Ramblings from a travelling manager

Changes

2011-11-20T11:21:00.001+08:00

One thing you can always be sure of, things always change. In my last post, but the first after a long break, I mentioned that a lot has been happening in my life and a number of things for me both personally and professionally will undergo very significant change in coming months. As these events unfold, I expect I will post about it.

When we do have a lot of things go through evolution, or even revolution in our life in a short space of time, it is too easy for it all to overwhelm and place us under enormous stress, or even drown us. In these situations it is easy for someone outside of your situation to try and be helpful with a well meant "don't worry about it", "it will be fine I'm sure" or the always optimistic "change is good, embrace it, run with it!"

These sentiments are all very well and but we all know it is never that simple. If it was, we wouldn't get stressed in the first place and just get on with it.

One approach has really helped me cope up to now at least. No matter what changes you are being bombarded with, you can always classify them into two categories, those you have control over, and those you have no control over.

Let's discuss the second category first, the changes you have no control over. One example for most of us is a global financial crisis, which may ultimately result in a winding back of activity at your workplace and eventually, job losses. You have little or no control over this, so all you can do is manage the risk as best you can (eg. don't take unnecessary financial undertakings, keep an eye out for other job opportunities, maintain good timekeeping and attitude at work so you are not standing out as a good candidate to be laid off) and just get on with it.

For every change that is outside of your control, the only real approach you can use is the same, be aware of what is happening around you, minimise any impact through making careful decisions and if a sensible opportunity arises to escape or resolve the change, take it. Once you have worked through this, there is nothing else you can do, but let the situation look after itself and move on.

That then leaves you with those things you can control. There is more work to be done here, but the reward is that you can fix it, and make things better for you. First you need to take the time to analyse the change or problem. Then, make a list of what actions you need to do to influence this back in your favour, or even fix it completely. Finally, it's time to put the rubber on the road and actually get it done. Sometimes these actions may be difficult, or uncomfortable, but ultimately if they need to be done, you have no choice.

It's always easier to write or talk about these things, but if you square away the items that you have no real control over, you can then concentrate on the stuff you can work on, and before you know it, you've survived what could have been a very tough period in your life.

Well that's my plan for the moment, let's see how it goes.

Later.

Long time, no post

2011-11-05T00:57:00.001+08:00

Well, sorry for the big lag between posts. Been distracted with a number of other issues including some personal ones, but I was just sitting here busting to write something so here I am. ...and where am I? In the Hard Rock Amsterdam, and I must admit I'm loving it. Excellent music, great crowd, good food and a view over Amsterdam's canals to boot. I love the Hard Rock in most places but this one is pretty damn awesome. Great staff too. Ok, so me raving about an eating spot is a bit of a sidestep from my normal stuff, but hey, I'm posting again. More to follow...

My last post - postscript

2011-05-26T22:05:00.001+08:00

Hi, I've had someone wonder about the post I just submitted. I actually wrote this a few days ago in Korea, but only just posted it online tonight. For those who know me and were surprised thinking I am still overseas, sorry. Got back last night, and it's great to be home with my friends and family.

Later.

iPad on my first business trip, a progress report

2011-05-26T21:17:00.001+08:00

I'm just wrapping up a business trip through Asia with my new work supplied iPad 2. I've had the device now for approx 3 weeks in total, and for about 2 weeks "on the road."

How's it gone so far? Very well! There have been a few minor hiccups, and I need to still further tweak the way I work with it, but I have little doubt that this device will become a regular part of my travelling kit, and my work in the office for that matter.

One of the first things I did was track down a decent task manager and attempt to set myself up with a basic GTD workflow. I have raved about Mark Forster's Autofocus variants in the past, but I wanted to see if I could go digital again with my tasks. I ended up purchasing both Todo and Toodledo apps, but settled on Todo. I found the way it handles quick task entry, contexts and lists better suited the way I work and the fact that it can be as detailed and complicated or as simple as you need. My early impressions of Toodledo were fine, but it didn't seem to have the same flexibility, and just didn't feel right to me, which would probably stop me from using it as often as I should. Todo offers sync to Toodledo's web service, so it can still be used to back up your tasks, which I have chosen to do. I couldn't find my killer app, which would be one that syncs back to Outlook seemlessly. That would be the ultimate. Outlook, iPad and Blackberry all in sync for tasks. There are some ways to achieve this using various 3rd party utilities, subscription services etc, but nothing that is simple and secure in one app. Perhaps one day...

I also grabbed a mind mapping app as this is my preferred way to make meeting notes, and plan meetings, reports and presentations. After some research I grabbed iThoughtsHD. If you are a keen mind mapper, stop reading this blog now, and purchase yourself an iPad and an app. This device is easily the much immediate, fun and effective way to quickly get a mind map together. I won't do a full review here, but iThoughtsHD imports and exports seamlessly to Freemind and a bunch of other mind mapping PC applications. It also makes nice pdfs for distribution to others, and the outlines are perfect to send out as basic meeting minutes. I am now literally mindmapping on the iPad in meetings live as points arise and can have the notes out in just a few minutes after I rearrange and tidy up the various branches immediately after the meeting. I also now add a picture of any business cards I receive in the meeting, taken with the iPad camera inside iThoughtsHD. This truly rocks.

Others apps I grabbed? Documents to Go for Microsoft Office document editing and being able to open email attachments. For editing Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, it is workable, but pretty clunky and can scramble your formatting. It allows you to get the basics done, but it is not sufficient to serve as a true Windows laptop replacement, at least not yet. Simplenote is a nice, basic plain text note editor, ideal for drafting blog posts like this one right now, and it syncs through the cloud to a web client and also PC desktops via Simplenote's free service. One bunch of notes everywhere. Excellent.

There was one other standout however that has proved to be well and truly worth every cent, even though I didn't at first see how it was necessary. I only bought it on the recommendation of others. That app is GoodReader. It basically just lets you open and read/view files which doesn't seem like much at first. It can't even open many formats itself and has to rely on your other apps apart from pictures and pdfs. Where it really delivers however is as a central area for you to manage and view your various documents. It is almost like having a "My Documents" or Windows Explorer on the iPad. You can create folders, stick documents there, rename and rearrange them to your heart's content. Then, when you want to open something, simply tap on it and it will open either within GoodReader or the application that can edit them. This might seem like an obvious and simple concept, but for those of us coming from a Windows environment, it's perfect. In my case, I've created a bunch of folders like Current Projects, Forecasts, Market Information, Costs, Product Specifications etc, and I file in each a range of reference documents that are important for my work, so I can then find and open them at a moments notice. I also routinely maintain a folder of these important docs on my PC, predominantly as pdfs, and I refresh and sync these with the iPad during my weekly and monthly reviews. Without something like GoodReader, you need to remember which app a document came from and go to it etc, rather than have all your key material in organised folders, accessible from one app.

