Posts filed under 'Improvement'
For a long time now I’ve read all about the benefits of standing while working. I’ve wanted to get a standing desk for a long time, but when I priced out real honest-to-goodness standing desks…well I just don’t have that kind of money to try something I may end up hating.
So imagine my happiness when over Memorial Day weekend I happened into an Ikea store and found their Vika desk legs and tops which allowed me to build a small standing desk cheaply to test it out.
I purchased 4 Vika Byske legs for $30 each (adjustable from 27.5″ to 42.125″) and a Vika Amon tabletop for $19.99.
Here’s what it looks like (click to enlarge).
I’ve been standing at it for a little over an hour and a half now. Here are some of my observations:
1) My feet are starting to get sore, and I can feel a little tightness in my lower back. I’ve read online that there is an adjustment period when switching to a standing workspace, so hopefully this will be a temporary problem.
2) My hands and wrists feel pretty good. When I’m sitting I’m frequently guilty of resting my wrists on my desk and just being generally un-ergonomic. My hands and lower arms will get a little numb and tingly after a while when I’m sitting. So far I’ve noticed that the change in my posture seems to be making my hands feel much better.
3 I’ve gotten a lot of weird looks, and plenty of comments like, “What’s that?” and “Why would you want to stand?” Looks like I’m going to have to be prepared to be the office “kook” for awhile. On a positive note several people have come up and commented on how cool my idea is. I’ll slowly convert them all!
4) Being on my feet makes me feel more energetic! I’ve run back and forth a few times to the copy room this afternoon with nary a thought about it. Before I would plan out trips because I was comfortable - and lazy - sitting on my duff. Now I just grab papers and go - I very much like the freedom it gives.
5) Right now the desktop is 43.25″ high and it feels pretty good. The Ikea system looks like it’s actually designed to be attached to the wall on one edge with just two legs under it (not four) so it’s a little wobbly. It’s perfectly workable, but for a long, long term solution I would want a “real” standing desk.
I’ll post periodic updates on my experiment with standing while I work. I think that a good mix of standing and sitting will be best as it’s awful easy to flit from task to task while standing. I don’t feel like I can concentrate and focus as much as I’m just full of energy. So combining standing when I need a burst of productivity with sitting when I really need to roll up my sleeves and crunch numbers should prove to be a great system.
More to come!
May 29th, 2008
This is a unique article - a bit rant and a bit non-productivity - but I’ll try to bring it around to the purpose and mission of this site, but forgive me if it misses the mark.
Over the last few months I’ve been working hard to improve my frugality. I’ve never before been described as frugal or any other word approaching frugality. But back in the fall I just decided that too much of my money was going out the door on dumb things, and that I worked too hard to be stupid with my money.
So I’ve been evaluating how and where I spend money, and one of the things I decided to do was scale back the programming package I have with Dish Networks. With the writers on strike (and the sad state of TV in general) my wife and I haven’t been watching nearly as much TV, but we’ve been paying through the nose to have it!
So I logged on to my Dish Network account online to downgrade my programming. Simple.
At least I thought it would be simple until I couldn’t find a way to actually downgrade my programming, only ways to upgrade my programming (and spend more money)!
I called Dish Network’s customer service number and navigated through their automated system. I punched in #2 to “change my programming” and listened as it asked me to dial various numbers to upgrade to “Americas’ everything-pack” or “Dish Latino”. Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade - not an option anywhere to downgrade. I was aggravated. So I dialed zero to see if it would connect me to an operator, but it told me it wasn’t a valid option!
Not only could I not downgrade my package, I couldn’t even get to an operator for help! I hung up and called back (and was again greeted and told I was “one of Dish Network’s most valuable customers“) and started hammering the zero key; eventually I was connected to a service rep.
She was in an Indian call center (or a call center that only employed Indians) and told me her name was “Sally”, and asked how she could assist me. I told her I was trying to downgrade my service to save a little money each month, and I couldn’t figure out how to do it either online or on their automated call center. She told me it was only possible to downgrade service with a live customer service agent, so I asked her to please downgrade my package.
