In Danny Sullivan’s summary of Google Zeitgeist conference, he quotes Google cofounder Larry Page as saying

There are no companies that have good slow decisions. There are only good companies that have fast decisions.

Larry had apparently deduced this from analyzing data from lots and lots of corporations. He apparently also had in mind that Google had not acted fast enough regarding a recent Motorola decision.

But, does his quote make for sound advice? It seems to me, as an outsider looking in, that Apple makes slow and thoughtful decisions. Do they perhaps miss some opportunities? Sure. We are Always going to miss some opportunities. Every one of us, from individuals to the most successful companies.

And Ray Dalio, head of the world’s most successful hedge fund, also focuses on making slow, but correct, decisions, as noted in this highly interesting interview of him.

The key of course is to make the Right decisions … sometimes you can do that with due speed, but often it takes a thoughtful approach with a lot of weighing of pro’s and con’s.

Back to the point about missed opportunities, Jeff Bezos emphasized, in this Bloomberg discussion of the Kindle Fire, that Amazon focuses on opportunities:

Bezos says he doesn’t think defensively.

“Everything we do is driven by seeing opportunity rather than being worried about defending,” he says. Given Apple’s inroads into the media business, that’s hard to believe. Bezos is magnanimous toward Jobs.

“On a personal level we have a tremendous amount of respect for Apple and Steve. I think that’s returned,” he says. “Our cultures start in the same place. Both companies like to invent, both companies like to pioneer, both companies start with the customer and work backwards. There’s a like-mindedness.” Pause. “Are two companies like Amazon and Apple occasionally going to step on each other’s toes? Yes.”

In thinking back over my 62 years on this little planet, I’d say that I sure could have benefitted from being more focused on opportunity than on “defense.” I can think of way too many opportunities that I let go, thinking that they would come again, never to see them again. And, sometimes I let opportunities pass because I didn’t see them at the time. Sometimes you are not going to see an opportunity if you don’t have an opportunity-mindset.

That’s it for today. Lots for you to think about (for example, did Larry Page draw the wrong conclusions from the data he looked at, because of one recent experience? If so, how would you avoid doing it yourself? Are there opportunities in your life that you have just been overlooking? [You have to take some time to really think on this one.} And so on.)

Of course that post referred to the “final end” (what some call “the big chill”), but the principle of keeping the end in mind also applies to projects and goals. It is so important that David Allen, in his best-selling Getting Things Done, emphasizes the importance of specifying a Successful Outcome for each project (and goal). I think this is so important that I wanted to emphasize it. You may very well be aware of it, but needed a reminder to get you to do it more consistently. I know I’m not always consistent on it: it’s easy to not specify it for smaller projects, but sometimes those are the ones that benefit most from our specifying the successful outcome(s) we expect.

Just about any software will let you specify the outcomes you want, even if it’s just by giving you room to do it in the Notes for each project.

I also encourage you to write down the resistance you might face in achieving the goal or completing the project. Writing down any barriers you might have will help you anticipate how to deal with them. It’s important to consider any internal resistance you might have, too. For example, you might have a goal of obtaining a promotion but you might also internally resist it because you kinda fear the added responsibility it will bring, along with a potential change in friends and so on.

The point about writing down the resistance is something I learned long ago from Zig Ziglar, although I cannot now remember which book of his it was in. (It may have been in his How to Get What You Want.)

Your thoughts?

You might suspect, as I would have, that someone like super-author J.K. Rowling uses pretty sophisticated planning software, maybe even a product that is specially designed for authors, and maybe even a product designed especially for her. But we would be wrong: she uses notebook paper, and lays everything out in a spreadsheet-like format.

If we stop and think about it, though, this is not terribly surprising. For example, a recent Wall Street Journal article discusses how handwriting boosts the brain. The article notes that

… researchers are finding that writing by hand is more than just a way to communicate. The practice helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development

And, in my article on would you know if you have ADD, I note that using a paper planner helped reduce my ADHD-like symptoms. (Similarly, in my recent article on the Kindle, I noted that I was much less ADD-like in using it than in using my iPad or computer for reading, because it is designed for reading and doesn’t have a lot of other distracting features. Paper doesn’t have bells and whistles, either, and that helps you focus on the task at hand.)

