A Great Book

     A blog post from Happiness-project.com. It's about the idea behind the book How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk which in my opinion is the best parenting book of all time. I had been thinking about this same concept over the last few days because I've been noticing how whenever my four year old son comes to me to complain about his seven year old sister bothering him the most effective reaction from me is just to listen to him. I listen and tell him that must have made you feel (however he's feeling) and he goes away happy. The whole notion of invalidating others feelings when we watch for it is incredible. You just suddenly realize how often you do it. The natural reaction is: "You shouldn't feel bad".......

 

 

Bad parenting: back from the brink

This morning I almost made a classic bad-parenting move: denying a bad feeling.

We began the day at 6:30 a.m. with the Big Girl claiming, “No one’s paying attention to me. Everyone pays more attention to the Baby. Even when she’s ripping my book or pulling my hair, no one cares.”

This is absurd, and I started to snap back with the usual, “She’s too little to know what she’s doing, and how can you say no one’s paying attention to you? We played eight games of Uno yesterday,” etc., etc.

Just in time, I remembered the principle I’d recently re-read in the greatest parenting books of all time, Faber and Mazlish’s How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. (It’s a parenting book but the principles apply equally well to dealing with other adults.)

They say: Don’t refuse to acknowledge someone’s feelings of anger, irritation, or reluctance; instead, name the feeling and articulate the other person’s point of view.  This is much harder to do than it sounds, because the urge to correct a bad feeling is very strong: “you can’t be hungry,” “you love Tae Kwon Do,” “you always have fun at parties.”

But I gave it a shot. “You wish people would pay more attention to you? You’re feeling neglected?” She nodded.

“Come here,” I said, “let me give you a big hug.”

As simple as it was, that did the trick. And the nice thing about this approach was that not only did it work, I felt nice doing it, while that other kind of arguing puts me in a bad mood.

The Years Are Short movie

http://www.theyearsareshort.com/

Smile and Move

      The comments below are from Ken Blanchard about a book by Stan Parker. I will be copying this to my Good Karma file.

A couple of weeks ago I ran into a guy by the name of Stan Parker. An interesting guy. He has a new little tiny book called Smile and Move: A Reminder to Happily Serve.  Here’s what he says:
How to smile:  Wake up. Show others you care by giving attention to their needs. Be thankful. The opportunity to serve is a gift, not an entitlement.  Be approachable. We’re at each other’s service and contact is where it starts. Complain less. We have work to do. Smile. Really. It’s where pleasantness begins.
How to move:  Start early and go long. Get lost in your service to others. Exceed expectations. Dismiss mediocrity. Expect more from yourself. Have a sense of urgency. Predict and pre-sweat the details for others. Be resourceful and resilient. Service is about giving someone what they need, no matter what.
So I kind of like that: A Reminder to Happily Serve. And I love the quote he has in the back from Ralph Waldo Emerson:  “Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”  I hope you’re having a really fabulous day. Thanks for being happy. It’s a special occasion.

One Thing At A Time by Ken Blanchard

    Here is a post I liked by Ken Blanchard. Fits with another thing I read and have been thinking about recently called Three Things which was from the Zen Habits website. Essentially the idea of it was to just do three things each day to move you toward a goal. This is similar.

I really like my friend B. J. Gallagher’s little book called Staying the Course.  B. J. says, “Our journey in life is about progress, not perfection.”  (Boy, isn’t that true.) “It’s not about doing one thing 100 percent better, it’s about doing a number of things one percent better each day. Progress is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Most days we measure our progress in inches, not miles.”  (That’s feedback, that’s the breakfast of champions!)  “What matters most is showing up for your life, whether you feel like it or not. Ask yourself, ‘What two or three things can I do today that would move me forward?’”  (That’s a very good question—what could you do?)  “You’d be amazed at how much distance you could cover by taking it in increments. The little things add up. The inches turn to miles and we string together our efforts like so many pearls. Before long, look what you have—a whole strand.  Ahhh—beautiful!”   So, what can you do today to keep going?  To keep making a difference for your customers and for each other?  Remember, things are about progress. One thing at a time. One small step can change your life. So take that step today.

