SuccessMinders

Face your fears; they may be nothing at all.

2009-07-04T02:15:40Z

I think the first time someone made a crack about my receding hairline was over the winter break my freshman year of college. That would have been December of 1994 and it was probably my dad who pointed out my “thinning” hairline. When you’re nineteen the last problem you want to have is a receding brow.

Over the last fifteen years my brow has continue to race back to my crown – which has been busy spiraling out a nice bald pate itself. This has caused me a small amount of stress, especially because every single male on both sides of my family all have luxuriously full heads of hair.

Friends and family alike have always “gently” ribbed me about my bog-standard male pattern problems and it always bothered me. I think it’s mostly because every television show, magazine ad, or billboard shows men in their 30s living life to it’s fullest with a full head of hair. The overwhelming message sent is; if you’re bald your worth a lot less to society (or you play a bad guy on TV).

So I’ve always tried to brush off comments and convince myself that my thinning wasn’t too bad. But in the back of my mind I always thought I had a terribly shaped head and was dreading the day the last follicle shut down for good leaving me with a full Telly Savalas. My wife would leave me, my friends wouldn’t talk to me, my job would be lost… This was my fear.

I’ve always worn my hair short – it helps hide the thinning a little – and about a month ago I got a little close with the clippers. My hair was shorter than it had ever been before and you know what? It didn’t look terrible. Maybe I had been wrong?

I decided to challenge myself and bare it all. I figured if it was the worst decision of my life, the long 4th of July holiday would help hide my mistake by Monday enough that no one would ever notice. My wife was out with friends Thursday so I decided to take the plunge – face my fears – and shave my head.

And you know what? It actually wasn’t bad at all. When my wife got home the first words out of her mouth were, “Hey, I like your hair! I mean, your non-hair!”

I’ve gotten compliments from other people too. So all the time I was worried what would happen when my hair finally was gone was for not. I think it’s actually a pretty good look and others seem to agree too. In the end it was a silly fear to have.

I wonder how many other fears I have are just as silly? When you face your fears head on (so to speak) you may find they’re nothing you should have been afraid of in the first place.

No related posts.

Brian Tracy: You are what you think.

2009-07-02T20:32:52Z

Brian’s books on goals & goal setting are excellent. Here’s a short video clip of him reminding us that we have to set our goals in our mind, and keep our focus on what we want.

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Complacency

2009-07-04T02:14:40Z

Complacency is an insidious vice. When things feel okay, when you’re not feeling a sense of urgency, in it creeps. And the next thing you know you look around and realize that fixing or changing your complacency is going to cause a lot of pain.

So why do we let it get so rooted in the first place?

I can share a personal example that is a great illustration: The software that runs this website was way out of date. The site worked, and I didn’t want to go through the process up upgrading the software and having to get everything working properly after an upgrade so I just left things alone. I got complacent.

In the process of doing some basic maintenance recently I noticed some content on the site that I definitely didn’t add. Somehow – through a vulnerability in the software – someone was able to inject junk spam links and turn my website into a zombie for the purposes! You better believe that jolt got me motivated to upgrade the software!

I did upgrade – and it was painful – and things still aren’t quite back to normal because of it. My on going complacency actually made my pain even greater because I was in “emergency mode” trying to clean up the mess that happened because I wasn’t doing regular upgrades and updates all along. I kept thinking to myself, “Why did I wait to get this upgrade installed?”

Another example: I was having lunch with a colleague and we were discussing software. He told me that they were facing some major pains because they had not been keeping on top of software updates for a critical system. The reasoning was that it “mostly” worked and allowed them to run that segment of their business. Because of this, none of the executives would make it a priority to perform the updates and testing.

Their complacency wasn’t hurting anything until they ran in to a few problems and learned that the specific version of software wasn’t supported by the vendor. That finally made the feet-draggers wake up and realize that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ™! They’re now planning for an upgrade, but the pain will be even greater because there is no support from the vendor and there isn’t a clear upgrade path from their version to the current version of the software.

