Update on Do It Tomorrow - Part Two

The email solution I've been longing for...

Taking the principles of Do It Tomorrow (DIT), Mark Forster's great book on Time Management, I have successfully applied them to managing my email and use my email application effectively to assist me.

OK here's a quick five on the concepts:

• Day One - Declare a backlog and move the entire contents of your inbox into a special folder called "Backlog" - ensure your inbox is empty! [Tackle this backlog as your Current Initiative - the first thing you do each day is spend a few minutes chipping away at it]
  
• TURN OFF YOUR EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS! Its nothing but a distraction that you use to stop you working on what's in front of you. If you are in a service role then you might not have this luxury, but you just have to apply the triage process faster and keep moving - control your email, don't let it control you!
  
• If you follow the other concepts in DIT then you will get out of the habit of constantly scanning of your inbox, as you will know what you have to achieve each day. We often let our inbox determine our day and run us all over the park. I set my email to poll the server only every 15 minutes, rather than every 5.
• During the day you scan emails for things at are Immediate or Same-day actions, otherwise you leave the rest until tomorrow.
• You "Do" yesterday's email each day, to me this is doing one of three things
  - Delete it (Doesn't affect my life)
  - Archive it (Nice to know, might need it later)
  - Schedule it for action (I've got to do something with that!)
• The important thing is that you schedule it for action, don't dive into it then and there unless commonsense suggests the action can be best dealt with by a one line reply etc.
• Ensure you empty yesterday's email from your inbox - so you never had more than one day's worth of email in your inbox at the end of each day - wow!!.

So I use Lotus Notes (sigh...) but this can be easily applied to most decent email apps.

• I archive and delete constantly when I'm "doing" my email - it took me no time at all to develop the ability to triage an email in less than three seconds - I've only got three choices!
• I have an archive for each month - no massive taxonomy of folders for filing emails - email apps have simple search functions that work perfectly well. Knowing which month an email came in, I have no problem in finding emails again.
• I use the "Flag for Follow-up" feature on Lotus Notes when I need to schedule an email for action. I can set a date for follow-up - briefly consulting my Filofax for the next day with spare capacity. I also have the option to enter a brief note against the flag if there is something inspirational I want to do with it and might forget it later.
  
  
• Then I move the email out of my inbox (very important!) into the second folder I have "Processed for Action". I now can have an empty inbox.
• I can then look at my Follow-up list in Lotus Notes and have a list of emails for action today - fantastic!
  
  
• When I have finally actioned an email, I remove the flag with just one click. I then go through and clean up my "Processed for Action" folder by archiving anything that doesn't have a flag - a two second job.
• Its simple, elegant and most importantly - IT WORKS!!
  

Negotiating your next salary package - some real advice from an expert

I recently received a great insight from a master of career management, John Baker, Senior Vice President at Right Management.

My Question: Whats the best way to say you want to work from home in a job interview?

JB - Before raising your work/life concerns with the employer, you'd best be convinced that they are on your side. I'd hold the question until you know that you are the one they want. Then I'd raise it in an exploratory fashion, but load it with all your rationale from your previous assignments. My clients have their best negotiating success when we attend to both the content and timing of their requests.

RG - I'm also curious as to how to enter into a negotiation dialogue once an employer makes a job offer. In my experience the actual offer comes from someone lower down in HR with a "take it or leave it" attitude, or a suggestion that it will take a mountain of bureaucracy to change their standard terms.

JB - Getting to the negotiation discussion is a bit of a tricky transition, as you rightly sense. If your scenario holds true, then it's important to remember that the HR rep's presentation of the offer with Take It or Leave it attitude is simply that, attitude. To be fair, it's not just that they might be trying to attain your talent at the lowest possible cost (as is their corporate mandate), but that, in HR, they simply want to get the deal done, so they can be on to the next thing.

In fact, it's often the case that when HR and the hiring manager get to the offer stage, they start to fantisize that their work is over. They've done all the screening, the interviewing, the selection and they've chosen you! So, of course your continued engagement on questions about the job as well as questions about the offer itself represent a escalating inconvenience, and unnecessary delay.

