All posts by Heshy

Heshy Shayovitz is an award winning manager, developer and web designer. He received his MBA from New York University.
Time Management

The Fundamentals Of Time Management

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I always try to break down every concept to it’s basics. It makes it easier to learn and excel at. I’ve been eagerly following Francis Wade and his 2Time system as it breaks down time management to 7 basic habits: Capturing, Emptying, Tossing, Storing, Acting Now, Scheduling & Listing. I think these are core concepts that you should read about (see below) but are there more? What about delegating/followup?

He wrote an interesting manifesto “The New Time Management: Focus on the Fundamentals and Toss Away the Tips” which goes through the 7 fundamentals. Time management is a key component to success and these fundamentals certainly help with time management- check out the manifesto.

What else makes up the fundamentals of Time Management?

Motivation, Principles, Think

How To Be A Winner and Thanks For Making Me One

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As I mentioned, I recently entered a contest at ChangeThis– whose mission is to “spread important ideas and change minds“. My proposal “Stop Bring Productive, Start Being Successful” was selected to be voted on. The person with the most votes for their proposal gets their manifesto (long article) published. I was against 9 others with big ideas. Fortunately, with your help (Thank You) I won! The manifesto is coming soon. Here’s some of my take aways.

Think Like a Winner

Put your concerns aside and do your best. Confidence and determination are key. Think of a plan how to get success and do it.

Put Yourself in Position To Win

“You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”

Wayne Gretzky

If I had been intimidated by the other good ideas I wouldn’t have entered. As the lotto says- “you gotta be in it to win it” (not that I’m advocating playing the lotto). Take whatever cliche you want, the point is if you aren’t trying, you definitely wont win.

Look For Inspiration

By blog buddy Francis Wade of 2Time had entered a previous contest and won.

Ask for Help

You can’t win on your own. I asked Francis for some pointers. I asked my readers to vote. I asked my online buddies to vote. You all came through. Thanks.

Principles

Three Sure Fire Ways To Avoid Fire Drills

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No ones likes the last minute rushing and headaches that comes with an urgent project. Seth Godin has an intriguing post Managing Urgencies. He concludes, “a career putting out fires never leads to the goal you had in mind all along”. This is exactly the reason to “Think” before you do. Here are three ways to avoid fire drills.

Focus on quality

1. Think in advance– Think about the right way to do it before you start any project.
2. Double check– Double check all your work before it goes out.

3. Audit– have an audit procedure to make sure you did it right.

Reign in expectations

1. Don’t over promise– Don’t commit the world if it’s not required. Know what you’re capable of. See what you have the time for and do your best.
2. Educate your customer– Let your customer, boss, spouse know how long tasks typically take so they can set their own proper expectations.

Control your time

1. Don’t overschedule– If you have too much going on you risk getting into a time crunch and startign a fire.
2. Don’t let others schedule for you– Don’t let others automatically schedule you. Sometimes it’s something they can do themselves- teach them how.

Make it your goal not to get in fire drills and you’ll be less stressed and more productive.

Passion, Principles

Don’t Drop The Ball and Other Life Lessons From Opening Day

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Opening days marks the beginning of a new baseball season. There’s something special about opening day. You’ll want to make everyday opening day.

Fresh start

In a new season everyone has a fresh start. The bad teams can show that they’re better. The bench players can show they’ve improved and the rookies can show they belong. Unfortunately real life doesn’t offer us the opportunities to start fresh without dramatic change (switch jobs). The answer is to do something different. Launch something new. Give people the opportunity to show something new. Look at an old situation in a new way. Start a new tradition like going out to lunch with a coworker.

Don’t Drop The Ball

In baseball one of the fundamentals is that you don’t drop the ball. Most of the time you don’t have to do anything remarkable, as long as you do what your supposed. Part of what made Cal Ripken Jr. special is he showed up every day- ready to play. That’s 2,632 straight games without sitting. Today too many people are trying to do too much and don’t get the fundementals done. Keep track of your outstanding tasks and get them done and you’ll be ahead of most people.

Practice, Practice, Practice There’s an old joke of a man lost in New York City he asks a women “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”. The reply was “Practice, practice, practice”. In order to do anything well we must practice, practice, practice. Players who have been playing baseball for their whole lives spend six weeks practicing before the season start. Then they practice all season. In the real world we need to constantly learn, to refine our skills. This may

Make this your opening day. Give yourself a fresh start to improve. Give your coworkers, subordinates, family member and friends a chance to surprise you. Forget the bad from the past. Even my favorite team can put the memory of a historic collapse behind them and start a new.

GTD

David Allen on GTD’s low adoptation rate and GTD 2.0

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I found a dated podcast of David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done (GTD), with Merlin Mann of 43folders.com. I highly recommend the book, it’s a cornerstone to being productive. In the podcast, Allen admits that there’s a very low adoptation rate of people who start with GTD and end up using it. They include:

Not easy to get started- Try to put yourself in an environment where the GTD language is spoken.

