One thing we’ve learned during this time of shelter-in-place, lockdown, quarantine, whatever you want to call it, is that you need a space at home to work.

The idea of a home office isn’t new, but I’d contend that ambitious people need not only an office but some kind of studio as well. Today’s distinction is about my concept of a home office-studio.

One of my houses had a wet bar in the living room. It was built in the seventies and this was common and considered fancy. All the houses in the neighborhood had an alcove with a sink and cabinet in them.

When we moved in in the early 2000s we had no idea what to do with that thing. Eventually, we had the whole area turned into a big pantry since it was near the kitchen.

Why am I telling you this in a video about a Home Studio? Because it is an example of how architecture changes over time. Specifically residential architecture in this case. In the 1970s cool people needed to mix drinks in the living room.

I guess.

But by 2000 no one did that, especially when the kitchen was 5 steps away and that was where everyone congregated during parties.

The same is true of formal dining rooms. That house had one and so does my current house. But how many of us really need an extra room just for fancy eating?

We turned our formal dining rooms into libraries.

But I know lots of people turn them into offices. Even before the pandemic, many people worked from home and needed a dedicated space to work. Which lead to the concept that a house needed to have a Home Office.

But the idea of an office at home isn’t new. While working solely from home was less common in the past, many did work while at home. My father had a dedicated office in every home we lived in growing up, but always worked in an office downtown.

What is new is the need for a space for content creation.

People trying to make something in the world – start a business or non-profit, have an impact, create a movement – now have huge opportunities to get their message out in more ways than ever before.

If you remember back to the Money Flow Framework Attention episode I encourage people to build a platform or online content channel. Add to that the need to use advanced communication tools like teleconferencing software and you can see why you should consider having a space dedicated to it.

How many Zoom calls have you been on in the last 2 months? Undoubtedly a lot.

How many people on those calls had a place dedicated to work in their homes? How many had a space dedicated to video calls and content creation?

Very few I’d guess. Why not have a space dedicated to that? Or combine the two. When building a home office, think about how you will use it to create video and audio content.

So I hear by coin the term Home Office Studio. Or maybe Home Studio Office. Leave a comment below on what sounds better.

OK, so let’s talk about the factors of a good Home Office Studio.

I’ll use my office as the basis and show you a little behind the scenes.
First and foremost a home office studio is isolated.

You have to have space where other people aren’t going to be interrupting. Where you can control the sound as well. The best place is to have your own room.

When we were looking at houses, having my own office was a must. I worked from home at the time and knew I needed a spot dedicated to working.

What we found was a mid-century modern house with had a rather large room on one end. The house was built in the 60s, and the guy who built it lived in it. He ran a construction business out of it and had an office/workshop/garage on one end.

This had been a number of things over the life of the house but was a disaster when we moved in. The immediate previous owners were turning it into a man cave, with a room for brewing beer.

But the place had concrete floors and no drywall on the walls for much of the area. We told them to stop doing any building because I knew I wanted an office.

Eventually – like a year later when we could afford it – we paid someone to finish it off, paint it and carpet it. We also turned the disaster area brew room into a really large closet. This now holds lots of gear and hobby supplies.

All of our houses have hard floors. Wood, tile, and of all things brick. But we had carpet put down in the office. The only place in the house. There were a number of reasons for this, but one is our next point.

Sound

When you are going to record anything you would prefer a space with lots of soft surfaces. Why? Because soft surfaces absorb sounds and hard ones bounce them around.

Putting carpet on the floor significantly lowered echo in the room. This room also has large drapes over windows which absorb more sound. It’s acoustically pretty good.

Next, you need to think of your space as a set.

Think of your space as a set

For all video projects, you need to think about your set. What is in the foreground, and background of your shot? How far are you from the camera, and how far are you from the background?

These are important factors in a number of ways. Distance from the camera influences the kind of camera and lens you can use, which we will talk about in a minute.

As I mentioned in my How To Look Good On Webcam Part 1 video, your background is important. When making content, or for video calls, people are going to be looking at what is behind you.

My background is OK. I don’t like the door behind me, but I haven’t figured out how to remove it.

The bookcase is on purpose. It gives an intellectual vibe. Also, I know people are going to look at what books they can see. I regularly change some of them, just to see who is paying attention. A prominent book that often gets covered is probably a little controversial. I’ll leave it as an exercise for you to figure out which one I’m talking about.

One last thing about bookshelves. If you have a bunch of books directly behind you, some camera’s autofocus system will lock onto them rather than your face. Especially true for older cameras without face tracking.
You see early autofocus systems looked for vertical lines when focusing.

If you watch videos from this time period, you’ll often see people’s faces out of focus and bookshelf 3 feet behind them in focus. It is very hard to see this difference on the small screen of most cameras, so take some video and watch the playback.

This brings us to the first thing everyone thinks about when they want to create content: The gear.

Gear – Lights, Camera, Microphone

We do love the gear. The first question people ask me when they want to up their game on photography, podcasting, or video is, “What kind of gear do you use?”

I want to say first that you don’t need a ton of fancy gear to create quality content. You need even less to do a quality video conference call. That is much more about light and camera angle.