Nevertheless, your right to pursue your request for adjustments to the offer is well understood among professionals, especially in your field.

The key steps to getting to a negotiation meeting are these:

1. Once the offer is delivered (frequently by phone call), express your appreciation and enthusiasm.
2. Gather any additional data about the offer that you may have been curious about, including details of the retirement, bonus, incentive and medical provisions, etc. The person delivering the offer may not have ready access to this level of detail, so you may need to establish how and when they might get that info to you. But remember, this is just you asking for more detail from them. DO NOT NEGOTIATE anything at this time.
3. Thank them for allowing you to pursue your questions, thank them once again for the offer, and ASK FOR SOME TIME to consider it more thoroughly. After all, this is an important decision for you, and you have some important people in your life to include in the news before you give your response, etc. How much time you ask for is largely dependent upon cultural and industry norms. In the US, you can always ask for 24 hours, but often you should ask for 2-3 days before responding.
4. ASK FOR AN APPOINTMENT to deliver your answer; in person, if possible. In other words, don't settle for just a time when you will call them back with your answer. You deserve a full discussion of the offer, and these things are always much more effective if conducted face to face.
   

It's during this appointment that you will conduct your negotiation session. And your question about flexibility and working from home might be one of several items on your list to raise with them at that time. The actual details of conducting the negotiation meeting is a much more lengthy topic. But remember, if you are successful in setting the appointment, then this is now your meeting. You will control the agenda and set the tone. They are simply providing you with the time you asked for, often thinking that you're just coming in to give them your answer. How you set the stage for this meeting and conduct the various elements of it can determine not only the immediate outcome, should you accept the offer, but also your professional standing with that employer for the duration of your tenure.

RG - Take that to the bank! Fantastic advice John thanks very much.

A fantastic book I always quote

This book by Frank and Ayesha Jones is simply an epiphany. [Forgive me for looking at this from a Professional Male point of view, with a stay at home wife and school age children - interpret as you need to]
It makes a critical set of observations about modern middle-classed lifestyles:

- You own a big house in the suburbs (because thats where big houses are), so you could get the big back yard for your children to play in safely and it cost a lot of money, so you have a big mortgage;
- You therefore have to spend a long time each day commuting to a suitably paid job to service said mortgage;
- Therefore you never see you kids because you're out the door before they are awake in the morning and they're in bed when you get home;
- Except on the weekends of course! But then you spend all weekend mowing the lawns in your big back yard and ensuring its upkeep;
- You also have a second car because you drive your car (with just you in it) to work all day and your wife needs one to run from the suburbs to where the good shops and schools are;
- Its all so expensive and that really adds stress to your lifestyle, so you try to deal with this by spending money on your kids, wife, yourself, but then that adds stress;

OK so you know the score and we probably don't all have ticks against every statement but some will.

So what do they suggest?
- You don't like the commute, so move closer to your job! Consider living in the inner city or wherever you can achieve a reduced commute so you see you kids in the morning and read them a story at night.
- You could obviously change jobs to find one that doesn't pose such a commuting problem. Ahh, but that could reduce your earnings and you have a mortgage;
- Downsize your house and reduce your mortgage! Why not? You spend the time you should be spending with your family looking after bricks, mortar and closely cropped lawns;
- So you consider moving into an inner city apartment - now you walk to work, out the door at 8:30am, walking your kids to school, at your desk at 9am and no need for two cars;
- Your kids don't have a backyard that you feel obliged to fill with expensive swings and slides etc - when there are perfectly good examples at your local park! You now have the time to take your kids to the park, when you were previously mowing lawns. They meet other children and learn to play together, rather than those vile rich kids that never have to share because they have one of every toy imaginable. OK so your wife gets down the park with the kids rather than stay imprisoned at home, looking after a home twice the size it needs to be. She meets other friends and develops a network of local friends and other mothers - I think this used to be called a "Community"... I remember those, and we wonder what made them disappear...
- OK so your kids might also spend more time indoors because you live in an apartment (or maybe a terraced house with a small backyard), but ask any child - they would rather spend time with Dad reading stories and doing jigsaws, than spending hours on their own in your big backyard.

