Still True

Everything I wrote about Startup Weekend Seattle 2 from last February is still true this time around, participating in Startup Weekend Redmond.

As we move into Sunday afternoon, my involvement seems to be slowing up a bit, allowing some time for reflection. I like that this time I felt able and willing to get in and get my hands dirty, actively working on a project. And just like last time, some additional lessons have emerged.

Know Your Business
I'm going to go out on a limb here - even developers should have a sense of what the business is, and that includes the business model. It impacts what you build, and unless you want to give up all possibility of autonomy and subject yourself completely to someone else telling you what to code, like some trained monkey, then you need to understand what you're selling, why, to whom, for how much, and at what cost.

And if you developers wriggle out of that one - for some understandable reasons - then be darned sure that someone you trust to have a good head for the subject takes care of that for you. And then follow their lead.

If no one is handling this part of your startup, or are doing it badly, you could well be thinking you're running a business when in fact, what you have is a hobby instead. And sometimes hobbies get quite expensive.

Listen to Feedback
Are your people tracking with your vision? Are they perhaps wanting to head a direction you should consider? Maybe the people working on your project have information about the viability of your business that must be heeded to be successful. If you're too caught up in what you want to build, you could be headed for the rocks because of individuals abandoning the project or because you're not as aware of your own blind spots as you could be.

Take Full Advantage of Available Resources
At Startup Weekend Redmond, we've had a startling array of resources available to us - BizSpark accounts with access to code, 'virtual CTO' humans to consult about architecture, various knowledgeable speakers presenting on topics relevant to our work this weekend, and of course the individuals on our respective teams and other folks working on other teams entirely. It's a mistake to walk away from help that so readily available. It also helps to pause a moment and think about what sort of help is not quite so visible. Making use of available resources is just plain smart.

Don't Force-Fit Tools
While making use of available resources is smart, there certainly are times when what is available really doesn't fit your needs. When that happens, it's smarter to walk away and find something else that works better - or take what's available now, knowing that you'll trade out as soon as it makes sense.


Keep Talking
Do you know what the other members of your team are doing and what problems they're trying solve? Do they know these things about you? Without good communication, you risk redundant efforts or worse than that, gaps in what gets done. This can be easier in small teams but there are ways of dealing with communication issues in large ones and no team is immune.

Shut Up
Once you all know what you're doing, how, and why, sometimes it's important just to shut your mouth and let everyone work. I was certainly guilty of not abiding by this one last night but that just highlights a corollary - other people often have different needs than you do. Talk about how you can best try to meet them all.

Build on Success
If you develop a good working relationship, achieve some success with an approach, follow up and build on it. Continuing to move the ball toward your goals is almost always more important than any single run.

Find Something to Do
If you're fully engaged, you'll probably have no trouble finding ways to help move the ball forward. If you've found yourself a bit less engaged, that might be a bit more problematic. Just know that a) the team can't succeed unless everyone is working to move the ball forward and b) acting engaged can help you become more engaged in what you're doing.

And just to re-iterate - Enjoy it - it's important to enjoy what you're doing or find another way to create joy in your life.

What resources are available to help you succeed?

Staying on Top of Tasks

I come off as hugely process-oriented at times, but really I'm not. I've simply learned that trying to work without any kind of structure yields very bad results. I can be pretty organized when I set my mind to it; it's when I fall off the wagon that the trouble starts.

Over the years, I've come across and experimented with a variety of tools, both for myself and for clients and I've learned a couple of very important things.

First, whatever tool you use simply must be a good fit for your individual personality, taking advantage of your strengths and mitigating your weaknesses. Just because it works for someone else doesn't mean it's the best tool or structure for you.

Second, find a tool that will survive having you abandon it from time to time and develop a strategy for getting back into the game of being organized. A structure you don't use isn't nearly as helpful as one that you do.

To that purpose, I actually use two different tools myself, concentrating on whichever works best for me at the time. Ordinarily, I prefer electronic management of my task list because it gives me the most flexibility in terms of availability and in adapting to the fluid nature of my life and work. My favorite electronic task management system is still LifeBalance by Llamagraphics.

