WebedtecH

Journaling is an excellent way to track your activities, capture thoughts and ideas, and generally empty your head when necessary. Almost all of the popular productivity techniques involve some sort of “brain dump” or “mind like water” philosophy. The dilemma comes to separating work from home. I’ve heard it advocated to not separate them, but rather keep one journal for everything you do. Personally, growing up in the IT field I have a hard time with the “single point of failure” concept of that model. So how to proceed without carrying the Encyclopedia Britannica with you everywhere?

1. Use a PDA. I was an avid Sony Clie user for a number of years and relied on an application to capture my notes and synchronize them with my handheld and my PC. In concept, a sound idea. In practice not so much. I found that, even as fast as I am on the handheld, I was never as fast capturing information as I am with pen and paper. For others, I know this works well. For me, time to keep searching.

2. Keep everything online. I’m at a computer for the majority of my day, so it’s feasible for me to keep my journaling on the computer and work from there. Unfortunately, reality creeps in and I need some esoteric piece of trivia when I’m nowhere near my machine and my vaunted processes come tumbling down. (Well, maybe not tumbling down but frustrating none the less.)

3. Pen and paper. No question about it. Even as technology oriented as I am the pen is mightier than the microprocessor for this task. Your mileage may vary. (Now if we can just get over my pen hangups…but that’s for another posting.)

Now that I’ve settled on my capture tool of choice, how to capture things in a way that works for home and for work? Right now, and I do mean right now because Darwin is alive and well in my organizational processes, I’ve settled on a work journal and a non-work journal (submit a better name if you have one, please.)

Working the work journal

Each morning I start with a clean, fresh page in the work journal. It’s one of the Black n’ Red notebooks, roughly 8″ x 5″ and about 200 pages. I like the size and the appearance of the book since we all know it’s better to look good than to feel good. (Thank you Fernando!) I capture a list of the meetings I have for the day and begin line iteming the tasks that absolutely, positively have to get done that day.

Now, as with many of us, my day is riddled with and driven by interruptions. Each time I change to a new topic for the day I start a clean page in the journal and date it for that day. If I complete that activity and have to circle back to it for extra work later in the day I just add to that topic’s page. I also add a line on my first page of the day for each topic I address. Doing that gives me a table of contents for the day as well as an easy way to backtrack through everything I did at the end of the week when it comes time to submit status reports. Once the journal fills up it gets tagged with the date range it covers and filed up in the overhead bins for future reference if necessary. Simple and straightforward.

Non-work. Is there such a thing?

Balancing work and home can be the toughest management challenge of them all. Family members typically don’t take kindly to performance reviews and will nag the heck out of you if you don’t deliver on your promised commitments. (”But Dad…you said we’d go to the movies tomorrow! It is tomorrow!)

I follow the same approach as I do with the work journal, but I’ve found some interesting natural variances between the two.

1. Interruptions are much fewer. Believe it or not but the number of interruptions you need to actually journal versus the ones that just need to be addressed (note to self: clean bubble gum off dog) are much fewer. The primary focus seems to be on task driven commitments, scheduling changes, and notes…lots and lots of notes.
2. Privacy concerns. A personal journal tends to collect information that you might not want to share with the rest of the world in case the book is lost. I’ve started “encrypting” my personal information in my non-work journal as well as in my work journal. For example: my passwords are usually a composite of four or five different prefixes and four or five different suffixes. Rather than writing the actual password I can just capture (1,5) which means prefix 1 and suffix 5. Nice and confusing to everyone but me.
3. Term of service. I’ve discovered that my non-work journal has a much longer term of service than my work journals, since I can’t keep the archived non-work journals with me for reference I tend to keep more information in the current personal journal. Based on this…a bigger book is bought. Thicker at least.

Wow…that’s a lot to start with. Next time I’ll explain my choices in books and some recommendations I have for making them more useful when it comes to managing people and projects. (crossing off blog posting on my list…woohoo!)

Everybody had little foibles that they sometimes hide, sometimes revel in. Mine happens to be pens. I love collecting and using them. Not only the fancy, high end ones but well design inexpensive ones hold just as much thrill. I’ll often find myself switching pens in mid-document just because the one I’m using just isn’t doing it for me.

The reason why I’m sharing this tidbit is because there is a personality type managers run into that share this behavior. It is the person who needs “change” all the time. Think about the person who, for all good intentions, is “fixing” your processes and procedures, always looking for new ways of doing things, and in general being a positive but disruptive influence. What can you do as a manager to get the most from this type of person while still helping them to feel satisfied with what they are doing?

Find things for them to fix

This type of person typically loves the challenge of fixing a “broken” process or procedure. If you have something you think could potentially be improved, turn them loose on it and ask for their recommendations. It’s important though they understand you may not implement all their recommendations but you are still interested in hearing what they have to propose.

