I'm Already Stressed Enough, Thank You...
As I was once again forced to use one of the most horrible software products I have ever laid eyes on, it occurred to me that it's worth repeating one of my favorite mantras, even at the risk of sounding like a broken record (do any of you kids even know what that means? ;-) -->
Simplicity in your design is your goal. If you can get to the point where the interface "disappears" and the user can just get in the flow and do their work, then you've really got something there.So many of the things we use on a daily basis, both software-based and not, are way more complex than they have to be. We're all too busy to be wasting time with complicated systems, yet in many cases this has become the norm. As an example, I recently had to replace my kitchen blender. A trip to Williams-Sonoma quickly became an exercise in frustration. Most of the blenders had so many features and functions that I was surprised they didn't contain a microchip or two. Multiple buttons, gadgets and add-ons all to accomplish a single purpose...blend some stuff up! In the end, I found the perfect blender for me...a replica of an old model that has a single switch for two modes: hi and low. When I want to blend something, my choices are simple and I can immediately get down to business without thinking about all the different options I have. It's actually pretty liberating to simplify like this. We use an old-fashioned manual can opener in the kitchen too. It works wonderfully and we don't ever have to worry about it breaking. Stuff used to have a singular purpose and did it without a lot of fuss and choice. I use this idea as the guiding principal in the work I do.
Now trying to compare a kitchen blender to enterprise software is a bit of a stretch, but I think you understand what I am getting at. There is quite a paradox at work when we give our users too many choices in our applications. When faced with a lot of choices, we actually find it harder to choose because we are wired to evaluate all of the potential options. Have you ever felt paralyzed looking at your To Do list because there were so many tasks you didn't know where to begin? This same feeling of overwhelm hits a lot of our users when they are faced with a complex interface, especially one that provides them with many paths to go down.
If you are building a business-facing application that will be used by actual humans, then you have a targeted objective you are trying to achieve. The interface should facilitate this process and it should provide the path of least resistance to do so. If it's easier to do it the old-fashioned way, users will ignore your app. It's important to focus on your interface so that it gently guides the user to their objective without getting in their way. One way to completely fail in this regard is to provide too many choices and ways to accomplish the same task.
So how can you practically apply these ideas? Evaluate each and every element you place on the screen. Make features and functions fight for their lives. If an element does not have an explicit reason for being on the screen at the time a user is performing a particular task, then it shouldn't be there. Keep controls very simple and related to the context the user is currently in. Generously use whitespace.
These basic ideas seem to be simple common sense (and they are!), but I've seen far too many applications that break these rules. I don't know a single person that wishes their life was more complex than it already is. Keep the concept of simplicity at the forefront of all of your designs and I promise that your users will thank you.
Labels: UI design, User Experience
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Implementing A Tag Cloud In The Lotus Notes Client
Welcome back. It's been awhile. I'd ask you why you haven't visited or called lately, but I know...it's me. I haven't been giving much to this relationship lately. I'll try harder...I promise. How about starting with a new post about creating a tag cloud in a Lotus Notes client application? That sounds good? Great...thanks for giving me a second chance! :-)
Way back at Lotusphere 2009,
Nathan and I delivered a presentation on Web 2.0 design patterns for Lotus Notes. He focused on the web side of things (with XPages) and I worked on the client UI side. Unfortunately, some technical difficulties got in our way and the session wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. However, the content is still worth digging into, so I thought I'd start out with one that is useful for injecting the idea of topic popularity into your application:
The Tag Cloud.
I'd guess that most people have at least seen a tag cloud by now, given that it is a pretty common Web 2.0 pattern. A tag cloud is used as a navigation mechanism to allow users to browse information and see at a glance what content is most popular or prevalent in an application. A tag cloud is simply a list of tags (be they user added or generated from categories) where the physical size of the tag represents the weight (frequency) of that information within the application. An important aspect of the tag cloud is that you can click on a tag and this action will filter the data list to show only the content with that tag. Here's an example from one of the Lotus products, Lotus Connections:
Tag clouds can be very useful in situations when a user wants to
discover information rather than search for it. I've gone on and on before about the fact that most business applications are such that a user has a targeted objective when they use the app, so the UI should be designed to facilitate getting them to the info they need as quickly as possible. There are certain classes of applications, however, where browsing of information is more meaningful. A discussion database is a great example of this, as are apps such as product reviews, policies and procedures and so on. When discoverability will add value to your application, then a tag cloud might be a good choice for a UI component.
Before we jump into the implementation, let me put forth a few caveats. First, when I was initially coming up with this, I went through about four different methods of creating a tag cloud. These methods ranged from quite simple (like I'll be showing you here) to insane hackery. While it's pretty easy to build a tag cloud on the web and there are tons of code samples to do so, it was a bit of a challenge to implement one in the Notes client. Each of the different techniques I tried had strengths and weaknesses. I decided to go with the method shown below because it was the most straightforward and will work in R6 and above, so it's not limited to the latest and greatest version of Notes. It's not elegant, but it works. I'm a fan of clean, elegant design, but sometimes it's necessary to create something less than beautiful behind the scenes to make the end user experience better. As long as you are not creating a maintenance nightmare, I think it is OK that we work harder so our users don't have to.
The way I approached this technique was to make use of the category field in an existing Notes database. Exposing existing categories as a tag cloud is a very easy way to get started and introduce this functionality to your users. Personally, I find that tag clouds work best when the number of entries is not overwhelming. They do take up a lot of valuable screen real estate, so you'll need to make the call as to whether they add enough value to justify use or not. Of course, the ideas presented here can be applied to any data captured in a discrete field on your documents.