She said she was happy to help, and notified me there would be a $5 fee to downgrade my service!
I asked her if there was a $5 fee to UPGRADE my service and she assured me there wasn’t. So I said, “I don’t want to pay the $5 fee to downgrade, I’m trying to save so money each month, but I want to keep some of my satellite services.”
She then told me that there was no exception to the $5 fee on downgrading services.
So I asked to “please” speak to a manager or supervisor. She re-iterated the $5 fee was non-negotiable.
I demanded to speak to a supervisor and she folded and told me she would make a one-time-only-never-ask-again exception and waive the $5 fee.
So at the end of it all I accomplished what I set out to accomplish, but Dish Network why are you making it so difficult for customers really manage their account? See - the thing is I really like the service I get and I recommend Dish Network to a lot of my colleagues, co-workers, and friends. But when trying to do something simple like downgrading my service - and it being such a pain in the heiny - I really question if I should even keep the service at all!
Shame on you Dish for not really taking care of your customers. You were inches away from losing a customer entirely. And the next time I have to argue with a CSR to make a change to my account you probably will lose a customer.
Corporate America - why are you letting customer service just go down the toilet? Sure - there are a lot of sub-par companies out there who don’t care about service, but why are even the “good ones” starting to suck now? Please re-evaluate your policies and views and attitudes towards customers and customer service because if you don’t, one of these days (and I believe it’s coming sooner rather than later) you’ll see a major backlash by your customers.
January 11th, 2008
We’ve all heard the quote (often mis-attributed to Dr. W. Edwards Deming) that…”you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
When working on reaching your goals (you do set SMART goals right?) you have to monitor and measure your progress so you know when you’ve achieved your goal, but you need to do more than just measuring to truly manage your goals.
I can use myself as a perfect example. In February I set a very aggressive weight loss goal for myself. I really launched in and tackled changing my eating and exercise habits to support my weight loss goal. And for 4 months I really rocked my goal. I was trending ahead of my weekly estimates and was getting much healthier.
I was not only measuring everything, but I was really incorporating those measurements into my entire being. I tracked calories, what I ate, how much I weighed, the amount I drank, how much exercise I finished. I measured everything to the Nth degree and really thought and reflected on it every day. I held my goal in mind and kept it very “bright”.
But as happens to so many of us, when things got really busy at work and at home, I slipped. I had a small accident that prevented me from working out for a few weeks. I stopped really focusing on my goal and just set myself on auto-pilot, keeping track of things, but not doing anything with the data.
The first thing to go was tracking all of my calories, fats, carbs, and protein, I was just tracking the food - barely. I still weighted myself every morning and wrote the results down, but I wasn’t plugging the numbers in my Excel spreadsheet and really watching how my weight was trending.
I knew at a glance I wasn’t really gaining any weight, but I wasn’t losing any either. That would be great - being stable - but I hadn’t reached my goal weight yet.
So I just sort of floated along on auto-pilot for a few months. I was still measuring a lot of variables, but because I wasn’t holding my goal right at the top of my conscious thoughts like I had been when I first started, I wasn’t making any solid progress.
Once I brought my goal back to the front of my thoughts - and kept it there - I started to make new progress towards it.
This is true for any goal. If you’re not pursuing the outcome, measuring your actions along the way, and focusing on the goal and keeping it big and bright in your mind you’ll eventually lose your forward progress to reaching the goal.
At best you’ll float along - making some progress in places, losing it in others - until one of three things happens:
- you give up on your goal
- you achieve some of your goal, but not to the level you really want
- you redefine your goal and re-energize yourself to really achieve it!
Reaching your goals isn’t just a matter of setting them. You have to measure your progress towards them and keep the outcome held firmly in mind.
Failing to measure your progress means you have to rely on luck to reach your desired outcome. Failing to keep your goal in mind means you’re just going through the motions when you measure your progress.
