Jeredb.com » productivity

Generally Special

June 6, 2009 – 9:37 pm

I watched the NBC special covering the White House and I love it. I love it in the way that I loved the series Windsor: A Royal year. The inside look is exciting, a peek behind the magician’s curtain, seeing how it all works. The thing I can’t help but notice in both insights the specialization. Like battle stations on an aircraft carrier, everyone knows exactly what they have to do and the execute, consistently.

I work as a generalist. I do a lot of things. New things every day, going beyond what I did the day and week before, but a generalist.

Specializing is a luxury, getting to do the same thing over, refining and honing the day-to-day skills, it is something I really want to be able to do. That is why I am lining myself up to go to law school to study a specific area of the law (intellectual property, technology, consumer rights).

I love the idea of the “body man.” His (or her) sole responsibility is taking care of the president. That is the most specialized generalist there is, he has to know the president’s wants and needs and while being wide and varied, are still only related to one person.

A body man accompanies the politician or candidate virtually everywhere, often arranging lodging, transportation or meals, and providing companionship, snacks, a cellphone, and any other necessary assistance.

Everyone in the White House does their one job, communications specialists answer phones and deal with the media, the treasury secretary only worries about the treasury and related items. You don’t hear the treasury secretary jumping from bank bailouts to roads, back to the economy and then to the environment.

I think there are only three parts of IT that can truly be call specializations: Programming, Database Administration and High end telecommunications. IT is the swiss army knife of everyone else’s daily life, like the iPhone commercials: “There’s an app for that” or “technology can fix that”. Analyst or Systems should read “Jack of All Trades,” and since my job title encompasses both, well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, as long as I am in IT specialization is my white whale.

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April 13, 2009 – 4:35 pm

A colleage asked me the following question:

Can you give me your take on the difference between Mind Mapping software versus Project Management software?

I see them both as buckets to dump information into and get off your brain. I am leaning toward Project Management, though, because of the ability to share with others and watch the projects through.

Any suggestions on a solution for this? I lean toward web based versus desktop.

I don’t think there are just two types of applications, but three: Mind mapping, project management and task management. Each of these can be important and useful tools and they overlap quite a bit, but I think each has a different use.

I think the easiest way to answer this question is with a look at task management, mind mapping and project management tools and technologies.

Task Management

Task management is the most basic of the three types of software I am looking at. I see task management as a list, or series of lists. A basic list or one that involves more detail, like due date, context or priority, it is all just one item after another.

Project Management

I see project management tools as task management plus ways to check-in and share tasks with colleague and co-workers. Think task management plus email.

Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a little looser, more creative. Tasks and project management tend to be linear, which is more left brain. Mind mapping tools tend to not be sequential, allowing the right side of the brain to have more influence, connecting unknown parts of ideas and projects.

In my system, I use all three, task management for my personal projects and breaking down projects from project management assignments, project management to communicate and collaborate with my co-workers and mind mapping for blue-sky visualizing and brainstorming.

Like I said, there is plenty of overlap between the types of tools and most products will cross the thin lines in between each type of tool. A task manager will allow shared projects, mind mapping tools will share projects and organize tasks into lists. There is no perfect tool that does all three well, at most, any tool can do two parts well.

Here are the tools I use for these roles:

Omnifocus – Task Management

Work Management System (developed at work) – Project Management

Mind Manager – Mind mapping

Additionally, I use a service (Zenbe Lists) that manages my checklists. I could use a task manager or project manager to corral my checkslists, but I like to keep clear definitions between my different levels of self management.

There are several good online options for each of these types of tool. My preferred online task management tool is Toodledo. It is a little cluttered, but is most closely aligned with my productivity philosophy. For project management I really like Basecamp. I have been on both ends of a Basecamp project, a manager of the site and a stake holder and I love the way 37Signals builds their product, very slick implemenation and easy to use. Finally, mind mapping software on the web it a tough nut to crack. I have used several, most of whieh have either been snapped up, or gone under. This kind of software is best handled on the desktop by the like of Freemind. If web-based is absolutely critical, I would recommend MindMeister. It has a limited free option, but it should be enough to get the creative juices flowing.