Reinforce what can’t change

In many cases there are processes and procedures that cannot change no matter what recommendations are made due to external factors, costs, or other driving reasons. These instances require you as the manager to redirect the changer as soon as possible to other places they can make a difference before they waste time and energy on something that won’t make a difference and will leave them feeling frustrated. Help them understand that their energy and insights are better applied on another area.

Make them justify

If they are interested in changing processes and procedures and you sense there is a potential benefit from their ideas, don’t just accept them off the cuff. Make them package them, think them through to completion, and present them as coherent, well analyzed plans rather than coffee napkin ideas. Not only are you helping them develop the skills of executing their ideas to completion (something many rapid changers have an issue with) but also encouraging the communications abilities in them to get their changes recognized and accepted.

Now, where’s my fountain pen?

Every so often we’re called upon to do truly creative work. I’m not referring to watercolors or pastels but rather that work that takes us out of our comfort zone and into an area of improvisational thinking to come up with solutions, ideas, or as Gallagher often says, “totally new concepts!” (If you’re not familiar with Gallagher go buy a watermelon and a sledge hammer and do what comes naturally.)

The biggest hurdle for many is getting that creative engine fired up, getting the juices flowing, whatever old salt you want to use to explain it. It comes down to this. At that moment in time you need to think differently than you normally do. Sounds a little more complicated now, doesn’t it.

Know what kind of thinker you are

When you’re firing up the engine, you have to know what type of engine you are. Are you a visual thinker who thrives on whiteboards and mind maps or are a linear thinker who lives by lists and outlines. There’s all different types of thinkers and you need to spend some time to figure out how you think most effectively. For example, I’m a mind mapper because I like to let my mind run completely loose and capture whatever comes out (no matter how messy it is) and then go back to organizing mode when I’m done the creative part.

Find the key

Every creative problem or challenge has a key. A single statement, a problem to solve, a definition of a hurdle, whatever it is it will help you focus your mind and start your engine. Identify the key to the challenge you face and capture it in a way that you can refer back to it over and over again to restart your engine if you stall.

Take the scenic route

The most direct path between two points may be a straight line but it’s definitely not the most creative one. Give yourself the latitude to follow your streams of consciousness for a while and see where they lead you. You may find something completely new or just wind up down a rabbit hole and need to back out. Either way you have a good outcome since you have found a good idea or eliminated a bad one.

Record your trip

Capture things immediately. Don’t get too far down the road from an idea without recording it in some manner whether it’s on your whiteboard, your mind map, your outline, or your coffee napkin. Just capture it. If you are spending creative fuel trying to remember the good ideas you’ve had while trying to have more, you’re just wasting that precious energy. Write it down and keep moving down the road.

Enjoy the adventure

The chances to be truly creative are those rare opportunities for many to break out of the daily grind and journey into a place that’s exciting and a bit scary. Pack your bags and be ready for the next chance to start your creative engine!

On my way to work this morning my trusty SUV rolled over 177777 miles. Now that’s not a big milestone, but a neat one to see on the odometer. It got me to thinking about personal milestones and how we measure where we are in life.

So often we try to measure our lives and careers by the big milestones: 10 years of service, 25 years of service, VP of something or other, etc. When managing projects you’re always taught to break the big tasks down into smaller ones that are achievable. The question naturally arises as to what you can do to break these big goals down into smaller ones that you can make happen.

This is where “natural milestones” come in. As a personal manager, you need to find those times when you cross natural thresholds and can take a bit of time to measure and assess where you stand and where you’re going. Even the hamster climbs out of his wheel every so often (unfortunately, he finds out he’s at the same place he started.) Now, I’m not saying use things such as the weekly review in GTD parlance for this. I’m saying be aware of your life and those points where you know you’re in a state of transition. It could be completion of a big project at home, a major milestone for someone else in your life (child’s graduation perhaps) or just a point in time when the pendulum is changing direction.

Understanding your personal milestones and being able to assess where you stand at any given time helps you learn how to do that with the people you manage. Developing a sense as to what their milestones are will assist you in guiding them in the right directions, or back on the correct path if they’re straying. After all, nobody wants to be a hamster, do they?

I’ve been blogging in various forms for a few years now on different sites and various topics (can’t be much more obtuse than that now can I) and an interesting opportunity has come up.  Slacker Manager, a site I’ve been following for over a year now has recently undergone a change in management and is looking for a new author(s).

I’m not sure why but I find the idea very intriguing.  The question becomes…do I have it in me to write consistently that often and maintain a high level of quality?  I’m guessing there’s only one way to find out.

Onward Pancho!