The two go hand-in-hand in reaching your goals to the full extent you’ve set for them!
November 8th, 2007
Last month I wrote an article titled What’s coming in your future?. In it, I described how a quote from David Allen’s book Ready for Anything had really resonated with me.
I came into the office this morning and checked through my tickler file and sitting there in the folder labeled “29″ was the index card from last month.
Scrawled on the front in my chicken-scratch writing - “Something is coming - probably within a few days - that’s going to change your world. You don’t see it yet. You don’t know what it’s about. But it’s there, rolling inexorably forward, destined to throw you a curve that you do not expect. It could show up sooner or later - but it will show up. Trust me.”
A week and a half after putting that card back into my tickler file to re-check in a month I found myself on an operating room table with a surgeon poised to take my gallbladder out. It was 4 days from the time I found out I had a bad gallbladder to the time the surgeon was digging around in my innards. I certainly didn’t see that coming. I’m ordinarily in fairly good health, and had never otherwise had any problems with my gallbladder.
Today I was reflecting back on how timely and appropriate that quote is. But even more, it got me to thinking that it doesn’t really matter when you review that quote because something is always going to be coming. Life doesn’t stop sending curve balls and trying to generally mix things up for you.
I think what’s more important is knowing that you’ll always be in between these “surprises” and really appreciating the time that life is treating you well.
This isn’t to say that life is about luck; or that cosmic forces are scheming to “keep you down.” It’s to say that life’s obstacles come at you like waves in the ocean. You have to learn to appreciate the calm between the crashing swells, to anticipate when the next wave is coming, to become one with the waves. If you let every wave completely crash over you, you’ll eventually tire and wear out and you’ll just be consumed by all of the hard times in life.
In that situation it’s easy to play the victim to life’s hardships. You can cry, “I’m not in charge in more, life is just busy beating me down and there’s nothing I can do about it.” You’re no more than a piece of junk in the ocean, being pushed around and batted about by the waves.
But you have the choice. You can realize that life is always going to throw obstacles your way. You’re always going to be able to look back over a month or a quarter or a year and say to yourself, “Gosh, I really didn’t see that coming!”. If you can “swim” with the waves, and learn to navigate the bad times and the hard times, you can stay in control.
And while life will never quite throwing you curves, tossing wave after wave at you, you’ll be in much better shape to avoid the worst of it.
October 29th, 2007
Back in June I was re-reading “Ready for Anything” by David Allen and on the first page of the first chapter he writes:
“Something is coming - probably within a few days - that’s going to change your world. You don’t see it yet. You don’t know what it’s about. But it’s there, rolling inexorably forward, destined to throw you a curve that you do not expect. It could show up sooner or later - but it will show up. Trust me.”
He goes on and encourages readers to write in their calendar: “David Allen said a month ago that something was coming I couldn’t foresee that would affect me significantly.”
That’s a pretty powerful statement - it really resonated with me. So on June 28th I wrote it down on a 3×5 index card and stuck it in a file to review on July 28th.
And I promptly lost the folder!
Today I found it. It’s ironic - and a bit spooky - that I found the lost folder exactly on the day I filed the note away three months ago. So what happened to me that I didn’t see coming, and that changed my life significantly?
I’ve been reflecting on that question all afternoon since I found the card. Honestly, nothing has completely blindsided me, but there have been significant positive changes in my life in the last three month.
I’ve settled some debt which has been great. My wife finally had a medical procedure which will greatly improve her quality of life - and she came through with flying colors and is doing great. Things are going great all around, I’ve not had any conflicts in my personal or professional life, my friends and family are all healthy and happy.
But at the same time I feel like there was a reason I misplaced that card for the last three months (to the day too!) and when I reflect back and see the positive changes I’ve experienced in the last 90 days it makes me feel that much better about how things are going. It really gave me a “psychic boost”.
So I made a quick note on the back of the card - the date and major changes -and I filed it back into my tickler file, where I won’t lose it, to check back in on it next month.
