How to Kill Unexpected Meetings
Nothing can kill a productive day like an unexpected meeting. You are are in groove and then all of sudden someone pop’s and says “Can you meet today for quick meeting?”. Just like that your rhythm is thrown off.
If your company lives off a networked calendar (where you can see everyone’s availability) like mine does, then you know if your calendar says you are open (no meetings scheduled), then you are just asking for interruptions.
Here is what I do to avoid this productivity killer. Every Friday during my Weekly Review (that is GTD speak for a time to review your priorities) I block off my calendar for the next week. By “block” I mean that create meetings to fill the gaps between meetings scheduled for the next week. For example, on next Tuesday if I have a meeting ending at 10am and another starting at 3pm, I create a meeting for myself from 10am-3pm, thereby blocking off that time from anyone trying to schedule meeting. In short, my schedule for the next week is locked down every Friday.
This solution may not be the universal fix for everyone, but it has kept me losing my rhythm and breaking my concentration. So how do you keep unexpected meetings from killing your day?
The Decline of Creativity
I read yesterday the Hollywood will be remaking another movie from the 80’s. Seems like a real solid idea (you can feel the sarcasm).
Moves like this makes me believe that creativity is on the decline. It seems that soon everything that will come across our screens will just be rehashes of old ideas. However I don’t think that it it’s that simple.
For the most part Corporate America has given up on taking any real creative risks. They still believe that the only way to make money to create something that will appeal to the mass market. Does the mass market even exist anymore? Ask the music industry, it definitely left them.
Creativity today will not come from the Corporate Giants who rule the airwaves, but the rather the guy or girl in their garage with a camera and a dream.
If You Think You Have It Bad…
There are days when you will want to pull our hair out when dealing with clients. If you haven’t figured this out yet, it’s completely normal to feel this way. In fact there are times when you need to be reminded that you aren’t the only one dealing with clients.
Enter Clients from Hell. This website will make you realize that you have not seen anything when it comes to the craziness that clients can bring to the design world. Clients from Hell contains user submitted stories and conversations that creatives have had with real clients. Most of them will hard to believe. However most of them will have you laughing. Think of it like cheap therapy for client crazed in all of us.
Two Things You Need to Do the Week of 9.17.11
Short Version:
1. Read this.
2. Use this.
Long Version:
1. Read the latest book from Stephen Pressfield entitled Do the Work . Think of it like a good kick in the rear if you stalling on something you know you need to do.
2. Ever see something on the internet and wish you could read it later? With website Instapaper you could do just that. Instapaper saves the text from your favorite articles and gives the ability to read it later without ads and in more enjoyable font.
The Art of Stalling
Spent the last two week scompletely rebuilding this blog. I went through Wordpress, Squarespace and every other blogging tool I could think of. My line of logic was, “I want to build something that is unique, custom, something that is my own”. Was that logic sound? Sure on the surface it seemed like a good idea. However, the underlying truth was that I was putting off actually posting content on this thing.
We are prone to spend more time on the tools then on the actually creating content itself. It’s time to stop shining the shovel and it’s time to start digging.
Five Reasons to Convince Your Boss to Let You Try Basecamp
Managing a creative team can be a very difficult task on multiple levels. You need the best project management system to handle the requests and the amount of awesome work that your team is creating. Basecamp is one of the best ways to keep track of all of that. Here are five reasons to convince your Boss to let you try Baseamp.
1. It’s all on the Web: That’s right. There is no software to install. No need to contact the IT department. If you have internet browser, you’ve got access.
2. It has time-tracking tools: If you’re not time-tracking your teams work, you are missing out on key metrics that can benefit and even save your team (if you can prove your team saves the company money, then why would anyone want to get rid of them?). Basecamp’s time tracking tools let you track based on project which can help identify places where your team’s resources are really going.
3. Resource Management: Need to convince your Boss that your team really is overworked? With the Calendar view you get a view of who is doing what and how much capacity is really available with your team.
4. You Can Manage Outside Access: Keeping people outside your team informed what is going on can make the whole creative process smooth and give people a sense of empowerment. Basecamp allows you to set up access for those outside your team to see where you are in the creative process.
5. Templates: With templates you can standardized how projects are set up. I use templates to standardized the todo lists, milestones and assignments. This ensures that if I was ever to leave the team, that my boss can continue to assign projects with same standards that I would.
