I direct this article toward small businesses that want to develop a training culture, create or access and deliver programs that maximize productivity and profit.

 Two facts are important.  First, untrained people typically fail or, at best, under-perform.  Their mistakes and omissions lower your service level, damage your image in the marketplace and eventually, cost you money.  Second, if you don’t devote significant time and resources to building and administering a serious teaching program, building staff skills isn’t easy.  So, we have a need to train and a challenge in making it happen.

 Below are some practical suggestions that will enable the smallest business to train more effectively.

 Designate someone who cares.  Training is a management responsibility.  Still, managers may not always be available to deliver training.  Rather than try and fail because you are too busy, delegate. Use training as a development tool for your most quality oriented team member.  Choose someone who shares you beliefs about doing the job right.  While this is the person who will build your training program, he/she need not be an expert.  Most of the info you’ll need is readily available.  Your ‘trainer’ must focus equally on task completion and on the people who make it happen. Effective and enthusiastic communication is mandatory.  Select the trainer accordingly.

• Organize topics in ‘need to know’ sequence.  Limit initial training objectives.  Begin with the job description.  What is it the employee must know or be able to do first?  Begin your training there.  Teaching in a logical need-to-know sequence, according to job requirements, will improve retention of the information and make more sense on the job.  Information I’ll call “nice to know”, while often more interesting to the trainer, tends to reduce clarity for new people and can be confusing.  Trainees must understand what is important now.   
• Plan training in ‘small bites’.  Spend some initial development time re-formatting important but often boring information.  Emphasize most important points and critical knowledge in concise, easy to understand ‘bites’ or learning modules.  New hires cannot and will not absorb extensive information.  Initial training should allow the new hire to begin successfully, accomplishing small tasks, one at a time. Do not attempt to create a subject matter expert in a week or two.  Not only is limited ‘small bite’ training easier to absorb and translate to behavior on the job, it is easier for a new trainer to create and deliver.   
• Use available and inexpensive resources.  In today’s “green industry”, whether your business is focused on design and build, maintenance, landscape or lawn care, the information you need is out there.  One of the first tasks for your new ‘trainer’ should be to network with established and respected companies and trainers in the industry.  Take advantage of the work others have done to pull together necessary information.  You will find most of us are ready to help.  Here are other great resources:

*Pesticide safety/use topics – OSHA website and state extension services.

*Environmental stewardshop – EPA websites [federal and state]

*Driver safety – National safety council, local/state police and for profit training producers [“Google” the topic, you’ll be amazed at the choices available]. 

*Equipment and product use – Manufacturers provide this info in video and written form.

*Plant/pest relationships – Your state extension service is a great resource and all information is free!

*Sales/customer service – “Train the Trainer” seminars can equip your trainer to deliver these topics. Programs are available and can be customized to your needs.

 Finally, remain active in your national and local associations. Take advantage of the resources provided. 

 Many operators just like you have used training to help build a culture of quality

and professionalism.  Why not join the club!

HollywoodHelper

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People are obsessed with productivity. We feel a huge need to GET SHIT DONE every day, making to-do lists and feeling unfulfilled if we don’t learn something new every day, or make some progress towards our life goals. I know that this is something I feel pretty regularly.

Currently I am running two jobs, trying to write a novel, learn Spanish, keep this blog going, find and write for anywhere that will have me, reading a lot, trotting off here and there and having a social life. This may or may not be a lot of to-do, but whether or not this is an overwhelming amount, I was definitely winding myself up over getting it done.

This came to a head last weekend when I realised quite how stressed I was making myself over whether or not I ‘achieved’ something each day. If life got in the way of me doing half an hour of Spanish, writing another thousand words or reading the next chapter in the time I had allotted then I got angry, worried and upset.

This is my first year out of education and external deadlines in eighteen years, and I have been worried that I will sink into a malaise and not get anything done, other than going to work and making the money I need to travel. I want to be able to look back on this year and say ‘This is the year when I learned Spanish/got published/started my website’ rather than ‘This is the year when I worked a lot and didn’t do much else but hang out with my friends’.

Last weekend I wasn’t able to do anything I had planned and this stressed me out immeasurably, panic attack style. This was enough to make me stop, and slow down.

Everything I’m trying to do this year, I am doing because I enjoy it and want to do it. There is absolutely no reason to have a panic attack over a weekend sans learning. The most important thing I should be able to look back and say is ‘That’s the year I had a really great time in Canterbury’ no matter what ‘achievements’ I manage. So, I am letting go of ‘to-do’.