I think this is a powerful tool you can add to your arsenal to build and shape your life. How many of us spent scheduled time reflecting back on what’s happened in the last month? I know I don’t. I try to do it quarterly, and it always happens at the end of the year when every media outlet around is hammering you about New Year Resolutions. But how powerful would it be if you were setting a reminder for yourself each month and really looking back?
I think it would be pretty darn powerful. It’s easy to spent a lot of time looking forward and planning, but if we never look back to see how our plans are actually playing out in our lives what good is all the planning in the first place?
I know my priorities and concerns change over time. What is important to me today may not be in a month, or two, or three. But when I don’t look back to see the progress I’ve made I may keep going towards a goal or working to solve a pain that’s not important to me anymore.
So I’ve resolved to look back each month. I’ve added the card to my tickler file to remind me, and for added security I’ve set a calendar reminder to boot. I challenge you to do the same, and see if you don’t discover something interesting about yourself - even if that “something interesting” is that nothing particularly interesting happened!
September 28th, 2007
When was the last time you really took inventory of what you’re best at, what you’re good at, and what you weak at? If you’re like me, it’s probably been a long time.
You might be surprised that the saying, “if you don’t use it, you lose it” is actually true. I had an eye-opening experience this past weekend that has really caused me to pause and reevaluate myself - and you should too!
The short version
I have a good friend and colleague who runs a small web design and hosting company. He asked me to help him upgrade the software on his primary router (if all of this is Greek, just ignore the jargon, I’ll try to keep it light so you can follow along!).
We setup a time to do the upgrade, and he informed me that he had all of the software necessary to complete the project. I put the appointment on my calendar and turned my attention back to my day-to-day activities, safe in the knowledge that my calendar would alert me at the proper time.
Friday night around 11:30pm, I met him at him at his network center and we proceeded to begin the upgrade. This should have been a five or ten minute process.
For us it took almost two hours - and during that time a large chunk of his network was offline! After much digging and poking and prodding (and, I admit, some swearing) we were able to bring things back up and get everything working.
I was shocked at myself and how badly I had performed!
My backstory
I’ve always thought of myself as a “networking guy”. That had always been my strength, and among my peer group and clients I was the go-to guy for fixing their networking hardware and software problems…six years ago!
In the late 90s and into 2000 I spent almost all of my time working in or on network equipment. I was comfortable setting up the hardware and software that drove the Internet. It was what I did, and I took pride in the fact that everyone asked me to handle their routers, networks, and connectivity issues.
However in the intervening years I’ve moved steadily away from a day-to-day relationship with network hardware and software. As I assumed more and more management tasks and moved into application support and ERP systems I found myself touching the network less and less.
And I never realized how badly my skills had atrophied.
So when I was asked to upgrade the software I knew it would be a quick project - and it would have been had I been “in shape” so to speak. And my failure to realize I didn’t have that sharp edge caused my friend’s business to experience an unacceptable level of downtime.
Lessons learned
Going from hero to goat is an eye opening experience. And it really got me to thinking about what other skills I used to take for granted that I may have let languish. I kept thinking to myself, “What else haven’t you done, that you would be bad at now?”
As I came up with a list of things that I would probably screw up these days, I found my brain kept adding in comments like, “Yes, but you’ve learned how to…” and “Four years ago you didn’t know anything about…”
I started compiling my list of skills - whether I perceived myself at being good at them or not - and reviewing it.
As I wrote about in Is your “success resume” up to date? it’s important to keep your list of accomplishments updated while they’re fresh in you mind, I now know it’s also important to keep a tally of your skills, and your familiarity with them, too.
Taking inventory
There are two phases to completing a skills assessment: 1) Building a list of your core skills 2) Evaluating yourself on those skills.
It’s important to not mix up these steps because you’ll get bogged down in the minutia if you try. Get your skill list out of your head and on paper and then process it (you GTDers out there will click with this methodology!).
How do you know what skills you should list? That’s a bit up to your own personal preference, but I listed skills that I would expect to get paid for, or that someday I would like to get paid for. The reason I limited it is because if I sell myself as having XYZ skill and take money for that, but fail to perform, I’m hurting my client and myself.