I’m going to leave a complete studio tour for another episode. My list of equipment has been in the description of every DFL 2.0 video including this one.

My gear is probably overkilled for what most people need. In reality, for most of what you want to shoot, that will be edited, you could use the camera on your phone.

For life it is a little more complicated, but not in the hardware. A phone’s camera would work fine for streaming, but its form factor makes being part of a meeting harder, especially if you are the host. There are lots of controls in apps like Zoom and Skype etc that don’t work as well on the mobile app as they do with a desktop.

For sound, get yourself a decent podcasting mic or a good clip on lavaliere and your sound will be good enough.

And make sure you have good light. A big window is one way to do this, but there are a lot of inexpensive LED-based light panels out there. I use two of these to light my videos.

Again, look at the description for what I use and hit the subscribe button to see a complete tour of the studio in the near future for details.

Internet

Lastly, you need a good internet connection. If possible a wired one, rather than wi-fi. Though I use wi-fi because my cable modem is far from my office. When picking an internet connection, pay attention to upload as well as download speed. If you are going to be live-streaming or doing a lot of calls, that upload gets really important very soon.

These distinctions should give you something to think about for your current or future Home Office Studio.

Question of the Day: Do you have a space dedicate to content creation in your house?

The post You Need a Home Office Studio appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

On January 23, 2021, my father went to his reward. That was three years and one day after my mother. Let’s talk about what that means for DFL.

I had mentioned that my father had cancer in my New Years livestream. I talked about how that was effecting me mentally and how it might impact DFL in the short term. Then he took a rapid turn for the worse and passed away.

In case you didn’t realize, I batch produce videos. Writing and shooting them in groups. So I had videos recorded and to my editor before I left to see Dad one last time. The last one got released the day after he passed, which I can tell you would not have happened if it hadn’t been recorded weeks before.

Since then I haven’t been able to get my head back into writing and recording distinction videos. It still isn’t there, hence this video.

Truth is, I hadn’t expected it to affect me this much, and at such a deep level. I also had expected to be able to muscle through or find some new cool way of getting myself to do stuff I didn’t want to do.

Well, that hasn’t happened yet. So DFL is going on a hiatus. Not sure for how long, but I promise I will come back and talk to you again in the near future. I’ve got some cool ideas to take the channel in a different direction, but nothing is decided yet.

And the truth is it may not really come back. I’ve been doing this for well over a year and the growth and impact hasn’t been what I expected. But if I decide that, then I will make a goodbye video.

Here is a bit of a distinction for you. Don’t make big, final decisions when in an emotional crisis. The death of a loved one or a relationship doesn’t give you the best mental state for making decisions.

This is why I won’t decide to quit DFL right now. Instead, I will put it on hold until I can make decisions I am confident in.

The post My Father Died and My Life Is Changing appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

I want to make a Zoom meeting drinking game. Every time you see one of the mistakes from my last video, you get to take a drink.

Looking up someone’s nose? Drink. Can see their ceiling fan, but not their face? Drink. Can count the pimples on their nose because they are so close to the camera? Drink.

Unfortunately, if I actually played this game, I’d be drunk 5 minutes into every meeting. You don’t want to be that guy – or gal – on the web call.

But those tips aren’t the only help I’ve got for you.

I have had a number of people tell me how much my “How to Look Good On Webcam” video distinctions helped them. So I decided to do another video with even more distinctions related to our new world of online meetings.

First and foremost is to treat the meeting like a “real world” in-person event. I got this distinction from an excellent tips video from Toastmasters International.

Lots of the problems we see would disappear if people just started thinking this way.

The first and obvious distinction is to dress as you would for the in-person meeting.

I don’t mean you have to wear a suit to every web call. Antonio Centeno did an excellent video about the psychology of dress and how it affects your work. Again link in the description. There he pointed out that “dressed up” means different things to different people and contexts.

He was talking about the psychological impact on you of dressing better. I’m talking more about the social impact of your appearance on the people on your call.

But like Antonio’s point, what “dressed up” means differs by the organization. I spent a couple of decades in the tech world and people wore t-shirts and shorts to work all the time. But if you work in a bank, that’s probably not what you wear to meetings.

Another aspect of creating an online meeting like a real-world one is excusing yourself. Newbies have a tendency to think no one is paying attention to them and will just turn off their video if they need to go to the bathroom or blow their nose.

The first problem with this is just because your video is off doesn’t mean your audio is. I know at least one person who turned off the video and then went to the bathroom. All the while broadcasting all their sound effects to the meeting.

Just like in a real meeting, you want to tell people you are going A F K, or Away From Keyboard. Because people assume you are still there and still listening.

Now you may be thinking, “Ron if I’m on a call with 50 people, I don’t need to tell them I need to leave the room.”

That’s true, just like if you were in an in-person meeting with 50 people you wouldn’t announce to the whole room you needed to pee. Use the same judgment on a conference call.

Before going to the next tip to looking better on-screen, let me give you a distinction about the world we live in.

This isn’t specific to remote working, nor just to the quarantine. Do you sing in the shower? Dance in your living room when no one is around? Feel comfortable walking around your house in your underwear?

