Michael Linenberger's Blog

4/16/2012

I get this question sometimes: “The MYN and 1MTD systems insist on no more than 5 Critical Now items. But what if I have more than five?”

Well, the reason for the limit is that the list will become a blur if it gets too big, and then you will overlook something. So if you truly have more than 5, here are some strategies to cull it down:

• When you first notice there are more than five, pick off a few of the very quick ones and do them now. No time like the present to make progress.
• Combine related ones together. For instance if you have 4 calls to make today, make one task called “Today’s Calls” and put the details in the body of that task. The idea is to do all the calls in one sitting. But also recall my discussion of not using the MYN/1MTD list for operation duties that are better served by a dedicated software system. For example, use a CRM or sales management system that lists calls if your job is to make 25 sales calls per day; don’t rely on MYN/1MTD for those kinds of high-volume operational tasks.
• And of course, make sure the items on the list are truly Critical Now items. Recall, they need to pass the going home test to stay on the list. That test is: “Would you stay at work well past your normal departure time to complete these items if they were not done?” If the answer is no, then move them down to the Opportunity Now list.

Michael

April 12, 2012

Here’s a question I get in nearly every class I teach. “What do I do with low-priority e-mail that I don’t need to attend to now but I know I may want to get to later? I tend to leave these in my inbox until I can read them, and so emptying the inbox like you recommend is hard to do.”

My solution? Tag it with a “Read Later” Category in Outlook (or use a “Read Later” Label in Gmail), and immediately move it out of your Inbox. And then schedule blocks of time on slower days to catch up on your low-priority mail reading. Continue reading →

April 12, 2012

I do a number of radio interviews and later get the links sent to me and often forget to post them. Here is another from January:

http://www.insidepersonalgrowth.com/2012/01/podcasts/podcast-335-the-one-minute-to-do-list-with-michael-linenberger/

Michael

April 11, 2012

Here are links to a couple of recent radio interviews, should you like to listen!

Ohio Fox Radio station:

http://radio.cincom.com/2012/04/michael-linenberger/

Patricia Raskin talk radio

http://www.michaellinenberger.com/Recordings/PatriciaRaskinInterviewJan2012.mp3

Michael

Mar 29, 2012

We all get requests to do additional “work” many times a day. Most of those action requests are embedded in the e-mails we get all day long. Beyond the time just reading an e-mail, many e-mails can lead to substantial things we have to do—and doing them can add hours of work to our workday. Because of that, we are all getting the feeling that we’ve got way too much to do, that we cannot get our core work done.

Well, there is an 80/20 rule on all these requests that are coming in. The rule goes like this: 80% of action requests we get by e-mail will decline in importance over time if left undone. Only 20% will get more urgent if not done quickly. If we use this rule appropriately, we can start to solve our feeling of overwhelm and scattered work focus, and accomplish a lot more of our core work. Continue reading →

March 24/2012

I feel we all have three primary personal work management tools:

1. the in-box,
2. the 1MTD/MYN to-do list,
3. and the calendar…

…and I feel that we should make sure we keep these three primary management areas clean and well maintained.

Specifically, make sure you get rid of non-useful information in these areas. The calendar is usually not too bad, but the other areas get out of control quickly.

If there is old useless information in your in-box or to-do list, you will start to get into habit of repeatedly skipping over broad portions of each, and then the tool becomes weaker, less useful. And you’ll start missing some important items there.

So file mail from your Inbox immediately after you triage it (except for deferred replies, and process those within a day or so).

And don’t let your 1MTD/MYN Critical Now or Opportunity Now tasks list get full of tasks that you skip over week after week. Instead, schedule out tasks you know you are not going to work on soon. Or put them in the Over the Horizon section. Otherwise you will just glaze over when viewing entire sections of your list, and then the tool becomes useless.

And in ToodleDo, don’t let the Significant Outcome (SOC) section get old. You’ll just stop looking at that section if you do. Set start dates ahead on those to keep it well focused.

Using 1MTD and MYN, it’s not hard to maintain these tools–just do it!

Michael

March 19, 2012

This is definitely off my normal range of topics but it’s something I’m passionate about and it could be of use to many of you. I’ve finally found a stylus for the iPad that I can take good accurate ink notes with, and I’m really excited about it. I feel taking good notes should be a part of any business skill set, and this stylus (called the Jot Pro) in my mind finally makes doing that on an iPad practical.

Background: Tablet PC’s were good at this
Many of you may know that I wrote a book in 2004 about the Tablet PC, and it became the best-selling book about the Tablet PC at that time. I don’t recommend you buy it now, it’s horribly out of date and mostly out of print, but I’ve been watching the tablet space closely since then. One of the things I liked best about the Tablet PC, and wrote a lot about,  was using it to take good ink notes right on the screen. I did that all the time in business meetings and used it when brainstorming.

iPad: not so much
So when the iPad came out, I wasn’t happy that it was fairly impractical for electronic ink notes. Sure, you could write with your finger tip. And later some companies released styluses that sported broad foam tips that imitated a fingertip. But using those, due to the unwieldy size of the tip, I always ended up creating huge lettering—the size of which, in my mind, made normal note taking almost impossible. Some people could do it more precisely, but it never worked for me. After trying 2 or 3 new and improved models that still did not meet my needs, I abandoned that quest.

Jot Pro Stylus
That’s why I’m so excited about the new stylus that came out a few months ago called the Jot Pro. Continue reading →

March 10, 2012

I get this question periodically: Can you use Gmail with MYN or 1MTD? The answer is YES.

Often this question is from people migrating from Outlook. If you do leave Outlook I recommend you use ToodleDo for tasks. My 1MTD book talks about how to configure and use it for MYN (get a free PDF of that book here). Don’t try to use the Gmail tasks system for MYN—not enough features (there are ways to use Gmail tasks for 1MTD, I’ll write them up someday, but they offer no upgrade path to MYN, so I’d avoid starting there).

Once using ToodleDo and MYN, you can use any email system, including Gmail, to copy tasks into ToodleDo. And for filing mail you can use Gmail “Labels” just like Outlooks Categories. Use the Archive space just like the Processed Mail folder in Outlook. It all works!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating everyone leave Outlook for Gmail… I still like Outlook e-mail and calendar better—I feel it has more features, especially for the business user. But you have the freedom of choice in MYN & 1MTD to use any e-mail system.

Michael

March 5, 2012

Recently a friend of mine was telling me about another friend who hoards things in her house—old no-longer-used items were everywhere—and it was becoming a real problem. There were entire rooms that were filled and not-usable for their intended purpose; bedrooms could not be slept in, offices could not be used. It made me think about e-mail and task hoarding—something I know I do and many other people do. Is that a comparable problem?

Well, if you’re hoarding everything in your main in-box or in your main task list then, then yes it is a problem. That’s because when the clutter is in your face like that, it degrades your ability to decide what needs focus. And it causes you to rehash items over and over again as you hunt for buried high priority items; and that wastes time. Instead, use good 1MTD and MYN approaches to triage quickly, and to then move those items on.

But what if you are “hoarding” years’ worth of old e-mails and tasks out of sight (say in a folder for e-mail, or in a designated low-priority area for tasks)? Well, I strongly feel it’s an acceptable thing to do; perhaps even something that you should be encouraged to do. Continue reading →

Feb 23, 2012

Currently codenamed Office 15, the next version of Office, including Outlook, is due out for beta release this summer. Here’s a very short article from someone who got an early look at it (not many details):

http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/23/2818611/microsoft-office-15-screenshots-technical-preview

It sounds to me like they are optimizing it for future Windows tablets.

Michael