Posts filed under 'Tools'
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
The word “only” has been a good friend of mine. I’ve used it to justify a lot of dumb expenses in my life. I say things like, “Hey, adding HBO and Showtime to our satellite package is only $22 a month.” And I don’t think about how that’s really $264 a year (plus tax)!
It’s so easy to see that easy, low monthly payment and “only” yourself. And when you have a lot of “only” payments, pretty soon you’re looking at your bank account and wondering where all your money went.
I did a quick inventory of my current “only-ies” and calculated I’m spending $316 a month! That’s $3,792 a year that’s going out the door…a few bucks at a time. Yikes! Where’s that money going and how can I get it under control?
To clarify what an “only” is; it’s a payment for something that’s really nice to have, but is ultimately non-essential at the end of the day. We gotta’ pay our electric bill. The satellite TV bill isn’t necessary to living, it’s just nice. It’s an “only” expense (ditto for items on store-credit, or credit cards. I’m looking at you new room-full-of-furniture!).
Here are some of my “only-ies”:
Cell phone bill? Yep, going to keep it. True, I could live a completely fulfilling life without a cell phone, but it’s just so darn convenient (We have decided to look into pay-as-you-go options when our contract is up because frankly the wife and I just don’t need thousands-of-minutes a month).
Virtual fax line? Yep, I’m keeping that too. I don’t get personal faxes every day, but when I do it’s a pain to coordinate getting them at work or hooking up a fax machine at home for a few hours to receive one. Plus it’s less per month than a separate phone line at home for a dedicated fax machine.
HBO & Showtime premium channels? Nope! There are a few shows on HBO that my wife and I watch, and they’re all off until next season so….canceled! (We’ll decide if we’re going to resubscribe when our shows come back)
Super-duper-all-the-channels package on satellite? Nope! We sat down and scrolled through the channel guide and found out that we regularly watch ten channels; our 4 major locals plus TLC, Discovery, Food Network, Comedy Central, HGN, and A&E. To our pleasant surprise all of those channels are in the very lowest-level package our provider offers. Move over $90-a-month TV, here comes $40-a-month TV! Sure, we could probably cut paid TV out entirely, but we both like it so it stays - for now - at a much lower monthly cost (plus there is never anything good on these days anyway!).
Netflix subscription? Tough call - I’ll need to do some number crunching on this. When I first subscribed, I was a movie-watching-fool. I would get a movie on Monday, watch it, mail it back Tuesday, get a new move on Thursday and do it all over again. I calculated my first month I paid about $0.80 per movie. However as I moved through my list of to-watch flicks, I’ve slowed down a lot in my movie watching habits. For the last two months it’s cost me $6 per movie to be a subscriber! Sorry Netflix - I love you - but you’ve got to go.
Some quick Excel work tells me that by cutting out and cutting back we dropped our “only-ies” from $316 per month to $191 per month (and a lot of that is cell phone). That’s a 39% monthly savings or $1,500 a year back in our pocket.
We’re fortunate that we’ve kept a lot of our “only-ies” under control, but I know a lot of people who use credit, same-as-cash deals, and store financing to get new appliances, electronics, furniture, and more - all for “only” a few bucks a month - and it’s killing them!
I encourage you to sit down and take a long hard look at your “only-ies”. You might be surprised at how much your “little monthly obligations” really cut into your bottom line when you add them all up!
January 24th, 2008
I’m “stuff” person…always have been. It’s not that I want to acquire stuff for the purpose of just acquiring it; I’m the kind of person who gets exciting by something, and then has to have all the requisite items and accessories to support whatever phase I’m going through.
For example, I got the wild urge to learn how to make a really good cup of coffee. I start researching everything that’s been say on the subject, and decided I needed to buy a bean roaster, a super-duper 18-bar coffee maker, and a special grinder for the fresh coffee beans I would have to purchase online. Cha-ching! Making a cuppa-joe just got expensive.
And not to long ago I would have had all that stuff in my shopping cart at Amazon or some other e-tailer and have been well on my way to checking out before I even paused to think about the money I was spending.
And because of that, I have spent a lot of money on a lot of dumb stuff. I had to come up with a way to temper temptation and stop spending money on things I didn’t really need.