For example; I’m terrible at painting, but it seems like it should be easy and over and over I get myself into situations where I’m painting a room and saying to myself, “I forgot how bad I am at this, and how much I dislike doing it.” But I didn’t add it to my list because I will never solicit money for painting!
Anyway, get your list down and don’t try to categorize it yet. Put current skills with past skills, mix in skills you’re just starting to pick up, but get them all out of your head and onto a piece of paper.
Once you’ve built your list it’s time to review it. Ask yourself questions like, “Am I good enough at this to get paid for doing it?” and “Would I talk about my abilities with that in a job interview?”
It’s time to be brutally honest with yourself - you’re the only person who will see this list. Some of the skills on your list you may have not used in years, maybe decades, but they will be so deeply ingrained that you would feel comfortable marking yourself as highly proficient with them.
Other skills may be just a few years old, but you have to mark down that you’re probably out of practice, rusty, or not up to speed anymore.
What now?
If you’ve been honest with yourself, once you’re finished you’ll have a concrete list of your core skills and your level of proficiency at each of them. If you’re anything like me you’ll find that about 1/3 of your list will be things that in your mind you were very proficient at, but are not as much anymore, about 1/3 will be new skills that you’ve developed and are very proficient with, and about 1/3 will be skills that your developing and which your proficiency will range from “not very” to “pretty good”.
You may find that your internal perception of yourself changes. Like I mentioned, I used to think of myself as “the network guy”. My perception of myself didn’t match my reality; I was reckless and it bit me.
Now my self image is more in line with reality. I still know a lot about network hardware and software, but I’m rusty and out of practice. Going forward I will need to invest some time refreshing my skills and even brushing up on new technologies and tools that have become standard since the late 90s.
Once you have a real assessment of your skills, you can make sure your self image and reality are in sync. You may even find that there are skills you don’t consider being great at in your self perception, but you are in reality!
July 2nd, 2007
I’ve written about the process of practice before, but I don’t think the importance of planning and practice can be stressed enough.
When you practice a couple of things happen (as if by magic). You can quickly identify where you’re weaknesses are, you can uncovered general logistics problems (timing, flow, effort needed), and most importantly you can screw up in private!
There is no excuse for not practicing. I frequently hear (and sometimes even tell myself) there just isn’t enough time for adequate practice. That’s a pretty poor excuse - there is often plenty of time for practice if you manage your time well.
But now you’re going to say, “I don’t always get to set my own schedule! Sometimes there isn’t time in the schedule I’m given to practice!”
If this is true - and I’ve known some managers and bosses that would hand out impossible deadlines - you have a bigger problem than not practicing. You have a problem with general time management and the expectation of time management by your superiors. And frankly, is that a relationship you want to be in?
There was a reality television show on the Discovery Channel called American Hot Rod which featured Boyd Coddington’s shop of the same name. I’ve watched the show a few times and one thing that never seemed to change was the near impossible deadlines that the crew would be put under to deliver a finished car. All of the pressure created stress which sure made for good television, but it was typically artificial pressure. It looked like Boyd Coddington couldn’t turn down a client’s request OR manage his team’s time to make sure they weren’t always in a crunch.
Quite a few people left the company during the handful of times I saw the show. And every time a “key person” left it was in the middle of a tight deadline - all of the deadlines were tight. Boyd Coddington always told the same story, “I just don’t understand why they left…”
So if you’re in a situation where your time is not your own to control, and it’s being managed unrealistically, you first have to fix your situation before you can worry about practicing.
But assuming you do have control over your time and/or your managers are able to budget time-lines correctly, what’s keeping you from practicing?
There are several reasons; it’s not glamorous, it’s tedious, it seems like a lot of effort for the results.
And it’s precisely because of those reasons that you should make time to practice. Your competition likely won’t - practice is hard and often dull - and that’s a huge advantage for you.