In the first week on the road alone this has proved to be invaluable. When one customer asked me questions about long term production forecasts, I just pulled it up and referred to it in the meeting. Another one had trouble understanding our process, but I just quickly pulled up a flowsheet I had in there, zoomed in on the critical process step, and showed it to them. Simple. This was exactly what I wanted to use the iPad for. No more bulky meeting file with dog eared spec sheets and the like. If a customer wants a copy, I simply email it to them on the spot, directly out of GoodReader. If you are thinking of using an iPad for business, or as a storage device with easy access to reference documents, get this app.

There are others I have purchased, but I'm not quite there with them yet. One is Notes Plus, an excellent notebook that allows you to write notes, just like a classic paper notebook and pen, using your finger or a stylus. It can record your handwriting directly, or you can enter text via keyboard, and it also has a zoomed in mode if you want really small writing that automatically advances along as you write. It is impressive, but I must admit it doesn't quite feel right when I handwrite. It is probably a perception thing, or perhaps my stylus doesn't quite have the right weight, I'm not sure, but will play with it further. It has a very enthusiastic developer who is constantly adding features as requested by users and I do think this will be one to watch. It already has very advanced gesture recognition to erase words, draw shapes etc, and I believe the aim is to eventually have it convert handwriting to text, but I'll wait and see how it goes. I thought I would use it for meeting notes, but it has quickly been killed off for that use by iThoughtsHD!

Phew. I'm going to stop for now. Needless to say, the iPad has lived up to expectations so far as a travelling companion and for recording notes and providing reference material during meetings. I haven't even touched on how brilliantly it works as a media player for when I am not working...

Next post, I'll report again on the iPad after my current trip is finished, summarising what has worked so far and what hasn't, plus mention a couple of other apps I've tried. As someone who was doubtful about these tablet appliances being much more than executive toys, I've been impressed with just how well this one has worked out so far.

Later.

iPad 2 - initial thoughts

2011-05-07T17:46:00.001+08:00

Hi there.

Yes, I've further subscribed to the cult of Steve and obtained an iPad
2. I haven't personally owned the original iPad, but I did get one for
my wife last Christmas, and while I couldn't quite justify one for
myself, I was rather impressed with the silky user experience, and it
seemed to be a fantastic way to consume media, like watching movies,
surfing the web and the like.

I was however a bit of an iPad skeptic. I didn't think it made sense
for me as a regular laptop user. If I already have my work laptop, why
would I bother with a tablet as well, iPad or otherwise? As it is I
also already have a Lenovo net book, but must admit my usage of it has
been rather sporadic. I have mainly used it as a light weight desk top
PC at home that can be unplugged and used elsewhere running Mint
Linux, but haven't really used it for light weight computing on the
fly.

More recently however, I started thinking about how I could make use
of a tablet or iPad in my job as a marketing manager. I typically
carry around a bulky file with me that contains our product
specifications, some basic company presentations in hard copy, sales
forecasts and background market information. When I meet with
customers, I will sometimes refer to the file to ensure I have my
facts straight or I will show the information to the customer. I have
one basic introduction to the company as a printed PowerPoint
presentation which I sometimes pull out and step through.

This bulky file works well for me, but it is also a pain to lug
around, and it requires a fair bit of effort on my side to keep its
contents current. During my weekly and monthly review, I'll turn over
the documents that need updating, but it is still relatively easy for
some items to be missed, and then be caught out when I go to refer to
it during a meeting.

It occurred to me that I could replace this file with a tablet. The
documents could be kept in it as pdfs and they could be quickly pulled
up and shown to clients. It would also be easy to keep photos of our
operation, our products etc and quickly show them as required. Yes,
the same could be achieved on a laptop, but they tend to be larger to
carry around, don't last long between charges and they take time to
start up. Most tablets, including the iPad are instant on, last for
ages on a charge, typically days at a time and are slim enough to be
slipped into the thinnest of brief cases, or portfolios.

Another area where a tablet could suit me was for recording notes in
meetings through mind mapping. I mind map regularly, both for getting
my thoughts together for a project or report, and as a way of
capturing points raised in a meeting. Mind mapping on a PC or laptop
is fine if you are not rushed, such as when outlining the main points
for a report, but it is not all that quick to try and do it to capture
points live in a meeting. A colleague told me they had seen someone
mind map on an iPad in a meeting, and it seemed to be very quick and
intuitive, simply tapping on the screen to create each node and
quickly enter some basic text before an idea is lost. Later, it can be
transferred to a PC and the key points enlarged upon to finally end up
with the key nodes as bullet points for meeting minutes.

The more I thought about it, the more I could see how to make an iPad
or tablet work for me in my job so I posed the question to my employer
with a justification, and they gave me the go ahead. I could have just
bought one myself, but it was better to do it through work so that it
could be properly included into the company network so I could have
access to my corporate email etc.

The geek/hacker in me was curious about an Android device. The idea of
an open system appeals in that like Linux, it would possibly encourage
a broad range of applications, and potentially result in some really
useful tools being available. I was also mindful that an iPad means
being tied up with iTunes and Apple. I'll always prefer an open system
if I can have it. The fact is though, every Android tablet I have
played with just hasn't had the same consistency of user experience
with the various applications, typically having more of a "home brew"
feel about it.

So I went out and sourced an iPad 2, Wifi only, 64 Gb. I went for the
64 Gb so I can load it right up with docs and photos, although I
probably could have survived with 32 Gb. I avoided the 3G because I
already have a 3G modem card for my laptop, and I didn't really want
yet another 3G data account to maintain. I instead have taken the SIM
card from the 3G modem card and placed it in a small mobile wifi box,
which I can turn on anywhere and establish a small radius internet
access hot spot for use by my laptop or iPad, or both. It's basic, but
it works well and allows me to use the one data account for either
device, rather than having one for each.

