• I can instantly see the end goal and where I am going.
• I can instantly see progress or lack of it.
• I can Instantly evaluate time budget to what’s left to accomplish.
• I can quickly re-prioritize to make sure I am invested in high impact work.

These are the lists I use:

• Projects or themes. Sometimes when it’s hard to define the project I fall back to themes. For example, security or performance. These two are ongoing activities in software engineering usually without specific endgame dates or deliverables. It’s about continuous improvement. To make it a project I force myself to establish actual timelines and deliverables mapped to the timeline. This approach helps me turn vague themes into projects I can act upon and measure success or failure. I have usually 3 to five projects running simultaneously to keep it manageable. I use Microsoft Outlook’s categories feature to mark all related items so when I filter the items by categories I have immediate picture of my project list.
• Goals. For each project I specify goals or deliverables.  I use Microsoft Outlook’s Post feature (Ctrl+Shift+S) to post notes to my Inbox, I write three goals for a project and then mark it with the project’s category. Every time I filter all the items by the project’s category I immediately see the project’s goals and related items.
• Backlog. It is a list of action items for each project, usually emails. The emails are marked with a project’s category. When filtering for specific category both the goals and project related items are surfaced. If there are many items in the project’s backlog it’s either there is plenty to go or there is plenty of low priority junk work accumulated. In either case the next step is to skim quickly through the project’s backlog, while keeping an eye on the goals, and purge items that are done, obsolete, or less important. Once the sweep is done the picture should be pretty clear how much is left to go. I do such sweep for each project every morning for 15 to 30 minutes to get re-focused.

Are you there yet?

Related

• Backlog, Your Smart To-Do Checklist
• Getting Results: From Annual Commitments to Daily Execution
• Task Management Using Microsoft Outlook
• Defend Your Time Using Outlook Calendar

image by ericmcgregor

Having clean list of meaningful tasks one of the foundations in successful time management. It helps reducing the stress caused by cluelessness. Everyone experienced this horrifying feeling of being overwhelmed with work and anxiety of indecisiveness of what to do next. Worse, when major interruption comes in clean and meaningful tasks list helps to get back on track in no time as it never happened. Otherwise, the warm up of resuming the original work would lead to more anxiety and ultimately to time and productivity loss. Here is an example, it’s time to report up the chain, the questions are very simple and very much expected: what’s done so far? what’s in the works? and what’s in the pipeline down the road? This is when anxiety hits its heights when there is no clean and meaningful list of tasks.

You need this clean and meaningful list of tasks if you want to save time, be effective and  efficient. You need a smart to-do checklist if you want to reduce anxiety, save time, and become get-it-done-on-time-no-stress type.

So what’s this clean and meaningful? Let’s call it backlog.

Backlog, Smart To-Do Checklist

Backlog is a list of tasks you need to accomplish or deliverables you need to accomplish. Nothing new here. What’s important is to call out that it must be clean and meaningful. This is where others fail to keep up with the backlog that quickly becomes unreadable and littered with meaningless tasks, the point at which it all becomes irrelevant garbage. Let’s first address the clean part. Key attributes of the clean backlog are:

• It sits in one place and all items can be viewed in no time. This prevents switching between multiple places to look for tasks. Think of the situation that your tasks are written on multiple stickies spread all over the place and you desperately jumping from one to another. Here is another example, your tasks partly written in emails, part in outlook tasks, part in word doc saved on your desktop, part in Excel spreadsheet and part on the team’s Sharepoint website. You want to avoid it, you want to have one place where you can go and have a balcony view of your plate at once. Even better, if it doesn’t require to be online so that you could do it even with less dependencies.
• Backlog items can be easily and quickly filtered for different criteria – either by project they belong or just and arbitrary keyword. With tens and sometimes hundreds items to complete you want to have an ability to narrow the scope in now time, skim through what’s filtered quickly and pick the one that matters the most right now. Scanning and rescanning the long list of items results in lost time and loss of energy, both leading to much lower productivity.
• Each backlog item can be viewed and edited on the spot. After the tasks filtered and most relevant selected you want to have an ability to instantly look inside the task. Instantly is key. No scrolls up and downs, no clicks and double clicks, or other extra actions. Most of the time the tasks are viewed since they include contextual information that helps to “get in the zone” and start acting upon it, they are sort of cheatsheets – take a peek, set, go.
• Each backlog item or group of items can be easily and quickly shared with others in no friction way. By “no friction” I mean it must not required special actions to be taken on both sides – the one who shares and the one who’s it’s being shared with. Both sides should be able to “send” and “receive” backlog items in the most friction free way.
• Each backlog item or group of items can be easily and effortlessly moved or deleted or archived. When the backlog item or task you track finished or no more relevant there is no need to keep it on the hot plate. It should be removed either deleted or archived to keep the backlog clean and actionable.

All these attributes perfectly fit what I already use – my email client, specifically, Microsoft Outlook. The backlog items are my emails – those I received and those that I send. Look at all the attributes above, they perfectly fit my current skills and I don’t need to learn new tricks rather start thinking a little different about what and how I work with Microsoft Outlook.

Building Backlog Using Microsoft Outlook

Let’s step back and take a look at what’s in the bag. Consider the following key artifacts:

• Project. It’s a high level view on your major activities. You can only be invested in so many projects. Take on many projects, and you find yourself in the situation when you bite more than you could chew. Take on very few projects, and you may end up with impact that’s hardly seen.
• Goal. Each project has it’s goal. If it doesn’t have the goal, it’s not a project rather it’s a dumping ground.
• Backlog item. Each project is built of backlog items, little deliverables or tasks, that when all accomplished the project’s goal is reached.
• Priority. Priority is a weight that you give to any of the artifacts, either project, goal, or a backlog items.
• Archive. This is where all inactive items go so they never get in a way during the execution.

To maintain clean and healthy backlog consider the following activities:

• Make sure the Projects well defined. Use Outlook’s Categories to mark Backlog items related to specific project.
• Write down Goals for each Project. Use Outlook’s self post (Ctrl+Shift+S) email item as a scratch pad.
• Maintain active Backlog items in separate folder in your online (OST) storage files so it can be accessible from any device.
• Continuously and ruthlessly prioritize your Backlog items in the light of the Goals. Archive those that are completed or no longer relevant in your local (PST) storage files.

Action

Look at your inbox now. How many emails you have? Hundreds? Thousands? How about having zero? Clean inbox is key to healthy and actionable backlog. Try the following:

• Create 3 Categories naming them after your three key projects.
• Write down key objectives or deliverables for each project.
• Skim through you inbox, assign to each email one of the three categories. If nothing fits, move it to archive – anyway it’ doesn’t contribute to your key project.
• By now you should have only few tens of actionable emails in your Inbox.
• Skim through them once more and for each project keep only those backlog items that are essential in reaching the goal.
• By now you should have only few essential backlog items in each category.
• Switch to the calendar and block time for each of the project’s deliverable week forward.
• Throughout the week stick to the schedule and deliver on it. Archive items that are complete. Keep the backlog clean.
• Call me by the end of week.

Related

• Microsoft Outlook – Free and Paid
• Task Management Using Microsoft Outlook
• Configure Microsoft Office Outlook For Effective Time Management–The Happy Way
• Prioritize What You Do – Steven Covey Way [The Way That Works]
• Getting Results: From Annual Commitments to Daily Execution

image by Victor1558

Let’s get started, shall we?

Set Weekly Objectives

Obviously first and foremost objective is staying within 40 hours during the week. Or 8 hours per day.

Next identify what’s needed to be delivered by the end of the week. Think of 3 big things. Not 20, not 10, not even 5 things. Think about 3 big rocks. Imagine Friday night, you lock your computer… what is it that would be really great to have under your belt? This is what I have right now on my plate:

• All threat models completed.
• Security scanning scripts automated.
• Security engineering document v1 ready and sent for review.

I derive my weekly deliverables from my Monthly planning exercise to make sure it adds up by the end of the month, and that in turn adds up by the end of the year as planned.

