Archive for November, 2006

With the new year coming up soon, it’s time to start thinking about planning out next year’s goals. Sometimes our modern calendar really bugs me. I’ve been trying to lay out the coming year in pieces that make sense for goal planning. I like things that are uniform and fit well together and many of the components of the 365 day year just don’t fit. For example let’s divide the year in half and we get 182.5 days… not exactly a number that exudes confidence. Lets take the math a little further…

365 divided by 4 = 91.25 days per quarter

365 divided by 12 =  30.416 days per month

365 divided by 7 = 52.142 weeks per year

365 multiplied by 24 = 8760 hours per year

None of these numbers are uniform and each one would make yearly goal planning a mess. When we look at setting up an easy to follow goal management system we must find some time periods that work. I like numbers that divide easily and are easy to remember.

Lets take a look at some numbers that seem to work better for planning.

Lets take a 364 day year

Divide it by 7 and we get our usual 52 weeks

Divide 52 by 4 and you get 13 week quarters

The number 13 is a stumper. Since it is a prime number, it doesn’t divide into anything usable. So where do we go from here? I like the week as a planning model, since they are uniform. Months can vary from 28 to 31 days so they make planning inconsistent at best.

Here is an idea that seems to work for me.

For Goal Setting, let’s divide the year into quarters of 13 weeks each.

Start each quarter with a planning week.

Set the remaining 12 weeks to accomplish our goals.

Now we have a number that works well and is easily divisible into planning pieces.

One half of our goal is reachable in 6 weeks.

One third of our goal is reachable in 4 weeks.

One fourth of our goal is reachable in 3 weeks.

Twelve weeks is ideal for so many goals. It works well for weight loss, financial, and productivity objectives. Twelve weeks is enough time to see real results without becoming discouraged. If we have shorter duration goals we can put multiple ones on the time line. Longer term goals work well when broken up into 12 week increments.

In my life I have had great success with 12 week goals. For example, I lost 25 pounds using the 12 week, “Body for Life” program. I was able to set milestones along the way to see how I was doing. I knew that it was realistic to expect a one to two pound weight loss per week. Multiplying 12 weeks by two pounds, it was pretty easy to see that 24 pounds would be a reachable 12 week goal.

The nice thing with the 12 week time period is that you can achieve 4 major objectives in a year’s time. If you have goals in different areas of your life you can overlap 2 or 3 of them at a time.

Setting aside 12 Weeks, with a planning week at the beginning, can easily be a major building block for personal change. Using this basic element we can design some simple yet powerful paper based goal planning tools that will help us on our road to success.

Stay tuned…

Technorati Tags: goals, goal setting, productivity

I’ve been reading Sally McGhee’s book, “Take Back Your Life!” and I have found some of her organizational ideas to be fascinating. She has developed a productivity solution similar to David Allen’s “Getting Things Done.” Her track has taken a little different twist as she has added the concept of meaningful objectives to the mix.

You can think of meaningful objectives as important and measurable goals. Having goals at the top of the list is really important for focus. Sally Explains…

Meaningful Objectives are your North star, your guiding light, and your reference point for success or failure. Without meaning, objectives become dry and nothing more on a to-do list that you might (or might not) look at every now and then. You won’t be motivated to work on your objectives, but you’ll feel guilty if you don’t.

I took Sally’s idea of meaningful objectives and incorporated them into a simple work flow idea that seems to work well for me.

1. Start with a goal or meaningful objectives. These need to be measurable and actionable with a due date.

2. Divide the Goal into logical projects

3. Incorporate the idea of a focused 50 minute work period to accomplish project tasks

4. Divide the tasks into their most simplistic form… next actions

Let’s put this idea into practice with an example.

1. Our Meaningful Objective. Write a 150 page book on productivity solutions in 3 months

2. Our projects: Table of Contents, Forward, Acknowledgments, 15 chapters, Index

3. Sample Accomplishment: Take 50 minutes and write a chapter

4. Individual Actions: 1.Chapter Title. 2.Main body. 3.Wrap Up 4.Illustrations

While this example is over-simplistic, the idea of Goals, Projects, Accomplishments, and Individual Actions has worked very well for me. We’ll take a look at some paper based solutions later this week that will take this process and make it simple to implement.

Technorati Tags: GTD, Outlook, Productivity

I just picked up a new book by author Sally McGhee, entitled “Take Back Your Life Using Microsoft Outlook.” This book has been a real surprise as it includes a unique time management system similar to David Allen’s, “Getting Things Done.” Over the next few days we’ll delve deep into the system, but today I’ll just cover a few of the highlights.