How To Deal With Problems by Ken Blanchard

     A good post by Ken Blanchard about problems. The take away for me is don't wallow in your problems do something about them. Even small steps to generate momentum......


This morning I was listening to Tony Robbins. I went and got a tape of Tony after being with him recently. He was saying a lot of people acquaint happiness with having no problems. He says that’s crazy. It reminded me of one of Norman Vincent Peale’s favorite stories. Norman was walking down the street in New York City when he ran into a friend of his and said, “How are you doing?”  Norman thought it was just a casual greeting, but the guy took it as an invitation and he lay down all of his problems at Norman’s feet. After about twenty minutes, he was finished and he said, “Norman, if you can solve all of my problems, I’ll give you a check for $5,000 to give to your favorite charity.” Norman said that he had never turned down such a challenge, so he ruminated and he cogitated and he agitated and he came up with a solution. He said, “I was just at an organization the other day where people have no problems. Would you like to go there?” And his friend said, “That’s exactly where I want be.” And Norman said, “I’ll take you there tomorrow. It’s called Woodlawn Cemetery. The only people I know who have no problems are dead.”  Problems are a way of life, so if you equate your happiness to not having any problems, you’re going to be naïve for the rest of your life. Happy people know how to deal with problems. They don’t get bogged down with problems. They solve problems. They work on problems. But they don’t let problems take over their life. You know, sometimes you put a problem on your back and it drags you down. What you have to do is to say, “How do I solve this?”  Happiness and problems go together. So as Tony said, it’s your attitude—it’s what you bring to a problem—that can result in a positive solution, So if you have any problems today, great! You’ll probably have a happier day.

Knowledge Base from Sources of Insight

      I've talked before about how I started keeping the Good Karma file based on advice from Christine Kane. Here from Sourcesofinsight.com is an explanation of how to do this. The author calls it a personal knowledge base but it's the same principle. 

Build a Personal Knowledge Base of Success Stories, Insight, and Action to Improve Your Success

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 08:55 AM PST

I collect success.  From stories of heroes to gems of insight, I gather and organize principles, patterns, and practices for success.  It’s like a living playbook for life with short-cuts, success patterns, and proven practices.  It supplies me with insight and action that I can use for just about every situation.  Whether it’s motivation or strategies or tactics, it’s my unfair advantage and how I get the edge in life.  It’s truly how I “stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Keys to an Effective Success KB Here are some of the keys to success when it comes to building a personal “Success KB”:

• Think in Nuggets.  Think in terms of “nuggets” or “gems of insight.”   Collect a nugget at a time and chunk things down.
• Keep it Scannable. Think in terms of “tickler lists of insight.”  Keep ti scannable and write in one-liners where you can.  Make it easy to quickly flip, sort, or search through your KB.
• Factor reference from Action.  If you have a bunch of blah, blah, blah, simply add three take aways or key actionable insight to the top.   Ideally, keep your actionable methods and techniques, separate from good concepts and stories, which are really reference information.  This will help you turn insight into action.
• Keep it Simple. This is a must.  It’s crucial to have a simple way to store and retrieve things.   Otherwise, the little bit of friction adds up and it dies a slow death of a 1000 paper cuts.

I happen to use Evernote for my KB now, but I’ve also used pen and paper, Wikis, text files on my hard drive … etc.   Whatever you use, simply make sure that it works for you and it’s simple.
What Goes Into a Personal Success KB
I think the real key to building an effective “Success KB” is knowing what to put into it.  Here are some of the things I collect:

1. Ah-Has – jot down the little ah-has you find or when you connect the dots.  For example, one of my ah-has I wrote down is “legacy is a by-product of giving your best where you have your best to give.”
2. Book Nuggets – summarize the best insights from the best books.  For example, here’s my book nugget Argue Your Way to Optimism from the book, Learned Optimism.
3. Lessons Learned – make a tickler list of your key lessons from mentors or experiences.  You can even draw from movies.  For example, here are my Lessons Learned from Peaceful Warrior.
4. Mental Models – write down lenses you can use for looking at life.  For example, add the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to your tool-belt to help you understand yourself and others or the Johari Window to help you know and share yourself more effectively.
5. Patterns – note down patterns you see, including your own success patterns, and name them so you can remember them.
6. People – collect stories of success and lessons learned.  One way is to summarize lessons learned from your heroes.  For example, here is my lessons learned from Stephen Covey.
7. Principles – note down timeless principles.  For example, Covey provides a nice set of principles to start your collection with.
8. Questions – write down the best questions you find help you in any situation.  For example, some of my favorite questions are, “Is it working?” … “Who else shares this problem that I can learn from?” … “What do you need to be successful?” … “What do you want to experience?” … “What’s my next best move?” … “How can I use this?”  As you can see, questions are my game changer.
9. Quotes – write down words of wisdom and the best quotes you hear from friends, books, people, movies, songs … etc.  The right words said the right way can change your life.   For example, here are some of my quotes collections.
10. Success Stories — summarize success stories.  You come across success stories everyday, whether they are your own, or on the news, or somebody you know.
11. Techniques – write down techniques, ways or methods for doing things.   This is your colleciton of “know-how.”

Ultimately you end up with a consolidated set of distinctions and reference examples to draw from.  The sum is way more than the parts.
Start Small
I started small.  A few years back, I got into the habit of dumping quick little insights.  If I took training, I would make sure I had three key take aways.  When I met with my mentors, I got into the habit of taking brief notes.  If I read a book, I summarized the most important, actionable things.  If I heard a great quote, I jotted it down.  If I saw a movie, I walked away with three key take aways.  Next thing you know, turning insight into action became second-nature.
Remember that the goal isn’t to take the place of experience.  It’s to supplement it and help you stack the deck in your favor.  Often what you don’t know can hurt you, and in many scenarios, there is no need to start from scratch.

What Makes A Truly Great Person.

I wish I could remember where I got this so I could give the proper credit. I love this story/idea. I love the concept of how our image of people changes once we know them.

What Makes a Truly Great Person?

The real Idea that I wanted to discuss is who are the truly great people? How do you know when you have met an honest to goodness great person.

Though we can think of many aspects that define a great person; ethics, charity, love, integrity, there is one idea that I heard that really helps to narrow it down.

The difference between the not so great and the great is, that the more you get to know the not so great person the more dirt you find on them, on the other hand the more you get to know the truly great person the more you see things to give you proof of their greatness.

I once heard a story of a community leader with incredible integrity and love who was asked to be a witness in a trial. He was not of the christian faith and would not swear on the bible. A police officer was called to give character witness about him and told the judge this story. The leaders home was broken into and as the thief was leaving the leader returned and tried to take his belongings away. The leader then began chasing the thief down the street yelling “I forgive you”.
The judge asked the police officer if this was really a true story? The officer replied “I can’t say for sure, but they don’t tell these stories about you or me.”

Find Truly Great People. Learn from them. Grow.

It's all your money

     I read an article recently where the author said that we should force everyone, including the media, to refer to the government as "us". As in we spent $100,000 to make a glossy advertisement that explains what the Simcoe County services do for us. Not the County spent $100,000. We did! It's all our money. Here's a great example of wrong thinking from Seth Godin who I generally think is a brilliant guy.

No!

They just announced the results from the vote on the school board budget in my little town.
As usual, several hundred people voted no. In fact, every year approximately the same number of people vote no. The budget passed, it almost always does, but the naysayers get their say.
Here's the interesting part. Also on the ballot was a New York State grant. This would permit the town to use State money (a grant, not a loan) to improve a building. More than 200 people voted no. Even the most selfish person who analyzed this measure would see that there was no downside, selfish or otherwise, to the town. Yet hundreds voted no.
When no becomes a habit, it's very hard to break.