Sure, resting on our laurels is easy, but we need to keep in mind that our future pain will be greatly magnified when we give in to complacency.

No related posts.

Please excuse the mess!

2009-07-02T14:19:29Z

After far too long, it was finally time to get our site’s software upgraded to the latest & greatest version available. So if you notice some oddness around the site for a few days (heck, maybe even a week) it’s just us trying to get the software upgraded and make sure everything is working once again!

No related posts.

Customer service done right!

2009-07-02T19:38:20Z

Every now and then you find a company that still knows what “customer service” means. After reading a mountain of positive things about bag maker Timbuk2 I recently decided to replace my aging messenger bag and they were the company from which I should order.

I received my new bag and was very happy with everything except the strap. And let me qualify something; there was nothing wrong with the strap at all; there was something wrong with me. See, I’m a big & tall guy and I often find that the straps on messenger-style bags are just a little to short to allow me to comfortably carry the bag with the strap across my chest.

So a week after receiving my Timbuk2 bag, I emailed their customer service and asked if they offered an extra-long strap I could buy. I explained my predicament and waited to see what they could do for me.

And then I didn’t hear anything from them!

I wondered how this could have happened; I had heard nothing but great things about this company. Was the Internet lying to me? I followed up, asked again about a replacement strap option, and mentioned that I hadn’t heard a reply to my first communication. This time I quickly received a reply with a profuse apology and the answer I was looking for; they could make me a strap as long as I wanted.

I wrote back, gave a length, and asked about cost. They were solving a problem for me, and I was willing to pay for the solution. Tim quickly wrote back:

We’ll hook you up. Don’t worry about the $$. What address should we send it to?

Best,

Tim
Timbuk2

Really? How cool of them!

Even better; 8 hours after receiving the update I received a second message letting me know the strap was finished and had been shipped. I received it two days later and found it just the solution to get the bag to hang comfortably with the strap across my chest.

The point is; they could have charged me $10 or $15 for a custom strap – and I would have been happy to pay it – but they went way above and beyond to make sure I had a great experience with their product and their company. In fact, I’ve told a ton of people about my “free” strap and how great the company and the bag is. I know of at least one other person who has been browsing their online catalog and planning to get their own bag as well.

Good customer service is offering a customer something you don’t normally have at a fair price.

Great customer service is realizing that a customer for life is worth a lot more than a quick buck, and giving them what they want.

Timbuk2 has great customer service. Hopefully this article helps reinforce that fact. I didn’t get paid by Timbuk2 to write this. It’s not a sponsored article or endorsed in anyway by anyone. I’m just a happy camper who can now carry his bag the way he wants. And Timbuk2 has another customer-for-line.

The takeaway from this article? How’s your “customer service”? Is it good or great (or maybe even nonexistent)? How many “customers-for-life” do you have? Who is willing to sing your praises to anyone who will listen?

When you go above and beyond what’s expected, you build relationships which help you keep growing. It may not seem like it at the time, but each act of “great customer service” contributes to your overall mindset and success!

Work standing up – Day 3

2009-07-02T17:22:01Z

Today is my third day working at a standing desk. I had originally thought I would stand for a couple of hours – until my laptop battery died – and then switch back to my desk.

That was five hours ago. I’m still standing, and I’ve gone to get my AC adapter for my laptop! I’ve only sat down today to eat lunch. I have to say I feel like my energy levels are much higher while standing, and it’s much easier to not let myself be distracted by sitting back and reading blogs and catching up on the news.

One thing I have noticed is that my back feel fine – there was some tightness in my lower back initially – but my feet don’t like standing on the hard floor. My office has thin carpet over concrete floors, so I need to go track down a rug or something with a little padding on which to stand.

Work standing up – Day 1

Work standing up – Day 1

2009-07-02T17:22:09Z

For a long time now I’ve read all about the benefits of standing while working. I’ve wanted to get a standing desk for a long time, but when I priced out real honest-to-goodness standing desks…well I just don’t have that kind of money to try something I may end up hating.

