Your best just got better

Three "Productivity" questions to ask yourself from time to time

I spent a good portion of Monday this week working remotely from a coffee shop in London.

During that time, I completed a weekly review, read one-quarter of the novel I’m enjoying (The Kite Runner), hand wrote a thank you card and processed my note-holder (medium-sized, lined paper Moleskine). During all of that getting-current activity, I realized there are THREE  Productivity questions I am interested in asking myself and my clients.

1) What do you hold yourself accountable to?
Change is the constant that we deal with, and when we make an agreement today, how do we follow through with it tomorrow? You and I live in a world where people will agree to do something for you, and then days or weeks later forget they said such a thing.

Our military clients have an acronym to explain this: OBE: Overcome By Events. When you tell someone you’ll do something for him or her, do they assume you will get it done? And, if it looks like you are running late on getting something done for yourself or someone else, how do you renegotiate that agreement?

What's your inspiration?

Hey,

You...

Did you make a New Year's Resolution?

C'mon, what was it you thought you'd do more of (or less of!?) this year?

If you and I are at all alike, we get ideas of we could do - personally OR professionally - and yet we seem to run out of time before we can make all the progress we wanted to ON those goals.

I went to my local athletic club last week while I was home, and I even got one spinning class in before I left for London. If you look at this picture I took of the wall (and window) of the spinning room, you'll see one thing that continues to inspire and motivate me to continue training...

My (second) run through Kensington Park

Here's a map of my run today! It was a nice one, the sun was out, I saw a bunch of other runners, and I found the DOG PARK! It made me miss my Zuma...

Get Fit at Home - London Personal Trainers

Last fall I was in London, and after a run one afternoon I thought, "I wonder if there are any running clubs I could join while visiting London." Well, a little webs-searching led me to this site:

Link: London Personal Trainers And Coaches Bring The Gym To Your Home.

Personal Trainers Who Still Make House Calls!

Bring fitness, health and happiness into your own home. ... let our trained, qualified and experienced personal trainers create the perfect fitness programme for you and work with you to achieve that dream body.

I haven't met with anyone from this organization, but the e-mails we exchanged led me to believe they are professional, courteous and knowledgeable. Maybe when I'm back in April (this week went so fast!) I will get a chance to meet up with them.

How do YOU learn in a seminar?

In the next 6 weeks, I'll present 8 seminars to companies in North America and Europe. (We're working on setting something up in March in Costa Rica...stay tuned!)

I wrote this "6-point mini article" for clients who ask, "Jason, how do we maximize the day when you come in and work with our teams?"

Attending a seminar differs from other kinds of learning, such as: group discussion, computer-based-trainings, or reading.

Asking questions, listening carefully, imagining and visualizing yourself experimenting with the information back in the real world are great methods to enhance your learning experience. Here are several ways to maximize the time you spend in seminars.

1) Buy the book/Subscribe to the blogs. Find out if the presenter has written a book or articles. Ask for a list of presenter's favorite books. Review the second chapter of one or two of them...chances are high that information from that chapter is a part of the presentation.

2) Write something down. Annotate the book, the workbook (if there is one) and your own note pad. The kinesthetic act of writing a note may assist you in grounding the learning. (As I read a book, I put a small DOT next to lines in the book. I note all the page numbers of the lines I liked, and often I type these lines and print them out for later review.)

Seeing the same website in multiple browsers...

I got this note today from a colleague in Ottawa...thanks Anthony!

Hi Jason, I found this FIREFOX plugin and thought you might find it interesting.

So many websites are specifically designed to look best in one particular browser.  Often times people switch back and forth from one browser to another just to view specific websites.  This gets tedious and cumbersome trying to maintain 2 lists of bookmarks, remembering which sites look best in which browser, etc.

This plugin allows you to use the Firefox browser and open specific urls using Internet Explorer as the engine.  I've used it a bit and find it very useful.  No more switching back and forth, just launch one browser and the rest is handled automatically. The plugin can also be configured to always open specific urls in one browser or the other so you don't have to remember which web page works with which browser. Hope you (or someone you know!) can find it useful!

    Regards, Anthony

Rest in a restless world - a blog on Technology at work

A colleague of mine pointed my focus toward Craig Huggart's web blog (as he'd written about me there!) and so I spent some time reading through several entries. Good stuff, Craig, keep it going!

My day in London 1/14/2008...(Billy Elliot, writing at the coffee shop, a run through The Royal Gardens)

Wow, what a day! First a run around the park...

Then a picture with "The Queen..."

And I ended the night by seeing Billy Elliot. (Click here...)

A view while on a hike before I left home to travel to London

Click on this amazing picture of our backyard... We're still planning to put on a "Weekend in Ojai" productivity event sometime in 2008. Limited to a few "interested" folks, it would be time to come to Ojai, talk, strategize, organize and take your productivity to another level. Stay tuned!

More Than Time Management - presentation on 24 January (Thousand Oaks, CA)

For those of you wondering how to "hear a little more" about what we do, and how we do it, here's the next "local event." I'm speaking for one hour (yes, this IS about managing our time!) on January 24th, and I would love to meet you there!

Click on the link below for more information...

Link: A professional organization for project managers.

More than Time Management:

Making Things Happen With Behaviors, Processes and Systems for Success –

Thursday 24 January 2008, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Palm Garden Hotel, 495 N. Ventu Park Road in Thousand Oaks.