Unfortunately, my handheld device and my Vista 64 laptop aren't terribly compatible at the moment, so no synchronization these days. That's where my second tool comes in.

I've discovered that in times of great stress (or non-synchronizing electronic tools), it really helps to be more tactile about managing my tasks. Good list hygiene is important to me - I can't find what still is yet to be done if all of the other nearby items are crossed out - and I like to be able to re-order tasks as priorities shift, so putting my tasks onto sticky notes and managing them in a partitioned folder works better for me than a standard list.

My strategy is to continue using a system for as long as I can, then when it gets difficult for me to keep up, I switch to the other system - sometimes just a change in scenery is all it takes to stay organized. If I fall off both systems and have trouble getting back into either one, then I give myself a short break of a week or two and hope that I don't miss anything too important. I practice being kind to myself when errors occur and use whatever problems arise as motivation to get me back into becoming process-driven again. What doesn't seem to work (for me, anyway), is guilt.

I find it also helps to work higher-priority tasks first, but have been known to shift to focus on easier tasks from time to time when I just need to get myself unstuck. Getting stuck, however, is more likely an indicator of tasks that are too big. What works then is to break the larger tasks down into smaller component tasks.

When I do abandon my systems or get hopelessly stuck, I look for reasons for why. More often I find it is the failure of a system to accommodate my needs than it is a general system failure or something I did wrong. If I can discover the source of the incompatibility, I work on addressing that for the next iteration and then I get back to using some (new and improved) system as soon as possible.

As with anything else, it's a mistake to believe that one will become 'organized' and then have nothing else to do to remain in that state. It's even a mistake to believe that one can become more organized and simply remain in that state even with a huge amount of effort.

The truth is that we capture the state of organization only periodically and then the pendulum swings through or back the the other way and we must start the process all over again of regaining a lock on organization. The best we can hope for is to stretch out the time we spend being 'organized' and reduce how wildly the pendulum swings away from it.

If you've experienced problems or successes with organizing your to-do list, I hope you'll share by making a comment. Perhaps we can help each other.

What keeps you on task?

Lessons from Startup Weekend Seattle 2

My family doesn't really understand why spending a whole weekend with a bunch of geeks would be so important to me but at least they didn't begrudge me the time. Having participated twice now, I find Startup Weekend is a bit like a real-life reality show, a laboratory environment for controlled experiments dealing with real-world issues.

It's fun - lots of fun - but I probably wouldn't take so much time away from the rest of my life just to have a good time. These weekends are also really valuable.

For one thing, I find it so much easier to connect with people - get to know them and really bond with them - when we're working together for a common purpose. It's so much better than standing around at some networking event trying to figure out what to say to one another. It's even better than most ice-breaker activities or events billed as 'team-building' because of how fully engaged people are in what they're doing.

Plus, as Marina Martin points out on Nathan Kaiser's nPost blog about Startup Weekend, working together in close quarters like this also provides a great opportunity to see how people work - together, under pressure, with and without direction, and when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. After a weekend like this, I have a growing list of people I'd love to work with on real world jobs and projects and probably a few I'd have to think a bit more carefully about first.

Beyond experiencing the power of the event for yourself, here are a few of the lessons coming out of Startup Weekend that I thought were rather universally portable into other situations...

Step Up
Things happen because you make them happen. If it matters to you, take matters into your own hands; don't wait for someone else to do it.

Be a Leader
Leadership is often more about helping the group define their vision and about removing obstacles in the way of that vision than it is about dictating who should do what and how. All it really takes is wanting to be of service.

Assume You Know Enough
You may not feel like you know everything you need to know but that doesn't necessarily mean that someone else knows more than you do. Dive in and figure it out; learn as you go along if you have to.

Get Passionate
The work can be tough enough without making it tougher, trying to work on something that you have to push yourself to do. Work on what pulls you in, propels you, compels you to be involved.

