Greetings to all of our gracious WLC blog and forum readers. We are truly grateful that you are taking the time to make WLC a better place. We envisioned this place being a hub for productive talk and tips and tidbits that can help you out every day.

It has been quite awhile since I last posted a blog post here at WLC. Things happen and this blog kept sliding down my list of priorities. Hopefully that has all changed and I will be here every two weeks with some insight that I hope you find helpful.

One of the things that has led me back into blogging (both here and my regular gigs at Black Belt Productivity and 1-Man IT Department) is that I have taken a long look at my areas of focus (GTD’s 20,000 level),  and gotten them straightened out so that I can be more productive. I have identified a number of areas in my life that I need to pay more regular attention to in the future and ‘Blogger‘ is one of the main areas that was lacking and I would like to remedy.

My biggest ‘Blogger‘ goal is to be able to network with others in relevant other areas in my life. I really want to try to better myself in a number of different ways and creating a network of like minded individuals is the best way that I can think of doing that. Sitting down with a piece of paper (or blank text document on your computer) and thinking about all of the areas that you are responsible for is really empowering.  It showed me that I was being pulled in many different directions and not succeeding at any of them. Now, before I make any commitments, I look at where it falls in relation to other areas (father, husband, IT professional, baseball coach to name a few) and make a much more informed decision.

I am hoping that this will allow me to plan better in all facets of my life. To be able to sit down and plan out blog topics for here or at BBP (with Jason) will hopefully result in better content from all of us. I would like to use it to hopefully branch out into a couple of areas that I have never attempted before, but suddenly have the urge to try.

What areas in your life are you struggling with? Have you had a planning session on how you might want to remedy that?  Take it to the blog and see what other WLC members think!

For the past 24 years, I have been volunteering with groups that produce computing standards.  We did good things, albeit slowly.  But that’s the nature of these groups – it’s hard to get good help; it’s even harder to get good free help!  Being a fan of productivity, I usually tried to impose some structure and process on the group in the hopes that it would get things done more predictably.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.   There’s a saying in the computer industry – “Managing programmers is like herding cats”.  It’s more or less accurate.

My epiphany about this sort of work came in 1990, when I was charged with “project managing” a collection of these volunteer groups in a formal way.  Now, in retrospect, that was just insane.  These are creative, passionate people who were trying to do their best to develop “standards” for the computer industry.  Most of them are doing it in their free time. Many with no support from their employers at all!  How can you “manage” a group of people that not only doesn’t report to you, they don’t even get compensated or reviewed based upon their performance?

My answer?  You cannot.  The creative process isn’t one that can be managed. It doesn’t work on a schedule.  You can’t say “today you three people will write a symphony” and expect a result that is anything other than noise.  I expect this is true across the board when working with creative people.  It takes as long as it takes.  We will sell no wine before its time.  Just because a saying is trite doesn’t mean it isn’t true!

So, getting back to my epiphany, I realized that my job as a manager wasn’t to try to ‘herd the cats’ so much as to manage the expectations of the people who were waiting for the output (I will spare you extending the metaphor to what cats might output).  Sure, we had schedules; but those schedules were guidelines, not deadlines.  It is important that in work, and in life, we make room for the creative process.  So I would continually update MY managers with progress reports, and in each report change the targets.  Sometimes they got earlier, usually they got later.  I stopped pressuring the creative people to create on a schedule.  As a result, we delivered better, more mature, well thought out products.

So that’s my message for today.  Whether we are talking about your real job, or your real life, or something you do in your free time that is neither work nor life, don’t forget that if a task requires creativity, it almost never gets done “on time”.  The creative process is one that is impossible to predict.  If your boss tells you to write a paper and have it done in an hour, push back a little.  If you are the boss, don’t set unreasonable constraints on creative tasks.  Even if you are doing something as simple as making a bird house with your child, don’t just set aside an hour.  Do it until you are both happy you created something!  And along the way, revel in the knowledge that you are doing it until you get it right, not just until time ran out.

How do you make time for the creative process?  Let’s talk about it in the forums?

