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

I admit it – I don’t have an iPhone.  I can’t bring myself to switch to AT&T.  Verizon has been very very good to me.  Instead, I have a Palm powered Treo (700p).  Its a classic smart-phone, and it is not running Windows Mobile.  Half of this is because I am old school.  The other half is that I have always used Palm stuff, and I have calendars and contacts going back at least 10 years.  The third half is that I don’t want to be forced always to be online.  I know, I know…  I am soooo last century, but I am not a fan of Web 2.0.  I do not have a desperate need to use as much bandwidth as possible, constantly ensuring that I know whether everyone I have EVER met has been away from their keyboard for 10 minutes.

The good news is that I, like most of you, do have a powerful computer in my pocket.  I want that computer to have all of my critical data in it.  Right now.  I don’t want to have to go get it.  I don’t want not to be able to get a signal and suddenly not know my children’s birthdays (or my parent’s anniversary, which is 6 January – oops).

I realize that lots of people have this problem, and lots of other people have addressed the problem in various ways.  My way of addressing the problem(s) were sort of imperfect. Over my next several posts, I am going to explore various problems and what I think are best-of-breed solutions to them.  The goal is to improve productivity and quality of life by ensuring that the information we need is always up-to-date and at our finger tips.

First up – Calendars!

If you’re like me, and I know I am…you have a bunch of ‘event’ collections.  Kids events, professional events, birthdays, etc.  And you probably have all of these collected on a single calendar – at least I hope you do!  For some people a centrally located physical calendar is good enough (the classic desk blotter calendar is a good example).  I’m a geek – that’s not gonna cut it.  I need my calendar online, I need it shareable, and I need it with me all the time.  It needs to be easy to update, easy to check, and ideally free.  Oh, and Microsoft Exchange / Outlook is sort of a non-starter.

There are many web-based services that fit these requirements.  However, add to this that I need to be able to get at the information offline, I need to be able to make offline changes and get them integrated seamlessly, and I need to be able to let others do the same… and the field narrows considerably.

My current favorite for this is Google Calendar.  There are lots of reasons I like it, not the least of which is that it has a sweet API that makes it readily accessible without all the Google nonsense that some people seem to object to.  Using Google Calendar, you can easily do things like:

• Create multiple calendars for different tasks
• Display some or all of your calendars
• Share your calendars with others
• Subscribe to and have integrated views of other people’s calendars with your own
• Associated reminders with events, and send those reminders via lots of channels (including SMS)
• Allow your calendar(s) to be easily embedded into web pages

The people at Google have done a great job with the basics of calendar management.  They have also continued to extend the environment.  Out of the box, it comes with the ability to sync with Microsoft Outlook, Apple’s iCal, and Blackberry devices.  You can also subscribe directly to some or all of your and other people’s calendars from Outlook, iCal, Thunderbird (via Lightning and Provider) etc.  Finally, because there is a rich public API, many third parties have designed other solutions to integrate devices, software, and web pages with Google Calendar.  Some of my favorite examples:

• GooSync – free and premium service that will synchronize your mobile device’s calendar with your Google Calendar (and contacts, and tasks). Seems to support LOTS of devices, including my beloved Palm-powered Treo.
• Jott – premium version allows you to use your voice to add calendar entries to multiple Google calendars.  Super handy when you are on the go and shouldn’t stop to type in a new calendar entry.  Coupled with GooSync above you can, of course, get those calendar entries on your web calendar AND into your mobile device.  And the Jott native-iPhone application makes this even easier.
• Remember the Milk – has a Google Calendar widget – you subscribe to a special calendar that is bound to your RTM account – can show your tasks and deadlines integrated with your calendar!

There are many, many more such tools out there.  You don’t need to use ALL of them.  What I did was analyze my requirements for a calendar, my requirements for making my life more organized and productive, and then found some tools that would work in concert to satisfy those requirements.  Now I, and anyone I care to share with, can get a view into what I have scheduled.  I can update my calendar from anywhere – any web browser, my mobile phone, my desktop applications.  This has helped me improve my productivity and reduced my stress.  At the end of the day, that’s what a good calendar solution should do!

What do you use?  Let’s discuss the possibilities in the associated forum topic.

One of the great things about a community like work.life.creativity is that you can get real advice from real people. People who often have been in a similar situation as you. People who have the same feeling when staring at the big list of stuff they have to do. People who also had struggles becoming independent from those who raise us and moving out on their own. People who struggle with taking good notes. People who need just a little good karma.

You see, what makes a place like this successful is not just the content (and there is a ton of that to be found here). It is the sense of true camaraderie and the can-do spirit of those that participate. For those curious enough to open yourselves up to share with someone else, you will consistently be rewarded by what you learn in the process.

The goal of any personal productivity system should not be to do more in a complex way. It should be how to take all the complexity of your current workload and make it simpler and, thus, easier to manage. One of the themes that keeps popping up in our forums is this idea of simplicity. Here are just a few of the topics that have discussions on this theme:

Wild Idea for Progressing a Writing Project – Jamie has an interesting idea. One of the most recommended tips on writing is the idea of making sure to write something, anything, everyday. Well, how about starting simply? Just commit to fill out the back of a receipt.

Is that a pen in your wallet? – Here is a useful way to make sure you always have a simple capture device (otherwise known as pen and paper) without adding more bulk to your pockets.

Foregoing Contexts for Projects and Life After GTD? – I think many folks start out on the path of a productivity system and then, over time, find ways to simplify it by adapting it to your specific needs.

New Web App – Now Do This – Looking for a straight forward web app that keeps you focused on one thing at a time? Well it does not get more simple than this.

Like what you see here? Have anything to add? Please move on over to the forums and join in these and other discussions happening there.