Work With People Who Share Your Passion
You don't have to agree - in fact diversity of opinion helps - but look for and stick with people who feel as driven as you do to succeed in your chosen direction.

Accept Some Ambiguity
Any creative endeavor involves a certain amount of uncertainty. If you already know everything you're doing, it's an assembly line that robots could be doing instead, Certainty is not creative and definitely does not produce anything new. Embrace the ambiguity and harness the chaos to bring about real innovation and change.

Work Through Challenges
Whether you steer around obstacles, stay persistent in the face of challenges, seek out new solutions, or accept workarounds when you have to, it takes dedication to keep moving forward - and moving forward should always be your goal, no matter what setbacks you might encounter.

Use Available Resources
You never know what you need or what you might be missing. Look for and be wiling to accept help and information from a variety of sources.

Pace Yourself
Whether it's a sprint or a marathon, managing time, energy, and other resources is an important aspect of success. Know what sort of race you're running and plan accordingly.

Slow Down
Understand what you're really trying to build, for whom, and why. Listen to feedback. Make paper prototypes before committing to code. In the end, you'll actually be saving yourself time and headaches by spending some time thinking and planning before jumping straight into the actual work.

Have Fun
When all is said and done, work and life are both a lot better when we can remember to laugh, enjoy ourselves, take some time to play, and (in general) just not take things too seriously.

Look For Opportunities
When challenges arise, there are very nearly always gifts and opportunities - but only if you're looking for them instead of focusing on what's going wrong. Consider it a matter of choosing the approach most likely to produce the best outcomes.

Celebrate Success
The results may look exactly as you'd imagined... or, more likely, like something different, less or more. Whatever it is, celebrate whatever is right, whatever you have learned or accomplished.

Say Thank You
Someone has helped you get where you are, has helped make things easier. Show your appreciation.

I know there are a number of people I'd like to thank for making Startup Weekend such a memorable event.

Thank you John Smilgin for taking the ball and running with it and for joining forces with Rob Eickmann, Nathan Post, Ilene Little, and Marina Martin in doing such an amazing job with planning and execution and for bringing in so many great sponsors.

Thank you to Whitney Keyes for getting us such great media coverage and to George Junginger for his assistance and insights in running the event.

Thank you to Google for hosting the space and especially to Jessica Einfeld and Wesley Chan for their persistence and determination in resolving various issues and to Bob and Justin for taking such good care of us throughout the weekend.

Thanks also to all of the terrific sponsors who made the Startup Weekend possible - Perkins Coie, nPost, Microsoft, Blue Box Group, Type As, Inc for meals, Peets for coffee throughout the weekend, and Big Al's for very affordable, very good beer. Thank you Aviel Ginzburg for creating the cool t-shirt logo.

And of course - a huge 'thank you' to everyone who participated. Thank you to everyone who came out and joined in, worked hard, spent time on projects, helped keep things tidy, laughed, and had fun. Thank you to everyone who followed our activities and shared in spirit.

Thank you to those of you who spoke up about what you needed and helped participate in finding solutions. Thank you to everyone who helped create some buzz about this and future events and to everyone who shared ideas about how it can be even better next time. Startup Weekend just wouldn't be the fabulous event that it is without you. Thank you for being part of it.

What can you do to make your next gathering worth repeating?

News for the Pressure Prompted

On balance, I'm not a procrastinator; I'm simply pressure prompted. Last night I finally registered for the PSCA coaching conference. If you are a leader, an educator, a coach, a parent, or anyone else who is interested in self-improvement, you'll want to register too, I'm sure of it. There's still time to get the Early Bird discount but time is running out, and that is the primary distinction between being pressure-prompted and procrastination.

Being pressure prompted (for real - not just a rationalization) means that the closer we get to a deadline, the more crystallized our thoughts become. Where earlier on, there seems like too much time and too much space, suddenly when it simply must be done, everything becomes clear.

Sometimes I let it go too far and I'm sure others do too. Too much pressure, and then my thoughts become muddied; I've gone past the point of clarity and I'm too stressed to think clearly anymore. In this stage, I begin to feel slightly panicked.