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The dark side of Getting Things Done

February 1, 2009 – 7:19 pm

I have been a good disciple of David Allen’s Getting Things Done for several years now. Finding GTD was life changing and getting it to stick has been difficult. Tonight, I found the dark side of GTD.

I have done a very good job of keeping my mind empty, my commitments clear and tracking my deadlines. The one part of Getting Things Done that I have been doing poorly is renegotiating my commitments. This was the paradox: Clear commitments that are not actively and continually being renegotiated.

Having a baby has changed the amount that I can get done in the few hours I have once she is asleep. I know what I want to get done, but usually there is more to get done than time would realistically allow. This coupled with good and bad days, makes checking items off of my lists difficult.

Internally, I’m not so great at renegotiating commitments. I know I want to vacuum the house every few daysDue to animals., but when it didn’t happen, I would let it fester on my list. That makes me frustrated and then adds to an unconscious level of stress. It is on my list, mostly off of my mind, getting reviewed but not getting done,

What is the solution? Renegotiate. This is where I am: Learning how to renegotiate better. I have been a good “yes” man at work, which usually leads me to working on projects far-a-field from the scope of my job, increasing stress. I am renegotiating those commitments with my bosses and clients. This is easy. Internally and at home, I am figuring out what I want to really get done: Vacuum or Play with Hazel. The answer is easy, renegotiating is not.

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A fundamental misunderstanding

April 24, 2008 – 6:13 pm

About a 3 weeks ago, I followed Tim Ferriss’ advice and setup an auto responder on my email. It said that I had a full workload and was checking my emails twice a day, but in the event of an emergency or something urgent, give me a call. The exact wording is below:

Dear Colleague,

Due to high workload, I check email twice daily at 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM EST. I respond to urgent email at those times and endeavor to respond to all other email once a week, on Fridays at 9:00 AM EST.

If you require urgent assistance (please ensure that it is urgent) that cannot wait until either 9:00 AM or 4:00 PM, please contact me via phone at XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness. It helps me accomplish more to serve you better.

Sincerely,
Jered

The only problem with auto responders is that they respond to everyone. I know that is the point of an auto response, but my place of work is run by people who have a fundamental misunderstanding of both email and productivity.

I was told to remove my auto-responder.

A auto generated message was sent by the president, who passed it on to a VP, then to a associate VP, to a director and finally to me. The message was presented to me as “the president says you need to remove your auto responder”.

My auto responder was probably seen as lacking in customer service, instead of, what a friend coined: “Oh, that’s just an autoresponse email. Definitely not meant to suggest anything other than here’s an employee who is really trying to focus on getting things done for the University. I think Jered is taking a proactive stand on his work, and wouldn’t it be great if more people were as focused and dedicated as him?”

Like the title says, a fundamental misunderstanding.

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Learning to turn off

April 11, 2008 – 7:02 pm

Esther and i were driving tonight and a good number of the cars we were around had the bright screens of DVD players showing out their windows. One of the vehicles turned to go to the same store as we were, which clued us into the fact that the vehicle and it’s occupants were not on a road trip of any kind. Probably just a run to the store, like us.

What was most disturbing was that the children in the back seat had the DVD players on for a trip to store.

Can a child not make the five, maybe ten, minute ride to the store without having to have five, or ten, more minutes of “fill in the blank” DVD?

This has been theme today. Not only the kin in the car, but during training today, two of the three other people in the training were pulled away by phone calls or email. This normally would not phase me, the two people are normally every hard to pin down due to the high visibility of their jobs. They are constantly putting out fires.

The issue will be more concerning when I have to spend a good amount of time getting them back up to speed or re-teaching them parts of the software package they missed out on. Cellphones are designed with an off button for a reason. So that should you need to focus or not be disturbed, you cannot be reached.

The same can be said for email but during evenings and on the weekends. If you are never offline, how does one know when work ends and the “rest of life” begins. (As a side note, it is sad that I feel the need to refer to the living as the “rest of life”, but it is appropriate when referring to a particular co worker.)