Break It Down To Daily Tasks

What does it take to achieve each and every one of the three objectives? Can you imagine the series of tasks that would lead to the outcome? List it and roughly put a “price” tag in terms of how long would it take accomplish each task. Chances that the list of such tasks already nicely organized and categorized if you follow task management practice outlined in Task Management Using Microsoft Outlook. Look in the list of tasks for each category (objective), bubble up those that directly contribute to the objective and block time as outlined in Defend Your Time Using Outlook Calendar. Review the weekly calendar, are you still within 40 hours? If not, adjust to make it so. Review again – does it look realistic? No? then you are trying to bite more than you could chew, and that’s not sustainable. Reduce scope of your work or push out your deadlines.

Checklist

Use this checklist before you start your workweek:

• 3 weekly deliverables identified and and written down.
• List of tasks directly contributing to the deliverables identified and prioritized.
• Time blocked week ahead for each task in the list.
• Weekly schedule validated for sanity and adds up to 40 hours.
• If the schedule is insane, scope reduced or deadlines pushed out.

What’s left is stick to the weekly plan in disciplined manner throughout the week and make sure you stay on course. As you keep practicing this approach you will first realize it’s hard to stick to the plan due to distractions or due to unrealistic planning. Keep practicing. After few weeks you will have sense what sane weekly schedule should look like and what does it take to accomplish it. A good indicator for successful schedule is accomplishing and delivering at least 80% what was originally planned. By that time you will be amazed how much impact could be achieved by “only” 40 hours work week – and that’s not by doing more rather by delivering what brings value. It’s healthy for you, it’s healthy for your manager, it’s healthy for your company. And it’s sustainable over long period of time.

Related

• Getting Results: From Annual Commitments to Daily Execution
• Task Management Using Microsoft Outlook
• Defend Your Time Using Outlook Calendar

Task Management As We Know It

Consider this workflow when managing tasks using Outlook’s Task feature:

1. You receive an email with an ask to accomplish a task.
2. You switch to Tasks screen.
3. You click to create new item, the Task.
4. You feel in the body of the tasks either by switching between the email and the task and copy/paste from one to another or by manually typing.
5. You set end date and save the task.
6. During the day the tasks list shown on your screen taking precious real estate and distract you.
7. Task reminder pops or the task gets red colored during most impropriate times distracting you.
8. You switch to Tasks screen, you open the task and modify it. You switch back. Or you start processing it and finish the task.
9. You mark the task completed.
10. You want to forward the task to another person. It’s being attached to an email.
11. The person you send the task needs to double click it to open and then save in his tasks which probably organized differently. This introduce another level of friction. Consider if another person sends you an email with attached task, it surely introduce friction into your workflow.

I am sure you have notice how much friction involved when managing your tasks using Outlook’s Task feature. Imagine the scenario where you want to quickly skim through your tasks for specific project. For that you would need to create new views introducing more screens to look at, more friction, more clicks, more time wasted on unproductive work.

Friction Free Task Management

Alternative approach would be not using Outlook’s Task feature at all. Use email items to manage tasks. First, make sure Outlook configure as outlined in Configure Microsoft Office Outlook For Effective Time Management–The Happy Way. It makes sure key categories and folder structure created. It’s quick one time effort that makes the foundation which you would do anyway no matter what task management approach you use. Consider the following flow:

1. You receive an email with an ask to accomplish a task.
2. You tag it with proper category. If it falls out of the key categories list, you just delete it.
3. You drag the email to the Hot Plate folder, this is where all your tasks automatically lined up per project. No reminders, no pop-ups, no distraction. Clean Inbox too.
4. You click on the Hot Plate folder, expand relevant project (category).
5. You pick the task and accomplish it.
6. You file the task, which is effectively an email item, upon the completion. You naturally respond to the original requestor of the task since it’s a regular email. No attachments, no extra clicks or extra switches. Add yourself to CC if the task needs further work.

Notice how the flow is much simpler, friction free and more natural. It saves time, keeps you in focus helping to accomplish things faster and go home early.

Related

• Defend Your Time Using Outlook Calendar
• Time Management – Saving My First 30 Minutes
• Microsoft Outlook – Free and Paid

Image by Victor1558

Identify What Matters Upfront

Before blocking time in your calendar it’s essential to be clear what you want your time being spent for. If you know exactly what you need to deliver then list it first. Example:

• Resolve DB performance issue.
• Resolve bug in module X.
• Have lunch with old friend
• Create presentation to stakeholders.

If you still figuring out what deliverables or outcomes you need to put on the table then think of the key workstreams first, once the streams identified figure out the outcomes in each. Example:

• Debugging (Outcome: resolve issue #132432)
• Mentoring and Coaching (Outcome: meet with an old friend)
• Administration (Outcome: presentation, expense report)
• Software quality (Outcome: DB performance issue resolved)

Block Time Ahead

Now that you know what’s important, and what’s not go ahead and block time in your calendar week ahead. Create self meetings in the calendar for no more than three workstreams a day. Example:

• 9:00-11:00 – Resolve bug 132432
• 11:00-12:30 – Presentation draft done
• 2:30-4:30 – DB perf culprit identified

Do it for each day for the whole week ahead.

Step Back And Validate

Your time is planned for the whole week, step back and take a balcony view on it. Click on the Work Week view so you could see how you spread your time. What your gut feeling tells you? is it realistic? Do you invest your time adequately  across the workstreams? Do you bake in some time buffers in case you are unable to accomplish what was planned originally? Do appropriate adjustments based on your examination.

Move Forward And Execute

You are all set. Your calendar now serves as a shield to less important meeting requests. In case you receive important meetings – such as fire drills, superior’s requests, or any meeting requests that you think are more important than those you planned ahead then at least you know what outcomes will need to be re-prioritized or de-prioritized altogether. In case you re-prioritization or de-prioritization you would have to reduce time you invest in it. Iin most cases when people will try to intrude your calendar they would see it’s being blocked for the current week so they either reach out to you asking for flexibility or set the meeting for the next week, by then I guess the issue will be irrelevant and the meeting will be called off.

Using this simple technique of defending your time you will be able to accomplish what matters most and keeping your work life balance under your control, not under Outlook’s control.

Related

• Microsoft Outlook – Free and Paid
• Backlog, calendar, daily tasks, and weekly outcomes
• Zero item inbox, time budgeting, following up and other techniques

Image by Victor1558

Day 1 – Work as Usual

You have hundreds of emails in your inbox, many of them unread. You skim through them routinely to pick some and process them without any particular order in mind – may be it was on top of the pile, may be you have got a relevant call, or may be the title of email draw your attention.

Keep working that way for today. By the end of the day notice what you were able to accomplish. Make a list of things you accomplished, not those you did rather accomplished. For example:

• Created project plan and shared with the team.
• Created new version of a web page and published it online.
• Submitted expenses report.
• Reviewed design document and submitted remarks for improvement.
• Got my manager’s commitment for my promotion.

Not so good example:

• Read through all emails.
• Answered phones.
• Worked hard.
• Worked late.
• Had a conversation with my manager.

In the examples above you should see clear distinction between accomplishing vs. doing. Do you see it? So how many things you were able to accomplish today? Is it 3, 5, may be 10? Make a note. You will be using it as a baseline tomorrow.

Day 2 – Backlog and Time Boxing

The following exercise should take about 30 minutes or less, it’s necessary investment upfront for improved performance throughout the day. You will get these 30 minutes back and more. This time let’s work backward. How many things you were able to accomplish yesterday? Add few more to the list for today, also group them under shared projects. For example:

• Release management – Create project plan and shared with the team.
• Release management – Solicit feedback from reviewers.
• Marketing – Create new version of a web page and publish it online.
• Marketing – Review design document and submit remarks for improvement.
• Administration – Submit expenses report.
• Administration – Resolve scheduling conflict
• Career – Get my manager’s commitment for my promotion.

