One of my New Year’s Resolutions was born. I vowed to minimize: To sell, donate, or otherwise get rid of as much of the extraneous “stuff” in my life as I could.

I started with my storage locker: A collection of boxes and blue bins, together in a cage, mixed in with remnants of my past.

Not knowing exactly what was in that locker really was the first sign that I didn’t need all that stuff — it was just taking up space, both physically, and psychologically. As I opened each container I rediscovered movies, books, photos, kitchen supplies, Nintendo games, and other odds and ends that I no longer had a place for.

Over January and February I donated, or otherwise gave away several large servings of DVDs and books, and transplanted other things that I found another home for. I decided to set aside my favorite movies.

As I proceeded, I told the world about what I was doing. It was about this point when my friends thought I was crazy… which only convinced me that I was doing the right thing.

Back up in my condo, I started to look around me. What else didn’t I need? What stuff was distracting me from the things I wanted to do? I started to think bigger.

I had cancelled cable years ago, and over the past year barely played video games. My TV was basically just a stereo, at that point. So I got rid of it. My Xbox, Wii, Apple TV, and DVD player followed.

I reconsidered the movies I had kept. Did I really need them around, taking up space? How often was I really going to watch them? Off they went.

Every time I got rid of something, I felt a great weight lift. Right now it feels almost… addictive. And I’m not done yet.

The great thing is that minimization isn’t just a psychological relief, it can also be an environmental one. Getting rid of things responsibly (such as donating things to the library), and considering the thought process behind acquiring stuff, minimally, also has impacts.

Speaking of acquiring stuff, other questions arose: What’s a need, versus a want? How can one resist the urge to buy something? And then, what constitutes a smart purchase? How can one politely suggest alternatives to others who insist on buying you things?

Minimizing has become rather interesting to me, so stay tuned for more on the topic.

Consider how you feel when you walk by a space in your home that’s filled with “stuff”, be it your basement, a closet, or just a shelf. What are you going to do about it?

Its length is probably, primarily due to the fact that it tries to be everything to everybody. But, the problem is that this big freaking document isn’t read entirely by any single person, except perhaps by the person who wrote it in the first place.

Every company refers to these documents as something different: BRDs, PRDs, BPDs, DRDs, SRSs, FRDs… or any other number of acronyms that people have forgotten the meaning of. OMG. To complicate matters, each department, project team… heck, person, uses their own template; so, one BRD does not necessarily equal another. But, who can blame the people who write these things? There are deadlines to be met, and all templates do not accommodate the needs of the many. Adjustments are made.

But luckily, from where I sit, I believe that the typical, mega-honking requirements document is nearing its death. And the good news is that this eventuality is closer than most people think. Don’t believe me? We have actually witnessed this happening at some of the more progressive companies that we’ve worked with.

Let’s walk through the reasons why I think these documents exist, and the problems that lie within.

To Communicate

In my mind, your primary job — whether you call yourself a “business analyst”, “requirements manager”, “product manager”, or whatever — is to translate needs from one level of detail, to another. Thus, to be an effective business analyst, you must be effective translator. This means that you must be able to talk the language of the business, and then effectively analyze and formalize that language for the analytical minds of your implementors.

You then need a vehicle to communicate this translation: So, naturally, you go hunting for that mythical template, and set out to write a document.

Let’s then consider what has to be translated. Requirements really come in many different shapes, including:

• flow charts, for describing a series of events, or flow of information;
• lists and tables, for detailing data, and rules;
• images/mockups, for showing what the thing that we’re describing is supposed to look like; and
• paragraphs, for describing what’s left.

One quickly realizes that a single document can’t adequately communicate all of these things. So, what do you do? You go beyond the document, and use a mishmash of the tools you have available: Perhaps you use Microsoft Visio for drawing out diagrams, Excel for lists and tables, PowerPoint for user interface mockups, and Word for everything else. And then you have to try and glue it all together (more on that, later).

