I laughed. I cried. I spent most of the movie doing both.

A can of TaB took me back to my uncle’s house when my brother and I would holiday there. The sound of a modem dialling had me laugh out loud and attract the stares of my girls who didn’t understand what I found funny. Most of it it was the Muppets themselves. Sometimes we don’t realise we are missing something from our lives, and how important it was to us at the time, until it returns. Time travel happens when we least expect it.

But, as Roland Deschain says so frequently in his quest for The Dark Tower, the world has moved on. And I have moved with it. I wonder what my daughters will have for nostalgia in their future?

These, plus the excellent iThoughts have been placed into My Application Toolkit as of today.

This afternoon however I spent an hour or so aligning the viewfinder scope, the main mirror and checking the motor drive is tracking the right way for the Southern Hemisphere in which I live. Our new patio area gives me a flat space to work and though it limits the field of view to about 45° that will suit to begin with.

When you look at the stars through a telescope with even minor magnification they move out of view quickly. The motor drive is there to help with that, moving the ‘scope in the right directly. It’s always been a bit of a problem here in Australia as you need to align the base towards the southernmost point in the sky. This is empty space. We don’t have Polaris to point to. Technology has moved on somewhat and my iPhone’s compass will do the trick. One day I’ll have one of those nice telescopes where all you have to do is nothing and it knows where it is.

A search from the web suggests scratching (slow), microwaving (damages microwave), shooting with a shotgun (sounds fun), and destroying with a belt sander (with fingers in the process).

In the past I’ve used pliers to cut into the disc and twist it apart. Today I found a faster, easier, and I believe safer solution than all of the above.

What you’ll need

• a bucket
• an old tea towel
• garden gloves
• brush and shovel

Destroying DVDs by hand

You follow these instructions at your own risk.

Bucket of destroyed DVDs

1. Put on your garden gloves
2. Pick up a DVD in such a way as you cover it with the tea towel
3. With the towel surrounding the DVD bend it in half. Best if you look away as well to protect your eyes.
4. Drop bits into the bucket.
5. Repeat until all DVDs are done.
6. Sweep up with your brush and shovel any pieces of sharp plastic that missed the bucket.
7. Dump contents of bucket into rubbish for your weekly collection.

What if I have a hard drive you say?

Data on hard drives should also be removed before you throw them out. If the drive has failed and won’t spin there is not much you can do. For smaller drives you’ve outgrown grab a tool like Eraser and run a multiple-pass write over the drive to completely erase the contents.

For further reading see It’s your responsibility to clarify understanding.

• DayOne Journal, an electronic diary/journalling application
• TextExpander, a text replacement utility that saves time in typing
• Osfoora, a mac based twitter client
• LaunchBar, an application launcher

Two almost identically sounding words.

Faith is the belief that you can take the actions needed your success. It gives you the courage to begin.

Fate yourself is a belief that you will succeed without needing to take action.

Only one of these will bring you success.

Recently I heard about DayOne Journal which is a Mac, iPhone and iPad application for electronic journalling. I’m on a computer most of the day and can type much faster than I write (though there is something said for the link between the slowness of writing and the quality of thinking) so the option was appealing to me. I’ve found that I’m now more likely to capture my thoughts, including the positive ones, as I think of them during the day. The iPhone app makes this easier as well. That’s why DayOne Journal is now moving up on my most used applications list.

Being electronic rather than paper based DayOne Journal provides organisation and search functionality which over the longer term is advantageous.</p?

I’m so enamoured by this application that I’m transcribing my written entries into it so I have a single repository for posterity.

As I add applications I will announce them in the normal Quantum Gardener feed (you’re reading it now). If you ever visit the page directly it will have the latest information.

To assist with navigation I’ve created a short how-to video on YouTube.

The first applications are:

• 1Password
• BackupLoupe
• Bento
• Caffeine
• Carbon Copy Cloner
• Chrome
• CloneZilla
• DVD Profiler
• FileZilla
• Handbrake
• IMatch
• Omnifocus
• Safari
• TheBrain (PersonalBrain pre-v7)
• Time Machine
• Twitterlator Pro

My results over the past years have been:

• 2008: 53 books,
• 2009: 22 books,
• 2010: 20 books, and
• 2011: 11 books (cut short from Apr-Mar to Apr-Dec but still a low number).

For years I’ve been a user of PC’s. Until July last year I’d never used a Macintosh ‘in anger’ and the last time I sat at one was in the mid-80′s. My path ‘to the white’ as it’s called was via a product called Omnifocus and what it did for my Getting Things Done approach on the iPhone and iPad. I didn’t buy a Macbook Pro because I was an Apple convert. I bought it because it ran Omnifocus. Sometimes that’s why buying decisions are made.

Six months on and I will tell you I like the Macintosh better than a PC but I won’t say it’s because of technical superiority, speed, form factor etc. That would be like so many futile ‘us-v-them’ arguments that have gone before. I like the Macintosh better “because it works with me, not against me.” I’m still a PC user. The image management software I use runs on Windows only.

Which is better? Black or white?

[Black vs White Kitten Hosted by Imbecile Entertainment]

Back to Simon Sinek. His suggestion is I like my laptop better because it fits my idea of what a computer should be. That it could be worse than a PC is immaterial. Chrome is what I think a browser should. My iPhone is what I think a PDA should be. That red wine fits my idea of what a red wine should be. Carlsberg beer…and so on.

Keeping this attitude in mind breeds tolerance. Thanks to Simon I have some concise words to share it with.

This prompted me to create a concept map of the backup configuration running in our house. At first glance it looks confusing. Start with the orange rectangles and work your way from there. People with more money and better upload speeds than us could certainly suggest other options. This structure however is the current optimal balance of need (more important information is backed up more regularly and in more places), cost of backup resources and time.

My current backup strategy balances convenience, security and duplication. It has both onsite and offsite components.

Securing access

My 13" MacBook Pro is secured using a long and secure password and an encrypted hard drive. All offsite backups are likewise secured. You can get the files but do nothing with them.

Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner

Time Machine runs hourly to an external USB drive connected to a Airport Extreme. This drive is not encrypted. I also clone once a day to an external USB drive connected directly to my MacBook using Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC). This provides a bootable option in case of internal hard drive failure. It’s not encrypted either because I’ve had problems with the encrypted drive being mounted and unmounted properly in Mac OS Lion. I tried SuperDuper! as an alternative to CCC but find it too hard to trust software which overstates the amount it has backed up. Reporting 330GB when I have 250GB of data is not comforting.

Sparsebundles

Mac OS allows you to create a special type of file called a sparsebundle. It is a single file on the hard drive which can be mounted to behave like an additional drive. An advantage of sparsebundles is the ability to encrypt them. To mount the drive and access its contents you need a password. All critically secure files can be placed in the sparsebundle.

After a month I decided this wasn’t the solution for me. There were two reasons.

1. Time Machine is not guaranteed to back up a mounted sparsebundle with integrity. In other words, although the backup would appear to work it may not have. It’s not practical to unmount the sparsebundle for each hourly Time Machine backup.
2. To restore a file from Time Machine that exists in the sparsebundle you need to restore the whole sparsebundle. 15GB for a 250mb file is a waste of time.

What to do? Not fully practical for day-to-day usage, but perfect for security.

Sparsebundles when needed

I have encrypted the main internal drive of my laptop and move all critcal files out of the sparsebundle. Now they get picked up by Time Machine and CCC as needed. Access to backups is quick.

Then, every day or so I run a shell script to:

1. Mount an encrypted sparsebundle called Lockbox.
2. Copy all necessary files to it i.e., those which are critical and I can’t afford to lose in any circumstances.
3. Unmount the encrypted sparsebundle.
4. Copy Lockbox to a 32GB USB drive. This is an encrypted file. You can’t do anything with it.
5. Copy Lockbox to the PC in the house. The advantage here is it now gets incorporated into the PC’s backup as well.

Staging backups

To have all this run smoothly I’ve made some changes to the default storage on my system. The majority of my files are stored and organsied within PersonalBrain. Almost nothing, outside of application support files and a few temporary use files exists outside of my PersonaBrain database. With 11,000+ thoughts in it, you can only imagine how critical this is to my operations.

PersonalBrain is stored in the root of my home directory. That is ~/PersonalBrain.

The other application I use is Bento. It has likewise been moved to the root of my home directory. To do this I had to create a symbolic link (see Bento Data on Multiple Machines for instructions).

I have also created a directory called Transient Backups. It’s used for the temporary backup files created by applications. I need a backup but not forever. 1Password, Omnifocus and TextExpander have all had their Preferences modified to move their default backup locations to this directory. Hazel runs on the Omnifocus files to keep them no more than two weeks old.

Transient Backups also stores PersonalBrain BrainZips, Bento exports, Address Book exports and my mail archive as created by Mail Steward App (I copy to this database, keeping all mail in Mail.app and gmail).

With this configuration Time Machine pick up all application data, plus transient backups made from time to time.

To the vault

The Lockbox file is kept in ~/Vaults. This directory is excluded from Time Machine’s backup.

A shell script (included below and based on Encrypted Remote Backups with Sparse Bundles) uses rsync to copy PersonalBrain, Bento and the Transient Backup directory into the Lockbox. After the first copy, rsync only copies what is changed and this speeds up the process.

To the USB and network

The same script then copies the Lockbox sparsebundle to a USB stick and network location. Again rsync is used. The internal structure of a sparsebundle consists of many 8mb files. rsync copies only those which have changed.

The script

I have saved this script in ~/Documents. To run it I open a Terminal window and kick it off with the backup option.