Let me give you a real-world example of where practice makes a huge difference. Our company recently held it’s annual meeting. It’s a mandatory, all-hands affair with a goal of showcasing excellent performance from the past year and talking about where the company is headed in the coming twelve months.
At this meeting each core department head gives a brief speech - usually less than ten minutes - about the state of their department. This year we had eight departments presenting.
You could tell who had practiced just by listening to the speakers. We have a few who are fairly “natural” speakers, but even handicapping them for extra ability they might have and really listening showed who was rehearsed, poised, ready…practiced - who was winging it - and who was just reading directly from their notes.
The reaction from the audience was visible when a practiced speaker was in front of the crowd. Those speakers held their focus and attention much better than the unpracticed speakers.
So how much practice is enough? The reality is there is never enough practice. You can continue to refine yourself - always striving for perfection - and you’ll spend more than one life time and still never practice “too much”.
Consider those who’s lively hood relies on practice; athletes, magicians, musicians, or professional speakers. When we see them it’s after hours and years of practice.
Magicians don’t walk out on stage and make a car disappear - they practice and plan and practice some more. At the beginning of the season, athletes don’t show up at the ballpark or the golf course and just start playing. They’ve spend the off-season practicing, improving their skills, and working with trainers. Musicians don’t pick up a page with the lyrics to a new song as they’re headed out on stage.
So why are we so hesitant to practice as much?
I can give you a good example using myself. Photography is a passion of mine - I love creating images and I spend a lot of time behind a lens. About two years ago I was asked if I was interested in photographing a wedding for some close friends. The wedding was months away, but I spent those months with as much time behind the lens as I could squeeze in. When I wasn’t shooting images or testing my lighting systems, I had my nose buried in books and magazines about weddings and wedding photography.
When the big day finally arrived I think I was as nervous or maybe even more nervous than the bride and groom! But my months of preparation and work helped me immensely and when the bride started down the isle I was at ease because my practice kicked in. All day long people who knew I wasn’t a full-time photographer commented on how professional and polished I seemed.
Did I do a good job? Yes, I think so and so do the bride and groom. Do I still see hundreds of ways each image I shot could be improved? I sure do - ever time I look at them or show them to other people. However I’ve shot other weddings since that first wedding and each time I am able to practice and improve, and each time I find a few fewer flaws with the finished result.
Practice is never ending.
I’m sure that I’ve got a lot more practice that I should be doing in all areas of my life. I’m willing to wager you do too. We should take a page from the playbooks of athletes and musicians - there is a reason why they spend so much of their “free” time practicing - we should too!
May 23rd, 2006
Recently my wife complained of severe abdominal pain and nausea, so bad she asked to be taken to the hospital. When she was admitted, the doctors tried to get her feeling comfortable while they puzzled over what might be causing her problems.
The doctors listened with their stethoscopes, drew blood tests, had x-rays taken, and scheduled CT scans. Almost every test came back completely normal with one exception - a slightly enlarged appendix.
“Ah Ha!” cried the doctors, “Call in the surgeons, her appendix needs to come out!”
And in came the surgeons. They poked and prodded and asked for lengthy medical histories. Finally they concluded they thought the problem might be the appendix, but they weren’t sure; they decided to operate and remove it anyway.
While all of this was going on, my wife’s mother kept telling the doctors, the nurses, and the surgeons, “You know, when I was just a little older than her I had very similar symptoms. It was my gallbladder, can you test that?” The surgeons all thanked her for her input, but you could clearly tell they didn’t care what she had to say since she wasn’t a medical professional…The appendix was removed.
A week later my wife was again complaining of severe abdominal pain and nausea, she had been doing well the week before, this second attack came on suddenly, like the first - so we went back to the hospital. This time her doctor was G.I. specialist who ran the same blood work tests, asked for the same x-rays to be taken, and prepped her for a CT scan - all of which came back completely normal.