At some point you send out the document you’re working on, because communication is a two-way street (a point that a lot of people seem to forget). Unfortunately, documents are designed for one-way streets. So, instead of your reviewers being kind enough to comment directly in the document, we schedule meetings because they don’t know how to make Word work, or they need you there to interpret what you wrote…. perhaps because they didn’t read it. The cycle continues: You change the document, you send it out again, and then you cross your fingers and hope it will be reviewed in some intelligent fashion.

Who’s reviewing these things? The challenge is that there are many people to please, and thus not one, but multiple audiences. Parts of your document are only relevant to certain people: High-level overview stuff is great for managers, but developers could care less about the “Project Vision”; and testers only require certain parts themselves. (Though one might argue that they should read this stuff, in order to provide context for the job at hand).

As a result, there may come a point where you break the document into two documents (at least): One document for business audiences, and another, with a lower level of detail, for a more technical audience.

To Validate Needs are Met

Validation is where I say that what you think I said and what you say I said are the same thing, basically. (Got that?)

To do this, we need to connect the dots, or trace between what was originally said, and what it was translated to. This is also the part where it becomes necessary to add identifiers to everything, so we can reference them and find them, no matter where they are. Basically, all this means is that we end up putting unique numbers next to our requirements.

Ideally, we want to see how all these pieces fit together, so we aim to put everything in one document. In particular, what we’re looking for is how the high-level needs will get addressed at a lower-level, by the implementers. However, if these two things are in two different documents, this makes things a little more interesting; not to mention we already have other objects spread across flow charts, spreadsheets, and slideshows.

This is where the idea of a “Traceability Matrix” comes in, which is not as cool as it sounds. The matrix is a table, created by hand, that shows how the stuff on the left is connected to the stuff across the top. In practice, however, because our documents become difficult to manage as they grow, these linkages begin to fall apart and we forget to update the table.

To Ensure Everything is within Scope

As our project evolves, we also discover that it would be nice to have this thing, and that we might need that thing.

By consequence, it quickly becomes apparent that if we don’t control the size of the big thing that we’re talking about, it will continue to grow, get out of hand, and then dinosaurs will rule the planet again.

Hence, a parking lot is born: This is a table of items that are “Out of Scope” that gets added to the document. This particular table shows us that yes, VP of Something Something, we listened to you (“Look, it’s in the document!”), but no, we don’t have the resources at the moment.

Of course, when the next project comes along, all of these items are buried in that document we worked on last year, and now everybody’s forgotten about them, like fossils.

To Manage Changes to Requirements

Change happens. It’s inevitable. And as you know, keeping track of changes in documents isn’t easy: We have to record these changes, why they occurred, and who made them.

From the reviewer’s perspective, they would like to see a big-picture view of what changed between the last time they saw the document, and what they’re looking at now. Fine. This is where the “Revision History” table enters the picture.

But from your perspective (as the one wrote the document), it might be helpful to see what you had done before you went out to Starbucks after lunch, and promptly forgot everything. In an effort to try to keep a better record of things, we turn “Track Changes” on, and make sure our beloved document in a so-called “content management system”, such as SharePoint.

Great. But what if lots of people are working on this thing? And what if your changes are spread across multiple documents?

To Meet Regulatory or Corporate Obligations

Documents are called into existence for regulatory, and other process-related reasons. In some industries, a process has to be in place, and a document marks a tangible point in this process.

Managers still want to put their monogrammed gold pen’s ink on something tangible, sign on the dotted line, and have everything recorded so that somebody (namely the BAs that report to them) can be held accountable in case something goes wrong… which will happen, because nobody understood, or questioned the contents of the document in the first place.

Hence the list of “Approvers”, with room for each stakeholder to sign and date the document, appears. The signatures on the printed document don’t really mean anything, of course. Instead, this is something we like to call “the illusion of acceptance”.