Of course, you do, that’s how the home is supposed to make you feel.
Now if I asked to you sing at work? Or dance on stage for hundreds or thousands of people? For most of us, the answer would be a terrifying negative.

The problem is now we can be surrounded by the feeling context of our home, and still be in front of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people.

You see this manifest on social media when people post things from their bathroom that you know they wouldn’t do in public.

It is because we don’t think the same way in private we do in public, but those two things now overlap like they never have before.

We can no longer judge where is private by how many people are there.
What I’m talking about here is what goes on in our heads and our feelings. We can be in private, feel safe, comfortable, or sexy but in reality be in public.

We may know rationally that people are watching, or will be able to watch, but the feelings our head uses to judge if we should do something are actually based on a private context.

We all need to work on making that context switch up here a part of our process.

Enough heavy stuff. Let’s talk about googly eyes.

Tip number two is to look at your camera and not your screen.

Especially when you are talking. Even a little one side is obvious to people.
A trick some people do is stick googly eyes on their webcam. Then it actually has eyes to look at.

There are a couple of reasons you look at your screen. One is to look at the audience, and the other is to look at yourself.

Let’s talk about looking at ourselves first.

Let’s admit it, we all do it. We’re at least as concerned about how we look at how everyone else on the call looks. But it isn’t all narcissism. we need to look some. It helps us make sure we are in the right place on other people’s screens.

I recently heard a new term from Video Streaming Pros. The confidence monitor.

It is a screen they mount next to the camera that shows what is going out on the stream. Their tip was to mount it under the camera, because their research shows that looking down is less distracting than looking left, right, or up.

The next tip is to Use chat correctly.

One big way online meetings are different is they have chat. Chat is a text side channel that can be used during the meeting. This can be really powerful if used correctly. Its advantages may make you wish you had it in the face to face meetings.

Here are three great uses for a chat:

• It allows people to ask questions without interrupting the speaker.

• It is a great place to put URLs and related information rather than expecting people to write stuff down.

• It is a more permanent record of these things that can be saved and looked at later. Kind of like group notes.

But it can be used wrongly. Here are a few things not to do.

• Don’t use it too much. Flooding the chat with long comments or lots of semi-related URLs makes it useless.

• Don’t send messages to an individual when you meant to send them to everyone and vice versa. Make sure you understand where your chat message is actually going. Many of these chat programs allow you to sent messages to “everyone” and also send a message to just one person. Make sure you have the right one selected when you hit send.

• Don’t put all your focus on the chat and lose track of the meeting. If you are the speaker, break to check the chat periodically and don’t try to keep up while speaking. If you are in an audience, don’t watch the chat all the time and lose track of what the speaker is doing.

The next Tip is for when you are the speaker to a group.

You know you can stand up. We tended to default to our technology’s default.

Since many people are using a laptop, they default to putting it on their laps while stilling in a chair.

But as we mentioned in the previous video, you can and probably should put it on a table and get the camera to eye level.

Well, the same goes for you. You don’t have to default to sitting down.
If you are giving a talk to a group, you can stand up like you would in person. Just adjust your camera angle and make sure your sound works.
If you are giving a speech to a group on a webcam, here’s another tip for you.

Ask for audience feedback in a way that works in thumbnail and on mute.
Say in a real-world meeting you’d ask something like “Everyone who’s done that say aye”.

Well, that isn’t going to work on a Zoom call where everyone is muted. Instead, pick something easy for people to do that will show up on your and everyone else’s thumbnail view.

For instance, you could say, “Everyone who’s done that wave at the camera.”

If you want people to say something that would be shared with the group, have them do it in chat instead. For instance, “Everyone types their favorite flavor of ice cream in the chat.”

This gets that audience engagement of an in-person meeting in a way that works for virtual meetings.

To recap:

1. Treat virtual meetings like in-person ones.
2. When speaking look at the camera and not your screen.
3. Use chat appropriately.
4. You can stand up when speaking.
5. Ask for audience feedback in a way that works in thumbnail and on mute.

Question of the Day: What are your tips for Zoom meetings?

The post How To Look Good On Webcam Part 2 appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

After last week’s video, we are ready to conquer the week. You get up in the morning, pull up Todoist, and then what?

The core output of that process is a daily list of to-do items. It is time to start your day, what do you first? That is the key question when you start your day.

Before I show you what I do, let me explain two key distinctions that shape my system. They each come from two books, and really mostly from the title of the books. Those books are The One Thing by Gary Keller, and Own The Day by Aubrey Marcus.

These books have a bunch of stuff in them, but the things I took away from them are what I use daily. I look at my list and ask, “What One Thing if I got it done, would mean I’d own the day?”

When I review my daily to-do list, I pick one item that answers that question. That is my one thing for the day and I give it a special tag.

OK, let’s be real. I often have more than one One Thing. It kind of depends on the size of the one thing.

For instance, on Saturday’s I have a task to upload this week’s video. That is tagged One Thing. But it only takes a few minutes because all the parts – the video, the thumbnail, and the description – are already created. I just have to upload them.

So I often have another One Thing for Saturday.