I’ve been away for a while, re-organizing my professional life after the death of a colleague.  My new responsibilities dramatically reduced my free time, and had a less-than-perfect effect on my personal life as well.  But, in the midst of the chaos, I have (again) started thinking about how to keep my work out of my business (forgive the pun).

I have a saying I use a lot – ‘I refuse to get stressed over leisure activities.’  What it means is that, in general, work is stressful enough.  Life, kids, the house – those are stressful enough.  When we do finally manage to squeeze in a little leisure, it’s a minor miracle.  So, in those moments, I try hard to ensure that whatever I have planned isn’t planned too tightly.  I don’t worry about being late.  I don’t worry about my appearance (too much).  I definitely don’t worry about the cost.  I want to enjoy the whole activity – “The journey is half the experience”, or whatever trite saying you want to use.

When work gets crazy, as it has for me, it often spills out of the office.  The text messages, phone calls, email via iPhone/blackberry…  heck, even what is in your head.  It is all distracting.  It all can detract from your rare leisure time.  Worse yet, for me anyway, it can bring stress into my leisure activities.  And that’s one thing I won’t tolerate.

So, what do to about it?  My current strategy is to try to take myself off the grid a little, but to abort the leisure activity if it seems stressful.  It isn’t doing anyone any good, so I just pack it in and try again another time.  Unfortunately, that hasn’t worked out very well.  I need a new approach.  I need a way to periodically and briefly divorce my professional life from my leisure time.  And that way needs to not involve drinking until I can’t remember I have a job.

Suggestions?  Let’s discuss it in the forums!

As we all know, life is about being our best in every role of our lives. So performing on the job is not the only important endeavor we should be concerned about.

Some of you young people out there are probably not as concerned about this as I am, but I am reaching the age where I need to focus a little less on living it up…and more on taking care of myself.

Health is an important part of our quality of life.

For many, it is enough to just get a 30 minute jog in and be happy with it. But if you are like me, you want to track progress. These days, the choices in terms of tools are vast. Again, your choice probably comes down to your preference of paper or something electronic.

There are forms that you can add to your paper planner that help you track everything from your nutrition to your jogging stats. You can even keep up with your resistance training by tracking your lifting.

There are also web based apps that will help you manage your health. My big cardio activity is cycling. We Endure is my tool of choice at this time.  It allows me to keep up with distance, total time, and calculates my average speed and time per minute.  We Endure helps me as I work toward my goal of averaging 100 miles in the saddle per week.

Mobile applications are available also for BlackBerry and the iPhone.  Most of these apps are used to track diet and nutrition.

The whole idea is this. We feel it is good to be able to track how we are performing on the job by keeping solid metrics. It only makes sense to track our performance as we manage our health with similar metrics.

What tools do you use as you work toward a healthier you?

Let’s discuss.

One of the things I am constantly impressed by when browsing the forums is the vast number of little nuggets of wisdom that pop up. Many of these are little ways to approach our tasks that we may not otherwise consider. Sometimes, these are so interesting to me that they merit their own thread.

For instance, recently a call for help went out to our forum members regarding advice for staying on top of things when you are a manager in a retail environment. The trouble, it seems, is that with so many demands on attention by customers, employees, and the hectic pace, even ubiquitous capture seemed futile. 

One of the best pieces of advice, in my opinion, came from forum member JRT, who also works in a retail environment and had to make some similar adjustments.  While everything he had to say was great, it was this piece the really resonated with me:

“I keep a litle pad in my pocket, noting everything as I go along and am constantly amazed by what I thought was important at the time, doesn’t need to be done by me afterall.”

I am not quite sure why this really jumped out at me. Perhaps it is the idea that so many items in our life, if they are at the forefront of our attention, seem like the most important thing mainly while they occupy that space. One of the benefits of any productivity system that is driven by capture and review is that it allows for a certain buffer of time between those two steps. This time often puts things into their proper perspective. A perspective that can not be gained by constantly chasing after every demand placed before us.

Also, I think this can be applied to so many other inputs in our lives. Email is a good example. One of the many benefits to checking email far less often (I check mine twice a day) is that, sometimes, the “urgent” message someone just had to make sure you see right this very moment is much less urgent when you decide not to participate in the urgency. Heck, wait a little bit longer and you may find that the person, motivated by their haste, solved the issue themselves or found the answer elsewhere. This may not always win you brownie points with those giving out the merit badges but I would argue that your sanity is far more valuable than the patch they want to sew on your sleeve.