     How can he not clue in that the State money is still his tax dollars? Perhaps those 200 people just had the foresight to realize that the money being spent on that building wasn't the right thing to do. Seth apparently sees "no downside" to the State tax dollar being wasted but it's still out of HIS pocket!

Favorite Quotes 3

Listen or your tongue will make you deaf.

Forget about the brick you laid before. Forget about the next brick. Focus on the brick in your hand that you're laying right now.

We carry adolescence around in our bodies all our lives. We get through the Car Crash Age alive and cruise through our early twenties as cool dudes, wily, dashing, winsome . . . shooting baskets, the breeze, the moon, and then we try to become caring men, good husbands, great fathers, good citizens.

If you look at things properly, there's no need to wait for the dessert cart. Dessert is everywhere.

A wise old owl lived in an oak. The more he heard, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why aren't we all like that wise old bird?

Success is not to be pursued; its to be attracted by the person you become.

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.

Freedom and success isn’t about taking big risks. It’s about becoming good enough at something society values, so you can dictate the terms for how you live your life.

The secret to a great life is recognizing that life was never intended to be fair. Life simply isn't "fair," and that's okay. The joy of life comes from playing the game of life as best we can, focusing far more on the love and good example we can contribute to other lives than on demanding money, stuff, love, or appreciation. Service becomes a source of joy when it is not viewed as a duty.

Leaders aren't born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.
.Make it a practice when something is done, no matter by whom, to ask yourself: "What is their intention in doing this?" But start with yourself; examine yourself first.

Good Karma File

     I read this great idea once from Christine Kane. She said that we all have a head full of memories that we dredge up when we want to feel bad about ourselves. We all know exactly what she means I suspect. So her idea was that we should at least balance it out by keeping a good karma file. A file full of encouraging emails, favorite photos or whatever else we like. Since then I have been compiling all sorts of interesting little things that motivate me or seem likely to get me out of boredom or a bad mood with a quick read. Here is one I copied and pasted into that file tonight. It's from Seth Godin's blog:

Is effort a myth?

People really want to believe effort is a myth, at least if we consider what we consume in the media:

• politicians and beauty queens who get by on a smile and a wink
• lottery winners who turn a lifetime of lousy jobs into one big payday
• sports stars who are born with skills we could never hope to acquire
• hollywood celebrities with the talent of being in the right place at the right time
• failed CEOs with $40 million buyouts

It really seems (at least if you read popular media) that who you know and whether you get 'picked' are the two keys to success. Luck.
The thing about luck is this: we're already lucky. We're insanely lucky that we weren't born during the black plague or in a country with no freedom. We're lucky that we've got access to highly-leveraged tools and terrific opportunities. If we set that luck aside, though, something interesting shows up.
Delete the outliers--the people who are hit by a bus or win the lottery, the people who luck out in a big way, and we're left with everyone else. And for everyone else, effort is directly related to success. Not all the time, but as much as you would expect. Smarter, harder working, better informed and better liked people do better than other people, most of the time.
Effort takes many forms. Showing up, certainly. Knowing stuff (being smart might be luck of the draw, but knowing stuff is the result of effort). Being kind when it's more fun not to. Paying forward when there's no hope of tangible reward. Doing the right thing. You've heard these things a hundred times before, of course, but I guess it's easier to bet on luck.
If people aren't betting on luck, then why do we make so many dumb choices? Why aren't useful books selling at fifty times the rate they sell now? Why does anyone, ever, watch reality TV shows? Why do people do such dumb stuff with their money?
I think we've been tricked by the veneer of lucky people on the top of the heap. We see the folks who manage to skate by, or who get so much more than we think they deserve, and it's easy to forget that:
a. these guys are the exceptions
and
b. there's nothing you can do about it anyway.
And that's the key to the paradox of effort: While luck may be more appealing than effort, you don't get to choose luck. Effort, on the other hand, is totally available, all the time.
This is a hard sell. Diet books that say, "eat less, exercise more," may work, but they don't sell many copies.
With that forewarning, here's a bootstrapper's/marketer's/entrepreneur's/fast-rising executive's effort diet. Go through the list and decide whether or not it's worth it. Or make up your own diet. Effort is a choice, at least make it on purpose:
1. Delete 120 minutes a day of 'spare time' from your life. This can include TV, reading the newspaper, commuting, wasting time in social networks and meetings. Up to you.
2. Spend the 120 minutes doing this instead:

• Exercise for thirty minutes.
• Read relevant non-fiction (trade magazines, journals, business books, blogs, etc.)
• Send three thank you notes.
• Learn new digital techniques (spreadsheet macros, Firefox shortcuts, productivity tools, graphic design, html coding)
• Volunteer.
• Blog for five minutes about something you learned.
• Give a speech once a month about something you don't currently know a lot about.

3. Spend at least one weekend day doing absolutely nothing but being with people you love.
4. Only spend money, for one year, on things you absolutely need to get by. Save the rest, relentlessly.
If you somehow pulled this off, then six months from now, you would be the fittest, best rested, most intelligent, best funded and motivated person in your office or your field. You would know how to do things other people don't, you'd have a wider network and you'd be more focused.
It's entirely possible that this won't be sufficient, and you will continue to need better luck. But it's a lot more likely you'll get lucky, I bet.

Favorite Quotes 2

As human beings we have a tendency to focus on the negative.....You can have all this wonderful stuff and this one little thing is going wrong and we tend to focus on that. It's not about that. It's about being grateful.

"Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is."

 "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do." Benjamin Franklin

“The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” – Allan K. Chalmers

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Dalai Lama

“That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.” – Henry David Thoreau

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever …
- Isak Dinesen

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.
- Ramona L. Anderson

If half a century of living has taught me anything at all, it has taught me that nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
- Dale Carnegie

“If it isn’t life threatening, if the house is not ablaze, if it is not an emergency, or if the child you are yelling to is not half a mile away, then yelling is the wrong choice in parenting.”

Favorite Quotes

If you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough."-Snowboarder

"If you learn to set a good sail, the wind that blows will always take you to the dreams you want". ~Jim Rohn

Choose your goal and keep your eye on it. Never give up. Perhaps you will need to change your plan and approach you goal from a different direction, but don't quit. Keep thinking. Keep re-planning. Keep going.

The first step of success silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others. S. Gabriol

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
—André Gide

Success is about getting up to bat and giving your best.  It’s a numbers game.

Genius is the ability to turn complicated into simple.

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”
 
"While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior."

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Paying it Back....or forward......

    Another cool short post from Seth Godin:

Do you deserve it?

Do you deserve the luck you've been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you've got? Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand?
Not at all. “Deserve” is such a loaded word. Most of us don’t deserve the great opportunities we have, or the lucky breaks that got us here.
The question shouldn’t be, “do you deserve it.” I think it should be, “what are you going to do with it now that you've got it?"




       The problem with this post is he didn't go far enough. I remember reading some quotes from NFL running back Warrick Dunn who is a noted philanthropist.  He said he was using the opportunities given him to help others. Godin talks about us needing to make the most of the opportunities we've been given but he doesn't go far enough into the fact that as Bill Clinton once said: "It's everyone's responsibility to level the playing field". There is no doubt the playing field isn't level. For most of us a lot of the reasons, skills, looks etc. that helped us reach the level of success we have reached really aren't things that we had control over. Now wouldn't it be only fair to help someone who had a little less to start with by giving them a hands up however we can? Just a few minutes.....or a few dollars.

My Latest Rant

     I get told I don't write enough on here of my own stuff. So here for your amusement is my latest anti-tax rant. It was in the Alliston Herald the other day.

Somebody needs to hold politicians accountable

February 02, 2010 16:02

I wanted to comment on Ray Suutari's letter in the Jan. 14 edition of the Weekend Herald.