Every so often I remind myself that we will naturally gravitate towards doing that which we love. I really want to learn Spanish and get this novel finished and keep this blog going and go travelling, and so those are things I will and have naturally gravitated towards doing.

I don’t necessarily do each one every single day, or even every other day, but at the moment I’m quite lucky in not having any pressing deadlines. Rather than look forward and worry that I will get distracted and won’t do what I ‘need’ to do, it’s important to look back as well, especially to realise that I have been doing these things regularly and will most likely continue to do so.

I could burn myself out, sacrifice my social life and work hard this year to reach all my goals. If the spirit takes me, I might go hermit and do that for a while. Looking at where I’m naturally gravitating at the moment, I just don’t want to put that much time into it. I’m enjoying going out with my friends and being around people. Beating myself up about not getting enough done isn’t going to change the past.

One can go two ways with becoming frustrated with how much one is or isn’t doing. Either accept that you just don’t want to put the time in right now and have fun instead of chaining yourself to your desk and sweating blood, or use your frustration and channel it into your work. After all, you’re frustrated with not working enough, so if you’re that upset, then just do it!

If you’re avoiding a task constantly and consistently though, perhaps it’s time to have a double-check whether it is something you actually want to be doing. Does it inspire you? When you think of doing it do you feel a buzz of excitement, fear or despair? Has it been undone on your to-do list for more than three months? If you haven’t got around to it in three months, it’s probably more like something you think you ought to do rather than something you actually want to. This can be anything, even something awesome fun like learning to juggle clubs. (I say awesome fun, it’s also really difficult and off-putting. I will do it though…one day.)

And so! I plan to live a more fluid life, doing things as I want to rather than because I feel I ought to, and hopefully that will lead to a calmer attitude to To-Do. However, I have noticed a pattern emerge which seems to revolve around my doing days as I want to and not using my planner, starting to use my planner more and trying to schedule in hobbies, then listing everything I need to do in a day (or feel I need to do) before I implode again and decide to live by doing what I want not what I feel I ought…so perhaps I’ll be writing on this topic in another month! I think every time the cycle cycles I learn something more though, so we’ll see how long it sticks for this time.

How do you feel about To-Do and the cult of Productivity?

Amelia

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New beginnings and getting going

I’m shifting gear a little with projects. Some tasks are moving to the perfunctory box ~ get them done and get them done fast.  And I have new tasks that aren’t hard but they aren’t habits yet.  I could easily founder simply because I haven’t done them often enough to slide into them without thinking.

Getting over dithering

As I dithered, just a little, in the normal way we do when we settle to something big, I came across a post that I wrote about Inpowr, the Montreal based web2.0 platform where you rate areas of  your life and set goals.

A digital reminder

Inpowr has some good looking interfaces.  Moreover, it pings you every day at your chosen (Montreal) time and reminds you to review your goals.  That makes it great.  To develop some good habits, it helps to have someone to nudge you!

Choose between your positive and negative versions of events

A tip though: Inpowr will ask you to rate your achievement of each goal on a 1-5 scale.  Don’t just rate and move along.  Expand the task a little. Describe how the day went.  Rate 1 and answer the question.  Change your rating to 3 and answer your question.  And then change your rating to 5 and answer the question again.

Answering all three questions helps you to see your negative and positive thinking and choose between them.  Which is most useful to you?  The negative or the positive version?

Privacy

Oh, and do watch the privacy settings.  It is possible to make your goal setting open to the world.  Maybe you would prefer your exercise to be private.  Check your settings!

21 days on Inpower

Inpowr runs on 21 day cycles.  What can you accomplish by Christmas?

Innovation is an essential driver for regional economic growth and a new national report has revealed how significant it can be in closing the productivity gap.

Two thirds of private sector productivity growth between 2000 and 2007 was driven by innovation, claims a new report by NESTA.

The findings are revealed in The Innovation Index: Measuring the UK’s investment in innovation and its effects (PDF, 1.59mb), the most ambitious attempt yet to measure the contribution of innovation to the UK’s economic growth.

The Index, which will be published on an annual basis, reveals a direct link between the amount of innovation that companies invested and productivity output.

UK businesses invested £133bn in innovation in 2007 (the most recent year covered by the Index), representing 14% of private sector output.