I have only had the iPad for a few days and am still getting it set up
to meet my requirements. Early impressions are very favorable. It is
very easy to get around the various applications, and it is a sheer
delight to use. I'll come back in my next post, explaining some of the
applications I have installed, and how I am using it in my work, and
at home!

Stay tuned...

The Four Hour Body: Another update

2011-04-30T07:08:00.001+08:00

Hi there,

Some time ago I posted on The Four Hour Body book by Tim Ferriss. Apart from reviewing the book itself, I reported losing a few kg in the first month after starting his Slow Carb diet.

I can now report that I have managed to keep losing weight, and am presently 12 kg lighter than when I first started the diet a little over 4 months ago now. The most rapid weight loss was certainly over the first few weeks, but even though the measured weight loss slowed down after that, my measurements continued to change, so that clothes I had "grown out of" are now fitting again. I am so grateful that I didn't throw out some of my business shirts that had become too tight for me! My newish suit however is starting to look a little baggy.

Apart from the way the diet works, I think the weight loss has also slowed down due to the fact that I am now doing some weight training with a kettle bell, which is resulting in me gaining body weight through muscle mass while I am still losing on my waist line. The key areas of improvement for me have been a substantial reduction in the spare tire around my waist, much less prominent man boobs (thank goodness) and the puffiness that was developing around my neck and face are gone.

What's even better though are the great comments I get from people at work and amongst my friends. Nothing like some positive feedback to keep you on your path to better fitness.

I really can't rave about the diet enough. For someone like me who has been used to a lower carb diet generally, it isn't that hard, and the one day off a week to go completely nuts on the things you can't have but still crave, makes it easy to stay on track the rest of the time.

I took a break from the diet over Easter as we were away with friends surrounded by good food, wine and beer down in the Margaret River region of Western Australia. Shock horror, I put on just under 2 kg in about 5 days. Within less than a week of being back on the diet at home? It's gone again.

I suspect I will also sometimes gain a little when I travel on business, because it is harder to maintain control over what you are eating, particularly when clients insist on taking you out overseas to try their local cuisine. I am confident though that I will be able to claw this back when I return home each time, based on the recent Easter experience.

There is still technically another 5 kg for me to lose before I am at the upper end of my ideal weight according to the standard BMI tables. As Tim Ferriss says though, the BMI tables are flawed because they don't allow for muscle mass, and while I am not overly muscular at the moment, everyone I talk to doesn't think I have another 5 kg I want to lose, unless I wish to start looking too gaunt.

Let's see how it goes. I must say though, I am very comfortable with how I am looking now compared to late last year!

Later.

Mint Linux on my netbook: Xfce!

2011-04-17T07:48:00.001+08:00

Hi,

I just thought I'd post a little update on how Mint Linux has been going on my Lenovo netbook. It's been going pretty well actually. I've had very few issues with getting it running how I want it, and have not experienced any of the quirks I used to come across with Linux in the past, such as some feature suddenly not working because something had changed I couldn't track down what it was etc.

There was was only thing that kept getting in the way. Clearly my little netbook was a little underpowered, so I would sometimes have some very "pregnant pauses" while the system would catch up with what I was trying to do. My user experience within a single application, like Thunderbird or Chrome was generally fine, but switching applications, or moving files around in folders etc was at times, a little painful.

This was all in Gnome, which was the default desktop environment installed. I was just putting up with it, but then I realised that there are alternatives in Linux, so hey, I may as well check them out.

A quick Google pointed out my options. It became apparent that as you go down in memory footprint and system requirements, the user experience is pared down as well. I was prepared to have a less sophisticated interface, but I still wanted it to be reasonably user friendly and at least support the basic window based operations that I've been used to since my Amiga and then Windows 3.1. I had tried some of the really basic windows managers/desktops for Linux in the past and came away very frustrated with their lack of even basic features or clunkiness to do simple tasks.

I ended up trying Xfce. In Mint, this was super simple. I simply typed in xfce in the search box off the bottom menu, selected the xfce meta package that came up and waited while it all installed and configured by itself.

I then logged out and logged back in, remembering to change the option at the bottom of the the log in screen from Gnome to Xfce. After that, no surprises, everything just works, even the Gnome apps that I had become used to using. I'm still checking everything out, but it seems there is a substantial amount of cross compatibility between the two systems, but with Xfce appearing to be much easier for my netbook to deal with.

The overall user interface is very similar in terms of "slickness" etc, especially if you take some time to customise it away from the default wall paper etc. I haven't found the same degree of theme support yet, but to be honest I can more than live without that if it means a smoother experience on this low end hardware.

Which it does...

So it looks like Xfce for me now, and so far so good.

Later.

Stranded at the airport? A tip

2011-03-26T18:07:00.001+08:00

You've been held up on a delayed flight, and when you finally get to your transit destination, you find that you have missed your connection to get home...

Most business travellers have been through this at some stage. Typically, the airline staff will tell you to collect your luggage, go to their ticket counter, and book yourself another ticket. Unfortunately, you are often not alone in being stranded, and you end up in amongst an angry crowd, queuing around the counter, waiting to get assistance and hopefully a new flight out of there!

This happened to me again recently, and I was again reminded of how to best get out of this situation quickly, particularly if you are travelliing on business and have a decent corporate travel agent.

Rather than getting stuck in the crowd, and possibly wait for hours while others cut into lines, hold things up by shouting at the ticket staff etc, I suggest you do the following:

Pull out your ticket and itinerary, and call your travel agent's 24 hour assistance number if it is listed, or their office number if it isn't, so you can get the 24 hour number off their out of hours message. (It is best to always have a copy of your itinerary with you in your hand luggage, no matter how basic or straight forward your trip schedule is.)
Dial the 24 hour number, and explain what has happened to you. (Again, have your itinerary handy so you can quote ticket numbers, booking reference etc.)
Ask for another flight and wait for your new booking details. Write them down for reference, although if you're lucky and have a decent agent, they will send them also by email automatically whenever there is a change.
While you are at it, ask them to book you a hotel if there is not one on offer from the airline and are stuck overnight. I myself prefer to secure a room where I know I will be comfortable, although this is typically then an additional cost. Some airlines use decent hotels, some don't, or won't offer to accomodate you at all. My personal view is I would rather incur some expense in exchange for being comfortable for when I need to travel again, rather than hang around an airport and be in poor condition when I arrive at my ulimate destination.
We're done. Time to relax before your next flight.

