Organising your work & OmniFocus

A few posts ago, I talked about the idea of organising your work in order to have clarity over what you need to do.  One such way is the simple paper and pen.  To be honest, I still revert back to that when I need to be free of distraction and get an idea, sketch, text or mind map out of my head and recorded somewhere.  Give me a yellow legal pad and pen and I'm happy.

On a side note, people always ask my why I use the more expensive yellow pads rather than cheaper white; its so that I can find my written notes amongst printed materials (which are practically always on white paper) when I'm working with hard copies. Call it a simple visual management system.

However when you need to organise this material, things get a little more complex and I really need a system to help me control it all. An online system gives one simple benefit; it's ability to edit the data within it and always show a 'clean' version. This is the downside of pen and paper, when you edit something, you can't clean up with original. A piece of paper fast becomes a clutter of ideas, scored out notes and modified sketches.

This clean data is what you want to see when you are in a position to act and do your work.

I use the excellent software programme OmniFocus (http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus) across my Mac, iPhone and iPad.  It allows you to filter it all down into your next actions organised into categories that are relevant to you, giving you the prompts to act in the right place at the right time.

And the other advantage of it being on the computer, it is transferrable between all of your devices.  If you are like me, the phone never leaves your side so you'll always have the data to hand.

So do yourself a favour, have a system and most importantly, use it.

Please see my website at www.managingforthefirsttime.com for more techniques, tips and advice on this topic and others.

Its not what you know, its who you know

A new take on the phrase "it's not what you know it's who you know".  It's who you know used to be about social classes, rich and poor, nowadays it is still about who you know rather than what you know.  The difference is that who you know is based on your networking and relationship building. It's about the opportunity you create and develop.

Furthermore, you can't know everything, it's what you know implies power and hold over others. That's not the way to work. You need others; you won't realise your full potential unless you engage with others and utilise them to reach the bigger goal.

And don't think this only works for teams. Think about the lone artist, the individual. Who is their muse, their support network, their encouragement and reminder of their goals?

Everyone needs someone else, figure out who you need to know and get to know them.

Please see my website at www.managingforthefirsttime.com for more techniques, tips and advice on this topic and others.

Automate your standard routine work with Apple Automator

In a recent post, I talked about the idea of reducing your standard routine work and increasing the time available to focus on projects (non-routine work).

With this in mind, wouldn't it be great to reduce the actual time spent doing the same repetitive tasks.

On your apple you can. Automator is a tool that remembers a set of sets in a process and repeats them with one click. Think of them as a Macro that you find in excel. Their possibility is probably as large as your imagination of application.

Wouldn't it be great to remove all the repetitive tasks you complete each day with one click for each? Check it out and see what it can do for you today.

Please see my website at www.managingforthefirsttime.com for more techniques, tips and advice on this topic and others.

When your IT tools do help you

This is my first dive into the huge (and often heated) discussion of what IT tools are there to help you.  This is such a subjective topic and before I start, I want to say one thing; Use what works for you.


I want to share with you what works for me.

Firstly, I use apple products.  I do also use a windows laptop (which I will refer to as my PC) and blackberry at work but my main activities other than the day to day PC based email and Microsoft office documents are done on my apple products.  I use 3: a macbook pro, an iPhone and an iPad.

Why do I use apple products?  Aren't they expensive you say?  Well yes they are, but they work consistently and beautifully.  If you are going to spend most of the day on a computer or mobile device of any description, wouldn't you want that experience to be as enjoyable as possible?

I pay more because I want to end the day as unstressed as possible having been as productive as possible.  I'm sorry, but Windows machines have never done that for me.  Apple products also become out of date less frequently and because they are generally well made, they last longer.  

You'll spend more up front but save money (and your sanity) in the longer term.

More next time on the software that I use.

Please see my website at www.managingforthefirsttime.com for more techniques, tips and advice on this topic and others.

Managing the Standard Work

I said in an earlier blog that you really need to find ways to minimise the routine Standard Work and focus on the non-routine Project Work as this is where the real value lies for you and your team.

Think of Standard Work as routine work that you know needs to be done regularly (either scheduled such as a weekly task or ad hoc such as a process triggered by an employee action).  You want to spend as little time on this type of work as possible but you must get it right.

Poor quality routine work gives you a poor reputation, decreases motivation of your team and possibly most importantly, creates more work in fixing the issue.  In my experience the size of the work will also have increased by the time you get it right as it will have led to further issues.  In effect, you have created more work for yourself.  Do you really want to spend your week fixing your own problems?

One effective way to manage this is through checklists.  They are often frowned upon by the 'educated' as something too simple and perhaps insulting to their intelligence.  Do pilots lack intelligence, doctors, astronauts?  They all use checklists every day, and frankly, I'm glad they do.  I'd hate for the quality of their work to not be good enough especially if I'm their customer that day.

Checklists have the advantage of ensuring two things:
1. You feel in control as you don't have to rely on your brain to remember all the steps (efficiency)
2. You don't forget a step whilst being distracted by the 20 other things on your mind or in the room (error proofing)

I recommend the book The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande that goes into this subject in convincing detail.

You need to accept that intelligence does not make you infallible, you are human after all.  So why not make things easier for you especially on the routine standard stuff.  Save your mental energy for the really tough challenging non-routine project work.

How to manage workload clarity

I talked last week about the need to get clarity on your work.  I talked about the types of work in order for you to try and group them into meaningful categories.  You can find the post here.

However how are you going to actually get control over this?

One way that has worked for me is the GTD, Getting Things Done methodology.  It follows a 5 step process:

1. Collection - Collect all the inputs into one place
2. Processing - Figure out what is means to you
3. Organising - Collate it into packages of actions with that vital "Next Action"
4. Reviewing - Keep on top of it all regularly with a weekly review
5. Doing - Focus on doing the right things, in the right way at the right time

This is a standard process for controlling your workload.  In being in control you have clarity, and with clarity, you can better choose what you want to spend your time focusing on.

I've been using this process for over a year now.  It took a few days to learn and implement.  However its scope and depth is great enough for me to still be developing and adapting it for my needs even today.

The best place to start is by buying the book, Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity by David Allen.  Alternatively check out his website www.davidco.com

You have to start with yourself and get clarity, get this right and you'll have the basis to better manage others.

The Time is Now

I wanted to share a post that I read by Brett Arends over at SmartMoney.com focusing on the future value of today's money (cleverly wrapped around the current hot topic of the iPad 2).

Its a challenging piece which really will make you think about the disposable income in the future.  However it also made me think about the idea of action (or more importantly inaction) today and its effect on the future.

What will inaction today cost you in the future?
The email you are avoiding (or the bulging email inbox that scares you to get in and deal with)
The coaching you really need to give to challenge a potentially disruptive employee behaviour
The weekly review which will ensure you have the right focus for the upcoming week's activities

In fact, anything that seems difficult today is likely to be more difficult tomorrow.  Deal with it as soon as you can, The Time is Now.