So imagine my happiness when over Memorial Day weekend I happened into an Ikea store and found their Vika desk legs and tops which allowed me to build a small standing desk cheaply to test it out.

I purchased 4 Vika Byske legs for $30 each (adjustable from 27.5″ to 42.125″) and a Vika Amon tabletop for $19.99.

Here’s what it looks like (click to enlarge).

I’ve been standing at it for a little over an hour and a half now. Here are some of my observations:

1) My feet are starting to get sore, and I can feel a little tightness in my lower back. I’ve read online that there is an adjustment period when switching to a standing workspace, so hopefully this will be a temporary problem.

2) My hands and wrists feel pretty good. When I’m sitting I’m frequently guilty of resting my wrists on my desk and just being generally un-ergonomic. My hands and lower arms will get a little numb and tingly after a while when I’m sitting. So far I’ve noticed that the change in my posture seems to be making my hands feel much better.

3 I’ve gotten a lot of weird looks, and plenty of comments like, “What’s that?” and “Why would you want to stand?” Looks like I’m going to have to be prepared to be the office “kook” for awhile. On a positive note several people have come up and commented on how cool my idea is. I’ll slowly convert them all!

4) Being on my feet makes me feel more energetic! I’ve run back and forth a few times to the copy room this afternoon with nary a thought about it. Before I would plan out trips because I was comfortable – and lazy – sitting on my duff. Now I just grab papers and go – I very much like the freedom it gives.

5) Right now the desktop is 43.25″ high and it feels pretty good. The Ikea system looks like it’s actually designed to be attached to the wall on one edge with just two legs under it (not four) so it’s a little wobbly. It’s perfectly workable, but for a long, long term solution I would want a “real” standing desk.

I’ll post periodic updates on my experiment with standing while I work. I think that a good mix of standing and sitting will be best as it’s awful easy to flit from task to task while standing. I don’t feel like I can concentrate and focus as much as I’m just full of energy. So combining standing when I need a burst of productivity with sitting when I really need to roll up my sleeves and crunch numbers should prove to be a great system.

More to come!

Work standing up – Day 3

Cash or conscience?

2009-07-02T20:35:57Z

I had an interesting thing happen today, someone used the contact form on this web site and asked me if I would be interested in selling a blog posting and/or a text link.

I’ve written in the past about building passive income streams, so I was interested to learn if the products or services this person wanted to promote would align with my own values for this site. I replied back and asked what they were selling.

The reply that came back was…payday loans.

They even prefaced their reply with, “I appreciate that your stance on our industry may be negative, but assure you that we are not out to editorialize or sway you in any way.”

Fair enough, we can agree to disagree on the “benefits” of payday loans, but what really made me stop and consider the state of paid-for-post blogging was this next sentence:

“To be frank, even a post about reasons to avoid payday loans would probably prove beneficial, while of course not vilifying our company in any way.”

Wow. They were offering me the perfect out, I could write a don’t-use-payday-loans post and still get paid – how could I say no?

Payday loans are a blight on the communities they’re in, and the fact they’re not illegal puzzles me (I know why, they spend a lot of cash lobbying for exclusions from usury laws). They put the people they purport to help into a cycle of near eternal-debt and the rates they charge are more than usurious. I don’t think it’s possible to over-vilify these companies!

I’m not naming companies or providing links, but their web site lists the APR on the loans at between 507% and 1304%. And that’s if you pay the loan in full when it’s due! If a “borrower” doesn’t pay the loan in full and makes minimum payments, the effective APR is even higher!

I certainly want to monetize my site and produce supplemental income, but I won’t do it at the expense of my beliefs and principals. What’s scary is that they would have been fine with a “negative” post, and I could have written this post and gotten paid for it. That seems to me a bit dishonest on everyone’s part; mine, the “advertiser’s”, and yours.

How about you? Is your conscience worth a little cash; even if you could “get away” with it?

How to “only” yourself to death.