He came into her room and started telling her that he wasn’t sure what the problem was - it might in fact just be a nasty virus. It was about this point that her mother flew off the handle and demanded they perform a gallbladder function test. She was so adamant that the G.I. doctor was - I think - caught off guard. He agreed to perform tests on her gallbladder. A few hours later a surgeon came back in and announced the tests showed her gallbladder was functioning abnormally and needed to come out; surgery was scheduled for the next morning.
Throughout the entire process, the think that consistently stuck in my mind was how much each persons “bedside manner” varied, and how much those variations impacted my opinion of the person.
The internal medicine specialist was fabulous, she was caring, concerned, and compassionate. Her bedside manner made us feel completely as ease even while she told us that according to all of the test results, my wife was completely normal.
The G.I. specialist was terrible, he seemed have more important things to be doing than explaining what might be causing the G.I. symptoms my wife was experiencing. He was rushed and didn’t seem to have (or want) any emotional connection to any of us. He left us all feeling more anxious about the situation.
Finally, the surgeon was - as is often stereotyped - arrogant. He was very calm and self-assured, and while he did a very good job of explaining the procedure at a highly intellectual and technical level, he didn’t make any attempt at an emotional connection. The general feeling we all got from him was he didn’t really care one way or the other. After the surgery he seemed indifferent, even put off, by my wife’s questions.
The nursing staff varied from excellent to worthless depending on who was assigned to my wife.
The major differences between all of these people, with all of their extremely specialized training, was their bedside manner. Some really became involved and drew us in; others left us feeling distanced and unconnected. It made me really think about the relationships I’ve had and currently have. How is my “bedside manner” when it comes to establishing and building relationship?
I realized that, for me, the act of establishing a relationship wasn’t difficult, but the maintenance of relationships was. For me, maintenance or relationships is a weak area that I need to work on.
I found it interesting to think about my relationships in this doctor/patient “bedside manner” framework. How much better could my relationships be if I tried to make sure I had the characteristics I admired in the first doctor? Caring, compassion, concern - those are powerful concepts that Dr. Harris had nailed. In the little time she spent with my wife, she “felt” like an old friend even though she didn’t really know my wife. When you can feel like an old friend in only a few minutes, you’ve made a powerful connection.
So, how is your bedside manner? Do you strive to build deep relationships or are you aloof and distanced? If you were a patient laying in a hospital bed, would you want your doctor to act like you do in relationships? When I stop to really think about it I know there are certainly aspects and behaviours of myself I wouldn’t want a doctor to have while working with me.
As for me, I need to triage my bedside manner and send it to the ICU for some critical-care changes! Maybe you do too?
May 17th, 2006
I’ve been experimenting with power naps for 100 days now and as such I’ve found I’ve settled into a bit of a pattern. I don’t necessarily need one every day, and I’ve found a good barometer is that the more I feel like I don’t have the time to take a power nap, the more I really need one.
The only real problems I’ve encountered have been external; the idea of napping isn’t widely accepted once you’re older than 5. People look at you like you’re slacking off and not being productive, and woe to anyone who isn’t always 100% “on” and “productive.”
So there is quite a lot of social stigma surrounding napping. Those that “get it” are far outnumbered by those that don’t. And being a napper almost feels - at times - like being a drug user. Sometimes you have to sneak off to get a power nap in. There seems to be a correlation between how much you need to take a break and how much you feel you have to sneak off to squeeze it in.
The major benefits I’ve found include:
- Increased energy
- Increased productivity
- Dramatically increased problem-solving - I have many more breakthrough and “ah ha!” moments after napping.
- Increased level of wellness (I’ve not been sick since I started power napping on a semi-regular basis).
I’ve also found that for me twenty minutes is just about perfect. Often my eyes pop open about 30 seconds before the timer goes off. If I try to power nap for less time I never seem to get the same benefit and if I go much longer than 20 minutes I get increasingly sleepier and groggier and I feel terrible when I finally do rouse myself.
Overall I’m completely sold on power napping. Several times in the last three months it’s been an invaluable tool to finding solutions to vexing problems. It’s made me generally feel better and it’s increased my energy and productivity levels.