Aside: I would be remiss if I didn't point out that there is a Tag Cloud component available on OpenNTF that you can use in a Composite Application. With this component, you can add tag cloud functionality to your application within minutes. There's a good tutorial on doing so here. The first step in building the tag cloud component for the Notes client is to create the view that will be used to get the tags (categories). Here's a screenshot showing the view in my demo database.
The first column includes the count of all the tags in that grouping, which I find useful to display along with the tag cloud in some cases. We'll use this view to lookup the tags and display them in the tag cloud.
The next thing we need is to create the form that will serve as a container for the tag cloud. I decided to use a form as it gives the flexibility of having the tag cloud generated on the fly or via a process such as a scheduled agent. I'm also trying to make these techniques easy for newer developers, so the form and field idea works pretty well. Because we need the tags to be clickable, we need some sort of hotspot on each one. This could be likely by accomplished by using Lotusscript or a third-party product like Midas to build the tags in a rich text field and then put links around them but this seemed a little complex for my tastes. Thus, I decided to implement the tag cloud as a series of fields. Each field holds a single tag and then I created an action hotspot around each field. Let's break it down bit by bit:
Click to enlarge
First, the top of the form houses some computed fields that are used to lookup the tags and the quantity each of the tags. These values come directly from the tag cloud view.
Next are the various tag fields themselves. Now...before you start going off...I know that this is cumbersome to build the first time. However, I decided to strike a balance between functionality, ease to maintain and ease for the developer to understand, so it is what it is! :-) If you decide to use this technique, it would be a good idea to try to gauge how many tags you have before you build it. My personal preference is to limit a tag cloud to no more than 40 or 50 tags (I like less). Beyond that number is just too much visual noise for my taste. However, this could expand to as many fields as you want to create.
The field values themselves are populated in the PostOpen event. This event holds the meat of the code, as it implements the tag cloud algorithm to allow us to determine how large (from a font size perspective) each tag should be. There are variety of these algorithms available on the web, and I won't belabor them here. For our purposes, just know that I selected a common one and implemented it in formula language. The code loops through each value of the num_CategoryTotals field, determines how many entries there are for that tag and then uses that number in the algorithm to set the font size, plugging the value of the current tag into the txt_Tag# field that corresponds to the counter in the loop.
If you'd like to use a different tag cloud algorithm, just substitute your code as necessary.
The final part of the equation is to add a hotspot around each tag field. This hotspot will filter the view that you are displaying to the end user so that it only shows the given tag (category). In order to do this, we make use of the @SetViewInfo command. If you are not familiar with this command, it was added in R6 and allows you to display only documents from a given category in a categorized view. Armed with this tool, we open the view in question, make sure all the categories are expanded (or else you can end up with what appears to be a blank view) and then perform @SetViewInfo, using the given tag as the filter string.
One other note: You may want your tag cloud to have different colors. Not only does this provide visual interest, but it also can provide another clue as to the relative weight of a given tag (i.e. tags with the same color have close to the same number of entries). You add color in one of two ways. You can set the color values using formula language in the PostOpen event, or you can just apply color to the individual tag fields. The advantage of the first option is that it does respect the concept of relative weight of tags, but the disadvantage is that you are limited to the 15 colors allowed in @Command([TextSetFontColor]). With the second option, you can use any color you want, allowing you to make the tag cloud fit better with the design of your application. What you lose here, however, is the idea of relative weight since you are randomly choosing the colors. As always, it's a judgment call. Use whatever concept works best for you.
Once you put all of this together, all that is needed is to drop your tag cloud form into a place that makes sense. In most cases, a tag cloud will be most compelling when included alongside a view, so if you are building a frameset with navigation elements in one frame and a Notes view in another, the tag cloud should be included in one of the navigation frames.
When complete, the generic, non-styled version looks something like this:
But a little more work integrating it into the design of your application can give you something like this:
Now that is all said and done and I know what you are thinking: "Give me the code and sample database already!". OK, OK. Here we go:
I've included two downloads below. One is the complete design pattern database that was used at Lotusphere. This has all of the code and you can see how it was customized for the specific database in question. (This is a database that is about 10 years old...created in R4.6 or R5, I think, and I reskinned it for use as a demo). The other download is the very generic implementation of the tag cloud with just the tag cloud components in it. The idea is you should be able to grab these design elements, throw them into your database and be up and running with a tag cloud in a few minutes. I've included the instructions to add the tag cloud to your application in the
Using This Database document. Download the database and dig in to give it a try.
I know there are a lot of improvements that can be made here, but my hope is that this gets the ideas going. I haven't seen an implementation of a tag cloud in the Notes client from the blogsphere yet, but I can't wait to see what you all come up with based on this skeleton. Please let me know and if you'd like, I can share your results here.
*Download the complete Lotusphere Demo
*Download the tag cloud design elements databaseLabels: Interface, Lotus Notes, tag cloud, UI design
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Cheap UI Trick: Add Whitespace With Borders
When I'm building a new UI or composing a document to send to an audience, I like simple elements that make a big difference in the final presentation. I thought I'd share a trick that I use to add whitespace to designs when using graphics with wrapping text in Lotus Notes.
If you've not tried it before, first let me point out that you can paste or import an image into a Notes form/document and set the properties of the image so that text can wrap left or right. This is analogous to using floats in CSS on the web.
