Dream Act Plan Believe

Well my somewhat unintended blogging break has gone on for quite a while.  Perhaps long enough.  You see I committed to working on blogging today as part of the Bloggiesta festivities hosted by my sister at Maw Books.  I’m over a day behind in getting started, but I’m now officially joining in the festivities.

This long break didn’t really start out as an intended blogging break, but…

It all began with that post back an entire month ago,  A Productivity System for Getting Things Done , in which I began a quest to get my productivity back on track.

Don’t get me wrong.  I was still being highly productive, but not as productive as I could be.

You see, my systems had fallen by the way-side and I’d fallen out of the habit of using those system that helped me produce the most amount of work I could in the shortest amount of time.  Things were falling through the cracks, I was missing appointments, and forgetting important things. Read the rest of this entry »

Image Courtsey of kogakure

I’ve always been an extremely busy person, but I’ve been EXTRA swamped lately so that’s why I haven’t even gotten my first post done in the Envision It series.  I haven’t even had time to get in  many Tweets.

It’s primarily because our iLearningGlobal business is booming at the same time I’m trying to get Rich Women Sisterhood relaunched (after we found some problems in BETA mode).  I’ve also been coaching several small business clients, something that just kinda happened as people asked for help in setting up their business to market online.

The Problem

The problem is my old methods of  tracking my projects, and everything I had to get done, wasn’t working anymore…

I’d used a paper-based planner since junior high.  When I first got married I worked for Franklin Covey (back before Franklin merged with Covey) and fell in love with the Franklin planning system.   Once I began homeschooling and running several business I found that it wasn’t working as well anymore.  Primarily because of the many repetitive tasks and multiple projects.

In all fairness, I’ll take that back…

I had automated the system by using the Franklin Covey software, but my computer crashed and I couldn’t install it on my new computer. I wasn’t willing to invest in new software at the time.  Though now their online planning system looks pretty good.

Don’t get me wrong, I still find great value in the teachings offered by Franklin Covey system, particularly when it comes to aligning your tasks with your values and core believes. I also firmly believe that it is a fantastic system for many, many people.  And I will continue to use many aspects of it in conjunction with what I am doing now.  But, there had to be an easier way than creating a new list every day.

Getting Things Done

So some time ago, I searched and found David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and fell in love with the GTD methodology.  I highly recommend you read the book!

I downloaded and printed some fantastic forms for GTD (I’ll still use many of them) and created my own DIY planner and used it in conjunction with the Hipster PDA.  I found that worked fairly well, but things were still falling through the cracks.  Plus it was costing me more considerably more for printing than the Franklin planner cost.

But my system wasn’t working

It wasn’t flawed, but…

I spend a good share of my day at the computer, or away from my home office.   Some days I’d go to add things to my list and realize that my planner was in the trunk of the car.  Not a problem, unless the car is gone for eight hours.   Even if the planner was right there next to me, I’d end up taking notes on a piece of paper – simply because I’d be in to big of a hurry to find the correct page to write that particular task on.

However, now after quite a bit of research and a little time organizing I think I’ve come up with something that will work well for me. Perhaps it, or parts of it will work well for you.

A New Productivity System

It’s a system that uses technology (and no I don’t have an iPhone or Blackberry), to track all my projects and tasks, and combines it with other productive tools.  It allows me to easily capture tasks on the run.  Plus, my husband, and business partner, can automatically add tasks he needs me to work on as well.

So I’m not giving up my DIY printed planner /Franklin planner /Hipster PDA completely and I still have a project folder for each one of my projects.  But I’m merging them with other tools for getting things done. I’ll share with you what I use each of the tools for.

If I were to include everything in one post it would be counter productive, and difficult to follow. So over the next few weeks I’m going to share with you the tools I use to keep track of all my projects and tasks.   Perhaps some of the tips will help you not only dream, but act.  And not only plan, but believe.