If you can get over the social stigma or you’re fortunate enough to work in a nap-friendly workplace then it really can’t be beat.
I encourage you to go and try out power napping for yourself!
May 16th, 2006
Which of these two words is more descriptive of your life: proactive or reactive? It seems that for me the best description of my life lately has been “reactive.” I’m reacting to the circumstances around me more often than I’m keeping my eyes scanning the horizon and proactively handling situations as they arise.
My favorite definition of “proactive” comes from a paper I read years ago. I no longer know the original author, but the quote is wholly appropriate.
“In a nutshell, being proactive is the same thing as being reactive. The only difference is that you do the reacting ahead of time.”
Another person I know likes to say that he’s to busy “putting out Little Johnny’s fires” to “take away his matches” to describe why he’s often in a reactive mode rather than a proactive mode.
And let me tell you something, always being in a reactive mode will really take the starch out of your collar after a while. When I’ve let myself be at the whim of my circumstances rather than become the master of my circumstances, I’m usually exhausted at the end of the day. I stay up too late trying to get caught up, sleep poorly and then am tired the next day as I try to get caught up again while handling the fires that “Little Johnny” keeps setting.
Being reactive is no fun at all!
So how do you break out of a reactionary mode? That’s the tricky part. Usually once you’ve realized that your life is swinging from one emergency to another, you’re so deeply into a reactionary mindset that it’s very difficult to break free.
For me, when I’m finding myself this way, by the time the day is done and I’m asleep I’ve only tackled things for other people and not for myself. That’s a key - when you’re in a highly reactionary mode you’re probably largely driven by other people - external forces. When you’re in a highly proactive mode you’re likely driven by yourself and your own internal forces.
The word “no” is an amazingly powerful tool to help you break out of a reactive mode. If other people are causing you to be reactive, then you have to limit their access to your time, talent and resources. Nancy Regan had it right when she told people to, “Just say No!”
It’s difficult to tell someone you can’t help them - it’s more difficult to tell them you won’t help them. The trick is to tell them why you’re telling them “no.” People generally want to help each other out - so often explaining why you’re saying “no” will be understood by others. Be firm, stand your ground, and just say, “no.”
You have to triage your time, and learning the art of “no” is the first step to taking your time back. Once you have your time back, you have to figure out what is coming at you so you can begin to move from a reactive mode to a proactive mode - so you can do your reacting ahead of time.
You have to try to see the “big picture” and understand what is happening around you. It’s easy to know what is happening to you, but if you don’t have a context of things around you, you can’t become proactive because you’ll never know what’s coming next.
Start by outlining your major projects, get clear and get it written down. Make sure you can see it in a context that makes sense to you.
Then start adding names of everyone who will have input to your project. These are the people you have to connect with to find out what else is coming. Remember that they’re having an input on your projects, but someone else is having an input on their projects. It’s possible the people who input on their projects will cause crises for you, so get to know what’s happening with those around you.
I once worked with a manager who liked to talk about “socializing” his projects. I always thought it was silly “management-speak” but really what he was doing was keeping his projects visible to those he was counting on, and keeping an eye the projects of those he was counting on at the same time.
If you don’t know a storm is coming you can’t prepare for it. Once you know a storm is coming you can prepare and be proactive.
You should also know that you will fail at this from time to time. It takes energy to keep yourself “in the loop” with all of the contributors of your projects. It takes energy to cope with the emergencies and burning fires on your plate while you begin to make changes to be more proactive.
It serves no purpose to beat yourself up when you do notice you’re working in a reactive manner. You should realize that your reactivity is a symptom that you need to deal with, not a failure you should feel bad about.
You should instead praise yourself for catching the slip into reactionary mode and use it as an indicator that you need to put the breaks on, evaluate your projects and take corrective action to stop reacting to your circumstances.
Remember, you should be the master of your circumstances. Take a break, just say no, “socialize” your projects and get back in control!
March 2nd, 2006
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