The effect of all this innovation is increased productivity. Two-thirds of UK private sector productivity, 1.8 percentage points of productivity growth per year, between 2000 and 2007 was a result of innovation.

This compares favourably with the best data available for countries like France and Germany, and similar to the US levels.

It may account for why the UK has enjoyed higher productivity growth in recent years than France or Germany: 2.0% compared to 1.3% and 1.1% respectively.

The Index also reveals that:

Innovation is linked to business growth across a range of sectors

Innovative software firms enjoyed a much faster growth rate than non-innovative ones (13% average revenue growth per year compared to just over 0%).

But this relationship holds true even in sectors not traditionally associated with innovation, such as legal services, where innovative firms enjoyed average revenue growth of over 10%, while non-innovative firms’ revenues shrank on average.

The UK is a relatively good place to innovate but has some shortcomings

The UK is a mid-table performer when it comes to the wider conditions for innovation compared to other leading economies (the US, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Finland).

However, it performed poorly on three important indicators:

• Access to finance
• Demand for innovation (in particular the use of government procurement to encourage innovation)
• Skills for innovation

This post was contributed by Brian MacAulay, Director Innovation Index at NESTA.

Leaders who live with power stress — chronic, intense pressure resulting from responsibilities, crises and demands — can easily slip into what is known as “the sacrifice syndrome.” Simply put, we burn up, burn out, and lose our effectiveness.

We know from neuroscience and psychology that when people experience chronic stress, cognitive functioning is diminished and we get sick more often. We lose sight of the big picture and make bad decisions. Our self-awareness dwindles, empathy is in short supply, and self management is compromised. We lose the emotional and social competencies that enable us to be successful leaders.

Paradoxically, the best leaders are most susceptible to the sacrifice syndrome. Why? Because we take our responsibilities seriously. We care. We strive. We try harder. What about you? Are you a bit on the edge, ready to slip into behaviors you know won’t work?

There is plenty that you can do about it. But first, you have to get over the fantasy that a nice summer vacation is going to fix everything. It isn’t. You are walking back into the 24/7 environment. The same pressures are there. They’re not going away.

Next: admit it. You aren’t a superhero and you never will be. Sure, you’re strong, resilient and clever. Good. Capitalize on these gifts. But you need to do more. You need to interrupt the sacrifice syndrome with real renewal. You have to build regular practices into daily life that spark psychological and physical renewal. It’s as important as eating, sleeping and breathing. Here’s how to start:

1. Listen to life’s quiet wake-up calls. Perhaps your wake-up calls aren’t as dramatic as some I’ve seen–the broken marriages, plateaued careers. But maybe you don’t laugh as much as you used to, you’ve quit going to the gym or don’t do things you enjoy most. Listen! Make course adjustments now.

2. Practice mindfulness. Pay attention to your mind, body, heart and spirit. This doesn’t happen by accident. Most of us need to develop and then practice the art of reflection. Try finding a few minutes of quiet time alone each day, even if it’s just five minutes before getting up in the morning, walking from the train to work, or a quiet moment in the park.

3. Find hope. Hope is a powerful force. On a neurological level, it actually helps us to counter the negative effects of life’s pressures and burdens. Hope–an image of a positive and feasible future–inspires us to dig deep down, to find the strength to move in the direction of our dreams. So imagine your life in ten years: what will you be doing? Who’s sharing your life? What will capture your passion?

4. Practice Compassion. Focus on the needs and desires of the people around you. Act on what you see–do something to support others achieving their goals. Make someone’s day better. Like hope, compassion engages positive emotions, which in turn engage renewal.

Change starts with you. And when linked to a meaningful outcome, change can be exciting and fun. Start small. Start today. But start. It will be worth it!! Anissa

adapted from http://conversationstarter.hbsp.com/2008/09/four_steps_to_beat_back_the_pr.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-WEEKLY_HOTLIST-_-SEPT_2008-_-HOTLIST0904

While looking around at alternative task management tools to RememberTheMilk, I had another look at Google Tasks, and happened upon a few URLs that might come in handy in the future;

• https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas – Full screen view of tasks
• https://mail.google.com/tasks/ig – Minimal view of tasks
• https://mail.google.com/tasks/m – Mobile view of tasks
• https://mail.google.com/tasks/iphone – iPhone specific tasks

The only real downer is that there is no good iPhone app that syncs with Google Tasks – but seeing as I will probably ditch my current phone (iPhone 3G) for an Android phone next year, I’m not too worried.