While this can spice up your formatting quite a bit, in the Notes client the text butts right up against the graphic, so this doesn't look particularity nice. By way of example, the other day, I wanted to send my latest blog post to some internal folks through Notes and I wanted to retain the formatting (as close as possible) to my web entry. Thus, I made use of the text wrap property. This ended up looking like so:
Notice the lack of whitespace around the photos. Here's a close up to show what I mean:
So how do you fix this? Simple really. Most elements have a Border property which can be manipulated. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a physical line around your element. A border can be used to emulate padding. If an element has a border, you can also define the space between the inside border and outside border and between the outside border and the elements outside of that. Click the drop down in the border properties box to choose between the border thickness, the inside spacing and outside spacing.
For the purpose of this e-mail, I thought a spacing of 7 looked about right, so my properties box was set accordingly
This quick update produced the following results:
and close up once more
A very subtle effect, but a powerful one. Remember that whitespace is very important for guiding the eye and providing a feeling of space. It's a little thing that people may not be able to articulate if you ask them to point it out, but I guarantee that they'll think the option with good use of whitespace looks better ever ytime. Whether it's really true or not, if it looks better, people will think it is better. When dealing with the UI, often perception is reality. I hope this helps. Cheers!
Labels: Lotus Notes, UI design
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The Inaugural GTD Summit...Did It Change The Way The World Works?
After attending the
GTD Global Summit a little over a week ago, my mind is still swirling with all kinds of thoughts. I wanted to write a final post to close things out earlier, but I hit the road to visit customers literally a couple of hours after I arrived back from San Francisco. Now that I've been back for a day, it's time to process my inboxes, update my lists and get some things done. One of the main items was to write this post, so here we go. First, I'll try to distill down some of my notes from the opening keynote, then wrap up with my overall impression of the event.
The conference kicked off on Thursday morning with the opening keynote session, although there was a social mixer the evening before. For those who could make it, it was a great treat. As Eric Mack told me it would be, it was a classy affair. Nothing fancy...just nice. A jazz band played while people mingled and introduced themselves to fellow GTD enthusiasts. There was great food and drink available as well, and the atmosphere was very casual. It was kind of funny to see so many people with capture tools (pen, pad, etc.) in one place, scribbling things down to remember later as people talked about books, other GTD tools, etc. I met more than a couple Lotus Notes customers and people from around the world, which I found exciting. My wife and I met a guy who had come up from Chile while we were in the elevator, and during the evening event, we met folks from Hong Kong, Antigua, Spain and other exotic locales. I think it speaks to the power and efficacy of GTD that even in a tough economic climate, these people felt it was beneficial to come to San Francisco to attend this gathering. The Wednesday evening event set up a promise of a great two days to come.
Thanks to the
David Allen Company (and to Eric, of course), I was fortunate enough to attend the GTD Summit as a guest blogger. While I endeavored to live blog the breakout sessions, there was just too much info flying during the keynote to do it justice. I was given a press pass and took advantage of the area they had set aside for us to capture the action.
David is an unassuming, yet compelling speaker. Its interesting that in our society, our expectation of a "celebrity" (and he certainly is in this circle) is one who is standoffish and self important. David spoke with an ease of one having a conversation with the audience rather than presenting to them, which was really refreshing. He also has a great sense of humor. During his opening remarks, David talked about the phenomenon that is GTD. His original book,
"Getting Things Done" has been published in 28 languages and has sold close to 2 million copies. There are over 150 software applications to support GTD. It truly is a global phenomenon. He jokingly shared that "Getting Things Done" was published during the dot bomb phase and his new book,
"Making It All Work", was introduced at the height of the sub-prime crisis, prompting him to promise "For the right amount of money, I'll guarantee I will never write another book". He also shared stories of groups using GTD in their lives and work. The Simpsons writers, for example, are big advocates of GTD. Many other corporations are evaluating GTD and determining how they can inject it into the organization.
When David started putting together the ideas for this Summit, he generated a list of speakers, panelists and moderators that he wanted to attend. He figured only a small number would commit, but 85% of them said yes to the invitation, all coming to the conference on their own dime. I think that speaks volumes to the respect that this community has for David and his ideas. These speakers are all masters in their field, thought leaders and entrepreneurs. In the end, even with the best systems and best intentions, however, we can all be victims of circumstances beyond our control. David was very candid and chose to share that he had to lay off 40% of his staff recently due to the huge drop in training budgets from companies. I was impressed by the fact that he shared this. It implied a trust with his audience that even amidst all of this trouble, he believes that all of us as practitioners of the GTD methodology are on the right track. In fact, David believes that the tools of GTD are more important than ever now that we are in survival mode. To quote David as he finished his opening remarks, "Now is the time that this is in it's time". Very interesting times indeed...
For the second half of the keynote session, David introduced
Guy Kawasaki, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and founder of
Alltop. David invited Guy to serve as moderator and to interview David for the remainder of the session. They dove right in to a frank and open discussion. It was obvious that nothing was rehearsed ahead of time, which was another refreshing touch you don't see at too many conferences. Of course, this also meant the conversation took some unusual turns and tended to meander a bit, but overall it was a stimulating conversation. I loved how one of Guy's first questions was about Twitter and he asked David if Twitter gets in the way of our productivity. David's reply, which probably comes as no surprise to the GTD crowd, was that Twitter doesn't get in the way at all if Twitter is what you want to be doing. :-) At this point, David commented about the phenomenon of Twitter, how intimidating it is in some ways to be "followed" by 75,000 people (now over 126k!) and that he was fascinated by the number of people who were using Twitter. It was at this moment that he pointed out my blog post in which I was gathering a list of people tweeting at the conference and asked "where's my IBM guy" (which I thought was totally cool). I was sitting at the press table in the back and told him we only had about 30 or so names on the list. He asked the audience who was using Twitter and at least 1/2 the hands went up. It seems we have a way to go to get the GTD community following one another, much like we do in the Lotus community.