OK so I have summarised a concept that was big enough to fill a book and there are probably many holes in my examples. But find your own truth in this concept and make your own groove - I think there is a lot of wisdom in the whole idea and it has lead me to question what I really want out of life - its lifestyle and its not as expensive as you think.

If anyone reads this and decides to toss in their job and run naked down the beach (with reference to Reginald Perrin) - please let me know. I might bump into you down at the park with your kids...

Check this out

Talk about being flexible in business! Amazing... keep watching until the end.
Credits to PMThink

http://view.break.com/368159 - Watch more free videos

Update on Do It Tomorrow - Part One

So I've been into "Do It Tomorrow" (DIT) for almost a month now.

What have I learnt?

• You get out of it what you put into it
• I have now cracked my email management issues!!
• I now know what a work diary is really for
• This is not a "read once" kind of book...

I bought a Filofax last year in response to having dropped one too many PDA's and wanting something that wouldn't reboot itself wiping clean all the pages. To be honest I was carrying this flash looking, leather bound thing around with me everywhere looking like a Mormon swinging a bible, but I wasn't really getting any great value out of it.

Well after reading DIT I finally feel I have harnessed the value of my filofax.

1. Each day in my diary has my daily routine listed on the bottom of the page. This includes the standard email, voicemail, paperwork and also some systems I need to check/input into daily. There are also some of my 'little and often' tasks that could do with a little attention each day.
   
2. All time-fixed arrangements (meetings, calls etc) get entered and become the things I have to work around to complete my daily list.
3. On the top of my page I have a double ruled margin to show my task diary for the day.
4. At the end of the previous day I draw a line under my task diary list and this becomes the space for any immediate and same-day tasks.
5. Not shown on the diagram, but I can work out how much 'Unscheduled' (aka free) time I have to tackle my jobs for the day. I can also estimate how much time each activity on my list should take and reconcile the two to see if I have enough time in the day to tackle all I have committed to. If not, then I need to slide things onto future dates.

So then as I go through the day I tick off things as I complete them. I sometimes pencil in big tasks to make sure I have a decent space for completing them. If at the end of the day I haven't completed something I put a circle, rather than a tick, against it to show that is missing the big tick.

But really, how has it gone?
Well I started strongly...
I found myself diving back into the book; initially to check things like "What does it mean when you 'DO' email?"; but then I was looking at the chapters around "Am I committed to doing this activity?" because I found I had too many things in my day and activities were starting to slip.
So far I have only declared my initial 'backlog' and am contemplating whether I ought to declare another one.
One of the difficulties I had was identifying my Current Initiatives (CI) - some of the things I had on my list of CI's were pipedreams at best and the moment I gave them some time in my day found that I wasn't really ready to bite off more than I could chew. I have found it an interesting exercise to say the least.
Overall I feel I really do have a system for dealing with my day and I am yet to fully master it.
One thing about DIT and my filofax - it really does need to be attached to my hip if I am to capture tasks and schedule them properly.

In Part Two I am going to rub people's noses in it by telling them how I have mastered email and will never again be ruled by such a cruel and heartless waste of time!

European ARPU boosted by mobile internet takeup

Interesting to see what this will do to the fortunes of the European mobile industry which has struggled since its glory days around five years ago.

Mobile data, specifically mobile internet take-up, is starting to have the desired effect on declining operator ARPU [Average Revenue Per User] in Western Europe, according to research firm Analysys.

Most European operators will struggle to halt the decline in voice ARPU, says the firm. However, progress in mobile internet should ensure total ARPU for the whole region grows by 10.2 pre cent over the next five years.

Will this drive your mobile device to be a phone in name only?

Read the full article here on www.telecoms.com

Extreme Telecommuting - Tim Ferriss meets Eco-warrior

Mark Ontkush has written another great article on the extended beauties of Telecommuting. One of my UK colleagues lives in Paris as her own choice - if she needs to get to London for an occassional meeting then a ferry ride or jumping on the Eurostar is an option (OK not 100% green but the idea of "not being in the office" not necessarily equaling "working from home" is well made). She recently took up a friends offer to house sit in Nice for two months - no one would have noticed where she was.