Two Small Bugs I Found in Omnifocus
Being an avid Omnifocus user, I try to push the software to its limits. The software runs exceptionally well and I vary rarely have any issues with it. However, here are two small bugs I have found.
1. If you are in the quick entry screen, you cannot create a new project or context if you the have the caps key locked. This doesn’t seem big to most people, however I title all of contexts and projects in all caps.
2. If you are still running Leopard or Snow Leopard and you use the Spaces feature, there is a small problem with the quick entry box. If you are not in the same “space” as Omnifocus and you pull up the quick entry box, you can enter the task into the box, however it does not pull through your contexts or your projects.
Five Reasons Why I Use Omnifocus
There are a few apps that I immediately download whenever I buy a new Mac. Omnifocus is one of them. Here are five reasons I love this app:
1. Cloud Syncing: All my data on all my iOS devices is in sync no matter if I am on wifi or 3G. To me, this is has become the standard for any application that exists on both my mac and any of my iOS devices.
2. Custom Theming: Don’t like the way the Omnifocus looks? Fine, just go into the preferences and change the look or go to Omnifocus Themes to download something different.
3. Quick Entry: I love the ability to be able to enter something into Omnifocus without actually having to go to the app. With the push of two keystrokes, a small window pops up and I am able to quickly enter in my task before I forget it.
4. Send to Inbox: Ever find yourself look at piece of text and thinking “That is going to require some action later?”. With Send to Inbox, you simply highlight the text and then hit a few keystrokes and that text is now in Omnifocus.
5. Delaying Tasks: There are times that I know that I have to do something in the future. However, I don’t want to see that task until it gets closer to the date that the task needs to be completed. With Omnifocus you can give each task a start date, which will allow the task to appear only that date you select, keeping it out of your sight until you want to see it.
Two Types of Creativity
I spent yesterday watch the documentary Helvetica. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it even if you don’t care about fonts.
What struck me the most about the movie was how there were two different camps in the movie. One camp is adamant about the beauty and structure of Helvetica, while one camp reviles it’s usage and rebels against the stoic nature of the font.
I think they’re both right. I love Helvetica. It’s all over this website. I love the swiss design and the font to me speaks volumes to that aesthetic. Yet, there is nothing like seeing a design with headlines that were created by hand. I love that rebellious nature.
Creativity can be structured, elegant and efficient and it can also be messy, wild and unpredictable. Both serve a purpose and aren’t suited for everyone. Find one and stick with it.
Rules for Your First New Job
Congrats to all you college kids who have graduated this last spring and are now settling into your first job. Here is a quick rundown of rules that didn’t cover in school.
1. Administrative Assistants rule the office. If you want to get something done, more than likely you will have to enlist the help of an AA. Get know the AA’s in your department/floor real well. They secretly (and sometimes openly) run things in your office. Give them the respect the deserve, otherwise that expense report will never make it to accounting.
2. Answer your emails in the following order. First, anything from your boss or his/her superiors. Secondly anything from your co-workers. Third, everyone else. You want to establish the reputation as someone who is quick and responsive, especially to those around you. Trust me, turn off the Facebook notifications and answer your boss first. The Facebook message will still be there at the end of the workday.
3. Once a week go to lunch with someone outside your department. Get to know the ins and outs of who you are working for. It is easy to have a siloed worldview if you work for large company (their structures often reinforce that), and getting out of your department or team environment every once in a while is crucial.
4. Get in early and stay late. You won’t have to do this forever, but you need to show people that you will be a workhorse. You will find that others will peel out early, because they are “done” with their work. That’s fine for them, but what they don’t realize that the people above them (i.e. your boss) notice those things. What kind of hours you keep is just one of those little things that your boss will weigh if and when he/she is handing out raises or pink slips.
Lastly, if you don’t follow any of the above advice remember this, it’s not about you. You probably won’t receive recognition for every piece of work you have done. You more than likely won’t get a promotion in your first year. You probably won’t receive a receive a raise or get additional vacation days until you are at least a year or two into the job.
For the last twenty or so years of your life you have been the center of world and with a new job all that comes to an end. However with that end, starts something new. You get a chance to go to work, something millions of people would love to do, don’t forget that.
