Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Resurfacing after a deep dive

Sub_resurfaceI’ve been fairly quiet for the past couple of weeks, but that’s due to a couple of contributing factors:  connectivity (or lack thereof), and jam-packed scheduling at 3, back-to-back software industry conferences (self-inflicted, for the most part). 

Now, as I come up for air, I have a lot of pent up stuff to write about.  Let’s start with some quick updates:

  • A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was starting one of my periodic time audits (yes, I finally got it done after my epic fail).  Here are my key takeaways:
    • I was successful in carving out and sticking to one of my goals:  engaging in regular physical exercise.  For the past 5 consecutive weeks, I have kept to a 6-day per week exercise schedule (3 alternating days of weights, interspersed with 3 days of cardio, followed by 1 day of rest).  I even managed to keep to this during 3 weeks of travel.  This is a first for me, but something I intend
    • I spent too much time working on things that were not directly related to my top priorities. What’s my diagnosis of the problem?
      • I wasn’t consistent in writing down my top priorities and “must do” items at the beginning of the week.
      • I said “yes” to too many “urgent but not important” tasks (i.e. someone else’s priorities)
  • I read a great article by my friend Mike Kanazawa (author of “BIg Ideas to Big Results”).  The article is called “80% Of Companies Are Thinking More Strategically In The Downturn,” and it looks at some data on how companies are reacting to the economy’s chaos.  One of the key observations is one I really agree with: you need to take care of your existing customers and keep them happy.  I don’t know about you, but I find it much easier to stick by the suppliers that have done right by me no matter what, but during lean times I will not only support them – I’ll go out of my way to give them my business so they do OK.  And I’ll readily drop the vendors that have been lame to me.  There’s more to it in Mike’s article – go check it out.
  • I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the positive power of “TripIt” (which I wrote about a while ago).  As my travel has picked up, I’ve been reconnecting with quite a few people I haven’t seen in ages.  I was skeptical about how much I’d like TripIt but was intrigued enough to sign up anyway.  I’m glad I did.

I’ve got a few drafts going that I’ll be finishing up and posting soon – including a review of a forthcoming Keith Ferrazzi book that I have a pre-release copy of.  I think you’ll like it.

Thanks for hanging in there during my time under water.

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Unlocking the iPhone’s potential, part 1

apple_chrome_logo Despite the title, this article is not about unlocking the iPhone so it will work on networks other than AT&T.  And as much as the cool kids keep trying to tempt me to do it, it’s also not about jailbreaking the iPhone so you can run rogue apps on it.

As you may know, I wrote about my “top 3” challenges with the iPhone a while back and they were irritating enough to get me to switch back to my Blackberry.

Now, I’m back on the iPhone 3G.  What’s changed?  This post begins the discussion about what’s changed for me in the hopes that other iPhone users (or wannabe users) can benefit from what I’ve learned.  I want to share with you how I’ve been able to overcome (or at least make tolerable) some of the iPhone’s current limitations, and I’ll start with my top 3 issues from the previous post:

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Voice power and your phone

vlingo I am in the midst of a switch of phone platforms, yet again.  I’m going back to my iPhone 3G.

During the coming week, I’ll share more information with you about how I’m working around the iPhone’s limitations (I’ve mentioned why I switched away from the iPhone in a previous post).  In the mean time, I wanted to share information about a free “super app” that works on both the Blackberry and the iPhone.  The application is called “vlingo” and it allows you to talk to your phone to make it do stuff.

Voice control is very handy in many situations, such as when you’re driving.  You can use Vlingo to call people, update social network status, do web searches, and more.  The Blackberry version has more functions and is a little easier to access since it maps to one of the “convenience keys” on the side of your phone, but the iPhone version is still very good (I wish I could use vlingo to send text message on the iPhone – I did that all the time on the Blackberry).

Very cool – check out vlingo today – it is free, after all.  Would love to hear what you think.

Want to see a demo first?  There are a couple of cool demo (Flash) videos online of vlingo on the Blackberry, and vlingo on the iPhone.

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Do It Tomorrow

Ok, I gotta say, when I saw Mark Forster’s book, “Do It Tomorrow” on the shelf I was drawn to it.  I thought it might be some best practices guide for how to procrastinate more effectively.  Well, it wasn’t that…but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

do_it_tomorrow The full title is actually “Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management,” and it’s Forster’s straight-forward system to help you become more focused and productive (this is one of the GTD alternatives I mentioned a few weeks ago).

One of the core concepts in Forster’s approach is to plan what you must do tomorrow, and create an action list to drive what you do.  This allows you to enter the day knowing what your targets are for the day.  Furthermore, you up your chances of success by treating this list as a “closed list” so you don’t keep adding things to it.  That doesn’t mean you don’t write down new tasks – it just means you don’t act on them until some future day. (Don’t worry – you can still deal with true emergencies).

Principles of productivity

Forster’s methods are based on 7 principles.  If I gave you a list of the principles here, it wouldn’t do them justice as they sound like things you may be familiar with (for example, the first on is “Have a clear vision”) and you might discount the value of this book without giving it a chance.  On the contrary, I found that Forster doesn’t just refactor the things you read in so many books about productivity – he adds his unique spin and pragmatism to each principle.

The book takes you through each of the principles and provides some “what if” scenarios, techniques, affirmations, and exercises to help you adopt them effectively.

These exercises help you identify the most relevant or valuable use of your time based on “litmus tests” you can apply during planning, as well as in-the-moment.  There are also a lot of techniques to help you deal with other people’s faulty approaches to time management so they don’t undermine your effectiveness.  I’ve tried a couple of these techniques since I read this book, and seen them work – pretty cool.  I’m definitely not a Jedi master but Forster’s techniques are sound.

Simple can be good

While some of Forster’s approaches sounded familiar (his explanation of “To Do vs. Will Do" sounded a lot like “Someday Maybe” from David Allen’s Getting Things Done, aka GTD), I found he always biases toward simple approaches.  This means you can quickly understand and apply Forster’s principles so you’ll know whether they work for you within a very short time.

If you’re already familiar with GTD (but shying away for some reason), or you’re just looking to be more productive, this book would be a good addition to your library.  But if you want to order, Do it Tomorrow.

If you want to read a chapter before committing, Mark’s made Chapter One of “Do It Tomorrow” available on his site.

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Epic Fail: My Time Audit

Well, last weekend I told you I'd be doing a time audit during the past week. I had my forms printed and everything. I did a couple of entries on Monday morning and that's about it.

While I didn't learn much about the specifics of how I spent my time, I did find that I somehow got a lot of the items on my list done this week, so I must have done something right.

What next? Back on the horse next week. "There is no try - only do or do not," as Yoda says. This week I will either do, or do not. I'll let you know how it turns out.

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