Michael Sliwinski has put together another amazing collection of articles for your Productivity Practice:

Productive! Magazine #5 available! Miguel Guía interview about art, passion, habits and more!

…issue number #5 of your favorite productivity magazine is available for you to enjoy… and it looks like this:

To this issue I’ve invited a friend of mine and one of my personal productivity gurus – Luis “Miguel Guia” Urrea (here’s the link to our video interview) where he shares his productivity tips and tricks and most of all how he’s been shaping good habits throughout his life.

In this issue we’ve got great articles by a bunch of really fantastic bloggers:

Michael Hyatt talks about scheduling “alone time”
Leo Babauta outlines his “frictionless life”
Howard Flomberg talks about “efficient meetings”
… and there are many more great articles inside

There is also an expanded article about how to use Kanban in your Productivity Practice by yours truly…check it out. (It’s a free download!)

Thanks for another great effort, Michael, and thanks for letting me be a part of it.

This is a couple of weeks old, but, hey, I have been swamped at the restaurant.

Call phones from Gmail – Official Gmail Blog

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 | 9:40 AM

Posted by Robin Schriebman, Software Engineer

Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer’s microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?”

Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail.

Fast Company magazine is looking for the most influential person online: Influence Project. Well, that is certainly pretty interesting…I wonder if there might be a way to parse and analyze this information with regards to topics of influence, what it is that people are talking about.

Here is the basic summary:

ABOUT THE PROJECT

We started with a simple question: Who are the most influential people online right now?

That’s what The Influence Project is designed to answer. By participating, you will have your picture appear in the November issue of Fast Company magazine as part of an amazing photo spread. The more influence you demonstrate, the bigger your picture will be.

You may discover that you’re more influential than you think.

Influence is not only about having the most friends or followers. Real influence is about being able to affect the behavior of those you interact with, to get others in your social network to act on a suggestion or recommendation. When you post a link or recommend a site, how many people actually bother to check it out? And what’s the likelihood of those people then forwarding it on? How far does your influence spread?

This is the type of influence we’re looking for. We want to find the most influential person online.
Who knows? It might even be you.

So, I decided to sign up, and find out what kind of influence I might have. This is not a popularity contest, nor is it some hunt for fame. I know that I am certainly not in the “Most Influential” category, though with several thousand subscribers there is something going on.

So here is my request, if you are a subscriber or visitor and you came to this site looking for information on Productivity or learning to use Social Media for your small business, then please click this Influence Project link and help me to find out how I can better serve you – the readers.

Thank you!

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For those of you notebook fiends out there, some cool add-ons to our favorite notebook:

Matt Reimer points to a DIY SD Card wallet you can make for your Moleskine notebook:
Moleskine and Me

On the road I’m never without my camera and the way I take pictures it’s sometimes nice to have spare SD cards with me. I found this wicked Instructables tutorial by a user called Pipeski on how to make your own SD card wallet that fits really well inside a Moleskine notebook. Definitely worth a look!

Andrew Bosley created a tool he calls The Brainstormer:

When I was in school at SJSU, studying visual development and illustration, I was always trying to give myself little concept projects to keep myself sharp and thinking. So I created a list of objects, persons, things, etc. and a list of styles, adjectives, etc. These very large lists were in the back of my very first Moleskine (an address book used as a sketchbook). The idea was to combine an object or person with a style or adjective (ex. Byzantine submarine or subterranean factory) to create unique and interesting combinations to concept out and illustrate.

I found it useful in it’s crude form, but always wanted to turn it into a small, more sophisticated pinwheel format. Finally, a few months ago, during a lull in freelance work, I decided to make it happen.

Patrick Ng created a Moleskine Sketchbook/Diary in a leather cover (click over to see the pics!):

The day I decided to use the Moleskine 18 months weekly diary from July I knew I would have problem pulling out what I need from my bag. It has the same size and look as the Moleskine sketch book I’m using. Knowing that I will be using both quite often in this coming half year starting from my trip to Tokyo next week, I did something drastic in 30 minutes.

If you have seen any cool Moleskine hacks or add-ons, let us know in the Comments.

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Carol Roth has put together quite a list:

95 Strategies for Work/Life Balance When You Work From Home « Unsolicited Business Advice from Carol Roth

More and more entrepreneurs are setting up a home office, which means that more and more entrepreneurs have to find a way to balance their work and the rest of their life. This topic was brought to my attention by a regular CarolRoth.com contributor, Adelaide Zindler of Home Office Mommy, so thanks Adelaide!