As someone who "rants against taxes" I have been and continue to be willing to identify government spending that I would be willing to see cut. I would start with the billions in stimulus spending that, at best, artificially propped up our economy and that I fear our children are going to end up paying for, potentially in many ways.

Abraham Lincoln said, "Government should only do for people, what people can't do for themselves."

I believe government at all levels has long outgrown this idea and continues to grow both the size of its workforce and the size of its spending all the while taking on responsibilities that used to belong to the people.

While I fully recognize that taxes are required for health care, police, roads, national defence, social assistance and other very necessary programs I also recognize that huge amounts of our tax dollars are going to grants, special interests and other items that serve the needs of the few at the expense of the many.

I refuse to recognize that "higher taxes in various forms are inevitable". I believe we need to rein in government spending increases and I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Suutari that we have long enjoyed living beyond our means.

I think there is some truth to Mr. Suutari's comment that the enemy may be us but I think the traits among us that are concerning are the apathy and acceptance with which we treat the poor financial control we are receiving in many areas of our government today. We need to demand better and hold our elected representatives accountable for what they do with our money.

Rob Holliday,

Alliston

Positive Thinking

Interesting post from Seth Godin talking about the benefits of positive thinking and wondering why we ever think negatively. I read another idea yesterday that talked about how successful people are never cynics. So why do we do it?

 

 The problem with positive thinking

All the evidence I've seen shows that positive thinking and confidence improves performance. In anything.
Give someone an easy math problem, watch them get it right and then they'll do better on the ensuing standardized test than someone who just failed a difficult practice test.
No, positive thinking doesn't allow you to do anything, but it's been shown over and over again that it improves performance over negative thinking.
Key question then: why do smart people engage in negative thinking? Are they actually stupid?
The reason, I think, is that negative thinking feels good. In its own way, we believe that negative thinking works. Negative thinking feels realistic, or soothes our pain, or eases our embarrassment. Negative thinking protects us and lowers expectations.
In many ways, negative thinking is a lot more fun than positive thinking. So we do it.
If positive thinking was easy, we'd do it all the time. Compounding this difficulty is our belief that the easy thing (negative thinking) is actually appropriate, it actually works for us. The data is irrelevant. We're the exception, so we say.
Positive thinking is hard. Worth it, though.

Just Discovered

    I'm a voracious reader. Every time I walk in the library here (usually a couple of times a week) I check the new section and as often as not I take something. Today I picked up Linchpin by Seth Godin. I have read about a third of it and so far he is bang on with all kinds of great insight. The book jacket mentions that he is one of the 25 most read bloggers on the internet which led me to his blog. As I cruise through it here are a few of the things I liked:


-A link to an article about an unusual cafe in Japan from PSFK.com. Here it is:


Cabel Saasser brings word of a mysterious cafe that he recently experienced in Kashiwa in Japan. Located inside the Urban Design Center Kashiwa-no-ha, the Ogori cafe looks innocuous enough, but holds a surprise in store for its patrons. In a nutshell, you get what the person before you ordered, and the next person gets what you ordered. Thus, if you’re in on the game, you can choose to be either a generous benefactor, and treat those that come after you – or try your luck at being cheap. Either way, it’s an interesting experiment that explores surprise, kindness and encourages interactions.
Cabel describes a scene from the cafe:

As I sat down to enjoy my surprise Appletizer, loving this insane idea and wondering what would happen if you tried it in America, a Japanese woman approached the cafe. Since she could actually speak Japanese, she could read the large sign at the front and, fortunately or unfortunately, got advanced warning of what she was in for. Before making a final decision on what to order, she quietly snuck up to me to try to ask me what I had ordered, knowing that it would be her unwavering refreshment destiny. The staff put a quick stop to her trickery, and I didn’t answer.
Of course, regardless of what she ordered, she got the orange juice I ordered a few minutes earlier. But here’s one of the moments that make this experiment cool: she actually chose orange juice, just like I did. So she got what she wanted. Ogori cafe synchronicity!
Before we left, there was one last thing hat had to be done.
Mike went up to the cafe, slapped down a couple thousand yen (~$25), and ordered a little bit of everything: some ice cream, some snacks, some candy, some drinks, a Japanese horn-of-mysterious-plenty intentionally set up as a shocking surprise for the next lucky customer. (After his order, Mike received single iced coffee.)
As we walked away from the cafe, with just the right amount of delay, we heard an extremely excited “arigato goazimasu!! thank you so much!!” yelled in our direction, from an ecstatic mom and her equally excited young son. They truly appreciated the surprise.
It was so worth it.

