The QLog

Stop List for 2008

Take a moment to think about habits, activities, and past times that are extremely low value. Are you watching too much TV? Would you like to stop eating fast food? Perhaps you take coffee breaks at work that are longer and more frequent than they should be, and thereby impacting your overall productivity?

I suggest you set aside 30 minutes tomorrow to consider all of the bad behaviors that waste your time or which are undesirable. Write them down and then create a Stop List. This is a 'NOT to do' list. Review the list and rank each item (no ties). Then pick the top three entries as these are the most pressing time waster which you would like to eliminate from your life.

For the next 28 days, focus on removing the first item on your list and ONLY the first item on your list. If you relapse into the activity, start over. Experts agree that the learning process to remove a habit takes at minimum 21 days. I suggest a full four weeks as that will insure you are ready.

Once you have eliminated the first item from your life, it is time to move to the second item on the list. After a full 28 days of successfully removing that second habit, you can move on the third item on the list.

After all three have been vanquished, you may begin at step one to re-create a new Stop List.

Cultivate Your Minutes

Time, like water, can pass one by, drip by drip...one minute, five minutes, thirty minutes...gone forever. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best "Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life."

Fear vs. F.E.A.R.

Fear is a legitimate emotion and it seems to be part of the human condition as a survival mechanism. Most importantly, it help protect children as it constrains many behaviors that could prove hazardous or fatal at a young age.

Nevertheless, many fears are really F.E.A.R or False Evidence Appearing Real. F.E.A.R holds people from achieving their absolute best. Often, it helps maintain 'the good' instead of promoting 'the great'. F.E.A.R. keeps many people doing average things in a mediocre way for years without growing beyond their status quo.

Five common examples are:

• Fear of failing
• Fear of looking foolish
• Fear of rejection
• Fear of success
• Fear of loss

Instead, embrace the mantra of the late productivity expert Dr. W. Edwards Deming: Drive Out Fear!

How? Below is a simple 7-step techniques to focus on the real problem and determine the best next action instead of being controlled by fear.

1. State the problem, situation, or opportunity as clearly as possible. Clarity is key. Write it down and include who, where, when, why, what, and how.

2. Review the data as you presented them for possible biases. Be as objective as possible. Determine which facts are really assumptions and personal interruptions.

3. Play Devil's Advocate. Is everyone in agreement on the above facts? What would an opponent claim? What is the opposite hypothesis and how might this point of view be correct? Be honest with this exercise.

4. Restate the REAL problem, situation, or opportunity as a question.

5. Create a list of potential solutions with a mindstorm, including both outrageous answers and conventional methods. Be creative and open to new ideas. Do not stop until you have at least 20 items on your list.

6. Review the list critically, considering variables such as cost, time, effort, and complexity. Pick the best two option on the list. One will be your primary course of action. The other will be your plan B.

7. Act today. Begin working on the solution to your fear now. 

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT technique is credited to Albert Humphrey and has been utilized mostly by business teams for strategic planning; however, this tool can also be used by individuals for their focusing on their personalized goals.

• Strengths: consider personal attributes which will be helpful for achieving your goals.
  
• Weaknesses: consider personal attributes that could constrain your likelihood to achieving you goals.
  
• Opportunities: consider external conditions that will be helpful for achieving your goals.
  
• Threats: consider external conditions that will be harmful to achieving your goals.

D.R.A.F.T

If one plans to implement the guideline Only Handle It Once, then the D.R.A.F.T. technique is a very useful method for deciding the next step for paper or digital documents.

Delegate: Route the information to appropriate individual. This may include the assignment of a related task and the need for a later follow-up.

Read: Immediately review the information, especially if it can be done within 5 minutes. Longer documents usually are initially filed and then read at the next best time to do so.

Act: If something needs to be completed, and it is urgent and important, do it now.

File: This can be placing something within a file folder or recording it on a list.

Toss: If in doubt, throw it out.

Go OHIO in 2008

OHIO!?!

No, you do not you need to travel to the state this year (unless you would like to do so). I am referring to the old acronym for Only Handle It Once. This is still very sound advice for most of items that one encounters during the day.

Additionally, O.H.I.O. does not just apply to the paper inbox. This strategy should also be applied to digital documents, email, and voice mail too.

