Setting Goals and Making Them Visible

When I was in high school, I wanted to get a computer.  Computers weren’t nearly as inexpensive as they are now days.  The one I wanted represented about 15% of my fathers yearly salary at the time. It was much more expensive than what I could reasonably expect to save during the summer–even with taking on some extra odd jobs and saving every penny possible. I really wanted to have a computer when I started the next school year, so I decided to make that my primary goal for the summer.

To help me focus on my goal, I set aside a savings account specifically for the purchase.  Using my parents typewriter, I created a thermometer style graph showing how much money I had saved and taped it to the back of the savings book.  I also taped a picture of the computer I wanted. Every time I made a deposit I updated the graph.  I kept the deposit book on my desk where I could see my progress every time I sat down.

I still remember picking up a blue ballpoint pen, filling in the rest of the thermometer and drawing the top of it exploding. A few weeks later, I had my computer. That savings account has been closed for years, but I still keep the account book to help remind me of the power of making goals visible. Some day when my daughter wants to achieve something that she thinks nearly impossible, I’m going to pull out an old First Kansas Federal Savings and Loan savings book and tell her how I bought my first computer.

How NOT to Wake Up

As a follow up to this mornings post, I wanted to show you a video of a new alarm clock called Clocky.  It was developed by some students at MIT.  The video will give you a good idea of how it works, but basically when the time comes, it shrieks, jumps off your night stand and starts running around the room making R2D2 noises.

The idea is that you have to get up to turn it off.  On the positive side of things, it will make you get up and move around a bit so you’ll be awake.  On the negative side, it may put you in a very bad move.  I heard that someone was designing something similar that would fly above your bed until you swat it down.  Waking up to a giant electronic insect isn’t my idea of waking up right.

A small two wheeled robot running around the floor sounds only marginally better, but I suppose if it gets you out of bed on time, it might be well worth any annoyance.  Missing important meetings is probably going to put you in a worse mood than a run around your bedroom first thing in the morning.

Has anyone actually used one of these things?  What did you think of it?  How did it

TIP: Wake Up Right

Imagine waking up to your alarmclock. Now imagine gently waking up as the sunlight fills your room with light. Which seems like a better recipe for having a wonderful high performance day?

Alarm clocks are designed to wake you up. So they making annoying and jarring sounds to jerk you right out of your peaceful sleep. You have to wonder if this is really a good way to start your day. I mean really, do you want the first few seconds of each day to be associated with something containing the word “alarm”?

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Behance’s Action Pad Giveaway

Congratulations to Desi and John–the two winners of the Behance Action Pad giveaway. I’ll be shipping them out be the end of the week.

Thanks to everyone who entered by suggesting different ways to manage todo lists.  You can read all the comments here.

Here are a few random suggestions that I found interesting along with my comments:

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TIP: Logging Instant Messaging

I do a lot of business over instant messaging.  Often these chat sessions have important information that I need later.  I use to copy out any important info into a separate file, but now many of the chat clients let you log your instant messaging.  Some operating systems make it easy to search through your chat sessions to find a bit of information when you need it.

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A Better ToDo List - Behance Giveaway

Yesterday we looked at Behance’s Action Pads.  Today we are going to give a few away to random commentors on this post.   Specifically we are looking for comments, ideas, suggestions, or random thoughts about how to make a better todo list.  So anything you’ve done to let you better manage, capture, or execute your list of actions is fair game.

So to get things rolling, here are a few suggestions for todo lists based on my experience:

1. Braindump list – keep a list of all the random "todo someday" items that you think of.  This gives you a place to capture them without cluttering up your daily list.
2. Use objects — sometimes using objects to represent your list instead of a written list can be beneficial.  This is especially true if the object is part of what you need to complete the task.  For example, setting out my work out clothes to help remind me to exercise can help motivate me much more than just seeing "exercise" written on a list.
3. Limit Items on Daily List — if there is no way you are going to actually accomplish 40 items on your daily todo list, don’t fill your list with things you aren’t going to get done.  You should develop the habit of regularly completing all the items on your daily list.  If you aren’t getting the list done in its entirety at least 50% of the time, you probably are putting too much on it. Developing the habit of completing all the items is more important than how many items you have listed.
4. Write on your mirror — dry erase markers and your bathroom mirror can be a handy way to leave yourself a note to start your morning routine.
5. Cross reference – this is particularly useful for your braindump list.  If you reference an email or other piece of information, make sure you include enough information to be able to find it later.  For example, recording the sender and date of an email, is usually enough to locate it using your email client’s search functionality.
6. Quality list — how you make your list sends yourself a subconscious message about its importance. That doesn’t mean you need to write on gold paper, but an old receipt doesn’t convey the importance of your todo list. Write neat on good paper so every time you look at the list it conveys quality and organization.
7. Add to your list – everyone has experienced a day where they did a lot of work, but nothing that was on their list.  In these types of situations, go ahead and add the tasks that came up to your list and mark them off.  This helps keep you in the habit of using your list and lets you see your achievements even if it wasn’t what you planned to do originally.

What are things you do to help you be effective in using your todo list?  Do you have any type of special paper, layout, computer program or other tool that you use? Please leave a comment below and don’t forget we’ll be giving away several Action Pads to the authors of random comments. 

Behance’s Action Pads

Awhile back we looked at Behance’s Action Method Process. They have a line of products to help support this process.  They offered to send me a few to see what I thought and to give away to readers of Productivity501.

At first I must say that I was skeptical. When it really comes down to it, the Action Pads are places to record a list of your actions–so how is that any different than the to-do list I normally keep on the index cards I carry with me?  I mean can’t you capture the same information using whatever paper you have available?  Yes, you can. But I found that the design of the products helped change the way I approach creating a task list in positive ways.

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TIP: Receipts Folder

If you spend anytime buying stuff from the web, you are familiar with all the pages that say, "print this out for your records".  So how many people actually print out those pages?  I know I don’t (unless I’m buying something very expensive).  Usually I’ll try to keep the email receipt, but sometimes that gets blocked by spam filters.

Here is how I’ve started saving those receipts without worrying about printing them out:

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Being Organized Saves More Than Time

Everyone knows that being more organized can save time.  But it can also save you a lot of money.  How many times have you had to go out and buy something just because you couldn’t locate it in your house? 

A few weeks ago, we were having someone  come over to house sit for a few weeks.  I felt bad because we didn’t have a television in the house, so I set about hooking up an old DVD player to my computer monitor so they could at least watch some movies while we were gone. 

The video worked fine, but I needed a connector to hook up the audio.  I looked through a box of audio cables, but finally gave up and went to Radio Shack.  25 minutes and $7 later (which seems ridiculous for 6 inches of wire), I had the cable I needed.

I am sure I own the necessary cable, but after several moves in the past 12 months, I couldn’t locate it.  After thinking about it, this isn’t uncommon and I’m probably at least a bit more organized than the average person.  I imagine I’ve spent several thousand dollars and countless hours over the past 5 years buying duplicate items that I didn’t really need. 

How much do you spend on things that you already have?

TIP: Where Do I Look For It?

When it comes to organizing your stuff, most people deal with every item and ask "Where do I put this"? This is not the question to ask.  When you go to look for the item you may or may not be able to remember the answer to the question "Where do I put this?"      

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