I think this trend started with cell phones and has gotten progressively worse as cell phones have grown “smart”, incorporating email, IM, text messaging.

To stop myself from falling into these traps, I have set both my mail client and the mail program on my iPhone to only check for mail manually. I have a “no work email” policy for both evenings and during the weekend. Turning off can be some of the best therapy for a stressed out worker, I know that I now have time to focus on “worK” as opposed to managing my email, etc. It also provides time to focus on activities outside of work, in my case, running and artistic endeavors, which are important in continuing to develop as a “whole” person.

Take this weekend and turn some inputs off.

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Sven like services

April 4, 2008 – 4:13 pm

I got a comment yesterday on the January 18th post titled Pass on Sven and a Smartphone and after looking at my analytics, I can tell a lot of people have been hitting the site from searches related to Sven and his smartphones.

Pamela’s comment was:

I have plenty of anti-Sven tips. But I also have 6 kids, 2 -17, an executive for a husband. I homeschool. We do swimteam: 1 event, same practice schedule, same competition night, everybody but the 2 year old participates. My daughter is a hobbiest breeder of Westies. Only 1 extra driver, and he works. 1 child is a recently diagnosed epileptic with lots of dr. appts. I still need a Sven. I’m not complaining, I like my life, my children all help. But I could keep Sven busy all day. Shoot, just keeping the 2 year old from putting screws in the electrical sockets, and coloring the leather sofa with black Sharpies would wear him out, and free me up! So, anyone know of any good “Svens” for hire? Short, chubby, tall, thin, doesn’t matter. Just a good work ethic and good with details and kids.

While I do not know any Svens, I have thought about outsourcing, especially after reading the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.

Pamela, I don’t know of any services that provide drivers or child wrangling services, but some of the other things you do, like keep track of your calendar, process email, remind yourself about the shopping list, etc.

From the free to the pay services:

I Want Sandy, a free service from Values of N, is a Artificial Intelligence Virtual Assistant. “Sandy” will send you text message and email reminders of events, information, and keep track of your to do lists. If you use Jott, a free voice to text service, you can call Sandy, tell her to remind you, and then she will text message you when you wanted to be reminded.

Sandy has a great example of how “she” works with families, which may or may not be applicable.

Elance and GetFriday, two pay services that get you a Virtual Assistant. They can do the calendar management, screen phone calls for you, manage your email. The only thing that you need to be cautious of is the amount of direction and explicit instructions that are needed in the beginning.

A paraphrased example from the 4 Hour Work Week:

What does a good VA [Virtual Assistant] task email look like? The following example was recently sent to an Indian VA whose results have been nothing short of spectaular:

Dear Sowmya,

Thank you, I would like to start with the following task.

TASK: I need to find the names and em-mails of editors of men’s magazines in the US (for example: maxim, stuff, GQ, esquire, blender, etc.)who also have written books. An example of such a person would be AJ Jacobs who is Editor-at-Large of Esquire (www.ajjacobs.com). I already have his information and need more like him.

Can you do this? If not, please advise. Please reply and confirm what you will plan to do to complete this task.

DEADLINE: Since I’m in a rush, get started after your next e-mail and stop at 3 hours and tell me what results you have. Please being this task now if possible. The deadline for these 3 hours and reported results is end-of-day ET Monday.

Read these articles from Tim Ferriss’ blog: The Personal Outsourcing Olympics: Bangalore Butler or American Assistant? and Mail Your Child to Sri Lanka or Hire Indian Pimps: Extreme Personal Outsourcing. Both posts that have a lot of resources and great comments.

Pamela, I would love to hear if you have success with using outsourcing.

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Ubiquitous capture now in beta

March 21, 2008 – 7:41 pm

When I was a Windows user, circa 2000 – 2005, I dabbled with Evernote, a very good note aggregator. I only didn’t wholly embrace it because it was tied to a single computer, which locked me into two separate libraries. Sure there are ways to shuttle those files back and forth with USB drives, but I have a tendency to lose things that aren’t the size of a small lunch box (Not my iPod or iPhone yet).