You might think this is pretty obvious, but it is amazing how easy it is to get caught up in the wait and tension around that ticket counter, and waste hours before you get assistance. Using the above, I was in the hotel within about 45 minutes of being stranded, and in that time, the queue around the ticket office had not moved.

...and again, this all reminds me of the importance of having a decent travel agent, particularly if you are travelling on business.

Later, and happy travels.

Update: Linux Mint 10 on the netbook

2011-03-12T07:46:00.001+08:00

Hi there.

Here we are one week later, and I'm still using Mint 10 on my Ideapad s10. How's it gone so far? Quite nicely actually! I initially found the wi-fi to be a little flaky for reasons I never really got to the bottom of, but it is fine now. I know it wasn't poor reception because I was using the netbook under Windows in the same locations without issues, and if I rebooted under Mint after the wi-fi dropped out, it would reconnect again with full signal strength.

It hasn't come back again as a problem after the first few days, so I haven't looked into it further.

The only other area of frustration I can report was screen resolution. The desktop looked great "out of the box" on the netbook's own 1024x600 screen, but when I tried plugging it into a monitor, I was limited to 800x600, or 640x480. Yuck!

I spent considerable time digging through the menus and included config applications, and then tried looking through additional packages I could install to fix this, but nothing jumped out at me. Finally, I reverted to my old friend, Google. My first searches for "changing screen resolution in Mint 10" weren't that successful, so I then made it more direct with "changing screen resolution in Linux". That was much better, and I quickly became aware of, and used the xrandr command in a terminal window to see what resolutions were supported, and picked the one that best suited my monitor. This reminded me of the fact that with Linux, you can often do things much more quickly and simply by going to the command line, rather than looking for a distribution's specific configuration tool, as long as you know the correct command to use...

All in all it is working very well now, and going through this process has made me realise how useful this little netbook actually is. I am now trialling making it my main "desktop" machine for email, social networking, downloading, blogging, surfing etc, but also enjoy being able to simply unplug it from the monitor and keyboard/mouse in my study and take it with me when I go anywhere.

It is now the central storage and access for my main email accounts and personal documents, all within Linux (Mint 10) and it is very portable to boot. (...and yes, I am keeping it backed up in case I drop/lose it somewhere.)

Have I walked away from Windows entirely? No, of course not. I still have my media encoding box here running a patched up copy of Vista."MediaPC" still contains my bluray burner and has AnyDvd installed so I can easily burn home audio and video projects, or rip and encode any video or audio for storage in my central media NAS that serves up movie and music goodness throughout my home network. (I really must blog about that sometime...) What has changed though is that the Vista box is now headless (no monitor or keyboard) and I simply access it and assign it new tasks etc through a remote desktop on the netbook. That way, I don't even have to be in front of it and see what it is up to when I need to check encoding progress or do some housekeeping on it such as moving encoded projects over to the NAS.

So far, so good. I'll let you know how it goes again in a few weeks, or report any significant problems in the meantime, but I'm not expecting anything significant now after this first week.

Later.

Linux Mint 10: Time to give Linux another whirl

2011-03-07T08:02:00.001+08:00

Hi,

I've tried Linux many times before, and at one stage I tried to make it my sole OS, but over time realised that it couldn't do everything I needed, particularly around using certain devices, and also for my gaming needs, I still needed Windows. Sure, there were some decent games and ports of mainstream titles available for Linux, but overall, it was still a better and more consistent experience to stay with Windows in my case.

Where Linux did come into its own was for development work, which was the main area where I became intrigued with it, before eventually moving back to Windows. I loved the range of tools available within Linux, but would be frustrated with something I installed undoing a setting somewhere deep in my PC, and I had to then waste considerable time tracking it down and fixing it. I got sick of it, and was also not really spending much time doing anything with the development tools. I found in the end that I was a more user of content than a creator, so I fell back to Windows, with no regrets.

I've come back to the Linux fold now because I have an old Lenovo Ideapad S10 netbook, which I sometimes lug around in my bag on weekends, for surfing in cafe's etc where there might be wi-fi around, or I have a dying need to type something up for later. It came with Windows XP, and it has worked quite well, but support for XP is getting less and less, and over time it was starting to bog down with the normal digital fluff that tends to accumulate in aging Windows systems, particularly in the older versions like XP.

On a whim yesterday, I tracked down a copy of the Mint 10 Live DVD, plugged in a USB DVD drive, and booted from it. It worked first time, and with only a minor change, I managed to get the wifi and all key hardware items working immediately. Navigating within the Mint environment was a little slow, but that was largely due to running directly from the DVD as far as I could tell, so I dived in, hit Install, and installed Mint 10 onto the netbook hard drive itself. I had little on there, so I went for the complete wipe and install on the entire disk.

About 20 minutes later (although I didn't actually time it), Mint came up, and away we went. It again detected the wifi adaptor and prompted me to activate the driver, and everything from there has gone smoothly.

I had used Ubuntu before and was quite impressed, but it still suffered from occasionally being "broken" from something I would install, and like most Linux distributions, the places to find where to change things was a little inconsistent. Mint is based on Ubuntu, but they have to my mind streamlined most aspects of it, and I find it overall much more consistent with its user interface and locations for things I need so far. The other big plus for me is the inclusion of the search box immediately off the main menu. When you hit the menu button on the task bar (like the start button in Windows), there is a search box like in Vista/7, and you can simply type in there what you are looking for. Not only will it show up the applications or settings that most closely match what you type, it will also show available installation packages, which you can simply click on to download and install if they are not present in your distribution.

For example, I immediately wanted to install Chrome/Chromium and Dropbox, so I simply typed these in and the packages showed up. I then clicked on them and provided my admin password to proceed, and hey presto, they were installed and operating with no further intervention from me. Fantastic.

I have now been using Mint 10 for 24 hours, so we'll have to see how it holds up, but on this basic netbook hardware, and with my limited and spotty history with Linux in the past, so far so good. I would be naive to think that I will never need to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty to keep this Linux installation running at its best, but so far, so good.

If you have never tried Linux but are intrigued with the concept, or you have some older hardware that can't really run the latest Windows properly and do it justice, you just might want to give Linux another go, particularly with one of the more user friendly and well supported distributions, like Mint. The search bar for installing and locating software alone makes it remarkably accessible for relatively inexperienced Linux users like me.

I'll let you know later how I go, or blog about any significant issues that arise.

Later.