All I am trying to say is that sometimes things have an interesting way of fixing themselves when left alone for a while. Next time you smell some hot items cooking down the line, let them simmer for a bit. It just may be someone else’s job to fan the flames. If the dish is not meant for you it will still be there once it cools down a bit and will probably be far easier to digest.

As always, if you wish to discuss further on this topic, you can do so in the forums.

If we do business of almost any kind, we are going to endure meetings.  You might be a freelancer who has clients to meet with.  You may be like myself and, work in a corporate environment.  If you do, you are more than likely used to recurring meetings with a large number of players.

For as long as there have been meetings, there have been people who are managing meetings who have no business being in charge of a meeting.  See if you can place names on any of these…

- Meeting leader has an uncanny knack at taking an issue that can be resolved in 5 minutes…and stretching it to over an hour by analyzing it to death.

- Meeting leader LOVES to hear self talk.

- Meeting leader will not step up when another Type A in the room takes over their meeting.

- Meeting leader spends untold amounts of time sharing info that would much better have been distributed via email (i.e. reads wordy charts, or rereads and email everyone has already received).

You know any of those people?

Did you attach your name to any of these?  OUCH!!!

The hard thing to remember sometimes is that meetings should have purpose.  That purpose is NOT to feed the meeting leader’s ego or insecurity.  It is also NOT to give the meeting leader and opportunity to be heard.

Meetings are about getting input from others for the purpose of getting something accomplished.

What about recurring staff or status meetings?  From my perspective, they are largely unnecessary.  Most of the items communicated can easily be shared via email.  Staff meetings should, in my opinion, be only held as often as needed.  If there is no info that requires a face-to-face to cover…cancel it!!!

Don’t have a meeting  just to be having a meeting.

The key to leading effective meetings…is preparation.  Where have you heard that before?  Plan ahead.  What do you need to be mindful of?

- Do I have ALL of the people who are relevant to this discussion in the meeting?

- Do I have ONLY the people that are relevant to this discussion on my meeting invitation?

- Have I prepared an agenda to keep me on topic and help the meeting flow?

- Have I left enough time in my agenda for questions?  What about reviewing assigned actions? Are those actions and the expectations for those actions clearly defined?

What’s the point?

The point is that every meeting you attend uses an asset that is not being manufactured anywhere these days…TIME.

As we have seen on many discussions on the forums, to some degree, proper management of time is essential to improving productivity.  I have been in the business world for a while, but I have never checked off an action item sitting in a conference room with 20-50 other people…unless I was leading the meeting.

- Plan the meeting

- Invite the right people

- Get to the point and cover the revlevant info

- Do not lose control of the meeting

- Wrap up…cover actions…answer questions, etc.

- Get the heck out, and get the action items done.

That is my manifesto on meetings.  What do you think?  Let’s take it outside…into the forum.

(This is the second in my occasional series on mobile productivity – the first post was on calendars.)

There are lots of important reasons to track expenses.  Most people I know need to do it, but almost everyone I have ever met is bad about it!  In my case, the reason is simple: Expenses are usually incurred away from my computer, and therefore away from the main place I would track them.  If you have read any of my other stuff, you will already know that I tend to throw technology at every problem, even when technology is not the best solution.  Well – this is yet another case of that!

My problem with expense tracking /reporting is that it’s very time consuming.  Time spent assembling receipts, categorizing expenses, producing invoices, and sending them to my employer or a customer is all time I could have better spent being productive or relaxing.  As with everything else on WLC, my goal with the research I have done here is to minimize the time I spend on nonsense so I can maximize the time I have for things I enjoy (or actually need to do).

I have naturally attempted to track expenses in a little notebook.  It works – of course it does.  But it doesn’t satisfy all of my requirements for an expense tracking system:

1. Ease of use – it needs to be as easy to use as breathing or it won’t happen.
2. Accessible from anywhere – I spend money all the time, and it often isn’t mine.  If I don’t capture it immediately when it happens, I tend to forget.
3. Able to associate keywords with the expense (project, client, category – whatever).
4. Able to generate expense reports / invoices directly (or at least able to easily extract the data into my own invoices).
5. Ability to easily attach a receipt to a report if needed.