-A pretend exchange between husband and wife after the husband comes home from work that I am going to print and put on my computer at work:
Wife: "Honey, how was your day?"
Husband: "Oh, I was busy, incredibly busy."
Wife: "I get that you were busy. But did you do anything important?"


-A cool post that doesn't only apply at work and really hits home because it's a key focus point of mine recently:


 The victim

Does your job happen to you?
If you're a willing cog in the vast machinery of work, it's entirely possible that the things that occur all day feel like they're being done to you.
The alternative is to create a job where you create forward motion, where you do things to the job, not the other way around.
Take a look at the language you use to describe what happened at work yesterday, that's your first clue. If you're not the one creating the change, perhaps it's time to start.

10 Ways To Improve How You Manage Information

From SourceofInsight.com. This is a great article. I particularly like items one and three. Grab that item immediately out of your e-mail and put it on your to do list. As for item three I have a collection of favorites quotes, anecdotes etc. that I keep in my palm as a "mood changer". I read once on Christine Kane's website where she said we all have a mental list of our failures, bad memories etc. that we dredge up when we are feeling down and they make us feel worse. She suggested we should keep a "feel good" file to use to try and change our moods when we're down.

10 Ways to Improve How You Manage Information

14 January 2010 19 Comments

“The problem of information overload, therefore, may not be the quantity of it but our inability to know what to do with it.” – Danniel Tammet
One of the most important skills I mastered early on at Microsoft, is information management.  My ability to organize information directly impacts my success.  For me, information management is the key to daily productivity from researching to learning faster to keeping my email inbox empty.
When I first joined Microsoft, I found myself spending four or more hours on administration and email.  Then one day I decided … enough is enough.  From that point on, I refused to spend more than 30 minutes a day between email and administration overhead.  That day marked the start of my pursuit to find the best ways to handle and organize information.  While my motivation helped, it’s actually finding and creating effective techniques that really made the difference.
Here are ten of my favorite ways to manage information:

1. Factor reference from action.   Carve out action items, To Dos, and tasks from your incoming streams of information.  if it’s not an action, it’s reference.  I first learned this practice when I was dealing with information overload as a support engineer.  I ended up cementing the idea while working on our Microsoft Knowledge Base.  The Knowledge Base is a vast collection of information, where each article tends to be optimized around either action or reference.
2. Create lists.  Make a new To Do list each day and use it to organize your key action items for the day.  Create checklists for your common routines.
3. Create collections.  Put things into collections or think in terms of collections.  Consolidate your notes into a single collection that you access quickly, such as in a personal notebook, a Word document or etc.  Consolidate your thoughts or ideas into a single collection.  Consolidate reference examples of your heroes or stories you can use for inspiration.  Consolidate your “ah-has” into a single collection.  Note that by single collection, I don’t mean you have it all in a single document, although you can.  Instead, I’m thinking of collections of items, much like a photo album music collection.  By stashing things of a similar type, such as “idea” or “note” … etc., you can determine the best way to arrange that collection.  Maybe it’s a simple A -Z list or maybe you arrange it by time.  For example, when I keep a journal of my insights, and each time I get an “ah ha”, I write it down under the current date.  This way I can easily flip back through days and see my insights in chronological order.  While I could arrange them A – Z, I like having my most recent ideas or inspirations bubbled to the top, since chances are I’m finding ways to act on them.
4. Put things where you look for them.  Where ever you look for it, that’s where it should be.  If you keep looking for something in a certain place, either just put it there when you find it or add some sort of pointer to the actual location.   While you might logically think something belongs in a certain place, the real test is where you intuitively look for it.
5. Keep things flat.  Out of sight, out of mind holds true for information.  Avoid nesting information.  Keep it flat and simple where you can.  Think in terms of iTunes or a playlist.  A well organized playlist is easy to jump to what you need.
6. Organize long lists or folders using A-Z.    When you have long lists or big collections, then listing things A-Z tends to be a simple way to store things and to look things up fast.   Once a list gets long, A-Z or a numbered list is the way to go.
7. Archive old things.   When information is no longer useful for you, consider archiving it to get it out of your way.  This usually means having a separate location.  I’m a pack rat and I have a hard time letting things go, so I tend to archive instead.  It let’s me get things out of the way, and then eventually get rid of them if I need to.  Archiving has really helped me get a ton of information out of my way, since I know I can easily rehydrate it if I need to.
8. Bubble up key things to the top.  When you have a lot of information, rather than worry about organizing all of it, bubble up things to the top.  You can effectively have a quick, simple list or key things up top, followed by more information.  Keep the things up front simple.  This way you get the benefits of both exhaustive or complete, as well as simple.  Whenever you have a large body of information, just add a simple entry point or key take aways or summary up front.
9. Know whether you’re optimizing for storing or retrieving.  Distinguish whether you are storing something because you will need to look it up or refer to it a lot, or if you are simply storing it because you might need it in the future.  For information that I need to look up a lot, I create a view or I make it easy to get to the information fast.  For example, I might use a sticky note since I can quickly put it wherever I need to.  For a lot of information, you simply need a quick way to store it.  What you don’t want to do is have to work to hard, each time you need to file a piece of information.  This I is where having a place for things, using lists, and organizing information in a meaningful way comes in handy.  For most of my reference information, I organize it either by A-Z or by time.  This way I don’t have to think too hard.  I don’t create a bunch of folders for my email.  Instead, I just store it all flat so it’s easy to search or browse or sort.  For example, if I need to find an email from somebody, I simply sort my email by their name.  Just by asking the question whether you’re optimizing for fast filing or for fast lookup will get you improving your information management in the right direction.
10. Create views.  Create views for the information that you need to frequently access.  For example, you might put sticky notes of information that consolidate just the key things.  As an analogy, think of your music store versus your playlists.  You store might be a large collection organized A-Z, but your playlists are views that are more focused or have themes.  You can apply this metaphor to any of your information collections.

Well, there you have it.  Those are my top 10 favorite techniques for organizing information.  I’ve had the privilege of learning and modeling from many great colleagues and mentors.  The beauty is, I get to practice my information management skills every day while hacking my way through the information jungle.  These skills save me a ton of time whether I’m reading books, taking notes, learning something new, or just about any time I’m dealing with information.  It’s deliberate practice with immediate results.
Two More Ways to Improve Your Information Management
As a bonus, I’m including two additional techniques that significantly changed my game:

1. Periodically sweep things.   No matter how well you organize things, you’ll need to periodically sweep.  Sweeping simply means cleaning things up after the fact.  Periodically, allocating a block of time to go back through and clean up some of your messes.   Things will always get out of disorder over time.  Time also changes what’s important.  When you revisit things, after the fact, you also gain the benefit of hind sight.  Make the time now and then to make a pass through your collections.  Get rid of what you don’t need.  Archive things that you don’t currently need.  Restructure your information to support your usage scenarios.  This is one of those vital practices that really makes the difference if you actually do it.
2. Reduce friction.   Whenever you find that you’re working too hard to either find, organize, or use your information, pay attention to the friction.  Work to reduce the friction.   This might mean getting more information out of your way.  It might mean bubbling more things up to where you can find them quickly.  The key is to make it easy to use your information, and don’t let it become a burden.