2009-07-02T20:35:37Z

The word “only” has been a good friend of mine. I’ve used it to justify a lot of dumb expenses in my life. I say things like, “Hey, adding HBO and Showtime to our satellite package is only $22 a month.” And I don’t think about how that’s really $264 a year (plus tax)!

It’s so easy to see that easy, low monthly payment and “only” yourself. And when you have a lot of “only” payments, pretty soon you’re looking at your bank account and wondering where all your money went.

I did a quick inventory of my current “only-ies” and calculated I’m spending $316 a month! That’s $3,792 a year that’s going out the door…a few bucks at a time. Yikes! Where’s that money going and how can I get it under control?

To clarify what an “only” is; it’s a payment for something that’s really nice to have, but is ultimately non-essential at the end of the day. We gotta’ pay our electric bill. The satellite TV bill isn’t necessary to living, it’s just nice. It’s an “only” expense (ditto for items on store-credit, or credit cards. I’m looking at you new room-full-of-furniture!).

Here are some of my “only-ies”:

Cell phone bill? Yep, going to keep it. True, I could live a completely fulfilling life without a cell phone, but it’s just so darn convenient (We have decided to look into pay-as-you-go options when our contract is up because frankly the wife and I just don’t need thousands-of-minutes a month).

Virtual fax line? Yep, I’m keeping that too. I don’t get personal faxes every day, but when I do it’s a pain to coordinate getting them at work or hooking up a fax machine at home for a few hours to receive one. Plus it’s less per month than a separate phone line at home for a dedicated fax machine.

HBO & Showtime premium channels? Nope! There are a few shows on HBO that my wife and I watch, and they’re all off until next season so….canceled! (We’ll decide if we’re going to resubscribe when our shows come back)

Super-duper-all-the-channels package on satellite? Nope! We sat down and scrolled through the channel guide and found out that we regularly watch ten channels; our 4 major locals plus TLC, Discovery, Food Network, Comedy Central, HGN, and A&E. To our pleasant surprise all of those channels are in the very lowest-level package our provider offers. Move over $90-a-month TV, here comes $40-a-month TV! Sure, we could probably cut paid TV out entirely, but we both like it so it stays – for now – at a much lower monthly cost (plus there is never anything good on these days anyway!).

Netflix subscription? Tough call – I’ll need to do some number crunching on this. When I first subscribed, I was a movie-watching-fool. I would get a movie on Monday, watch it, mail it back Tuesday, get a new move on Thursday and do it all over again. I calculated my first month I paid about $0.80 per movie. However as I moved through my list of to-watch flicks, I’ve slowed down a lot in my movie watching habits. For the last two months it’s cost me $6 per movie to be a subscriber! Sorry Netflix – I love you – but you’ve got to go.

Some quick Excel work tells me that by cutting out and cutting back we dropped our “only-ies” from $316 per month to $191 per month (and a lot of that is cell phone). That’s a 39% monthly savings or $1,500 a year back in our pocket.

We’re fortunate that we’ve kept a lot of our “only-ies” under control, but I know a lot of people who use credit, same-as-cash deals, and store financing to get new appliances, electronics, furniture, and more – all for “only” a few bucks a month – and it’s killing them!

I encourage you to sit down and take a long hard look at your “only-ies”. You might be surprised at how much your “little monthly obligations” really cut into your bottom line when you add them all up!

Tricks to avoid spending too much.

2009-07-02T17:23:06Z

I’m “stuff” person…always have been. It’s not that I want to acquire stuff for the purpose of just acquiring it; I’m the kind of person who gets exciting by something, and then has to have all the requisite items and accessories to support whatever phase I’m going through.

For example, I got the wild urge to learn how to make a really good cup of coffee. I start researching everything that’s been say on the subject, and decided I needed to buy a bean roaster, a super-duper 18-bar coffee maker, and a special grinder for the fresh coffee beans I would have to purchase online. Cha-ching! Making a cuppa-joe just got expensive.