Being pressure-prompted is often a good thing but it's not without its problems. Sometimes in the midst of all that clarity, I realize I have a perfect idea or solution... but without enough time to execute. This puts me back smack in the middle of procrastination-land. Nothing is happening or plans have to be dramatically shifted to accommodate the issue of not enough time.

When it's a matter of being pressure-prompted, there is still action. Like a seed germinating, the activity is just all internal or underground, where you can't see it. Procrastination generally involves being stuck, with no real action, activity, or progress taking place at all.

Sometimes I perceive (rightly or wrongly) obstacles in the way of my goal that I have trouble seeing my way past. When I'm smart, I realize that I'm stuck and I get my coach on the phone. Usually a quick conversation is all I need to get myself back on the path of movement. This external viewpoint helps get past the blinders we each tend to have - yes, even those of us who are trained to know better.

You can benefit from some of that training too, even if you're not a coach. You're going to hear more about this upcoming conference in the next few days and I promise to make the rest of the information that I include worthwhile, even if you're not planning to attend the conference. Be sure to subscribe to the TechSurvivor blog to receive updates so that you don't miss anything.

In the meantime, be sure you check out the information about the conference, Creating Conscious Choice and Change - Learning and community-building for individuals and organizations to be held on February 5, 2009, in Seatac. Do it now, before time runs out.

What are you waiting for?

What to Do When Your Job is Dead - Top Ten

Starbucks, Zillow, Redfin and now Insight and Circuit City - these are just a few of the organizations who have recently had tech-related layoffs and it wouldn't be surprising in the current economic climate to see continued impact on the technology sector. Most notably in Seattle, it's likely a number of Washington Mutual tech workers could be on the streets soon with the redundancies in operations expected with the JP Morgan acquisition. The question of what to do if you find yourself caught up in the midst of a lay-off comes up regularly, so here are the top ten tried and true tips that I've used myself and passed on to others with some success.

1) Take time to grieve - There's no way around it, losing your job sucks. If you see it coming, you've had plenty of time to get anxious over the possibility that you'll be involved and if you don't, you'll be blind-sided. Either way, you'll be feeling bad about it for a while, so give yourself some time to deal with the emotional fall-out. The key is to make it a planned, limited amount of time so that you can quickly get on with the business of the rest of your life.

2) Take stock - What areas of your life are in need of critical attention and what tangible and intangible assets do you have? Where are you ahead in the game and where do you need to begin playing catch-up sooner rather than later? Whether you've got some pleasant surprises or some serious concerns, it's always better to know exactly what you're dealing with.

3) Schedule your priorities - To avoid devolving into a total pity party, make yourself a schedule that moves you forward and stick to it like you would stick to a job schedule. I like to establish a healthy mix of job hunting, skills development, networking and some fun - approximately in that order, but you decide what's important for you. Presumably, job hunting is your top priority, so make sure your actions back that up. But that doesn't mean it should be your only priority to the exclusion of everything else. Remember to have fun along the way and nurture your other needs in addition to keeping up your efforts to track down another source of income.

Part of keeping it a healthy mix means making what time you do spend job-hunting really count. Target the job boards (are you more likely to find work on Dice or LinkedIn? Monster or Yahoo?) that are most likely to carry your kind of postings and stay current with them. And whatever you do, don't forget to target specific companies that are appealing to you.

4) Learn something - Time spent unemployed is great for brushing up on your technical skills and these days, there are lots of low- (and even no-) cost options for doing so. I have spent time between jobs teaching myself skills such as JavaScript and XML. Back when I was working in television, I'd turn the sound down on the weather reports and practice the sort of on-air patter common for broadcast meteorologists. Make updating your marketable skills a priority - it will improve your resume and you'll have something to show for the time.

