohne großen Aufwand. Der Nutzen ist hingegen erheblich.

Ich persönlich lernte GTD vor etwa eineinhalb Jahren kennen und bin nach wie vor begeistert. Ich hatte mich auch davor bereits mit Zeitmanagement beschäftigt, aber der klassische Ansatz ist einfach anders und kommt an die Praxisnähe und Umsetzbarkeit von GTD nicht heran. Ich kann GTD uneingeschränkt empfehlen!

Ich selbst habe den Originaltitel in Englisch aber es gibt auch eine deutsche Übersetzung. Ich tendiere jedoch dazu, die Originalversion zu lesen, sofern man der Sprache mächtig ist.

Original (engl.):
Getting Things Done. The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Deutsche Übersetzung:
Wie ich die Dinge geregelt kriege: Selbstmanagement für den Alltag

Whatever you do, you’ve got to get things done. Whether it is personal or professional you have duties, projects, and responsibilities, and to be effective you must get them done, or do you? Well, yes, of course. Matt Perman of one of my favorite productivity blogs What’s Best Next answers a short Q&A on productivity.

Check it out, it’s good, and he ends with these good words: “realize that you don’t have to be productive. By this I mean: your significance does not come from your productivity. It comes from Christ, who obeyed God perfectly on our behalf such that our significance and standing before God comes from him, not anything we do.”

Ok, that’s different! But I think he is right. As Christian’s we are called to work and rest and in all things to trust in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. We are right with God by Jesus Christ not by busy-ness or accomplisment. Let that be your comfort in the midst of a hectic, head-spinning work day!

by Jeanne Dasaro

Over the past few months many friends have come to me with business ideas, asking how, like me, they might start their own business. What I find is that instead of wanting to discuss steps they could take toward self-employment, they are more interested in delving into an endless list of reasons why it can’t be done. The list of reasons ranges from cats to car issues, but mainly seem to come from genuine concerns about their own capabilities.

On my own path to self-employment—something I’m still in the process of figuring out—I quickly realized there were three things I’d have to accept. First, starting a business is not about being an expert. No one expects you to know the ins and outs of every aspect of your company from the very beginning. However, you’ll inevitably learn bits and pieces of web development, marketing, fundraising, project planning, and many other things you never dreamed you’d know about along the way. Still, that lack of initial understanding shouldn’t keep you from pursuing your idea. It’s your curiosity, hard-work, and willingness to take risks that is most important.

Second, it’s better to focus on maximizing the skills you already have and improving upon those skills rather than worrying about what you don’t know. I am lucky to have a business partner with complementary skills. We’ve been able to divide up tasks according to skill sets and then ask each other (and sometimes other people outside the organization) for help with all the rest. Don’t have a business partner? Well, who amongst your friends, family, and professional contacts have the skills you need? Give them a call, send them an email, ask them to a cup of coffee sometime. You’d be surprised at the amount and quality of information that comes from that cup of joe.

Finally—something that is a bit of an overlap between the first two—you must not feel intimidated by what you don’t know. Or rather, let that intimidation get the best of you. If I were to let the fact that I didn’t know how to create videos or podcasts stop me from starting a media organization, we may have never gotten off the ground at all. If you have a clear vision for what you want to see built and are willing to work for it and learn as you go, the rest will eventually fall into place. There are countless people and resources out there to fill in the gaps and help you with what you don’t know. Stop merely thinking about your idea, and instead go do it!

Image courtesy of centrifuga*teatrante, Flickr Creative Commons

"Busy Hands" by Tincandrifter - deviantART.com

Before the baby was born, I had loads of time to write.  In fact, thinking about how much time I wasted pains me the way burning $100 bills pains Scrooge McDuck.

Even so, with all that time up the ying-yang, my productivity and efficiency weren’t all that great.  In fact, they were terrible!  I was getting stuff written, but it was a lot of put it off, put it off, put it off, write it all in one big glut, then sleep.  Then I’d spend a few weeks gearing up for the next cycle, which meant putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, et cetera.

Now, in the midst of NaNoWriMo frenzy, pushing 43,000 words so far, I have also written two short stories for my class that I’m fairly happy with.  My first drafts are closer to final draft than the first drafts of my previous stories, they’re shorter and more concise, and I wrote them in record time…all because I needed to get back to the novel in a hurry.