Getting more dimensions– Keep learning. Keep rereading. One answer he gives is GTD connect.
High level issues (20,000 & 30,000 & 40,000- feet)- if you don’t address your high level goals “your system will become flat”.

You’ll notice  these are exactly the issues that I discussed earlier with Don’t Get Things Done. I’ll keep bring more solutions to these and other problems with GTD.

Principles

The Last Lecture on Time Management

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Randy Pausch, a beloved college professor, is terminally ill with Pancreatic cancer. He wrote his “Last Lecture” entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. Over six million people have viewed the lecture online. He went on Opera and delivered a shorter version. Pausch is really inspiring. Interestingly he’s more proud of his lecture Time Management. He even posted the power point slides. If anyone needs to manage time well he does.

He mentions lots of ideas that you’ve seen on these pages: start with a dream, make plans and turn it into to do items. Break your to dos down (next actions) and do the “ugliest” thing first (the hardest). Use Covey’s 4 quadrants: Do the “important, not due soon”. Keep an empty inbox. File everything away. Use 2 monitors.
He also has some not so obvious tips:

  • On your desk have only one task in front of you- no distractions.
  • Get a speaker phone- now you can be productive when on hold
  • Telephone
    • Keep calls short; stand during call
    • Start by announcing goals for the call
    • Don’t put your feet up
    • Have something in view to do next
  • Have an excuse ready  to get off the phone. Prepare something fun to do after the call so you are motivated to finish quickly.
  • Group calls: 11:30am (before lunch) and 4:30pm (before quitting time) so people will not stay on the phone long.
  • Write hand written thank you notes
  • Office Logistics- Make your office comfortable for you, and optionally comfortable for others
  • Scheduling Yourself
    • You don’t find time for important things, you make it
    • Everything you do is an opportunity cost
    • Learn to say “No”

And lots more. Watch the video: Time Management.

Health

How Avoiding Exercise Can Make You Fit and Productive

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Many people find doing exercise is boring and annoying. I know I do. The key is to find activities that you enjoy that will give you exercise. Unfortunately that isn’t always possible.

That’s where having a routine comes in. Sometimes we do things just because we are conditioned to. That’s why habits are so important: Do you really feel like taking a stick with bristles and putting it over your teeth. Of course not. We brush our teeth because it’s a simple habit and the consequences of not doing it is a visit to the dreaded dentist’s office.
Similarly try to create a habit to exercise. Try to make it as fun as possible. But there will still be days you just don’t want to do it. That’s perfect, we can take advantage of this. Here’s how I did it.

Each morning my alarm goes on at 6:00am and it’s time to exercise. One morning I didn’t feel like running. But part of my morning ritual is to get up early and I had running time. So instead I procrastinated and decided to reorganize the garage. I got the exercise i needed and felt really good after it was done- all the boxes that were cluttering the den (we’re in middle of a move) are now gone. The garage with it’s haphazard organization (e.g big mess) now has a system to it.

Exercise is about getting yourself moving. You should try to get some satisfaction out of it- even if it’s a clean garage. Look for other strenuous tasks you need to do, put it on your to do list and the next time you don’t feel like exercising, just procrastinate.

Principles

Want more success?

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Change ThisElections are just around the corner and whether your republican, democrat, independent, conservative, liberal or anything else the choice is clear- vote for my proposal: Stop Being Productive, Start Being Successful. Just click the vote link on that page.

I mentioned previously, I submitted a proposal to ChangeThis. If my proposal gets the most votes then they will distribute my manifesto (long article). Which means that you’ll get a quality(i hope) information on making yourself more successful. Here’s the text of my proposal:

Are you working harder and harder and becoming more “productive” yet you still feel like there’s much more to do with no end in sight? The problem is that productivity (doing something well) is only one of the three pillars of success. I will explain the other two pillars and show you how you can use a few easy steps to significantly increase your ability to succeed.

Voting ends on Sunday so vote now.

Career, Leadership, Think

Dazzle Your Boss: Solve the Problem, Not the Request

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How often does your boss come to you with a very specific question/request? If you’re like most good employees you’ll try to work on it quickly and answer his specific question (bad employees will not even take the time to understand the request). I’m here to tell you that’s not a good idea!

Many times your boss is just trying to simplify the problem for you and he glosses over important details. Or worse, he doesn’t know exactly what he wants but comes to your with confidence asking for the wrong thing. What you need to do is to find out what he really wants not what he says he wants.

How can you do this? Simple, ask questions to ensure you understand what he really wants to accomplish.

I had this relationship with one of my bosses. I kept asking questions so that he stopped just giving me a quick command. Instead, he spent a minute or two explaining the background. Sometimes I had some good suggestions, other times it really was a simple request. Through all my questions an interesting thing happened- my knowledge of what was happening around the company increased. I gained a better understanding of projects my department was working on. I was able to take on more complex projects because I knew the background that gave me a foundation. In short, I became a more valuable employee because I knew more and I solved problems.

Did you ever give your boss what he asked for only to do it over again once you found out what he really wanted? Stop and ask. Comment below on how your situation turned out.