While I’m doing this review of my list, I take time to set some priorities for each item. This allows me to sort them by importance. Well, mostly, I’ll take about a quirk of Todoist in a minute.

Here’s my general principles when assigning priorities:

Part 1 – Needs to happen today

Part 2 – Want it to happen today

Part 3 – If I’ve got free time, do this

Part 4 or none – Why is this here again?

That last one generally makes me either get rid of the item or assign it a priority. If an item is in there with no priority it is probably because it just got added.

Also, you can assign priorities anytime, including when you enter them, and when you are doing weekly planning.

Now you can sort your ‘Today’ view in Todoist by priority and start working down from the top.

Let’s talk about Todoist’s sorting quirk. No matter how you choose to sort your ‘Today’ view, items that have a time assigned to them, are going to sort at the top. This means if you have priority 2, 3, or even none items in your list that have time, they are going to be listed above your priority ones.

This can be a significant problem if you have a lot in you calendar for the day. Which brings us to…

It is easy to get distracted by smaller, easier, but not as important tasks if they are there to see. This is why I created a Todoist filter called “One Thing” that I set as my Start Page. It basically shows my One Thing tasks at the top and all the P1s at the bottom. This removes the distractions of all the other items.

If you have decided you are going to actually schedule every task, or blocks of time in your calendar this is when you’d add things to your calendar.

Once this is done, you can get to work. It shouldn’t take very long each morning, maybe 5 minutes.

Question of the Day: What is your One Thing today?

The post How I Plan My Day | Time Leadership Series appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

Here are three ways to make great small talk.

Start off by asking interesting questions like, “How do you know the hosts?” I’ll give you more interesting questions later in the post.

The second way to make better small talk is to be a good listener. Genuinely paying attention and listening will make people think you are a great conversationalist. Even if you say little to nothing.

The third tip, mirror them. When they say something, repeat back the last few words in a slightly questioning tone and the person will talk more. You’ll be amazed how long you can do this.

Stick around for more tips on making small talk. How I went from being a small talk hating introvert to a person everyone thinks is an extrovert.

For most of my life, I hated parties and having to meet with strangers. I was the classic introvert. I could hang out with friends and have passionate discussions with them but put me in a room full of people I didn’t know and I was up against a wall growing petals.

After 40 plus years of this, I stumbled upon a book and it changed me for the better. That book was The Game by Neil Strauss. It was the story about how this nerdy writer went from being so socially inept that he toured with rock bands and never even got kissed, to becoming a master at meeting and…

… connecting with women.

It is the common plight of the introverted male to not be able to talk to women, and I was no different. But by the time I encountered The Game I’d been happily married for two decades.

You see I thought you were born either an introvert or an extrovert. You were naturally comfortable talking with people, or you weren’t.

But I realized in the middle of Neil’s story that I could learn this stuff. And I did.

I applied a geek’s focus to it and within weeks, I was transformed. One night I went to a bachelor party for a friend, and as you do, we went from bar to bar. That night I’d decided to do a little “peacocking” and wear an interesting hat.

Man, did I catch it from my friends? They rode me hard on the way to the first bar. When we got there and unloaded from the SUV, my friends did what we’d typically done in the past and headed straight to the bar.

I used the 2-second rule and approached the first interesting woman I saw.
In less than a minute, my friends turned around looking for where I was. When they found me, they saw a beautiful blonde laughing, standing very close to me and wearing my “stupid” hat.

I had become extraordinary.

Talking and engaging with strangers had become a skill I could do.

You see, small talk and social interactions, in general, are a skill you can learn. Notice I said it was a skill. Skills are learned through practice, not book reading. Not just watching a YouTube video. You have to go out and actually do the thing you want to learn.

When it comes to getting comfortable with small talk, you can study a few things like the techniques I’ve shared with you. But until you go out and try them you won’t learn what works for real.

When I have a friend who wants to learn how to do small talk here’s what I teach them.

First, have in your mental social toolbox a few openers. These are interesting questions you can start a conversation with. My first for groups of women was “Who do you think lies more, men or women?”

For parties, it is “How do you know the hosts?”

When they are doing some kind of work, I’ll ask “How did you come to be doing this job?”

These should be open-ended questions that require more than a one-word answer. The best ask for a story.

Second, I point out listening makes you a great conversationalist. Then I tell Vanessa Van Edward’s story of taking a vow of silence, going to a networking event, and having a woman, that she had literally not said a word to, tell her she was a great conversationalist.

Then I’ll give them the mirroring technique I learned from Chris Voss author of Never Split The Difference. When this former hostage negotiator wants to keep people talking and build rapport, he will repeat back the last few words in the speaker’s sentence.

This forces you to listen shows you were paying attention and asks for more conversation without directly asking. You’ll be amazed at how long you can keep people talking this way.

Small talk is not evil. It isn’t hard. And doesn’t have to be awkward.
It is the first step in connecting with a new person. Don’t let your preconceptions keep you from using it to grow.

Question of the Day: What are your thoughts on small talk?

The post How To Make Small Talk With Examples appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

Using time management works best when you are planning first on a weekly basis. As I plan my week, let me share with you some tricks and tips for managing your time.