Now you have 4 projects to tackle today – Release management, Marketing, Administration, Career – with specific outcomes for each. Next, block time in your calendar for each project, just set meetings in your calendar with yourself and put project names as a subject for the meetings. Make sure your Inbox configured to sort items by Categories and it is also configured to Show in Groups. Skim through your inbox and find all Release Management related emails and tag them with Release Management category. Do the same for the Marketing, Administration, and Career. By now you should see all project related items grouped and you can easily expand and collapse them seeing all relevant items in one place. Next, trim dead wood from each project, just delete or file items that are not relevant any more for your current outcomes. 30 minutes are up. Now start tackling each project as long as you blocked it in your calendar while keeping the prize in front of you, the list you created this morning.

By the end of the workday compare how much you were able to accomplish. If not everything was completed as planned, then at least you weren’t wasting your time on skimming through your Inbox multiple times looking at your emails anxiously. You invested 30 minutes this morning to organize your day and you prepared focused backlog of work items that served specific goals. How much time do you think you saved by that? I bet you are tired just like yesterday but your emotional level is way much higher since you are happy by the results you were able to achieve.

Related

• Backlog, calendar, daily tasks, and weekly outcomes
• Zero item inbox, time budgeting, following up and other techniques
• Quick setup for handling avalanches information

image by Victor1558

Microsoft Outlook traditionally was available at premium price – either to organizations or private person. Even a student offer is about high tens of dollars. And that’s for the desktop edition (Outlook 2010 at the time as of this writing). Another alternative is Office 365, a web based edition. The price model is also different, it’s based on monthly subscription. It’s called utility model, just like electricity bill – you pay monthly subscription fee. It starts at $4 per user/month. It is almost two years usage compared to the student offer for the desktop edition price wise. The biggest difference is that with the web edition everything is stored in the “cloud” (not on your desktop rather on the Internet) and you cannot easily cut and paste images into your emails – it just takes few extra clicks. The rest of the user experience is pretty much the same – shortcuts, drag and drop, categories, all these key features are there with the web edition.

Here are even greater news. Hotmail (free web based email) users can convert their existing Hotmail experience to Outlook.com experience which gets closer to the premium versions of the product. It supports categories, folders and subfolders, and drag and drop. Another point to have in mind is that Outlook 2010 (the desktop edition) can be used as a client to both Office 365 and Outlook.com allowing richest possible experience.

Having this quick overview in mind you can achieve great time management practices almost equally with all the editions of Microsoft Outlook – the premium Outlook 2010 edition, the Office 365 web based subscription edition, and the free Outlook.com edition.

Start saving time, and now at as low as free!

Outlook Editions At A Glance

Related

• Backlog, calendar, daily tasks, and weekly outcomes
• Zero item inbox, time budgeting, following up and other techniques
• Quick setup for handling avalanches information

Image by -william

At A Glance

Hotel.  Courtyard San Liberty Station. $170/night. Total cost: ~$1500 for 7 nights including breakfasts and couple of dinners at their restaurant.

Airline: Alaska Airlines. Total cost $1,938 Seattle/San Diego and back.

Fun: Different theme parks. Total cost for tickets $750.

Car: Trav Car. Midsize, Nissan Sentra. $250.

Eating out: ~$500.

Total cost: ~$5,000.

Day 1 – Settling In

Arrived to San Diego Airport. Called the hotel. Turns out they have courtesy shuttle at no extra charge right from the airport to the hotel. Sandy, the driver was super kind and gave us useful tips, offered ice cold water. She offered to arrange the rental car. Turned out to be a good option after reviewing others online. She called the agency and they came in no time to pick me and bring to their parking lot. Signed papers and got a car.

The hotel was very nice and seemed to be recently remodeled, great room design and it smelled good too. Nice and clean. Amenities as usual – small fridge, coffee machine, and flat screen TV with LodgeNet. In the lobby free and always fresh and hot Starbucks coffee. Free Wi Fi Internet access in the rooms and the lobby, two free access computers in the lobby with printer attached so you could check email, print boarding passes or coupons to theme parks. Free parking too, this is great comparing to other hotels.

The hotel is minutes from San Diego’s waterfront promenade, the Seaport Village, and few minutes more to downtown. Quick access to I-5 that takes you everywhere. Nice promenade is just behind the hotel, great for evening walk or jogging. Nice small pool with free clean towels, no need to bring from the room. Very good restaurant – great dishes and decent prices. Trader Joe’s supermarket few blocks away and ARCO, cheap gas station too, both on Rosecrans street.

After we settled we took a walk around the neighborhood. The houses are much different than northwest and most seemed to be build of stone.

Day 2 – San Diego Zoo and Seaport Village

On the second day we headed to San Diego Zoo. Huge parking yet packed solid. Gigantic Zoo with lots to see and do. Well organized. You can see hippos in the pool through the pool’s glass swimming underwater. Same with polar bear, this is so awesome, you are few inches from the massive animal that swims right in front of you under the water. And of course the orangutan, almost every zoo I visited has this animal yet it amazes my time and again, it’s so human peaceful and calm, and a little sad. There is a funicular across the whole park so you can see it from above. Bus tour is offered too, but best is exploring it by foot.

In the evening we headed to Seaport Village. It is a waterfront promenade in San Diego 10 minutes or less ride by the car. It offers stunning night views. Lots of small shops and restaurants. You should find a map of Seaport Village at the hotel’s front desk or online. We had our dinner in Edgewater grill restaurant and the food was great and the plates were very big including those from the kids menu. Parking is not free yet the price is decent, can’t remember exactly but it was only few bucks.

Day3 – Legoland California Water Park

On day three we headed to Legoland water park. It is huge amusement park with lots of activities but the key were the rollercoasters and water slides and other water activities. This day was 100% dedicated to kids and they had ton of fun. To get there head to I-5 and get off on exit 48. Note, on exit 47 you have Costco where you can buy a big pack of water for few bucks and swimsuits on the way to the water park. We also bought ready to eat food like grilled chicken and some vegetables so this night we didn’t go to a restaurant which usually cost us around $200-300 for two families. The Costco catch was only $43. Compare the saving to the weekly car rental. Not bad, and tasty too.

Day 4 – SeaWorld San Diego

SeaWorld Sand Diego is awesome! Huge free parking, friction free entrance – they opened extra gates to let people in frictionlessly. There are several shows that you need to pay attention and attend with some lead time. They offer guaranteed seating with extra charge, but if you come 20 minutes before the show the seats are available even in the soak zone – this is where you get seriously wet. The key show is Orcas. Two other shows which also fantastic are with seals and dolphins. The show with the seals is flipping funny and the show with the dolphins is spectacular. There are two huge rollercoasters too, kids were thrilled. Don’t forget to go the shark encounter, this is where you go through the glass tunnel under the water and huge sharks “fly” over your head, quite amazing experience.  Another exceptional experience is manta ray petting. There is a shallow pool with lots of manta rays in it and you can pet them. You can buy special food (squid chunks) right next to the pool and actually feed them. You put your hand in the water with the piece of squid and mantas come to you to grab it and you can touch and pet them. This is awesome! The SeaWorld is few minutes ride from the hotel.

Day 5 – San Diego Old Town

On day five we stayed “at home” and enjoyed the hotel’s pool and the sun, so much needed vitamin D we lack back in the Northwest. But in the afternoon we headed to San Diego Old Town. It is few minutes ride from the hotel. Sand Diego old town recreates the history of how San Diego was built from the beginning. It’s a historic park with active museums (admission is free) and working colorful restaurants and shops. Restaurants feature live Mexican music and traditional Mexican food. Guacamole, fajitas, and (not sure how traditional it is) Corona Extra. You will find endless souvenir shops and cafes where they sell hot tortillas in different flavors, kids love chocolate flavor the most. We loved San Diego Old Town so much that we went there once more the other day too. Must see, feel, and experience!

Day 6 – Soak City and Coronado Island

Soak City is a water park with lots of water slides of different kind. If you like water slides you will enjoy together with the kids. If you are indifferent to water slides you will enjoy seeing your kids enjoying it like crazy.