Guy and David had a great rapport. Guy is an unnaturally good moderator, combining humor, self-deprecation and fun questions to keep the audience's attention. He had a lot of great soundbites, and I could see during my peeks into the #gtdsummit Twitter stream that people were enjoying capturing them. He ribbed David about not using a Mac, asked if the key to getting things done was not having kids, and suggested that claiming e-mail bankruptcy is perhaps key to being productive! I do think one of the more humorous quotes to come out of the whole conference was when Guy told David, "I don't see how anyone that thinks they are going to get things done uses Windows". After the initial playful banter, Guy settled into some more serious questions. He asked David what he felt was the greatest barrier to GTD. David's replied that it was "addiction to stress". In order to solve this problem, according to David, it is necessary to get your mind clear. By being more aware of the stress, you will be much more interested to alleviate it quickly.
The conversation continued with a few more questions and answers before moving into the second half of the session, the plenary panel. One additional comment was made that I think was worth mentioning before moving on. David noted that he believes small communities have the best chance of having GTD take hold. If we could build this up as a mind swell, we could start to have a big impact. I think this is very true, as I've seen GTD work very well as a grassroots effort and spread by word of mouth. It's my hope we'll start to see these ideas introduced to kids in school. In fact, I'm starting to work with my son this week to give him the GTD basics.
The plenary panel was up next, and this was a special treat. The panelists represented some of the top thinkers in their field and it was a pleasure to listen to each of them. The panel consisted of
Maj. Gen. Randal Fullhart,
James Fallows,
Paul Saffo, and
Marshall Goldsmith with moderators David Allen and Guy Kawasaki. Each panelist took a bit of a different approach, talking about various topics from the work they do to a general overview of how they "do" GTD. Of particular interest was Marshall Goldsmith's talk on the idea of peer coaching and the concept of "daily questions". As a way to stay accountable, the two peer coaches ask each other a series of questions every single day. Each question is structured to be answered with only a "Yes" or "No" and is designed this way to make you focus on living your values. I heard more than one attendee express interest in this idea and I expect we'll be hearing more about this from other GTDers in the coming months. (For more information, I found
this great document at the Marshal Goldsmith Library.
The remainder of the two days of the GTD summit were filled with some amazing panels. You can find my thoughts from some of these sessions in my earlier blog posts and entries on Twitter. I found it pretty amazing that so many of the attendees were sharing their thoughts in real-time via Twitter. Most were using the #gtdsummit hashtag, so you can go back through and get a feel for how the GTD Summit unfolded through their eyes. The conversations in the hall between events and in the exhibitors hall were all equally stimulating. I hope that we'll see this event repeated in the future and that it will reflect by it's growth the corresponding growing awareness of GTD in the public at large.
Of special interest to me was the fact that I found many people who were surprised to find that David Allen uses Lotus Notes to manage his own GTD system. In fact, he has been using Notes for about 15 years in all aspects of his business. For his GTD implementation, David uses the
eProductivity template developed by Eric Mack. I know that based on some of the conversations I had, people who were unaware of Lotus Notes are going to be taking a look at it. I think this is a great opportunity for us in the Lotus community. We have a champion in a well-known figure, a person being followed on Twitter by 126,000 people and counting. It's natural for people to want to use the systems their "heroes" are using (sports stars, musicians, etc.) and the same is true for GTD. On a personal note as an IBMer (but certainly speaking for myself), I hope that IBM/Lotus can figure out a way to team up with David to get the word out about both GTD and Lotus Notes. I think it would be a win-win for both sides.
Another cool aspect of the GTD Summit was the vendor exhibit area. All of the exhibitors there were focused specifically on GTD or personal productivity in some way, shape or form. I was very pleased to see that the eProductivity booth was usually busy. Eric and his daughters Wendy and Amy did a fantastic job demoing the software and I saw many people walk away very impressed by how it all works. Special shout out to my friends at
Mindjet...it was great to meet you all in person!
The GTD Summit was all about "Changing the way the world works". I think that it certainly met this promise and started to instigate the change needed to bring this methodology to everyone. It's up to us as attendees to now take it as a next action to propagate these ideas in our circles of influence. In doing so, we'll help keep the spirit of the GTD Summit alive.
Labels: conferences, GTD, GTD Summit, Lotus Notes, productivity
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Wrap up and final comments from GTD Global Summit
Always loved to watch Peter Drucker on stage. Admits to not being able to live up to what he did.
Great tip to relax quickly: lower your standards! ;-)
Shout out to the audience about how we're all "crazy like him".
88,000 people now following David Allen (@gtdguy) on Twitter. Amazing...22,000 in the last couple of days. All that from zero in a few weeks.
What he didn't hear during the conference: That anyone has the silver bullet.
Structured thinking can make profound change in your life. GTD isn't a system, it's a systematic approach.
David is asking the audience what we heard or didn't hear over these days, or what did we notice.
Amazing comments from audience. Hard to capture it all, but there was a lot of energy in the air. It was exciting to feel this spirit and the desire of everyone to not only help themselves but to help others as well and talk about embedding this into culture, education, etc.
Labels: GTD, GTD Summit
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Best Practices to Good Habits: Can I Make GTD Stick?
Live blogging from the GTD Global Summit.
Panelists: Meg Edwards, Dean Hering, Alan Nelson, Jim Whitton
Moderator: Danny Bader
First hearing about the panelists and how they got started with using the GTD methodology.