And not to long ago I would have had all that stuff in my shopping cart at Amazon or some other e-tailer and have been well on my way to checking out before I even paused to think about the money I was spending.

And because of that, I have spent a lot of money on a lot of dumb stuff. I had to come up with a way to temper temptation and stop spending money on things I didn’t really need.

So what works?

I’ve found that – for me – the single best thing that keeps me from making as many “not-thought-out” purchases is reviewing how I’m spending my money. And that means keeping track of every single penny I spend.

I’ve tried both at various times throughout my life, and taken individually they don’t work.

When I tracked my spending to the penny, but didn’t review where the money was going I still overspent on temptation items. When I keep reports, but didn’t track my spending to the penny I would eventually get behind updating my records and overspend. I needed both.

I know other people use different tactics like writing down the item that’s holding their infatuation and then reviewing it a week or a month longer and only buying if the temptation is still there. That doesn’t work for me. I would write down what it was I wanted, and I would wait a few days, and invariably I would end up somewhere – item and credit card in hand – breaking my vow to wait for the purchase. The thrill of giving in to temptation would overwhelm me and lead to yet another dumb and unnecessary purchase.

For me accurate records AND regular review are necessary to avoid temptation, financially speaking.

I use Quicken for both the record keeping and the reporting, but the software alone won’t be your salvation. You have to work the system and make it a habit, that’s hard. There’s no easy way to do this other than doing it. I was lucky enough that my bank worked out-of-the-box and was able to get started by loading some data.

Trick 1:

To keep on top of it I make sure to put all my receipts in my wallet and key them into the software each and every day. That’s important because you can make a lot of dumb mistakes in a week’s time. If you’re entering and reviewing your spending once a week you’re probably not doing it often enough.

I know what you’re thinking; that you don’t have time to enter your receipts daily; just trust me and do it. It won’t take nearly as long as you think. I found I was spending literally three minutes a day entering my receipts.

Trick 2:

Run reports every day when you first start to get a really good idea where your money is going. It’s really nice if your bank lets you download the last few month’s transactions; you’ll be way ahead of the curve. Having a few months of transactions lets you immediately get an idea of how and where you’re spending your money.

But even if you have to start by entering the receipts you have, run spending reports every day. I like the fact that Quicken shows me a pie-chart of my spending and I can drill into the details. Regardless of what software you use, watch your spending daily!

When you start to see your “hobbies & leisure” spending heading toward the stratosphere, and you’re looking at it each and every day, it makes it a lot harder to rationalize spending you’d rather avoid.

Trick 3:

Be brutally honest with yourself. You’re not keeping all this detail and reviewing it daily for anyone else’s benefit. If you make a stupid purchase make a note of it. Put it in the memo field, make it a category, whatever it takes. Quicken lets you create category tags which are separate from spending categories. If I buy a video game, I can categorize it “hobbies & leisure” but I can tag it as “stupid”.

The category tags I use are: Essential, Non-essential, Unnecessary, and Stupid.

Paying my mortgage is essential, dining out is non-essential, buying a used video game is unnecessary, and buying a coffee bean roaster is stupid!

You’re only fooling (and hurting) yourself if you’re not honest in how you tag and categorize your expenses, so tell the truth!

So, does it work?

For me the answer is, yes, this works. I’ve been tracking and reporting my spending (every penny) for seven months now and – while my wife might disagree – my “foolish” spending is down a lot.

Sure, I still review my reports and have moments where I wonder what the heck I was thinking, but those moments are much fewer and farther apart these days.

To share an example, I’ve become hooked on Guitar Hero III and want to get the other Guitar Hero games. Since we’re just now out of the holidays, and our non-essential spending was already higher than normal, I’ve been able to keep myself from running out and buying the games. The old me would have looked at his checking account, seen plenty of “extra” money, and run off to the store without a second thought.

I still want the games, and I’ll buy them once my budget has room for it. For once I’m controlling my money rather than the other way around.