So what works?
I’ve found that - for me - the single best thing that keeps me from making as many “not-thought-out” purchases is reviewing how I’m spending my money. And that means keeping track of every single penny I spend.
I’ve tried both at various times throughout my life, and taken individually they don’t work.
When I tracked my spending to the penny, but didn’t review where the money was going I still overspent on temptation items. When I keep reports, but didn’t track my spending to the penny I would eventually get behind updating my records and overspend. I needed both.
I know other people use different tactics like writing down the item that’s holding their infatuation and then reviewing it a week or a month longer and only buying if the temptation is still there. That doesn’t work for me. I would write down what it was I wanted, and I would wait a few days, and invariably I would end up somewhere - item and credit card in hand - breaking my vow to wait for the purchase. The thrill of giving in to temptation would overwhelm me and lead to yet another dumb and unnecessary purchase.
For me accurate records AND regular review are necessary to avoid temptation, financially speaking.
I use Quicken for both the record keeping and the reporting, but the software alone won’t be your salvation. You have to work the system and make it a habit, that’s hard. There’s no easy way to do this other than doing it. I was lucky enough that my bank worked out-of-the-box and was able to get started by loading some data.
Trick 1:
To keep on top of it I make sure to put all my receipts in my wallet and key them into the software each and every day. That’s important because you can make a lot of dumb mistakes in a week’s time. If you’re entering and reviewing your spending once a week you’re probably not doing it often enough.
I know what you’re thinking; that you don’t have time to enter your receipts daily; just trust me and do it. It won’t take nearly as long as you think. I found I was spending literally three minutes a day entering my receipts.
Trick 2:
Run reports every day when you first start to get a really good idea where your money is going. It’s really nice if your bank lets you download the last few month’s transactions; you’ll be way ahead of the curve. Having a few months of transactions lets you immediately get an idea of how and where you’re spending your money.
But even if you have to start by entering the receipts you have, run spending reports every day. I like the fact that Quicken shows me a pie-chart of my spending and I can drill into the details. Regardless of what software you use, watch your spending daily!
When you start to see your “hobbies & leisure” spending heading toward the stratosphere, and you’re looking at it each and every day, it makes it a lot harder to rationalize spending you’d rather avoid.
Trick 3:
Be brutally honest with yourself. You’re not keeping all this detail and reviewing it daily for anyone else’s benefit. If you make a stupid purchase make a note of it. Put it in the memo field, make it a category, whatever it takes. Quicken lets you create category tags which are separate from spending categories. If I buy a video game, I can categorize it “hobbies & leisure” but I can tag it as “stupid”.
The category tags I use are: Essential, Non-essential, Unnecessary, and Stupid.
Paying my mortgage is essential, dining out is non-essential, buying a used video game is unnecessary, and buying a coffee bean roaster is stupid!
You’re only fooling (and hurting) yourself if you’re not honest in how you tag and categorize your expenses, so tell the truth!
So, does it work?
For me the answer is, yes, this works. I’ve been tracking and reporting my spending (every penny) for seven months now and - while my wife might disagree - my “foolish” spending is down a lot.
Sure, I still review my reports and have moments where I wonder what the heck I was thinking, but those moments are much fewer and farther apart these days.
To share an example, I’ve become hooked on Guitar Hero III and want to get the other Guitar Hero games. Since we’re just now out of the holidays, and our non-essential spending was already higher than normal, I’ve been able to keep myself from running out and buying the games. The old me would have looked at his checking account, seen plenty of “extra” money, and run off to the store without a second thought.
I still want the games, and I’ll buy them once my budget has room for it. For once I’m controlling my money rather than the other way around.
Getting started:
If you’re not using some kind of personal financial management software today, it’s time to start! There are so many choices available there’s no excuse to not be using something.
You can use Wesabe, Mint, Microsoft Money, Yodlee, or Quicken to name a few.
I’m partial to Quicken because it runs locally on my computer and I like the bill-pay features.
With the specials on tax software this time of year you can usually get Quicken or MS Money free. Since it’s likely you have to file taxes anyway, it’s a great way to get started using personal finance software if you’re not currently.
