SpenceSmith

———————————
(Written via notes capured in Notes by Inglorious Apps. Posted via Poster by Gabriele Nizzoli – all on my Palm Pre. Please excuse any brevity, terseness or type-o’s. Thank You!)

http://michaelhyatt.com/what-to-do-when-you-are-forced-to-wait.html

(Photo Credit: Me.  When I see my daughter ride and see the smile on her face; you can see her passion!)

While traveling this week, I had a “small world” experience and ran into a good friend whom I had not talked to in a few weeks.  I had just been thinking about him and it was a real boost to see him.  We got to chat about life, family, jobs, things we’d like to invent – it was really energizing for me.  One thing that our conversation centered on was being passionate about what you do in life.  It may seem like a “no duh” type thing, but it is so easy to get tied up in the day to day rat race and not take time out to think about this.

It really got me thinking.

Are you passionate about what you are doing?  Have you connected with someone recently who has given you a boost?  Critical things to think about as we kick off a new year.

• I’m happy to see that Nancy is still trying.  Please view her video and help her out.
• Contrary to my rant of awhile back, I’m still using the Palm Pre – and happy I am.  It still is a great productivity tool; the bestone out there for people who truly want to concor “Life moves fast, don’t miss a thing.”
• I’ve had some of the largest productivity challenges of my life lately with my work.  I’m pondering doing some writing to help me think through them, and make it educational for others at the same time.
• Related to the above, I recently figured out that there are a lot of you monitoring this blog.  What can I do to be of service to you?  What would you like to see / read more of?  Palm Pre? Productivity? Business?  Let me know.  Comment here, or, email me: jeffrey@fixyourtodolist.com

The Albuquerque Marriott

I felt very compelled to write this quick post about keeping your dreams and desires in sight throughout your life.

I am on the road for work this week.  I generally stay in Marriott’s lower end hotels when I am traveling for work in order to save the company money.  I do this as usually* they are consistent, including their beds, which I have generally good luck sleeping on.  On this trip, because I am speaking at a conference tomorrow and I have been on the road the whole week, I chose to stay at a full service Marriott tonight in order to assure a good night’s sleep.

As I came in to the building and got into my room, I was overcome with a wave of feelings – happiness, comfort, excitement, a feeling of “you are back” or “you have arrived.”  I had forgotten how much I love staying in a really nice Marriott; why I use to love to travel for work (as, at another job, the nicer Marriott’s were the norm).  I told myself that I need to remember to keep my desires more in focus and work on satisfying them more often when I can.  It is so easy to get wrapped up in day to day life, day after day, and forget to treat yourself; to enjoy life.

Enjoying life is so important as life is ticking away.  This might include making sure you focus on your children, your religion or your hobbies.  Related, I was pleased tonight to see that my daughter is taking time out of her busy life to get back to one thing she enjoys (and wants to build a passion about), and that is her blog about her dog.  If you enjoy dogs, check it out; take some time out for you.

* Unfortunately, post 9/11, Marriott seems to have lost their edge and desire to really be “the best” and I have had consistency problems with them.  However, the Townplace Suites I have been staying at, and fortunately tonight’s full service Marriott in Albuquerque, seem to be up to par.

Just like most weeks, this week was another intense one keeping everything moving forward.  Let’s wrap up the week, and series, and talk about Friday:

• Had conference call right out of the shoot.  While waiting for it to start, banged through the DCL.  Being that I keep my inbox (well, inboxes, see my other post), at zero everyday, this was a breeze.
• Transitioned to my Next Action list (Projects Widget), and managed to hit about five different projects.  Again, I date things for follow-up, so three different projects popped up for follow-up, and I got them all done.
• The rest of the day consisted of work on one project.  I was able to get that one wrapped up; a nice way to end the week.