Superfocus - Mark Forster's been at it again

2011-02-27T13:37:00.001+08:00

Hi there.

Mark Forster, author of the Autofocus task management system and its variatons, has now released Superfocus. I have always found Mark's systems very helpful at capturing, and ultimately managing my list of tasks. His systems are generally quite powerful with their dismissal rules, so if there is a task that just sits around and never get's done, it is dismissed, which forces you to get a better understanding of why it seemed important yet you haven't progressed it. The other main benefit to Mark's systems are their relative simplicity.

In the past however, it has sometimes been hard to get the balance between important and urgent tasks right with Autofocus. The first Autofocus system tended to look after the big and important tasks, but didn't handle short notice/urgent tasks well, and the later variants handled recent, urgent tasks effectively, but sometimes they wouldn't steer you back to the older tasks if you were regularly getting new actions.

Mark thinks he has cracked it this time with Superfocus, and from an initial read, I can see how it might work. I'm going to try it, and comment later after I have given it a chance to prove itself.

I won't go over the rules here, I'll let you read them for yourself on Mark's blog. I can understand already however that it will be important to decide which tasks are Column 1 and which are Column 2...

Later.

A reminder to focus on what's important when overwhelmed

2011-02-12T07:19:00.001+08:00

Over the last two weeks, I was reminded of the importance of seeking out the key aspect of a situation and focusing on it to get the best result.

I'm presently in the middle of a court action, which for legal reasons is best I don't describe in too much detail. When the facts according to the other side were presented, I was deeply hurt from some of the things that were claimed about myself, but also more than a little anxious about how best to tackle it, as the period of time being covered is approximately 30 years of my life!

As always with these things though, it is important to get decent advice, and it was brought to my attention that by concentrating on a key part of the case, it could be ruled in my favour. Thankfully, this particular part of the case has proven to be probably the simplest for us to build our defence upon.

I don't wish to appear cocky, as I am still to go to trial, but by being able to screen out a lot of the noise and concern over the entire period, and focus on a specific part of the case, it has been much easier to handle than I originally thought.

Perhaps later when everything is wrapped up, I might post on what happened so that others can learn from it, but in the meantime, I suggest you consider my recent experience when you are facing a difficult or overwhelming situation. Pareto's Principle or the 80:20 rule may apply more readily than you think, allowing you to then concentrate on what is key for getting through your issue. It is surprising how often there exists a situation where 20 % of the overall context, will account for 80 % of the outcome.

Later.

My new MINI - mid life crisis solved?

2011-01-26T11:40:00.001+08:00

I have always wanted a convertible, and preferably something that was quick. This of course severely limited my options, and most choices were well out of my price range. As time went on after I graduated, entered my career and started my family, this dream fell by the wayside, and my motoring enthusiasm was tempered by a series of very practical, yet still reasonably drivable cars.

More recently, it looked like I might be able to afford a car "just for me". We were able to set ourselves up so that my wife could have a car that meets our family requirements, and I could have something to drive just for the enjoyment of it, rather than simply a form of transport. Just in case this seems selfish with me having the fun car, and Hazel being lumped with the "sensible" car, please understand that she actually wants the family car. She likes her vehicles to be practical, safe and capable of carrying a small warehouse worth of stuff when required, especially when there are sales or bulk buying opportunities on the go.

I still had to work within a budget, and was starting to narrow down my choices to a Mazda MX5, Chrysler Sebring Convertible, Volvo C70, Volkswagen Eos, Ford Focus Convertible or a Mini Cabrio (JCW or Cooper S). If I was purchasing only with my heart and not my head, it was simple. The MX5 is the purist's choice with its classic lines, mechanical excellence and fantastic driving reputation. As soon as I started thinking about it though, the lack of rear seats ruled it out. I didn't plan the car to be a family carrier, but still wanted the option for us all to go out together for the odd short sunset drive or for dropping the kids off at school, sports etc. The Chrysler and Ford Focus didn't do it for me styling wise, and I wasn't going to be caught dead in a Volvo. I started narrowing it down to the Eos or the Mini.

Then other stuff happened. You would be aware from previous posts that I had a rough 2010, which included my mother falling ill and then passing away, leaving behind her estate without everything being well organised. Since then there has also been a legal claim on Mum's estate, and I've been distracted dealing with these various issues. The car topic came up again recently however, when I was transferred within my company and had to give up my company car in exchange for additional salary.

I was going to just go for another sensible car for now, but my wife thankfully suggested that I should look again for my convertible! I couldn't see how it was going to work, but I visited the local Mini dealer, and am now glad I did. They had a new Mini Cooper S Cabrio in stock and when I calculated the novated lease repayments, it ended up being the same as the cash equivalent from my company car, almost to the dollar. I took it for a test drive, but I didn't really need to, I knew it was going to be mine...

...and now it is.

It is hard to write about what I love about this new car without sounding like a pathetic fanboi. It's nimble and great fun to drive, with its go-kart like handling. The turbocharged 1.6L has the same horsepower as my old six cylinder company car, but with much less body weight, and it feels so much quicker. Being a front wheel drive, there is some torque steer, but nothing I can't deal with, and while the ride is quite harsh, it corners beautifully, with real point and squirt type motoring.

The Mini's are built now by BMW and it shows in the build quality and the well equipped feature list. Aside from having all the electrics, it simply does what it needs to do without fuss. There are gadgets galore compared to my old car, but they all work as expected without getting in the way.

My favourite bit though? Driving with the roof down. The whole opening and closing of the roof is completely motorised, and nothing quite draws a crowd of onlookers like arriving in a car park and closing the roof, or returning to your car later and opening it as you slowly drive off.

I smile every single time I drive this car. Should I really need a fun car or some other material possession to remind me that life is good? Probably not, but I am going to keep enjoying this car/big boy's toy anyway.

Later.

Den.

The Four Hour Body, an update

2011-01-18T06:36:00.001+08:00

Hi there.

Since my last post, I've managed to stay on the diet without too many problems, and the weight loss is still progressing nicely. I've lost another two kg in approx 3 weeks, and I certainly haven't had any problems with sticking to the diet.

I think the key thing for me is having the "day off" once a week. On that day off, Tim encourages you to go nuts and eat anything you like, and effectively as much as you desire. Every time I face temptation now, I simply make a note of what I'm craving, and pig out on it on my day off.