Soak City was in the morning. Coronado Island was in the afternoon. There are two ways to get to the Coronado Island – rent a bike and ride there through the San Diego waterfront promenade and then over the bridge, or by car going to I-5 and then over the bridge. We used the car, it was 15 min ride. But next time I would go by the bike, you can rent one for around $15/day. Coronado Island is awesome! The colorful streets, the shops and the restaurants, and of course the beach and the breeze – oh… what a feeling!

Day 7 – La Jolla Beach and Seals

La Jolla beach is about 20 min ride north on I-5. A beautiful place with colorful small streets with shops and cafes, mostly on Prospect street, fantastic promenade. The most interesting thing about it is that there are lots of seals that live on the shore right in front of ton of people. There is so called children’s pool beach, a small piece of sand next to the water where people can swim an curious seals come and pop out of the water. They get really close. One of our kids even touched one of the seals. It’s quite an experience. Must see, free of charge. Parking of course is a bit challenging, but doable.

Day 8 – USS Midway and Going Home

On the last day we went to see USS Midway, aircraft carrier that was turned into museum.

It was amazing to walk on the internal and upper decks and constantly remind myself “this enormous thing is floating on the water.” The carrier was built in 1943 and served almost 50  years. It was built in 18 months, something that takes today about 5 years. It was built during the war so people were working around the clock. Its history includes serving during Vietnam war and striking down Soviet made Mig’s and then supporting war in Iraq in the Middle east. What an irony.

Back from Midway we packed, dropped the car right at the hotel. The shuttle picked us back to the airport and in few hours were back home in surprisingly sunny northwest.

That was awesome!!

image by Lin Pernille Photography

What’s the difference between software and content? None. At least in my view. Both require creative juices to produce and both improve people’s life or productivity. If that’s the case then proven and working practices for creating great software could and should be applied to creating great content. Very few would argue that Agile Development is one of the most successful methods today to create great software. Let me share how I applied some of Agile Development practices in Content Publishing.

What Is Agile Development Anyway?

According to Wikipedia Agile software development (emphasis is mine):

… is a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.

Agile Methods

There are quite a few methods, values, and artifacts to Agile Development but let me focus on vital few in my opinion:

• Backlog. This is the simple list of topics needed to be produced.
• Sprint. This is the cadence for delivering Working Content. 
• Stories. This is list of relevant stories from those who would use the content to be successful. For example, “As a developer I need to build secure web site in the cloud.”
• TDD. Test Driven Development is about testing everything throughout the whole lifecycle vs. waiting until the end. Best way to test content is involving those who would use the content from the beginning of the project as outlined in Create Effective Technical Content Using Social Networking.
• Vision. This is essential. This is the north star for the whole effort. The key part is making sure the vision is super simple and it is a one-liner. For example,  Developers Rely On Our Guidance To Effectively Secure Their Cloud Applications.
• Working content. This is one of the trickiest parts. In software development working increment is some sort of scenario that end user can accomplish. In content publishing working content is something that one can rely on to create a working increment of software.

Working Increment Of Content

Working increment of content is driven by Information Architecture (IA) that lays out the body of knowledge for specific technology. Key elements of the IA are:

• Getting Started. This is collection of very few topics that help you create Hello World app. Usually prerequisites and very basic simple instructions to make it work. The mindset should be “if the user cannot get started in 10 minutes or less (you will have your own threshold) he will walk away.” And if he walks the Getting Started is not working.
• Components/Features. This is set of content that describes in details “what’s in the bag.”
• Functionality. This is set of very brief topics that describe what you can do with what’s in the bag. Usually it serves to just funnel to other topics. The idea is to provide a common sense vocabulary that funnel into specifics that are not well known.
• Scenarios/Solutions. This is list of recipes. The mindset is “if this is your situation and you want to make it work this is what you need to do and this is how.” It is collection of pointer to relevant prescriptive topics to solve specific scenario.
• Guidelines/Quality. This is set of topics that help keep it working. It is about non-functional qualities such as security, performance, etc.
• T-shooting.  When things break and go wrong this is where you go.
• How-to’s. These are super key ingredients for Scenarios/Solutions. Prescriptive step-by-step procedures that walk you from zero to something working.
• Samples. This is where you go when you don’t want to start from scratch.
• Reference. This is key ingredient for the How-To’s and Samples.

To create working increment of content consider picking one Scenario and derive related topics that help cre

More on IA read in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Applied In Technical Content Publishing.

Test Driven Content Engineering

Everything related to content is being tested, from initial assumptions during inception to actual topics. Consider the following when testing technical content:

• Test content ideas and assumptions against product group’s scenarios. I am sure they had some scenarios in mind when started the development, eh?
• Test scenarios to be documented against customer advocates – professional services reps or other front line customer facing individuals.
• Test early versions of content on un-SLA’ed online outlets such as blogs and wiki.
• Test production grade content against reactive support representatives or other front line customer facing individuals.

Backlog, Velocity, Burndown

Creating backlog is essential. The hard part is to identify what would be the workitem in content publishing space. To solve this look at the IA above and try generative tipics as a workitems for each category. Here are few examples that work well:

• How-To (prescriptive content)
• Explained (conceptual topic)
• API reference

While How-To’s and Explained topics can be easily managed as workitems API reference is not. If the technology has hundreds or more types, classes, members then managing it separately would be a nightmare. The way that worked well is defining a namespace of API’s as a workitem.
Once workitems identified it’s relatively easy to put a “price” tag on it – its velocity. As the content team becomes more mature the topic delivery velocity estimates get more and more precise. Having clear backlog and workitems velocities estimates it’s simple math to project what burndown the team should have to hit the deadline

Related

• Create Effective Technical Content Using Social Networking
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Applied In Technical Content Publishing
• Steven Covey Habits Applied In Technical Content Publishing

image source – Wikipedia

There are three fundamental steps:

• Segment target audience.
• Identify communication channels.
• Identify community authorities.

I was using social networking practices when creating highly effective technical content. By social networking I don’t mean using Facebook or Twitter rather identifying the right audience and reaching out to it using appropriate channels.

Segment Target Audience

Segmenting target audience is the first step. This fundamental  step shouldn’t be taken lightly. If the target audience is defined vaguely (for example, developers) then it would be very hard to find representative key places where this audience hangs out let alone identify key authorities within this community. The other side of the extreme is narrowing down the audience too narrowly, this would drive to creating something that very few people care which would undermine the impact of the resulting content.

There are many ways to slice the audience. The approach I have taken is to slice the developers audience into apprentice (beginner developer), journeyman (skilled developer), and master. I decided to focus on journeyman assuming this is the largest audience that relies on effective guidance to be successful at their work. Masters would represent the smallest audience and probably won’t need my help, they are masters anyway. I would address beginners briefly too since they are potential converts for journeymen.

Identify Communication Channels

Next question is – How to reach out to the journeymen? or Where do they hang out? To answer these questions I needed to model after these guys and think what questions they would usually ask. From my experience as a consultant, a form of the journeyman, key question would be around solution architecture and how key technologies could be used in related architectures. Said that, I started to look for internal and external forums. Once I found related forums and distribution lists I have subscribed to it and started to monitor focusing on two things: what questions asked the most and who is most vocal – either asks most questions or answers the most.

Identify Community Authorities

Community authorities are people who has the weight within the authority. I segment the authorities into SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) and non-SME’s. SME’s are usually masters related to specific technologies. non-SME’s are usually journeymen that use the technologies in the context of the overall solution. Non-SME’s are usually very vocal when asking questions. SME’s are those who answer the questions. Here is the rationale of dividing the audience into SME’s and non-SME’s. SME’s can tell you what technical content is of value and this is about content’s usefulness. Non-SME’s will tell you if the content is easy to apply and that’s about content usability. Here is another way to put it: to be successful in technical content publishing you need to deliver highly useful and usable content, SME would tell what’s useful, non-SME would tell you what’s usable.