Getting started:

If you’re not using some kind of personal financial management software today, it’s time to start! There are so many choices available there’s no excuse to not be using something.

You can use Wesabe, Mint, Microsoft Money, Yodlee, or Quicken to name a few.

I’m partial to Quicken because it runs locally on my computer and I like the bill-pay features.

With the specials on tax software this time of year you can usually get Quicken or MS Money free. Since it’s likely you have to file taxes anyway, it’s a great way to get started using personal finance software if you’re not currently.

The most important thing is to just get started. Keep at it and you’ll find it easier and easier to put off those spending temptations. Your bank account will thank you!

No related posts.

Customer Service in the 21st Century

2009-07-02T20:36:48Z

This is a unique article – a bit rant and a bit non-productivity – but I’ll try to bring it around to the purpose and mission of this site, but forgive me if it misses the mark.

Over the last few months I’ve been working hard to improve my frugality. I’ve never before been described as frugal or any other word approaching frugality. But back in the fall I just decided that too much of my money was going out the door on dumb things, and that I worked too hard to be stupid with my money.

So I’ve been evaluating how and where I spend money, and one of the things I decided to do was scale back the programming package I have with Dish Networks. With the writers on strike (and the sad state of TV in general) my wife and I haven’t been watching nearly as much TV, but we’ve been paying through the nose to have it!

So I logged on to my Dish Network account online to downgrade my programming. Simple.

At least I thought it would be simple until I couldn’t find a way to actually downgrade my programming, only ways to upgrade my programming (and spend more money)!

I called Dish Network’s customer service number and navigated through their automated system. I punched in #2 to “change my programming” and listened as it asked me to dial various numbers to upgrade to “Americas’ everything-pack” or “Dish Latino”. Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade – not an option anywhere to downgrade. I was aggravated. So I dialed zero to see if it would connect me to an operator, but it told me it wasn’t a valid option!

Not only could I not downgrade my package, I couldn’t even get to an operator for help! I hung up and called back (and was again greeted and told I was “one of Dish Network’s most valuable customers“) and started hammering the zero key; eventually I was connected to a service rep.

She was in an Indian call center (or a call center that only employed Indians) and told me her name was “Sally”, and asked how she could assist me. I told her I was trying to downgrade my service to save a little money each month, and I couldn’t figure out how to do it either online or on their automated call center. She told me it was only possible to downgrade service with a live customer service agent, so I asked her to please downgrade my package.

She said she was happy to help, and notified me there would be a $5 fee to downgrade my service!

I asked her if there was a $5 fee to UPGRADE my service and she assured me there wasn’t. So I said, “I don’t want to pay the $5 fee to downgrade, I’m trying to save so money each month, but I want to keep some of my satellite services.”

She then told me that there was no exception to the $5 fee on downgrading services.

So I asked to “please” speak to a manager or supervisor. She re-iterated the $5 fee was non-negotiable.

I demanded to speak to a supervisor and she folded and told me she would make a one-time-only-never-ask-again exception and waive the $5 fee.

So at the end of it all I accomplished what I set out to accomplish, but Dish Network why are you making it so difficult for customers really manage their account? See – the thing is I really like the service I get and I recommend Dish Network to a lot of my colleagues, co-workers, and friends. But when trying to do something simple like downgrading my service – and it being such a pain in the heiny – I really question if I should even keep the service at all!

Shame on you Dish for not really taking care of your customers. You were inches away from losing a customer entirely. And the next time I have to argue with a CSR to make a change to my account you probably will lose a customer.

Corporate America – why are you letting customer service just go down the toilet? Sure – there are a lot of sub-par companies out there who don’t care about service, but why are even the “good ones” starting to suck now? Please re-evaluate your policies and views and attitudes towards customers and customer service because if you don’t, one of these days (and I believe it’s coming sooner rather than later) you’ll see a major backlash by your customers.

The $1 idea that will change your life for the better.

2009-07-02T20:37:08Z

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of productivity, organization tools, life-hacks…those things really tickle me deep down. I get a kick out of hearing about a new tip or trick to make my life easier.