The first key that I have seen so far in the book is the use of Meaningful Objectives. This is the main concept in a complete workflow system built around Microsoft Outlook. Sally explains…

Meaningful Objectives are your North star, your guiding light, and your reference point for success or failure. Without meaning, objectives become dry and nothing more on a to-do list that you might (or might not) look at every now and then. You won’t be motivated to work on your objectives, but you’ll feel guilty if you don’t.

I like the term , Meaningful Objectives as it describes the importance of the items on my to-do list. It takes some of the Covey “7 habits” principles and adds them into a Getting Things Done framework. This is really exciting for me as I have found uses for both systems in my life. This book melds some of the concepts together.

When you have meaningful objectives and you tie them in with your “next actions,” you get Strategic Next Actions. The book explains…

The next step in the cycle of productivity is to create Strategic Next Actions that link to your Meaningful Objectives. You need to ensure that these actions are critical and don’t have any dependencies. You can only move forward in the cycle with an action item that can physically be completed in one, simple step.

The next step in the cycle is to schedule and complete strategic actions. This is somewhat different from the GTD model as next actions are scheduled on the calendar and marked off when completed. Sally explains…

My company’s statistics prove that there’s a 75 percent greater chance of a task being completed if it’s scheduled on your calendar rather than tracked on your task list or in your head. Placing a task on your calendar ensures that you see it and have time to complete it. When it’s on your task list, you may not look at it, and if you don’t allocate time to do it, it probably won’t happen.

There is definitely something to this. When I schedule time to do something it usually gets done. My experience with a focused 50 minute work period prove this. I am so much more productive when I’m working in a focused manner. Sally’s system would tie in very well with a 50 minute work structure and the strategic next actions would form the backbone.

The last step in the cycle of productivity is to review and acknowledge progress toward objectives. This is the check and balance system that keeps you on target towards your meaningful objectives. If something isn’t working, this step will get you back on track in a hurry. This step is very important…

Acknowledgement is critical because it’s the fuel that motivates you to keep completing the cycle of productivity. Reviewing is essential because it keeps you on course with your meaningful objectives, much like steering a ship, you have to continually adjust the helm to ensure you reach your destination.

The four step system can be visually summed up with the workflow diagram below.

I have been experimenting with some of Sally’s workflow setups using Microsoft Outlook and they show some real promise. In the next few days we’ll take a look at her “Four D’s of Decision Making,” and take a look at her complete workflow diagram. If you are looking for a productivity book that matches your lifestyle and you use Microsoft Outlook, this may be the system for you.

“The answer is not in doing more. It’s in slowing down so you can make better decisions and produce better results.” — Sally McGhee

Technorati Tags: outlook, e-mail, GTD, productivity

The clock is ticking down. It’s almost midnight and the important semester final is tomorrow. You have to remember ten important facts, in order, and you are having trouble. You can get the first two or three, but the rest are getting scrambled. This grade is really important for your scholarship requirements… so money is on the line.

You remember something about a memory tag system that you read about in a book a while back. You go to your bookshelf and pick up, “The Memory Book,” by Harry Lorayne. It’s chocked full of great memory ideas and you skim the chapters looking for a technique that might work for you.

You find all sorts of interesting ideas and techniques for remembering numerous items, but the peg system in chapter 11 appeals to you. You give it a try and it seems to work. The idea is to tie the things you need to remember in with familiar items that you can quickly relate to a number. You take these items and add action and make a sequence in your mind. The examples in the book list ten different items that rhyme with the number they represent. The items are a little confusing so you come up with your own list of rhyming words. Bun rhymes with one, shoe rhymes with two, tree rhymes with three and on and on. You come up with a complete 10 item list…

Rhyming word list (Each word rhymes with the corresponding number)

1. Bun: Visualize the first item being put in a bun
2. Shoe: Visualize an association between the 2nd thing and shoes
3. Tree: Visualize the third item growing from a tree
4. Door: Visualize the 4th item associated with a door
5. Hive: Visualize the 5th item associated with a hive or with bees
6. Bricks: Visualize the sixth item associated with bricks
7. Heaven: Visualize the seventh item associated with heaven
8. Plate: Visualize the 8th item on a plate as if it is food
9. Sign: Visualize your 9th item on a sign
10. Pen: Visualize the 10th item being written with a pen.

