Yesterday, I went with the family to a Beltane party at a friend’s house. I took the picture above after the maypole dance, which is something I haven’t had a chance to do in years. I was always too busy, or felt that I was. That’s just foolish, life passes too quickly, especially so when you never take breaks.

I’ve also been "too busy" for this blog, and I want to remedy that. So, I’m going to let it get a bit more personal and chatty, while I make an effort to get back in the swing of writing regularly here and at programming blog.

Technorati Tags: maypole, portland

The two main areas of my life that I’d been neglecting up until then were my finances and my ability to get projects done. I always made good money, and I always managed to get a lot done, but somehow I rarely had anything to show in either area. My money was being wasted and my efforts as well.

I don’t use the GtD techniques exactly as presented, at least not all of them. If you listen to his audio seminar “Getting Things Done Fast”, you realize that he doesn’t intend that anyone really should. The ideas are meant to be adapted to the needs of the individual. As I’ve changed jobs and responsibilities, I’ve also had to adapt my working routine to reflect my changing needs. This is a good thing, since each time I do that, the system gets more integrated into my life.

Following are the four main elements my GTD practice that work astoundingly well for me.

Key 1: Zero-based

The big hassle in getting started with GTD is getting through all your piles of papers and tasks, giving them an initial organization. I think that’s where many give up. Don’t. For me, it was intensely liberating to finally get everything filed. I went out and bought two solid, good-feeling file cabinets along with a labeler and a pile of file folders. I threw out my old system and started fresh. Wow. That was one of the truly great decisions of my life.

Just the other day, my wife was wondering where she’d put her contact list. She hadn’t seen it in months, and she needed to write an old friend. “I don’t know”, I said, “if i filed it, It would be under ‘Dustin Contacts’”. I didn’t remember, and I didn’t need to remember. That’s crucial. Where would I file something like that? Because I wouldn’t throw it out, it must be in the files, and it could only be in one or two places. A trusted system saved (probably fruitless) searching and annoyance. I simply wouldn’t put something like that anywhere else.

Zero-based is more than just filing papers, of course. I spend the first hour of each morning processing everything in my in-boxes. The is both my physical inbox and my email boxes. I used to dread doing this, and honestly it took until a few months ago to get committed to clearing my email. My coworkers (when I had them) thought I was nuts, but I was always ahead of the game, knowing what people had asked and when. I didn’t have to constantly run searches on my own email inbox.

One great tip for me has been simply writing notes and throwing them into my inbox. Physical or email, doesn’t matter, either way I can trust that I’ll see the note within a day and take the proper action on it.

Key 2: The tool choice doesn’t matter

I am an optimizer and a geek. I love tools, gadgets and “cool stuff”. I spent the first six months of my GTD life trying all sorts of tools. Palm, Treo, “hiptop”, “Kinkless GTD”, each of them works great. It wasn’t until I picked one and stuck with it that I started really getting the rewards.

The problem is that when you are constantly changing, you lose the trusted nature of the system. At any time, you should trust your system absolutely. It should have no leaks or “alternates”. If it does, your system won’t give you the peace of mind you are after.

My current system is Daylite for tracking, inboxes for gathering, and DevonThink for long term project knowledge base and planning. I am mostly at one computer all day, so this works for me at the moment. When I worked in an office, I used the 3×5 index card “hiptop” method. The important thing for me was to commit totally to one and only one method at a time.

Key 3: Projects don’t have to be big

For a long time, I made the mistake of thinking that my GTD projects had to be big. “Get out of debt” and “landscape the yard” were the scopes I tended to use. These are still valid, but I’ve found a lot of value in lowering the bar significantly. David Allen’s definition of a project is something like “any goal that takes more than one step to achieve.” So now I have projects like “Spring Goodwill donation.” That one requires at least two steps, probably more. When there is no resistance to adding a new project, since after all I can always change my mind or move it to “someday/maybe”, I find that I capture the real tasks-of-life much more effectively.