Evernote is slowly releasing a beta of their product, which now has Mac support, a web interface and a syncing feature. The ability to access my clipped notes from the web makes this product a contender in my knowledge management system.
Read More »

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New project weirdness

March 18, 2008 – 10:17 am

After finally solving the blog weirdness, i have found more weirdness in a new project I’m pursuing. A former colleague and friend and I are creating a podcast, very GTD and 43folders-esque, but PodPress, the major podcast plugin for WordPress, is causing some serious performance issues. Something about the podpress.js file hangs up around 9.9 KB. So now I’m looking for other options. Ugh!

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Reducing inputs – Part I – Feeds

March 10, 2008 – 4:50 pm

Before I found the glory of RSS, I used to have a litany of web addresses memorized or at least enough terms from the name, etc, to find it on Google. Then I remember the day that I was introduced to Bloglines, by my wife, no less.

She had learned of it through the knitting community that she was becoming part of and while I had heard the term RSS, I had always associated it with a desktop client. Being tied to a single computer didn’t fit my living in “the cloud,” (or at least having multiple computers). Bloglines was the greatest discovery of 2004/2005.

As soon as I found Bloglines I became a voracious feed reader. At one point I had over 600 feeds to read daily, which meant much of my life was spent in front of a computer screen, not really getting a whole lot done, but, boy the sweet, sweet nectar called knowledge was good.
Read More »

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Working for Workaholics

March 9, 2008 – 8:17 am

Jason Calacanis has stirred up some blogosphere trouble with his post on How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips). Tip #11:

Fire people who are not workaholics…. come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. go work at the post office or stabucks if you want balance in your life. For realz

Jason has edited Tip #11, changing language from “workaholics” to “[people who] don’t love their work” after getting some feedback from the inter-webs.

Coming from the opposite end of the spectrum is DHH from 37signals, countering with a post entitled: Fire the Workaholics. He writes about 5 reasons to fire the workaholics:

Workaholics may well say that they enjoy those 14 hour days week after week, but despite their claims, working like that all month, all the time is not going to be sustainable. When the burnout crash comes, and it will, it’ll hit all the harder and according to Murphy at the least convenient time.

People who are workaholics are likely to attempt to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at the problem. If you’re dealing with people working with anything creatively that’s a deadbeat way to get great work done.

People who always work late makes the people who don’t feel inadequate for merely working reasonable hours. That’ll lead to guilt, misery, and poor morale. Worse, it’ll lead to ass-in-seat mentality where people will “stay late” out of obligation, but not really be productive.

If all you do is work, your value judgements are unlikely to be sound. Making good calls on “is it worth it?” is absolutely critical to great work. Missing out on life in general to put more hours in at the office screams “misguided values”.

Working with interesting people is more interesting than just working. If all you got going for your life is work, work, work, the good team-gelling lunches are going to be some pretty boring straight shop talk. Yawn. I’d much rather hear more about your whittling project, your last trek, how your garden is doing, or when you’ll get your flight certificate.

I am in the unique position of working for workaholics, but not particularly being a workaholic myself, although I do love my job.

One of my bosses (a senior VP) said at one point that my not being a workaholic like a well-known director in his organization was a pity. He then quickly backpedalled and said that he didn’t want me to be a workaholic, but his message was clear.

The said director wears it as a badge of honor that he works 12, 14, 16 hour days, regularly operates on less than optimal sleep, and continually martyrs himself, claiming his staff were unable to complete, operate, or control a specific task.

I am unfortunately compared to this director (though my pay is not in the same ball park), but rather than work myself into an early grave (it is clear that said director is going to), or neglect my home life (ditto for director), I plan on managing my work/life balance.

Being an analyst and one to is paid to think outside of the box for solutions, I think that a healthy work/life balance is important. It give me an opportunity to refresh, recharge and come at a problem with new eyes and fresh solutions. I understand Calacanis’ approach, when you are playing with other people’s money and ideas, it is important to make sure you are able complete and compete in the marketplace. The rest of his suggestions are top notch for a startup (or a small liberal arts university), free coffee, nice chairs, and other cost cutting measures.