To Define Requirements Collaboratively

Whether you like your co-workers or not, you have to work with them to gather, document, and translate stuff. (There goes all hopes you had of keeping things under control.)

As you know, building a document with other people is currently not a fun process: Documents are emailed back and forth, opened in Word, edited, comments are added, changes are tracked, you save the document, and then upload it to SharePoint, or email it back.

Recently, newer versions of Word are starting to make it easier to collaborate on documents with other people. Of course, reality tells us that even though these features are becoming available, your company’s culture, and IT department, isn’t moving as fast. (If you’re like most large companies, you’re probably stuck on Office 2003. If you’re not, consider yourself lucky!)

The Death of the Requirements Document

So, what can we do to get rid of the big freaking requirements document? What’s needed is a solution that addresses the reasons as to why they exist, namely:

• To Communicate. We need to be able to express requirements in various forms, in one place, not across several tools. We should also be able to present/split/deliver what we have, based on the audience we’re talking to.
• To Validate Needs are Met. We must be able to tie needs and their detailed requirements together, through traceability. However, this should be a by-product of our work, not something we have to manually create and maintain. We should also be able to illustrate and animate to help communicate, and not just depend on legal-style paragraphs of text.
• To Ensure Everything’s Within Scope. We should capture various levels of scope in one place, and only show what is needed. (Don’t keep them separate.) Being able to easily see the relationships between all the detailed stuff, and what higher-level stuff it came from helps us to ensure that everything is within the agreed upon scope, as well.
• To Manage Changes to Requirements. We should be able to manage change, see those changes over time, at checkpoints, and drill down to specific changes, as necessary.
• To Meet Regulatory/Corporate Obligations for Documentation. If possible, we should be able to move through an approvals process, without the need for a document. However, we should be able to generate a document if, and when it’s needed.
• To Define Requirements Collaboratively. We must be able to allow multiple people to work together, without tripping over each other.

In the end it’s become clear that writing down, and drawing out requirements in documents just isn’t working.

The funeral for the big freaking requirements document must happen, if we are to move forward.

Who’s with me?

Want to go? It’s free!

Visit the site »

PresentationCamp Toronto
Tuesday, March 23rd, 6-8pm
Ryerson University Library, Room Lib 72

Get your free ticket here.

The schedule will be available in the coming weeks.

We’re still looking for dynamic presenters. Leave a comment if you’re interested in speaking!

Thanks to the Ryerson ITMSA and SevenL Networks for sponsoring the event!

Gifts mean something. Gifts mean that somebody is thinking of you. Gifts mean that a person went out of their way to get that thing that they thought you would appreciate. Gifts make you feel good!

But, here’s the problem:

• Commercial interests dominate the times of the year when everybody’s expected to be buying things. This leads to undue pressure, and impulse buying decisions.
• Despite their best intentions, your gift giver usually ends up buying a thing that you just don’t need, because they truly don’t know what thing it is that you want.
• But, they don’t know what you want because you don’t know what you want. You make up things that you think you want, so you have some ideas of things to give to these people.
• And then you finally give or receive the thing, it doesn’t meet expectations, and is eventually forgotten about.
• Now this physical thing is hard to get rid of, because it has an emotional, or personal attachment. It becomes an object that just takes up room.

Awk-ward.

Personally, I want to give memorable, meaningful, and/or useful things that don’t take up room in people’s lives.

So, I did some thinking, asking, and searching. What might such things look like?

Here’s what I came up with:

Give them something they really need.

If you really want to give them a physical object, ask them what they truly need. Don’t make assumptions about what they want, because there’s always a chance you will be wrong. Remember that a want is different from a need.

What about the surprise? Do this far enough in advance so that it’s still a surprise, but not so far in advance that they may have acquired said item in the meantime.

If it’s somebody you’re around a lot, take notes, so when it comes time to buy a gift, you’re armed with ideas.

Yes, this all sounds like common sense, but it’s something a lot of people just don’t do.