#!/bin/sh
# 
# sparse_backup.sh
# 
# Encrypted remote backup using Mac OS X Sparsebundle Disk Images
# bubbaATbubba.org
# 
 
VOLUMENAME="Lockbox"
BASEPATH="/Users/DCB/";
IMAGEFILE="${BASEPATH}/Vaults/Lockbox.sparsebundle";
LOCALHOST="Lancelot"
REMOTEHOST="Guinevere"
REMOTEUSER="David Buchan"
REMOTEDIR="/home/backupuser/backup/remote"
LOGFILE="/tmp/backup.log"
EXCLUDEFILE="/Users/DCB/rsync.excludes"
USB="DeathStar"
 
RET=0;
 
# local rsync commands to sync local mac files w/ mounted sparsebundle
# 
backup_local()
{
        DATE=`date`
        echo "Local rsync starting: ${DATE}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
        echo "Local rsync starting: ${DATE}" 2>&1
        #### CHANGE EVERYTHING BELOW HERE ####
        echo "..PersonalBrain" 2>&1
        rsync -avE --delete ${BASEPATH}/PersonalBrain /Volumes/Lockbox/ 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
        echo "..Bento" 2>&1
        rsync -avE --delete ${BASEPATH}/Bento /Volumes/Lockbox/ 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
        echo "..Transient Backups" 2>&1
        rsync -avE --delete ${BASEPATH}/Transient\ Backups /Volumes/Lockbox/ 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
        ##mkdir -p /Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}/${HOSTNAME} 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
        # v to q to make quiet
        ##rsync -var --exclude-from=${EXCLUDEFILE} --delete /Users/user /Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}/${HOSTNAME} 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
        #### STOP WITH YOUR CHANGES ####
        DATE=`date`
        echo "Local rsync ending: ${DATE}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
        echo "Local rsync ending: ${DATE}" 2>&1
}
 
# rsync the sparsebundle to usb
backup_usb()
{
        # Uncomment this if you're using the alternative method mentioned in the documentation.  
        # return 1
        if [ -d "/Volumes/${USB}" ]; then
                DATE=`date`
                echo "USB rsync starting: ${DATE}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                echo "USB rsync starting: ${DATE}" 2>&1
                rsync -avE --delete ${BASEPATH}/Vaults/Lockbox.sparsebundle /Volumes/${USB}/ 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                #rsync -e ssh -var --delete ${IMAGEFILE} ${REMOTEUSER}@${REMOTEHOST}:"${REMOTEDIR}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                DATE=`date`
                echo "USB rsync ending: ${DATE}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                echo "USB rsync ending: ${DATE}" 2>&1
        else
                echo "/Volumes/${USB} not found...skipping"
                RET-1;
        fi
}
 
 
 
# rsync the sparsebundle offsite
backup_offsite()
{
        # Uncomment this if you're using the alternative method mentioned in the documentation.  
        # return 1
        if [ -d "/Volumes/Vaults" ]; then
                DATE=`date`
                echo "Offsite rsync starting: ${DATE}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                echo "Offsite rsync starting: ${DATE}" 2>&1
                rsync -avO --exclude '.DS_Store' --delete ~/Vaults/ /Volumes/Vaults/ 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                #rsync -e ssh -var --delete ${IMAGEFILE} ${REMOTEUSER}@${REMOTEHOST}:"${REMOTEDIR}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                DATE=`date`
                echo "Offsite rsync ending: ${DATE}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                echo "Offsite rsync ending: ${DATE}" 2>&1
        else
                RET=1;
        fi
}
 
# function to umount sparseimage
unmount_sparse()
{
 
        echo "Attempting to dismount ${IMAGEFILE}" 2>&1
        if [ ! -d "/Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}" ]; then
                #echo "Volume /Volumes/${VOLUMENAME} not mounted"
                RET=1;
        else
                sleep 10
                /usr/bin/hdiutil unmount "/Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}" 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                if [ -d "/Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}" ]; then
                         echo "Unable to unmount volume /Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}"
                         RET=1;
                fi
        fi
}
 
# function to mount sparseimage
mount_sparse()
{
        echo "Attempting to mount ${IMAGEFILE}" 2>&1
        if [ ! -d "/Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}" ]; then
                open -W ${IMAGEFILE} 2>&1 >> ${LOGFILE}
                if [ ! -d "/Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}" ]; then
                        echo "Unable to attach ${IMAGEFILE} / unable to mount /Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}."
                        RET=1;
                fi
        fi
}
 
getpid()
{
        PID=`ps -axwww | grep rsync | grep ${IMAGEFILE} | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'`
        if [ ${PID}0 -ne 0 ]; then
                echo "$0 already running (PID ${PID}); Exiting."
                exit 1;
        fi
}
 
case "$1" in
  mount)
        getpid
        mount_sparse
        exit $RET;
        ;;
  unmount)
        unmount_sparse
        exit $RET;
        ;;
  backup)
        getpid
        mount_sparse
        if [ "$RET" = "0" ]; then
                # do backup stuff here
                backup_local
                unmount_sparse
                if [ "$RET" = "0" ]; then
                        backup_usb
                        backup_offsite
 
                else
                        exit $RET;
                fi
        else
                exit $RET;
        fi
        ;;
  offsite)
        backup_offsite
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {mount|unmount|backup|offsite}"
        exit 1;
        ;;
esac

I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

This was the joke that gave comedian Nick Helm the award for best joke at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It may also be the best advice you hear all year. The last twelve months has seen an increase in public reporting of major security breaches and identity theft. To be effective a password has to be easy to remember without being written down yet complex enough that it can’t be easily guessed or cracked by a hacker.

Common password problems

A good password should be:

1. Known only to you
2. Long enough to be secure
3. Hard to guess – even by someone who knows you well
4. Easy for you to remember
5. Easy for you to type accurately

I’m not even going to list all the common problems with the passwords most people use. How often have you broken the rules above? As far as I’m concerned, if a password is not 20 characters or more long, then it is too short. You can easily remember passwords this long, and longer, if you know how.

Diceware to the rescue

Any password that I need to remember is created using Diceware. It uses regular six-sided dice to generate a five-digit number which is then looked up on the Diceware wordlist. I use MotionX Dice on my iPhone to roll the dice.

Here’s a sample I’ve just generated for a six word password (or passphrase).

• Roll 1: 42513
• Roll 2: 64522
• Roll 3: 62135
• Roll 4: 42415
• Roll 5: 35636
• Roll 6: 62116

And by looking these numbers up in the Diceware wordlist gives:

• Roll 1: 42513 moist
• Roll 2: 64522 wyeth
• Roll 3: 62135 tuff
• Roll 4: 42415 miss
• Roll 5: 35636 laity
• Roll 6: 62116 tt

My new passphrase is moistwyethtuffmisslaitytt which I’m sure you will agree is complex yet memorable. There are only six words to remember and for most people that should be a piece of cake. It’s 25 characters long and meets criteria 2–4 above. Keeping it secret is up to you. A good typist will get this out in less than 5 seconds.

The excellent Diceware FAQ will provide all the detail you need for an in-depth understanding should you want to read further.

A password for all seasons

I only use Diceware for the four passwords I have to remember. They are:

1. Laptop login
2. Laptop administrator user login
3. Password storage application login (more on this below)
4. Encrypted file access

In all other cases I have no idea what my passwords are, conveniently avoiding the “1. Known only to you” criteria. The trick is to use a password storage application such as 1Password or eWallet. I use 1Password now because it integrates across the Mac, Windows and iPhone platforms. Before owning a Mac I used eWallet.

These applications (and others like them) store my passwords in a 256-bit AES encrypted file. That’s strong enough to defeat anyone at this point in time. The content of the file is accessed via a master password which is generated using diceware for length and memorability.

Then, the sofware is used to generate completely random passwords for all the websites I access. 1Password will even enter my username and password on login screens. I never see them.

Back to Snow White

Nick Helm’s password of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is plenty long enough for our purposes at snowwhitebashfuldocdopeygrumpyhappysleepysneezy. Likewise Santa’s reindeer with prancerdancerdonnerblitzendashervixencommetcupidrudolph. I would recommend against using them as passwords because they are common. Use them instead to help you understand why diceware passwords are a much better solution than anything you’re using now. Then, get yourself some software to help.

One more thing

This year, when we move into daylight savings I’ll be implementing a new idea for the first time. In addition to changing clocks and smoke alarm batteries I’ll also be changing my four major passwords. You should too.

A technical post today, showing how I implemented this on The Buchan Institute’s website.

MailChimp’s basic visual editor forms can be nicely formatted to look like most of your site, and have custom redirects for success pages. If however, like me, you have a single instance where you want to customise the emails based on a subscriber’s source (offer a freebie download), then you have to use the advanced forms. Sadly these are basic, ugly forms that won’t look anything like your site without a lot of work. Even then they will be mostly static.

In most cases, you can get away with a simple HTML redirect to your own page such as the one on my signup thank-you page.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Thank You Redirect</title>
<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://buchaninstitute.com.au/thank-you-for-signing-up/"></HEAD>
<BODY style="background:#ede9e4 url(http://buchaninstitute.com.au/wp/wp-content/arjuna-x/images/bg/gradient_khaki.png) repeat-x 0 0;">
</BODY>
</HTML>

When the subscribe confirmation link in an email is clicked, it goes to this page which immediately redirects back to a prettier version on my site.

But if you need some interaction, such as with the unsubscribe form, it’s trickier. Here’s my solution. I hope it helps others, or even better still, prompts a superior solution. It assumes you are creating forms in advanced mode within MailChimp.

Step 1: Get a a sample unsubscribe link for your list.

I got mine from a test campaign email for one of my test users. Take a copy when the email arrives. It looks like this.

http://buchaninstitute.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&id=YYYYYYYYYYYYYY&e=&c=ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The XXXXXX…, YYYYYY… and ZZZZZZ… strings have been stripped out so you don’t have access to my list. The first two are constant for a list and we’ll take advantage of that later. The last (ZZZZZZ…) is unique to a subscriber and this is why you can’t just call an unsubscribe link on MailChimp. You need this number matched to its email.

Step 2. Replace the unsubscribe form with a javascript redirect to a page on your site.

This time you need javascript to capture the query parameters needed to identify the user to unsubscribe. When a user clicks unsubscribe in their email, they are directed to MailChimp. We want to redirect back to our site, passing through the query parameters containing the ‘c’ identifier.

This code has been inserted on my MailChimp unsubscribe form.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head><script type="text/javascript">
<!--
window.location = "http://buchaninstitute.com.au/unsubscribe/?" + window.location.search.substring(1);
//-->
</script>
</head>
<BODY></BODY>
</html>

Point the first part of the window.location string to your unsubscribe page (to be created). Here it is the http://buchaninstitute.com.au/unsubscribe.

Step 3: Create your unsubscribe form

This is my basic form layout.

‘Email address’ is obviously a required field. ‘MailChimp-c’ is a hidden field set to take the ‘c’ parameter from the unsubscribe redirect above.

With this in place, we now finish the form. When submitted, it needs to go back to mail chimp.

Again, I’ve hidden my codes. You will need to insert them for your list. You may also find it’s {MailChimp-2} in your case. I had an earlier field in there during testing which bumped the number up. Importantly, ensure you have the trailing ‘/post’ in the URL or you will loop back to your own unsubscribe page (experience talking).

Step 4: Attach your form to your unsubscribe page

This is basic Gravity Forms stuff so I’m going to assume you can do this.

Step 5: Picking up the pieces

The unsubscribe confirmation email will link back to the MailChimp form. All you need to do here is edit it to point to your unsubscribe form instead.

Closing comments

MailChimp is ever evolving and hopefully it will improve this in the future. Until then, this is the solution I’m going with. It should also be transferable to the ‘Update Profile Form’. Here I want to do the same but hide the field I use to track a subscriber’s source.

Yesterday, when ironing a pair of trousers I found my 32GB USB. It had been through the washing machine, hung outside all day in a wet pocket and then been passed over by a hot iron.

Not confident of success I inserted it into a computer and all my data was there.

I’ve since done 24 hours of write testing (10 complete passes) using the eHow instructions for testing USB drives and it passed. Truly amazing. Now, where did I put it?