Almost every Sunday I sit in front of my computer, pull up Todoist, and plan my week. I learned long ago to manage on a weekly basis from Steven Covey in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. A week is long enough to get a lot done but not so long that things change too much.

As you’ll see in the video, I do a review on a daily basis. Moving tasks around and deciding not to do things. But I don’t add more stuff from my big list of stuff to do.

When you have set a bunch of goals, you are going to have a bunch of tasks to accomplish. Having just one huge list of all these things can be overwhelming. There is so much to do … you don’t want to do anything. Or you can work non-stop forever because you are never done. Your long list always has something for you to do.

By breaking off a piece of that list once a week and then further breaking that list into days, you now have a manageable, finite set of tasks.

So come along as I plan a typical week.

How I Use My Calendar

Most of my planning is done in Todoist, but I need to have Google Calendar open as well. You see I put tasks that are untethered to time in Todoist as they come up, but I add appointments to Google Calendar. Things that have a specific date and time. This can be far in the future – I have a dentist’s appointment 6 months from now. These are easy to forget if you don’t have a calendar-based system to put them in.

But I’m a little lazy and generally don’t enter an appointment in both tools. So it is important to open up my calendar and look for appointments. Then I can decide if they also need to be on my to-do list, or if just in my calendar is good enough.

OK, let’s open up Todoist and get ready to go through my projects.

How I organize my projects

In my last video, I mentioned I’ve broken my life down by roles. I name those roles by the people or organization they are about. I try to put God first in my life, so that is the first project on my list.

Then my personal stuff, my family, and friends. Then the organizations I work in organized by priority. DFL is first, then writing. I’m currently part of two mastermind type groups and Reactuate Services are my programming projects, whether for myself or other people.

The top of this list is pretty set in stone, God, Self, Family, Friends. The roles after that change over time. For a long time there was a Toastmasters group that had a lot of activity in it. But now it is archived. Now writing is its own major role.

So what is in all of these roles? I’m going to show you, but first let’s talk a minute about how these things fill up.

I’ve talked a lot about putting your action steps from your goals in here, and that is true. In reality a lot of tasks get added because, well reality needs them. You have to pay your bills and taxes. You have to take your wife to PT, or friends ask you to come to a pot luck dinner. Those things create tasks you need to work into your todo list to make sure they get done in time.

I’m of the opinion you needs to create subcategories under these roles as you need them. Don’t try and figure it all out at the beginning. Start out just dumping things into a big list.

Then after a few weeks of working with it, you may notice you have a bunch of House related tasks. Then create a subcategory of Personal for that. Or you do a lot of accounting-related tasks in your business, so add a subcategory for them.

Keep this concept in mind as we walk through my role groupings.

My first role is titled God, because that is who it is about. I try to put the ultimate goodness that is God first in priority, so it is listed first.

As an aside, God stuff is the ultimate important but not an urgent project. There is no sense of urgency. This means it is easy to let the important religious practices fall through the time cracks. What is important in our religion, spirituality or non-spiritual practice will dictate what you want here. I’m not going to delve too deeply into mine here.

Next, I have a project named Personal because there are just things that are about me that have to get done to make all the other things work. The biggest subcategory we all need is Maintenance.

When I first started doing this I didn’t have a Maintenance category or these specific sub-categories. But I kept needing to add things to personal because they didn’t fall under other roles. As a single list got big I started breaking it down into sub-categories.

Some of these sub-categories came because of tracking. I really wanted to know how much time I was spending dealing with tech related issues, so when I started tracking that, I added those tasks here as a subcategory in my todo list. We’ll talk more about tracking in a future episode.

Planning the week

I’m planning my week, which isn’t about organizing these categories. It is about deciding which tasks are going to get done this week. Let’s do that.

The basic rule is:

1. Go through every item in your projects and decided if it needs to be done this week.
2. Give it a day of the week you are going to work on it.

I click on a project and read every task in the list. I can skim over things that already have a date associated with them, but it is important to read every item.

Not only are picking what to do this week, but we are also looking for tasks we’re never going to do. If I read a task week after week, and never actually put it in a week, then maybe I need to admit it isn’t compelling enough to actually do. If so, maybe it is time to delete it.

Or maybe a task’s time has passed, like that can of tuna from 2019 in your pantry. Delete it.

If I hit a task that does need to be done, I assign a day of the week to it. Todoist makes this really easy with their natural language interpretation. Just click, type “Thursday” and hit return.

I go through every single item and decided to

1. Do it – then give it a day of the week.
2. Delete it
3. Let it be.

This takes about 20 or thirty minutes, depending on how much stuff is on your list. Once you’ve gone through everything, you might want to use Todoist’s Upcoming panel to review what you have on each day of the week. Notice if you overloaded a particular day.

Over time I’ve discovered that some days of the week are more productive than others. You will too and can take that into account when scheduling.

For instance I get an incredible number of tasks done on Monday morning. Don’t know why it works that way, but if I have 30 things on Monday, it is OK. If I have 30 on Wednesday, I’ve got a problem.

Question of the Day: How do you plan your week?

There are lots of other things you could do at this point. A big one some people do is transfer each item to a specific time in their calendar. I’ve tried this in the past, but it frustrates me that I don’t hit those times. But if it works for you then do it.