Give them an experience.

Instead of a physical thing, give them an experience they will remember. Here are some ideas:

• Cook for them, or cook with them (buy and bring the ingredients with you).
• Take them out to try something new (a concert, rock climbing).
• Give them a gift certificate that allows them to try out an experience on their own time.

Make a donation in their name.

Donate to a local charity, or to a cause that has some meaning to them.

• OxfamGifts.com allows you to provide a donation in the form of a physical item.
• Kiva lets you make a micro-loan to a business anywhere in the world.

Teach them something.

Do you know how to do something that perhaps they would like to learn? Perhaps you can teach them:

• How to cook a dish.
• How to play a musical instrument.
• How to set up a blog (buy them a domain name).

Receiving Gifts

What can you do differently, if you’re the one receiving gifts?

Say no to gifts.

Tell people you just don’t need gifts. I know this can be hard to swallow in our gift-giving oriented culture, but you will end up saving them time, money, and concern about getting you the right thing.

Give them an excuse not to buy you a gift.

Setup your own party — or have somebody else do it for you as their gift to you — and invite everybody to come. Tell them they don’t need to bring anything. (Their company is enough!)

What suggestions do you have for giving meaningful gifts, or experiences, to somebody? How do you say no?

Generally, I’m happy with the marks I get in return. Alas, there’s this one question in which I consistently don’t do so hot. This question asks everybody to rate the instructor (that’s me) on their…

Ability to make the course interesting

The results aren’t… great.

Without going into too much detail, what I train people on is our software package, which is essentially an all-in-one toolkit for business analysts (BAs).

Granted, the subject matter of the course can get dry, which is why I strive to inject humour into the course, to keep things lively.

And I know some people are forced to be there who would rather not be. Still others have a highly-technical background, making the material seem, well, pedestrian. I can usually tell who these folks are, and identify their evaluation forms.

Call me optimistic, however, because I believe that at some level I can still make the course interesting enough for just about everybody.

So I began to wonder, just how are people interpreting the question in question? Just what does “interesting” mean?

At first, I thought that people might be asking themselves whether I made the course seem fun. I’ve had positive feedback on this front, so I didn’t think that “fun” told the whole story.

And then I thought, maybe it’s about whether I’m making the course relevant to their jobs. After considering this over the span of the past few classes, however, I adjusted my thinking.

The real question was actually this:

How should I rate the instructor on their ability to make what I do seem more interesting?

In my case “what I do” is business analysis. And what I’ve learned is that some — perhaps most — BAs have not been through any sort of formal training to do their jobs. This makes our class, perhaps, the first foray into a study about what they do for a living.

Looking back on my classes through that lens has been rather interesting, indeed.

That is, I hadn’t until the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s restrictions for us Canadians came into play.

For a while, I was flying around the continent with a large backpack containing my laptop, accessories, books, paperwork… and other assorted things I thought I might need in the event I wanted to build a house. Or something. Over time, I became conscious of the increasing amount of weight I was carrying, and began to worry about my back. That’s when I bought something with wheels.

My wheeled wonder worked out wonderfully when walking, though it was woefully weighty. Not to mention it no longer left any room for my feet, when stuffed under the seat in front of me.

When the carry-on restrictions came into effect, however, neither piece of luggage was a viable option: my backpack was just too big, and my wheeled wonder was now a potential threat to national security.

So then I had to then ask myself: What was the list of stuff I truly needed in order to do my job, and to keep myself entertained while traveling?

My job requires a list of stuff that looks like this:

• Laptop: My trusty MacBook Pro, which is also my personal computer.
• Power supply: My trusty hefty white brick, which is unfortunately necessary to power my trusty laptop.
• Video adapter: Because nine out of ten video projectors don’t talk DVI.
• Mouse: The trackpad just doesn’t cut it for all the software demos I do.
• Paperwork: Maps, evaluation forms, flight information, etc. in offline format. Just in case.
• Memory stick: Most training facilities have a computer I can use, in the event something bad happens. So here I keep a backup of the slides and software I need.