But being a non-workaholic, I completely agree with Heinemeir Hansson, when it comes to the negative effects of workaholics on the entire organization, particularly when it comes to the culture that is created around staying late. I have experienced this in two positions, one that involved the boss asking every night “Oh, heading out already?” Not a good experience.

Now that Calacanis has edited his entry to talk about loving work, or passion for the job, I think his direction is much more satisfactory. A balance between the two trains of thought is important, employees should not be staying late on Fridays, send them home. Emails at all hours of the night should be dealt with as being unacceptable, everyone needs down time. Giving people a hard time for just working their 8-9 hours should never be accepted.

I guess I have my Dad to thank for not being a workaholic, he was a good example of what I didn’t want my working life to be (Sorry Dad). Life is more than work. My Grandfather has always related to me the old adage:

No one was on their death bed saying, “I wish I had worked more.”

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Pass on Sven and a smartphone

January 18, 2008 – 6:54 pm

[UPDATE: There is a follow on post to Anti-Sven with some Sven-like services. http://jeredb.com/productivity/sven-like-services/ ]

“If you can’t get a Sven in 2008, get an AT&T smart phone”

You don’t really need a Sven. As appealing as having a large Swede following me around could be, I have built systems in my life that make Sven unnecessary, and you don’t have to sign up for a two year contract.”

Anti-Sven Tip

Useful Landmines (a term I first learned of from Merlin Mann) are one of the simplest things that can be done every day.

Trying to remember my lunch in the morning? Put it in front of the door. That way I trip over it as I leave

I do same thing when I’m leaving work, put things in my jacket sleeves, making sure that I don’t forget them.

Watch for more Anti-Sven tips over the next few weeks.

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Mission creep

November 7, 2007 – 10:18 am

I have been working on a project that would make the management of summer conferences on campus easier and more efficient than the “by hand” method that is used now.

Essentially, the system has been a series of Excel spreadsheets, emailed back and forth and stored on a shared network folder. Lots of revisions, not very effective, not to mention that if someone has the document open and another player needs to make a change, there is a lockout.

Last week I convened a meeting between the departments that run the conferences: Housing, Scheduling, Dining, and the departments that run our orientation: Student Life, Registrar, Academic Advising.

The reason these two groups where brought together is the thought that our orientation is essentially another conference with some specialized needs, mainly the academic information.

This brings me to the title: Mission Creep

Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes.

I believe I have some methods to reduce Mission Creep:

Get your mission defined by the highest person up the food chain.
Having your objectives defined from high up the food chain give you grounds to tell people exactly what the mission is. People like to think that the project is working solely around them, so having the projected outcome set by someone much higher can limit that though process. And don’t be afraid to go back to the mission definer if you start to feel some creep.
Have a documented process.
This was my first mistake. Not having a document process will allow people to take over how the project is managed. They will jump ahead in your process, most likely creating more work. Have a written process that is given to each of the members of your team and anyone else who is related to the project. This lets them know how you work.
Be ruthless with meeting invitation and the distribution of meeting notes.
Everyone thinks that their opinion is valuable to your discussion. I think it is a fundamental fact of human existence. The problem is that they can add more work at an earlier stage than is necessary. Limit who is invited and make it known that your meeting notes are for participants only. If someone up the food chain, or someone laterally involved wants in, they can be brought up to speed later.
Don’t be afraid to tell people that they are not currently needed in the process.
This is a great follow on point. Everyone’s opinion is valid, but not always relevant. If someone is only going to slow down your meetings, or disrupt your process, minimizing their involvement as much as possible is critical to your mission’s success.
Understand that people can be “read in” if necessary.
I have picked up the term “read in” or “reading in” from television shows, generally where some agency is dealing with classified information. Essentially is is when someone with the knowledge catches someone outside the project up. This may be a one-on-one, quick review of what has been done so far. It may be simply sending them your meeting notes (be careful about this).

Right now I find myself mired down by not following my own list of rules, hopefully the late application of these ideas can correct the course for the summer conference software project.

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