Whenever I need to plan something really complex, out comes the paper. That’s despite the fact that I have about every planning tool one could have on my computer. Paper helps me think in ways that software doesn’t.

But, that’s me. It may describe lots of people, but I would not try to sell you on doing things my way. Do what works for you: just remember that paper could be one thing that does work for you, and don’t be held back from using it because you’re afraid someone will see you and think you are not tech-savvy. What do you care what other people think?

(Of course, there are projects for which software is the best way to go, no matter how much you like paper: if your project is one that takes a lot of collaborative effort, for example, you need a planning medium that works in that environment.)

In particular, Ben Horowitz noted the following in discussing how to handle complaints from one executive about the competence of another:

On the other hand, if the complaint is new news, then you must immediately stop the conversation and make clear to the complaining executive that you in no way agree with their assessment. You do not want to cripple the other executive before you re-evaluate their performance. You do not want the complaint to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I’ve witnessed the efficacy of self-fulfilling prophecy countless times in my life. All too frequently it has resulted in negative consequences. Think you’ll motivate your kids by calling them lazy? Guess again. Such talk will help ensure they become lazy. Reverse psychology often backfires.

Words and attitudes are powerful shaping forces. It pays to periodically review the kinds of phrases you are using around those you influence, to see if you are crafting a result you do not want.

As to the article I was reading, you can find it here. It is primarily directed to an audience of CEOs, but you’ll find interesting points in it regardless of where you are on the corporate ladder.

Screw productivity and productivity products, I win with sheer will ….I know I am dumb

In other words, he is saying he will not whittle away his life reading productivity blogs and books, but will overcome the resistance of getting things done by sheer will power.

Good old-fashioned will power can be very effective. Seems to me it’s in short supply, though, as people look for easy answers. For many things, there are no easy answers, and will power is the only way to work through the resistance.

• The most recent David Allen Productive Living Newsletter has some excellent questions for you to answer, both for looking back on 2009 and for looking ahead to 2010. By the way, if you haven’t subscribed to David’s newsletter, you really should.
• Seth Godin’s most recent post, Seven years gone, asks “Seven years from now, what will you have to show for what you’re doing right now?” When you look at that question in the context of Seth’s article, you can see how it important the question is.
• The Smart Bear blog has 10 great questions for start-up managers to ask themselves monthly, but the questions can be easily modified to fit your situation or mine … you don’t have to be a start-up manager to benefit from the questions. For example, their Question 3, What one thing is most responsible for preventing sales?, could be phrased as What one thing is most responsible for me not meeting my most important goal?

I hope you will take the time to look these questions over and factor your favorites into your planning.

Happy New Year everyone!

In a comment on one of my recent posts, John noted the following:

I’ve been on and off with GTD and Covey many many times through out the years. I could never turn it into a habit and kept searching for solutions. About a month ago I had a business trip overseas and when I returned I had horrible jet lag.

I took advantage of it to realign my wake up time 2 hours earlier than usual and use the time to do daily and weekly review, and, simply, think and reflect. So far so good. I feel I’m on the top of my responsibilities. That feels really good. And I’m not using exactly GTD nor Covey. I just improvise along.

So it seems it doesn’t matter how one approaches time mgmt. The essence is periodic reviews and, as David Allen said, think.

John really hit on a couple of good points: the weekly review being one, and the importance of really thinking being the other.

In this insanely busy world, which is only going to get busier (based on trends of the past several years), we often fail to take time to just set and think. When we do give ourselves a few minutes, it’s typically to take a breather. Those are necessary, of course. In fact, when we can we should just go outside and walk a bit to “clear the fog.”

But, it’s also important that we make time to really think, to anticipate what might happen in the future and to plan so we can be ready for it, to question whether we are really spending our time in appropriate ways, to picture ourselves in our customer’s shoes so we can try to see what they think about our operations, and so on.

Ideally we should do this every day, but taking the time to do it only in connection with the weekly review is better than not taking the time to do it all. Bill Gates used to dedicate an entire week each year to getting away from it all and just thinking. (Until I read the linked article, I had thought that he did this for two weeks each year, based on an article I read in Forbes or The Economist, or some other mag, several years ago.) Few people can take the time to mimic Bill’s annual Think Weeks, but it does drive home how important it can be to dedicate time to thinking.