On top of that, I’ve probably posted to this blog more than I have any other month, as well as kept up on some other writing projects.

And the wild thing is I’ve been able to do this around the baby, who rightly takes up 99% of my time.  Fat Cat plays with her for two hours in the morning, and she gets her Dada time.  The rest of the time, she’s with me.  I even write in bed while she naps.

It’s sort of mind-boggling, to be honest.  I’ve spent months trying to get through a revision of a 70-page novella, and in the course of 24 days, I’ve written over 170 pages.  How does that happen?

I guess I’ve been going about this the wrong way all along.  I should have had a baby a long time ago. 

I have just finished doing a friend’s tax returns, which were outstanding for the past few years. It feels so good to have done them but also makes me so aware of the undone things in out lives. I look at how he has struggled in his business, not I believe because he is a bad businessman or a guy who rips people off. I think, like me, he does not prioritise, he always want to be Mister Nice Guy and doesnt allow himself perhaps to look at the true picture. It is sometimes easier to avoid the reality in our lives and to rather ignore things and hope they go away. The horrible reality of life is that they dont go away and at some time you have to deal with it. I mentioned that I had been to a mens conference last week an that one of the things that stood out for me was the session on dealing with ones weaknesses. As men we seem to have a difficulty in admitting to our weaknesses and end up in all sorts of trouble because of it, think of guys who have a porn problem, gambling, alcohol. Some times those seem more identifiable than our own. They are easier to point a finger at because on the surface they seem to cause more problems. Be like me and my wayward tax return friend and have a problem with your finances and getting your life sorted and getting things done and see the devastation that that causes and then you kinda feel like jumping off the bridge. I kinda believe though that it is never too late, I look at some of teh mosr amazing characters out of the Bible  and how messed up they were and still God used them. I am full of faith and very expectant of how God is going to change me, cause I am so bad at doing it myself that He will have to,and then use me.

As I completed one of my annual readings, I was reminded of the need develop bonds with those of influence. “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill speaks of the power of the mastermind and the need to have strong alliances that aid business success. As I completed this it reminded me of a recurring issue in selling- networking.

Selling professionals and successful entrepreneurs are not isolated. Review any successful person and numerous others always surround them. They do not live in a vacuum and understand the need for constant connectivity to assist them in building their respective businesses. Look at others in your organization or other successful individuals, do you notice similar?

One of the most valuable components of marketing is branding. Moreover, to help manifest the brand, organizations and individuals needs to help that brand proliferate by having others create buzz. Sellers and entrepreneurs use similar means with the depth of their networks. They assist in driving business by meeting new people, opening doors unknown to them and lessening labor.

Here are some questions to help you review your network:

1.            Who is in your network?

2.            How often do you communicate with them?

3.            Are they a person of influence?

4.            Can they assist you?

While many sales professionals buy lists and comb phone directories, a network of influential individuals can eliminate time, reduce stress and save hordes of money. I know of one company where the mandate is to knock on doors for new business. That is a lot of rejection and wasted time. Would not a proper network aid this effort? To grow business you must emulate others that are successful at it. So what might you do?

1.            Begin to attend networking groups where you can meet individuals. Do not be taken in by the folly of groups where members simply want to sell you something. Attend functions where you can build alliances but do not be a wallflower you must actively participate.

2.            Use your existing network to help you expand. Tell your network

your value proposition. Ask that they introduce you to others that might require your value.

3.            You need to review your current network. I learned long ago that a person is a sum of all parts and if your network is not influential you just might need to

purge. Yes, eliminate those that do not aid you or waste time. There is a cliché if you want to be a millionaire you have to affiliate with them. Is your network pushing you to newer heights?

4.            Beware of the folly of social media and individuals that are Lions, Tigers, Bears, Cats, Dogs and Sheep. It is not quantity but

quality. Does it matter that someone has 15,659 followers if there are not decision makers in the queue.

5.            Spend useful time with useful people. Purge associations, charities

In addition, other time consuming organizations. Spend useful time with those that can affect your business.

6.            Avoid the baseball card theory. Collecting business cards is not a lead generation system. What you do with the cards after is. Many people believe business cards are gold bullion. If you do not follow-up, you have is manure.