Hearing common themes throughout the conference such as "it's easy to fall off the wagon, but easy to get back on as well" and "the weekly review is the hard but essential part of GTD"
Why keep it going? We know why...but let's talk about how to keep it going?
"The Brain that Changes Itself" - Book recommendation from Jim. 3 preconditions to remap brain: (1) Thing has to be relevant, (2) Some feedback mechanism to see positive try from negative try, (3) There have to be multiple tries.
Relate to these three things to make it stick. Jim has started doing a mini daily review (just going through project lists). Breaking weekly review into three chunks. Trying to get more iterations.
What are the biggest challenges/obstacles? From her coaching, saw patterns over the years where people were getting stuck. Tool hopping a big problem (trying to find the perfect tool rather than doing).
What is critical to staying on the wagon? Dean - Having the ability to adapt is going to keep you sane. Then build the habits that will make it stick.
Bundle your 2 minute tasks or you'll spend all 24 hours a day doing 2 minute tasks.
Add some artificial constraints.
TURN OFF EMAIL ANNOUNCEMENTS!
Meg - Make a distinction between scanning e-mail and processing e-mail. Scan with purpose. Don't fool yourself...that's not processing.
Alan - Puts a date after every next action (to see how long its been on his list).
Another common theme. You have to keep reevaluating your commitments with yourself.
What's so scary about really doing GTD? Feeling of overwhelm. Meg suggests making sure to separate the 5 phases of workflow to avoid that.
Jim - Having fun with constraints has made it an enjoyable process. Alan - so that made it relevant for you.
Tips & TricksDean - Does the subject of the mail tell the person what it means and what the next action is? Use EOM tactically. Think of what's not just in it for us, but subtly influence by introducing to others.
Meg - Look at your project list. Is there a verb on each item on the project list? Without a verb, can't see what done looks like. Another tip: On next action list, same idea...need an action verb so you don't have to rethink what it is you have to do.
Alan - Answer the principles question. Answer the wild success question. Use tools that you like (folders, where you do your review, etc.). Ruthlessly eliminate things that produce drag.
Q&A Time:Where is there insistence on A-Z file system with manila folders? Meg - People have a tendency to create very complex, elaborate systems that take to much thought. (Makes me think about the same thing from an e-mail perspective. I eliminated using folders in e-mail a few years ago to eliminate drag in my processing). David is just writing best practices. Flexibility is OK if it works for you.
You can have more than A-Z system. If something can go under more than one, you have to pick.
Jim - Paper files. If I were to look for something, what would I look under? Jim...same as me...uses search rather than filing.
How to keep 2 minute task from moving beyond that? Dean - Need to adjust your behavior if you find yourself consistently going over. If you get into something and it's taking longer, it's OK to stop.
Jim - Keeps a radar list. Things I need to do this week. Not A-B-C but allows me to focus on functional priorities.
Meg - You can have more than one Someday/Maybe list
What about the weekly review? Alan - it's time to do it when you need to. Want to change the terminology from weekly review to regular reflection. Thinking about what it all means.
How do you get GTD to stick beyond your workspace? Dean - First answer to that is to model the behavior.
Alan - Makes his team do GTD without actually imposing or calling it GTD. Asks for list of things they are working on (projects), an "Alan" list (agenda) and a list that basically captures areas of focus.
This is the protocol that is required if you are going to work with me.
Labels: GTD, GTD Summit
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David Allen: Making It All Work At The GTD Global Summit
Day two is starting off with a presentation by David Allen on Making It All Work. This will be another live blogging session in an attempt to capture the thoughts as they fly.
Opening video testimonials (Evan Taubenfeld). Well spoken and interesting to see that creative types can embrace GTD too.
Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer & Motivational Speaker gives testimonial about how GTD helped him immensely in his solo explorations.
David now on stage talking about Evan and Ben and how they've embraced GTD.
Fast, concentrated overview of how "Making It All Work" came about.
"I got into this game because of the strategic value of clear space". Background in martial arts helped him understand that when you are jumped by four guys in alley, last thing you need is unprocessed items weighing on your mind.
Analogy of cooking. Starting with clean kitchen allows for infinite possibilities and creativity. Starting with complete and utter mess just means you'll be fighting to survive. Map this back to what you have sitting in your inbox and on your mind. Are you just "stomping cockroaches" or are you open to clear thoughts and
What's new...Massive amount of information coming in at us. In last 72 hours, probably more info coming into us than our parents had in a month, maybe a year.
Basic logic of GTD: Relaxed, focus, in control is optimal. Mind like water is mirroring how water responds appropriately to a input...no more and no less.
Concentration = power
What gets in the way of concentration: Distraction. If your mind has wandered off while sitting here, it's good if you were doing new, expansive, creative thinking. If not, you are wasting cycles. Most people go to things that are weighing on their mind. These are the things that are not being managed.
People don't worry about what they are doing two weeks from Tuesday at 3:15 because they trust their calendar.
Mismanaged commitments = distraction
Your mind's system is like a leaky bucket with a bunch of holes. Your brain is about 7 years old emotionally. "Your mind doesn't have one".
"You have no excuse to have a thought twice...unless you like the thought".
Ability to refocus rapidly is the master skill.
What you need is control and perspective. If you have these, self management is possible and works well.
2x2 matrix: X-axis increasing control, Y-axis increasing perspective
No perspective + no control = victim
Perspective + no control = crazy maker
No perspective + control = micro-manager
Perspective + control = Captain & Commander
5 stages of control and 6 stages of perspective
Control
-------
Capturing
Clarifying
Organizing
Reflecting
Engaging
This model works universally, whether dealing with your teen or in your department.