Having the day off also allows me to enjoy my beer. I used to try light beers on other diets, or drink lower carb beers when on Atkins etc. In reality, I was kidding myself. This time around I can enjoy red wine most days (which I love anyway) and hit a few decent premium beers on my day off. (That's when I'm not scoffing down icecream, chocolate and pizza of course!)

I won't post about this diet again for a while, as I have plenty of other things I can blog about, but I will give you another update in a few months time when hopefully I am approaching my ideal weight. (Whatever that is!)

Later.

The Four Hour Body, by Tim Ferriss

2010-12-31T08:28:00.001+08:00

Hi there. Those of you who know me, or may have read my posts in the past, would know that I have dabbled with the Atkins diet. It worked well for me initially, but I found it hard to stick to, and to find the right balance. Yes, while you are in the "no carb" phase, the weight and inches do drop off, but it has always been hard for me to then maintain things at the target weight once I get there.

I also do enjoy my carbs from time to time, and it is too easy to say "I'll just enjoy some pizza just this once" one too many times and undo my previous efforts.

My own situation is also somewhat more complicated by travelling regularly, although that is not really a valid excuse. The simple fact of the matter is that if temptation is constantly put in front of me, it is hard to keep saying no.

During my last trip, I decided that I needed to do something different. People were commenting that I had put on some weight which is fair enough, but I also knew within myself that I was not as comfortable with my appearance, and didn't feel as "healthy" as before. At about the same time, I stumbled across the Four Hour Body blog by Tim Ferriss. Aside from reading through some of the concepts raised in the blog, I also became aware of his new book by the same title.

You may have heard of Tim before, and in another post I commented on his previous book "The Four Hour Work Week". I must admit that when I saw that Tim was working on a diet/lifestyle book, I was a little doubtful. The concepts he raised in the Four Hour Work Week were fascinating, but in my own case at least was a little outside of what was comfortable for me, and so I was having my doubts about his ability to give me advice on weight loss and health.

I read some of the posts though, and I could see that it started to make sense. I then later grabbed the book at an airport bookstore on the way home. I intended to do some work on the plane after that, but got hooked on "The Four Hour Body" and couldn't put it down. My focus so far has been on the diet and body definition sections, but there are interesting chapters on sex, sleeping and other body tweaks too. If you're into body hacks and the like, it is a fascinating read.

Up to now, I have concentrated on the diet/weight loss section and so far, so good.

I won't go into the detail of the diet because I think Tim deserves to be rewarded for his efforts by interested readers buying his book. In essence though, it is more of a "slow carb" diet rather than a no carb one. This means that it is quite feasible to feel content through including legumes, beans etc in your diet, which makes it easier than cutting carbs completely. It also allows one day off a week, where you are encouraged to go nuts and eat/drink anything you like. I have found that really works for me. If I get a craving for some chocolate say, I simply make a note of it and defer it to my day off and gorge myself. Same for ice cream or anything else for that matter. It is such a simple concept, but it is amazing how well it works.

Tim also makes use of a simple rule of avoiding any food (when it is not your day off) that is or can be white. By this he means flour products, bread, sugar, pasta etc. This makes classifying what is in and out easy to follow. I was pretty clear on this anyway from my days of being on Atkins, but it has proved to be helpful all the same.

So how has it gone so far? I've been on the diet for approximately 4 weeks and have lost approximately 3 kg without additional exercise. At no time have I felt that I am being starved. I have enjoyed beer, chocolate, cake, ice cream, breads, fries, pizza and pasta, but only on my days off. Whenever I have felt like something that is outside of the basic slow carb guidelines, I have simply made a note and make sure I enjoy it on my next "anything goes" day. They come around every 7 days, so it is not that arduous.

Let's see what happens over the next few months, but so far this is really working for me and I suspect it will for others too. I am not so clear as to what will happen when I get to my target weight, but if I understand the book correctly, the weight loss will tend to settle down once I get to a low to moderate body fat index in any event.

If you've struggled with weight loss, or find the idea of body hacks fascinating, Tim's story of his own body experimentation, written in his own quirky style is a great read, and could give you just the results you are looking for. Anyone who has read "The Four Hour Work Week" for the quality of the writing alone, and enjoyed the mental challenges being proposed will enjoy this new book, and a healthier and happier you is a real bonus.

Later.

PS: I wish you and your friends/family a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. May your 2011 be better than your 2010. I am sure mine will be.

Wireless working

2010-12-11T19:49:00.001+08:00

Hi there. You'll already know from my previous posts that I've started using Dragon Naturally Speaking 11 for my meeting notes, and for dictating the odd email reply. So far, it has worked well and I am enjoying the break from the keyboard. I've recently even been having fun with using DNS to issue commands, like saying "send" and the email I've just composed gets sent, for example. I have now taken it a step further. I recently scored a Logitech Clearchat headset, which allows me to walk around the room rather than being connected to the PC when dictating. After charging the headset and plugging in the USB receiver, I just stuck them on and was immediately getting all the system sounds through the headphones. I then lowered the mike boom, told Dragon I was now using a USB mike, and away I went. DNS asked me to read a couple of passages to check levels and quality, but that only took a couple of minutes and accuracy since has been excellent. I haven't extensively tested the claimed 10 metre range but I have walked around various hotel rooms, and into the bathroom etc without any problems. Aside from the freedom when working, I've also really enjoyed piping music through them when just hanging around in the room or working. The headphones probably aren't audiophile quality, but they more than enough for my needs and being digital, there is no radio hiss or anything like that. Whether you need a full headset or even just cordless headphones for your PC, these are a good option. They are also great for Skype. ...And now that I have a taste for working wirelessly, I don't plan to go back.

Later,

Den. Sent via BlackBerry® from Telstra

The power of checklists - revisited

2010-12-02T08:51:00.001+08:00

I'm now overseas again, visiting customers and getting most of our 2011 contracts negotiated and in place before wrapping up 2010.

I have previously posted how having a checklist is handy, almost essential for some tasks that need to be done regularly without you needing to think about what you are doing. They are also useful if you need to do something quickly, and haven't got time to fully assess the situation.

I had one of those moments the evening I was due to fly out for this trip. I had left the office early, and was home about to pack my suitcase, when I suddenly realised that some of the documents I required, including print outs of my tickets were missing. I could have probably remembered most of the items, and print them out again at home, but I know I had a lot of stuff together in one file, and could not remember every single item that was included. I was bound to miss something.