Sometimes I will block out a chunk of time for a kind of task. For example, I used to dedicate the hours of 8 am to noon for DFL. Then I would only work on tasks related to DFL. But I didn’t schedule each task for a specific period of time.

Which is probably the most important distinction for time management. Do what works for you. Try things and find out what works and what doesn’t. Then modify your system.

Now that my week is planned, what do I do each day to ensure I get stuff done? Well, that’s next week’s topic, so stay tuned for it.

The post How I Plan My Week | Time Management Tips appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

Dear Diary, please help me solve my problems.

Learn today how to journal your problems away on Distinctions For Life.

The other day I noticed a trend in my life. There was a certain important, but the non-urgent project I kept putting off. Every day it would be on my to-do list and I would do all kinds of other things instead.

Every weekend I would review my projects for the week and put this important project back on the list. Then just move it through the week with no progress.

Now you might think this is a normal plight for important but non-urgent things. You’d be right, that is part of it. But my Time Leadership process should handle that. It is why I’m intentional on Sundays to look at those non-urgent tasks and schedule them.

But it was at the point of execution that it wasn’t happening. I would just look at the task and my mind would go blank. I wouldn’t know what to do.

Finally, I realized I had a problem. And I needed to figure it out. But no amount of sitting around navel-gazing or trying to “think” about it was causing action.

Finally, I pulled out my special DFL notebook and started journaling about it. I asked myself, “Why am I never making progress on this project? Why do I keep delaying it?”

Then I started journaling about it. After a few minutes, I discovered the problem. Then I kept writing, asking how to solve the problem. Soon I had an action plan that made taking the next steps simple. I no longer looked at the task and went blank.

Best of all it was written out. As was my thinking about the problem, both good and bad. And it led to this distinction video.

I could at this point talk about how just the physical act of writing changes how you think about something. I could tell you it engages your physical body in the process. I could wax poetic about the power of writing.
But to me that isn’t actionable and DFL is all about giving you actions and next steps.

I’ve already done an entire video on how to journal using morning pages, and you might want to check it out for the basics. We are going to use some of the same principles and methods when problem solving journaling.

The big difference between simple morning pages and problem-solving journaling is intentionality. Which is the first tip for your writing to solve problems.

Start with an intention.

The first sentence you write should be the problem you are trying to solve. Either as a statement or a question. This tells your brain where you want to go. What outcome you want.

Brain vomit.

After you have your intention down, just brain vomit, a stream of consciousness writes. Just like morning pages you are going to endeavor to just keep the pen moving. Don’t filter yourself. Don’t try and stay on topic.

Just write. Don’t worry about staying on the topic at first. Matter of fact you’re probably going to start bouncing all over the place.

How long it takes to get into your problem solving is directly proportional to how often you already do morning pages journaling. The point of morning pages is to clear out your brain. If you haven’t done it in a while, then there is stuff clogging up your brain that needs to get out. You won’t think straight about your topic until that is cleaned out.

What you’ll probably find is you bounce around for 5 or 10 minutes and then suddenly you are on-topic and don’t have much trouble staying there.

Use a marking system.

I believe that your brain doesn’t trust you. You’ll learn this while journaling. You’ll be writing and remember that thing you forgot to do, and that is completely unrelated to the topic.

So you’ll write it down. You’ll say to yourself, “I’ll remember that later. I’ll come back and find it in the end.”

But your brain knows better. “You aren’t going to come back that. Liar!”
So in a couple of minutes, that thing will jump back into your thoughts. Your brain is saying, “I have to keep reminding you of this important thing!”

But if you put a mark in the margin when you first encounter that thing, your brain goes, “Hey she actually intends to come back to this thing. OK, I trust her and will let that thing go.”

A mark system like the one I mention in my other journaling video will help you remember, and review later. Use it.

Find good questions.

And keep finding them. Your intention may be a question. “Why am I not doing that thing I keep putting off?” Along the way, you may discover other questions to explore.

But be on your guard that you aren’t asking questions that are defeatist. “Why don’t I ever do what I should?” Is a bad question.

Here are a few good ones are:

• What do I need to do next to make this happen?
• Who do I need to ask about this problem?
• How can I do this and enjoy the process?
• What will be the dire consequences if I don’t do this?

Review at the end.

Finally, you need to review at the end. There will come a time in your writing where you realize you’ve done something. You’ve had a breakthrough and see your problem differently.

You know what smaller tasks you need to focus on. You’re motivated like you weren’t before. That’s when it is time to bring this journaling in for a landing. That means to write out any last thoughts and stop.

But stopping isn’t the end. Now you need to review. First, go look at all your marks. You may have new to-do items. Questions that need answering. Stars next to good ideas and thoughts.

Review those things and decide where they need to be transferred for maximum impact. Your to-do list? Your calendar? Your project outline.

Alright so let’s review:

• Start with an intention.
• Brain vomit without filtering.
• Use a marking system.
• Find and use good questions.
• Review at the end.

This is just the start of journaling for problem solving, but following these five steps will help you work through problems you may have been ignoring.

