Archive - Dec 2006

One area that's always been interesting to me is self improvement (the focus of this blog), and especially education. Thus, one focus of my personal productivity practice is academia (there's a reason I sometimes call it WorkFlow 101). Following is a brief report on a project in this area that's just finished up.

Overview

I recently completed a small pilot funded by the office of new faculty development at a large university. I approached the director to see if there was interest, and to figure out a way to test the effectiveness of the Getting Things Done methodology for new faculty. We came up with an informal program in which I would work with three self-selected early faculty members, coach them in the method, and hopefully give the director enough information to decide if the results merited a larger follow-on effort.

I'm working with the director of a major engineering research center next week (one of my services is one-on-one desk-side workflow coaching), and I wanted to share some of the best practices that I've collected that executives might consider in working with their assistants (AKA support staff, administrative assistants, secretaries, etc.) Note: Today I won't be covering delegation best practices - more on that at a later date.

Following are those best practices I've come across, grouped by workflow phase (see Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity for details). It's a bit rough, but see what you think!

Collecting

• AA answers phone, takes messages. exec gives personal # out to those requiring direct access. NB: 'phone logs' not recommended

A quick question for the Blogger--savvy among you: Do you know of any problems switching from the original version to the new beta? There are some nice features I've been asking to provide (e.g., labels/categories, label feeds, and comment feeds), but I thought I'd get a heads-up first. Thanks!

(And yes, I realize it's passe using Blogger instead of running my own customized blog from matthewcornell.org, but as long as it's not getting in the way of my message, it's not a priority right now.)

As programmers, we often have the luxury of focusing on interesting and challenging technical problems, without having to worry too much (depending on your work arrangement) about the external factors that make this kind of sheltered life possible. However, it turns out there are some big pluses to developing our people networking skills and getting out and meeting folks. This is especially true when we move out on our own (or become part of a very small team). These advantages include:

• More business,
• Unexpected opportunities,
• Great product ideas and directions, and
• Improved health and life satisfaction.

Frank Meeuwsen, author of the terrific What's the next action GTD blog is reflecting on two years (!) of practicing GTD. Frank kindly invited me to share in his accomplishment - in my small way - by contributing some thoughts on the topic.