SUMMARY: I attended a "Scrum Club" meeting to learn about agile software development methods and kanban, and noted the similarity to the GTD productivity system. Kanban boards are particularly interesting to me, as they make abstract processes more visible through the use of physical artifacts.
After a year break, I'm re-introducing the Resource Time Tracking (RTT) forms I first tried out in 2006. At the time, I was trying to figure out a better way of visualizing future time to a number of different simultaneous projects.
This is a two-part form, consisting of a task scheduler and a task quantizer. The Task Scheduler is basically a calendar that shows what deliverables are due on what days of the week in addition to when production time is allocated. The Task Quantizer is a kind of worksheet to allow you to determine what those deliverables are in the first place, and how long it will take to to them. The Quantizer forces you to measure in standardized blocks of time, which comes in handy when it comes to fitting them into the Scheduler's time grid.
The 2010 update is unchanged from the original 2006-2007 form, other than some standardization of typography
For more information about the use of the Resource Time Tracking forms, check out the original post. Enjoy!
This may be premature, but I don't care! Amazon's warehouse has received the first batch of nice offset-printed Emergent Task Planner Pads! I just ordered a pad to see how they are packaging them, along with other necessities in the form of fountain pen ink and NPH. The store page is filled out with the barest of information and terrible images, but it's a start!
The pads went to press a couple weeks ago after I settled on a new color scheme of blue and orange, which you can see here in the press check photo I took:
I tried to strike a balance between a businesslike-yet-exciting blue and a call-to-action orange. Hopefully, people like them. They are the same price as before, $12.50 for a shrink wrapped, top-glued pad of 75 sheets.
I'm still figuring out how to configure the Amazon stuff properly, but if you're running out of pre-printed pad sheets you can now buy the Emergent Task Pads on Amazon.com.
And now the interesting work now begins: how the heck do you market your own product. I will write more later about the experience of setting up Fulfillment By Amazon and working with the printer to create the beginnings of a turn-key system. I'm starting with about $2000, left from the first run of pads, to bootstrap a business. This is surprisingly nerve-wracking.
> Pre-Printed Emergent Task Planner Pads (Version 2)
> Sold in shrink-wrapped pads of 75 sheets
> available on Amazon.com
There are a couple of esoteric versions of the Concrete Goals Tracker that are specifically designed for sales people and networking efforts. I never really understood the point of cold networking, and I don't really like to push myself on people, but when I have to I do have a particular process in mind. These two forms are designed to enforce that process from both the top-down and the bottom-up.
The Network Catch-o-Matic (NCM) is the top-down tool for making connections and networking toward a lasting relationship. You start by making sure you are at least getting in front of as many people as you can in a week (here I am choosing 50 people, which is kind of arbitrary) for meaningful face time. The goal: some kind of collaboration. There are several steps one needs to go through to build up that relationship, and the NCM recognizes that there are fewer people passing through each subsequent stage. For more information about how it works, read the origin Makin' Rain post.
The Sales edition of the Concrete Goals Tracker is something I don't think I released before, but it is based on the same principles of show people what you have and make impressions as a driving force. If people can't see what you're doing, and don't have a way to remember to have a conversation with you, then your chances of landing a sale are pretty dim. The additional wrinkle in sales, IMHO, is to be able to tell when a prospect becomes interested, what piqued that interest, and for what reason. If you don't keep these in mind, then your sales effort is scattered and essentially random.
The rationale behind this form design is more thoroughly explained in the original Concrete Goals Tracker articles.
» Download The Network Catch-o-Matic
» filename: PCEO-NCM01-NetworkCatcher.pdf
» Download Concrete Goals Tracker: Sales Edition
» filename: PCEO-CGT01-Sales.pdf
A few months ago Sean Johnson contacted me for permission to create an online version of the Emergent Task Timer (ETT), a form I had designed a few years ago to maintain focus in the face of unscheduled task chaos. Anecdotally I've heard that it's popular with graduate students and people who get pulled into a lot of meetings; a filled-out ETT provides documented proof that there's just too much crap getting in the way of getting real work done, in a compelling visual manner. While I had created a prototype of an online version of the ETT, I didn't have the back-end database expertise to create a full-featured web application. Others have asked for permission in the past, and I've generally granted it (ideas are free, after all), though few have actually followed through. Geoffrey Grosenbach was the first out of the gate a few years ago with his Online CEO, an implementation of my Concrete Goals Tracker, and now Sean Johnson presents his BubbleTimer application to fill another gap.