So, all in all, I think this was a relatively good week.  I helped a lot of people move forward on their projects.  Also, I moved forward on * all * of my projects (even if it was a quick glance during the Weekly Review to assure they have follow-up dates on them so they will pop up in the Projects Widget) even with all the interruptions.

What were the lessons learned from this week?

• Quick Capture Interruptions.
  • As I think I commented about this week, interruptions are the real killer.  You have to capture them and keep your focus.  I didn’t do as well in this area as I like and will need to focus on that more next week.
• Break the addiction to email, IM and Twitter.
  • These are all major sources of interruptions.
• Block out more time, especially when you have projects that require big chunks of un-interrupted time.
  • This, along with corralling interruptions, will be my goals for next week.

That wraps up this series for this week.  On the onset of this series, I had said that I had two goals for it:

1) To give you some ideas / tips / tricks on managing multiple projects.

2) For me to track what I’m up to – helping me see progress as well as possibly see where I can improve.

I hope this series helped you out; it did me and I have some great goals for next week to help boost productivity even further.  Make it a great, relaxing weekend!

Small problem kept me up till midnight (hence what I think is a really hilarious graphic above – the corporate icon symbol, the warning – that is actually on GE’s support page!).  That, plus an overcast day today made it a rough day. 

Here’s what I did to get through it and make progress:

• Americano!
• DCL - I kind of just blew through this.  Email traffic heavy, but I pressed through to get them out of the was because I really wanted to make progress on my large “report” project.
  • Because I glanced at my calendar (as apart of my DCL), I saw that commitments on two projects were coming up – so I made sure I was ready for those.
• Successfully focused my my report; good progress made.

Signing off for the day.  Stick a fork in me; I’m done!

As I’ve written about in the past, flexibility is a must to effective and relaxed productivity.  And, as I reflected on at the end of the day today, capturing and containing stuff is a must!  Here’s Wednesday:

Americano (this one is a deal breaker; I lived above – no flexibility for me on this one first thing in the AM!  Well, I lied again, I don’t go to Starbucks very often; instead, I bought one of their home espresso machines and keep plenty of beans in stock.  My Fiancé is an incredible Barista!

On to the Daily Check List….

• Voice Mail (had call from internal client and returned it immediately as I feel that if they left a voice mail, as opposed to email, they are desiring a call back sooner than later.  Glad to be of service to Mr. WW!)
• Check e-Mail (Though I still believe that this being my primary form of communication and job for my employer, I’m starting to feel I’ve become way to addicted again – it comes and goes – to checking email.  I feel like I’m in the movie “You’ve Got Mail!”)

Side Note: Wow; crazy day already (though, this is not unusual – hence why I want to write more about relaxed productivity).  Several things, a couple via IM, popped up and put me off down some different paths.  Fortunately, and as usual, they are related to current projects, so, progress has been made.  If they were not related to current projects, I would have Quick Captured them and got back on track.

Wrapped up DCL.  Wrapping up the “different paths” from above.  Then, I’ll stop, take a couple of deep breaths, and regroup to make sure I get my focus back.  Decided to drop the blogs today; especially with how busy it is today.

(Later that day…) Well, “wrapping up” really never happened.  Today ended up being a “chase several fronts” day and I now am noting that I didn’t make much progress on “Big Rock” projects.  Some, progress mind you – I have one thing checked off.  And, I’m going to SHUT OFF email, IM and focus on getting one more “notch in my belt.” for the day.

Lesson of the day, or at least something to ponder – how to stay pertinent and relevant in today’s connected society, without letting it eat you (and the important stuff you need to be working on) alive.  One things I didn’t do as well today as I usually do — and it’s pretty much in line with David Allen’s advice, capture everything that hits your plate, get it contained, get it off you mind and get back to -a- mind like water and -b- the important task at hand.  That ultimately needs to be my goal for tomorrow, use Quick Capture much more.

14 projects, 150+ tasks, yet this is what’s on my radar scope for today – exactly what I need to be working on.  I love my product!