Archive for the ‘Work Life’ Category

Being more Productive
Being More Productive
One of my hobbies is studying how to be more productive.  I have read David Allen’s GTD books, listen to 43 Folders podcast, thirst after Inbox Zero and talk to people about how they manage their time.  Below are some things I’ve learned.
Plan your year in context
I learned this from Brad Feld.  Think of your time in segments: Year, Quarter, Month, Week, Day.  Create a routine for each of these segments that you follow such as taking a vacation each quarter, wake up at the same time each day, etc.
Understand how your spend your time each day
I am using a utility called RescueTime that runs in the background and analyzes the applications you have open.  When you are away from your computer RescueTime asks you “What have you been doing?”.  You can view reports of “Time Wasted” and “Producive Time”.  I don’t run RescueTime everyday, just every once in a while to help me stay on track.  It’s amazing how much time I waste everyday!
Trust your System
I learned this from David Allen’s GTD books.  I use Things as my ToDo list.  Anytime anyone says anything that I need to follow up on I dump it into my Inbox on Things.  Each week I have my “Weekly Review” to organize this list.  The amount of stuff that I procrastinate on or drop has been reduced dramatically by using Things.
Morning Think
A few days a week I try and wakeup at 5am.  For about 2 hours I sip coffee and do whatever I want, usually read or research on my laptop sitting in my robe.  This time is extremely productive and helps me think about the big picture, read or just knock off small tasks.
2009 has been a transformative year for me as I’ve become extremly productive following the above tactics.  My goals in 2010 are to be more productive on the bigger things in my life now that I have the day to day figured out.

One of my hobbies is studying how to be more productive.  I have read David Allen’s GTD books, listen to 43 Folders podcast, thirst after Inbox Zero and talk to people about how they manage their time.

Below are some things I’ve learned.

Plan your year in context

I learned this from Brad Feld who calls this “The Rhythms of his Life“.  Think of your time in segments: Year, Quarter, Month, Week, Day.  Create a routine for each of these segments that you follow such as taking a vacation each quarter, wake up at the same time each day, etc.

Understand how your spend your time each day

I am using a utility called RescueTime that runs in the background and analyzes the applications you have open.  When you are away from your computer RescueTime asks you “What have you been doing?”.  You can view reports of “Time Wasted” and “Producive Time”.  I don’t run RescueTime everyday, just every once in a while to help me stay on track.  It’s amazing how much time I waste everyday!

rescuetime

This is a graph showing my day today.  I woke up at 5am for my Morning Think time but my daughter woke up as well so I spent my morning with her.  As you can see I took a break around lunchtime and mid-day is when I am interrupted the most with random questions and water cooler conversation.

Trust your System

I learned this from David Allen’s GTD books.  I use Things as my ToDo list.  Anytime anyone says anything that I need to follow up on I dump it into my Inbox on Things.  Each week I have my “Weekly Review” to organize this list.  The amount of stuff that I procrastinate on or drop has been reduced dramatically by using Things.

things

The above shows the Inbox view in my Things app.  Every task, usually life stuff but some work stuff, I dump into the Inbox for “processing” later.

Morning Think

I have written about my Morning Think Time on this blog previously.  A few days a week I try and wakeup at 5am.  For about 2 hours I sip coffee and do whatever I want, usually read or research on my laptop sitting in my robe.  This time is extremely productive and helps me think about the big picture, read or just knock off small tasks.

What’s Next?

2009 has been a transformative year for me as I’ve become extremly productive following the above tactics.  My goals in 2010 are to be more productive on the bigger things in my life now that I have the day to day figured out.

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My Workspace at The Fuel Team in Denver

Recently we restructured our teams at The Fuel Team and I found myself not sitting with the Dev Team for the first time in my career.  I was hesitant at first but the physical move has created a new headspace for me to operate in.  Our Dev Team cranks hard, everyday.  They work on big features, production work, design work, work within multiple languages and platforms and find time to have a ton of fun as well.  Being separated from this has allowed me to slow down my pace, ween myself off the high that comes from cranking out work, and think hard about our products, product roadmap and software development approach.  It’s funny how the grass is always greener.  I always wished for more time to think about our products, now that I have it, I find myself longing to program….trying to learn Rails and Objective C in my spare time!

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Running everyday in August

I was searching for a new fitness goal and decided to run, at least a mile or so, everyday in August. I completed my goal and encourage others to give it a try. Below is a list of Pros and Cons from my experience:

Pros:

  • feeling healthy on a daily basis
  • getting more fresh air than normal
  • having something interesting to talk about
  • lost 3 lbs
  • bought new running shoes
  • plowed through some of those podcasts I wished I had more time to listen to

Cons:

  • legs, especially my knees, were sore a few days and I knew I should’ve rested but instead I ran
  • my normal runs became shorter (averaging 2.5 miles), no long runs in August

This challenge was a great lesson in “glass 1/2 empty, glass 1/2 full” thinking.  You have to approach everyday with the right attitude.  Either it’s “This sucks, I am so busy and there is no way I can go for a run” or this “I’m sorry, I can’t meet you for drinks after work.  I am trying to run everyday in August and have to get my run in, you understand right?”