For example to remember the following grocery list of 10 items:

• Steak: Picture a steak between two buns
• Eggs: Picture an egg wearing shoes
• Coffee: Picture cans of coffee hanging from a tree
• Bread: Picture a door made from bread
• Catsup: Picture bees flying from a catsup bottle
• Soda: Picture a brick house with soda cans as bricks
• Apples: Imagine apples with angel wings and a halo
• Soap: Picture a bar of soap on a plate
• Dog food: Picture a large sign with dog food advertised on it
• Baby food: Picture a baby writing with a pen on a baby food jar

This technique seems to work for you. You note that the crazier you make each visual the easier it is to remember. You wish there was a way to quickly take this system with you so you could practice on the go. Hmmmm…

Enter the Five Minute Memory Card System. Ten memory cards that you can print quickly and easily on Avery Business Card Stock. You break them apart and list your memory items on each one. The memory process now becomes much easier as each card has a picture of a rhyming peg of the numbers one through ten. You just write down the items you want to remember one by one on the cards.

Now you can easily lay them out in order on your desk and quickly come up with an action sequence in your mind. Each card has a graphic box where you can list the actions or sketch them out. Since the cards are flexible, you can gather them up and clip them together. They fit easily in pocket or purse so you can take them with you. You can use them as flash memory cards to help you remember each item.

Each of the cards has a word line and a corresponding box with a number in it. You just write your word on the line and make notes or draw a picture in the corresponding box. Since each card has a number in the background they are easy to put in order. You can lay them out on a table from left to right or from top to bottom.

You peruse the cards like a storyboard, visualizing an action sequence, one card after the other. Once you have formed the action movie in your mind, you can gather up the cards and shuffle the order. You turn them upside down in a stack and draw one at a time. Using them as flash cards gives you a way to test each item to make sure you have remembered each one.

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The next morning you wake up, review your cards and double check your action. You grab a mini clip and clip the cards together in a stack. You slip them in your pocket and head out the door for school. As you pull in to the school parking lot you sit quietly in your car and review your cards. All 10 things are coming back easily now. You test them out of order and find that the rhyming words make it easy to figure out what number each item should be.. plate equals eight.. etc.As you enter class the teacher hands you a test booklet. The test goes well and when the questions come up about your ten items, you quickly remember the answers. Even the trick question about item seven brings back your memory of heaven. This little card trick has really helped you get a good grade on the exam and now you are assured of more scholarship funding in the future. The few dollars you spent on the business cards seems miniscule now.

Instructions:

• Download the Five Minute Memory Card Template
• Open MS Word and load the template
• Print the template out on Avery Business Card Stock
• Break the cards apart.
• Use a pen to enter your words and details
• Arrange the cards in a storyboard fashion on a table.
• Create an animated sequence in your mind of the actions
• Use the cards as flash cards to test your memory.

Other Five Minute Items that may interest you…

Five Minute Organizer
Five Minute Flowchart
Five Minute Outliner
Five Minute Motivators
Instant Garage Sale

Technorati Tags: memory, five minute, business cards, storyboard

50 minutes has changed my life. The concept of working in a focused manner for 50 minutes and then taking a 10 minute break has revolutionized the way I work. I find that I am much more productive when I work in this manner. Instead of multi-tasking mania, this focused approach has led to single-tasking nirvana.

I currently use this approach at home at least once per day in the morning for writing or designing. At work, I have successfully taken this approach by closing my office door to distractions and working straight through for 50 minutes. This strategy works well but the reality of modern business life is that I need to be open and accessible most of the day.

Unfortunately in my workplace distractions abound, with e-mail constantly annoying, the phone ringing, and a myriad of people walking by my office all hours of the day. I wondered to myself what would happen if the workplace was changed to reflect a 50 minute mindset.

Imagine what would happen if…

• Knowledge workers work from the beginning of an hour until the 50 minute mark.
• E-mail is restricted to receive only
• Non essential phone calls are restricted to emergency only
• Workers are highly encouraged to stay at their desks for the 50 minute period.

At the end of 50 minutes everyone takes a 10 minute break to…

• Go to the restroom or breakroom if needed
• Open and dispatch E-Mail
• Answer phone calls

This scenario could be repeated multiple times throughout the day.

Would something like this work?

Would workers enjoy this or find it too restrictive?

Could it be done at least once per day for a productivity hour?

Obviously this would not work for certain office situations but for the right group I think it might be highly effective.

These are questions that I think would be fun to explore. I find the focused approach helps me get so much more done that I think it would be a major improvement in many offices. Just taking away the constant distraction of e-mail and phone calls would be a major improvement to most people.

I would like to hear your comments about this scenario. Have you ever tried something like this in your workplace?

