Mary Jaksch at Goodlife Zen has posted The Ultimate Personal Growth Guide: 100 Best Posts. It’s a gold mine and an excellent starting point.
Peter Clemens over at The Change Blog has posted The Definitive List of Free Personal Development Ebooks. It is a collection that covers different aspects of personal development. Dive in and see what’s there for you!
This was originally posted at Bengt’s Notes, another blog of mine.
While searching for resources on mentoring I came across Dartmouth Mentor Exchange. Dartmouth is a college in New Hampshire but the mentoring resources are valid in most contexts.
Under Mentor are resources that aree useful for mentors and under Mentee are resources that are valuable for the person being mentored.
Mentoring is a form of development where the mentor shares knowledge, insight and experience with their mentee to assist the mentee in reaching their potential.
Mentees should proactively approach the mentoring relationship with specific development goals in mind and be receptive to feedback, coaching, learning and growth.
This was originally posted at Bengt’s Notes, another blog of mine.
I was reminded of The Pomodoro Technique™ when I attended Øredev 2009. It’s an interesting concept described like this:
The Pomodoro Technique™ is a way to get the most out of time management. Turn time into a valuable ally to accomplish what we want to do and chart continuous improvement in the way we do it.
Time management is a misnomer since time cannot be managed, it’s all about managing your attention. Pomodoro is Italian for tomato, it refers to the timer you use to keep track of time and the only tool you need. The basic unit of work in the Pomodoro Technique™ is as simple as these five steps:
1. Choose a task to be accomplished
2. Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
3. Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
4. Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
5. Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break
The Pomodoro Technique is great. Step three above is about working on one task and that task only – no distractions and no multitasking. Knowing that the timer will tell you when the time is out means you can focus completely on the task at hand. The Pomodoro Technique works great together with the 18 Minute Plan.
The timer sound gets a bit annoying hearing it that often. I’ll do some work on my timer to make it more quiet. An alternative, as long as you are by your computer, is Tomatoi.st which is a Pomodoro timer in your browser. Another option is focus booster which can be used online or as a desktop application.
To get a quick introduction to the Pomodoro Technique, get the Cheat Sheet in Pomodoro Resources. The Cheat Sheet is described as This one-page paper is a valuable tool for Pomodoro Technique™ beginners. It’s also the perfect way to show your friends and colleagues how the technique works. In the Pomodoro Resources are also Worksheets (To Do Today and Activity Inventory) and a 45 page PDF that explains the concept more in details.
WebWorkerDaily asks The Pomodoro Technique: A GTD Alternative? To me it’s not about one method or another, pick what works for you in the different methods and create your own mix.
You can follow @PomodoroTech on Twitter and join Pomodoro Technique on Facebook. Francesco Cirillo, the man behind the Pomodoro Technique, is on Twitter at @cirillof.
Update December 27, 2009
I found ClockSmith Lite and use the chime every half hour as my timer. At the chime I take a five minute break, then work for 25 minutes until the next chime. The chime sounds much nicer than my kitchen timer.
Update March 27, 2010
Today I came across Tick Tock Timer which is a very nice online timer. It’s now bookmarked for future use.
Update July 7, 2011
See a really nice Pomodoro Desktop Timer.
This was originally posted at Bengt’s Notes, another blog of mine.
The Tao of Coaching by Max Landsberg is an excellent book about coaching as a leader. The tagline on the book says Boost your effectiveness at work by inspiring and developing those around you which sums up coaching from the leaders perspective.
The books is described like this:
This book offers information on how to unlock the potential of people by applying the techniques of coaching. Coaching is the key to realising the potential of your employees, your organisation and yourself.
This book provides the techniques and tools of coaching that are vital for those who want to develop a team of people who will perform effectively and who will relish working with them.
The techniques and tools of coaching are integrated in the story about Alex and his career as manager. That makes it easier since you see them used in context.
The book lists these reasons why a manager shall use coaching:
• Create more time for yourself
• Achieve better results
• Build your interpersonal skills
If you want a great introduction to coaching as a leader, and a book you later can use as manual, I suggest that you buy The Tao of Coaching.
This was originally posted at Bengt’s Notes, another blog of mine.
Leo Babauta has another great post over at Zen Habits, Get Less Done: Stop Being Productive and Enjoy Yourself.
There’s too much emphasis these days on productivity, on hyperefficiency, on squeezing the most production out of every last minute. People have forgotten how to relax. How to be lazy. How to enjoy life.
Productivity is not good in itself, it’s very important to decide what we do. We need to manage our attention and our priorities.
It’s possible we’re trying to get more done because we love doing it — and if that’s the case, that’s wonderful. But even then, working long hours and neglecting the rest of life isn’t always the best idea. Sometimes it’s good to Get Less Done, to relax, to breathe.
We do need to relax and breathe. No one runs their car engine on full throttle all the time, why do it with yourself?
Leo lists some useful tips on how to relax and ends the post like this:
Step by step, learn to relax. Learn that productivity isn’t everything. Creating is great, but you don’t need to fill every second with work. When you do work, get excited, pour yourself into it, work on important, high-impact tasks … and then relax.