5) Stay positive - This one's a two-fer. Staying positive means avoiding both cynicism and pessimism. The best antidote for cynicism is to develop a philosophical attitutude. It may be someone else's fault you are where you are, or it may be your own but in the end, it doesn't really matter a whole heckuva lot. Blaming yourself or others won't help you find another job and in fact, could cost you opportunities if you come across in interviews as too negative. What you don't want to is to get stuck in the past and that's all that cynicism or dwelling on problems will do for you. Work hard at finding what's good in the situation and use that to propel you forward.

Pessimism is best dealt with by focusing on the possibilities, however unlikely they may seem at first. You may have legitimate reasons to be concerned about finding work or making ends meet in the meantime but it just keeps you stuck to spend your time thinking about it. Instead, keep your eye on what might be possible and do whatever you can to increase your chances that you'll be one of the few to buck the odds. Somebody out there is still hiring geeks and someone will get those jobs, even if they're far and few between. Do what you can to be one of them. For some geeks, that learning time mentioned in #4 might be better spent on developing soft skills like those used to develop good working interpersonal relationships than on learning Ruby on Rails.

6) Keep (or start) networking - Keep in touch with people you know from past jobs and other aspects of your life. If several of you find yourselves out of work at once, consider meeting for coffee on occasion to help each other through this tough time. You can look over each others' resumes, offer job hunting tips, and practice interview skills. Lunch 2.0 events help reduce your grocery bill and increase your networking opportunities; take advantage of them. If getting together in person doesn't work for you (and even if it does), you can and should also keep in touch electronically. Email and social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook can be great tools for staying in contact with people who might be able to help you land your next position.

7) Set goals - Whether it's networking contacts or job applications, make sure you identify interim objectives and track your progress. Not only will it keep you motivated to keep going, it will also keep you pointed in the right direction and you'll feel a sense of accomplishment along the way, even before all your shots on goal land you a new job.

8) Get involved - Use the skills you would bring to a job to help out some charitable organization. They benefit from your expertise, you stay current in your skills and have something worthwhile to show for the time you spend unemployed, and everyone wins. Or participate in events like Startup Weekend or 6-hour Startup as an alternative to drive-by carding-type networking events. Online, you can build credibility by offering your expertise on sites such as LinkedIn and Experts Exchange and other forums.Who knows, in getting involved, you may even meet and impress someone influential in your job search.

9) Reinvent yourself - Sometimes lay-offs are an opportunity to look at things from a new perspective and start fresh. If you're thinking that could be true for you, you owe it to yourself to set aside any fears you have and look at the situation with an objective eye. Do I really want to go in a new direction? What would it take to improve my chances of success? Books can be a huge help in figuring out your position on the matter. What Color Is Your Parachute is a perennial favorite of mine and if you like a bit more structure, you may appreciate my other favorite, Now What - 90 Days to a New Life Direction.

If you're thinking of starting a new business, know that it is likely to be tough but doesn't have to be impossible. Sometimes it's no more risky to go into business for yourself than it is to wait around for the next paycheck, especially if you've had some money set aside. If you're smart about budgeting and business plans, you may be able to turn chaos into opportunity. For those of you not in Boulder tomorrow, be on the watch for notes from the panel discussion, Crash Course - Growing a Startup Amid Uncertain Economic Times as a step toward being better prepared.

10) Get help - Geeks tend to operate in a meritocracy, which is all well and good until we get to the point where we think that means having to be able to do everything ourselves. Sometimes getting help is the best thing you can do for yourself. Another perspective on matters is often very beneficial and don't forget the additional value of making yourself more available for other pursuits more worthy of your direct involvement; sometimes you just can't know and do everything. Help can come in the form of a self-organized support group or an informal buddy system just as readily as from a coach. If what you really want is to work with a career transition coach though, find out about coaching rates and don't assume that it's out of your price range just because you're out of work. Perhaps you know others who are looking for similar services making it possible to band together for group coaching and share the costs.

You can also consider asking the coach to negotiate rates. I've found a lot of coaches and prospective clients really like the formula F = 0.1*(V-A) + A , where the coaching Fee is calculated using V for the Value of the engagement and A for the amount deemed by the client to be Affordable, as a way of preserving value in the coaching relationship while making the coaching services workable for the client.