I’ve just taken delivery of 1, 000 new business cards. Here is where have mine and where I think you should have yours. After all, what is the cost of missing business or a new relationship because there is no card to hand.

• In the business card holder on your desk (that’s the obvious one).
• In your business card dispenser — carry it with you alongside your purse/wallet. Holds more cards and in perfect condition.
• In your purse/wallet — check these regularly and replace any that are tatty.
• In you car’s glovebox — for when you get to a networking event and run out of cards.
• In your laptop bag — you never know who else you’ll met when at a client’s doing work.
• In your business card holder (the one with pockets for cards) — because you always have it with you so that you can hand out cards of people you know when making referrals (You don’t? Perhaps you should think about doing so).
• In your folio that you use to take notes.
• In your iPhone/iPad protective cover if it has a place for cards.
• In the back of any name tag holders you wear at regular events.
• In your jacket pockets — as long as you remember to take them out before dry cleaning.

It took me 5 minutes to distribute my cards as I’ve described above. 200/1,000 now stored within easy reach. There may be more places. Think outside the (business card delivery) box.

• One more place for you to keep your profile up to date – old information does not facilitate good referrals.
• The same people tend to connect to each other. Outside of LinkedIn (the grandaddy of them all) how many other people does the network bring in and is the extra maintenance time worth it?

If you can’t see anything you may need to expand it by clicking the small down arrow shown. Click on a title (a thought in PersonalBrain terms – the underlyinng display technology here) to see more. You can’t break anything so click away. The top half shows navigation and the bottom half additional links or downloads.

It is very easy to dismiss these technologies as irrelevant or as three (or more) things I need to learn and don’t have the time for. As you move around the map above you will begin to note that many aspects are similar. I’m not saying understand one and you understand them all, but I am saying that if you take the time to learn and play you will find most of what you learn is transferable to another platform.

Each platform has a list of its key differentiating factors (What’s inside?), common misconceptions (how many of these have you been thinking), a longer list of benefits, an idea of the metrics available for measurement and finally a list of common activities a business might undertake.

I’ve been following her ideas and have found the realisation that I don’t need to read every tweet or facebook post very relaxing. If I miss a few days of tweets it is now common for me to swipe through all but the last 24 hours without any guilt. And, importantly without any major loss of information.

If there is something I need to capture or spend more time with then I use Twitterlator’s integration with Instapaper to save the link for later processing into PersonalBrain. A secondary reason for flicking things to Instapaper is that I find reading web pages on my iphone annoyingly slow — the loading delay interrupts my flow.

So at the risk of me now interrupting your flow take a few minutes to read Shelley’s ideas on digital flow to keep yourself sane in the digital noise that now constantly surrounds us.

Many people, including 360 Results, have a link to their RSS feed (either RSS as text or an industry standard icon from feedicons.com) that gives what appears to be a page full of random text. What I want to do is immediately add the feed to my feed reader.

With a link directly to the feed, I have to copy the URL, open my feed reader, click add subscription, paste and click ok.

Or with a bit of setup work and a Google feedburner account such as exists here on Quantum Gardener the resulting page is nicely formatted and has one-click links to add the feed to most of the popular on-line readers. See what our RSS feed looks like at http://feeds.feedburner.com/quantumngardener. Isn’t that more inviting?

In a world of competing information the 10 minutes of setup to help your readers gain access to your news is worthwhile. And yes, I’ve added the 360 Results blog. The content is worth the extra steps.

Getting beyond the pigeon hole should be your aim. Ask questions and listen. It is always worth it.

The next taught me how to juggle that most precious resource called time.

The third taught me about professionalism.

My fourth introduced me to self development and networking.

My fifth taught me we are all limited by self imposed boundaries.

Six and I learnt about creating shared vision and strategy.

Number seven was the choice between dollars and integrity. I chose integrity.

My eighth job taught me what happens when leaders fail to make decisions.

In number nine the lessons have been about the absolute ruler that is a businesses culture.

When the time comes, I wonder what the next will bring.

If I were to reflect publicly about a difference of thinking between you and I, that very difference will often lead you towards misinterpretation of what I have said. Should I say black and you say white then no matter what I write about the wonder and richness of us thinking apart from one another you are likely to hear my arguing for black over white.

In the work environment that causes problems for the both of us. To protect us both I refrain unless I can draw out a general, unidentifiable comment. Sadly that means some learning doesn’t get shared.

For several years I have kept a journal. It is where I converse best with myself. As this is a topic most people don’t speak about I can’t know how common it is to be constantly in conversation. Judging decisions, weighing up actions, reflecting to note improvements for the future or even observing why I might not have just said something I thought to say (incidentally this was the topic of tonight’s writings).

Over time I’ve come to value the journal as the ultimate truth teller. Thinking without pen in hand can run too fast. Important thoughts can overshoot contemplation or pushed aside by the next thought rushing forward. With my Waterman fountain pen poised over paper this changes. Thought slows. Ideas expand. And if I chose to be honest and really listen I find the contradictions in my actions are screaming at me.

These are the moments like when I realised my reason for not taking action now was not fear of the present but fear of not fully understanding what the future would become if I took the action; or more precisely fear of who I would become. These are realisations that appear first like a flash out of the corner of my eye and are understood only if I determine to turn my head and investigate. Most often it is a feeling of discordance that comes when I know in my heart that what I’ve just put to paper is not the real truth of the matter.

If you were to read my journal the entries may confuse and leave you wondering, “How did he get anything out of that?” It doesn’t matter in the end what is written. The journey of the conversation and the insight found along the way provides wisdom. Once learnt it won’t be forgotten. My journalling has improved who I am. May it do the same for you.

It’s perfect.

Last month’s productivity was down by 10%. We’ve looked into it and that should improve over time.

In next month’s board meeting you won’t (can’t) be held to account. After all you did promise that it should improve over time. You have become the master of the slippery promise. It will confuse your boss. You promised, and yet you didn’t. You should be held responsible, and yet you won’t be.

It gets better. Use this phrase with your supervisors and soon your reports will be using it with (against) you as well. No one in the whole company will be held responsible for their promises.

Trust me

If you enjoy low morale and distrust why not make this part of your induction.

Or, if you would prefer to work in a high trust environment with positive morale you could be specific about what you intend to improve for next month, by how much and how…but no, you wouldn’t want that would you.

We tread a dangerous path when we fail to understand how “sloppy requests” and “slippery promises” negatively effect the efficiency of a workplace. This is a material issue and lies at the heart of people understanding one another.

This is a short presentation I did in 2004 is a brief, yet practical, introdcution to the importance of language in the workplace.

That’s the question I asked myself on Friday and this time I listened to my answer instead of brushing it aside. So easy to do as it flashed past in a instant.

I love writing on Quantum Gardener but write much less than I’d like because I don’t have time to do it properly. Therefore, and perhaps non-intuitively, blogging is something I choose to stop until I have time. You see the commitment to readers is more than typing. The recent upgrade to WordPress 3 has stolen at least 5 hours. They could have been better spent working towards earning my financial freedom so that I can write all day if I choose. Do my valued reader this will be the last post for a while. I will still be on Twitter @quantumgardener.

There are other tasks and projects valued to me that I now realise are taking too much time. Or at least interfering with progress towards my dreams. Each is a commitment I’ve made to myself and I find I need to honour them before other things. Partly because of the effort already invested. The good news it was me who made the initial commitment so I have full and unhindered power to renegotiate or declare completion. This blog post is a public declaration of my recommitments .

Renegotiating smaller tasks links to a habit I have of wanting to finish them in order to create space for large tasks. Eventually all I achieve are small ones.

In addition to a halt on blogging I put my photo cataloging on hold. Though justifiably proud of having catalogued 15,000+ family photos and video clips with date, location description, gps coordinates, event and people in them it distracts me and can wait until I have more capacity. As one of those tasks that never ends, I’ll keep up only the essentials of backup.

There are similar commitments I have around music in iTunes and my DVD/Blu-ray library.

Then there are books unread, movies unseen, podcasts unheard and games unplayed. I find myself working relentlessly trying to finish lists that grow quicker than I can keep up. Kind of like Lucy on the assembly line. All I generate are more ideas of projects to complete. Valuable for sure but costly when compared to what I’m missing.

I will however keep my 50 Book Challenge lists up to date. It’s easy to and provides a useful record.

Until I have the time to write and serve you better take care.

David

I asked, “What are flags useful for?”, and she replied,

• “For the Queen’s Birthday”
• “Parades”
• “Sticking on the moon to say it’s yours”
• “Your planet”

• “Your country is half finished”

As adults we are often told to “think outside of the box”. Maybe the best way is to never build one in the first place. I’d challenge many adults to come up with that last answer.

by Jack Weatherford

I bought this book because it sounded interesting and was the most efficient way to use my monthly credit on audible.com. What an amazing story. Genghis Khan in my mind is undoubtedly one of the most successful men in history. All that you know about him is probably wrong. My world view has shifted significantly. He’s responsible for the structure of most of Asia, trade routes between Asia and Europe, the separation of church from state and the idea that a country’s leaders are not above the law.

The book chronicles his life and that of his direct and not-so-direct ancestors. The latter chapter finish with discussion of how the world view of Genghis Khan moved from admiration to loathing. It’s sad to recognise how some of the cultural narratives I’ve grown up with have been seeded by people who knew nothing or were so self centered as to impose their views for their own protection.

This story has only come to light in the past ten years as areas of Mongolia became open to scholars the world over. I hope you take the time to read his book and learn about the framework in which most of our world history resides.

The 360 Degree Leader

This book outlines a framework for leadership which the eager learning leader can use to home their skills and understand the particular quirks and responsibilities of leading from the middle.

It’s Time to Move On!

Almost every page was like a mirror of my own experiences. Well, at least as far as they pertain to the feelings and emotions of dealing with change. To my knowledge I’ve never been thrown in the brig or done a stint as a fishing charter captain.

Change is all around us and we have the choice to fight it or embrace it. The trouble with fighting is that we always lose. For coping with unwanted change the book alone is worth a read yet the gold lies in it’s chapters on how to move past the resistance to embracing change and allowing yourself to go where you want to in life.

by Robert B. Cialdini

Defend yourself against the Click…whirr response engendered by your built in need to reciprocate, keep consistency with what you have said you’ll do, be part of the crowd, like people who take advantage of you, follow authority without question and your desire to own something scarce.

In Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B Cialdini explains with easy to understand examples, backed by scientific testing, how the social systems we’ve created as necessary to work together are taken advantage of by marketers and others. With understanding comes the ability to recognise when we are being conned and hopefully take steps to counteract our natural tendencies.

I found most interesting the discussion on social proof and in particular the notion that when faced with an unusual situation we look to others around us for guidance under the assumption that they will know something we don’t — at the same time failing to realise everyone else is doing the same. They assume we know more than them as we simultaneously assume the same in reverse. The result is stalemate and nothing happens. All it takes is for one person to take action and the others will follow on, free to help as they can. The author’s example of what to do if you have a heart attack in a crowd is potentially life-saving. Instead of hoping someone will help you, be direct and pick out an individual to call an ambulance. Otherwise you risk those around you waiting for someone else to call.