Question of the Day: How do you use journaling to solve problems?

The post How To Journal For Problem Solving appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

Time Leadership is a system and like most systems, you need to have some parts in place first. Learn today what is key to starting.

Last week, I told you about why time management will help you, but this week I want to tell you how I do it. I’m going to give you a high-level overview and the tools I use in this episode.

Before we start we need to define some words.

In my system, I break down my life into roles. These get converted into Projects in my todo app and calendars in my calendar app. You can break your life into projects, but in this video, I’ll be referring to roles as the things that contain action steps.

Tasks are the smallest unit of action. They come from the action steps of a goal. Tasks should require less than a couple of hours to complete. They are tasks in a todo app, and there may be a hierarchy.

If a task needs more than a couple of hours to accomplish break it down into smaller units. Habits also are tasks, just reoccurring ones.

All right, now that you understand the words I’m going to use, here’s the super fast high level steps.

1. Have complete list of every task you need broken down by role.
2. At the start of every week, review every role’s task and determine if it needs to be deleted, or done this week.
3. If a task needs to be done, add it to a day in the week.
4. Each morning review your todo list and plan out the day.
5. Track your accomplishments and habits.

Just writing out that top level view it seems an inadequate explanation of how this system works. Which means I need to make more videos. I’m going to make videos that show

you exactly how I do each one of these. But let’s start by talking about the three software products I use in my system.

Tools

1. Todoist – This is where I keep almost all of my tasks, action steps, and habits to accomplish my goals. It is the core of the system.
2. Google Calendar – This is where I keep any task that has a specific time attached to it.
3. Notion – This is where I keep my habit tracker, which I’ll show you later.

You don’t have to use these tools specifically, though I think they are all great. You just need a:

• To-do list
• Calendar
• Habit tracker

You can use paper if you like. To me though a key necessity is the tool must be available everywhere. On my desktop computer, on my phone on the go, and even to my virtual assistant. That’s why I use these tools.

Ok, that is an overview of the method and a run down of the tools, but it doesn’t mention the important things you have to know before you can actually lead your time.

Your Roles, Goals, and Action Steps.

I keep referring back to these videos from the end of 2019, but you have to know where you are going if you truly want to lead yourself. Remember Time Management is a means to an end, not the end itself. We use it to get what we want. To make happen what we desire. To answer the call.

It is not the calling itself. It is not the goal. Reaching inbox zero isn’t winning the game, it a mile stone moving you toward your goal.

Roles are just how you organizing all the things you want to do. All the action steps you need to take. There are lots of systems that impose on you a set of categories of the parts of your life.

They don’t take into account who you really are and what is important in your life. You need this role list because it is the structure you use across your tools.

In Todoist for instance you have projects, which are groups of tasks. In my system, those projects are my roles in life.

In Calendar applications, you have calendars. In my systems, those two are my roles in life.

This break down by role provides coherence across the tools. So you must know what those roles are in advance.

Overview of Steps

–  Have Roles and Goals

–  Put action steps into Todoist Projects

–  Plan Your Week on Sunday

–  Plan you day each morning

–  Track your progress

I promised a bonus if you stuck around to the end. I’ve created a one-pager that guides you through the creation of a Goal and Action Steps.

You can get for free by going to distinctionsforlife.tv/goalsetting.

Question of the Day: What are your roles and goals for 2021?

The post Time Management, Goals, and Tools | Time Leadership Series appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

In our new all remote working world, you are going to be using that camera on your computer to do zoom calls, Skype interviews, Google Meets or Hangouts, and even just talking with your friends.

As a guy who produces videos on YouTube and is part of lots of online groups, let me give you a few tips to stand out on any conference call you may be part of.

I spent a number of years as a semi-pro photographer who specialized in studio lighting, so I know a thing or two about how to light a person to make them look good. Then I started doing these DFL videos and ended up setting up a studio in my house to record.

When I suddenly found myself on video calls every day, I was the guy who stood out. I just set up a webcam in my home studio and use it for all these calls. It is a little like being the guy in a suit at a meeting where everyone else is in cargo shorts and flip-flops. You stand out in a good way.

This video isn’t going to show you how to set up a home studio just for the purpose of being on conference calls. If you want to know all the gear in my studio, there is a link in the description.

But first let me answer a question that may be on your mind. “Does it really matter what I look like on a call?”

It goes to the larger question of does it matter what I look like? How I dress or present myself? This is actually a deep philosophical question which I might do an other video on.

My short answer is it does. Especially for entrepreneurs and business people. People treat you differently based on how you present yourself. If you dress like an important person, then people naturally think you are important.

If you get on a conference call with good lighting, good audio and a flattering camera angle, people think you know what you are doing. It is what motivated, competent people do.

One thing I can tell you as a video creator, people don’t want to look at crappy visuals. Or deal with crappy sound. They want to see your eyes and hear your voice when you are talking.

So here are the tips for upgrading your game.

Make sure your face is well lit.

People do not want to look at the window behind you. They don’t want to see your silhouette. They want to see you. Make sure the brightest light is in front of you.

Being in front of a window is the easiest way to do this. The light should be coming straight at your face, and evenly light your face.