Productivity Tips for Getting Things Done

1. First post – coming soon

Image Courtesy of Peterastn's Photostream

I believe the World Wide Web is not the most appropriate name for the internet. Yes, it’s true, the world wide web is justly named because one website links to another, then another, and another – just like one strand links another strand in a spiders web. But perhaps, it’s not the most appropriate name…

Perhaps you’ve had those days when the world wide web is more like one large rabbits hole that connects to another rabbits hole, and perhaps, like me, you find yourself just like Alice in Wonderland chasing rabbits down rabbit’s holes and discovering a whole new world.

Yes it’s true the world wide web can open a whole new world, or should I say under-world.  And it begins like this…

You open an email from a friend, and read: “You should go check out this site.”  Naturally (if you are a curious person like me, and someone who hates the fact that someone else might know something you don’t know)  you click to check it out.

While you’re there you read something you didn’t know before, something that peaked your interest, but…

That web-site just provided a glimpse, and not a full answer.  So you do the sensible thing and person who values learning does…

You open up your browser, go to Google.com and type in your question. There is is! 184,796 web pages that just may have the information you need.

So you open up the door to rabbit hole number one and down you go.  But wait…

That rabbit hole wasn’t quite what you were looking for!

So you open another door and go down rabbit hole number two.

Perfect, you were lucky this time. Right there in rabbit hole number two is everything you ever wanted to know about rabbits and rabbit holes.

You read it, but then you begin to worry…

Maybe, just maybe, you may not really know everything there is to know about rabbits. So, just to be safe, you decide to check out a few more rabbit holes (aka websites) just to make sure.

There you are on that fifth website, and you learn that rabbits prefer one kind of plant A over another type of plant B.  Good thing you decided to check out those few extra websites!

But naturally, you’ve never heard of that plant B.  Do they grow in my area you wonder? So you go back to Google.com to do another search for plant B.   And yes, to chase another rabbit down another rabbit hole.

At that site the  expert says “subscribe to by newsletter” and learn everything you ever wanted to know about rabbit holes, plants, and raising baby rabbits. So you decide to subscribe.

What a relief…

Now you’ve don’t have to follow those rabbits down the rabbit holes. They’ll come straight to you. Right into your home and set-up house on your computer.

With a sigh of relief you decide that you finally have enough info on rabbit holes, plant B, and how to raise baby rabbits that you can stop searching. After all, the information will now come straight to you, and it will be right there safely tucked away in the cage when you need it.

So you go back to your in box, open another email, and read another email.

“Hey, Leisa, what do you know about XYZ?”  So off you go, down another rabbit hole…

It’s true, what they say.  Rabbits do multiply fast.

Image Courtesy of Timlewisnm

Suddenly, you look at the clock and exclaim that famous line from the book: “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date.”

Thanks to Rich Schefren who provided the inspiration for this post.  His post talks how to eliminate information on  rabbit-hole journeys.

So sorry, I’m going to recommend you follow-this rabbit down this hole and check out his blog.  Rich has some valuable insight into why you should stop the madness. I like Rich’s advice.

“Remember: You cannot conquer uncertainty by burying it with more information. Wisdom comes not from devouring information, but by filtering it through personal experience and taking action on it. It’s the action or reaction, not the information itself, that makes us wise.”

Here’s a few valuable questions to ask yourself:

• Are you attempting to become business wise by following rabbit’s down hole after hole, and getting lost in the journey?
• Are you spending to much time down rabbit holes, and missing out on the stuff that is right there on the surface?
• Or are you the type of person who can quickly filter the information, and then act on what needs to be done?
• Are you taking advantage of the knowledge you have, putting it to work right now in your life?

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do!

If you don’t, then perhaps you’ll wake up just as Alice in Wonderland did and discover you’ve dreamed your life away.

Oh, by the way, while you’re here, be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed and we’ll deliver more insightful rabbits right into your in box.   But don’t worry, our rabbits are fixed – they don’t multiply.