There was not one example given in the book that I couldn’t match to my own life experience and an associated regret at having been done over by someone more persuasive than myself. Protect yourself as I have by learning about the hidden influences in your life.

Yesterday I received notification that “Artur” had accepted my connection. This is a highly unusual name for Australia and if I’d ever met an Artur I would have remembered.

Plaxo support guessed this was an outstanding invitation sent in 2007–2008.

“As per our records, you had sent out many invitations and connection requests to the contacts in the year 2007 and 2008. I guess the connection request to the Plaxo member “Artur” was also sent during that period.”

Plaxo has been a wonderful service, providing a central service for the notification of address changes. Sadly I’ll lose out on that now but save myself further privacy violations.

Occasions — view in iTunes

If I’ve ever forgotten your birthday I’m sorry. Remembering them is something I don’t do all that well. Even when I remember I have slim chance of knowing how old you are. But now, thanks to Occassions on my iPhone, I should never miss your birthday again — assuming of course that I know it in the first place.

Occasions displays birthdays, anniversaries and other upcoming events on your iPhone. Each entry gives has a name, date and countdown. If a year is present Occasions calculates the age of the event. For example, Charles is turning 49 today, Berit is turning 39 in 2 days on Friday 23 April and Kirsty celebrates her 10th anniversary in 4½ months. If there is no year specified, you’ll get the date and number of days until the event only.

I know too many people. Do I have to enter their birthdays?

An absolute strength of this program is its integration with the default iPhone contacts (address) book. Every person who has a birthday or anniversary will be loaded and kept up to date automatically.

You can also link Occasions to your facebook account and everyone who has given facebook applications the ability to access birthday details will be loaded as well. The application even matches names (or where it can’t suggests matches) between contacts and facebook. So, you don’t have to double-dip and buy two presents. Respectfully Occasions lets you confirm all matches, automatic or otherwise, and doesn’t just assume. Great if you know two people with the same name. Want more? It imports facebook avatar pics as well.

Playing nicely with Gmail contacts

My favourite band are playing. Can I get a countdown?

Final words

Priced at the lowest end of the app pricing scale (just above free), you may receive a copy for your birthday. That is, if your friends have Occasions on their iPhone.

If that’s not a definition of “enough is enough”, then I don’t know what is.

You and I live in a world where it is amazingly easy to collect and we seem intent on holding onto everything. DVD or Blu-ray movies, music on our iPods, books via Kindle and even conversations via Twitter and Facebook. Are we so scared that we’ll lose it all?

I was shepherding the conversation with phrases such as, “Ask about X”, “Tell them about Y” and so on. It was a little frustrating at the time that my girls weren’t saying much. At first I thought they were shy but now I’m not so sure. Rather, it was such a new situation for them they had to be taught how to converse. My prompts were as much about teaching them what could be said as they were to get them to speak on the day.

As a parent we have responsibilities in all areas of life. I’ve been aware of the need to introduce my girls to new social situations but it has ended there. I’ve never known the responsibility I then had to help them through it or noted when I’ve done so until Saturday. I hope to be more effective next time around and believe the lesson learnt here is broadly applicable in life. The fine distinction between telling and educating.

It struck me how useful it would be to have this question in the workplace. I see too many decisions and actions taken on the basis of what someone believes to be true very often without any substantial basis other than it’s what they believe.

People who speak in generalities but can’t provide or offer to provide real evidence need to have this question asked of them directly. It will be confronting, even if asked sincerely. Yet it should not be something you have to apologise for. Some people will have the guts to say, “You know what? I don’t really know”. Then you have a basis to move forward.

There is an near constant stream of conversation running through my head as I converse with myself, and sometimes others in my mind, about how I can do better or how I can help others do better. Scenarios appear and are explored through conversation. What if I said this? Would they say that? How would they react? What do I need to do to achieve this? And so on. When I say, “near constant”, I’d estimate about 85% of my thoughts unless I’m focussed on a specific task.

I have grown to see the world in terms of conversational patterns and interactions. We are all connected. This way of thinking contrasts to my daughter who lives in terms of fashion and colour. At five she can tell you what someone was wearing yesterday even if it was a momentary glimpse as they walked through the room. I can’t comprehend that manner of thinking but I am in awe of it. It is a pointer that we all think differently.

I’m curious to know how you think via this post’s comments.  Do you constantly converse with yourself to explore ideas or do you find you just react in the moment? Is your world coloured or musical? Are you thinking in terms of you, or others?

• Was it the family who was late for their 4.45 pm appointment?
• Was it the teacher who let an early arrival meet before us when the first family was late?
• Was it the teacher who then let the late family start at out allotted time after the early arrival had met?

We were.

In the moment we used the others as reasons to miss it. We took an appointment with the first teacher 20 minutes late when we should have been done with that and in the second class. Instead of recognising a commitment for 5.00 pm had not been met and dealing with that fact, we exacerbated the problem by missing the next. As one promise was broken for us, we in turn broke another.

Everybody understands but is it really acceptable? Multiple people stressing and angering because nobody in the chain could keep a commitment and acted selfishly (under the guise of being fair).

The conversations could have been as follows (and I’m going to paraphrase rather than spell out in full):

• Between the first teacher and the family that was late. “Sorry. You’ve missed your appointment. We’ll have to reschedule or you’re welcome to wait in case a time opens up”. In this case we would have had both appointments on time.
• Between us and the teacher. “Sorry. You allowed another family to jump ahead of us. We’re off to keep our committed 5.20 pm appointment and will have to reschedule with you.”
• Between us and the second teacher. “The times with the first teacher have been stuffed around. Would it be possible for us to be 10 minutes late?” If so, we’re all ok and commitments are managed. If not, we attend at the previously agreed time.
• Then when we were late, between us and the second teacher. “Sorry. You’ve missed your appointment…”

Often we can forget the impact of seemingly simple decisions. For whatever reason the first family were late, they impacted the lives of at least 10 other people as the situation cascaded. If they had rescheduled or the teacher had required it far few people would have been impacted. If we had left the first appointment and gone to the second on time it would have impacted us more so but saved the distress of others.

This is a common situation. One client arrives late so you go over time and are yourself late for your next client meeting (leaving everybody waiting unproductively) and so on throughout the day until you finally arrive home after the children have gone to bed.

Make your commitments carefully and stick to them. Holding yourself and others accountable builds trust around reliability.

For managers and supervisors

Competency models? Bin them too.

Forms to fill out during the interview? You guessed it. Right to the bin.

Complicated meeting arrangements? Just pick a time.

Now you have the space for the following questions.

1. Where is the business/department/team now? As a manager or team leader this is where you describe where you think the company is going. It sets the context for the remaining questions.
2. What are your priorities? Your employee now knows where you’re going and you can openly discuss where they want to go within that plan. Heaven forbid you might find there is a mis-match of priorities here but in all my experience I’ve always been able to find something that aligns the two.
3. What do you think you’ve done well? Allow the employee to discuss what they’ve done well since the last review (which, by the way was no more than three months ago was it?). You will be able to confirm and add more observations.
4. What would you like to improve upon? Gather ideas for further education and find out, then agree, on how you can support your charge.
5. How can I be a better manager for you? Now listen. DO NOT ARGUE. Any remaining dissatisfaction will surface. Come to agreement on how you can be a better manager. It may require the employee changing their behaviour as well.

For employees

1. What am I doing that you want me to keep doing?
2. What am I doing that you want me to stop doing?
3. What am I not doing that you need me to do?

Timing?

Over the recent Christmas break my attention was taken by the simple and powerful idea that what we do today sets us up for the success of tomorrow. John C. Maxwell writes about the concept and his experience applying it to life in the book Today Matters.

My experience of self improvement books is that many give high level ideas which sound fantastic but are too far from day-to-day reality to put into place unless you can stop the world. Others are so highly specific as to be interesting but non-applicable. It’s as if you get the destination without transport, or transport and no destination. Thankfully Today Matters provides both in abundance — and with travel tips to boot.

Make twelve decisions. One each in an important area of life and then apply discipline on a daily basis to achieve goals consistent with your decision.

Possibly the most important learning for me was the difference between distinction and habit. I have beaten myself up too often over the failure to develop a habit. You know, that thing you must do each day to be successful. What I had failed to realise was that habit comes not from repetition, but from the repeated application of discipline. If I am disciplined enough to take action each day, the habit will follow.

I absolutely have Today Matters in my top five must read books and recommend you take the time to read and apply it to your life.

I’ve taken on three areas to start with. Two areas which I have assessed to be strong and one where I have assessed myself to be weak (all relative to one another). Maxwell’s suggestion is to work on an area for 60 days and no more than one weak area at a time. That’s great advice for my melancholy nature which would otherwise take on all twelve.

I’ve chosen Growth, Health and Finance. For personal reasons I will refrain from sharing the decision I made in each area. I hope you don’t mind. Yet, having made the each decision it was immediately apparent which disciplines I had to install into my daily life.

Under Growth I have recommitted to reading 15 minutes a day and freshly committed to reviewing my growth each day and counting the number of times during the day I help another improve themselves. With Health I have learnt more about the nature of a good diet and applied it (loss of 3.5kg in 3 weeks) plus exercise of 30 minutes most days. My weakest area was Finance and in that area I’ve learnt the ways in which I justify poor spending decisions, reviewed my insurances, taken steps to secure my retirement and helped my daughters begin to understand what money is (thanks to The First National Bank of Dad by David Owen).

Half way through my first sixty days I can confidently say I have made progress in all three areas which would not have happened if I had not read Today Matters or limited myself to only three areas of focus. Stay tuned.

There are some interesting ideas in The Next Trillion by Paul Zane Pilzer. I read the Australia and New Zealand Tour Edition which is an abridged version. Let me declare that I own a business which sells products in the wellness industry but have no interest in sales of this book. Here I’m relaying Pilzer’s arguments and encourage you to read the book yourself and make up your own mind.

Quantity demand reflects the consumer’s demand for a larger supply of an existing product; quality demand reflects the appetite for a different or improved kind of product.

Pilzer, Paul Z (2001) “The Next Trillion: Australia and New Zealand Tour Edition”, Video Plus (USA), p.40

I saw my spending patterns reflected in the conversation about quantity and quality demand. I bought my first DVD because I recognised the quality was better than VHS. This is quality demand. Then, happy with the quality I wanted more of it and purchased many more DVDs. This is quantity demand. Then, with the introduction of Bluray as a higher quality format again I’m back on the quality demand cycle. Pilzer contends this will be the same with nutritional and other wellness products. People will want more and of a better quality. My own experience reflects this also.