7.            Networks need to be catered. You must remain actively involved and nurture the individuals as they say out of sight out of mind. A gentleman recently lost a significant piece of business when he failed to follow up with his network connection.

There are 7 techniques you can use daily to assist your practice. If you seek a additional alternatives to building your network email me today. And ask about our Free 30 Minutes “Practice Management Coaching Clinic”.

©2009. Drew Stevens All Rights Reserved.

Drew Stevens PhD works with chiropractors to dramatically accelerate revenue. Dr. Drew is the author of six books including Split Second Selling and the soon to be released Ultimate Business Bible – 12 Strategies for Practice Managment Success. He is also the creator of the Sales Leadership Certificate one of only 14 programs in the United States offering an accredited degree in the profession of selling and has a top ranked podcast called Sales Fitness. To book Dr. Drew for a free 30 minute coaching session or to obtain his FREE Report called Secrets of Ultimate Business Success email him today at www.drewstevensconsulting.com/contact

David answers the question, “Do I need a customized version of GTD for my organization?” What are best practices that apply to all? Click here to listen now or click here to download. (mp3, 4:47)

Every now and again, I need to sit down with people I look up to professionally for a cup of coffee and a dose of inspiration. Like anyone, I get stuck in a rut from time to time and need a little push to get me going again. Coincidentally, November has been the month where I’ve taken quite a few coffee meetings, lunches, and a few beers, as well.  Here are some of the high points from what I’ve learned.

• Think creatively. What is the most inexpensive way to dispense knowledge and share information? How about a book club at your office where you read a book and lead executives through a thirty minute session based on your findings?
• Add value. If you’re meeting with a high-level executive or mentor, think about what they may need to be successful? Find out what they’re passionate about and add some light to the subject. Let them know what is big in your professional environment and why they should be aware of it.
• Why hire an expert when you can do it yourself? This pieces was invaluable for me. Even when you have a great deal of professional respect for the experts, have some confidence in yourself and your gut. It can save you time, money, and improve your standing.
• Don’t be scared to think big. The big ideas are the ones that challenge us to look at matters differently and say “what if…”
• Don’t be scared of criticism. Criticism is a means to find ways to improve the way you work with individuals and groups. Figure it out, get help from others, and make the steps to add value to the relationship.
• Protect your time. Turn off your e-mail alerts, block time to think, write, act, and review your tasks, projects and goals. You’ve got a calendar on your desktop, use it. Just in the past few days, I’ve been more productive by emptying my e-mail box, setting time on my calendar for big tasks, and delegating those that can be handled without me. (Note: I’m not that important that tasks can get done without me.)
• Make tangental connections. After you’ve had a meeting with someone, set another, but bring a friend or business associate who would make sense.
• Set action steps. If you have a meeting of the minds, make sure you follow up on what you have talked about.
• Stay in touch. Don’t do it just once a year and expect to see a value.

I’m sure more will come of this post, so keep an eye out for how I follow through on these goals.

As I was writing one of the highest viewed articles on this website, “How to Deal With Anger, Mindfully,” I realized that the advice written may be beyond the ability of some readers.

In a nutshell, what if the reader couldn’t even deal with their anger because they couldn’t even accept themselves having anger (suppression). Or what if they could accept their anger but they got stuck there; unable to get past the stage where anger helps them understand their feelings and grow from the experience?

What could I do for those readers?

I decided to dig through the most current literature on anger from the worlds of psychology, mindfulness, and neuroscience and compile what I discovered in a step-by-step guide that can hopefully help readers tend to their anger mindfully from the beginnings of anger to the end.

The guide touches on why you shouldn’t suppress your anger, how to keep your anger in check, how to understand your anger, and more. The steps are listed in logical order, but you should feel free to start wherever you feel like you need to start.

Step 1: Learn what not to do. [link]

Step 2: Slow down your anger response. [link]

Step 3: Do self-compassion. [link]

Step 4: Understand your anger. [link]

Step 5: Label your emotions. [link]

Step 6: Expand your vocabulary. [link]

Most of us photographers like to spend time behind the camera. After all, we are photographers so this is our rightful place, isn’t it?

The problem is there are so many other details and little things that can distract us and prevent us from spending time behind the camera. Think about going on vacation for example. Just to get away there are a ton of things that must be done. Our to do list grows to enormous size and we have a lot of details to wrap up before can leave.