If you don’t have a handy window, you can use something like a desk or table lamp. Just put it in front of you behind your camera.

Now that we can see your face, what next?

Get your camera at eye level.

People want to look you in the eye. So get your camera at eye level. This is easiest with an off computer webcam. They aren’t very expensive these days and you can mount them up high easily.

Now a lot of you are using laptops for these calls. And since you are at home, you may be sitting on the couch and letting the laptop live up to its name.

Which means you are looking down at the camera. Way down at the camera. Which gives you a double chin. No one looks good with a double chin.

It probably puts your head in shadow. It also may put ceiling lights behind you. Or you end up at the bottom of the screen and look like that comic character who is only half on screen.

To fix this, put your laptop on a table and not your lap. You can also angle your laptop so that the camera is even higher. While you can buy a fancy laptop stands to help with this, you can also just prop it up with books.

Now that you are looking good, you need to sound good

Make yourself sound good.

Everyone who’s ever been on a conference call with people at home quickly learns that you need to be in a quiet place. And to mute your mic when you aren’t speaking.

Going to the next level means having a better microphone. Which is surprisingly easy.

You can of course get some fancy microphones. But an easy, and often overlooked way to improve your audio, is to use headphones with a mic. Apple AirPods are my go-to in these situations, but you can just use regular Apple-style headphones that have a mic on the wire.

You can also use a gamer headset if you have one and if it will connect to your computer.

Think about your background.

Did I mention people are going to be looking at you when they are bored? See when you are on a conference call, your video is up all the time. So when people get bored they are going to start looking at your background.

There are two methods to deal with your background. Eliminate distractions or make those distractions interesting.

You can eliminate distractions by finding a blank wall behind you. You can also you the “green screen” settings on some programs to replace your background with something else entirely. Just try to not be too cutesy.

The other idea is to actually stage your background and express yourself with what is back there. What nicknacks are on the shelf? What books are visible.

Just think about what is back there and maybe make it a little cool.

Don’t fill the screen with your face.

I watched a funny video the other day of a woman going through the horrors of video conferencing.

“Can’t look down, it gives me a double chin.”
“Oh, my room is messy.” Zoom in.

“Oh I didn’t get dressed today and there is baby drool on my shirt.”
Then she filled the screen with her face and said, “There.”

Of course, I don’t know about you, but when people get bored and want to closely examine what is on my screen, I don’t want them looking at my pores or any leftover mustard at the corner of my mouth from lunch.

So don’t fill the screen with your face. Unless you want people to look up your nose.

Implement these tips and you will be head and shoulders above your competitors and co-workers.

Question of the Day: How do you look good on webcam?

The post How to Look Good on Webcam | Tips for Zoom, Skype, and Hangout Meetings appeared first on Distinctions For Life.

Not another Time Management video! It is such a pain in the butt to keep calendars, day planners, and to-do lists. Sound familiar?

I get it, but let me tell you, the payoff for a good time leadership system is worth it. Stay tuned to learn the actual benefits of time management.

I’ve got friends and proteges that don’t like having any kind of system for managing their time. They think it is more trouble than it is worth. But give me a minute or two and I’ll make the case it is worth your time.

First and foremost, it helps you accomplish your goals.

To get what you really want in life. We all have dreams or fantasies we want to have happened in the future, but if we don’t take concrete, concerted, daily action toward them it won’t happen.

Goal setting is the first step in turning your dreams into reality because it turns those dreams into measurable, actionable goals. I did a series on how to do this last year.

But having a list of goals doesn’t get things done. Even a list of actions doesn’t. No you need a system that gets you to actually do the things you must do. That is a time management system.

Second, a good time management system will reduce your stress.

How can a complicated systems of todo lists and calendars REDUCES stress? Ron, that causes me stress. I get overwhelmed at all the things I have to get done. The Tyranny of the Todo list.

A good system doesn’t do that. It specifically lets you not worry or think about all the things ahead of you. Rather it gets you focused on what you can do now, or this week. And let’s you forget about all the things ahead of you.

Thirdly, a good time management system gives you peach of mind.

Why? Because it ensures you are actually working toward your goals. How many times have you set a goal and then forgot about it for months? Then you feel horrible because you didn’t accomplish

it or even really work on it. Having a system that connects your Goal Actions to your day, lets you know you are going to make progress.

Fourthly, it removes uncertainty.

One of biggest obstacles to accomplishment is not knowing what to do next. A good time management system always gives you the next thing to do. The next step to take.

Fifthly, it helps you set priorities.

Without a good time management system, you will constantly be doing whatever is urgent. Whatever is shoved in your face is what you will do. This generally comes from other people, your environment, or whatever you remember to do.

The key to accomplishment is often Important but Not Urgent tasks. These have a tendency to get overridden by things that seem important right now, even if that is finishing a computer game mission instead of following up with a networking contact.

There you go, five reasons you need a Time Management system.

1. It helps you accomplish your goals.
2. It reduces stress
3. It gives you peace of mind.
4. It removes uncertainty.
5. It helps you set priorities.

Question of the Day: What is your Time Management System?

The post 5 Benefits of Time Management appeared first on Distinctions For Life.