Of course, some sensitive, critical, and urgent things will require more interaction; nevertheless, the target should be to process the information and then take the appropriate action the first time you handle it. The old 80/20 rule applies here: the vast majority should not need a second review.

10 in 10 for 2008

I would like to challenge everyone who reads the Qlog to do another 10 in 10. This exercise will jump-start your goals for 2008. If you would like more details, please read my original post on the 10 in 10 concept.

The plan it to start today or tomorrow and then complete all 10 of your projects over the next 10 weeks. The end-date would be Saturday, March 22nd.

The basic instructions are:

• Review your goals for 2008.
• Plan 10 short sub projects that would help you kick-start some of your goals. Make sure they can be completed within the time frame of 70 days.

Below is my personal 10 in 10 for 2008. Although they are listed in no particular order, they are each have a deadline of 03/22/08.

1) Attend a silent 2-Day retreat (based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius)
2) Partake in a high tea
3) Fast every Tuesday after 3:00 PM (no dinner or evening snack)
4) Join ToastMasters in January and attend all meetings.
5) Purchase one new business suit
6) Donate, sell, trade, or toss 101 possessions
7) Journal daily
8) Begin howtostudyblog.com and rainbowdietblog.com
9) Lose 10 pounds
10) Read 10 new books

I'll report my progress on this page within the comment sections as I complete each.

T.A.R.G.E.T. Goals Part 2

Check your current 2008 goals for each of these T.A.R.G.E.T characteristics:
   
Tangible: You can touch, see, hear, taste, or smell things that are tangible. They are concrete and this makes observations possible. The main benefit of having a tangible goal is that it is easily measured at any time, so progress can be tracked.

Achievable: Choose annual goals that are reasonable for your skill level and can be completed within 365 days. If you think you can, you can! However, if the goal just seems impossible, then the goal should be broken into smaller chunks over a few years or you'll need to become an expert within this domain to achieve it.

Reviewable: If you have tangible goals, this normally is easily done, as long as you have a process to measure progress. Regular inspection is necessary to determine if course corrections are needed. I highly suggest that you build a monthly review schedule into the goal plan itself.
 
Grand: Goals should be big enough to challenge as well as inspire. Human lifespans are short: 120 years, maximum, and most do not make it past 80. If you are going to spend time, talent, and treasure pursuing something, make sure it is an excellent goal, an objective that you consider grand. Focusing one's effort and energy on worthy goals is fun too.

Explicit: Goals need to be clear, exact, and specific. Clarity is key. For example, the goal "I want to earn more money this year" is extremely vague. Technically, if you were paid the exact same annual salary as last year and then I gave you an extra dollar on December 31st, you would have more money and accomplished your objective. Be explicit about what you want, how much, and how often. Detail both qualities and quantities and use the right adverbs and adjectives to describe your vision.

Time-Bound: Procrastination is common; therefore, goals need definite and predetermined deadlines. Ideally, these need should be set at the very beginning of the process. Also, one should be smart and assume that some delays will be encountered over the next 12 months. Do your best to add extra time or a cushion to insure completion by year end. You may grant yourself extensions if absolutely necessary, but try to do this very sparingly and only when conditions beyond your control forced a re-adjustment on the end date.

T.A.R.G.E.T. Goals Part 1

Here is another useful acronym that I've developed for focused and rapid goal setting: T.A.R.G.E.T. 

Goal setting is the process that allows one to hit a bull's eye. Without an specified objective, how can one aim much less hit a specific target?

I'll explain this model in-depth tomorrow. however, here is a very brief outline. For every goal, you identify these major six attributes:

T - Tangible

A - Achievable

R - Reviewable

G - Grand

E - Explicit

T - Time-Bound

2008 is Already One Percent Over

Have you completed your goal setting for 2008? If not, I suggest you spend time this weekend working on it.

Why? 4:00 PM today (your local time) marked the passing of 3.67 days of this new year, meaning that only 99% of 2008 remains. WOW. The arrow of time flies fast, so do not delay and set some goals for 2008. 

Tip: one way to start is to consider what three major things you'd like to brag about at the end of December next year. Do some brainstorming an then narrow the best ideas down. Consider the 'what' and 'why' questions first. Once you have defined some goals, you can determine the 'how' and 'when' answers next.