The upshot is that we all know there are fluctuations in the tech sector - there have been for a lot of years now and some would argue that we never did fully recover from the bursting of the dot com bubble. Still, my sense is that technology is here to stay in one form or another, and that means there will always be tech jobs out there somewhere. If the work isn't going away entirely, it means that we have only to figure out how we fit into the new paradigm and do our best to adapt.

What adaptations will help you survive the downturn?

Save the Date

I received my fall course catalog in the mail today for the University of Washington Experimental College and guess what - my name is in it this time. The Experimental College is one of those interesting organizations that always has something cool to offer so I'm thrilled to be teaching Get a GRIP on Goals through 'ExCo'. I'm looking forward to bringing some great goal management techniques and tips to people who really want to figure out how to get things done in a way that helps them get more enjoyment out of life and work.

The ExCo folks are still busy spiffing up their new website (should be ready by 9/18) but in the meantime, the ASUW Experimental College fall catalog is available for perusal online. Plan on saving Friday evening, 10/17/08 from 6-9pm for Get a GRIP on Goals and be sure to register as soon as registration opens. Bring friends or come on your own - I promise it will be fun and informative!

How can you accomplish your goals when you don't even know what you want (or why you want it)?

In the Book

You pretty much know when you get a phone call at 5:15am that it's not going to be good. Today's call was a spoof - sounding like it came from DirecTV, trying to sell me on some new service but caller ID said I was calling myself. WTF?

Actually, if the call had come later in the morning, I might not have noticed my own name on the caller ID but at 5:15am, there was no way I was answering. In another stage of my life, when I was never home and had no answering machine I probably would have, but not these days. Hopefully it will die a quiet death, forever to remain a mystery. It sure beats the alternative anyway of having to track down some phishing punk to get them to quit calling me at odd hours.

Being in the book does have its downsides.

We're celebrating another member of the family being in a different book altogether this week. Tall person made it into the 2008 edition of Chambers USA for his environmental work and he just recently received his free copy. We've been "ooh"-ing and "ahh"-ing over the printed compliments ever since.

Unlike the Who's Who Among American High School Students that I regret to say we spent money on when I was a kid (it was tougher to know back then what a scam that was), Chambers is a highly respected directory of top lawyers used by many in-house counsel to find attorneys that other top clients recommend. It's a coup to be listed and we're very proud of the tall guy. Fortunately, he's tall enough, it'll be less noticeable if his head swells.

Speaking of books... if you've got some goal you're working on (like, say, getting rid of unwanted early-morning callers) and you care enough about the outcome to want to improve your chances of success, you might want to check out Get a GRIP on GOALS, the new eBook that I just released with Kjerstin Klein. It's totally free at this point but we're sure the value is much, much higher. Maybe not as high as a listing in Chambers but pretty worthwhile anyway and a lot easier to obtain.

By the way - comments are fixed now. Join the fun . Talk about how much you like the eBooks, don't like most lawyers except the ones you know who are actually cool people and "nice too!", whatever. Getting spoofed phishing calls doesn't make me feel less lonely. Hearing from you does!

Where would you want your name listed?

Next!

Now that House Bill 2674 has been delivered to Governor Gregoire today, it feels a lot easier to think about spending more time on other projects. First on my list is updating my materials explaining the GRIP model of goal management in greater detail because so many people have been looking for more information on that as a smarter alternative to SMART goals.

If you've ever felt so consumed by a thing that you're just glad to be getting it behind you so that you can pay attention to something else for a while, you'll understand my relief at moving on.

Having spent the past 14 months working on this bill so that it really does apply just to counselors and not also to coaches or other kinds of services outside the bounds of mental health care, I am glad to see this process reaching a successful conclusion. That was a lot of letters, phone conversations, and hours of listening to public testimony and committee executive action! For one of the predecessor bills last session, I even delivered my own public testimony on behalf of coaches.

Now I can get back to Goals, Requirements, Issues and Plans as well as other topics of interest to geeks and geeky pursuits of interest to me. If there is something in particular that interests you or you think might interest me, feel free to comment!

