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GTD – Experiment In Progress

Written February 22, 2012 by Rick Stilwell in consulting, personal

Sunday night I posted this photo to Instagram, and it’s an honest question that might need some explanation. It’s a screen capture from my phone of the Day One app, which is actually a wonderfully elegant app for just journaling, jotting down the day’s notes, making sure the user doesn’t forget whatever’s important. It’s one of a handful of apps I have on my phone for the same purpose: writing these daily instances on a digital app/device rather than on a notebook page with pen.

At least this week, I’m trying to wean myself a bit from the spiralbound notebook, for better or for worse. Honestly, I want to see if I’m missing out on anything by not taking notes with my phone or other device. This experiment’s upside for me might be that I miss the pen and lined paper so much that I go back with a smile, knowing what I probably already know. But the opposing end is equally cool, finding out that I can have some of the same experience digitally that I currently really only have offline.

My normal morning routine:

Get to my cubicle and login.
Pull out current spiralbound notebook.
Find a decent pen (this is part of the fun for me, the pen geek).
Write down my usual every day tasks – this might be weird, but there’s something gratifying about putting the same three-five things on a piece of paper every day. I do them, and I cross them off. Productivity ensues.
Think about meetings, check Outlook calendar for anything else, and make those notes on the page as well.
Checkmarks with circles around the tasks as we roll together through the day.

And maybe there’s a clue about why I like the analog world for my daily notes and doodles: “as we roll together through the day”. The pen and paper become as much of an offshoot of my identity as anything else in my life, much like my iPhone. And there’s the crux of it as well, wondering if one constant (my notebooks) can interact as wonderfully with another constant (iPhone) in my day-to-day workflow.

We’ll see.

What device/habit/tool are you most attached to for your own GTD?

UPDATE 1:45pm 02/22 – phone call, jotted down note/reminder for Friday on a sticky note with a pin. Force of habit. Was on my iPhone, reached for something else to write down that note.

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Conflict Rocks

Written February 20, 2012 by Rick Stilwell in connections, networking, personal

Editors’ NOTE: This post has been sitting in Rick’s tumblr drafts for a long long (okay, we don’t really know how long) time. But it’s good. And it’s decently pointed. So we thought it would fit here. Thanks, and apologies for any lack of cross-posting inconvenience. – the Editors

It’s unavoidable. Sometime, somewhere with someone over something, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a gullywasher of a disagreement. You’ll offend someone with your otherwise innocuous ideas, and all hell will combust in glorious vein-popping majesty. What do you do?

Do you run?
Do you lash out?
Do you return vitriol for offense, heaping salt on any open wounds?
Do you throw up defense shields and load up photon torpedoes, wheeling around for the return volley?
Do you compliantly change your status to alleviate the built-up pressure the quickest way possible?
Do you throw back name-calling and putdowns?
Do you resort to extortion?
Do you quit?

Or, is there a way to (hopefully) use this time of tectonic shift to steer the whole conversation – not just your side, not just theirs, but the whole thing – in a more profitable and beneficial direction?

Maybe it’s a pride thing. Someone feels squatted on. Someone thinks everyone is rightly or wrongly out to get him. Someone feels left out and is marking her territory with whatever spit and vitriol being mustered. Sometimes the only upside is to let the other party vent, get it out, and simmer down. But if there’s a way to learn from the opposing viewpoint, if there’s room to see from her perspective, from his point of view what all the hubbub is about, take that opportunity as quickly and positively as you can. Be the listener and hear the complaint. Put on metaphorical empathetic earplugs and let the volume of the smacktalk subside to the more discernible truth of what’s really wrong, and try to encompass the problem with this new vantage point included in your big picture.

How do you think that would look? Have you tried doing this in the past, and has it worked out positively or detrimentally?

Most times, “winning” is not the goal. Instead, moving forward with the best of all intentions and motivated with the best of all perspectives to do the best with and for everyone is the best choice by far. Being right together is often better than having my own way, regardless how much I might think those two things are already synonymous in my own head.

