Don't say I never gave you anything. A few posts back, I mentioned that "Critical Chain" is my recommended starting point for people interested in Goldratts' Theory of Constraints (TOC) process.
Good news - you can read the best chapter of the book, (Chapter 11) online! Check it out at this link on Goldratt's site.
Then when you're hooked, order the book and immerse yourself in TOC.
Thanks to my friend Howard Pierpont for sending me the link! (I faxed Howard a copy of the chapter a few weeks ago, and accidentally left out 2 pages in the middle. He was watching Kojak and immediately sent me an email accusing me of playing mean tricks. One day I hope to make up for spoiling his time with Telly Savallas. It did get him to go searching for this online - couldn't have planned it better.)
Read MoreAs I mentioned the other day, I've been trying out ActiveWords at Bren's suggestion. Well, I've seen enough. I'm now a happily registered owner of ActiveWords PLUS!
In addition to the things I mentioned in my previous post regarding the ease of creating Outlook notes and tasks without having to even run Outlook, one of the things that put me over the top was a suggestion from Buzz Bruggeman, the CEO of ActiveWords.
He noticed I was a MindManager user, so he suggested I set up activation words to start my maps. How cool is that? Now, for example, when I want to go to my top-level Project map in MindManager, I simply hit [Ctrl]+[Space] to get the ActiveWords console to pop up, then I enter "prj" and - shazam - my project map comes up!
This is a great productivity-increasing, time-saving app and it's effectively removing barriers to procrastination for me. As you know, I'm a big fan of that.
Read MoreSkip has an article on "Constructive Criticism" that has some excellent guidelines for providing critical input in a win-win sort of way. In particular, I agree with Skip's statement that "Providing constructive criticism is an important part of the human improvement process."
That got me thinking about how success in giving constructive criticism depends so much on what's come before. If you take an interest in your employees, friends, family, etc. on an ongoing basis, it can make a huge difference in how the criticism is received.
Flip it around and think about people who have your tacit permission to give you constructive feedback. It's likely they are people that you know want you to do better, to succeed, to be happy. They've probably also taken the time to learn about what makes you tick, and have earned the right to comment on you by taking an interest and sharing (maybe even exposing vulnerabilities to you).
On reflection, I realize that I often don't take responsibility for my part in the feedback process. So what would "taking responsibility" look like to me? Things like:
Taking the initiative to ask for constructive feedback (giving permission)
Taking the time to learn more about the other person before foisting my feedback on them (earning the right by really taking an interest)
Being willing to be more vulnerable to others (building trust)
Listening for the message without getting defensive (accepting the feedback)
As I pondered this, I recognized some relationships in my life where I haven't been doing so well at some of this. Time to sharpen my saw.
Any points I'm missing?
Read MoreIn my previous post, Bren left a comment touting ActiveWords as a useful tool. I decided to install it an went through the brief tutorial. I've only been using it for about 15 minutes, but I must say it's promising.
It is essentially a macro / shortcut application that sits on top of Windows and watches keystrokes looking for "activation" words. It can act on these words automatically (kind of like the automatic spell check in Word, except that it works in any app - including the HTML entry form I'm using to type this). Pretty slick. You can also force a "confirm" so it doesn't act so much like a poltergeist on you system - the default is the [F8] key, which indicates that you've just typed a trigger word that you want it to respond to.
You can download a bunch of free add-in libraries of commands and shortcuts from the ActiveWords site, and you can add your own.
Why do I like it so far? Here are some commands I set up quickly to check it out:
- When I type ptb[F8] I launch a browser instance with a shortcut that brings me to my "Post to blog" page on my blog site.
- When I type task[F8] (one of the shortcuts in the Outlook add-in I downloaded from their site) it creates a new task in Outlook - very handy since that's how I track stuff for GTD.
And I think I'm barely scratching the surface.
I'm going to use ActiveWords for a week or so and make sure I still dig it before registering, but they have a bodacious 60-day trial period if you want to try it yourself. Thanks for the tip, Bren!
Read MoreI've gotten a few questions recently about my "must have" tools for personal productivity, so here are a few (with potentially more to follow, if folks are interested):
Roboform AI - This is an add-in program that securely stores your personal information and fills out web forms, passwords, and other web-centric information for you.
- It has a toolbar that shows up in IE and Firefox and can track multiple profiles (home, business, etc.) for both address information and payment information. It can even generate random, secure passwords for web sites -- and track them for you. Pretty cool stuff.
- Note: I resisted using something like this for a really long time, and decided to take the plunge about 6 months ago. Now, I have noticed that it saves me a ton of time.
- They have a long trial period - worth a try.
Anagram - This one makes it easy to add appointments, contacts, and other stuff into Outlook (it also supports Palm, and Salesforce.com).
- Pretty simple - highlight the text, hit Ctrl-C twice, and it automagically figures out how to put it into Outlook in the right form. It's pretty smart.
- A very generous 45-day trial period.
Puretext - This allows you to remove the goofy formatting from stuff that's on your Windows clipboard, and paste it in 'plain old text' into any application.
- To use: copy just like you always do, but when you paste you hit the <Windows key>+V instead of <Ctrl>+V and it strips out all the special characters. This is a good shortcut to having to go to the edit menu in Windows apps to select "Paste Special..." from the menu.
- It's free!
Sharpreader - This is an RSS feeed reader / aggregator that I find very easy to use. I have a couple dozen blogs I follow on a regular basis, and use Sharpreader to bring them together. It will grab them automatically and I can then read them off-line (on planes or whatever). It can be scheduled to poll and retrieve my subscribed sittes on a scheduled basis, which I love. I have it running in my Startup group in Windows.
MindManager - I never used to engage other people to help me solve problems. MindManager helped change that.
- This is such a great tool for creating mind maps, facilitating brainstorming, and bringing people up to speed very quickly on 'where my head is at' on issues.
- I've found that using diagrams and maps to discuss issues really makes it easy to keep debates focused on the issue - and it doesn't become personal.
- Again, a decent trial period. And the sales folks are nice (my sales person was Laryssa, who was great to work with). I ended up buying MindManager X5 Pro.
Just so you know, I have no affiliation with any of these products other than being a happy customer.
Others might see me write about in the future:
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