Key 4: Regular review

I am not the best at this part, to be truthful. I tend to do it at the most biweekly. I think ideally it should be weekly at the longest.

Despite that, I find that regular review makes me consider the value of my projects much more analytically. I ask myself the important questions such as “Is this project really the best use of my time?”, “Could anyone else in the family do it?”, “Could I just pay someone to do this?”, or perhaps most importantly “Does this project move the family toward our long-term goals?”.

Technorati Tags: GTD, Getting things done, David Allen

One observation which is a bit different than expected is just how many people are out and about during the day. When I was working, I guess it was just natural for me to think that “everyone works during the day”. Now, I’m noticing that this is just not true. I attended a kickboxing class on Friday at 9:30am, full. I tried going to Costco at noon, and it was just as busy as it is on a Saturday afternoon.

Another observation is just how much time there actually is in a day. Cutting out the hour commute to Dotster sure adds a lot of productive time to my day.

I’m also quite pleased at how much better I am at my daily “contact” tasks. Call this person, email that one. I set aside a time every morning to take care of those tasks and then I do it. No coworkers come by to chat, no “fires” start burning out of control, and I get things done. Amazing and so satisfying.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, employment

I know they would not have happened if I was playing World of Warcraft. Just this week, I was reading a discussion on ask metafilter, where one person eloquently phrased my exact feelings:

Several years from now, no matter how you spend the next several years, there will be many, many things you wish you had accomplished between now and then. Playing WoW is an obvious way to make sure you don’t accomplish things that you’ll one day wish you had. It’s a regret factory.

Regret Factory

“It is a regret factory”, what a great turn of phrase.

I have friends who play, and I have had a similar addiction in the past. I used to play Ultima Online, and vividly remember how much of my life was quite literally wasted amassing enough gold to buy an in-game house. Then I went on vacation, didn’t login for a while, and my house disappeared. Poof. In one instant, I didn’t even have the thin enjoyment of a pretend house to show for my months of effort.

Or Success

Contrast that event with what I’ve received from a similar dedication to business. In the last few months, I’ve made several thousand dollars from clients. I’ve made contacts with interesting people who I can help and who will be able to help me in the future. I’ve learned so much about marketing myself, commitment to myself, and believing in myself.

The wonderful thing about all that is that nothing can take those accomplishments away. Yes, I could spend the money. But all the learning doesn’t go away. The contacts wouldn’t fade if I went on vacation for a couple weeks. It is additive, and positive.

Even more interesting, and totally from-the-heart-true is the fact that it is thrilling. Actually, it is just as thrilling, only in a more deep-down way, as the rush from beating a boss in a video game. Landing a client feels simply amazing. Getting that multi-thousand dollar check feels unbelievable.

Similar Effort

My point here is not to try to talk people out of playing games. That’s foolish, and would never happen. What I’m trying to convince you to do is to take a long hard look at what is obsessing you. Is it building to the future? Or will it all evaporate the moment you stop paying attention to it?

If it is the latter, maybe you should reconsider your passions.

Technorati Tags: world of warcraft, warcraft, wow, mmorg, business

Just out of college, living with way too many people, I took a sales job with Radio Shack. I made nothing. I just couldn’t push the terrible “Coco” computer to people who I knew would be better served by anything else.

The one time I did make a sale, I had my commission stolen by my manager. I quit and decided never to try that again. This lasted 19 years, until just this last month.

Last month I went on two client contact/pre-proposal meetings. I went representing my area of the company, and I ended up making real connections with the clients. It was natural, easy, and actually enjoyable.

What?

What about how bad I supposedly was at sales? Isn’t that sales? Didn’t I do a great job?

The fact is, that was sales, and I did do a great job. The most amazing thing is that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I guess it is time to change my beliefs about myself and grow. I’m not as limited as I thought I was.

Heh, I guess the real kicker for growth will be when we actually close one or more of the deals. Until then I have some learning to do.