Despite having not yet started packing properly, I made the snap decision to jump back in my car, go to the office, retrieve the file and then return home to pack and catch a cab to the airport. This unplanned visit to the office cost me approximately 80 minutes which I had previously planned to use to pack for my trip at home.

After having been to the office and back, I was now walking into my house with approx one hour before I had to be leaving for the airport, and I hadn't even really started packing for this two and half week trip overseas, apart from getting out my suitcase, and checking that I had sufficient clothes ready to pack in my wardrobe.

So did I make it?

Well I'm typing this from my hotel, so yes I did. I grabbed my trusty business travel checklist, opened up my suitcase, and just went for it! At first I felt stressed, but as I ran through the list, I could see it coming together, and by about half way through I could relax a little, but without slowing down. I simply grabbed every last item on my list, ignoring anything that I knew would not be necessary due to the expected weather where I was visiting, throw everything in my suitcase and carry on, without having to think about what else I might need. I closed the suit case and then had a quick shower with a few minutes to spare.

When I first started travelling, I used to take a full day the weekend before I was due to leave in order to pack. As long my clothes are freshly washed etc, I know I can now do it in well under an hour if pushed.

I hope I don't have to rush like that again, I normally like to have a little more time to dawdle when I pack, but now I know I can if I need to.

It wouldn't have been possible without my checklist, and I probably would have arrived only to find I was missing something really important.

Are there any regular tasks that you need to do, that could benefit with a checklist?

Later.

Fsync - welcome back old friend

2010-11-28T06:19:00.001+08:00

Several years ago, I became really frustrated with Windows' off line drive function. You know the one where if you have network drives and you want access to the data when off line, you can ask Windows to make them available and it would sync them with local copies kept on your laptop hard drive. That way, when you are connected on the office network, you are working on the network version, and when on the road, you are working on the off line local copy, and any changes in either direction would be synchronised the next time you were back on the office network.

If it really worked like that, it would be perfect. The problem was though that in Windows 2000 and then later Windows XP, it never did really work. Sometimes it was just as promised, but more often than not I would be in another location and find that my local copy was somehow not available, or there would be large chunks of data missing, or the version available off line would be a least a few weeks out of date, even if I had been in the office recently.

At the time I tracked down fsync, by Vico Biscotti, which is a small command line utility for synchronising two folders from left to right, no more and no less. I then wrote a bunch of simple batch files using notepad to sync my network folders onto local directories on my hard drive, and then another set to sync them back. This worked very well, and never missed a beat. I would run one fsync batch file every time I left the network, and another one every time I rejoined.

It worked so well in fact that I had forgotten about it actually, and when I received my last laptop with Windows 7, I decided to try off line folders within Windows again, seeing as the rest of Windows 7 works so much better than most previous versions of Windows.

The first few months went well. Each time I needed them, the off line folders appeared to work as expected. Then one day, as luck would have it, just when I needed something really important, it wasn't there. I had experienced some syncing issues which I somehow didn't notice, until it was too late. Then there was another time, where I was on the network, checking out some of our customer profile files, and they appeared to be out of date. I was about to chastise some of our staff for not keeping the details current, when suddenly I noticed that my computer was using the offline copies rather than the live ones, even though I was connected to the network. That was the final straw.

I was stupid though. I started googling through various sync applications and tried several of them. They all seemed ok, but I kept coming across various issues, the main one being that they were often overly complicated. It was not always clear how directories missing on one side were going to affect directories on the other, and while it was possible to have version control etc, this was way more than I needed.

Thankfully it suddenly hit me, and I tracked down fsync again. It has had a couple of minor revisions since I had last downloaded it, but it is still just as simple and effective as it ever was. It still has all the same options to run in silent mode without prompting, and determining what overwrites and what doesn't etc. Most importantly though, it just gets the job done.

It is a command line utility so it is best suited for those like me who want to run a basic batch file or script unattended. If you need a GUI showing the source and destination folders etc, fsync is not for you. Also, I suggest you test your batch file first to make sure you are copying just what you want, and it is handling the deleting of missing directories on your target side as per your requirements. You don't want to accidentally wipe out any data you want to keep. Once you have the script doing just what you want though, you can save it and then just run it every time you need to, knowing it will work as expected every time.

I now have my off line folder system working just how I want it again with my work laptop, and I am now making full use of fsync at home to maintain backups of our media library from our media NAS onto our general backup NAS. Yes, I have two NAS's on our home network, geeky I know, but well worthwhile.

http://www.vicobiscotti.it/en/fsync.htm

Later.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 - a follow up

2010-11-21T07:09:00.001+08:00

Now that I have been using this software for about a month, it is probably time for a follow up.

Voice dictation is certainly a great way to quickly get text into your computer. On my last trip, I had something like 26 customer meetings in three days during a conference, so it became a reasonably easy task to take my scribbled bullet point notes, and dictate them as more complete sentences to form my "typed" meeting notes. I did find that trying to dictate unusual company names did not work so smoothly unless I spelled them out them letter by letter every time, but I soon learnt to get around this by saying "the customer" and then doing a search and replace in Word later to insert their name.

For this particular application, Dragon NaturallySpeaking worked as or better than expected. The accuracy for my voice is remarkable, and the few times it does get something wrong, it is easily corrected. I have found that correcting the mistakes properly is a little fiddly, but is well worth the effort as the accuracy improves further for future dictations.

I have also now started to try using it for replying to emails and composing documents. So far it has not worked quite as well for me although the problem is with me, not the software. For example, I recently had to prepare a basic market status report for a new product, and so I sat down, donned the headset, and attempted to compose it from scratch using voice dictation. I failed miserably. As I sat there and tried to speak sentences as they came to my mind, they came out very haphazardly, and not only did DNS struggle to understand what I was saying, but even when it got things right, the quality of my writing was poor. It came across like someone who was just making up an answer to a question as they went along.

The problem seems to be with me and the way I write. I seem to be better at writing when I compose with a keyboard or even use a basic mind mapping tool like Freemind to get the main ideas ready. If I have to do the same by voice, I pause, say "um" a lot and generally come away not terribly convinced about what I have put together.

On the other hand, if I already have some notes, or even some basic bullet points for me to refer to, I can then do a reasonable job turning it into something useful by voice dictation.

There is certainly something to this Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, and I do not regret the purchase. The ease of use for my customer meeting notes alone has been worth the price of admission. I am learning however that I need to have a framework in place before I dictate. It is not a perfect solution for composing an opus from scratch.