The landscape of the job market changes rapidly. Many of today’s jobs didn’t exist ten years ago and ten years from now, the change will be greater yet.

There is one thing, however, that we share in common with the generations that preceded us and those that will follow. We all began our careers young and inexperienced. Everybody had to start somewhere.

Unfortunately, our culture no longer establishes a healthy work ethic at a young age. You are far more likely to find a youth who knows how to operate all the controls on a VCR than to find one who knows how to start a lawnmower.

Today’s younger workers are not less capable or interested in work than their predecessors. They do however, lack the experience and the socialization to work. Work is the main course of life. Leisure is the dessert. While the dessert seemingly brings the pleasure, without the main course, you will become undernourished and unable to enjoy the pleasures that follow.

While adults who spent their youth working need to take tennis and golf lessons, the coming generation has spent considerable time playing and may need some work lessons. They are just as capable and willing, they sometimes just don’t know how.

You can hire and develop good young employees. You may not share a common taste in music or other outside activities, but you will have compatible on the job interests.

Take nothing for granted when training new workers. Invest the time to unambiguously specify your expectations concerning even the smallest of details. Items such as punctuality, dress, and conduct, which you normally assume to be understood, need to be spelled out.

Done upfront, new employees will welcome this clarity. When they understand the rules, newer employees are the best at following them. Once they are established, correcting irritating behavior is difficult. While it may take some patience to train a puppy, it’s harder to teach an old dog new tricks!

Have high expectations for even the most inexperienced workers. Be patient and supportive while they develop the skills necessary to meet those expectations. Positive expectations send a powerful message. Let someone know you think of them as the low man on the totem pole and they will remain there. Let them believe they can climb the ladder and they will.

Even the newest “helper” needs to have job ownership. New and inexperienced workers should be given some level, however small, of independent responsibility. Based upon the execution of those responsibilities, their duties should be increased appropriately.

Delegation is not an optional activity for a supervisor. It often seems easier to do something than to show others how to do it. “Oh never mind, I’ll do it myself.” Delegation is an investment. It’s time consuming in the short run, but its the only way to develop employees.

“Tom Sawyer” is alive and well. Be careful not to become a victim of “upward delegation”. “You do it so well, could you show me one more time”. Most of us are activity oriented, poor delegators, and disarmed by flattery, all of which makes us vulnerable to the “Tom Sawyers” of the world. Keep an eye out for “Tom”, if you’re a good manager, he could be your best pupil.

No one every learned to ski without falling down a few times, so be tolerant of the early mistakes of the inexperienced worker. While they may seem nonchalant about it, their attitude generally masks a real concern and embarrassment.

Workers that are too concerned about making mistakes will be reluctant to take initiative. Remember, its usually the home run hitter that strikes out most frequently. Give the inexperienced workers the support they need to get by some of the early mistakes, but hold them accountable if the situation doesn’t improve.

Newer, inexperienced workers are sometimes described as having “different” attitudes. Different attitudes are alright. It’s on the job behavior that we are concerned with. It’s performance that counts. You can’t change attitudes, so don’t try. Focus on behavior.

Are there certain actions on the job that contribute to your assessment that a newer employee has a “bad attitude”? If so, address the actions, not the attitude. Specify what behavior is acceptable and hold the new employee accountable for it. You will be pleased with the performance.

The only thing I have against younger workers is their age. But I guess we all had that advantage at one time or other. Fortunately because somebody gave us the chance, we had the occasion to learn and take advantage of that opportunity.

If you depend on people to follow your instructions, it only makes sense that you give some thought to the manner in which you give those instructions. At sometime or other, we have all been frustrated when the “simplest instructions” were not followed.

The orange juice machine was empty and needed refilling. As the lines grew on one side of the counter, a small gathering grew around the orange juice dispenser on the other side. None of the pleasant but inexperienced counter personnel were able to replace the empty juice container.

Out from the kitchen dashed the morning manager to the rescue. As the she proficiently replaced the container, the manager barked instructions on how to refill the machine.

“Now does everyone understand how that’s done so you can do it the next time?” While the employees all nodded affirmatively, I think they were primarily concerned with avoiding a re occurrence of the problem by discouraging orange juice sales.

Managers are constantly giving instructions. It’s a key part of the job. It’s done so frequently that giving instructions often becomes an unconscious act. It’s so important to getting results however, that it should always be done with cold blooded pre-meditation.