The bulk of the abridged version details an almost conspiracy argument that the government and food producers are concerned only with profit and more sales. It is US based but I can see the same trends here in Australia and comes about from a chronic lack of understanding about what food we require and why. Mainstream food choices are not good, especially if eaten without understanding what is. As people learn they do change their behaviours. It is unfortunately very difficult to learn and that reason alone is sufficient to read this book to get you started.

50 book challenge (2009)

Getting Things Done by David Allen; At least my third reading of my productivity bible. Each time through I learn something new. See my Getting Things Done category of posts for more information.

The Way of the Bow by Paulo Coelho; The most succinct book on goal setting I have ever read. It uses the various aspects of archery as metaphors for goals. The title is available for free online.

“But never hold back from firing the arrow if all that paralyses you is fear of making a mistake. if you have made the right movements, open you hand and release the string. Even if the arrow fails to it the target, you will learn how to improve your aim next time.

The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz; This is a classic reminder that our thinking is the ultimate limiting factor in the success of our life. This was my second reading and I was grateful to be able to identify those times I’ve thought big and achieved results. It also helped me identify all those times I didn’t think so big and pulled back for no real reason.

“We must be willing to make an intelligent compromise with perfection lest we wait forever before taking action.”

Today Matters by John C. Maxwell; This is the most important book that I read in 2009. So much so that it was read cover to cover twice in a matter of weeks. The basic concept is that what we do each day sets us for the success of tomorrow and we must put daily disciplines into place for that to occur. I’ll write more in a later post.

Practising gratefulness daily

Declaration of closure

John Maxwell – Leadership mentor. An amazing knack (though hard work no doubt) of distilling leadership lessons into understandable pieces.

Alan Sieler – Ontological coach. My coaching mentor and author of two excellent books on the method of Ontological Coaching.

These are the authors I keep coming back to. When I read their words it’s like a conversation with them over time.

My weekend shopping had me running late for a lunch engagement. And my mobile phone had run out of charge. It would have been easy to let things slip rather than risk the potential embarrassment of asking to borrow a phone. Instead, I plucked up the courage and asked the sales attendant serving me if I could borrow a phone to make a quick call to my wife.  She could have said no but she didn’t. And while she served me, my day became easier and immediately less stressful.

If this seems a trivial example it isn’t. Requests come of all sizes and often those made early on — before things get worse — make all the difference.

Will my daughter get all she asks for on Christmas morning? Who knows what Santa will bring. I can only hope she never loses the skill of asking.

My daughter’s letter to Santa

In the midst of a very busy work and travel schedule, I am pleased to report that Alan Sieler continues to find time to write! Alan is making steady progress on Volume III of Coaching to the Human Soul, which is on track for publication in two years time. Alan was recently recognised by the prestigious academic publishers Sage as the world’s leading authority on Ontological Coaching and has been commissioned to contribute a chapter on Ontological Coaching for The Complete Handbook of Coaching. Keep an eye out for this publication in 2010.

Following in the footsteps of Michael Bungay Stanier I have signed and affirmed the Charter for Compassion, a global effort to raise the awareness of compassion in the world.

This simple act had me thinking about compassion over the weekend and how it comes about. There are people in the world who are naturally compassionate. And, there are people who are not. What might be the difference between them and how, if you’re in the latter group, can you change things?

Much as there is a mood of gratefulness, there is a mood associated with compassion as well. Moods are integral to our way of being. They are predispositions to action. In simpler terms, the mood we are in dictates what we see as possible in the world. If I’m in a compassionate mood then showing compassion to my fellow citizens will be much easier than if I am in a non-compassionate mood such as resentment,  resignation or anxiety. How can I consider helping someone if I’m angry, feel there is no possibility in the world or am scared of what may happen?

The Arbinger Institute would say we are non-compassionate when we are “out of the box” or have a “heart at war” with respect to another. Practising the teachings in their excellent books Leadership and Self-Deception and The Anatomy of Peace will take you a long way towards harbouring a compassionate way of being.

I sadly can’t speak from direct experience of cultivating a compassionate mood. Having signed the Charter for Compassion I’m now bound to try. What I can speak from is the experience of generating other useful and resourceful moods.

Shifting a mood requires consideration of the language you use and the way you hold your body. I’d suggest that to become more compassionate I’ll need to be reading appropriately such autobiographies as I can find about people who have led compassionate lives. And I’ll need to keep observing my internal thoughts, particularly as they apply to those I don’t get along with so well. Skip Ross suggests that you think only good thoughts about people you don’t like for 90 days and see what happens. If you think a negative thought any time before that, start again (and he notes saving the bad thoughts up to let rip on day 91 doesn’t count). This post is also part of shifting my language. I’m “in the conversation”.

Likewise I’ll need to be observing my body and how it reacts. I’m not sure exactly what a compassionate posture is other than to think it is relaxed and non-aggressive. Standing back rather than forwards.

Most importantly, in my efforts to become more compassionate, I must show compassion to myself. There will be times when I’m nowhere close. If I show myself compassion I can learn. Otherwise I’ll keep myself down.

If you’re still reading then why not sign the Charter for Compassion yourself.

To illustrate, let’s imaging two sergeant’s of old discussing a new archery recruit in the army. The archer has been through some training and the sergeants are reviewing his performance to date. Does he stay as an archer or will he be relegated to the infantry.

Sergeant Fred and Sergeant Barney are initially in agreement. Private Jones is not as accurate as he needs to be. More often than not he doesn’t even hit the target rings. Archers however are in short supply and they agree to give him some more training over the next month and a review.

“How did Private Jones go after his training?” asks Sergeant Fred. “I think he’s doing ok. He’s improved”, responds Barney. “How can you say he’s improved! He can’t hit a bullseye!”. “Well”, said Sergeant Barney, “He’s getting closer”. The conversation continues like this for a couple of minutes. One person convinced he’s improved and the other convinced he hasn’t.

The problem is that both sergeants are using the same word — improved — with different meanings. Or more precisely in this case from different standards. According to Barney, who’s standard is “closer to the bullseye than before”, Private Jones has improved. He regularly hits the target rings even if he doesn’t hit the middle. This showed to Barney an ability to learn and improve. Sergeant Fred on the other hand was working to a more stringent standard. What use is an archer who can get close to the enemy. He needs someone who can reliably hit a target the size of a bullseye. According to Fred’s standard Private Jones has not improved. He cannot meet the standard required.

This conversation will continue forever unless one of the participants is listening closely enough to realise they are using the same  word but with different meanings. Barney might offer, “Sgt. Fred. It seems that you an I might be using the same word but with different meanings. When you say ‘improved’ what do you  mean?” He then listens very carefully.

This is the origin of the phrase ‘coming to terms’. The process of agreeing a meaning.

In this situation it is difficult to imagine that Sgt. Barney with his understanding of Fred’s meaning for improved doesn’t agree. In an army, hitting a target is important and the time to learn is short. With a new understanding he can choose his words differently next time and avoid upsetting himself and his colleague at arms.

It would be tempting for Sgt. Barney to push forward his interpretation of improved and make Sgt. Fred understand. This would be a mistake. It’s enough to know what Fred means to move forward. Pushing his point will do nothing more than reinforce any idea Fred has that Barney doesn’t know what he’s talking about. In all likelihood, Fred doesn’t even realise there was a confusion of meaning and is relieved Barney finally sees things his way.

The practicalities of this are everywhere. In the workplace we can waste massive amounts of time arguing a point and pushing our view forward instead of seeking to understand better what the other party is saying.

In Australia there can be confusion when ‘next’ is used. Does ‘next Friday’ mean the Friday four days from now, or does it mean the Friday next following the one four days from now. It depends on who you are and who you are talking to. It can mean either. The best bet is to get the date and not just the day.

I recently had occasion to check a medical term on wikipedia. My doctor rolled his eyes when I told him of my research yet it turned up that my understanding of a medical term was different from his. Once I had read the explanation that countered my layman’s understanding I was able to turn a “no” into a “yes” which totally changed the diagnosis. Should my doctor have known better and confirmed I understood this common term properly. Yes. Should I have confirmed I understood this common term properly. Yes as well.

The responsibility to work to understand another’s meaning is yours as it is mine.

The notes of my Ontological Coaching course suggest the following way of thinking about the mood of being grateful.

• I assess that I have been and am the beneficiary of many possibilities in life
• I assess myself to be very fortunate to have experienced these possibilities and benefits
• I declare that I am grateful to the world in general, and also specific individuals for this enrichment
• I also declare that it is a privilege to be alive

• Warm socks to put on my feet (mid-Winter item)
• The opportunity we had to swim together as a family
• The patience of my wife
• Microwave popcorn
• Learning that gratitude is a feeling and not just words.

The biggest question I have upon reading this book is, how I can apply these idea in my life — particularly in the life of my children. I believe that they will “do well” in school, given both of our academic interests. But how do we translate that innate talent into something that gives them what they need to succeed? Gladwell doesn’t offer an answer to that question. (Laying outside the norm)

Questions can be dangerous beasties. The answer to “Life, The Universe and Everything” is well known to be 42. The problem is we don’t really understand the question. Let me suggest the difficulty in nswering such a question always comes from our belief system — the way we believe the world is. I can demonstrate this best by asking Jack some follow up questions designed to help him understand where this question comes from and why it is important to him that he answer it.

• How do you think your life would change if these ideas were applied to your own life?
• Why do you believe your childrens’ innate talent is not enough for them to succeed?
• What are you defining as success for your children?
• What mood are you carrying towards the success of your children? (One interpretation could be that Jack is resigned to no possibility of his children being successful and that is why he needs to do something to help them become successful in life. Or, he may be in a mood of wonder and is asking in anticipation of knowing how it will all work out for them. Blogs don’t hold the necessary indicators to give a clue to his mood which, I stress, only he can personally confirm.)

If you can’t find an answer you may be served by trying to find out why you are asking.

Recent Spring rain has filled the lake and this is something I’ve not seen for far too long. It looks full to overflowing and that is exactly what is happening today. Just enough water coming in at one end to flow out through the other. I stopped at the lake today to have a look at the water flowing over its spillway (if a one-foot barrier could be called a spillway). The flow is low, no more than a few litres a minute, and I find myself amazed at how water can enter at one end of the lake, have no visible effect on the level, and then flow out the other end. The logic and physics of it all are obvious and yet nature instills wonder.

I’m glad I stopped today and took a short walk downstream. Reeds and grasses have been lain flat as stronger flows than today’s have felt the pull of gravity. It got me thinking about goals and how we can move forward and fast when we have the focus. The water which is entering at one end of the lake could be considered our dreams. Ideas about what we want to achieve. The inlet becomes the lake surface and our dreams get flattened out, barely visible in our lives as they dilute across the vast surface area of the lake. Eventually, out the outlet, there is focus and the water appears to come together and continue it’s journey downstream towards its goal of reaching the ocean. The more water that enters the lake the faster it exits. Many people are content sitting on the surface of the lake enjoying the view. For those of us who aren’t Kenni Res can serve as a reminder to keep pumping in ideas and refining our focus.

