Tag Archives: planning

Making a Big Change: a Case Study [How I Retired]

Almost all of us face a decision at some point about whether to make a big change in our lives: Deciding whether to go to college To change jobs To get married To get a divorce To retire and so … Continue reading

Posted in Problem Solving, Project Management | Tagged , , | 27 Comments

Reviewing Covey’s 4 Quadrants

Today we will talk about Covey’s Four Quadrants, which says that the things we do in life can be organized into 4 quadrants: When I first encountered this, about 20 years ago, it was exactly what I needed. I was … Continue reading

Posted in Perspective, Productivity | Tagged , | 23 Comments

Have You Simplified Your Life Enough?

One of the things I tried to do during my sabbatical last week was to simplify my life. Specifically, I worked on improving what I call my signal-to-noise ratio. Now that I have been retired for about 9 months, and … Continue reading

Posted in Perspective, Productivity | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Hope Is Not a Method … Thoughts on Planning

I’m 58 years old and I should know better: there are times when I find myself hoping something will work out. Who doesn’t, you say? You are right: we all hope for things. Having hope and optimism in a situation … Continue reading

Posted in Procrastination, Project Management | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Are You Asking the Right Questions?

You have probably observed the following truisms over the years: CEOs generally ask better questions than Vice Presidents Vice Presidents generally ask better questions than Managers Managers generally ask better questions than the front-liners And so on. The principle that … Continue reading

Posted in Personal Development, Perspective | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Setting Goals: great advice from Tim Ferriss

As you can tell from my earlier review of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek (T4HWW), I am very impressed with this young man’s insights and accomplishments and with the great tips he gives in his book. It is hard for … Continue reading

Posted in Goals, Personal Development | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Planning Tools for Visual People

There are probably innumerable tools for the visual person to do planning. (By “visual person” I mean someone, like me, who likes to see the big picture of a plan, or to see things at-a-glance, so to speak.) The tool … Continue reading

Posted in Productivity | Tagged , | 10 Comments

No Plan Survives Contact With …

How would you fill in the blank? If I didn’t know the answer, I might guess “reality.” But, of course I would be wrong, as a lot of plans survive contact with reality. I’ve had plenty of them and so … Continue reading

Posted in Perspective, Project Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Project Management Tools for PDAs, Part 4: Shadow Plan

This is the fourth in a series of posts on project management (PM) tools for PDAs. In this post we will look at using Shadow Plan for managing projects. Shadow Plan works on the Palm and Windows and Mac platforms, … Continue reading

Posted in Reviews, Software | Tagged | Leave a comment

Project Management Tools for PDAs, Part 3: Bonsai

This is the third in a series of posts on project management (PM) tools for PDAs. In this post we will look at using Bonsai for managing projects. Bonsai is a very useful, easy-to-use project management tool for the Palm … Continue reading

Posted in Reviews, Software | Tagged , | Leave a comment