Do you need others? Can you predict your future?

The following is an exercise of letting it out. Join me.

I am

I am curious.  I ask a lot of questions.  I don’t hold back when I have to something to say.

I am caring.  I take care of people.  I put others before me.

I am principled.  I stick to my beliefs.  I am predictable.

I am more theory than process.  I get the concepts intuitively, even the one that says that missing the process will hold me back.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time I grew outside of my work.  I danced competitively, ran marathons, shot portraits, practiced guitar, gave myself completely to another.

Once upon a time I could simply work harder.  If I simply finished the programming project or blog post I could be done.

Once upon a time I relied more on myself than on the others around me.  If I showed up alone, I had a chance for success.

Once upon a time I shared a lot with the world.  I wrote daily, I tweeted regularly, I carried a big camera.

I’m not

I’m not the one who studies the numbers and then tweaks the details.  I’m not going to wait until a good time to push Publish on this midnight article.

I’m not patient with others.  I’m even less patient with myself.

I’m not the kind of person who sticks to one system.  Yet I need to work within constraints to make progress.

I’m not sure what a single dimension of my life will look like in 6 months from now.  But I know it’ll be okay.

Like an offensive line that makes room for the star player to act, the right timezone frees you to make the play.

This past week I worked out of Paris (to attend and speak at Le Web).  I was reminded how incredibly easy it was to get ahead when everyone in the States was asleep.  But to keep my team on task and address some big opportunities, I also found myself Skyping and emailing from 1-3am.  It was the best and it was the worst.

A few years ago I worked out of Barcelona.  This past summer I worked out of Buenos Aires.  A big part of why I take these trips is that they’re simply better timezones for me.  And I mean it when I say that the only thing I truly dislike about San Francisco is Pacific Standard Time.

Timezones play a very important role in my ability to get things done.  Like a long flight without internet, they keep interruptions at bay.  But timezones also mean something psychologically—when I accomplish things before others are even online, it feels different.  A good timezone is an opportunity to not only get ahead but to feel ahead.  That’s powerful.

Try as I might to find another pattern, my routine has been unchanged for several years.  I get the most accomplished in the mornings, when I prefer to keep to myself.  I prefer to take meetings or calls in the afternoons.  And, no matter what advanced calendaring or ‘get up early’ techniques I’ve tried, nothing allows me to maintain this rhythm quite so well as a good timezone.

Essentially, I like to be slightly ahead of those I’m working with—ideally 3-6 hours.  In Buenos Aires I’m now 2 hours ahead of my east coast folks and 5 hours ahead of SF.  In Barcelona or Paris I was 6 hours ahead of the east coast (where I used to live), which was manageable…but the 9 hour difference from SF (where I now live) is not manageable.  So that means Europe is generally off my radar now, at least for long trips.

Of course, all of this assumes that when traveling there’s still an opportunity to get into a rhythm and complete your work.  Being far away from home can be challenging, but these days so long as you can find a good office, coworking space, or even coffeehouse, you should be able to get things done.  I try to take month-long trips since it’s enough time both to build a routine and qualify for monthly rates on apartments and offices.

I’ve been behind on writing to my blog, but now that I’m in Buenos Aires, it’s easier to find that time, as I’m probably writing this before you’re even awake.  I’m free from interruptions, and I must say that it’s nice to have long days in the summer sun.

Now it’s your turn to get away and get things done.  Who says they don’t go together?

I was lucky enough to be interviewed last week by Andrew, where we dug into some practical lessons-learned and shared stories and tips.  The video is embedded below.  So grab some holiday tofurkey and get ready to be productive…

Andrew and I discussed 11 specific and tactical tips for winning back time in the workday.  Below I’ve pasted the video interview.  On Mixergy.com, you’ll find a full transcript, an MP3 version, as well as a many (much more ; ) helpful videos for entrepreneurs.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments.  Meantime, enjoy your Turkey Day!

Flickr photo credit: jdlasica

I see now that with so many things, practice isn’t enough.  Don’t repeat my mistakes, which began 2 months ago.

Two months ago, I hired a writer (hi, Brian!).  We spoke the same language about business and saw eye-to-eye about how AwayFind can help people.  I was quite excited to work together.

Even more, Brian is not just a writer.  Brian is a 15 year direct marketing veteran, a thinker, and someone who more than deserves his Director of Marketing title.  But I’ve still never hired someone who I disagreed with so often and so thoroughly.

But he pushed.  So we tested and gathered feedback.  I was nearly universally wrong.