Perspective
------------
Purpose/principles
vision
goals
responsibility
projects
actions
Capture: Corral things things. Find a place to get all the input. WRITE IT DOWN!
Clarifying: Make decisions on all of the things that have been collected.
Organizing: Get the content of it...the real purpose. Put it where it goes.
Reflecting: Step back and look at that bucket appropriately. Manage that forest on some consistent basis...don't just hug those trees.
Engaging: Doing with clarity. You are always doing, even if you are doing nothing. Making a conscious choice, but you better know what you are not doing before you feel comfortable not doing it.
Purpose/Principles: Why
Vision: What
Goals: Accomplish
Responsibility: Maintain
Projects: Finish
Actions: Do
This is all advanced common sense.
Q&A Time
Wrap up: "You won't know what's on your mind, unless you you get everything off your mind."
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Entrepreneurs and GTD - Making It Up and Making It Happen
We're getting ready to begin another session at the GTD Summit. This one on Entrepreneurs and GTD together.
Panelists: Buzz Bruggeman, Peter Gallant, Frode Odegard, John de Souza
Moderator: Bruce Somers
Every corporation that exists today was due to an entrepreneurs. The importance of GTD is about clearing the path and allow this thought process to happen.
Peter - Got to have a couple failures under your belt. Serial entrepreneur. Entering next stage as his company has been acquired. Love working on the earliest stage of things.
John - Serial entrepreneur as well. Gone through several companies. Current project is online heath community site. Do you really want to do this and is it the right time? GTD is invaluable in getting things going and then saying "what's next?"
Buzz - Creator of ActiveWords (Editor's note: yea! Activewords rocks!)30 years practicing law. Heard a guy speak about computers being able to understand us. Voice doesn't work. Set out to build application to name things and let you get it done. "Self-organizing ninjas" - what we call the people who really get off on Activewords. Started writing down name and number of everyone he ever talked to. To be able to tap into that when time came to ask for money/order, could reach out to those people. Reached out to David, because "Your people are my people". We give you back time.
Frode - First software startup in high school. A couple other companies as well. Starting more ventures as the recession has hit. Normal human reaction is to hunker down and reduce risk. Entrepreneurs tend to be restless. Need to keep track of commitments or else you will drown. We underestimate the need for reflection.
GTD Tips for entrepreneurs: Fight your action bias, get your team members to use GTD, work on your GTD like regular exercise.
Bruce asks the audience how many of them are entrepreneurs. Probably more than half the audience raised their hands.
Do you guys have any failures due to GTD leading you down a path? Buzz - I think the biggest problem is the weekly review. Do I really have this time? What's the one characteristic I saw most in the people that are at the top of their game. They were all disciplined and focus. Things will change, so using GTD lets you be prepared for this change when the time comes. Ready to execute better than anyone else. Frode - Price to pay for being a crazy maker is that you have to revisit higher level horizons more frequently. If you don't, Someday/Maybe list will get out of control. By using GTD, you'll have more of a filter for new things. Easily to overwhelm yourself, so you have to kill projects more often.
What about the recession? John - I like the recession now. Makes you focus and force discipline. Peter - forced acquisition and brought clarity. "When you narrow your options down, you become very, very focused." Buzz - We're on course to have the best year ever. People need to be productive to keep their jobs.
Any things you wish you knew earlier? John - Being an entrepreneur can be very lonely. Buzz - Three lessons: (1) Letting the inventor be the CEO. (2)Raise smart money. Smart money mentors you, gives you feedback, etc. (3) Craft your story and get your message right. Frode - Understanding people. Finance - having the right revenue model. John - Be careful about hiring people like yourself. You need diversity.
Greatest Fear as entrepreneur? Buzz - Getting the "serious maybe". John - Hiring the wrong senior person. Peter - Choosing the wrong opportunity of all the ones that will be out there (from a time and effort perspective).
Peter - Call To Action: Close your eyes and imagine that you completely lost your job. What would you do next? Might help guide you toward next opportunity.
Question: What tools do you use? Peter - Outlook Netcentrics add-in. Buzz - Activewords and Outlook. Can you aggregate tools together to get exponential results.
Labels: GTD, GTD Summit
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A GTD Workforce: Is There a New Industry Standard?
The afternoon kicked off with another GTD Summit panel. This time, the conversation centered around whether or not GTD
Panelists: Todd Brown, Randy Harward, Jeff Irby, Ron Kaufman, Sara Larch, Brian Lowery, Eric Ly
Moderator: Mike WIlliams
Todd - No...there is not a standard. Not seeing GTD skills on resumes yet. This is very important, however, due to globalization and the economic crisis we are seeing right now. A lot of distractions in life (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Are these adding value. Imagining nirvana...ability to keep head clear, etc., but wider organizational effect would be seeing people demanding more of management. What are organizational goals? Generate and communicate vision for company. Help facilitate succession planning. A great gift we can give to people.
Jeff - The standard I'm worried about is burnout, ping pong e-mail, pushing paper around, etc. Just chaos around how people work. Struggling with how to stealthfully implement GTD across the organization. The people who say they can't do it and can't be pinned down are the ones who need it most. As a manager, injecting the ideas into the organizational rules. The weekly review and projects are being subtly attacked via management direction.
Brian - What really sticks? Meeting prep worksheet. How can the best version of yourself show up at the meeting? What is purpose of the meeting? What is action that should come out of it? "Why does this simple worksheet stick?" Answer from client: "Because it forces me to think". Force a conversation around areas of focus by having 1 on 1 sessions with employees.