I checked out the BubbleTimer for a few minutes today, and am generally impressed. Initially I wasn't sure I'd use something like this myself, suffering a bit from envy at someone actually having made a working version of my own tool, but as I clicked through it I again became excited by the possibilities, particularly with the task sharing feature. And it's nice to know that the data is saved and backed up on a server somewhere. Pretty cool! And unlike my prototype, Sean's version has the long-requested task reordering feature. Sweet! What's missing are some of the future planning features so you can block out how you THINK you'll use your time (something that didn't work well on paper, and was not implemented in my prototype). The basic idea is to mark future time as slightly-highlighted ovals, which are malleable right up to the time when the time-counter "fixes" them forever. This allows you to establish the intention to do something at a certain time, mark off meeting times and errands, and so forth, without being committed to them. Consider this a feature request :-)
I'm not involved in Sean's enterprise, and I have no financial stake or partnership interest, but I think it's awesome that he's made something that he really wanted to use himself. I asked him for some background information via email after he told he he'd gotten the application ready for release:
I've always had a lot of goals and I've been quite frustrated that poor time management was holding me back from achieving many of them. I've never been lazy, quite the opposite, I was working long hours, I was using GTD, but I was not really working smart. I just wasn't spending enough time on the things that I said were truly important to me. My time usage didn't match my goals and I didn't even have a good sense where all my time was being spent. I found a great tool in David's Emergent Task Timer printed worksheets that made a huge difference in my life in just a few weeks time. With emergent task timing I was able to quickly get a sense of where my time was being spent and I was able to start adjusting that to better match my goals. I knew right then that I wanted to take the method online and make it available to everyone. I found David's prototype flash application and knew that the technique could work as well online as it does on paper. I contacted David and then I went for it.
I created BubbleTimer using Ruby on Rails it was a key technology that made it possible. I never could have done this much development in my nights and weekends time without a productive platform like Ruby on Rails. This is my fourth Rails application now, but I come from the Java world, and this application would be twice as big, twice as complicated and would have taken twice as long if it was done in Java.
I'm excited about the prospect of BubbleTimer helping people achieve more. I've been using it myself for months now and it's be a great tool for a goal oriented approach to time management. It's as easy to use as the paper version but without the dead trees. It also has some important improvements in terms of instant feedback on cumulative totals and graphs showing how your time is being spent that can't be done with only paper. More than anything, I'm excited to get people trying it out and giving me feedback so l can make it even better.
Check it out Sean's Ruby on Rails implementation of the ETT at BubbleTimer.com. I think it's pretty cool; just don't blame me for anything and complain directly to Sean by his request ;-) Congrats Sean on launching the app, and THANK YOU!
About a month ago I got a cool email from Yoshiomi Kurisu to tell me that he'd created an Online Compact Calendar Generator based on my design. It's pretty sweet, capable of importing holidays from Google Calendar and generating PDF files. Check it out!
He also has a Japanese version of the original Compact Calendar Excel sheet.
The power of the human voice is such that when someone called me up to ask me about the 2009 version of the Compact Calendar, I was so moved that I actually got off my butt to make it. Easier said than done; I said it would take about 15 minutes + about an hour to post. Four hours later, I'm finally done with tweaking, testing, download testing, virus scanning, packaging, and updating. It takes a bit of work to make sure these archives are clean...hopefully I didn't miss anything. I almost posted a version that was off by one day...close call!
The Compact Calendar is my impromptu planning calendar, designed to be printed on paper from Excel. Print a bunch of these sheets out; it's great for bringing to a meeting and sketching out a schedule on-the-fly. I keep a supply on hand when I'm actively out in the field. Unlike other calendars, it represents the months as a solid "bar of time", which makes it easier to visualize how much time you really have. Plus, it just looks neat.
You can read more about the use and design of the Compact Calendar on the Compact Calendar Page.
I finally have a version that will update the entire calendar when you change the year field at the top of the spreadsheet, based on the work of Todd Foster. So now, it's super easy to make new versions of the calendar yourself for any arbitrary year. Just remember to update the Holiday Table.
"Jenny" and Jim Service both submitted techniques for handling the automatic month labeling on the left side, and I've incorporated it.
There have been several other modifications submitted to me over the year, and I've tried to pick the ones that are simple to maintain (e.g. they don't require additional Excel modules, or tricky hidden extra columns). Thanks everyone for your submissions!
You can download the 2009 version at the regular Compact Calendar Page. I have only updated the US version; the international versions are handled by independent bloggers and are not under my control at all. I just link to them!
