Self-Improvement

Gary Slinger has a 3-part series on using a Blackberry for Getting Things Done, which is something ELSE you can do with a Blackberry. I use mine for playing Texas Hold-Em, mind you.

Lots of folks have been talking about goals. It's January of a new year. That's what people do. But do you want to set goals you might actually achieve? Here are some thoughts.

Start at the End

Here's a popular goal: "I want to lose 20 pounds." Well sure. Lots of folks do. But let's recast this goal just a little bit. Look at what you want to accomplish, and then, try thinking about it in all its dimensions. Try this:

"By September, I want to feel GREAT. I'm eating more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean protein. (And I still cheat on one big meal a week). I'm getting out to bike every few days, and doing pushups in my living room. Getting up early stinks a little, but hey. You gotta put in the work. It's taking me about an hour from start to finish to work out, but I use the time to catch up on the news. My son's getting into working out with me, too, which is nice. I get more and more compliments, and I don't tell my spouse this, but, I get more looks from others lately. It's a nice feeling."

What's the difference? I added in the experience. I drew the picture in all its dimensions. I showed more of the end-state, and less of what you're thinking at the start. When you read the above, it should make you think: "Wow! Maybe I'll do that goal, too!"

I asked the guy at my local Chinese take-out what his next plans were after the restaurant. (Most of the younger folks working at Chinese restaurants are doing it to help out the family, and earning money for what they REALLY want to do in life). His answer? "I'm planning to retire at 45."

I was floored! Whoa.

He went on, "Yeah, and then I can golf, read books, travel. I can do anything I want, because I'll still be healthy enough to enjoy it. I'm working six long days a week now, but when I think about the future, I can make it."

Talk about starting at the end.

Are you celebrating the Year of the Grasshopper? Today's post is titled: Towards a More Balanced Toolkit. You might have a great set of methods and practiced skills around executing and accomplishing daily tasks, but do you have tools to help better focus you on what matters most to you? Read more at Grasshopper Nation.

There's this work-related problem that's been bugging me for days, a real foundation-shaker of a mess in my head. I've been pretty down about it. The thing is, I know all the piece parts of the issues, but I haven't figured out how to get past "bitching" and into "useful stuff my Vice President will appreciate." You see: bringing a problem to your boss's doorstep is like a cat bringing you a dead mouse.

Before this point, I was stuck, because mostly, I was repeating a little mental sound-byte collage of the things bugging me. My thoughts were swirling around in my head. I tried journaling this, writing down my thoughts in paragraphs. I tried bullets. I tried splitting a page in half and doing the old reliable "pros" and "cons" columns. No go. I only figured things out when I added a dimension to my problem-solving.

Visual Thinking.

In this specific case, I drew circles and lines, and swervy curves. I drew the "mother ship" of my company, and the little areas that I feel are in flux. I drew my own problems with me at the center. I drew radiating lines of options around me. It was exactly what I needed.

I figured out a way to approach the problem that was holistic, that focused on the needs of the company, instead of what was bugging me. Realistically, I can DEAL with what's bugging me, if that's just a matter of personal conflict, but the larger picture, the stuff I saw when I started mind-mapping and drawing visual imagery around what was on my mind, came to me only when I used a different technique to dissect my problems.

I didn't realize this was called "visual thinking" until I read Dave Gray's work. (I've linked a million times to Dave, but here's his Communication Nation blog, his Visual Thinking School, and his company.) I encourage you to give it a whirl the next time you've a problem to solve.

It's launched.

I got the first grasshopper site configured and put up a post or two. What's different? This will be the focused effort I've been working up to over the last several months. This will also be the starting point of the collaborative effort I mentioned to some of you in email a few weeks ago.

This is your own personal "call to arms."

Come join the Grasshopper Nation.

What's the current catch phrase for Burger King or McDonalds? Name a commercial you've seen on TV or in print or on the internet so many times that you could quote it like you work there.  What are a few of the marketing slogans you remember from your childhood?

Do you want to know what they have in common?

In all cases, the companies who spent money, time, creativity, and sweat on getting those marketing campaigns launched and BURNED into our collective heads spent their time on ONE IMPORTANT MESSAGE. Coke didn't launch Diet Coke, Cheese Coke, and White Coke all at the same time. They launched Diet Coke. And they put one message around it. One simple, easy to remember, easy to repeat message.

Do you have lots of great ideas? Are you bursting with a million great new ways to make things better at your organization? Are you always coming to your boss with a million next best things?

How can anyone possibly remember your message? How memorable is a flood of messages versus a consistent, simple, BRIEF message that sums up the spirit of all your efforts? Are you being more effective by lobbing an abundance of information, ideas, and more at your "audience?"

Try a different approach: Look for a theme to what you're interested in conveying. Think of a way to sum that up in a REALLY brief message.  Then, find ways to tag your ideas with that message at the beginning and the end of any conversations (presentations, emails, other documents, too), so that the "audience" hears and acknowledges the "slogan" as being an easy-to-reference container for your ideas.

What if you picked one overall theme for each quarter of this upcoming year? If you said, "I'm going to stress THIS one thing above all else for the next three months," what would that message look like? Does it tie to the things you think are most important for your or your organization's success? Can you make it a simple phrase that folks will remember when they think of you saying it?

And even more important: can you make it THEIRS?

Here's the bonus round, folks. The marketing campaigns that TRULY hit their mark are the ones where someone crafts an idea so soundly that you yourself HAVE to start using their words because it's how EVERYONE ELSE is referring to it. Make it theirs means that people aren't feeling so much "marketed to" as they are feeling that you've done a great job of summing up something that they needed an expression for, in the first place.

Look at the recent wave of internet and technology companies who have so strongly branded what they do that their name has become a verb. Do you search for information on the web or do you "google" it? Not capital "G." Just a verb. That's power. Do you listen to online mp3 broadcasts or do you listen to PODcasts? Do you record television programs on your DVR or do you Tivo them?  

Take Away Points:

*Come up with a single, unifying SIMPLE message for all your creativity and ideas.

*Be faithful to that message. Use it always. Get it into the vernacular. Spread it around like butter.

*Infuse that message with so much value to what you're trying to get adopted (because marketing means that you have ideas/products/themes that you want others to pick up and use as well), that others are jumping on this same train.

*No more than a single marketing theme a quarter. Maybe even only two a year.

*Simple and brief. Did I mention simple and brief?

Who knows? Maybe your big ideas will become the "R-o-l-a-i-d-s" of the officeplace.  

I really liked Roger McNamee's book, the New Normal. I especially liked his comment: "The guy with the longest time horizon wins." He's discussing not how we use our time in a given day, but how we view the larger picture and plan from that level. Are you planning your days well, but your years not so well? Are you thinking through the longer term goals, and then setting your days up to match them?

Steve Pavlina has a post about the 50-30-20 rule, another way to allocate time in a given day. In there, he mentions a much longer time horizon than I'm capable of planning in. I'm good for about a year, with a fuzzy 2 year.

What's YOUR time horizon plan?

Roger McNamee's book:

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