As usual, I reached out to my network of valued experts and entrepreneurs and I am excited to present 95 strategies to help achieve some semblance of balance in your life when you are working from home (in no particular order).

I contributed a tip (#11) “Balance Through Productivity“

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Time management is a common focus here, but something that is not often discussed is just what good is all this time that we are managing?

There are several reasons to be concerned about your use of time, and there are times when you should feel free to just “be”.

Here are five things for you to think about, as an exercise in investing your time:

1. Time allows you to rest and recover – We all need downtime for recuperating from stress. Pushing yourself and overcoming challenges are excellent ways to invest time, resting is the best way to use some of the time you gain from your investment.
2. Time allows you to increase your focus – Invest the time that you gain to think about bigger things, your 3-5 year goals, your Someday/Maybe list. What do you want to have time for doing later?
3. Time allows you to gather the facts – Gaining a true understanding of your situation takes time. Investing time in this way creates a larger picture for you to evaluate.
4. Time allows you to see how things turn out – Once you set a plan in motion there are frequently some variables beyond your control, and waiting is all that you can do. Invest this downtime to prepare for the next stage of your project.
5. Time allows you to create balance in your life – All work and no play leads to a heart attack. Invest the time that you gain to be with your family and friends. Connecting with your circle is energizing and can be a link to discoveries you may not have expected.

How do you invest your time, and what do you do with the time that you gain?

Last month I was given the opportunity to get a sneak-peek at Laura Stack‘s new book “Super Competent” (to be released on 9 August).

I sat down with it a while back and started to read, keeping notes on the parts that struck me. I really enjoy reading business and personal development books, and there have been a few lately that were real stinkers, I didn’t bother to finish a couple of them.

This book is not like that, it has some very useful and actionable information.

The 6 Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best

“Success with come to those who can accomplish more in less time & consistently perform at their productive best. The people who achieve their fullest potential are not simply competent; they’re SuperCompetent.”

Stack defines what she calls the 6 key areas for achieving super competency:

1. Activity – Determine what you should be working on
2. Availability – Make time for it
3. Attention – Focus on those tasks
4. Accessibility – Organize the information needed to complete it
5. Accountability – Be responsible for your results
6. Attitude – Never give up

To anyone familiar with the principles of Getting Things Done (which most of you reading this should be after following this for 3 years!) these are the essential steps to accomplishing your tasks and goals.

Managing Your Activities

Crossing things off your list means that you actually need to sit down and do the things that need to get done. Stack calls this the Activity Key and recommends the following for your List Management:

1. Start with your smallest key tasks
2. Clean up your workspace
3. Prioritize the rest of your tasks, focusing on valuable activities
4. Delete the things you know that you are not going to do
5. Preserve your energy for the things that advance your goals
   

I know that most of this is familiar territory, but it is interesting to see it arranged in this order. GTD tells us to clean up our workspace first, then move on to prioritizing ( In the workflow: Collect, Process, Organize), where Stack starts off by applying the “Two-minute Rule” (if it can be accomplished in two minutes, do it now) to those small key tasks. I am not sure that I agree with that, as quite a few people that I have spoken to about being productive complain about getting bogged down in those little Two-minute activities. Many actually spending a big chunk of their day on them and not having the energy to tackle the big stuff, which Stack leaves until last on the list. I think that you need to consider your energy levels earlier in the process.

Managing Your Attention

The strongest chapter in the book covers your “capacity to concentrate on what you are doing.” Stack covers all of the bases, including:

• Avoid multi-tasking
• Capture your thoughts on other topics that come up while you are working on something, then put them aside
• Pay closest attention to the tasks that have the greatest return on your investment of time

Accessibility or Having a Unified Filing System

Unfortunately, in her effort to make all six start with the letter “A”, she runs into a bit of a contextual problem with the chapter on Accessibility. Stack uses the term to describe your ability to access your information and archives, while the term has a different meaning for me that made this chapter difficult.

Accessibility, to me, has to do with managing the way that others can interact with you, gaining access to your attention. But this is a small quibble and I suppose simply my own weakness.

Organizing your filing system and having access to your data and archives is an essential part of your productivity practice, and Stack provides some useful tips on creating and maintaining such a system.

Not Just another Productivity System

Super Competent is not just another system that you have to learn in order to become wealthy and influential overnight. Stack builds on and explains how you can learn from other systems to find the right way for you to get done with your tasks and achieve your goals. When this book hits the shelves next Monday I recommend that you give it a look. It is well worth your investment of time.