This one I stumbled on by accident, and it’s my favorite so far – one of the simplest too.

The idea? Put you important to-dos and memos where you’ll see them when it counts most; first-thing when you wake up and last-thing before bed.

Where? Your bathroom mirror.

How? Dry-erase markers! (a buck, or less)

Yep, you read that right. Write on your bathroom mirror with a dry-erase marker. It’s likely the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see before bed.

Did you tell a co-worker you would bring a them book? Write it on the mirror before bed and you won’t forget in the morning. Were you supposed to pickup something on your way to work? Write it on the mirror and you won’t have to worry about remembering.

It helps you have – like David Allen advocates – “a mind like water.”

There are two caveats to be aware of with this tip – so take note:

1) Writing all over the bathroom mirror has a low WAF (wife acceptance factor). Some will yell; most will look at you like you’ve gone insane, roll their eyes, sigh heavily, and tell you to “clean that up.” It helps if you have your own bathroom.

2) The marker wipes off with a little bath tissue, but doing so will leave some streaks. You’ll have to clean your mirror more often than you otherwise would (I believe this contributes to the low WAF), but it’s worth it.

I have a nearly foolproof method to overcome the low WAF problem. Before you start note-taking, go into the bathroom, stand where they would, and look in the mirror. Now draw a big heart framing your head and shoulders and write something suitably sweet underneath (”I ‘wuv’ you” works well).

Most importantly, don’t say anything about it. Don’t say, “Honey come check this out!”. Leave it alone and let them find it. They will by the end of the day, and you’ll get major brownie points for being such a big sweetie. Now you can start to make notes out to the edge of the mirror and work your way to the middle. After that, your imagination is the limit.

I use an Expo marker. They don’t have fumes that make you feel stoned, and in a small bathroom that’s a good thing. You can probably liberate a spare marker from your office, I have 10 different colors in the tray of my white board – I’ve only ever used red, black, and blue. One bit of advice: get a black marker; the dark color will show up a lot better on the mirror.

So there’s my $1.00 idea. It makes me happy inside every time I erase a to-do I’ve added to my mirror, and I’ve been able to stop worrying about those loose tasks that need attention, but that I don’t always stop to add to a paper list!

No related posts.

You need more than measurement to reach your goals.

2009-07-02T20:38:33Z

We’ve all heard the quote (often mis-attributed to Dr. W. Edwards Deming) that…”you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

When working on reaching your goals (you do set SMART goals right?) you have to monitor and measure your progress so you know when you’ve achieved your goal, but you need to do more than just measuring to truly manage your goals.

I can use myself as a perfect example. In February I set a very aggressive weight loss goal for myself. I really launched in and tackled changing my eating and exercise habits to support my weight loss goal. And for 4 months I really rocked my goal. I was trending ahead of my weekly estimates and was getting much healthier.

I was not only measuring everything, but I was really incorporating those measurements into my entire being. I tracked calories, what I ate, how much I weighed, the amount I drank, how much exercise I finished. I measured everything to the N^th degree and really thought and reflected on it every day. I held my goal in mind and kept it very “bright”.

But as happens to so many of us, when things got really busy at work and at home, I slipped. I had a small accident that prevented me from working out for a few weeks. I stopped really focusing on my goal and just set myself on auto-pilot, keeping track of things, but not doing anything with the data.

The first thing to go was tracking all of my calories, fats, carbs, and protein, I was just tracking the food – barely. I still weighted myself every morning and wrote the results down, but I wasn’t plugging the numbers in my Excel spreadsheet and really watching how my weight was trending.

I knew at a glance I wasn’t really gaining any weight, but I wasn’t losing any either. That would be great – being stable – but I hadn’t reached my goal weight yet.

So I just sort of floated along on auto-pilot for a few months. I was still measuring a lot of variables, but because I wasn’t holding my goal right at the top of my conscious thoughts like I had been when I first started, I wasn’t making any solid progress.