What is ending for you - and what does that allow you to begin?

Geeks and Goals

Okay, how many geeks out there are willing to admit to using MS Project or Basecamp or some such professional application to track and manage their personal goals? Be honest!

If you thought you might want something that seems a little more, well... personal, you might want to check out Zeenami, the new Seattle-based website that's just been made available as a public beta. I always love trying new things if I think they might be helpful and I'm just starting to play around with it. Already I can see there are two areas in particular that my clients might appreciate.

One is the personal assessments area of the kind that I use regularly in my coaching. There's a life fulfillment survey and a sort of mini-Myers-Briggs that even provides the option of letting other people tell you what they notice about your personality. What you can do with these sure beats my own hacked-together Excel spreadsheet versions by a significant margin.

In fact, I might as well toss my home-grown tools altogether and let Zeenami take over. It's far more professional-looking than I'm ever going to take the time to make them. And you don't even have to register to access the assessments, which is nice.

The other area is the goal tracker templates, and to use those you do have to register. I still like Llamagraphics LifeBalance for managing my life overall, and I recognize that plenty of people simply want something to track their progress on a handful of goals. Zeenami can work great for that and I'm already starting to build some templates of my own to share with clients and others. I'll let you know when I've got something you can use.

Of course, I can hear some folks out there protesting any sort of tracking whatsoever. I know, it feels too much like micromanaging, sometimes. Think about it, though - we track progress and milestones for projects at work as a way of monitoring progress, making sure progress happens - and that it happens in alignment with the intended goal.

How is what we want out of life any different from that or less deserving?

I'm curious about whether you track goals or not and how well that works for you. Send me your opinions at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let me know what sorts of tools you favor for making sure (the right) things happen in your life.

What do I want to make happen in the next 90 days?

Hell Week(s)

I'm having trouble imagining the full impact the I-5 construction is likely to have starting Monday morning. No big deal or bigger than we all figured or what? Here's a thought - how about buying some time to see what it's really like before venturing out into the mess by test-driving the telecommuting component of your business continuity plans.

You know, the plans that take into account the possibility that some flu pandemic could hit, or the 520 bridge could sink or float away or the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct could pancake (especially after having been damaged in the Nisqually Quake), leaving workplaces not nearly so accessible as normal.

Having already had to restore tech support services offsite once when our building was red-tagged after the Nisqually Quake, I highly recommend making sure you can keep doing business from a remote location. That capability could come in handy over the next few weeks if the traffic really does get as bad as they predict.

I'm interested to hear how you'll deal with the anticipated construction havoc. Send your thoughts to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com about what you will (would) do if getting to work is difficult (or impossible).

What's in the way of your goal and what will you do about that?

Pacing Yourself

If life (and yes, work too) is a marathon and not a sprint, you can begin to see that pacing yourself becomes an important concept to grab hold of. That might not be enough though. Consider that even a marathon has an ultimate end goal, after which point we expect to rest, and only after.

So what if it's about finding purpose in all that we do, while we're doing it? How does that impact how you work and how you live? Personally, I find that when I focus on this instead of the deadlines, I find much more to enjoy about my work and my life and it is easier to find some sense of balance. Amazingly enough, the deadlines are easier to reach too. Don't ask me to explain that one; I haven't figured out yet how it works but it does seem to.

This week, the end goal was Lawyerpalooza, which came off very well. It was a pretty late night for a Monday night with plenty to do still on Tuesday. Today, I'm taking it a bit easier and pacing myself in the midst of the other things I still have on my plate to get done. It's interesting that instead of really feeling tired, I feel only a greater appreciation for all the effort that went into pulling off the event because I can feel it in my body, in my bones. While we don't yet know how much money was raised, all the bands made great music and everybody had a terrific time. It felt like we were fully living our purpose.

What about you - have you tried focusing on purpose instead of end goals? What have you noticed? Send your observations to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com as well as any tips or tricks you've learned along the way.

What greater sense of purpose drives you?

