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- December 18, 2006
Spanish, German versions of the 2007 Compact Calendar
December 18, 2006Read moreReaders Jeroen Sangers and Lennart Groetzbach have produced localized versions of the 2007 Compact Calendar:
Thanks for sharing, guys!
- December 17, 2006
Slaying Dragons and Changing Careers
December 17, 2006Read moreI somehow stumbled onto Laura Young’s The Dragon Slayer’s Guide to Life, a blog about finding the courage to make those difficult life changes. I’m in a shifting life change mode again, and I found myself particularly receptive to Laura’s story-based relating of her personal insights. There’s a nice post about discipline, an interesting story about metaphorically slaying dragons met in a hospital room, which itself is part of a 7-part series titled Adventures of an Unlikely Superhero. The dragon slaying story reminded me a bit of a post I wrote about a year ago, Thinking Negative in its structure (ghosts and demons that haunt me). And wow, has it only been a year since then? Time flies!
The predisposition to face difficult choices in the face of uncertainty apparently runs in Laura’s family. Her brother was a police officer writing about life behind the badge, and later laid down his badge just 8 years shy of retirement to get away from the pervasive negativity that infested his department. The story reminded me of some of my experiences, and seeing the same issues from someone else’s perspective is helping to clarify my own thinking. As with Laura’s writing, he tells instead of sells, letting the reader draw his/her own conclusions without giving up his own. It’s an approach that I try to follow myself here, so it’s no wonder that I’m enjoying it.
- December 15, 2006
Changing Work-Life Balance at Best Buy
December 15, 2006Read moreHere’s an interesting article about how Best Buy is transitioning their workforce to ROWE, aka Results-Oriented Work Environment. The idea: instead of gauging employee productivity by hours, measure the results. So long as the work is getting done, as measured by metrics like “orders processed per period”, go ahead and watch a movie in the middle of the day, leave early to pick up your kid. The result: higher productivity where it matters (things done, not hours sat), higher job satisfaction, and lower turnover. From the Business Week article:
[…] Thompson, a former General Electric Co. (GE ) guy, was as old school as they come with his starched shirt, booming voice, and ramrod-straight posture. He came of age believing there were three 8-hour days in every 24 hours. He loved working in his office on weekends. At first, he pushed back hard. “I was not supportive,” says Thompson, who was privately terrified about the loss of control. “He didn’t want anything to do with it,” says Achen. “He was all about measurement, and he kept asking me, `How are you going to measure this so you know you’re getting the same productivity out of people?'” That’s where Achen’s performance metrics came in handy. He could measure how many orders per hour his team was processing no matter where they were. He told Thompson he’d reel everyone back to campus the minute he noticed a dip. Within a month, Achen could see that not only was his team’s productivity up, but engagement scores, or measuring job satisfaction and retention, were the highest in the dot-com division’s history. For years, engagement had been a sore spot for Thompson. “I showed J.T. these scores, and his eyes lit up,” says Achen. Thompson rushed to roll out ROWE to his entire department. Voluntary turnover among men dropped from 16.11% to 0. “For years I had been focused on the wrong currency,” says Thompson. “I was always looking to see if people were here. I should have been looking at what they were getting done.”
Very interesting! I’ll have to keep an eye on Best Buy. If the rules of the system are clear, apply to everyone, and everyone accepts them, a lot of good things can happen. This strikes me as being far more sustainable too, if you establish realistic expectations for productivity in the first place instead of trying to squeeze every last drop out of a person and burning them like cordwood. — Via Sean Johnson.
- December 14, 2006
Task Progress Tracker Updates for 2007
December 14, 2006Read more
The Task Progress Tracker is one of the Printable CEO™ forms that people use in advance of the current date, so I’m releasing this updated form first.
If you’re not familiar with the TPT, it’s a progress tracking to-do list that allows you to mark progress made on a task, in 15-minute increments.
I’ve used it in the past for:
- doing project estimates
- keeping a list of big tasks that are hard to get done all at once, but want to keep on the top of my “things to do” list.
- managing several projects at once, using one project per sheet
The nice thing about it is that you can keep the context of your project on a single sheet of paper, and refer to it to keep track of what you’re doing. I’ve heard that some people are using it in their companies for project management; they write out the task list as they understand it, staple it to the front of a folder, and hand out assignments.
For the latest downloads, visit the Printable CEO Series Page.
- December 14, 2006
Compact Calendar for 2007
December 14, 2006Read more
UPDATE: The updated 2008 calendar is available here!
The Compact Calendar is designed to provide a compact view of the year, with plenty of space for making annotations. I use it as to “doodle plan” project timelines during meetings with clients. Since the days are presented contiguously while retaining the days of the week, you get a more intuitive sense of how the days are flowing and can estimate accordingly.
You can also select rows within Microsoft Excel (required) and “Print Selection” to print just a portion of the year. Useful for short-term projects.
I sometimes also print these out and tape them to available surfaces, like the inside of a notebook, to have a handy calendar available. For a more in-depth look at design rationale, check out my original 2006 writeup.
The original US updated file, incidentally, were provided by reader Daniel Byler, who needed them for his own work. He selflessly forwarded them to me so all could enjoy. Thanks Daniel! You rock!
US Version
» Download US Version of 2007 Compact Calendar
CompactCalendar2007.zipOther Locales
If you have a localized version you’d like to share, let me know!
» Australian Version from A Random
» Brazillian Version from Paulo Rodrigo Teixeira
» Canadian Version from “Quanta”
» Chinese Versions from Camelot Castle
» Columbian (Spanish) Version from Vida En Orden
» German Version from Lennart Groetzbach
» French Version from Le Tisseur De Toile
» Hungarian Version from “Kobak”
» Italian Version from Luca Magnani » Italian Version with Week #s from Paolo Ciarrocchi
» Japanese Version from Yoshiomi Kurisu
» Netherlands & Frisian Version from Piter
» New Zealand Version from bignoseduglyguy
» Norwegian Version from Vidar Gundersen
» Portuguese Version (European) from “Rip”
» Russian Version from “Bobr”
» Singaporean Version from Chew LH
» South African Version from Jason Bagley
» Spanish Version from Jeroen Sangers
» Swedish Version from Jim Carlberg
» UK/Wales Version from Clive Griffiths
» UK/Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland Version from Bruce Marriot
If you’d like to contribute a localized version, please:
- Post your files on your own website.
- Write a blog post or web page linking to your files.
- Send me a note and a link to your web page.
Thanks!
PDF Versions
PDF versions for those of you who don’t have Excel installed. Also including a generic no-holiday version, for those of you without a localized version available.
» PDF of 2007 Compact Calendar (week starting Sunday)
CompactCalendar2007ss.pdf» PDF of 2007 Compact Calendar (week starting Monday)
CompactCalendar2007ms.pdf» PDF of 2007 Compact Calendar (Generic week starting Sunday)
CompactCalendar2007genss.pdf» PDF of 2007 Compact Calendar (Generic week starting Monday)
CompactCalendar2007genms.pdf