Read Mark's full blog entry
ecoIron - All these whirring boxes.: Extreme Telecommuting - It's Not What Dad Did
Here's the original CNN Money article

It smacks of a similar theme championed by Tim Ferriss in his book "The four hour work week". Tim runs his own company from wherever he happens to be in the world - outsourcing personal tasks where he can and cutting down on the daily office grind tasks.

At last a time management tool that actually works - goodbye "To Do" lists!

I'm a convert to Mark Forsters great book on Time Management "Do It Tomorrow".

Four days into it and I am instantly feeling the benefits and know that my work delivery has already improved.

What's the quick five about it?

• Key thing is to ensure your days have a beginning and an end - the best way to do this is to map out your day, the day before. Not rocket science so far...
• Anything that turns up on the day, unless its going to cause major problems - gets done tomorrow. Everything... Be strong... Everything!
• Turn off your email notifications because you'll look at todays emails - tomorrow [and I guarantee that going through a day's worth of emails in one hit in the morning, will take about one tenth of the time it usually takes you during the day]
• Focus on getting the list you put together yesterday, done today. Don't let anything else come between you and your goal.
• So you have got something that needs doing and you've put it in your diary to do in 3 days time - no sweat. You're 99% confident that you'll actually get it done on that day because you'll be working off a closed (not openended) list. People will actually cope with a 3 day leadtime because it will mean a 3 (not 4 or 5) day leadtime.

OK I could go on, but I have found it very liberating after just four days. Half the things that I thought were urgent and I only got to the next day - I didn't have people chasing me for after all. Actually the fact that I got to them the next day and completed them, meant that the turnaround was probably better than had they been added to an openended "to do" list!

Today being the end of the month, my monthly report was due. I actually got it in today! I've got to say that my boss is so used to chasing these the following week from myself and my peers - that mine turning up today would have caught him quite off guard.

One other big thing was, whe you start, take all your backlog and sling it in a folder where you don't have to look at it. Then everyday when you start the day - the first thing you do is spend some time working on your "Current Initiative", in this case the backlog. Open the file and spend a few minutes clearing it and then get on with the rest of your day and complete everything you set yourself - avoiding creating more backlog. In four days I cleared a months worth of unactioned email. The next thing will be to find something else to make my current initiative and start dealing with those ideas and aspirations that I always meant to get around to tackling one day.

I can't say much more than buy the book and give it a go yourself.

A darker side of Google is a good thing

Interesting article about the impact having a white (high light output) background on a site like Google might have on global power consumption. Very "Tipping Point" in suggesting a small change like this having a large impact on a global issue.

The online buzz over "going dark" began in earnest last January after Mark Ontkush, a self-described "green computing evangelist," wrote a blog post concerning environmentally friendly Web design. Ontkush claimed that if a popular site such as Google switched its home page background color from white to black, it could save hundreds of megawatt hours a year. He based his claim on the fact that certain types of monitors use less energy to display black than white screens. And according to the Environmental Protection Agency, cathode-ray-tube (CRT) monitors and even some flat-panel screens use less energy to display black or dark backgrounds.

Read the complete article or go to Mark Ontkush's great blog on Green Computing and Sustainable technology.

Try out Blackle - a google-based search engine that uses a dark background rather than a white one. Blackle does have its critics though, as many argue that dark screens consume more power on LCD monitors., only consuming less power with CRT monitors (which still make up 25% of the world's PC monitors).

Oh no my mind had gone web 2.0 - I'm dreaming in YouTube vision!!!

I don't believe it!
"Last night I had the strangest dream..." as the song goes.

So there I was kayaking down a fast, wide river with a group of people and we reached a bend in the river. As I reached the outside bank I saw a Jumbo Jet swoop in on a low approach over the bend.
As it hit the lowest point of its flypast (and I started to wonder if it would pull up in time) - the image froze and started buffering!! I couldn't believe it! I had to wait there in my dream whilst my unconscious videostream caught up. Well it eventually did pull up in time and continued its flypast - but I am starting to get seriously concerned about what Microsoft put in its last patch update....