Eric - I'm an engineer and entrepreneur. One of co-founders of LinkedIn. Working on new company. Coming at GTD from a technical point of view. Very interested in building and creating products. Organization is just as important as building the product itself, because it effects the outcome of the product and success of its innovation.
Randy - Main job as manager and leader is to manage systems those people work in. Need to spend more time to teach them tools & techniques like GTD. These tools are removing coercion from workforce. Going to look for someone that is systemic in their thinking when looking for leaders.
(Side note: Very interesting to see all the panelists capturing thoughts and ideas from their fellow co-presenters. Stimulating thoughts all around).
Sara - In interviews, asking people to describe how they manage projects, how they work. A different approach. Looking for diversity and successful "day-to-day survival skills". Very humbling to be doing things the way I've always done at a new place. When you are in a new organization, think about how fragile you feel and keep this in mind when you bring new people in. This is a great chance to teach them the tools and concepts (how we do meetings, etc.). Give yourself permission to change if necessary.
(Another side note: Amazing that all of these black-belt GTD individuals all admit to falling off the wagon. The beauty of GTD is being able to get back on the wagon quickly.)
Ron - GTD started out as a very personal thing. Looking forward to seeing how we bring this up to the next level...getting things done together.
Q&A Time:How do we fight cultural resistance? Jeff - How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Just work on focusing on the area of influence you have and the things you can touch. Todd - Stop doing what you are doing and do new things.
Interested in any case studies that measure impact of GTD in an organizations. Are there any? Love to see some set of models or tool. If not, what would be required? Eric - The standard doesn't exist yet. Used informally on an org level so far. One of the important elements is to create a framework that all organizations can sign up to. Each org has unique measurements. Have initial common set, by organization has to sign up to creating their own measurements to get true by in. Randy - Kind of weary of standard measurement practices. May be measuring things off target.
It seems like we need to implement GTD from the top in order for it to work. What do you think? Randy and Sara both agree it has to be more viral. Start with small groups and work to get consensus among members that you can be successful. Need 3% of the organization to embrace for it to get enough visibility, then it will either be accepted into culture or rejected.
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GTD @ Home: From the Boardroom to the Living Room
OK...this is my first attempt at live blogging, so we'll see how it goes. I'll likely expand on my thoughts later. I usually tend to write longer pieces, so doing a stream of conscious blast of info will be interesting.
The first breakout session of the day is "GTD At Home: From the Boardroom to the Living Room". This panel is being moderated by Eric Mack with panelists Med Edwards, Ismael Ghalimi, Kim Hagerty, Brian Lowery, Bruce Somers, John de Souza and Mike Williams. Two other excellent sounding panels are going on at the same time, so making the choice on which to attend is difficult. Of course, I have a keen interest in injecting the GTD process into my family, especially for my kids as they enter into high school. I hope to gain some good insights into this idea during the panel. Here we go...
Talking about moving GTD from a work context to "life context". Is it a thought process that you apply in life?
Distinction between home and work may not be as defined as people think.
Eric has served as David Allen's technologist for 16 years. David Allen Company employees practice what they preach.
1992 - first time Eric met David Allen. Meeting with David and his business partner. David asks to first have 5 minute meeting with his partner because they hadn't seen each other in awhile. David open agenda page to Russel...Russel opens agenda page to David. They blew through their lists...What's the status? What's the next action. Most productive meeting Eric ever say. After 5 minutes, meeting done and Eric had full focus.
Now meeting the panelists.
Ismael sharing how GTD has impacted his daily life. Small software company owner. Raising a new family, learning to fly, lots of activities. Work and life and intersecting. Need to have a system that frees your mind to do things that are most interesting (e.g. "be with my daughter"). Using Salesforce.com to capture all their contexts, doc management system, calendar, etc. Use an account for home and one for business.
Bruce Somers owns advertising agency. Service that is provided for every client is brand new. They "put out fires constantly". GTD is the only way they can keep up with everything. Bruce works from home and is more productive there. Wife is seeing how Bruce is efficient and wants to know how to do that. Came up with color coding systems for the whole family. Uses a calendar for the family and task scheduling is just the same as work.
Brian Lowery - Does a lot of east coast work. Get up at 4. Work for a few hours, then breakfast with kids. Gets some exercise in. Zero separation between work and home. "It's all you".
John de Souza - Getting to GTD was a lot of small realizations. Life is moving a lot faster than you think it is. Major realizations (like spending time with kid) coupled with small realizations drove him toward GTD. You need to have a system. You need to revisit your system as your priorities change and you need to invest in yourself at all levels.
Kim Hagerty - Responsibilities changed significantly as her business grew. Was using a planner...felt like she wasn't getting anything done. "To dos" were too big (get profitable, grow company). Found GTD through her brother. There is no real separation between work and home. Initially just wanted to capture work-related contexts. Huge breakthrough when she realized you have to capture everything, not just work. 100s in company have gone through GTD training...helps foster a language everyone can speak. Does a weekly review that is work related. Kim and husband meet and have planning meeting/weekly review, then they meet with their 13 year old daughter. Experiences more well-balanced life.
Mike Williams - Father of 2 young kids. Works with GE Healthcare. Took it from boardroom to living room himself. Some people in business are primed for productivity. Not necessarily true at home. Working on "experiments" at home. For example, separating items in the mudroom at home. Using this as an analogy to how you have things in your head. At breakfast, talk about what you want to accomplish today. Dinner time - reflect on how you did. Also do word of the day, quote of the day, etc. With his young kids, he is concerned with "planting seeds". @Agenda and hard landscape two of most important parts of GTD. Checks his calendar (hard landscape stuff) when he pulls in the garage so he remembers what things to talk about with kids. Labeler produces giddiness.