Some of our other 50 minute posts…

• The 50 Minute Zone
• Daily 50 Minutes
• 50 Minutes to Perfection
• 50 Minute Goals
• Draw 50: The Productivity Game

Technorati Tags: productivity, 50 minutes, e-mail

The dreams are flying through your head and all of a sudden you wake up in a jolt. You look over to the side of the bed and the clock says 1:30 in the morning. A sense of dread quickly comes over you as you think about the upgrade proposal that is due to the management team in the morning. All of a sudden a million details come flashing thorough your brain. You think to yourself…

• Is the conference room available?
• How about bottled water for the meeting?
• You still need a closing slide for the Powerpoint.
• That stink’n Palm Pilot still isn’t synching.
• What am I going to title this report?

Stress is the name of the game and you toss and turn. All of a sudden the most awesome name for your report comes to you. Then another idea shoots across your mind. You picture your closing Powerpoint slide with a smiling person and the word “DONE” in bold letters. Then the most dreaded thought appears out of nowhere.

“You need to get some sleep or you’ll be wreck for the meeting.”

You roll over and try to get back to sleep. You suddenly remember that you have an appointment to drop off the car at the dealer in the morning for service. You put the idea in the back of your mind and toss and turn some more. After 45 minutes of this mess you finally fall back asleep.

It’s 6:30 and the alarm is going off. After 15 minutes of trying to wake up, you drag yourself to the kitchen for that first cup of coffee. In the back of your mind you remember that you had a rough time sleeping. You drag yourself through the morning ritual and get into your car for the morning commute. The traffic is bad and you find yourself pulling up to your company parking lot a few minutes late. As you take the key out of the ignition… you remember that you have an appointment at the dealer five miles away.

You hit your fist on the dashboard… “darn it,” you say to yourself and realize you don’t have the time to get to the dealer now. You rush into your office and fire up your Powerpoint. Now the night time experience sort of comes back to you. You remember that you had a great idea for the title and the closing slide… but unfortunately the more you try to remember them the further they disappear into your subconscious.

Arrghhh… you grasp at straws as you notice you only have 10 minutes until the meeting. You throw a generic “Upgrade Proposal,” title on the project and clip on a “The End,” slide to the end. The proposal goes as planned but the reception is less than stellar. The presentation comes to an abrupt end with your closing slide. The management team is not impressed and they leave the room. You kick yourself for such last minute shoddiness. You think to yourself…

If I only had been able to get a full nights sleep, this wouldn’t have happened.

One of the guys hands you a book on the way out… I’ts David Allen’s great book… “Getting Things Done,” and you promise yourself to read it as soon as possible.
 
The story above has happened to me innumerable times. It’s always that middle of the night experience, and there are three things that
seem to come up time after time..

1. The stressful worry about stuff that needs to be done
2. A great idea that needs to be captured
3. An appointment or other item that I had forgotten.

After reading David Allen’s book, I realized that one of the keys to reducing stress is to write things down. If they are just in your head and not on paper your mind is constantly processing them. This can cause many a sleepless night. I’ve implemented David’s Getting Things Done methodology at work but not always at home.

The other night I woke up with my mind going a million miles an hour. I got up and spent five minutes writing down everything that was on my mind. All the worries and tasks. I also wrote down the appointment that had come to mind along with the great idea for a blog post. I went back to bed and Viola… I was asleep in 5 minutes. Somehow writing all these things down really worked.

Needless to say this was amazing. I went into the office in the morning and looked at what I had written a few hours before. The stressful and worrisome items didn’t seem bad at all. The appointment reminded me of an early morning meeting and the idea for a blog post soon came to life.

I realized I needed a way to do this on a regular basis.

Enter the “On My Mind” template. It’s a simple affair with 20 lines for all of your thoughts and worries, a large area for ideas, and a smaller box for things to be remembered. This simple sheet works very well to capture all the stuff in one place. I have found that filling this out with the thoughts of the day before going to bed really helps. I then keep the copy by the bed along with a pen, and if those great ideas come in the middle of the night I have a place to capture them.

It’s really simple and works very well. I can take the sheet along with me in the morning and plug any items into my project manager and appointment book at work. It’s interesting to file these sheets in a notebook and refer back to them from time to time. Most of those things that I worried so much about had great outcomes. This simple sheet is a real motivating force to keep stress at bay.

The template comes in a Microsoft Word version and one in an Acrobat PDF, both contained in one downloadable zip file.

Download it here: On My Mind Template

Give this a try the next time you are stressed out. Take 5 minutes to give yourself a better nights sleep.

Our other daily five minute solutions can be found here.

Technorati Tags: sleep, GTD, time management