There is not much to say about The Elephant in the Room by Ed Baker. I got what it was trying to say about financial responsibility and yet it seemed very light. A quick 40-minute read which I enjoyed as I read it and then forgot the minute I closed the cover.

If you need help, ask for it.

So simple and yet time and again I’ve evidenced people slogging away trying to solve their problems alone when all they have to do is ask. There are many reasons why they don’t. Pride, insecurity and stubborness are just three reasons. The biggest is habit. They are not in the habit of asking for assistance. They are in the habit of not asking.

For the rest of today and tomorrow note to yourself how often you think about asking for assistance and then don’t (or if offered turn it down). How strong is your habit?

You and I walk through life oblivious to many of the things that happen around us. We don’t see them and it’s in that sense that I use transparency to describe elements of life. When the transparency ‘breaks down’ something which was previously invisible becomes visible and we may even wonder how we’d never noticed it before. The rest of the article will describe these terms with some examples and by doing so I hope to help you understand that breakdowns will occur, do occur and how we habitually handle them has a marked effect on our quality of life.

When things aren’t working as they seem

Breakdown #1 — Where are the drivers?

Breakdown #2 — How old is my waypoint?

The breakdown? My waypoint was two hours of work and several hundred MB of downloads ago. I had pushed forward rather than saving where I was and it cost me. Have you ever thought to yourself, “I need to save this file before proceeding”, failed to do so and have your computer crash minutes later. I bet you have and I normally save whenever I have that thought. Let’s say my subsconscious is warning me (nb: just save a second draft of this post…). Anyway, in my eagerness to get the PC configured I hadn’t take the 20 minutes to save a copy and it cost me four hours. With all breakdowns the most powerful place of action is from accepetance they have occurred. Sometimes our only choice is to accept them and move on. I had to go back to two hours earlier and start again.

Breakdown #3 — Where is the operating system?

Next morning, I had a small configuration task to perform which only required a moment to boot up the computer, login to Windows and change a setting. I couldn’t do it. Each time I tried the computer failed to complete my login. “Great!”, I thought (with a large dollop of sarcasm for so early in the morning) I’ll have to go to the backups. I couldn’t. The secure image would not load. I tried again without success. Lastly I tried the external drive image. That I could access but when I tried to restore it nothing happened.

There are only two types of people. Those who have experienced a catastrophic hard drive failure and those who will.

The second computer

Acrobat Professional — Where art thou?

To protect against illegal installations of Acrobat you must activate the software. This sends a copy of your serial number to Adobe who keep track of the total number of installations. To their credit, Adobe allow you to have Acrobat installed twice. Try a third time and you will not be able to activate and use the software.

Here’s my breakdown. I didn’t know there was a limit of two activations in place. I had assumed it was tied to the CPU/hardware configuration as other software that uses such activation systems often is. Remember I am reinstalling my operating system.

• Old, tired and sluggish, installation = 1 activation
• Windows 7, tried = 1 activation
• New install = 1 activation too many

Can I rant and rave in response? For sure I can and the few lines above I’ll write off as a warning to others but ultimately such action doesn’t help. I have no choice but to wait for their response which has been slow to date.

Breakdowns occur. Something is wrong if they don’t.

And yet after an hour of playing with the new unit last night I put it away in its box. There are two reasons. It doesn’t have the ability to remove the aerial and replace it with something stronger and more directional which is something I need and what I think should be a basic feature. Secondly and more importantly I cannot find any way to lock town internet access by MAC addresses. Without any security people can steal your wireless bandwidth. This is limited with password security and encryption. MAC filtering uses the MAC address of your wireless card and restricts access only to approved cards. If you walk into my home with a laptop, even if you know my passwords you cannot access the wireless network.

Basic features that are missing. Sometimes making things simple makes them useless.

That weekend I bought  Pulse SmartPen from Livescribe. This is a wonderful piece of technology. Here are some of the features:

• As you write the pen records what you write. Special paper with microdot technology and an infra-red pen combine to record handwriting. This saves scanning notes into a computer.
• As you are present in the room the pen records what you hear. This would have solved the memory lapse described earlier.
• Tap on what you wrote earlier in the meeting and the pen plays back the audio from that point. “What did we decide about…” is met with “Hang on, here’s what you said”. This link is retained once you’ve downloaded to the computer as well.

Roy has just launced the World Class Moderator site to showcase his speaking work. Take a moment to have a look. You never know what may come from it.

For your initial load I suggest you try:

1. Leaving a comment below requesting that I refer you to Dropbox. Click here as my referral to Dropbox. As a pro member the company provides me 50GB of space plus and additional 500mb for each referral for each party (up to an addition 16.0gb). So if I refer you then you will have 2.5gb to start with and I’ll gain as well. Enter your email address in the appropriate field. It’s not publically displayed and you’ll receive an invitation from my personal address.
2. Register and install Dropbox on Computer A and Computer B.
3. Practice with some non-brain files until you’re happy and understand the mechanics.
4. Turn off Dropbox on Computer B.
5. Copy (not move) your brain to the My Dropbox folder on Computer A.
6. Let the sync finish — could be hours depending on bandwidth and size.
7. Copy the same files to Computer B — or in other words, pre-load the files. This saves bandwidth and time.
8. Start Dropbox on Computer B.
9. Wait for the sync to finish before starting PB — it will be quicker because many of the files are already there.

You can have Dropbox running while you are using PersonalBrain. It will be able to update most files but not all. These will update as soon as you close out of PB (usually within a minute or two). If you shut down your PC before checking at the end of the day you risk getting out of sync so be diligent. It will take only a moment.

Men and women are different. There, it’s been said by me and was also said a while ago in Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps by Allan and Barbara Pease. The point to note is this. Different does not mean unequal. Using a blend of scientific evidence and self effacing humour, the authors describe the differences in the typical male and female brain and thereby provide explanations for so many of the different patterns of behaviour between the sexes.

The distinctions given in the book are practical lead to understanding and then the ability to choose how we behave with one another.

First you helped me with a simple and fast search engine. This was followed up by the wonder of Google Earth and then Google Maps. Some other bits and pieces with Feedburner and Webmaster tools, then Google Reader last week took over from Feeddemon. Google Sketchup is in there as well. Now I’m giving to your care 5 years of emails and my calendar data as well. I trust you to do the right thing. For now Flickr can keep my photos.

I still don’t understand why Microsoft has such a thing about Internet Explorer. It’s the browser —it’s the data. An Google provides a standard, no-frills, simple and fast way to access it from anywhere.

Four days ago I started a new role with a different employer. By far the biggest hindrance to my productivity this first week has been the inability to access my existing knowledge, be that emails, calendar, contacts, newsfeeds or my PersonalBrain (the latter needing permission to install the software first). I have a Blackberry to carry some of that around but if you’ve ever been the victim of split-syncing (multiple data sources) then you’ll know it’s not so easy to fix.

Truthfully I don’t know what pointed me towards Gmail. I’ve had a Google Account for sometime and it may have simply been a byproduct of tidying things up. As I dug deeper and began to bring my existing email into Gmail I found instructions on how to Use Gmail IMAP in Microsoft Outlook 2007. With this I can access all of my mail from anywhere and still retain local copies. That works for me. No longer do I have to say, “I’ll dig that out and send you a copy when I get home/elsewhere”. The Blackberry client is great as well.

Calendar data has been a problem this past week. My new firm uses Outlook appointments extensively as they should. All my existing appointments were in my old system and synced to my Blackberry. Two diaries! Manually copying data from one to another works to a point and that point is when something changes. Again Google had the answer with Google Calendar. This one however took a while to work out.

I thought the flow of information was Work PC <-> Google Calendar <-> Blackberry <->Home PC. That lead to some nasty sync software (nasty defined as “I still had to think about it”), including Google’s Blackberry sync which fails horribly because it doesn’t sync all data. All I can say here is read before you decide. There is a risk of deleting calendar data from Outlook. On the other hand Google’s Outlook Calendar sync is fantastic. The order of Work PC <-> Google Calendar <-> Home PC <-> Blackberry works a dream. It transfers all data fast and keeps things in sync.

Google Reader for RSS feeds. Again, every computer has a browser.

And so on. Love with a search engine and mapping (one of the world’s great contributions) has led to a long term relationship.

Do I dare look at Picasa and Chrome?

• The importance of physical, emotional and cognitive resets
• How wisdom rests in our body – and how to access that wisdom through emotion
• The best place to start to do Great Work

It turns out that you can judge a book by its cover. In this case, Go for No! in which the premise of the book is summarised in the title. If you want success, don’t chase the yes — chase the no. It’s only from chasing no that you will get sufficient learning to enable the yes’s to occur.

We can often fall into the trap of failing to ask for something because we’re afraid of a negative response. This bold assessment that we know what the other person will say (how often do you know what you’ll say) stops us from creating the opportunity for them to say either ‘no’ or ‘yes’. How dangerous is it to hold back on a question because we can’t afford to hear no, yet by doing so we don’t allow the very yes we so desperately need.

This book describes why setting a target to achieve a certain number of no responses will automatically generate the required number of yes responses.

What tribe do you lead is the fundamental question in Seth Godin’s book, Tribes: We need you to lead us. It got me thinking about the various tribes I’m a tribe member of and the leadership present or available in each.

Make no mistake, this is a book that challenges the status-quo. In fact, it may be better to say it challenges the status-quo about the status-quo. Within there is a challenge to lead which is so compelling you may find you’ve made the decision not to lead and didn’t realise it. This is quite different from the traditional view that leadership is a choice. Tribes shows us there is almost no way not to lead a tribe.

Audible.com has a free download of the unabridged audio version of Tribes.

There is nothing unexpected here for me though I will note that for many of the personality type items I selected what is easiest for me and so hit INTJ as previously. However, there are ways in which I’m consciously moving my personality type into different areas, with particular work on the interpersonal side.

I firstly created an @tickler tag to hold any items I wish to be tickled about in the future.

In the image above you’ll see three items. An eye test, a podcast to listen to and a reminder to take a GTD belt self-assessment. That’s all great but how do I know when I need to be reminded of these during a weekly review? Well, I have each attached to a date and by expanding all on the screen (click the + button in the toolbar) I get both dates and project links.

Each date is typed using a Date thought type that I’ve created. My next eye test is due in May 2011 (2011-05). I plan to listen to the podcast in August 2009 (2009-08).

This simple blending of PersonalBrain and tickler files is working well for it makes the most of PersonalBrain’s linking structures. When I move them to my regular lists, it’s just a click or two away with no need to re-enter information. These items are @tickler because I know I’ll do them in the future. They could be stored as Someday/Maybe items but I personally have a different class of item on that list.

See also

Further information on how I, and others, use PersonalBrain for GTD can be found in this PersonalBrain forum post.

Are You Missing Your Friends Important Facebook Status Updates? | Facebook Profile Customization and User Lifestyles Blog.