Building On Small Successes

So now that you're starting to move a little bit or are at least thinking about it more than you may have been, I am reminded of something a lot of geek folks deal with... we tend to want to be perfect straight out of the chute.

Well, here's the deal: it doesn't work that way. Yeah, we tend to learn fast and that's probably our ticket to stardom, but you've still got to start somewhere when it comes to something new. This is especially true when it comes to physical activity when you may not have had much focus on that in the past. (Any?)

You can get this message many places and the concept is applicable to all aspects of life and work.

The first time I ran across it and noticed it for the good advice that it really is was in a book called The Runner's Handbook by Bob Glover. He writes about his Run Easy program where the amount of running (or even walking, depending on the level of fitness you're starting with) he advocates in the beginning is so small as to be downright embarrassing. At least that tends to be true for those of us Type-A folks whose natural inclination is to "get in there and do it right if we're going to bother to get in there and do it at all. The trouble with the Type-A approach is that it just isn't sustainable.

FlyLady knows that starting small and building up from there is where it's at too. I'm sure you're sniggering now - or will be as soon as you visit the site. One of smartest geeks I know, though, is out there shining his sink and doing the 27-fling boogie on a regular basis.

Many of the Eastern philosophies dwell deeply on the subject too. Don't beat yourself up if you're not "there" yet - work on where you are instead and begin stretching out from there when you're ready. If it sounds like yoga, you're not far off, given that it's where I heard the message most recently myself. Added bonus for the male-dominated field of tech-geeks: group yoga classes can be a great place to pick up babes.

On a related, but less physical note, there's even a book called Start Where You Are that takes the reader through at least some of the how of giving into what is happening with us right now and learning to accept and even use it to make improvements.

What stands in your way? What do you do to overcome that? Send your thoughts to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and we'll discuss it.

For now, what is one small step you can take toward your goal? Are you willing to make that step?

Why Bother?

Doing the right thing can get very discouraging. Often, I find my effort has been wasted because I was shooting for the wrong target. Or I just didn't have what it took to accomplish my goal. All too frequently, not getting what I was after comes down to some other idiot (okay, maybe it just seems like the person is an idiot - you're not going to deprive me of my feeling of righteous indignation, are you?) blocking my efforts.

So sometimes I find I'm tilting at windmills, seemingly to no real avail. It's enough to make a person give up. What keeps me at it? My top ten:

10) Knowing it's the right thing
9) I'm too stubborn to give up
8) The occasional success
7) Finding new approaches to try
6) Learning something new about the issue
5) Finding a previously missing ingredient for the next go-round
4) Stubbornness (wait, I used that one already)
3) Knowing that people around me need an alternative to the current situation
2) Greater pain continuing down the wrong path

And the number one reason
1) Still knowing it's the right thing to do

Oh, and that righteous indignation? Totally justified much of the time but somehow I've never found a good use for it. Have you? Email me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and I'll respond here.

Thinking Broadly

I took this past week off - I started a new job, building a tech support organization for a startup. I'm excited about the prospect - the building of a way of doing things, supporting product again and that sort of thing.

I was going to add "while still getting to exercise a broader way of looking at things and having my ideas heard", then I realized that was very limiting. Yes, it's been easier as a manager. AND I've always believed strongly that my ability to think broadly and find ways to get my ideas heard (usually through some form of 'marketing', not force) was what led me to management and allowed me to grow into that role & flourish. Not the other way around.

As people who report to others, I think it furthers our common goals and our individual interests to think at the level of the people we report to as much as possible - not that we think LIKE them (we have to think like ourselves) but that we take into consideration the same things that they do. It helps them do their jobs more easily (which helps us out in the long run) and it makes our own jobs "taller", more interesting.

The reverse is true of managers - I believe I make a better manager by understanding and taking into consideration the same things that people who report to me do. Right now, I don't have anyone reporting to me. I'm doing all of it. And when there comes the opportunity to share that load, I expect I'll have a better understanding of the issues at hand. And you can bet I'll be looking to hire someone who also has the capability to think broadly.