Obviously a pocket notebook and a pen can only satisfy some of these requirements, and then only if they are interpreted pretty loosely.  So I set out to discover some handy tools to address them:

1. An obvious tool was to just use a credit card (or charge card, whatever).  Years ago I switched over to using a special American Express card for all my business expenses.  If you only have one project or client that’s great.  Otherwise it just becomes another deadline you need to deal with (since you have to pay off the American Express in full each month).  Not ideal.
2. For years I have had a Palm-based computing device with me all the time.  There are a lot of decent expense tracking programs for the Palm platform – my favorite is Expense Plus from WalletWare – it also works on Pocket PC machines.  It satisfies most of my requirements – but its hard to attach a receipt electronically (since my Palm, at least, doesn’t have a built in scanner).  I like this program, and recommend it if you feel like you can enter all of your expenses on your mobile device AND feel like an invoice generated out of Excel is good enough.
3. More recently, I have started using services that are “live” – mobile computing based and designed to be used from web- or voice-enabled devices.  These services are actually very good, and address most of my requirements.  Among the most interesting are BillaBill and Xpenser. These services have a rich collection of features, even in their “free” versions.  Xpenser has the added benefit that it integrates directly with Jott and Twitter – so if you are using either of these for your work already, it is an obvious choice.

The tool that is right for you might not be same as the tool that is right for me.  I find myself using Xpenser most often now (via Jott and Twitter) to capture expenses.  I stuff the receipts in my wallet (or portfolio if I am at a business meeting), then once I am back at home base I throw them in a bin for later extraction if I need them for expense reports – most of my clients don’t care.  I could probably also take a picture of then with my mobile phone/camera and do something clever that way.  Or use a device like the (purportedly) awesome Neat Receipts from NeatCo to scan and organize them.  That’s probably more work than my clients require.

So, my recommendation is that you take full advantage of technology to track your expenses (and get the money back – that’s the object after all).  How do you track your expenses?  Discuss it in the forums.

Jason mentioned a really interesting idea in the forum last week, on the use of the term “initiatives” rather than a Someday/Maybe list. This really got us thinking, and I for one jumped on the idea. In fact I have been thinking about it all weekend.

I believe that part of the difficulty in achieving some of our long-term goals is in how we label them, and how they get prioritized in our day-to-day thinking. Or perhaps that should read “if they get prioritized” in day-to-day thinking…

I have a tracking system set up for the goals and projects that I intend to implement this week, this month, and this year – but I have been remiss in tracking the longer-term goals. The Someday/Maybes get left out of reviews sometimes, simply because they are “maybes”.

Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.

That is dangerous thinking, and certainly not conducive to making progress. This year one of my commitments to myself is to be more detailed in my thinking during periodic reviews and take more notes. This is something that really suffered last year, and I can see where things were falling through the cracks.

Like Jason says:

“I do not really divide my initiatives between current stuff and the “someday/maybe”.  The reason is that I do not want to let my dreams to ever get out of sight.  Each time I do my weekly review, I can see all of the stuff I need to do, and the stuff I want to do.”

Just thinking about something as a concrete Initiative gives it far more reality than thinking about a vague “someday”. What say you? Join the discussion thread.

In 2003, I made a decision that changed my approach to  software and productivity forever.  I downloaded Firebird (now Firefox) 0.7, and I discovered Open Source software. I was quickly blown away by the shear quality of the application, the speed of development, and the innovative features that were not only being developed by the core developers but by the community at large as well. For the first time in my life as a power user of computer software, I realized that I had a voice and could play a role in the life of my favorite software.

Since then, I’ve converted totally to the Linux operating system on all of my home computers, and even most of my mobile devices.

Why I Use Open Tools on the Desktop
No operating system is perfect, and none of the many Linux variants are an exception to this rule. That being said, attempting to use open source apps at every opportunity has afforded me the following benefits:

• Use of a world-class operating system with truly innovative productivity features (tabbed file browsing, multiple workspaces, central application repositories), totally for free.