And how do I keep myself entertained on the plane? For me, all I need is my BlackBerry. I treasure the time I have up in the air. It’s quiet, I’m disconnected, and it gives me a lot of time to think, and to write. My BlackBerry works wonderfully for this purpose.

My “everything else” list, then, looks like this:

• Passport
• Wallet
• Keys
• BlackBerry

All things considered, it turns out I already had a bag that was perfect for the purposes of a carry-on: A very light laptop bag I had purchased a while ago from Mountain Equipment Co-op: The MEC Pro Computer Tote. For me, it’s a great little bag with a small pouch on the side with just enough room for everything I need. And traveling with it over the past few weeks has been a dream!

Now, if only I didn’t have to take the other necessities like clothes, shoes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, a jacket…

How do you pack light when you travel? What do you think you could cut back on?

The light went on (or rather, off) when I finally realized that I didn’t have to use the BlackBerry to do what it was designed to do, namely automatically delivering me my mail.

Now, I use the Gmail app, which allows me to check email on my schedule, without the constant reminder that there’s new messages waiting for me every time I look at my phone. The other awesome side-benefit to this is that I’m looking at the exact same inbox I see on my computer, so they stay in sync. Before, I had an inbox to manage on the Berry that I later had to reconcile manually against Gmail, even though they were technically the same inbox!

Here are some other ways I have minimized the flow of information into my life, either by eliminating inboxes, by preventing what sort of stuff goes into them, or by reducing the number of distractions they cause:

Online

• Three weeks ago I deleted (almost) all of my Google Reader subscriptions. Those of you who use Reader know that it can be addictive. It was my go-to place to catch up on interesting tech news, and what made it worse is that it was only a click away from my email. On top of that it created yet another Inbox that I personally felt I needed to clear out on a regular basis. This consumed too much of my time, both on weekdays and weekends. I’ve kept a handful of feeds to stay abreast of Toronto-related tech events, but that’s it. At first this was a hard pill to swallow, but I quickly got over it and I haven’t looked back.
• I’ve changed how I use Twitter, another time-waster. On my BlackBerry, where I tweet the most, I went from UberTwitter (which displays your friends tweets by default), to OpenBeak/TwitterBerry (which can default to a New Tweet box). Seeing friend updates just lead to distractions, links to follow, and not much value. On the computer, I now use TwitterBar (a Firefox/Chrome plug-in), and only use Twhirl when occasionally checking in on my other accounts. (I know TweetDeck is popular, but for me it was just too overwhelming.)
• From a productivity standpoint, Facebook’s new Reply by Email feature is a game-changer. This gives me one less reason to log in… and consequently waste time reading updates.
• Most importantly, though, I’m trying to reduce email checking to 2-3 times a day. At a minimum, I’m taking the advice of trying to complete something important as soon as possible in the morning, delaying the checking of mail until at least 11 AM.

Offline

• The No Junk Mail Please sign in my mailbox has been working fantastically for the past 2-3 years, but only because my mail person has been nice enough to honor it. (Your mileage may vary.)
• Whenever telemarketers call (and I choose to answer), I also continue to ask to be added to any “Do Not Call” lists they have. This has reduced the number of those types of calls to virtually zero.
• As per a suggestion I read, I’ve changed my voice mail message on my office desk phone. The new message encourages people to contact me via email, if at all possible, and via cell for urgent matters. Because I travel a lot, I believe that this is an acceptable request, as it also leads to quicker responses from me. (I have to wonder why we even have land-lines at work; I got rid of my home line years ago.)

Bottom Line

Again, I want my focus to be on producing content, not on consuming it. Reducing the number of collection buckets (inboxes) where stuff collects, and putting rules into place about what goes in, and then how it’s processed, is fundamental to this goal.