Lastly, let it go. For me that comes across like this: “Let. It. Go.” It’s hard to take a full frontal assault and deflect it to something worthwhile. The energy in the attack has to be absorbed, and that can only come at a price. While I might be able to participate and listen and settle the situation into something workable, it takes everything out of me. My emotional tank is depleted after such an engagement, and it takes over-encouragement and goodness to rebuild/refuel the generators. In the aftermath, take notes and write down action points (literally or metaphorically), and then leave it there to be addressed when power levels are once again battle ready.

How do you handle confrontation?

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Kickstarting Monday

Written January 30, 2012 by Rick Stilwell in life attitude, personal, reputation

Have you thought about what success means for you right now?

Satisfaction is keeping us from our best work

I think it was Steven Pressfield who said that if you do something long enough, if you get serious about any craft (including writing), there comes a time when it begins to “kick your ass.” When you break down and cry, because it’s just so hard — that’s a great place to be.

via Are You Satisfied? | Goins, Writer.

As I watch the GOP debates and last week’s State of the Union, I’ve noticed that “success” is a hot topic. The President wants to point to successes in the economy while the opposing Party wants to point out the lack. Among themselves, some Republicans want to make a big deal of one candidate’s wealth while playing down their own inconsistencies. It’s like we’re not sure what success should be, not completely on board on what it looks like.

Maybe that’s what made Jeff Goins’ post linked above stand out to me: satisfaction might be hiding us from what real success can be. In the context of the election, the debates, and the primaries, all of these folks are successful. As some leave the race, they’re still successful. Win or lose, they are successful in what they’re doing. Are any of them satisfied? I don’t think so – or at least, if a front-runner becomes complacent, it looks like the market corrects itself and that candidate loses a key state or falls too deep in the polls. It’s either a wake-up call or a “suspending my campaign” press conference.

Do we give up too easy, though? Do we press through only so far, then when it gets too tough of things don’t go the way we thought… “well, God must not be in this…” and we stop moving forward. Resistance causes us to change direction at best, to turn around altogether at worst.

But resistance is where we find we need more push. Obstacles show us where we need more dexterity and flexibility. Problems and downturns might be just the thing we need to work out something even better – not to necessarily park the car and stop the journey.

Where there’s satisfaction, there’s not much drive. Where there’s success-to-a-point, we find folks stopped and stagnating. I’m just wondering this morning if I’m ready to push through the good parts, to give some oomph to the resistance, and to find a new level of success somewhere through all that.

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We Don’t Need a Different Way… We Need Better

Written January 25, 2012 by Rick Stilwell in life attitude, personal

I’ve come to a theory that most of us don’t do things THE BEST WAY. Instead, we typically do things THE WAY IT FIRST MADE SENSE. Maybe it was a good teacher, or well-written process instructions. Maybe it’s something you figured out on your own.

Whatever way you learn, that’s most likely the path you’ll continue to take until there’s an outside force to jostle you into a different way of seeing the world.

This should be a good thing, giving us some stability, something to live out, to pass on to the next generation or next workers coming behind us.

Most of the time, I think it’s a good state of the world for all involved.

Except when we are incapable of learning new, better ways to do those same things.

Except when we close ourselves off to growth, to success, to potential for better results.

Except when we consider our own finite perspectives to be the totality of truth.

Then, in those cases and more, we fail to grow. And loyalty to a set way of thinking becomes detrimental to our well-being.

This is not a rant, just an observation. I’m in the middle of this like everyone else. But I hope that there’s room in my worldview to be wrong, to recognize that, and to look for better.

People don’t want different. Not in their politics. Not on American Idol. Not in their peanut butter.

People want better. Better might be different. But it’s a better different. It’s better first, and that in itself is different.

People want better. Better will be different, because it’s better.

But we’ve got to look for better. We’ve got to be open to better. We’ve got to learn better and then do better and then share better.

So that the next generation can learn better from us, can be better workers and teachers after us, can grow and succeed after us.