Even preparing for a photography-specific vacation requires paying attention to a lot of mundane details: did you charge your batteries? Did you pack enough spare flash cards? What lenses are you going to bring? Do you have cleaning supplies packed? How will you backup in the field? Do you know exactly where you are going? Do you have enough money for everything? Did you put on clean underwear? (Opps, that was bad!)

But in all seriousness all these little details can get in our way. So sit down, make a list, and begin checking these items off. The sooner you take care of the little things the sooner you can focus your camera!

I want to organize EVERYTHING. Other than setting everything on fire and starting from scratch, how can i do this?

I am currently making a to do list and filing all my paperwork; however, this is really only step one of my project to get my shit together. What should step two be?

By now your company, division or department is ready to Evolve, to enjoy the fruits of your labour and to make sure the change sticks.   Remember, Evolve isn’t the finish line, it is simply the results of your most recent efforts.  Let’s quickly review our accomplishments so that we get to the key elements of Evolve.

Embrace - The Planning & Communication Phase     

• You Built a Rock Solid Credible Plan,               
• Communicated a Clear and Measureable Vision,
• Instilled a Sense of Urgency throughout the Organization,
• Set Lofty but achievable Goals & Objectives, and
• Made sure that your Senior Leaders were Ready for the Battle

Execute – Where the Rubber Hits the Road

• You, put the Right People in the Right Places and Weeded out the Resistors,
• Provided the Time, the Training and the Resources,
• Measured and Tracked your Progress along the way,
• Rolled up your Sleeves and Led By Example

Evolve - Celebrate Success and Build Sustainability

Celebrate Even your Smallest Successes

It’s more difficult than you think…  What were your top ten successes last year?  Most of us have dozens of successes, yet it’s very difficult to name more than two or three.   At the pace that business is moving – today’s achievement is just tomorrow’s base line, in fact, many of us are relieved when an achievement is finished and out of the way so we can move to the next item on our priority list. 

The trick here is to make sure that we take the time to acknowledge ‘other people’s success.  Recognizing and celebrating the success of an employee, the achievement of a team or even the rapid progress towards a goal can make a material difference in the mind of the person that is making the effort to change.  Reach out and recognize people that make a positive contribution and you will reinforce the type of behaviours that your company needs to be successful.

Reward Employees to Encourage and Reinforce the New Habits

By the end of the Execution stage, certain employees and certain teams will stand out, they will glow like a bright light and everyone will  turn to take notice.  These individuals are your ‘Process Stars’.  They heard your message, they made it their own and they created success that everyone can see.   Their behaviour models the change you need to reinforce to everyone.  Their determination, alignment to company objectives and their drive to succeed must be recognized.  

Strike while the iron is hot!  Whether it’s is a reward, a promotion or a new opportunity,  the  ’Process Stars” need to be held up as the example for others to follow.  Create strong role models, reward their success and the positive cycle of change and continuous improvement will begin to replicate itself.

Raise the Bar Before your Employees Settle into their New Normal

After the success of a long, difficult project, its human nature to pause, take a breath and try to settle into the New Normal.  Don’t let it happen!  As the leader you need to celebrate the achievement and quickly raise the bar.   Make it clear to everyone that the new world record is meant to be broken!  It’s the new baseline and anything less does not meet the new standard.  Communicate a new urgency, set new objectives, provide the tools and let people use their new skills to move to a higher level of Continuous Improvement.

This is not an appeal re. Apple’s Mac – although I admit that I am an unabashed Apple man.  It is a simple observation about our lives.  We are overwhelmed with too much stuff.

Anne's taking her stuff back to move it to a Mac

You’ve seen the new Mac commercials.  In one, a woman has her box of stuff, and she is taking the launch of the new Windows version as her opportunity to switch to Mac.  So – she is making the switch, and moving all of her stuff to Mac.

It’s the stuff that grabbed me.  My life is filled with stuff.  There’s stuff in the trunk of my car.  There’s stuff all over my office.  There’s stuff in my closet.  And in my bedroom.  And in my storage space.  And even more stuff in my garage.  Some of this stuff I have not looked at in years.  Some of this stuff I definitely do not need.  And sometimes, there is stuff I do need – but I can’t find it.