As I discover other ways of minimizing, you can be sure I’ll be writing (producing) content about it, here.

What have you done, or are considering doing, to reduce the unnecessary inputs into your life?

If you’re like most people, you probably put those items into a list with the full intention of checking them off one-by-one as they are achieved. A noble goal. Unfortunately, this tends to fall apart as the year progresses, as you get overwhelmed by daily life, or for various other reasons that I’m sure you’re making up right now.

One way to stay on top of your resolutions is to make your task list work smarter for you. Here’s how.

The Tools

I’m sure you already have a tool for managing your task list. But if you’re looking for something better, here’s what I suggest you should look for:

• The system should let you access, and manage your tasks from wherever you are. Whether you’re in front of your computer or in a restaurant holding your iPhone or BlackBerry, having a list of things that you can do accessible at all times allows you to make the most efficient use of your time.
• The system should also make it really easy to get new tasks entered into it. Put another way, the faster you can get that thing you just remembered you had to do out of your head and into the tool, the sooner you will be less stressed about it. (That stress, by the way, exists because it’s unlikely you’re able to do anything about that thing at the moment, anyway.)
• The system should allow you to categorize stuff. I talk about why and how, later.

Most people I know use Outlook to manage their tasks. If you spend your work day in Outlook, and have a BlackBerry that synchronizes to it, then you’re set — your lists are always at your side. Personally, I make use of a really flexible system for tracking my tasks, called Remember the Milk. Here I talk a little about Remember the Milk, but the methodology that I discuss can apply to other systems, as well.

Remember the Milk

At its core, Remember the Milk (RTM) is essentially a TO-DO list, on steroids.

For the low price of zero dollars, you can sign up for an account that gives you access to a web version. However, for the totally-worth-it small price of $15/year, you can upgrade to a Pro account, which allows you to synchronize RTM with your BlackBerry’s Tasks application. If you’re an iPhone/iPod Touch user, you also get access to the awesome RTM app.

Aside from just logging in to the application, Remember the Milk provides a really easy to create new tasks (or lists of tasks): Once you’re signed up, every time you think of a task you can send a simple email to a special email address; you can even optionally add special keywords (like tags) that automatically categorize the task, and put a due date on it. I use this feature all the time — it’s a lot faster than, say, opening the BlackBerry Tasks application, selecting New, selecting a due date, and then selecting a Category for it!

Lastly, RTM lets you create any number of task lists. I use these as categories, and describe the ones I’ve created, later on.

An Inbox for Tasks

A concept that RTM introduces to the run-of-the-mill task list is that of an Inbox. This works similar to your email inbox: It serves as a collection point for new items, that you can later categorize. If you have to think about what bucket to put a task in up front, you’ll be less inclined to write it down. So, an inbox lets you get stuff into your system right away, leaving the worring about the “when” and “how” the task will get done, until later. Yes, the idea took me a little while to get used to, but now I wonder how I managed without it.

Categorizing

What categories work well? Here are the lists I created in RTM to categorize my tasks, which are adapted from David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done”:

• Next Actions: This list is for action items that I can do right away (well, any time soon that I have the time to do them, that is).
• Projects: A “project” is anything that takes more than one action item to complete. Most of my New Year’s Resolutions are on this list.
• Someday/Maybe: A lot of items that usually come about due to wishful thinking get put in this list.
• Waiting For: Anything that requires delegation, requiring somebody else to do something for me. I write these down like this: “Person re: Thing-I’m-Waiting-For – DAY/MONTH”. The date helps me remember when I made the request to that person. For example, “Steve re: Sample Document – 1/13″.

The success of this system requires frequent review, which I do on a weekly, if not semi-daily basis. Part of this process involves:

1. going through the task Inbox and putting each task in one of these lists;
2. re-evaluating what’s in my “Next Actions” list (which frequently means re-wording them to be more specific, or moving them into “Someday/Maybe”);
3. reviewing my “Projects” list and confirming that I have at least one Next Action for each; and
4. ensuring that I’m following up with everybody in my “Waiting For” list.