The first and most important consideration in giving effective instructions is picking the right time and place. Choose a setting where you will have the full attention of your employee and sufficient time to cover all relevant information.

For an inexperienced worker, standing in front of a line of customers while a machine is being repaired is a pressure packed situation. We learn some things well under pressure, like when to duck if somebody is shooting, but generally, we comprehend and retain instructions better in a more serene environment.

The nature of many jobs is such that a lot of instructions are given on the fly. That’s O.K. as long as performance is acceptable. If, however, the results are less than satisfactory, give consideration to choosing a better time and place for delivering the instructions. The less experienced the employee, the more important the setting.

Take the time to explain the purpose of the instructions. Remember “Theory Why” management. Comprehension and performance are always enhanced when people understand the purpose of their work.

Clarify all the specifications concerning the assignment. The “Who, What, When, Where, and How” checklist is a reliable standard. Be specific about the objectives. People may have different approaches about how to do a job, but there should be no ambiguity about the results and how they will be measured.

Be clear about the outcome, and when possible, be flexible concerning the means. The more an employee is allowed to contribute to the means, the greater their commitment will be to the task. And who knows, they may come up with a better way!

Review all the potential problems that may arise and suggest methods for dealing with them. Define the individual’s level of authority and specify under what circumstances they should seek assistance and where they can go for help.

Establishing the responsibility for reporting progress with your employee reduces your need to hover around checking up. Everyone will be happier. When an employee comes to you with a problem, be careful how you handle the situation. If you are too judgmental, it may be the last time a problem will be voluntarily reported.

Feedback is the most reliable means of determining if your instructions have been understood. Successful communications are determined by the reception, not the transmission.

After giving instructions, the most commonly asked question “Do you understand?” invites a one word response. Regardless of the level of comprehension, the reply is inevitably “yes” because most people are too ashamed (or polite) to say “no”.

Questions such as “How are you going to go about doing this assignment” or “What is the objective of this job” are more effective at eliciting the feedback necessary to determine if your instructions have been understood. While the employees gathered around the juice machine all nodded “yes”, I doubt that any of them could have repeated the procedures for refilling the juice machine.

As a point of style, it is usually more constructive to “ask”, not “command” when giving instructions. There are times when you will need to “command”, however, they are usually obvious, but infrequent.

Less experienced mangers, feeling the need to establish themselves, are more inclined to take a “command” posture. It’s counter productive. Everybody knows who the boss is, you don’t have to show it. This “command” posture often is greeted with subtle resistance. There is a little rebel in most of us. The truly powerful and confident executives are often the most gracious. It’s effective and it’s classy!

The managers at Company X continually cited the need for upgraded facilities and new equipment when confronted with their failure to compete effectively with Company Y. The corporation that owned Company X decided to invest several million dollars in upgrading its factory. State of the art equipment was installed in the new, carefully engineered production line.

Company Y continued to operate from its antiquated plant in the old warehouse district. It looked pretty rundown from the outside and it had been some time since any new equipment had been installed.

Despite Company X’s physical advantages, Company Y continued to be the market leader. Company X changed management and continued to invest in upgraded facilities and equipment. Frustrated and puzzled, the corporation that owned Company X eventually sold out.

Why wasn’t Company X able to compete effectively with Company Y? As in all complex situations there are a number of factors involved, but most likely one of those factors is an underestimate of the human dimension involved in production.

The behavioral approach to management emphasizes that there is a human as well as a physical dimension to production. Behavioralists stress that improved performance results from the appreciation and understanding of people. The behavioral approach traces its origins to a series of studies begun in 1924 at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company.

The initial phase of the study was done to analyze the effect of illumination on production workers. It was assumed that as illumination increased, productivity would increase. The intensity of the light for a test group was increased while the lighting conditions for the rest of the employees was held constant.

As anticipated, each time the lighting conditions improved, the productivity improved. To validate the hypothesis, however, the researchers then decreased the illumination for the test group. To their astonishment, productivity increased again. In fact, every time they made a change, up or down, the productivity of the test group was higher than the base group.

From the results of this first phase of the Hawthorne study, it was clear that no predictable, exclusive relationship existed between illumination and productivity. Back in 1924 it was extremely unclear, however, why productivity had increased.