• A large selection of high quality, industry standard software that works on all major computing platforms, not just Linux (OpenOffice.org, Firefox, VLC, GIMP, etc). No reason to learn different apps for different platforms!

• Direct communication with developers and user communities. It has really only been in the context of Open Source software that I’ve been able to communicate directly to developers of my favorite apps, and actually have my voice be heard for feature requests. It’s also been uniquely in the Open Source world that I’ve been able to express my gratitude by getting down and dirty and helping with documentation, bug reporting, and actual application development.

• I have unprecedented freedom to help others. It’s so easy to share OSS software, because not only does the quality speak for itself, it’s actually legal  for me to download and share with friends via CD, usb key, or whatever. And they don’t have to buy anything at all to start getting stuff done!

Why I Choose Open Tools on The Web
Although not all the web tools I use are free and open source, per se, it’s important that they use and store the data that I own in ways that allow it to be easily accessible and backed up. Google, for instance, is not primarily an Open Source company, and none of their web apps are open source, as far as I know, but all of my email, calendaring, and contact information is easily accessed in industry standard ways that allow me to keep control over my data.

In the event that Google goes away, I still have all my info in standard, open formats, ready to upload to another open service, or use on my own open desktop. In the context of the web, I think retaining ownership of your data is key.

Join The Conversation!
Alright, I’ve made my case! What do you think? How and why do you choose to use open tools for productivity? Do open tools ever actually let you down? Let’s take the discussion over to the forum!

Happy 2009 to everyone reading our little blog here. We are planning some big things this year at work.life.creativity, and we sincerely that you will all be part of it!

I have decided to do something in 2009 that I have never done before: set some concrete goals for the year. They live in most of the aspects of my life: Family, Spiritual, Career, and Development.

I have always said that ‘I sure would like to do X this year’ or ‘learn Y’, but I have never formalized them into concrete goals. This year I decided to sit down and come up with at least one goal in each of the main areas of my life.

One of the most important things to recall when you create a goal for yourself (and obviously, this does not have to be a New Year’s thing) is to create S.M.A.R.T. goals.

S.M.A.R.T. goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

Specific goals are always going to have a much higher chance of success than any generalized version that you can come up with. When setting your goals, think about what you are trying to achieve with your goal, and use that as the basis of your final goal statement.

Measurable goals are needed so that you know exactly when you have attained your goal. You can have any number of measurable steps within each goal, but you have to have some identifiable steps that can be measured.

Attainable goals will help your mindset regarding your goal by making you break down the achievements on the way to completing your goal. By planning your steps to goal achievement wisely and creating time frames to completing those steps, you will make any goal on your list attainable.

Realistic goals will always allow you to keep on task to completion. If your goal is far too absurd to be completed, what motivation do you have to try to attain it? NONE! So make your goals something that you want to complete, as well as something that you can complete.

Timely goals are essential so that you have a time frame to work in. If you do not attach a time frame to a goal then there is no urgency to get it completed. By setting a time frame, you get your mind to start mapping out the steps you will need to take to achieve it.

One other thing that I think is very important to successful completion of any goal you have is to WRITE IT DOWN somewhere, anywhere, that you are going to see it. If you don’t you will never remember the exact goal that you are trying to achieve. You also need to look at your goals everyday if possible. This will always keep you thinking about what you need to complete your goal.

As I said, this is the first year that I have attempted to set goals for myself. I am pretty pleased with the goals that I have set thus far, and may be adding some during the year.

My Goals for 2009:

• Read the entire Bible in 2009 (Spiritual)
• Start a daily journal (Development)
• Become proficient in Linux Operating System (Career)
• Some family goals that are personal

I am still trying to come up with some metrics for the linux proficiency, but I think that it is going to revolve around attaining or at least passing practice test for a linux certification. I am still investigating the options for that one.

As I said, this exercise is not a New Year’s thing. You should remember these steps whenever you want to set a goal in any facet of your life.

I hope that this helps because reading over the S.M.A.R.T. goals ideas really helped me when setting my goals.

What is your process for setting goals? What are some of your goals for this month? This quarter? This year? Let’s discuss them in our forums.

Michael