For more about the “Getting Things Done” methodology, check out this summary I wrote up a while ago.

Personal or Business?

After reviewing the list of categories above, you might be wondering: That’s all well and nice, but how do I keep my business tasks and my personal tasks separate?

My approach? I combine them.

What you choose to accomplish in your Next Actions depends on the context: For example, if I have five minutes to spare before my next meeting, I can book an appointment to get my car’s tires changed just by virtue of the fact that I’m near a phone.

If you wish, however, you can further “tag” items in your task lists, regardless of what category they fall in. This way you can search across all of your lists for action items marked “Personal” and/or “@Phone”, for example.

Other Lists

Task lists are great for keeping track of more than just tasks. Here are some ideas of other lists that I maintain and add to, year-round. (I add a special character “~” before each of these list names to keep them visually seperate from the core lists I mentioned above.)

• ~Cooking: This is a list of dishes I like to cook frequently (as well as things to try), along with recipes in the notes section, just in case I need a reminder at the grocery store.
• ~Gifts: I add to this list all the time as I think of ideas of things to buy other people for birthdays, or Christmas.
• ~Groceries: As I run out of things in the kitchen, I send myself a quick email to my RTM account (“Bananas #Groceries”). At the store I easily check things off my list; I can even look at the list of completed tasks for ideas for other things to buy.
• ~ToRead: List of books, or articles to read. When I’m in the book store I’m not aimlessly wondering about.
• ~ToWatch: List of movies, or shows to watch. Handy when I find myself in iTunes, looking to be entertained.
• ~Wishlist: Ideas of things that I want for myself. Also handy when somebody is looking for gift ideas from me.

Your Next Action

While I may not have helped you get closer to achieving your resolutions, at the very least I hope this makes you rethink what you might have previously thought of as “the simple task list”. Check out Remember the Milk, and/or drop me a line so I can help you get the most out of your task list!

As of this particular moment in time, I resolve to:

Run

The problems I have with working out in gyms are the reliance on a place and equipment, and sheer boredom. Running, on the other hand, requires only a good pair of shoes, and opens up my neighborhood (and anywhere I travel to on business) to exploration.

To make this goal concrete,

• I’m aiming to complete a half-marathon later in the year. I’ve narrowed it down to one of two particular events in September and October. Training begins now, and equates to 40 minute workouts, three times a week.

Introspect

What inspires, drives, and motivates me? I’m already putting some real thought into answering this question.

But I believe that a real journey to find myself is truly in order:

• I’m going to travel, by myself, to Africa, in the Fall. If I could go earlier, I would, but I need up at least three weeks of vacation days based on the options I’m interested in.

Challenge

It’s always good to step outside that zone of comfort we live within, in life.

To begin to challenge myself,

• I’m going to talk to at least one stranger every day. The rule is that I have to be the one to initiate the conversation.
• I’m finally going to go skydiving, around July.

Minimize

One must continually challenge the need and place of everything in your life, and I intend to do just that.

My storage locker is packed to the brim, and various “stuff” dominates the nooks of my home. This will be an ongoing exercise, but,

• I plan to immediately start purging, as my schedule allows me to give away, donate, or dispose.

I’ve already started getting rid of a lot of the material crap in my life. But this is the year I fully intend on pushing myself to the point where I’ve minimized as much as possible.

Build

Creating things is just part of my nature. While I shall endeavor to regularly update this here blog, and contribute to ProductCamp, I need some new projects.

To start, I intend to:

• Launch PresentationCamp, hopefully early this year. An event like this requires the assistance of many others, but the onus, this time, will be on me to pull it all together. I look forward to the challenge.

…Set More Goals

While that about sums up my concrete goals at the moment, I fully intend on evolving and adding to this list over the coming months.

So, what are your resolutions for 2010?