It only took me a couple of minutes to set up a list of All Friends and thereby get their status updates.

The Anatomy of Peace is the Arbinger Institute’s followup to the groundbreaking book Leadership and Self Deception which I reviewed earlier. It is written in a similar narrative style and follows Lou Herbert from the first book, and a number of other parents across two days of learning about themselves and their relationships with their children. Left craving for deeper understanding and practical methods I found The Anatomy of Peace one of those rare things in today’s world — a sequel that delivers.

The book does stand on its own and yet is much stronger when approached with the ideas from Leadership and Self Deception. I thoroughly recommend them both to all.

Take for example Debra’s ideas on how to approach acquaintances about their work or family life. Instead of asking “How’s work?” and walking into a minefield because they were made redundant last week and didn’t know it, ask “How has your year been?” or “What’s been going on with work since I last saw you?”. This provides both parties a graceful way to explore or avoid the situation. Similarly don’t use “How’s your wife/husband/partner” but instead use “Bring me up to date on your family”.

One of my personal pet-hate questions, though not listed in the book, is “Are you having children?”. This question causes extreme pain to all those couples who are striving to have children but can’t for whatever reason. I know; I’ve been there. It presumes so much.

Another suggestion I’ve picked up on the way is to ask people, “So, do you work locally?” instead of “Where do you work?”. Similar to the suggestions above it allows the other party to gracefully handle the loss of a job, working from home, etc.

Yet I digress. The Fine Art of Small Talk is an easy read on what should be an easy subject. It carries with it useful information and a shot of confidence.

I have already listened to the audiobook of Leadership and Self Deception twice so far this year. I found the content of this book extremely humbling each time and whereas the first exposure to the material was a challenge, the second time it was challenging of me.

Unable to source a paperback copy quickly I purchased the audio version from iTunes. The ideas of self-deception, self-betrayal and how they affect our daily lives unfold as a conversation between Tom and his employers so the acting of the audio added immensely to the feeling of the book and set a nice pace.

Leadership and Self-Deception adds a level of understanding to workplace interactions which is deep yet clear and sensible.

The biggest thing I learned from the seminar was that I need to experiment more. I had taken the GTD methodology to be a mandate.

I have tried to implement GTD on a Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, in Microsoft Outlook, in MindManager and have finally settled on PersonalBrain. I’ve connected projects to next actions and wasted time managing the connections. I’ve have half my system one way and half another, only to flip them around and find it still didn’t work for me.

GTD black belt mastery takes more time than expected and comes from practising the methods and that peculiar knowledge which can only be understood by trying and failing. Wax on, wax off.

Update: As of July 2011, I’m using Omnifocus on a Mac. This is by far the best solutions I’ve found to date.No input files specified.

• The more frequently you write, the better the conversations you have with yourself. In past years I’ve been called to write in a journal infrequently; usually only when I had a particularly nasty problem on my mind. Recently I’ve found myself needing to visit my journal every two or three days because I now benefit from a regular outpouring of ideas and my associated comfort level has shifted. I typically write at the start of the day. In the evening before bed I’m too tired to delve into it yet some nights I find myself writing in the wee small hours of the morning to get an idea out of my head so that I can sleep.
• Write what you think and feel as well as what you do. I do note important events in my journal as I consider it a historical record yet most of the benefit comes from writing what I feel and believe rather than transcribing my day’s actions (of course thinking and feeling are actions in themselves).
• Questions are a good source of things to write about. My output really kicked off when I was given a list of 50 self-inquiry questions to consider. I committed to answer all 50 in 50 days which in itself was a lot of fun to do and a fantastic goal to achieve. Many books on self-improvement contain questions to ask of yourself and these can be a great source of inquiry. I frequently found I was surprised by my answers.
• A journal is aplace you can be honest. When open to the process I would write a description of what was on the surface and listen for the deeper thought behind it. More often than not I would be in wonder at identifying what I was really thinking. These thoughts were the doorways to different ideas and actions.
• Get a good pen and paper. Moleskine notebooks are nice to write in. I use a 240 page, unlined version to let me draw pictures if I need to. I also prefer to write with a fountain pen. Why? Simply because I enjoy the feel of the ink across the paper and I’m doing something special for myself so why not have special tools as well.

Update: Arbhay Parvate tweeted me after he recognised journalling was a way of clearing out open loops at higher levels of GTD focus. I hadn’t realised this myself and it certainly provides an explanation for why it has become such an enjoyable and useful experience.

There are a few books which seem to have been around forever. The Power of Positive Thinking by Normal Vincent Peale is one of them. I picked up a second-hand copy in a local bookstore a few weeks ago and was soon enthralled by the classic timelessness of the book.

Peale’s ideas are deeply rooted in his religious beliefs which differ from my own and it took me some effort to read past that to the fundamental principles of how our mind works in dealing with ourselves and others. That was worth it and even has me questioning some things. Notwithstanding, there are some very powerful ideas and practices in the book and I recommend it to all.

One of the practices I put to immediate use was the building up of myself in the morning before rising from bed. I found that a focus on having a good day does lead to having a good day and in a way that is much of what the book is about as you could guess from the title. Positive focus provides positive results or at the very least a positive way of dealing with things.

This is book 2/50 in my 50 book challenge (2009).

The Knights Templar are an organisation shrouded in myth and controversy. Having gained recent popularity in the Dan Brown novel The Da Vinci Code, it is interesting to hear something of the real story behind them as told in the non-fiction  The Enigma of the Knights Templar. There is a rich history here which brings the Knights Templar away from mythical status into a grounded reality. The book’s illustrations are very helpful in building a picture of the past.

This is book 1/50 in my 50 book challenge (2009).

Sometimes readers complain that I say very little about my private life in this column. I do talk a lot – mostly about my questionings in the imaginary world. They insist: “but what’s your life like?” Well, then, for a whole week I went out with a notebook and jotted down more or less what happens in seven days. Paulo Coehlo

What would you learn about yourself if you were to undertake such an exercise? What would your friends and family learn about you? Would you find more meaning in life if you sought it in the experiences you already have?

We all have set points of comfort and are destined to return to them time and time again. Most of the time we aren’t even aware what is going on — precisely because we are comfortable where we are. The easiest way to explain this is through some examples.

Do you know how many coffee cups have to be lying on the sink before you wash them? Is it 1–2, 5 or all of them? This is your personal comfort zone, or in this case the number of unwashed coffee cups you feel comfortable with. Let’s say your number is five, that is, you will not wash any coffee cups until there are five sitting on the sink. Throughout the day you will continue to drink coffee and stack up cups until the magic number plus one is reached. Only then will you experience a knawing feeling that something needs to be done. Moments later, despite whatever else is calling for your attention the cups are washed. In extreme cases, let’s say there are eight cups, you may only have time to wash three of them to feel comfortable again.

This simple example highlights some very important points:

1. People with different comfort levels are likely to clash without knowing why. If your coffee cup level is five and mine is one, then it is likely I will be forever washing your dishes, or become angry with you for not doing so. Neither of us is right or wrong (I’m unaware of any scientific studies on the optimal number of cups to leave lying around) in this matter but the discordance between our comfort zones can cause conflict.
2. You will return to your comfort zone. This is a point of balance for you. It feels right. Too few cups and you’ll allow them to build up. Too many and you’ll wash them (you may have a secondary zone which says all dishes have to be washed once a week which gets you to zero now and then). If your bank balance is typically at $1,000 you may find you are only uncomfortable when it is in the range $750–$1,250. When too low you will automatically find ways to save that were previously unseen to you and if too high you will find urgent needs to own items you previously couldn’t afford.
3. When we are uncomfortable we take action. Have you ever gone on holiday and forgot your toiletries? Do you find you’ll move heaven and earth to get a toothbrush as soon as you can? If sufficiently uncomfortable we take action.

Before moving on, here is a list of some of the areas in which you may be comfortable now:

• My bank balance
• My credit card balance
• The people I associate with
• My work situation
• The number of emails in my in-box
• The height of paper in my in-tray
• The partially flat tyre on my car
• The amount of fuel in my car’s fuel tank (I’ll fill my wife’s car when the needle shows empty. She fills it much later than that because she knows it’s possible)
• The warmth of your bed
• How many bills you have unpaid

Here’s an example. Joe has a credit card balance of $20,678 which costs him a significant amount of interest each month. His bank loves it but for Joe it’s just wasted money which prevents him from achieveing his goal of flying around the world business class. Despite that, Joe’s card has been maxed out for so long that he has become comfortable with it. As soon as he gets ahead he ‘somehow’ finds an urgent reason to max it out again. Several times in the past Joe has decided once-and-for-all to reduce his balance to zero. It’s never happened.

He decides this time to try an affirmation and affirms, “I have a zero credit card balance”. This fails also because each time he reads it the little devil sitting on his shoulder says, “Rubbish. It’s $20,000 and always will be”, effectively negating the affirmation. Learning from this Joe tries something different and affirms, “Because I have a zero credit card balance I am able to fly around the world business class”. Something strange happens and Joe’s subconscious says, “Really? You have a zero credit card balance? How did that happen? It must have been because you had the strength to avoid additional purchases” and all of a sudden Joe has the strength he needs. He’ll quickly become uncomfortable with his previous comfort zone and work subconsciously towards having a zero credit card balance.

Try listing those comfort zones which work against you. If you’re like me you’ll find that knowledge distinctly uncomfortable. Develop an affirmation for each and share your results.

If you don’t have your family or colleagues in your Brain you are missing out. Adding people in your Brain whether it’s their name connected to a project or their contact info will help you get the big picture on your relationships. Creating a people centric Brain will improve the quality of your interactions so you can remember key details that might otherwise be forgotten.

Further ideas on mapping relationships

Family relationships

• Husband and wife are linked with a join link
• Children are linked as child links from each parent, and with join links to each other as siblings.

In the example below we have Donald Duck, his girlfriend Daisy Duck and sister Della Duck (see the full Duck Family for more info on Donald’s relatives).

And if we show Della Duck you’ll see her three sons, Huey, Dewey and Louie. Each is linked to Della as parent and to each other as a sibling.

Finally we have Huey as son on Della Duck and brother to Louie and Dewey.

Events

Your connectors

The process was simple as I walked from place to place in the office treating each as a collection point. As I looked at each file or piece of paper I labelled it @file or @project or if not needed placed it in a bin or shred pile  (for sensitive material). Rubbish and shredding were handled as I went with the filing done in the last hour. Out of all that I have approx eight projects to define and organise into my system.

There was no doing in this. Just processing. That’s what made it possible.

The Question.  If you are going down the path of expertise locators, be sure to check with yourself about why you need such a thing in your organization.  Are people having trouble finding people that must be working in the company?  Are the local experts unwilling or unable to provide the right level of assistance?  Are people spending too much time recreating solutions or answers that already exist?  These are all symptoms: have you established an underlying reason for these observations or behaviors.

