Comments on: Succeeding at Far Off Goals – Last in a series

By: Tony Ettwein, Kalamazoo

Tony Ettwein, Kalamazoo — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:34:31 +0000

Mick,

Good idea on the color coding. Color coding helps a lot of people to better visualize the big picture. I now use color coding on my Outlook calendar to help me better visualize whether a block of time is set up for a project, team meeting, personal/vacation time, etc.

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By: DanMulhern

DanMulhern — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:11:48 +0000

Mick,
Love the color-coding idea!
I think you’re coaching yourself on working at home – most of the experts say that it’s important to create a work-type environment at home – whether you are between jobs or creating a home business. In a prior RFL (and radio show) an expert called them “interim structures.”
D.

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By: DanMulhern

DanMulhern — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:10:27 +0000

Mark John,
I’m with Gwen Frostic. Plato and Aristotle just about covered all the new ideas a couple milliennia back.
Thanks for the nice compliment.

Dan

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By: Mick

Mick — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:23:41 +0000

Dan,

Thanks for bringing out the matrix. Back when I had a job, I used this system, but with a difference: each quadrant had a color and each color corresponded to a folder for items that could not be handled immediately.

Quadrant 1 was Red. To help keep my desk organized, urgent and important items were in red folders. If someone put a red folder on my desk, it meant: Look at this now, it is a priority!

Quadrant 2 was Green: One needed to move on these items, but it was not urgent.

Quadrant 3 was Blue: This was often the thickest folder.

Quadrant 4 was Yellow: Usually, this folder had very little in it — most items in this category were filed in the round file after first cursory review.

I can’t say I was religious about maintaining the system, but failure to follow these rules usually meant long hours trying to meet a deadline that “somehow” escaped notice while buried in trivia.

One final note: I have found that this system is much more difficult to maintain when working at home.

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By: Mark John Hunter

Mark John Hunter — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:57:36 +0000

More than ten years ago I went to a discussion by Gwen Frostic, a poet. She started by saying that she had nothing original to say, but that perhaps she might in her own way of speaking reach the listener who had heard these messages before, but had not understood or taken them to heart.

In offering this series, and all your leadership emails, I think that is what you also are doing. We need many voices telling us about the principals of leadership; including here how to lead yourself – time management, triage, prioritization, or whatever term hits you.

Sometimes it is like bannging your head against a wall, but those who teach these principals are of considerable value. It only takes one success at teaching a leader to start a revolution, cure disease, save lives, creat jobs, et cetera, and then potentially millions of persons benefit.

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By: Tony Ettwein, Kalamazoo

Tony Ettwein, Kalamazoo — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:34:47 +0000

Dan,

Thanks for the great suggestion, as well as the reminder from Covey. It’s been several years since I read “7 Habits,” and I think it would be a good book for me to revisit now. I still think about Covey’s suggestions, if not every day, at least every 2-3 days. But I had forgotten about the two-week suggestion. I agree that two weeks is a good balance between forcing true action and allowing time for planning actions within the big picture.

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By: Tom Butz

Tom Butz — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:31:30 +0000

Dan – great entry this morning. So simple yet SO difficult to stay in the right quadrant.

Thanks for bringing us back to the basics!

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