A second phase of the test was commissioned to investigate the unanticipated results of the illumination experiment. The impact of a variety of working conditions such as rest periods and the length of the workday on productivity were analyzed in this phase.

Again, the results were surprising. Without regard to the experimental variation, the productivity of the test group continued to exceed the base group.

Extensive interviewing of the employees was done to determine why productivity continued to increase throughout the test. It was concluded that the employees enjoyed the extra attention they received being involved in the test.

The monotony of their every day job had been changed by being included in a novel and seemingly interesting experiment. The special attention that the researchers paid to the workers in the test group caused their morale and productivity to improve, regardless of the physical working conditions.

The experiments at Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company resulted in the recognition of a phenomenon called the Hawthorne effect. Researchers have come to understand the Hawthorne effect to mean that the mere act of observation alters the activity that is being observed.

Turn the lights up, productivity increases. Turn the lights down, productivity increases. It became clear that the workers were responding to the personal attention and the feeling of importance that accompanied being part of the test.

There is an equally important message for managers. Pay attention and let people know they’re important. Letting them know you care and what they’re doing is important and can have a greater impact than perfect working conditions.

The results of these early Hawthorne experiments plus an additional study analyzing group incentives stressed the importance of viewing the human element of an organization. The studies revealed that the needs of employees are both physical and social. They underscored the existence of the informal social group as a natural outgrowth of the behavior patterns inherent in the formal structure of an organization.

Because its your business, invest your time in the human relations dimension of productivity when you invest your dollars in new lighting.

Listening-hearing-story collecting is Tool #1.

Tom Peters said “I have no tricks, except to say tune deliberately into the process.” To me this means to listen. REALLY listen.

Listen very carefully like you are hard of hearing and must read lips in order to understand. That means if my child walks into the room asking for yada this and yada that I must stay focused on my wife’s lips.

I love people and I love friends. Dale Carnegie told me “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

I have to admit I accidentally tried using the phone with a couple of my ‘Who’ friends of late and both my friends and I feel great about what happened after I called.

Tom Peters was right when he wrote ‘Call (C-A-L-L!) (NOT E-MAIL!) 25-50 (NO LESS THAN 25) people … TODAY … to thank them for their support this year … and wish them and their families and colleagues a successful future!’

You will hear what I hear and it’s good.

Our wave analysis published at TechCrunch: Why Google Wave sucks, and why you will use it anyway; http://j.mp/8vRVv7

Some of the software I use is always running on my Mac to help me get things done. Here is a list of those programs that help me through each day:

• 1Password – Password manager so I don’t have to think so much.
• Acorn – For reviewing and editing photos. I know I could use Preview, but if I want to edit something then Acorn is ready to help.
• Adium – For instant messaging (both online and for SMS)
• DEVONthink Pro – My digital library and dumping ground.
• DragThing – For keyboard shortcuts. It does much more, but I just use it to assign keyboard shortcuts to the applications I use the most. The shortcuts work for launching and switching among apps.
• Evernote – To record a daily log and for items I may need to find at any time (from any computer or my iPhone).
• iCal – For appointments.
• iTunes – For listening music & podcasts, the iTunes store, and syncing my iPhone.
• LaunchBar 5 – An application launcher with some other talents as well. It replaced Quicksilver that was a little too crashy for my taste.
• Little Snapper – For taking real snapshots of Web sites and instantly uploading screenshots to Flickr to use in my blogs.
• Mail – For e-mail.
• MarsEdit – For editing, posting to, and managing my growing empire of blogs.
• NetNewsWire – To read RSS news feeds that interest me.
• OmniFocus – For Getting Things Done. David Allen recently endorsed OmniFocus as the official GTD application for Mac.
• Path Finder – An alternative to the Mac Finder.
• Safari 4 – For surfing the Web. I keep Firefox handy if things look a little wonky.
• Scrivener – For writing, which includes everything from free writing to collections of larger projects and other works in progress.
• TextMate – My digital scratchpad. The most capable text editor I’ve found on the Mac. Also nice that it hooks into MarsEdit for times when I have more complex formatting needs.
• Tweetie – For reading and posting on Twitter.

Other software bubbles up from time to time. I like Skim for viewing PDFs on an as needed basis. Apple Pages helps out when I need to produce formatted text.

If you were curious at all about what makes my Mac tick, I hope I have satisfied your curiosity. Maybe it will help you be more productive.