Three of the core processes in Getting Things Done are Collect, Process and Organise. The first involves collecting all loose bits of paper, ideas, business cards etc into collection buckets such as a a physical in-tray on your desk. The second is the discrete step of deciding what do to with all those pieces of information and the third is organising the decisions into a trusted system for recall when required.

It was because I had been doing this that I knew everything was captured and there were no landmines waiting for me. I was then able to make practical decisions (given my time and energy available) about what to do next and what could be left.

These simple acts, when developed as habits, make life much easier.

The podcast was a timely reminder that I have not been capturing all my thoughts and pulling them out of my head. In the fourteen hours since, and considering for many of those I was asleep, I’ve identified 41 thoughts. Almost all of them I’ve had before.

Without a capture device in my car I called my office number to leave voicemails as I drove (hands-free of course), write numerous items in my notes as I listened to a presentation and many more items on the notepaper beside my bed. This has happened to me before. Let the floodgates open and be sure you have pen and paper ready.

If you’re not familiar with the Getting Things Done methodology, the podcast is an excellent introduction. If you are familiar, it is an excellent reminder.

Do statements such as these make you feel empowered to take on the world or empowered to crawl into a hole? For some reason our minds seem wired to bring us down. So many people exhibit the poor little old me syndrome that it must be true. Or maybe it isn’t. Perhaps they’ve not learned to do anything differently.

It has taken me many years to accept the power of affirmations. In this, the third in a series of articles on stress management explaining the simple and practical ways in which you can reduce stress in your life to a level that you can then do something positive about it, I hope to help you accept them as well. Yesterday we covered a couple of little known ways to eliminate stressful thinking. How did you go?

Affirming affirmations

An affirmation is a positive statement about oneself designed to encourage. If you’ve ever travelled on London’s Underground in the afternoon rush hour you can often find yourself held upright by the passengers around you. Affirmations are like that in the sense that they surround and support you.

For an affirmation to work my experience has shown me:

• It must be personal; Although you should start with a list of affirmations to see what is possible, those which work best are those which come from within you. I may suggest “I am of good character” but if character is not important to you the affirmation will be of little benefit.
• It must be in current tense; Not “I will be of good character” but “I am of good character”. If you were to affirm another’s beauty you say, “You are beautiful today” and not “You will be beautiful today”. My affirmations are riddled with “am”, “is”, “have” type words.
• It must be regular; Read your affirmations at least twice a day, preferably in a quite space. If you find yourself not believing what you are saying then stop, choose to believe, and start again. This may often require you to shift your posture to something more upright and balanced. Put them in your phone, on your iPod, taped to your bathroom mirror; whatever ensures you will read them.

Building a list of affirmations

Another excellent resource for affirmations and related meditations is Stin Hansen’s My Thought Coach website. Not only does she have a great article on the importance of thoughts Stin provides a large number of recordings which you can access via subscription (pricing is extremely reasonable and there are free samples for you to try first). My favourites are:

• Full Potential Self Meditation
• Gratitude Affirmations
• Affirmations for Social Confidence
• Affirmations for Attracting an Abundant Life
• Affirmations for Dealing with Difficult People at Work
• Think Like A . . .Loving and Happily Married Person

Music that moves you

Tomorrow: How to make time to relax.

It is possible to eliminate stressful thinking and massage your mind into relaxation. This is the second in a series of articles on stress management explaining the simple and practical ways in which you can reduce stress in your life to a level that you can then do something positive about it. Yesterday we covered ways to eliminate sources of unwarranted stress. How did you go?

Journalling creates paths forward

We do not realise how accelerated the rate of our lives has become, or the speed at which we are driving ourselves. Many people are destroying their physical bodies by this pace, but what is even more tragic, they are tearing their minds and souls to shreds as well.

Norman V. Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (Bungay, Suffolk: Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) 1984), p.96.

A mind tearing itself to shreds is not capable of having a conversation with itself. You just can’t hear yourself think over the stressful thoughts and as thinking occurs fast there is no chance to interrupt.

Writing your thoughts down is one way of breaking this cycle. I call it journalling and others will say writing in a diary. It doesn’t matter which. What is important is your willingness to pick up a pen and start writing what you are thinking. The lag between the two i.e., the difference in speed at which you think and write, is where the magic occurs.

I frequently journal my thoughts onto paper. Daily if I can, but always when I am stressed. It acts as a pressure valve to get what I really think onto paper and out of my head. Often it doesn’t matter what I write but that I have written something. As I write I listen for the real thoughts which now have space to surface. Each and every time I do this I learn something which provides a new path forward. With that my stress is reduced.

So instead of running or going to the gym to relieve stress, take out a pen and exercise with that instead.

The three-fold nature of work

1. Doing pre-defined work: This is choosing from what is already on your to-do list and calendar
2. Doing work as it appears: Responding to the latest, loudest and new opportunities
3. Defining work: Working out what is important, scheduling etc.

Tomorrow: If You Don’t Affirm Yourself Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later

How do you relax in such a world? It’s easier than you may believe. This is the first in a series of articles on stress management explaining the simple and practical ways in which you can reduce stress in your life to a level that you can then do something positive about it.

Turn off your sources of stress

One of the quickest and easiest means of lowering my stress level has been to turn off the sources of stress which I have direct and immediate control of. The TV, radio and newspaper. This is burying my head in the sand in a positive manner because it gives me space to deal with the real problems. If I don’t hear about it, it doesn’t exist. With no plans to take a cruise along the coast of Africa I really don’t need to know about Somalian pirates. I can safely assume my travel agent will warn me when the time comes.

But you say, this makes you inconsiderate of the plight of others. Unless I can relax in my own life, I am unable to assist them anyway.

I rarely watch the news any more or read the headlines of the paper unless I pick up an inkling of something that will effect me directly. Even then I scan in preference to letting myself get drawn in. Last night was a good example of this. A new TV show called Second Chance made its debut last night. The show helps out families who are in difficulty by giving them a second chance. The experts educate us on what the focus family should have done and we, by inference, can apply that to our own lives. Instead it made me feel depressed so I changed channels. If I am depressed and in a mood of resignation about what is possible for me — and in such a mood little, if anything, is possible — then the best course of action I have is to remove myself from the environment that is bringing me down.

When you get home tonight and the news comes on try turning it off and putting on some music which lifts you. See what happens.

Tomorrow: Little known ways to eliminate stressful thinking

Who cares? Who wants this level of detail? Isn’t this all just annoying noise?… There are a lot of us, though, who find great value in this ongoing noise. It helps us get to know people who would otherwise be just acquaintances. It makes us feel closer to people we care for but in whose lives we’re not able to participate as closely as we’d like.

What changed?

I think it was this. We began to build connections, which in turn built more connections and so on until we had a web of conversation and past experiences to connect to. Once the connections were there we could make more meaning from them.

It is a post by Tim Elmore that triggered me thinking about this once again. Connections are the prime reason I recommend Facebook or Twitter to someone. Like Tim who writes,

I can’t believe it. I just did something that two years ago I said I would never do. I twittered. … It leads me to this thought. I told myself I would never twitter because I don’t really care to know the ins and outs of anyone’s life enough to hear from them daily–sometimes multiple times a day–that they are jogging in Florida or that they love pepperoni pizza a lot. Don’t get me wrong. I love many people, but my love doesn’t drive me to want to know these details about their day. To add to that, I cannot imagine anyone wanting to know what I am doing, each day.

We have to hear the minute detail about people’s lives in order to build the social trust to hear the bigger things. My first Facebook experience came from hearing my sister talk about my cousins at a level of familiarity I was unfamiliar with. They were all on Facebook and I was missing out. Sure, there is plenty of noise, but that’s a necessary evil. I have learned to listen beyond that.

How do you keep in touch with your second and third circle of friends and relatives. Those which you only see at reunions but which lead rich lives and share interests you may never have the time to hear about at your yearly catch up.

How much richer is life when you are aware of what interests those you know? How can you now help them with what you know? How much more connected do you feel?

So, if you’re not yet on Facebook or Twitter have a look. Stick with it for a while and you may be surprised. And Tim.  I had cheese on toast for lunch.

The 1957 American drama film, 12 Angry Men (imdb link), is above all things a study of character. The story, which takes place almost exclusively in a single room is based on a play by Reginald Rose and leads the viewer on a journey into the human condition.

Amongst the required protagonist and antagonist archetypes all is not as it seems and the drift between one and the other shows us the impact of cultural narrative, assessments, assertions, declarations, selfishness, humility and the result of treating them lightly. More so, when they remain hidden to an individual.

I recall first seeing this moving during English class at high school and it is one of the few movies that has made a profound and lasting impact upon me. Though I now know the story well I am riveted to my seat each time I see it. It would be wrong of me to spoil the plot by revealing the storyline so I limit myself to recommending 12 Angry Men as a must see. There is a 1997 remake which I don’t enjoy as much as the original but will still get the lessons across if that’s all you can find.

A couple of weeks ago as I was on a long, late night drive I finished listening to the audiobook of Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box The book was utterly fascinating and acted as a key to release something I had been searching for. Within moments all aspects of my life rearranged themselves into a new order and I could finally see a clear path forward.

My calling is to guide others to the path of self improvement and walk beside them on their journey of growth.

Overnight success doesn’t come overnight and I have barely reached the first waypoint of my journey. Come walk with me for the remainder. I value your company and what we will learn together as we cultivate the possibilities of life.

This is my last ever Quantum Gardener post. As a thank you to all those who have supported the site in the past I’m releasing to the public domain six images which represent the basic moods of life.

Best wishes to you all.

David

Extensive digging on the web finally turned up a solution used by Willo O’Brien which uses a selection of smart playlists to determine what gets copied to the iPod. Willo’s solution works by copying only those tunes which are checked. Anything not checked is not copied unless it is new music which is always copied (new music is defined by Willo as music added after a particular date).

I’ve taken Willo’s system one step further and integrated ratings. There are various rating schemes out there for iTunes music. Six values are possible. Zero star, 1-star, 2-star etc., through to 5-star.

I rate my music like this.

• 2-star : Base rating. Everything starts with this. 2-stars says I want to listen to this.
• 1-star: Music I don’t like. Anything which I hear and don’t like gets dropped down to 1-star. My iPod—Yes smartlist only copies checked files with a rating of 2-stars or more. So on my next sync, all 1-star tunes get pulled off the iPod.
• 3-star: Good music. Usually one of the top three songs on any album.
• 4-star: Classic music. Something I’m always happy to listen to whatever my mood.
• 5-star: Songs of meaning. Those which mean something to me and have a strong emotional or memory connection.
• 0-star: Dud songs. Perhaps they didn’t rip properly from CD or there is some other error. A smart playlist identifies them for review, cleanup or deletion.

Hope that all makes sense.

Anything I don’t want to carry around i.e. my daughters’ children’s albums are unchecked and so not copied no matter what the rating.

Hope that all makes sense.