You'll need Office 1997 or later to open the Excel Templates. Personally I have been using Office 2007, so there may be some issues with earlier versions of Office that I don't know about. Please leave a comment if you come across anything. For users of non-Office productivity suites, good luck!
Here's a quickie:
Professor (and reader) Jim Mitchell adapted a version of the Compact Calendar for the U.S. academic school year, with a few tweaks of his own!
You can download his version of the academic compact calendar from Jim's blog, Architectural Education.
Thanks Jim!
A good friend of mine recently went to London, and on return announced she'd gotten me a present that was not very "London", but was likely very "Dave". I was in San Jose at the time, however, and had to wait a week until I got to see it, which gave me plenty of time to think of what it might be. Gifts are an interesting window into friendship, as they give you an idea of how you are being perceived. In the worst case they are way off the mark, but in the best case they illuminate something that's more fundamental and perhaps unexpected.
When I finally got to see what it was, I was somewhat surprised to see it was a leather notebook. I'm super picky about notebooks and stationery, so this was a bold move (though I doubt it was realized at the time of selection). I am a fan of sturdy tightly-bound journals and durable papers; my current favorite carry-around is the Moleskine Reporter format. The new notebook was pretty much the opposite of my Moleskine. It was just a sleeve of hand-tooled leather, decorated with repeating die stamps. A sheaf of fluffy textured paper was cut to fit into the sleeve, and held in place with a long string that was punched through the spine in three places, which also wrapped around the entire notebook to keep it tidy. After the initial surprise wore off, I was struck by the idea that this notebook binding might have been the way it was done long ago, and that this could be some kind of replica or artifact. I loved it.
No, it was nothing of the sort; it was just something she saw that she thought I'd like, perhaps because I am constantly hauling out tiny notebooks and am writing in them at the coffee shop. I've been getting away from computers more and more these days when I'm thinking, as I find making marks by hand engages a different part of my brain. I feel more connected to the ideas, and the lack of "undo" makes me more mindful of what I put down. I use my Moleskines as daily working notebooks and have learned to treat them as "sacred scrap paper", but this notebook was just the sort of thing I knew I would have great difficulty writing in. The kind of words I would write in such a notebook would have to carry their weight in artfulness or importance. I would hate to blemish such a notebook with anything less.
"You know, I don't know what I would write in this," I admitted as I examined it further. "It's so nice."
"You'll write ideas for stories in it!" my friend proclaimed vigorously. "Things you hear other people say, phrases like that one we keep wanting to use...uh, what was it..."
"It was 30 degrees above warm?"
"Yep, phrases like that! And other ones that you come up with." And that was the end of the discussion.
It's not very often that I get a present that so successfully combines so many personal quirks and goals into one package, so I was doubly-impressed. Of course I didn't want to use any old crappy pen, so I started looking around for a nice fountain pen that I could carry with me along with the notebook. I found that Pilot makes a $1.89 disposable fountain pen that apparently writes fairly well and would be a good test. I tried my local Staples to see if they carried it (they do on the Website), but they only had a few mediocre-looking pens in stock for more money than I was willing to spend. A bit more Googling revealed the fascinating cult of fountain pens and moleskines that already exists. I took note of a few brands that were mentioned, and decided to just keep my eyes open for stationery stores. For some reason, we don't seem to have them in New Hampshire, so it would have to wait until next time I headed south.
I was visiting my sister last weekend in Rhode Island for fun, and we stopped by one of her favorite stores, Figments, which is run by a RISD graduate / graphic designer named Peggy. It's a small store that stocks an eclectic variety of stationery, furniture, one-of-a-kind gifts, and other tasteful artifacts. I'd been there once before, having gotten excited by some aluminum binder covers that I didn't end up buying because I (again) didn't know what I would put in them...they were so cool :-) This time, I saw that Peggy carried a handful of the German Lamy pens pens I'd read about online, though it took me a few moments to remember this. I got the Safari, which is regarded as an inexpensive and reliable fountain pen, in a color I am very fond of. My sister commented how she doesn't ordinarily like fountain pens because they feel scratchy and catch on the paper, but the Lamy was very pleasurable and smooth. She called me up later to say that she wanted to go get one. :-)
I actually haven't tried writing in the notebook yet with this, because I haven't yet heard or thought of any interesting phrases to put into it. I also want to get some brown ink, so it looks extra-ancient when I write in it, but in the meantime I'm willing to use the blue cartridge that came with it. I am a little concerned that the paper will be too porous for the fountain pen, but I will try it out later this week and see what happens. It may be that the other pen I got at Figments, a Lamy Vista Rollerball, will work. I wasn't planning on getting this pen, but I was sharing a story with the owner about how there was a certain green Pilot rollerball pen in the 80s that I used to love writing with. My enthusiasm must have triggered something, because she hauled out this pen and had me try it. As I doodled, I got lost in the action of the pen...it was very smooth, and ink flowed out of it effortlessly. It has been a long time since I've used a pen that made me want to make marks on paper...not since that green Pilot in the 80s, actually. My current everyday rollerball is the Pilot G2, but this pen has more resistance and is kind of scratchy. It reminds me of work. The Lamy Rollerball reminded me of recess on a warm spring day, drawing endless doodles on the picnic table with my friends by the soccer field.