Technorati Tags: personal growth, sales

Now, snickering never feels nice, but in this case it made me really think about what caused that reaction, and to a certain degree how my financial growth is distancing me from many of my coworkers.

In fact, I used to hide my reading of books like that from coworkers and bosses. I felt like I was putting on airs or something. Like I would never be wealthy anyway, and that reading these books was akin to “get rich scheming”, that bugaboo label of poor people everywhere. That was before I really began my mental shift from wage earner to entrepreneur. From paycheck-to-paycheck to actual financial planning.

These days, I read tons about wealth and moneymaking. I listen to business audiobooks almost every day on my 90 minute commute. I don’t hide the books anymore, and I am finding a very interesting reaction.

Reactions

My coworkers are almost universally dismissive. At least my peers are. This is strange to me, since these are professionals making decent corporate money. I don’t know their salaries, but I’d be shocked if some weren’t in the low six figures, and most are probably in the $75-90K range. They are definitely making enough that they could be investing and taking an interest in investment. But they don’t, or most don’t anyway.

However, those above me in the corporate food-chain are interested. Actually, I think it makes them more interested in me. For example, I like the Financial Times newspaper, and it is often sitting on my desk. I think it is interesting that the most successful salesperson in the company made a point of talking with me about how much he likes that paper too. My boss has made a point of talking with me about some of the tactics I’ve learned from such books as “The Single Best Investment: Consistently Creating Wealth with Dividend Growth” (Lowell Miller) and “Opportunity Investing: How To Profit When Stocks Advance, Stocks Decline, Inflation Runs Rampant, Prices Fall, Oil Prices Hit the Roof, … and Every Time in Between” (Gerald Appel).

An Observation

I’ve read many times that you can predict how much money a person makes by observing his friends. Generally, people make within 10% of their friends. I think this is part of how that happens. Subtle social disapproval and enforcement of the norms.

Technorati Tags: wealth, langemeier, embarrassment

From “Think And Grow Rich! by Napoleon Hill:

Never in the history of America has there been so great an opportunity for practical dreamers as now exists. The hardships of the recent tough and unsettled economic times have put many people back at square one. A new race is about to be run. The stakes represent huge fortunes which will be accumulated within the next few years. The rules of the race have changed because we now live in a CHANGED WORLD that definitely favors those who have had little or no opportunity to win under the conditions existing recently, when fear often paralyzed personal and economic growth and development.

Technorati Tags: quotes, napoleon hill, opportunity

I work in “the internet field”, for one of the largest domain name registrars in the world. I’ve pretty much always worked in a similar environment, one where IT and development were a huge part of the company. I now see that each one of them had this one thing in common, the presence of self-proclaimed heroes in these departments.

These are the people who will pull all-nighters to bring in the project on time, or to bring the servers back up after a disaster. Usually men, at least in my experience, they are the ones who know everything in their domain, and they’ve made themselves absolutely indispensable.

Probably this is not unique to IT/Development, I’d be surprised if it was.

I love these people, I admire these people, and I used to be one of these people. I was the guru, the self-proclaimed master who was too busy to extricate himself from the work to bother documenting what I was doing. I was the unsubtle gatherer of what I thought was job security. But I’m not one anymore. I’m still knowledgeable, and I still work overtime occasionally. But I no longer make a point of volunteering and martyring myself for doing so. Instead, I’ve passed that torch.

I have noticed a couple things since dropping the hero persona. One is that I don’t really receive any less rewards or appreciation, possibly I receive more. Another observation, somewhat surprising initially, is that someone else always appears to play the hero role. I make a point of letting them do so. They love it, and I appreciate their work. My family also appreciates me working fewer hours.

In fact, I now believe that this is the natural order of things in companies like mine. I hope it doesn’t sound too cynical, since I think of it as a positive, maturing process. The young people learn a lot in their self-imposed trial-by-fire. Hopefully they will eventually mature, realizing that they are walling themselves into their positions. You can’t simultaneously be absolutely indispensable and get a promotion. The company needs the “heroes” where they are.

Technorati Tags: hero, employment