I admit I like processes; in fact I’ll go as far as to say I love processes. There are so many wonderful things about processes, here are a few:
- help explain what needs to be done
- ensures every stage of a task has been considered
- helps to identify efficiencies
- helps to teach other people
- ensures consistencies
I get a great deal of pleasure from breaking tasks into its component actions and arranging them in an efficient manner. Despite this I’ve never used processes at home; maybe I thought it was too much like work or perhaps I thought it was just too anal!
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Using processes to aid efficiency
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Posted on 22nd September 2009 892 views
Under: productivity |
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It’s easy to identify an action or goal; sometimes it’s easy to complete them and cross them off your list. However, it is the maintenance actions that really make a difference. For instance, in terms of losing my pregnancy weight I could just think about reaching my pre-pregnancy weight, but the real desired outcome is to maintain that weight. This means when I reach that weight I don’t stop exercising, instead I move to the maintenance level of exercise and diet.
This is currently on my mind because I am in the process of reinstalling software on to my laptop after I reformatted at the weekend. Yes, less than two months since I bought it. After buying the laptop, my first tasks were to remove Vista and install XP, remove the preinstalled software I didn’t want and to install AVG antivirus. Then I moved on to the business of installing other software and moving across my files.
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Don’t forget maintenance actions
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Posted on 11th September 2009 701 views
Under: goals |
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I’ve had a few problems recently. The most noticeable being the loss of my computer. The battery stopped charging and only occasionally registered the power supply. One theory is this may have been due to my daughter’s fascination with laptops; she had a tendency to pull out of the charging cable and chew on it. I now have a new 17″ latoptop, but have had to reinstall programmes and transfer files which has taken a long time (in fact I’m not quite there). This was soon after followed by a holiday where the internet connection wasn’t working. All this loss of technology, along with some illness, has meant I’ve lost my way in terms of productivity, and unfortunately my blog is one of the things to suffer
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Losing technology and losing my way
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Posted on 1st September 2009 597 views
Under: progress |
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Almost three weeks ago, I put out a poll asking what you wanted to read on this blog, I’m delighted that some of you spent the time to complete it. As you can see from the chart below, the results were fairly even.
Its great that you want to read more about goal identification and achievement because I am keen to write about this topic as I think it keeps me focussed on what I’m trying to achieve. I’m usually happy to talk about productivity especially as it’s what I originally started this blog for, plus I believe if I’m more productive I will achieve my goals more quickly. These are the two topics I was hoping you would want to read about 
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What you want to read
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Posted on 3rd July 2009 488 views
Under: blog |
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There are some tasks that you really want to do, but are so big that you don’t know how you’ll find the time to complete it, or even where to start. There are two solutions:
- put aside a day (or longer) and work on it until the task is finished
- work on the task a little bit regularly over a longer period of time
I’m a big fan of the little and often approach and have used it for yeasr within different organisation systems and it is one of the features of AutoFocus, in fact it is positively encouraged.
Advantages of little and often
- less resistance to starting the task if you know you only need to work on it for a short time
- less procrastination as you can stop working on the task when you get tired of it and lose focus
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Little and often (getting big things done)
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Posted on 22nd June 2009 648 views
Under: productivity |
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I’ve been writing this blog for over two years and I noticed recently that the topics I’m writing about have changed slightly and I’m interested in your thoughts about the future direction. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments, but I’ve also created a poll below and in the sidebar to make it easy; you can select up to 5 responses.
What do you want to read about on this blog?
- Goal identification and achievement (75%, 3 Votes)
- Productivity (50%, 2 Votes)
- Journal writing (50%, 2 Votes)
- Dealing with work / hot desking (50%, 2 Votes)
- More personal posts (50%, 2 Votes)
- I like what you are currently writing (0%, 0 Votes)
- Links to other blogs and sites (0%, 0 Votes)
- Asking for your help (0%, 0 Votes)
- My opinion on different topics (0%, 0 Votes)
- Mother and baby (0%, 0 Votes)
- Fewer personal posts (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 4
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I started this blog after using Live Journal for a year and realising I wanted to practice my writing in a way I didn’t think I could on LiveJournal. The current strap line Revelations along the way to a simpler, happier and more successful life shows my intentions when I started this blog and the majority of posts were related to productivity.
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What do you want to read on this blog?
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Posted on 15th June 2009 636 views
Under: ask advice |
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I have undertaken monthly reviews as well as wheel of life reviews for some time, however I felt I should be getting more out of these reviews to ensure I was working towards my goals. Although I think the wheel of life is a great tool to help develop your desired life balance, my concern was that it was subjective and therefore probably not a good monitoring tool.
New wheel of life method
To try and resolve this, during May 2009 I kept a note of the tasks and activities I completed, and plotted the number against each of my goal areas. Of course, it is not perfect as I have not been able to make a note of every single task, plus the number of tasks does not necessarily equal time spent on tasks or importance of tasks, but it is fairly quick and easy to keep track.
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Introducing wheel of life progress review (May 2009)
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Posted on 12th June 2009 577 views
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Every year Cancer Rearch UK organise a series of women only 5km (3 mile) sponsored runs across the UK. Although they are called Race for Life everyone gets a medal as the aim is to finish anyway you can, whether it is running, walking, pushing a pram or wheelchair or doing a three legged race.
I’ve always been a sprinter and thought I’d done my only long distance run when I completed a Race for Life 7 years ago, but signed up for this year after it was suggested it would be a good target to lose some of my pregnancy weight. I was keen to run the race despite having only completed the distance once before, but found it difficult to find time to train and two weeks before the run the furthest I’d gone was 1.6km and that only involved 6 minutes of running.
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I completed my 5km Race for life
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Posted on 8th June 2009 792 views
Under: self |
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Writing down your goals is good, but of course it is even better to take action to help realise the goals. When I announced the second draft of my goals, Gary asked how often I considered them. This got me thinking; I intend to review them at the end of each month using a wheel of life, but was this good enough? I decided that as well as a regular review, I also needed a regular reminder of my goals.
I created desktop wallpaper for my laptop depicting each of my goals, so I am reminded of them whenever I use my laptop. This was a task I could have spent a long time on by finding the perfect pictures and learning how to use photoshop to get the perfect layout. Instead I put something together very quickly finding the best pictures I could and over time I intend to update it when I find better pictures. This means the wallpaper isn’t as pretty as it could be and some of the images are a bit of a loose connection to the goal, but as it is acting as a reminder to me it is doing its job.
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Creating a goal daily reminder
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Posted on 5th June 2009 771 views
Under: goals |
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Reviewing the spam on my blog
You may have noticed there has been a lot of spam comments on my blog recently. I’m sorry I haven’t got into action earlier to deal with it.
I have found the spam interesting for two reasons; firstly I seem to get more spam the less active I am (although that could also indicate I’m not upgrading my anti spam plugins). Secondly, reading how the style of spam comments has changed to try and get round these plugins such as Akismet. The comments containing long lists of url now go straight into my spam folder, but the new style of responding to the post topic are still getting through.
However, there are still comments that stand out as they are not related to the post. I’ve been reviewing the comments during my lunch hour and some of these random comments have broken the monotony of the task and made me smile. Here are my favourites:
Posted on 15th December 2009 888 views
Under: blog | 2 Comments »