Actively engage with both SME’s and non-SME’s. During the planning phase you could request feedback on the content backlog you plan to deliver. During the writing phase you could request feedback on early available content and ask for feedback how to improve before it’s released. When the content released you could ask the community authorities to spread the word about the newly available content.

Checklist

Use the following checklist before writing any technical content. You will be surprised by the insights from the people who actually supposed to use your content.

• Target audience segmented
• External community feedback channels identified
• Internal community feedback channels identified
• Key SME’s identified
• Key non-SME’s identified
• Feedback collected on each content engineering phase
• Lessons learned collected and shared w/larger team

Related

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Applied In Technical Content Publishing
• Steven Covey Habits Applied In Technical Content Publishing
• From Consultant To Consultant In A Box

image by kaybee07

Here is how I applied it when creating highly desired content for specific audience – developers.

First I identified key buckets of what developers would want to have in terms of content and guidance. This is how I came up with Information Architecture for developers using Steven Covey Habits Applied In Technical Content Publishing. When it comes to new technologies developers need the following guidance and content artifacts to be effective and successful:

• Getting started. This is great as an ice breaker. It usually offers low bar code sample or walkthrough, Hello World style. The idea here is to give confidence to developer about the technology and that it’s easily doable. The downside is when it comes to solving real world problem the Hello World example is not enough by any means.
• Features descriptions. This is great to have a “static” non-actionable explanation of what’s available shedding some light on the technology and its internals. The downside is that while it can give some clues how to solve real problems developers usually left to their own devices when trying to apply the features to solve.
• API reference. This is fundamental part every developer usually want to have. It describes each and every little thing about the technology. The downside is as with the features descriptions developers need to resort to the trial and error approach that is full of friction.
• Scenarios and solution approaches. This is great and effective when trying to find an answer to the question “does it fit my case?” It mitigates the risk of wasting time as in the case with feature descriptions content. The down side is that scenarios and solution approaches content relies heavily on other content types and cannot exist on its own.
• Step-by-step How-To’s. This is prescriptive walkthroughs. It’s about taking horse to the water and it relies heavily on API reference effectively giving it a meaning.
• Non-functional (quality) guidelines such as security, performance, troubleshooting. This is great for times when developer in the know how to make things work, and especially when they break. Usually it is critical for production systems vs. evaluation phase.
• Code samples. This is great when a developers don’t want to start from scratch rather they want to cannibalize readily available working code. The downside is that in many cases it takes ton of effort to make the samples work, and even longer to extract relevant parts that are applicable to specific scenarios at hand.

Said all that, this is the simple model I came up with – the hierarchy of developer’s needs:

This simple model reflects on the fact that in most cases developers, before they start coding, need to understand if the technology can solve their problem. If so, then it would be great to quickly assess it by following simple instructions from zero to working demo. After that it would be great to have some code samples and deep dive features descriptions. Obviously Scenarios and Solutions content is of high value. On other hand, it’s impossible to create high value content out of the thin air, one need to create relevant lower level artifacts such as API reference.

To use this model consider planning and execution phases.

During planning phase you work top down – you collect relevant scenarios that people seek solutions the most. Best is engaging your field representatives and other field authorities. Just collection the list of scenarios. This will serve as a seed of generating the How-To’s list. Looking at the scenarios you will naturally start asking How-To questions. Once the list of How-To’s generated it will ultimately drive the relevant API’s that needs to be documented.

During the execution phase, you work bottom up – you create the basic fundamental layer of the pyramid, then higher layer until the top which is Scenarios and Solutions.

Such simple and streamlined approach leaves less room to think when creating the content – a good thing for content creators. It also reduces the friction when researching and searching for relevant content – a good thing for content consumer. Thinking less and doing more is one of the principles outlined in the book by Steve Krug Don’t Make Me Think where he outlines the principles of creating friction free content on the Internet. And that is a really good thing.

Maslow’s pyramid seems to me universal tool when approaching any domain. It helps identifying fundamentally needed and highly desired artifacts and then plan and prioritize what to deliver to achieve optimal results.

Related

• Steven Covey Habits Applied In Technical Content Publishing
• From Consultant To Consultant In A Box
• Content Usability: Design Pages For Scanning
• First Law Of Usability – Don’t Make Me Think, And Other Facts Of Life On The Web

image by Victor Bezrukov

• What’s in the bag?
• When to use?
• How to make it work and keep it working?

Using this simple frame this is how I see the End in Mind for developer audience.

What’s in the bag?

This part should help the customer to quickly understand what’s actually being “sold”. Imagine you pick a product from the shelf. It usually lists what’s inside. When it doesn’t the customer prone to buying wrong product. These are the key parts that needs to be covered for developer audience:

• Features. List and describe available product features.
• API reference. List and describe available API.

When to use it?

Now that the customer understands what’s inside he’s wondering if this is really what he needs. Will this product or technology help him solve his real world problems? This part should help him to make this decision. Otherwise he is left to his own devices to figure this out and usually it takes time using trial and error approach very few can afford and even fewer actually love doing so.

• Scenarios and solutions. Show how set of How-To’s can solve specific scenario.

How to make it work and keep it working?

At this point the customer knows what’s offered and how it can solve his real world problems. Now his natural ask is “Show me how.” In this section the customer is shown how to quickly get started, then how to make features work and how to keep them working. Also, he is shown how to recover if things go wrong and how to recover from the mess.

• Getting started. List prerequisites and offer quick walk through for what it takes to get going, usually using Hello World approach.
• Step-By-Step How-To’s. Show how to make features work.
• Security and Performance guidelines. Show how to defend from attacks or how to sustain higher load.
• Troubleshooting cheat sheets and error codes. Show how to quickly recover when it hits the fan.

Tests for Success

This is it for the high level of the End In Mind of the information architecture for developers content I was using for the last two years. Was it successful? Here are few remarks from the those who used it in the field, it should give some hints:

• “It looks amazing !!! A. It includes lots if knowledge (easy to find the knowledge you need). B. It provides practical info how to implement the scenario.”, Security MVP
• “[I like] the consistent approach used in each of using minimal amount of text and easy to follow model to describe scenario and solution” , PRINCIPAL Architect.
• “Useful: Absolutely. Usable: Yes. The method of presentation: short scenario description, consistent diagrams and brief highlights etc. is ideal for quick consumption.”, Sr. ARCHITECT, MCS

Related

• From Consultant To Consultant In A Box
• Content Usability: Design Pages For Scanning
• First Law Of Usability – Don’t Make Me Think, And Other Facts Of Life On The Web

image by striatic

The key theme was along the line – “keep your customer in the center.”

Wisdom of obvious? Maybe. But the more I thought about this simple truth the more insightful it got.

To add clarity to the key theme I came up with the simple frame for how to think about the customers. It is customer types or personas and questions they might ask.

Customer Types – Personas

Back when I was an MCS Principal Consultant I worked with several types of people. I recalled the following personas:

• Business Stakeholder who buys software from Account Manager – must know the big picture.
• Account Manager who sells software to Business Stakeholder – must know the big picture.
• Architect who figures out feasibility of the solution – must know what’s needed for the solution.
• Dev lead who designs the solution – must know internals and how it works.
• Developer who implements the solution – must have end-to-end how-to’s, reference, and code samples handy.
• Test Engineer  who tests the solution – must know how to automate test harness and monitor the test lab.
• Operations Engineer who maintains the solution in production – must know how to monitor and troubleshoot the system in production.
• End user uses the solution – it should be desirable, useful, and usable.