Now I’ll do what I do on a regular basis, it’s also in Leo’s list of tips, I’ll go for a walk.
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
I am sorting through papers and found this quote.
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticpate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
Buddha
Over at ChangeThis is a great free e-book Quit Managing Your Time… and Start Managing Your Attention. Time can not be managed, time management is a misnomer and misleading. This little book is about what we can do – manage our attention and our priorities.
You can’t manufacture time, you can’t reproduce time, you can’t slow time down or turn it around and make it run in the other direction. You can’t trade bad hours for good ones, either. About all the time management you can do is to cram as much productive work as possible into each day. What you can manage, however, is your attention.
The e-book includes a simple question that helps us indentify what our top priority should be:
If I could accomplish only one thing right now, what would that one thing be?
The e-book also describes the Eisenhower method for sorting our tasks by importance and urgency, it’s simple yet powerful.
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
On Twitter I got a link to a great video by CreativityWorks, Busting the Mehrabian Myth (video is below). So, what is the Mehrabian Myth then? Olivia Mitchell writes about in Why the stickiest idea in presenting is just plain wrong:
The stickiest idea in presenting and public speaking is that the meaning of your message is communicated by:
* Your words 7%
* Your tone of voice 38%
* Your body language 55%.
These figures are based on a formula first proposed by Albert Mehrabian in 1967.
I think we have all heard these numbers in connections with presentations, that How (tone, body) is more important than What (words, content). But Albert Mehrabian makes a reservation:
Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable
Max Atkinson’s Blog: Body language and non-verbal communication has a great cartoon strip and raises these questions:
1. How come it’s much easier to have a conversation with a blind person than with someone who’s completely deaf?
2. How come we can have perfectly good conversations in the dark?
3. How come telephones and radio have been such spectacular successes?
4. How come we have to work so hard to learn foreign languages?
I had taken the formula more or less for granted (heard it often) and I am pleased to see that I was wrong. Words do matter!
Busting the Mehrabian Myth – video
Read more:
Albert Mehrabian’s studies in nonverbal communication : Speaking about Presenting
Create Your Communications Experience: The Visual Dominates – Mehrabian Revisited
Six Minutes – Best Public Speaking Tips and Techniques: Weekend Review [2009-06-06]
Albert Mehrabian – Wikipedia
YouTube – Mehrabian Myth! WORDS DO MATTER!
This was originally posted at another blog of mine.
I got a link from Colin Lewis on Twitter that took me to Ed Batista: Time Horizons. Don’t miss that at the end there is a 2-slide PowerPoint version of the post
It’s an interesting article that made me think about which time horizons I use and why. Ed writes that ‘The 10 time horizons (See image) flow continuously from this immediate moment to my very last breath’.
I don’t agree with that, there are three horizons that I see as ‘timeless’ in the sense that we don’t know when it happens and how they fit in among the other. They are ‘in this job’, ‘in this career’ and ‘before I retire’. We can plan for them but I think these three horizons are on a different scale.
Ed Batista gives us these questions that help us check if we are using the right time horizon.
When we assess our lives–our fulfillment, our effectiveness, what’s working, what’s not working–how far ahead do we look? How far ahead should we look? Is that time horizon a good fit for the issues under consideration? And what issues are most relevant to us in a given time horizon?
when looking ahead it’s helpful to realize that I’ve moved from one horizon into the next. It prompts me to ask: Am I in the right timeframe? Should I take a step back–or jump even further ahead? Should my approach change? Am I still asking the right questions? Are the same issues in play?
The time horizons that I use are:
• Now.
• Today.
• This week.
• One month.
• 12 months.
I use An 18 Minute Plan That Keeps You Focused which means you refocus once an hour during the day. That keeps me on track with Now and Today.
The timeless horizons that I use are the same as Ed’s:
• In this job.
• In this career.
• Before I retire.
Which Time Horizons Do You Use?
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
Yesterday this interesting article popped up in my Twitter stream: An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day from Harvard Business Publishing.
The article mentions time management but time can not be managed. We can manage our priotities and that was the article is about.
The 18 minute plan is simple yet powerful when it comes to keeping us on track.
STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you’ve been productive and successful? Write those things down.
I already use pen and paper for my planning, see Task management my way – pen and paper, step 1 above is just doing it differently from what I do today.
STEP 1, continued. Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something.
My planning is usually not done in time slots, more a list of things for that day. Using time slots will make it clearer what actually can be done in one day. What really hit home was the ‘when and where’ part of the article (read more in their post):
If you want to get something done, decide when and where you’re going to do it. Otherwise, take it off your list.
STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.
This is a smart trick, a regular reminder to check that you are on track and on time. It’s easier to manage hour by hour than to manage on day level.
STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?
This is a great one too. I do review my days but not in a more formal way. Doing what’s in step three above will make the learning process much clearer.
Read more:
The jar of life – stones, pebbles and sand
Let limitations guide you to creative solutions
55 Ways to Get More Energy
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
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