At the Take Your Brain to Lunch gathering this week, the second book I presented was David Allen’s Getting Things Done.  I know that I mention his GTD approach frequently on this blog.  (Check out this post:  The Getting Things Done President, and the need to just sit and think…).  And with good reason — this is one of my great challenges.  I have spent a lifetime battling the attack of the killer stuff.  Allen has created quite a following because he points to genuine solutions to the time management/life management challenges of our era.

We don’t get enough done.  We don’t get enough done because we don’t remember, we don’t retrieve our notes to ourselves in a timely manner, we try to remember too much, and we simply let too much fall though the cracks.  His premise is simple – work on only one thing at a time, with great and unflinching focus, and have the next “next action” immediately retrievable in your reminder/to do/next action prompt system.

But it all goes back to “stuff.” And the real stuff problem is not all that stuff stacked and hidden in the nooks and crannies of our physical world.  It is the stuff cluttering our minds, uncategorized, forgotten, and we are unable at key times to remember or retrieve the stuff in our minds, the stuff we need to get done.

Here is Allen’s definition of stuff:
Stuff:  anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven‘t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step.  As long as it is still “stuff,” it’s not controllable.  It is “an amorphous blob of undoability!”
The vast majority of people have been trying to get organized by rearranging incomplete lists of unclear things; they haven’t yet realized how much and what they need to organize in order to get the real payoff.

Getting Things Done challenges us to really get our stuff off of our mind, and put it in a spot that enables us to know exactly how to retrieve it.

Here’s his two step process:
Step one: Capture everything that you need to get done, now later, someday, big, little, in-between – into a logical and trusted system outside of your head and off your mind!
Step two: Discipline yourself to make front-end decisions about all the “inputs” you let into your life so that you will always have a plan for “next actions” that you can implement or renegotiate at any moment.

In fact, Allen says that until we implement such a system to handle our stuff, we really won’t get things done as we could and should.

"Clock" by farnk05 - deviantART.com

I started this blog entry on the 5th.  This is what I wrote:

“It’s 4:14 a.m. as I type this.  I’m 5,283 words into my novel for NaNoWriMo.  My husband and baby are in bed, undoubtedly warm and cuddly, under the blankets with the fan on.  I’m taking a short break from writing.  I’m wondering when the blood is going to start flowing back into my posterior.”

That’s when I think I checked on the baby and got seduced into bed by my slumbering family.  I put up a good fight, but in the end, I had to raise the white flag.  Babies smell so good.  

Now it’s the 11th — scratch that.  It’s the 12th.  I’m still on schedule with NaNoWriMo at 19,000+ words, and something’s changed in me, for the better.  I’m finding out for myself the truth about time management — it’s bogus.  There is no management of time.  What utter nonsense — and arrogance on my part! — to think that time can be managed.  And I think I’ve known that for a long time.  There is only now, and that’s all anybody’s got.

Truth be told, this is the first time in years that I’ve spent every free moment devoted to moving the story forward.  Being a new parent has shrunk my “free time” to the size of a peanut compared what I was used to, and yet, I’ve become twice as productive, and only getting better.

Not only am I writing faster, focused on moving the story forward, ignoring my inner editor — that wretched, jealous bitch — but I’m getting rid of the extras in order to trade back more time.  Emails, surfing, shopping, excessive research, blog-reading, even unnecessary eating (my favorite)…these things have all fallen by the wayside in favor of the book.

That’s right.  Now, instead of thinking, planning, dreaming about writing, poking stories along here and there with my slowpoke stick, I am writing the book.  And it’s a book now, no doubt about it.  Not an idea, not a concept, not an outline, or even a synopsis.  It’s a friggin’ book.

Originally, my intention with this post was to ask people when they write, whether they’re more productive in the morning, afternoon, evening, et cetera, as I, myself, used to be a night owl, but have found I’m more productive if I write in the morning.

But like time management, ultimately all that type of discussion can be pretty pointless and lead to procrastination strategies I’m better off without.  I prefer to write every morning from 10:00 to noon at my local Starbucks.  That’s my preference, and that’s when the juices seem to run the juiciest.  However, it is a rare occurrence these days.  So here I am after midnight, squeezing in a blog post before I jump back to the book.  Glory be!

Turns out, the best time for me to write is now.  It always has been.  I just was too busy avoiding it to realize it.  So back into the trenches I go.