What Drives Customers

During my work in the field as consultant I observed time and again customers get frustrated by investing too much time to complete the task, losing money on labor or missing customers demand, and poor performing software. I also observed customers get frustrated by unusable software (one of the reasons they call consultants). So the main drivers for customers are:

• Save time
• Reduce cost
• Improve quality
• Enjoy experience

Development Lifecycle Phases

I found it helpful to look at the development lifecycle to better understand each persona customer type:

• Inception – Account Manager, Business Stakeholder, Architect discuss the requirements. The outcomes are the problem and the vision statements. To test the outcome one can ask a simple question “What is it we really need?”
• Planning – Architect and Dev Lead discuss and define the building blocks for success. The outcomes are the architecture blueprint and the project plan. To test the outcome one can ask a simple question “Does it fit our vision?”
• Build  – Dev Lead and Developers work hard to realize the vision and stay on plan.
• Stabilize – Test Engineer helps answering two questions – is it functional? Is it usable?
• Maintenance - Operations Engineer works hard to keep up the SLA’s for End User.

Problem Scope

After reviewing the data points above I came to a conclusion that the problem scope can be summarized by three questions.

• What’ is it? or What’s in the bag?
• How does it fit? or When do I use what?
• How to make it work? and then How to keep it working?

It is interesting that “How it works (internals)?” question is not explicitly there.

Testing For Success

Based on the problem scope and the related questions I cam up with an Information Architecture I used to create technical content. This should help find relevant content quickly. The result speaks for itself, here couple of quotes from key folks whose success depends on the technology and the guidance:

• “That is a WOW piece of work! From an architect’s perspective I think I would find it incredibly useful.”, Principal Security Architect
• “Amen to that!  … the stuff you have out there is awesome if not essential.  Keep it coming!”, SENIOR CONSULTANT
• “It looks amazing !!! A.    It includes lots if knowledge (easy to find the knowledge you need). B. It provides practical info how to implement the scenario.”, Security MVP
• “GREAT !!!CONTINUE TO MAKE US HAPPY AND PRODUCTIVE, …!!!”, CTO of ISV
• “[I like] the consistent approach used in each of using minimal amount of text and easy to follow model to describe scenario and solution” , PRINCIPAL Architect.
• “Yes, it is useful and it’s nice to have a 1 stop shopping wiki like this.” , founder of ISV
• “Useful: Absolutely. Usable: Yes. The method of presentation: short scenario description, consistent diagrams and brief highlights etc. is ideal for quick consumption.”, Sr. ARCHITECT, MCS

Related

• Content Usability: Design Pages For Scanning
• First Law Of Usability – Don’t Make Me Think, And Other Facts Of Life On The Web

image by Yuri Samoilov

In the book The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels by Michael Watkins the author offers practical advice how to get started and plan for the first 90 days on a new job. It also applicable for current jobs when starting new project or starting new fiscal year.

Adapt To The Situation

Watkins writes:

“Transition failures happen when new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them”

They say What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. It’s always about adapting to a new situation. Failure to adapt will keep you behind. Ability to quickly assess the situation and adjust will help you. To keep up with ever changing situation consider asking yourself these questions:

• Who’s the customer and their advocates? – this helps modeling forward. Reduces the risk of reacting anxiously and increasing the chance of responding thoughtfully.
• Who’s the stakeholder[s]? – this helps aligning with superiors and influencers which smoothens execution.
• What’s valued? – this helps producing deliverables that’s easy to articulate the investments for them.
• What’s commodity? – this helps to keep out of what’s not valued reducing the risk becoming a dumping ground, and then potentially replaced by lower cost workforce.
• Who are the folks in the know and where do they hang out? – this helps network better and become smart faster.

Connect With Frontline People

Watkins writes:

“Start by asking frontline people how they view the company’s challenges and opportunities”

Frontline people work directly with the customers and they see first hand what challenges either real or perceived are there. Front people serve as customers advocate, they understand both agendas – the customer’s and the company’s – and they see the gap between the two, in most cases they could suggest how to bridge it. The easiest way to connect with frontline people is figuring out where they hang out – both in person and online. It helps collecting key pain points quickly and what’s valued or would be valued if existed. It also helps identifying authorities within the community of the frontline folks. Working with frontline people helps scaling when identifying customer’s problems. Working with community leaders help scaling even further.

Secure Early Wins

Watkins writes:

‘”What constitutes an early win will differ dramatically from one business situation to another… Think tactically about what will build momentum best. Will it be a demonstrated willingness to listen and learn? Will it be rapid, decisive calls on pressing business issues?”

Simply put, early win is something you can reference to either tangible or not. It doesn’t have to be complete solution of a problem yet it must be significant step toward it. Here are couple of examples:

• Vision statement created and adopted by key stakeholders
• Walking deck created
• Influencers map created
• Three top pain points identified and path to solution agreed
• Pilot conducted and analysis/insights shared with the team
• Work is scoped and risks identified

Manage Your Manager

Watkins writes:

“Assume that the job of building a positive relationship with your new boss is 100 percent your responsibility.”

It helps massively If your manager doesn’t need to work hard to manage you. It all depends on the situation and your manager’s style. One way is to center it around you and it is routinely setting an agenda for your recurrent one on one meetings with three simple parts: good, bad, asks. Example:

Good

• Project X on schedule/budget
• Agreement achieved on X with Y
• Phase I delivered
• Customer feedback collected

Bad

• Partner X is irresponsive, introduces risk of delaying project Y
• We are short on resources for identified scope, won’t hit deadline.
• Network is down for long time keeping us idle for more than anticipated

Asks

• Extending deadline
• Allocate another resource for Project X
• Reduce scope of work that was originally identified
• Assign me on project X
• Resign from project Y

Another approach is centered around the manager and that’s keep asking a simple question – what’re the three things on top of your mind?

Draw A Map

Watkins writes:

“Draw an Influence Map…Identify Supporters, Opponents, and Convincibles”

When you drive project forward you want to streamline its execution. Technical issues are rarely a real blocker. People are. That’s why it’s important to know who your supporters and opponents are. It’s also important to identify why they support or oppose you so you have a strategy in place when it comes to converting opponents and convincibles into supporters.

Related

• Getting Results: From Annual Commitments to Daily Execution
• Four C’s Of Marketing For Consultants
• Get Things Done Using Change Tactics

Image by Nupur Dasgupta

Write It Down

Wiseman writes:

From a psychological perspective thinking and writing are very different. Thinking can often be somewhat unstructured, disorganized, and even chaotic. In contrast, writing encourages the creation of a story line and structure that help people make sense of what has happened and work toward a solution. In short, talking can add to a sense of confusion, but writing provides a more systematic, solution-based approach.

lack of clarity brings anxiety which in turn brings the sense of helplessness. It’s not uncommon to see customers in panic only because they don’t have clear picture of their situation. Putting things in writing helps to bring clarity, map all the key data points and start connecting it. One of my favorite exercises was scoping the problem. I usually started with simple question – “what’s the story?” I was expecting to hear simple stories describing the customer’s day-to-day life. While listening I tried to capture the following: Who does what trying to accomplish what? By the end of the interview I usually had plenty of one liners with key players and their desired outcomes. I called these scenarios. Then I used to list the scenario out loud to test my understanding and then adding the price tag to each – effectively prioritizing. It’s pretty hard to do it inside your head. It’s quite easy though to do so in writing. Many times by the end of the exercises the customer realized they don’t need me since they can handle it themselves or the problem doesn’t actually exist. It usually took me little more than 59 seconds but less than 30 minutes.

Perfect Future

Wiseman writes:

In short, when it comes to an instant fix for everyday happiness, certain types of writing have a surprisingly quick and large impact. Expressing gratitude, thinking about a perfect future, and affectionate writing have been significantly proven to work – and all they require is a pen, a piece of paper, and a few moments of your time

Many efforts and time can be spent on defining what to do. It takes a little effort and a different approach to save this time by just asking a simple question – What’s your desired state? or What’s your perfect future state? This simple question makes important shift in people’s minds from what to do and how to do it toward what it should be in the end of the day. It’s a common trap especially with technical people and engineers who’s minds wired to solutions and approaches. It’s quite natural for technical and engineering  people to quickly start focusing on solutions before actually defining the end state or end goal. By asking this simple question about perfect future you save lots of time that could be spent on debating solutions for undefined outcomes. Ask this simple question – What’s the perfect future like? – before debating the solution. It will make a big difference and it takes less than 59 seconds.