I recommend this challenge for anyone, runner or non-runner.  It’s a great way to turn just another normal month into something more.

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Setting up a 529 Plan in Colorado

We had a baby in January and I’ve been procrastinating setting up her 529 plan.

“A 529 Plan is an education savings plan operated by a state or educational institution designed to help families set aside funds for future college costs. It is named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code which created these types of savings plans in 1996.”

Source: savingforcollege.com

I’ve skimmed articles and listened to podcasts about the subject, here are some highlights:

1. You have to research and choose a State offered 529 Plan

I chose Colorado’s 529 Plan, my home state, mainly because I just love Colorado..and I wanted the tax benefits their 529 Plan gave me for being a resident. I then choose the Direct Portfolio Savings Plan because it was managed by Vanguard and I have an IRA with them.

2. Once you’ve decided on a 529 Plan, you have to signup and choose options

The Direct Portfolio Savings Plan 529 Plan that I chose offered 4 options, each based on level of risk. Of course, I have no idea what I’m doing so I just choose the first option, “Age-based”, it adjusts your level of risk over time beginning at high risk and moving to low risk as it gets closer to the beginning of college. This is the option the Obama’s chose for their kids.

3. Now you can start contributing

The maximum the 529 Plan can have in it is $280,000. You can contribute whatever you want each year until you reach that maximum.

4. When you are ready to pull money out:

Distributions from the Plan that go towards tuition costs come out tax-free. This makes sense because the money has already been taxed when it goes in but then comes out without being taxed. So, you are not double taxed on this money or it’s gains by the IRS. Read this FAQ page for more info

I also enjoyed listening to Marketplace’s Story on choosing 529 Plans.

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How I use Social Networks

I read this paragraph from an article titled 10 Ways Social Media will change in 2009:

“They will connect around meaningful topics and have live and simultaneous conversations within parameters they themselves define, which will bring relevance back to their interaction with others.”

This got me thinking about my “meaningful topics” and how they related to the social networking technologies I use the most: Facebook, Twitter, BrightKite, LinkedIn and Gyminee.

Facebook is my mindless entertainment

Like everyone it seems, I joined Facebook a while ago and connected with a few old high school friends.  That seems like the good ole’ days of Facebook, now I am friends with clients, coworkers, and people I grew up with but were never friends with and my wife and Denver friends.  Facebook competes with entertainment like watching TV, reading a magazine, etc.  Most of my Facebook activity is at night or triggered by receiving an email notification.  Facebook becomes increasingly relevant to my social life as my friends begin to use it and post time sensitive, relevant things like “wanna go skiing tomorrow?”.  Find Kelly Taylor on Facebook

Twitter means keeping in touch with the tech community

Most of the people I follow on twitter are tweeps in the Boulder/Denver tech scene, VCs or software developers.  Only a small percentage of people I follow are actually friends of mine in real life.  Surfing twitter usually sends me down productive, educational rabbit holes, informs me of what’s going on in the community and what is top of mind for the important thinkers in the tech industry.  I take twitter very seriously and feel it’s added tremendous value to my career.  Find Kelly Taylor on twitter

BrightKite broadcasts how rad I am

I only “Check In” occasionally using BrightKite on my iPhone.  Usually I do this because I am somewhere cool like my favorite restaurant Mountain Sun or hanging out skiing in Silverthorne.  I love BrightKite’s iPhone app and have fun with the service….but kindof wish twitter would buy them to simplify things.  Find Kelly Taylor on BrightKite

LinkedIn is my Career Counselor

I look at and tweak my LinkedIn profile occasionally which helps me perform an internal audit of my career and how things are progressing.  The act of joining groups on LinkedIn seems almost more important than participating in them.  Occasionally I comment on a discussion or attempt to connect with someone through someone in my network, but that’s about the extent of it.  View Kelly Taylor’s profile on LinkedIn

Gyminee is my training reality check

I’ve used web apps before to help with my marathon and triathlon training such as Training Peaks.  My latest favorite is Gyminee because of the beautiful UI including graphs and “letter grades” as well as it’s social networking component.  Most of my “friends” on Gyminee are similar to my twitter friends, I only know them online and we’ve possibly met once or twice in real life.  Even though I don’t know these people it still provides a good motivator for me to keep up on my workouts, post my progress and comment on group discussions.  View Kelly Taylor’s Workouts on Gyminee

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It is interesting to ponder the “meaningful topics” in my life that I don’t use social networking technologies for, there aren’t any.

This leads me to the conclusion that the idea of a “Social Network” is going to fade into basic computing and life infrastructure.  

I enjoyed reading the above articles for the author’s predictions in 2009:  Ad Revenue, Convergence of Networks and Platforms, Social Media Jobs…very similar to 2008 predictions I’ve read.  One predication I feel he missed is that today’s “Social Media” is the gateway to interactive TV.  Watching Obama’s Inauguration speech on CNN/Facebook with my Facebook “News Feed” showing my friends realtime comments about the event is a good indicator of things to come.

All in all, pondering Social Media’s future from time to time is a good thing.  Goodness knows most of my drinking beers, dinner with friends conversation begins with “So, on Facebook I read that…..”.


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