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- The Personal Productivity Encyclopedia of Superhero PowersDecember 18 2008
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"A superhero is a hero with superpowers."
(Captin Obvious on the difference between heroes & superheroes - from the Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia.)
Just for fun I'd like to riff off of the Wikipedia list of comic book superpowers. My goal is to get you thinking about how much we as individuals are able to accomplish, and how we make that happen.
(Side note: For an in-depth analysis of the origins of the superhero idea, check out Classical Heroes in Modern Movies: Mythological Patterns of the Superhero, including the section on Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey [1]. Another article I enjoyed was Why Write About Superheroes? And if you're really feeling ambitious, try taking the Superhero Quiz.)
I'd love to hear your interpretations of these - this is just my first pass. Cheers!
Questions for you
- What superpowers to you possess?
- What are some negative powers? For example, Power negation (Ability to cancel th
- How do you treat life as an experiment?December 2 2008
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The true method of knowledge is experiment. -- William Blake [1]
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In my last post I mentioned our book project Think, Try, Learn: A Scientific Method for Discovering Happiness, and how it is central to my thinking and personal brand. The more I talk with people about this perspective (looking at everything in life as a scientific experiment), the more excited I am about it; there's something really good here. As I wrote in The Real Reasons For The Modern Productivity Movement, I think the timing is right. We need a personal modern method for making our way in the world - for sensemaking [2] - that benefits from 400 years of developing techniques that, as Richard Feynman put it [3], protects us from fooling ourselve
- Custom workflows for knowledge workersNovember 12 2008
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Knowledge work tends to be unstructured. Specifying a detailed flow of work is sometimes possible, but is probably not the best way to improve a knowledge work process.
This passage comes from Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performances And Results from Knowledge Workers, a stimulating [1] read about my "peeps" (i.e., you) and what the highly overused term means. When I read it I thought: That can't be right! Heck, teaching structure (for self-management) is what I do for a living. But after a few seconds of thought I recalled exceptions from my consulting that I'd like to share.
Introduction
When I work with clients I look for opportunities to integrate the general methods I teach with their specific work. When I identify them, we jointly come up with customized systems that work for them. I love this kind of work because it requires creativity, and really streamlines their work. This allows them to think less about mechanics and more about the important stuff - getting insights into the customer's needs, hiring the best person, solving a tough engineering problem, or dreaming up the Next Big Thing for the business.
As Davenport points out, not all jobs are amenable to this kind of analysis, but there a
- Induced personality disorder, or: I tried it, but I'm not proud of itNovember 6 2008
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As part of my continuing development of the power of treating everything in life as a personal experiment [1], I applied recently the idea to marketing my consulting business. In spite of Richard Koch's admonition in The 80/20 Principle to be "unconventional and eccentric in your use of time," I decided (with tracking [2], of course) to try conventional (and reasonable) approaches including:
- Visualizing my ideal client,
- Creating a clear value proposition,
- Focusing on a specific industry (indeed specific companies in it),
- Tapping my network to get leads,
- Making warm calls (I now prefer "cool (as in not warm) calls"), and generally
- Studying marketing workbooks that promote these ideas.
NB: 1) These ideas are sound, and I respect experts who teach them, 2) I'm very far from being knowledgeable and principled in applying them, 3) I executed
- Simple project planning for individuals: A round-upOctober 31 2008
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This is my one of my favorite kinds of posts:
- I've been asked for help by a client,
- I really want to know the answer, and
- I need to write a blog post!
And as you know, I love pulling these kinds of things together. (Side note: What if every action you took during the day accomplished multiple objectives like this? We need a name different from "killing two birds..." Anything pithy [1] come to mind?)
I'll do two things. First, I'll present the common elements of (i.e., my take on) the approaches I looked at. Second, I'll provide my lightly-edited notes from the sources, for those who are interested. There are some good ideas there.
Questions I'd love to hear your answers to:
- What's omitted here?
- What's superfluous?
- What approach do you use?
- How is it different from these?
- What's the largest project you've planned out?
- How much planning do most of your projects take?
- How do you guarantee learning from projects?
- How does your work integrate with others, including sophisticated project management software?
- Has anyone read Managing Mu