The most important thing is to just get started. Keep at it and you’ll find it easier and easier to put off those spending temptations. Your bank account will thank you!
January 17th, 2008
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of productivity, organization tools, life-hacks…those things really tickle me deep down. I get a kick out of hearing about a new tip or trick to make my life easier.
This one I stumbled on by accident, and it’s my favorite so far - one of the simplest too.
The idea? Put you important to-dos and memos where you’ll see them when it counts most; first-thing when you wake up and last-thing before bed.
Where? Your bathroom mirror.
How? Dry-erase markers! (a buck, or less)
Yep, you read that right. Write on your bathroom mirror with a dry-erase marker. It’s likely the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see before bed.
Did you tell a co-worker you would bring a them book? Write it on the mirror before bed and you won’t forget in the morning. Were you supposed to pickup something on your way to work? Write it on the mirror and you won’t have to worry about remembering.
It helps you have - like David Allen advocates - “a mind like water.”
There are two caveats to be aware of with this tip - so take note:
1) Writing all over the bathroom mirror has a low WAF (wife acceptance factor). Some will yell; most will look at you like you’ve gone insane, roll their eyes, sigh heavily, and tell you to “clean that up.” It helps if you have your own bathroom.
2) The marker wipes off with a little bath tissue, but doing so will leave some streaks. You’ll have to clean your mirror more often than you otherwise would (I believe this contributes to the low WAF), but it’s worth it.
I have a nearly foolproof method to overcome the low WAF problem. Before you start note-taking, go into the bathroom, stand where they would, and look in the mirror. Now draw a big heart framing your head and shoulders and write something suitably sweet underneath (”I ‘wuv’ you” works well).
Most importantly, don’t say anything about it. Don’t say, “Honey come check this out!”. Leave it alone and let them find it. They will by the end of the day, and you’ll get major brownie points for being such a big sweetie. Now you can start to make notes out to the edge of the mirror and work your way to the middle. After that, your imagination is the limit.
I use an Expo marker. They don’t have fumes that make you feel stoned, and in a small bathroom that’s a good thing. You can probably liberate a spare marker from your office, I have 10 different colors in the tray of my white board - I’ve only ever used red, black, and blue. One bit of advice: get a black marker; the dark color will show up a lot better on the mirror.
So there’s my $1.00 idea. It makes me happy inside every time I erase a to-do I’ve added to my mirror, and I’ve been able to stop worrying about those loose tasks that need attention, but that I don’t always stop to add to a paper list!
December 14th, 2007
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
A co-worker and I were recently talking movies. Specifically what we had coming from Netflix. I mentioned a few movies he wasn’t familiar with and he asked if I knew of any way to “share” my Netflix queue so he could see it too.
I said I didn’t, so we logged into my account to see what options were available. It was then when I noticed the “Community” button where I was able to invite my friend, and we could see each others’ queues. Very cool.
So if you’re curious what I’ve watched, or am getting ready to watch click over and become my Netflix friend.
I’m always into seeing new movies, and would love to see what you’re watching too. Sure, it’s not a tip that will boost your productivity into the stratosphere, but taking a break every now and then to watch a movie is sure good for your creativity. At least that’s what I keep telling myself!
October 25th, 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
Have you heard about Sandy? She’s a virtual assistant over at iwantsandy.com. When I first heard about “her” I thought, “What a great idea!” and signed up for a beta account.
After a fairly long wait - so long I had honestly forgotten about Sandy - I received a very polite email from her welcoming me as a member, and giving me some suggestions on how to start working with “her.”
I’ve “asked” her to remember a few things for me - nothing critical. But I have yet to really discover how to really take advantage of Sandy. The idea is such a good one - and it’s really well implemented, but I have been struggling to figure out how to work her into my regular productivity toolkit.
So I’m reaching out to see how my readers have been using Sandy. If you’re an IWantSandy.com user, please leave a comment letting me know how you use her, and what you think of the service.
If you’re not an IWantSandy.com user - go check out the service. It’s free for now (though I can’t imagine it will always be free) and the concept behind the service is excellent.
Maybe I just have too many productivity tools I’m trying to cram into my life, but I’m a sucker for a slick technology implementation.
September 27th, 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
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