Here are my hand-written notes that I took while reading the book, click on the thumbnail to see it full-sized:

[Editor's note to the FTC: I did receive a copy of this product for free in exchange for writing a review, no other compensation or expectation of a positive review was expressed or implied.]

Rypple has put together a short quiz to determine your Productivity Style. This is my result:

Well, that’s for sure. I suppose that now this means I have no choice but to consider how to best get a handle on these commitments and ideas…as if I don’t do enough of that already. But I haven’t been sharing it with you very much. That is something that I can change.

You can take the GTD IQ Quiz here. Come on back and share your results, I’d love to chat about how we can help each other out.

Capture

I am borrowing this post concept from my friend Dave Seah, who regularly shares his thoughts on what he is doing and working on at his Agenceum blog. I am coming off of the “weekend” (2 days off in a row!) spent with the Lovely Bride and need to get focused on what lies ahead this week.

First, let’s take a look at the calendar:

• It is gong to be fairly busy at the Tavern this week, I have a half-dozen or so 90-day evaluations to do for my new service staff. Most of them are seasonal employees, but I am looking at this from a Linchpin Way perspective. Personal and professional development is not seasonal, so why should they be treated any differently? I am batching the actual paperwork portion, then will schedule the individual meetings.
• I have a couple of calls to some of my SOBCon colleagues scheduled this week, I am looking forward to re-connecting and learning more about what they are working on.
• “Draft posts for December” – I wrote a note to myself in my planner to create some blog posts that I can complete and publish in the Holiday Season. Things tend to get hectic in December with family obligations and all of the goings-on at the Tavern. Getting a jump-start on blogging is a good idea. Scheduling some time for that.

New Projects

One of my internet clients has a couple of new projects for me that I need to lay out and design this week. Also, I have 2 new possible clients that are looking to create a web-presence that need proposals. This is going to be a good week for ICMM.

Tiki Tuesday at Wolfe's Tavern

Tavern promotions are also in my dashboard this week, my new Assistant Manager and I need to sit down and put together some fun things for our customers. Today, for example, is Tiki Tuesday, and our regulars love it. They have been asking about what we plan to do every other night of the week…

I am thinking more in the direction of food-related fun, rather than more entertainment.

Reading materials

I am doing a lot of reading, Drood by Dan Simmons has me completely captivated, and Laura Stack has written a new book on Productivity titled “Super Competent – The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best” and it is a worthwhile read. I am just about halfway through, making lots of notes.

Working evenings at the Tavern makes for a late night, and coming home after midnight has its own special challenges. I tend to be pretty wound up so it is very difficult to get to bed. Reading is a good way to relax and unwind.

Non-work-related Activities

All work and no play will make Stephen a raging lunatic, so I am looking forward to getting some recreational activities into my schedule this week. I picked up a kayak at the LL Bean outlet in North Conway yesterday (what a steal!) and I am excited about getting out on the lake. The Lovely Bride likes to go down to the beach and go swimming after work, so now we can enjoy that together (I’m not a big swimmer). Also, I will be able to use it to do some fishing out away from the shore.

Okay, this seems pretty good for the first Staff Meeting, please share your thoughts in the Comments. What can we do to make this exercise more valuable?

David Allen’s podcast at DavidCo has some interesting thoughts on the idea of being a “black belt” at Getting Things Done.

Allen describes the “black belt” practitioner as being more engaged and in control of their environment, rather than being a victim of it. The numbness that faces many of us, at one end of the “cranking widgets” spectrum and the crazy-busy-ness at the other, can often take away from the fact that we need to master the basic structures in order to properly manage our environment.

I see GTD as a philosophy, or an attitude toward our work, that envelopes more than just the Collect –> Process –> Organize –> Review –> Do –> Repeat cycle. Certainly mastering the process is important, essential really, to gain that confidence and experience the engagement that occurs when one is able to accept all of the different inputs and direct them to their proper place.

Just like a master chef is able to create an amazing dish with everyday ingredients that an amateur can only dream of, the Black Belt GTD practitioner is able to “effortlessly” direct their activities for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. The ease with which this happens is based on a great deal of practice, discipline, and the consistent execution of the fundamental principles.

Listen to the podcast here David Allen Podcast: David Allen – What is Black Belt? and share your thoughts in the Comments.

What would you like to work on to improve your own skill level?

GTD

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