So I have my notebook, and I have my pens. I'm looking forward to making some marks on paper next time I'm in the coffee shop.
![The Social Yardstick [folded]](http://davidseah.com/_eecontent/imgcache/images/07/466-0728-socialyardstick.jpg)
Last weekend was Barcamp Manchester in Manchester, New Hampshire, which had a pretty good turnout of around 50 people. This year there was a new event, The Make Room, made possible by the donation of several awesome Make Magazine Boxed Set collections by O'Reilly Books. The various books were handed out throughout the day to the people who obviously needed them, and the Box Sets were reserved as prizes for the Make Room contests.
I first entered the Popsicle Stick Bridge Building Competition, but alas: my clever design relied on craftsmanship to implement correctly. I ended up pulling out of the contest, but this left me with leftover parts for the Chindogu Competition.
Chindogu is the Japanese art of inventing items that solve a problem which are burdened with unfortunate and/or embarrassing side effects that, for all practical purposes, render the invention useless. I seem to enjoy making things in this vein: the Procrastinator's Clock and the Gauntlet of Productivity are two such items that I've posted about in the past. Apparently the muse is still with me; I'm very pleased to present the prize-winning chindogu of Barcamp Manchester 2007, an invention I call The Social Yardstick.
The Social Yardstick allows you to always maintain an appropriate distance from the people you care about.
Physically, The Yardstick is a measuring device that collapses to fit in your pocket. The prototype here is constructed out of popsicle sticks and packing tape. Each popsicle stick is labeled a listed below:
The idea for The Social Yardstick was trigged by something that Lokesh Dhakar said at the table I was working at. I was stretching my popsicle sticks (leftover from my failed bridge) in an accordion-like fashion, and he said something about measuring space. I then thought of a time when some friends of mine were having a secret office romance; I'd observed them talking one day standing way too close together to be casual co-workers. I mentioned this to my friend later in case they didn't want to blow their cover. If they had some way of measuring that space between themselves, they could have maintained discretion with ease! And thus, the Social Yardstick idea was born.
The basic principle: your physical distance from someone often telegraphs how "close" you are. Here's a diagram to help illustrate the point:
In case you're wondering: the distances in the diagram are roughly based on what "felt right", though I can see now that it seems roughly based on the width of a person's body.
To use The Social Yardstick, merely unfold its length and stretch between yourself and the person you are standing near. Read the label on the segment that is closest to the other person, and adjust your distance appropriately. Here are some other example uses:
If you are talking to someone you consider an acquaintance and he/she is standing too close, deploy The Yardstick and make sure that your allocation of personal space is not violated.
Conversely, if you're hanging out with your sweetie, use The Yardstick to close the gap: nothing quite says "I Love You" than ensuring you're both inside each other's personal space, short of...well, you get the idea.
You can also use The Social Yardstick as a relationship discovery tool. Say you are in a situation where you are trying to figure out the relationships between two people so you'll have something to talk about at the water cooler. While both parties are standing in place, have the first person hold the stick close to their body and stretch it toward the second person. The label on the stick segment closest to the second person will reveal their actual relationship! You may be surprised by what you find! Just remember: as with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics, the act of directly observing your subjects will alter the measurement (e.g. people cough, avert eye contact, and move apart). You may need to apply indirect means of observation over several sessions to arrive at a conclusive reading.
The pre-calibrated distances on The Social Yardstick are based on Urban New England Standards of Personal Space, which is what I'm most familiar with. You may find that you need to adjust for the differing expectations of your locale and culture. For example, people who live in sparsely-populated rural areas probably need a longer yardstick. Likewise, people who work in loud office environments may have to stand closer to just hear each other. And all bets are off when you're in an elevator or picking a urinal in the Men's Restroom.
If you have built your own Social Yardstick or have made something similar in the past, let us know in the comments below! Support Social Unity through Appropriate Personal Spacing!
:-)
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