Well, it just happened with me and caused me to waste a lot of time. Since it is fresh on my mind, I figured I would share the problem with you and what I learned in the process of “solving it.” If you are in a hurry and don’t want the details of the case study, you can skip to the end to examine the lessons learned.

The Case Study: My Non-Problem

A couple of times over the past few weeks, my server has been down for about an hour. That, of course, is an actual problem. The non-problem came from the perspective I put on it. Specifically, rather than acknowledging that almost all servers go down every once in a while, even the most expensive ones, I took those down-times as an indication that I needed to change my web-hosting.

So, I looked at the facts that I knew:

1. The control panel for my server generally shows a server load of 2.00 or more, and frequently as much as 5 or 6 (with an occasional 10 or 11, which is when it usually “crashes.”) From what reading I had done, a server load in excess of 1.0 is bad news. (Turns out I had some misunderstanding … more on this below.)
2. Shared servers, such as the shared server plan I am own, are hosting numerous web sites at once. Hence, if another web site on my server gets the Digg Effect, they could bring the server down for all sites on that server (mine included, of course).
3. My web-hosting provider, Bluehost, actually is one of the top-rated web hosts and has a good reputation, although some people say they have too many sites on each server.

Now, note that items 2 and 3 suggest that my “problem” is not worthy of much of my time. But, item 1 really bothered me. From what I had read on Wikipedia about server load, it seemed to me like my site was on a server that was overloaded. So, recognizing that Bluehost is one of the best shared-server sources, I began to think I need to move my site to a dedicated server.

The minimum cost of moving to a good dedicated server runs about $50 per month, which translates to $600 per year. So now my problem just expanded in scope: before doing this, I first had to answer whether I am serious enough about blogging to spend this kind of money.

Now, bear in mind that I am going to show you later that I was working on a non-problem, yet notice how this “problem” is already expanding in scope.

It gets worse. After I decided that I am committed to blogging (at least until I run out of things to say), then I began looking at whether I could write off any of the expenses of the server under my LLC. This would also mean I would have direct the trivial advertising income I get into the LLC, so that the income and expenses are handled hand-in-hand.

So, this took a good bit of research and time. I also read about how to move from one server to another and backed up all of my data in preparation for the move.

Realizing The Problem Is Not Real

Then, I took another look at the control panel for my server and noticed that the server load is 5, but that the indicator next to it is green, indicating an OK status. I notice that next to the server load it says, in parens, “8 CPUs,” which means the server has 8 processors.

So, I decide to research server load a bit more. The 8 CPUs is key. With 8 processors, a server load of 5 is not that bad. If it were one processor, it would be a disaster. But, that’s not the case.

So, when I realized this, I reconsidered items 2 and 3 above and realized that I am not really justified in moving to a dedicated server. My instincts were telling me that having only 500 to 600 page views per day is not enough to warrant a dedicated server (and the expense thereof). But, I was ignoring my instincts.

The Lessons

I learned a few things from this episode.

• It pays to really understand the data you are dealing with. I had a misunderstanding about what server load meant. There was also some other data that I was misinterpreting, but it’s not worth getting into, except that my misinterpretation of data led me down a path I need not have traveled.
• As we recently discussed, problems can be a good thing. I have been solving problems all of my life, and now that I am retired I really don’t have that many … that creates the perfect environment for the brain to invent problems to solve.
• It is incredibly easy for us to unnecessarily expand the scope of a problem. I suspect we often do this without realizing it.
• It pays to listen to your intuition. It will not always be right, of course, but it is worthy of your attention.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. And, I hope that if you are working on some non-problems, that this little article will help set you straight.

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

I can’t recall when I was first introduced to mind mapping: it may have been as long as a half-century! No joke. I seem to have a vague recollection of an elementary school introduction to it, but I really don’t trust memories that go back that far. Regardless, I was introduced to it professionally about 10 years ago, while working with a former educator who was big on using mind maps to facilitate brainstorming sessions. I loved how well it worked in those situations and began tinkering with it as a planning aid.