Four panelists have taught their kids how to mind map.
Meg Edwards - When she first met David in 1998, she was working in Vermont. Moved to Maine, having a baby in new marriage, starting new business and getting a new house. Goes to seminar (with new baby in tow) and was "saved" by things David Allen was talking about. Seeing workflow diagram was first time her brain quieted down. 6 months later had the opportunity to train as a coach and has been with David Allen Company for last 10 years. Has had opportunity to coach many people through the years. Focus is on teaching kids how to GTD. One of the greatest impetuses for GTD was getting to be present with her daughter, not be distracted. 5 stages of workflow helps make sure that she is focusing on right things and allows her to collect at the appropriate time. Sees so many parents overwhelmed. We need to help get this out to people, because it can be life changing.
Eric - Teach your kids to use an inbox, teach them how to mindmap and the idea of the Someday/Maybe list.
Bruce - Someday/Maybe list is powerful for kids. What do you want to do when you grow up?
John - Now hides his inbox at home. Has a dump box at home. Allows his wife to pile things up and then deal with them instead of putting it directly into his inbox. Families can take parts of idea without forcing it on them. Makes things harmonious.
Talking about best tools: Notetaker wallet (Ismael), Inbox (Bruce), Inbox, put things where they live (Brian), wallet and notepad to capture, remember much better by writing down (John), Inbox at work and home, place for everything, notepads everywhere (Kim), notepads everywhere, calendar (Mike), digital whiteboard in the bathroom (Eric. Wow...that's geeky! :-),capture tools (Meg).
Capture tools seem to be most important to everyone.
For children, very important to capture things they tell you otherwise you'll hear it over and over. - Meg
Q&A time: Inboxes all over the house. How do you deal with people dumping into boxes and moving this to appropriate place? - Brian mentions inbox in his office (in garage) and his wife's in the house. Moves paper as necessary. No more or less. Bruce - Individual boxes. Amazing how much respect family has for each others inboxes.
For those that can't install digital whiteboard, suggest using shower crayons.
At the higher levels, how do you incorporate goals and areas of focus into family? John - Sit down periodically with family and work on integrating all life events together. Kim - Does a year end review. Sat down with family after first swipe this year and talked about family goals. No criticism. Recorded family goals and has a good platform for discussions going forward. Mike - Went through "Now Discover Your Strengths" with his wife. Mapping out activities are helping define the higher level goals and define the foundation of where they want the family to go. Bruce - Daughter was stressed out about homework (age 10). Asked her what she really wants to do. She wants to bake. Tries to distill GTD concepts down in ways that make sense to her so she can manage her goals and her tasks.
Eric asks audience who has a written family mission statement. What will life look like? What do we want to be true about our life? Work backward to determine how these things will be true. What projects do we need to have in place to make this happen?
Meg - Really responsible for her daughter at early age. Mapping out her goals, projects and actions. A lot of power in deciding what to do and not do so you're not revisiting in the future and second guessing yourself. "You don't have problems, you have projects".
How to deal with GTD with your kids at the rebellious stage? Brian - Act like you are having so much fun. Don't force it on them. Bruce - Let kids get to depths of chaos and then through her a life line.
How to get your spouse on board? - Brian - Got coached together. Meg - Said "I need it", then let husband decide for himself.
Great panel!
Labels: GTD, GTD Summit
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Twitter People At The GTD Summit
T minus 1 day to the
GTD Summit. This event is bringing together some
incredible minds to have a dialog around our rapidly changing world and how we can get more things done with agility, flexibility and speed. I'm thrilled at the prospects of learning about raising my potential to the next level with this great group of speakers as well as my fellow attendees.
I'll be blogging and tweeting the event. As you know if you've been here before, I tend to write rather long pieces, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to do justice to true live blogging. We'll see. I CAN promise some in-depth coverage as I take it all in. It's a balancing act, as I feel I lose some of my attentiveness when I'm trying to distill the thoughts down to digestible chunks for blogs or Twitter. I'm looking forward to your feedback.
Many of the attendees and speakers at the GTD Summit are Twitter users, so I'm attempting to compile a comprehensive list so people know who to follow if they want to know more. As some other have suggested, I think we are standardizing on
#gtdsummit as the hash tag.
Here's the list I have so far. If you are a Twitter user attending the GTD Summit and I don't have you on the list yet, please comment here or
reply to me on Twitter.
gtdguy (David Allen)
GTDCoachKellyGTDCoachMichaelMichaelDeutchOdegardericmackgtdtimesBuzzmodoguykawasakijroadmanChrisBlatnickuconntamjlindenthalkerrygallivanryanheathersAlltopmichaelnozbemalyszkomydifferentfeetTesTeqmshinfaboekgirlsmith_douglasMindjetjroadmanstlistfrankmeeuwsenrsailerkerrygallivanOmniGroupresourcererlarryaubreytpassisttacooosterkampec2boyALMguyalanlnelsonkcasegbbackprepopsbell22Here's an idea If we have the possibility to write on our name tags, it might be helpful to promote your Twitter username on your badge. I know that sometimes I don't recognize a person's formal name immediately if I've not met them in person, but their online name is more recognizable. Maybe I'll bring along some stickers to use for this.
Labels: GTD, GTD Summit, productivity
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