Transform Work Into Play

Wiseman writes:

If you set children to an activity that they enjoy and reward them for doing it, the reward reduces the enjoyment and demotivates them. Within seconds you transform play into work.

It’s not always fun to work for a customer. The customer is already in trouble or anticipate it, otherwise why calling a consultant? The customer pays premium (ton of money) for consultant. It’s not how the fun usually perceived. Consultant usually works in hostile environment having limited influence, at least at the beginning of the project. It’s lots of tension, ambiguity, and sometimes even chaos. It’s no fun for the consultant neither. The trick is to flip the fun bit and call it a game. It takes less than 59 seconds to change the mindset and call it a game, a multiplayer game. Figure out who’s the boss (the one who actually in control), figure out who’s the allies and the “enemies”, but most important figure out what’s the prize and keep an eye on it while maneuvering in the maze. Pass intermediate levels, collect “lives” and “boost kits” along the way. It’s a game and you are on the mission. Make it a game, make it fun – it takes less than 59 seconds to get into this mindset but the difference is huge.

Busting Brainstorming Myth

Wiseman writes:

A large body of research now suggests that for more than seventy years, people using group brainstorming may have inadvertently been stifling, not stimulating, their creative juices. When working together they aren’t as motivated to put in the time and energy needed to generate great ideas, and so they end up spending more time thinking inside the box.

I am not a huge fan of brainstorming where crazy ideas thrown right and left and by the end of the day nothing achieved other than wild guesses. The more people attend such brainstorming session the crazier it becomes and the more time is lost collectively. I have seen a lot of such situations where folks compete one with another who has crazier idea losing the sight of the whole purpose of the exercise. I am much bigger fan of the scenario driven approach. It takes less than 59 seconds to shift to this mindset by simply putting an end user’s or a customer’s hat on. To quickly get into such mindset everyone should individually start thinking of what one would want to accomplish. For example:

• As a developer I want to write code that runs faster.
• As a solution architect I need to outline security approach for application.
• As a an IT pro I need to be able quickly identify root cause of application’s failure.

So it’s not more of a problem with brainstorming rather how it’s organized and managed. The key though is putting yourself in the shoes of the customer by saying “As a customer I want to accomplish X” vs. trying to throw crazy solutions for unidentified problem on behalf of the customer.

Related

• Consultant Writes Proposals That Sell
• Core Practices Any Consultant Should Master
• Consultant Solves Problems Fast

image by RLJ Photography NYC

• Zero items Inbox. Keep your inbox clean, ideally with zero items in it. If there are items there it means you have unplanned work items. There is a reason why you purge your mail box almost daily. Same should be done with your email inbox. Keep it clean by following 3 simple rules: action items tag and move to the backlog/hotplate, info nuggets move to your KB folders, delete the rest.
• Prioritization.  The ultimate outcome of the prioritization is having clear list of high priority action items that make your hot plate. Organize your hot plate list using email items – see Zero items inbox. Tag the items with the categories. Categories are your projects that are important. If you have hard times to categorize specific email item chances it’s low pri – delete it, or file it in your KB.
• Backup and Restore.  Keep all your Outlook files, usually PST files, in one place. Create a folder called PSTs and every time you create new PST file make sure it’s created there vs. default location. That way it’s easy to grab these files and put it where ever you want. Very handy for backup/restore procedures. Usually it happens when upgrading to a new laptop. Saves ton of time.
• Follow up. Don’t use flags – it will only lead to more distraction. Instead, put followup items into your backlog or hotplate list, where other high priority emails are – either send email to yourself and move to the hotplate or when sending an email that requires followup put yourself in CC so it lands in your inbox, then you move it from there to your hotplate. When comes the time to process relevant emails for specific project you will naturally bump into this followup email – it will be contextual vs. random.
• Time budgeting. Block time in your calendar proactively and defensively. I do it each Monday morning week ahead. Allocate your time to high priority work items from the hotplate – this makes sure your high priority work items are given adequate time budget.
• Reducing distraction. Disable all reminders and flags – they are pure distraction. No incoming emails reminders of any kind, no flags, nothing.
• Most used shortcuts.
  • Ctrl+Shift+S – Self post to current folder.
  • Ctrl+Shift+M – New email.
  • Ctrl+R – Reply to selected email.
  • Ctrl+F – Forward selected email[s].
  • Ctrl+Shift+V – Move selected email[s].
  • Ctrl+Shift+Y – Copy selected email[s].
  • Ctrl+1/2/3 – Switch between emails, calendar, contacts.
  • Ctrl+E – search items.
  • Tab – switch focus forward
  • Shift+Tab – switch focus backward

Related

• Time Management With Microsoft Outlook At A Glance–Part I
• Time Management With Microsoft Outlook At A Glance–Part II

image by mikebaird

1. Passion

Dagny is passionate about what she is doing. She cares about her colleagues, she’s passionate about her business and her new “startup.” Her passion shows when contrasting with her brother who appears to be very smart when it comes to politics yet not too smart when it comes to core business. Consultant must be passionate about what he is doing and what impact he brings on the table.

2. Quick decisions

Dagny makes quick decision. She trusts her guts and moves quickly. She leaves her family business to save it. She adopts new untested technology. She trades her jewelry necklets for small piece of steel in form of bracelet. Consultant must feel comfortable making quick decision especially when he bills hourly which he is in vast majority of cases.

3. Letting go

Dagny let things go easily. She lets her best employee go after briefly trying to make him name his price and being turned down. She leaves her family business with ease based on cold blood decision. I cannot remember any moment when she was too emotional or overreacting. Consultant must learn how to let things go with ease, often times a customer will hear what consultant has to say yet won’t follow his advise only to realize that was bad decision in first place. Let it go and skip “I told you so!”

4. Goal focused

Dagny’s passion comes from her desire to achieve the goal she set for herself. She is not emotionally attached to something. She is purely goal driven and nothing seems to stop her on her way to it. Setting crisp clear goals and sticking to them throughout execution is a skill not many possess yet it’s vital for consultants.

5. Values driven

Dagny is values driven. While her brother is driven by his government “friends” Dagny is driven by values. One of her most prominent is values are business conduct and dignity. Consultant must be crisply clear aware of his values and be driven by them, it surely eases the decision making and builds strong brand too.

6. Joy of success

Dagny shines when she succeeds, she never holds back her joy and emotions related to success. On one hand consultant operates as a flawless machine yet he works with people on the other. Human touch is vital both ways – for those the consultant works with and for himself.

7. Blue collar

Dagny is no white collar kind of gal. She does not always sit in her office barking orders. She is where the action is. She knows her stuff in and out. Consultant must know what to do and many actually do, that’s taken for granted. Yet quite a few know how to do it well and even fewer know why it works. That’s what I call blue collar consultant and from my observations those are valued the most by customers.

8. Partnering

Dagny partners with like-minded. She partners with those who she can depend on and in return she offers the same, they can depend on her – even when they are in doubt, she proves they can. Partnering is vital in consulting. No matter how deep consultant’s knowledge is it is still limited. Partnering with like-minded enables limitless scalability.

9. High EQ

Dagny demonstrates strong character when it comes to emotions. Most prominent episode is when Willis Wyatt comes to Dagny’s office screaming at her and she keeps cool even offering him to shake his hand telling him she won’t disappoint him despite his rude behavior, he turned it down telling her “We’ll see.” Consultant is involved in so many conflicts – either technical or purely political in the organization he is conducting his work. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is key to survive, keep sane, and show outstanding results in this business.

10. Entrepreneurship spirit

Dagny never settles on what’s achieved – she strives for more and for bigger and more aggressive goals. Same with consultants, the growth is about taking on more challenging and tougher problems otherwise the consultant becomes dumping ground.