Now, Brian and I are different.  Different is fine.  But what was tough for me is that when I read some of his suggestions I thought, "No, that simply won’t work."  It wasn’t a "no, that’s not me" it was a flat out, "This won’t work, because of x, y, and z."

You see, my writing is no accident.  I can explain clearly why I chose one path or another, and why I strongly object to certain suggestions.

And yet I was wrong.  Consistently (okay, mostly consistently ; ).  With something I thought I understood.

I’m so glad for this experience (which is continuing, of course).  Even beyond its impact on my own writing, it helps me to see what our users, and people generally, value and appreciate.  And the bigger lesson here is not about writing: it’s that our assumptions about even our greatest perceived strengths may be wrong.

For a parallel—consider playing a musical instrument.  It takes both practice and technique.  One will certainly have to practice to attain proficiency…but without the proper technique it’s impossible to achieve the highest success.  We fundamentally understand this about music.

But in the rest of life we assume that enough practice will lead to success.  But technique is still hugely important.  We need to open up to the possibility that maybe our own technique—or at least our intuition–isn’t quite what we thought.

Consider your best strengths.  Then put your ego aside and really consider how differing approaches work, or be more objective in how you see its real impact.

When something so fundamentally different from your own (thought-out) perspective enters your world, perhaps you’re the one who needs to reconsider.

Flickr photo credit: JoelMontes

Remember when we had homework and tests?  It was tedious and difficult to get A’s.  But even without a report card, the best results require the same struggle.

I hated high school, but I recall my last two years idyllically: most days I arrived by 7:30, attended seven classes, ran competitively at the track, and then spent 3-hours in a nearby university’s computer science class.  And I did well, even if my moniker “dot com” was hardly offered with affection.

While I enjoyed the subjects, let’s be honest—few of us would’ve labored through so many chapters or worked out so many math problems if it wasn’t required.  The proof: the concept of “practice” is no longer in most of our vocabularies.

Nope, now we just do.  Do it right, do it wrong—business (or nearly all our activities) are about showing up and giving it a shot.  Mind you, I get to grade my team and I rarely let a B result out the door, but in this case it’s easier to be the teacher than the student.

As the teacher I have no trouble forgetting about the competition (as Seth Godin advises), but I still have to do my own work.  I can certainly show up and move things forward (“minimum viable CEO”?) , but the things that will make the most impact feel more like homework.

The difference between a B and an A+ may be 100 customers vs. a million.  Showing up is just lip service.  Pitching 50 journalists, writing 100 customers, creating another video…no one will ask me to do it, and no one will grade me if I don’t.

But it’s not just about work and making a startup succeed.  It’s the willingness to do something that’s seriously tough, even if the light at the end of the tunnel is far away and you may damage your ego in the process.

To be clear, I’m not talking about taking on more—no, ambition creep can be toxic.  I’m talking about taking the things that you’re reasonable/passable/or even good at, and bringing them to the next level.  (For me, that’s writing/marketing, and Spanish.)

As I approach my thirtieth year, I want to still be able to step up to the plate with the difficult things.  Not in response to someone asking me to, but because it’s the only way I’ll be happy with myself and will make a substantial impact before the next decade is up.

Growing up may be a struggle, but it’s also a myth.  We’re never grown up, and it’s never too late to take things to the next level.

But there are two common problems that will sabotage any distributed team’s progress.  We fight them every day at AwayFind, and here’s what we’ve learned.

A big part of remote (er, any) work is a need to communicate frequently, or even over-communicate.  But in a distributed team, there are two communication challenges that lead to big problems.

First, let’s make some assumptions:

• Others on your team have more experience with some of the things you have to do
• The work you’re completing now will change before it’s presented to customers

These are true in any company with a handful of people.  And depending on the degree to which you address these assumptions through communication and feedback, your team can sometimes suffer from:

• Over-perseverance – fighting through every new challenge completely on one’s own
• Over-polish – perfecting what one’s working on before offering it up for feedback

I love having a team that works hard and gets stuff done, so perseverance and polish are generally great traits…but when they lead to slow work and re-work, that’s both frustrating and dangerous.

And on remote teams, these two traits are even more prevalent.  First off, people who are attracted to remote work are often independent people who enjoy working through their own challenges.  But more importantly, in remote work there are far fewer casual check-ins:

• We’re less likely to ask for help form our colleagues when we don’t run into them
• We’re less likely to see a project before it’s finished when it’s not right in front of us

Think about it—when you’re working in the same room you see what they’re working on and hear their frustration.  We’re quick to help one another out and to address problems at earlier stages.