My first substantial use of it began a couple of years ago. In talking with a publisher friend, the subject of using mind maps in time management came up, and he arranged with the good folks at Mindjet for me to receive complimentary licenses of MindManager. That put me in the mind map equivalent of hog heaven:

• I used MindManager to lay out mind maps for my retirement, for detailing a few specific work-related projects, for organizing my thoughts on a few philosophical concepts, and so on.
• The ability to link mind maps together and to link a mind map item to a document or spreadsheet turned out being very useful.
• I could easily add pictures to a mind map. And, I could easily change a map. A nice luxury after my experience with hand-drawing them.

It helped me to think of things that my more linear modes of brainstorming had not. And, of course that is one of the advantages of mind maps: because it is a tool most of us do not use day in and day out, it causes us to think a bit differently when we do use it. It is for this reason I thought it would be good to remind you of the use of mind mapping as a potential tool for your toolkit.

So, let’s get to some examples. You can download all of the examples used here in this zipped download, which has the three examples saved in MindManager 7 format. [The file is about 250KB.]

Example 1: GTD Areas of Focus Mind Map

A simple GTD use of mind maps is a mapping of your GTD Areas of Focus, which are somewhat analogous to Roles in the Covey system. My use of it in this way is not to do a detailed map of everything going on in my Areas of Focus, but to brainstorm pieces that might be missing. You can see my example of this by clicking the following link: Areas of Focus Mind Map.

Example 2: GTD Altitudes Mind Map

Of course it’s easy to extend this sort of map to all the GTD “Altitudes.” I have provided a generic implementation of this in the following mind map: GTD Altitudes Mind Map. This map also subtly shows one of the nice benefits of using software for mind mapping, vice using the hand-drawn method: you can expand or collapse an element by clicking on it. So, in this example, the details of the 20,000 and 30,000 ft altitudes are shown, while the details of the 40,000 and Life elevations are hidden, allowing one to focus on the former two without distraction. Of course, with a couple of simple clicks, the details for all of them can be made available. (Note: the clicking only works on the actual mind map, not on the image shown in the link.)

Example 3: Covey Roles Mind Map

Mind mapping is also a good way to develop/visualize your goals within a Covey Roles context. If you are a fan of using Covey Roles to organize your life, the template shown in the following link will be of interest to you: Covey Roles Mind Map.

Wrap-up

In this article I just wanted to make you aware of mind mapping and give you some samples to illustrate the concepts. If you would like to see more samples, there are a ton of them on the Mindjet site. If there is sufficient interest in this topic, we may explore it further.

But this morning I find myself feeling sorry for her. She did not intend to throw her life away. That does not excuse her from her bad decisions, but she did not start out with the view of wanting to destroy her life. She is a young person with a lot of talent who is now pissing it all away. Classified as “greatly disabled,” it appears that she has lost the ability to function as an adult and to meet the responsibilities she was born with and that she created (such as taking care of her children). It is a powerful tragedy.

What is even more sad to me is that she is but one of many. She is one of the most famous, for sure, but her situation is not unique. My oldest granddaughter, who “worshipped” Britney 7 or 8 years ago while living with us, is in a similar mess. Vickie and I saw the potential for it, tried with all of our might to stop it, as did others, and to no avail. It is painful because I now feel powerless to help her. Just like with Britney, such a bright young kid whose life could have turned out to be such a blessing to others instead of another example of how not to live.

I am not sure why I shared these thoughts. This post was just going to be one where I shared some food-for-thought links with you. But, this weighs heavy on my mind. I guess I just needed to air my head out a bit. Thank you for listening.

Now, as to the links I mentioned:

First, from Tim Berry’s blog is his entry entitled No, Starbucks, Don’t Try To Please Everybody. I especially like his quote of Bill Cosby:

I don’t know the secret to success. But I do know that the secret to failure is trying to please everybody.

Another entry dealing with startup organizations is Jason Calacanis’ The Year-One Startup Handbook on “how to identify and deal with the slow masses, knowledgeable skeptics, and savvy dreamers.” He makes some interesting remarks on what separates folks like Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin from the masses.

Tim Ferriss wrote an article on depression recently, right after the death of Heath Ledger, in which he discussed how you label determines how you feel . A noteworthy quote from this article:

To paraphrase Dan Sullivan: the problem isn’t the problem. It’s how you think about the problem that’s the problem.

So true. How we think about things determines not only how we feel but what we can accomplish (or how much we can fail). No doubt that I do not remind myself of that often enough.