I am eager to see Part II. Both for enjoying the movie and for learning more what can be adopted for consultancy.

image by C. G. P. Grey

Basic Setup

• Offline Outlook Files. Microsoft Outlook manages its data using several file types. Use PST files to manage your offline KB. PST files make sure the information is stored locally. Create as many PST files as you wish, for example one per fiscal year, or one per subject, or keep it all in on single PST file. Keeping multiple smaller PST files makes it easier to backup and prune it. Having info offline saves ton of time vs. when it’s online.
• Search Folders. Each PST allows it’s own Search Folders. Search Folders is a static lens for your data. For example, I configured Search Folders for Security and Performance keywords since it would enable me to quickly filter the info in coarse grained manner for the topics I live and breath daily. You configure search folders depending on your needs but the key here is that it provides first line coarse grained filtering of your information. Think of it when you go searching online and the search engine offers Web, Images, Places, etc. type of filters, same here. Having coarse grained filters saves ton of time as it allows in one click slice the information mass in two or three reducing the scope of potential fine grained search.

Sources of information

• Incoming Emails. You should be subscribed to distribution lists and boards of your interest where folks share their knowledge or ask insightful questions (which usually followed by insightful answers). Most of the time it’s worthless stuff but time to time real gem pops on the distribution lists. You can tell it’s a gem by quickly skimming through it or just by looking at the author who sent it, you would quickly learn who’s resourceful and who’s not by just monitoring it. Investing time in skimming such emails will pay off when you would need the info badly. Don’t read such emails in depth. Once the gem identified, file it into appropriate folder and move on. You will use it later, not now.
• Surfing the web. When searching the web you surly hit some good stuff. Don’t pass by! File it into your offline KB. press Ctrl+Shift+S to open new self post, add the title, the link and copy/paste the body of the info gem, then file it to the appropriate folder. Outlook will index it and will make it available when needed. It also becomes regular email item so everything related to email applies – your can forward it to your friends by just pressing Ctrl+F, something you already know and do. It saves ton of time when you search it offline using Microsoft Outlook’s instant search feature vs. trying to rely on online search engines no matter how great they are. It’s especially useful when the content is no longer available online, and that happens a lot.
• RSS subscriptions. I love Microsoft Outlook’s RSS subscription feature. Here is why: it’s where my eyes are, it makes the RSS items email items (move, delete, forward apply as usual), it removes distracting styles making it look and feel great – my eyes never hurt, it’s being indexed by Microsoft Outlook making it available through instant search.

Don’t’s

• Don’t keep PST files in the default location. Concentrate in some other place on the file system, it saves time finding them when you need to quickly back them up, for example.
• Don’t’ rely on online search. It requires being always connected, it’s slow, ineffective due to high noise to signal ratio and it requires extra work when extracting actual info nuggets from the web pages. It all wastes time.
• Don’t keep RSS items you don’t need in the original folder, it blows the online OST file as RSS puts them there by default. Either specify other location or better yet, keep pressing on Delete button ‘till your finger bleeds or until you find real gem – then move it to your offline KB.

Related

• Time Management With Microsoft Outlook At A Glance–Part I
• Configure Microsoft Office Outlook For Effective Time Management–The Happy Way
• Getting Results: From Annual Commitments to Daily Execution

image by zamer

Have you ever had that dull feeling or lack of ambition that keeps you from getting much accomplished?

Sometimes one of the most difficult things we can do as individuals is gather up enough drive for a particular task, let alone bottle it and take it with us for the long haul.

Whether its a simple chore around the house or working towards your lifelong goals, motivation gives you the push that is needed to get it done. Ramping it up is like adding horsepower to your internal engine. It gives you the power to achieve and make the switch from good to great.

If you wish to refine and develop your life, part of doing so is understanding the important and direct impact that motivation has on the results you achieve.

Why The Desire Has Deserted You

There are many internal and external reasons for not having the energy to push on and tackle your tasks with the energy that we’d like.

In dealing with yourself it could be a self-esteem or belief issue. Fear, doubt, and limiting beliefs can also play a significant role. I’ve personally faced problems in that area when I sat on the fence for a few years before finally deciding to get proactive with my personal and professional life.

Stress, anxiety, and nerves are something we’ve all dealt with at one point or another and are typical when it comes to eating away at your inclination to excel.

On the external front, many of us have extremely busy lives and delicate circumstances to deal with on a daily basis. School, work, children, finances and the economy, you name it! Sometimes it all piles up leaving you with that overwhelmed and disillusioned sense that it’s “never going to end.”

Making The Adjustments And Finding Inspiration

1) Identify the issue. The number one solution for overcoming a lack of motivation is becoming aware of the characteristic(s) holding you back. It could potentially be more than one, but the only way to get beyond them is to identify what they are, so that you can work towards a solution.

You can’t find an answer without knowing what the problem is and a great way to solve a problem is by eliminating the root cause.

2) Discover your compelling reason. Inspiration is another key factor in finding enthusiasm and motivation. Big or small, you’ve got to have a reason to move and take action.

Ask yourself how clear your goals and dreams are. Are they defined? If they’re comprehensive and impactful then you’ll surely see the reason for getting behind them with all you’ve got.

3) Consider taking a time out. Now, if you’re able to plan a trip or vacation to clear your head, great! But sometimes that’s just not practical or manageable right away so the next best thing you can do is take an internal vacation.

Just clear some time, any amount, to sit back and relax. Breathe. Grant yourself the ability to let it all go momentarily and focus on yourself and what you can do for you. Its a very simple exercise but can mean the difference between your breaking point and regathering the strength to make it to the finish line.

A super-charged life is much easier than you think with a few adjustments! It is my sincere hope that in your quest to accomplish your goals and define your dreams that these simple ideas and philosophies might make some sense or trigger an idea to help you along the way.

Jason Anthony is the founder of EvenMinds. He shares time-tested principles and ideas with others so they might be inspired to design an extraordinary life for themselves. Visit today to learn about the difference between good and great.

• Backlog. Backlog is ever growing list of task or action items related to specific project. Tasks are incoming actionable emails from customers, managers, peers, partners, and self emails and posts. Many times big or vague emails should be parsed and broken into smaller action items. In the end backlog is always email items categorized per project.
• Calendar. Calendar is your time budget view. There is no such thing as unlimited budget, same with your time. Time is limited. Use it as your forcing function. Simplest way is budget your week with 40 work hours which makes 8 work hours a day. This is your daily budget you should defend from low priority work or from procrastination. Spend it wisely, wasted time cannot be returned unless you are willing to burn midnight oil. Block your time in your calendar proactively for the items in your hotplate you pulled from the backlog. It helps you quickly test if you have enough time budget. If not, you move quickly to prioritization exercise and drop off more items from your plate – you must stay on budget! Proactively blocking time in your calendar also helps protecting it from others putting unnecessary meeting requests that hurt your performance.
• Daily tasks and weekly outcomes. Daily tasks are driven by daily outcomes. Outcomes are 3 high impact things you want to accomplish this day. Example, “bug X fixed”, “first draft of the report created”, “my idea Y adopted by the team.” The tasks are derived from the desired outcomes. Write the three outcomes for each day. Look at the backlog, the hot plate,  of tasks and pick those that serve the outcomes you specified. Daily outcomes are what makes sense of your week. When Friday comes you look at your daily outcomes and what you were actually able to accomplish during the week. If that’s 80% of what you planned on Monday that’s awesome! Use simple self post mail item, Ctrl+Shift+S, to create simple mail item in dedicated folder with the table where you define your 3 daily outcomes for specific week.
• Don’t’s
  • Don’t use Outlook’s tasks, it reduces places you need to look and it reduces amount of clicks you need to make. Use incoming emails and self posts instead.
  • Don’t use flags for reminders, it randomizes you when it jumps unexpectedly degrading your performance. Instead, use emails and put yourself in CC. When you send the email it arrives to your Inbox, categorize it and move it to the hot plate. When the time comes to look at the category/project you will see the email and if it was not handled and it’s still of priority do another round of emails, then escalate or drop it off your plate.

Related

• Configure Microsoft Office Outlook For Effective Time Management–The Happy Way
• Getting Results: From Annual Commitments to Daily Execution

image by porschelinn