Once I brought my goal back to the front of my thoughts – and kept it there – I started to make new progress towards it.

This is true for any goal. If you’re not pursuing the outcome, measuring your actions along the way, and focusing on the goal and keeping it big and bright in your mind you’ll eventually lose your forward progress to reaching the goal.

At best you’ll float along – making some progress in places, losing it in others – until one of three things happens:

you give up on your goal
you achieve some of your goal, but not to the level you really want
you redefine your goal and re-energize yourself to really achieve it!

Reaching your goals isn’t just a matter of setting them. You have to measure your progress towards them and keep the outcome held firmly in mind.

Failing to measure your progress means you have to rely on luck to reach your desired outcome. Failing to keep your goal in mind means you’re just going through the motions when you measure your progress.

The two go hand-in-hand in reaching your goals to the full extent you’ve set for them!

What’s coming in your future? Part 2

2009-07-02T17:28:25Z

Last month I wrote an article titled What’s coming in your future?. In it, I described how a quote from David Allen’s book Ready for Anything had really resonated with me.

I came into the office this morning and checked through my tickler file and sitting there in the folder labeled “29″ was the index card from last month.

Scrawled on the front in my chicken-scratch writing – “Something is coming – probably within a few days – that’s going to change your world. You don’t see it yet. You don’t know what it’s about. But it’s there, rolling inexorably forward, destined to throw you a curve that you do not expect. It could show up sooner or later – but it will show up. Trust me.”

A week and a half after putting that card back into my tickler file to re-check in a month I found myself on an operating room table with a surgeon poised to take my gallbladder out. It was 4 days from the time I found out I had a bad gallbladder to the time the surgeon was digging around in my innards. I certainly didn’t see that coming. I’m ordinarily in fairly good health, and had never otherwise had any problems with my gallbladder.

Today I was reflecting back on how timely and appropriate that quote is. But even more, it got me to thinking that it doesn’t really matter when you review that quote because something is always going to be coming. Life doesn’t stop sending curve balls and trying to generally mix things up for you.

I think what’s more important is knowing that you’ll always be in between these “surprises” and really appreciating the time that life is treating you well.

This isn’t to say that life is about luck; or that cosmic forces are scheming to “keep you down.” It’s to say that life’s obstacles come at you like waves in the ocean. You have to learn to appreciate the calm between the crashing swells, to anticipate when the next wave is coming, to become one with the waves. If you let every wave completely crash over you, you’ll eventually tire and wear out and you’ll just be consumed by all of the hard times in life.

In that situation it’s easy to play the victim to life’s hardships. You can cry, “I’m not in charge in more, life is just busy beating me down and there’s nothing I can do about it.” You’re no more than a piece of junk in the ocean, being pushed around and batted about by the waves.

But you have the choice. You can realize that life is always going to throw obstacles your way. You’re always going to be able to look back over a month or a quarter or a year and say to yourself, “Gosh, I really didn’t see that coming!”. If you can “swim” with the waves, and learn to navigate the bad times and the hard times, you can stay in control.

And while life will never quite throwing you curves, tossing wave after wave at you, you’ll be in much better shape to avoid the worst of it.

What’s coming in your future?

Will you share your queue with me?

2009-07-02T17:26:19Z

A co-worker and I were recently talking movies. Specifically what we had coming from Netflix. I mentioned a few movies he wasn’t familiar with and he asked if I knew of any way to “share” my Netflix queue so he could see it too.

I said I didn’t, so we logged into my account to see what options were available. It was then when I noticed the “Community” button where I was able to invite my friend, and we could see each others’ queues. Very cool.

So if you’re curious what I’ve watched, or am getting ready to watch click over and become my Netflix friend.

I’m always into seeing new movies, and would love to see what you’re watching too. Sure, it’s not a tip that will boost your productivity into the stratosphere, but taking a break every now and then to watch a movie is sure good for your creativity. At least that’s what I keep telling myself!

How to “only” yourself to death.