The key to getting any work done on a Mac—or any computer—is to find applications that do exactly what you need them to do and nothing more and learn everything you can about them. There is a glut of great Mac software out there. Shop around, find what works for you, and get busy.

Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who owned a wheat field.

“Who will help me harvest the wheat?” she asked.

“Not I,” said the dog. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Not I,” said the cow. “I’ve got way too much to do already.”

“Not I,” said the duck. “That’s not on my job description.”

So the little red hen did it herself.

“Who will help me grind the wheat into flour?” she asked.

“Not I,” said the dog. “You’re so much better at that than I am.”

“Not I,” said the cow. “There’s not enough time to show me how.”

“Not I, “ said the duck. “I would probably just mess it up.”

So the little red hen did it herself.
“Who will help me make some bread?” asked the little red hen.

“Not I,” said the dog.  “I’ve got a deadline to meet.”

“Not I,” said the cow. “I’ve got to leave right at 5:00 p.m.”

“Not I,” said the duck.  “You can’t trust me with something that important.”

So the little red hen did it herself.

When all her guests arrived that evening for the farmyard dinner party, the little red hen had nothing ready to serve except the bread.  Now, it was some fine bread – the best anyone had ever tasted – but it was disappointing as a main course nonetheless.  The little red hen had been so caught up doing everything herself that she didn’t have time to get anything else ready.

Moral of the Story:

Leaders learn how to delegate.  They involve others throughout a project for both the project’s and the team members’ good.  Good leaders challenge their performers to do more than the performers think they can, and good leaders never “chicken out” by doing the whole thing themselves.

Documents To Go® (Microsoft Word & Excel editing & Desktop sync)也降價囉！

• 原價＄9.99，降至＄7.99，11/30結束。
• 這個是沒有exchage的版本。

p.s.

• 有exchange的版本在這裡，＄11.99 

If only! Like many corporations, my employer has standardized on Outlook as our email/calendaring client, along with Exchange for the server side.  Unfortunately for myself and millions of other users, Outlook forces us to work in the way it wants to work, rather than the reverse.  How should Outlook change? O, let me count the ways:

• Perform active organization by project – of email threads and documents – and let me set the priority

I can’t count the number of times an important email reply has gotten lost in my Inbox, while if it had been automatically associated with the high priority project, it’d have been immediately visible. This feature alone would make me significantly more productive.  This very month, a moderate-priority document got delayed by a week-plus because of this.

• When I receive an email, I should be able, with one click, to set up a corresponding action, such as
  • Assign a tag to this email so it gets associated with a project.
  • Create a task so I am reminded to followup on this email
• When I send an email, I should be able, with one, click, to set up an expected action to occur in the future

Example: I send an email to a colleague asking her to review a document. I would like to set a reminder so that if I haven’t heard from her within 2 days, the system can automatically remind me to remind her.

• Help me keep my Inbox empty! As of this moment, I have 1,045 emails in my inbox. Yes, I get a lot of email, but there has GOT to be a better way of managing my work

For example, I should be able to easily triage email on the fly. In fact, Outlook should know, based on a subject line, how to triage an ongoing email thread for me.

Any other thoughts, readers, on ways in which Outlook impedes and frustrates you?
Why aren’t there any good Outlook supplements or replacements, which can work with Exchange servers?  It can’t be a purely technical issue, as the Novell Evolution client can connect with Exchange…

Setting up IntelliJ IDEA

• Download IntelliJ IDEA from http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/
• Install it
• Run it for the first time and put your license key
• You should enable all plugins especially the Subversion repository plugin
• Modify the C:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 8.1\bin\idea.exe.vmoptions to this (settings vary depending on your computer):

  -Xms256m
  -Xmx512m
  -XX:MaxPermSize=512m
  -ea

Setting up Maven 2

• Download it from Apache Maven website: http://maven.apache.org/
• Extract it
• Put a MAVEN_OPTS variable environment to contain JVM options

Generating IDEA project files

There are two ways to generate IDEA project files. I recommend the IDEA based since its more efficient if at a later time the pom.xml keeps changing. Details as follows:

1. Maven based:
   • Execute mvn idea:idea from the downloaded quicktrip-core
   • Resulting files would be core-parent.ipr which you could double-click to open
2. IntelliJ IDEA based:
   • Run IntelliJ IDEA
   • Create a new project
   • Import the parent pom.xml – this will cause IDEA to read pom.xml and modules under it
   • Choose the desired profile
   • Add facets and spring beans when asked