Now this isn’t merely an argument against distributed teams (I’ve long been a fan), rather it’s a warning to prevent these problems from occurring in your distributed team.  As a remote worker, you need to:

• Find a way to share your work well before it’s completed…and be open to reviewing others’ work while its unfinished
• Ask for help from your colleagues when you’re working with a new tool or technology…and regularly check in with others on your team to understand their skills and where you might be able to help

There is not a month that goes by where I don’t learn of someone who struggled with a project I could’ve helped with… or a feature that could’ve been corrected before it got to its present level of polish.  These things can set us back DAYS or WEEKS, and they kill me because they’re avoidable.  Fight back NOW.

These problems no doubt exist in every company…but in remote teams they’re even more prevalent and pervasive.  And if you want to work with people in different offices, you need to proactively combat these issues and architect a culture that supports early feedback and casual sharing of ideas.

While these aren’t the only challenges in distributed teams, these may be the biggest.  If you focus on them head on, perhaps you can reap the rest of the benefits…and join me on my next trip to Buenos Aires.

It’s no secret our greatest asset is time and our greatest predictor of success how we spend it, yet most of us have grown into our roles and task lists without giving it much thought.

Where do we kick ass…and where do we struggle?  Where do we have leverage..and where are we a replaceable worker bee?

At a dinner the other night, we got on the topic of "what are you best at?"  An interesting question perhaps, but it led to a couple better, more specific ones:

• In what area are you uniquely skilled, relative to others?
• Of your unique skills, which can you leverage the most for impact?

Take two minutes to consider your answers.

Though there’s scarcely one right answer, it’s likely that your responses will not be how you spend most (or even much) of your time.

I believe my answer is my ability to offer feedback and communicate advice in a way that’s useful and specific.  With my team that comes in the form of product vision, specifications, and feedback.  With the outside world it comes in the form of speaking and writing.

And as I look back on the past decade, my only regret is that I haven’t written more, created more, and shared more.  Like many of you reading this, as my team and responsibilities have grown, I’ve dealt more with unplanned situations, rather than setting my own agenda.  But, as I wrote a few months back, that’s not the way to make a difference.

How about you — are you spending most of your day in an area where you kick ass and leverage your time?  Any advice, for you or for me, for how to get back on track?

While it was an interesting project, I don’t believe his experience or needs are indicative of what I see everyday with AwayFind customers and in my eight years of clients at SET. 

However, you too can reply to 0.3% of your email, read on… (on AwayFind blog)

Go above and beyond and forget your to do’s.

We all know what “good enough” is—it’s passable and professional, and while it won’t win awards, it won’t draw criticism.  We’re always capable of “good enough.”

But for a few things, we’re rockstar good.  Maybe you can design landing pages, maybe it’s funny replies to support questions, or maybe it’s writing 10 page blog posts that land you on Hacker News.  Whatever it is, there are some areas where you can  do things that will pull people in and delight.

The sad truth is that when there are 957 things to do, many of them pressing, it’s easy to do “good enough.”  After all, some of our best work takes a lot of attention to detail and a lot of time.  What we don’t realize is that 957 good enoughs is worth less than one above and beyond.

It’s okay to fall behind, and then to fall behind further.  It’s tempting to switch into maintenance mode, to get more things done at good enough.  But then you’re just on the treadmill.  You’re not getting anywhere.

Don’t get things done.  Put them off to work on something better.  Be remarkable.

Flickr photo credit: williamallthing

And if you can’t see it, maybe it’s worth looking for.

I’ve always been a believer that we have two voices—the one where we want our companion to hear us and the one where we want others around to listen in.  The one where we’re talking to blend in with the surroundings, and the one where those outside our group can catch the whole story.

I don’t know if I’m right about this.  But I catch myself using the different voices, especially when the one I’d like to hear me isn’t the person to whom I’m speaking.

It’s not just the volume that’s different.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think that as my intention changes so does my voice.  And in all our actions we run into this subtle distinction of intent.

Sometimes that intention is to make something happen, other times it’s to follow the steps that would make something happen.  In some ways it looks the same, but in others it’s all the difference.

There’s someone I’ve worked with recently who never finishes things.  She completes all the steps, but somehow things aren’t done.  We could make a checklist, we could do the tasks together, but it’s not finished.

The steps are checked off, but the result is incomplete.  The intention just wasn’t there.  At least that’s how I see it.

People know when I’m using those different voices.  People can see when we’re just following the steps.  I think we have to recognize when it is that we’re just following the steps, because we’re never going to get there.