This may be different for others, although when most people have to work through an awkward impromptu speech if they are put on the spot, there tends to be lots of "ahs" and "ums", so I am probably not alone.

Based on my experience so far, I still strongly recommend Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 for someone who is looking for a quick way to get text into a computer, would like a break from the keyboard from time to time or needs an alternative text entry option due to physical difficulties etc. The accuracy is certainly more than acceptable for my requirements.

I just need to have a reasonable idea of what I am going to say, before I say it!

Later.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium Edition - initial thoughts

2010-11-07T19:40:00.002+08:00

Hi there,

Just for a change I thought I would write about some new gadget or technology that I've been using lately. In my line of work it is necessary to regularly write notes about meetings I've had with customers and our business partners, plus general sales reports. I certainly have no real problem with generating typed notes, as I can type quite quickly, probably quicker than I can type. I do find however that sometimes it is easier to keep putting off sitting down and typing these reports, especially when I need to think through the words that I want to use first. It is one thing to quickly make bullet point notes in my notebook with my pen during a meeting, but it is then another to take these turn them into a cohesive and easy to read report.

In the past I've tried different ways to get around this problem. I tried using a small recorder to record the meetings I attended and then turn them into notes later. I found however that I would never get around to listening to the recordings and then typing them into a final report. A few years ago I also tried some voice recognition software but found at the time that my laptop was barely capable of running the progam and the accuracy was woeful. Then I tried using a LiveScribe digital pen. This worked in the sense that it gave me my notes in a digital form and I could even record the meetings and then later hear the audio that matched the text that I wrote down in the notepad. Also later, LiveScribe released software that enabled my hand written notes to be turned into typed notes. Again however unless I really wrote slowly and took care with what I was writing, the accuracy was pathetic. Anyone who has been in a meeting and needs to capture information that is being said very quickly knows that your writing tends to suffer as you quickly scribble it down.

Two weeks ago however, I decided to try voice recognition software again. My laptop now is much more powerful than when I used it last time, and also I had heard that the more recent versions were better with their accuracy when it came to interpreting non-United States accents. While I would not describe my accent as a broad Australian accent, I clearly say some words in an Australian way and I imagine this would be difficult for software that is not expecting it.

So I went out and bought Dragon Naturally Speaking version 11, Premium edition. Apart from the software CD and a quick install and user guide card, it also came with a basic wired headset. For the last two weeks I have been using the software to dictate my meeting notes, and also in some cases to reply to e-mails.

How well has it worked? Well so far, so good. Does it interpret my speech 100% accurately all of the time? No, of course not. It does however get what I'm saying correct remarkably most of the time. Yes, it gets caught on unusual company names, and it also does not get right the first time some of the product names that I deal with with my job. For general sentences however, it gets it right almost all the time. When I am not using industry related words or unusual business partner company names, it seems to get the sentences completely correct. I've also found that if I take the time to correct mistakes when I do use more unusual words or industry related jargon, it then gets it right most of the time when I next use those same terms.

Have I found the perfect way to record my meeting notes? I'm not sure yet, but this is certainly easier than sitting down and typing up my meetings after the event. I now find I can simply open my notebook, look through my bullet points and make up a sentence for each one and then read it out aloud. I then simply tidy up a few things and send out the meeting report. I am certainly now turning around my meeting reports much more quickly, and I also find using the headset and voice dictation a nice break sometimes when I'm travelling overseas. It's one thing to sit in front of a laptop for several hours and reply to e-mails, but clearly it is not as good ergonomically as sitting in your office with a proper screen and keyboard, so being able to sit back with the headset, think through my reply and then dictate it using my voices is a nice break from hunching over the laptop and its small keyboard and a mouse.

Let's see how it goes over the next one or two months and perhaps I will come back and comment further on this voice dictation software. Up to this point however I'm very happy with how well Dragon NaturallySpeaking is working. Just to prove the point this entire post has been voice dictated and across all of the text that you see here I think had to correct something like five words.

Not too bad really.

Later.

Den

Embrace Surprise

2010-10-02T07:34:00.001+08:00

I was recently reminded why we shouldn't be afraid of surprises, and we should in fact embrace them.

During the tail end of a recent business trip, I had to arrange a hire car for my last leg in California, so I could go drive to visit my customer, stay overnight, and then drive back to LAX and leave to return to Australia. Rather than book before I left, I decided to keep an eye out for web specials and book a few days before.

While I was in Europe, I visited the Hertz website, and they were promoting their convertibles, so I thought, "why not." I went ahead and placed my reservation, and was under the impression I would be getting a Chrysler Sebring or something along those lines. In Australia we drive on the other side of the road compared to the US, but I figured that I had driven in the US enough times now to be confident to drive a slightly larger car than a small hatch back.

When I arrived, and went to collect my car, they apologised, because they had no Sebrings left. They instead offered me the choice of a Ford Mustang, or a Corvette at the same cost.

To be honest, I was very anxious at first, as driving such a high powered car on the wrong side of the road was certainly outside of my comfort zone. I really didn't want to give up on the convertible though, so I picked the Corvette after confirming it was at least an automatic. There was no way I was going to be able to use a stick shift yet...

I nearly chickened out when I saw the car for the first time. Apart from the hot yellow paint job, the boot barely held my suitcase and when I sat behind the wheel, I found it very unnerving to have to rely on my mirrors to see behind me. The rear view over either shoulder was virtually non existent due to the small rear window and lack of a back seat. I then after some stuffing around worked out how to start the engine, and that large US V8 roared into life and set there burbling in a slow, lazy idle.

After a few minutes though, I set up my GPS and slowly crawled out to the gate, and into LA traffic. The accelerator was quite light, and the smallest touch was enough to make the Corvette want to pick up her skirts and take off. The brakes and steering wheel were quite heavy, but responded when needed, and the brakes were more than able to pull up the car quickly. The steering was also responsive once you became used to the mild power assistance. Last but not least, on either the Racing or Touring suspension modes, the ride was quite stiff and very sports car like, so you felt every bump.

Geez it was beautiful though, and once I got used to it, you couldn't wipe the smile off my face. With the roof down and the loud tuned V8 exhaust burbling away, there was no need to turn on the radio. That large chunk of US V8 was all the sound track I needed.

There was only one real bummer. I had the entire next day free before flying out so I went for a lengthy drive down the coast to San Diego and back, but then I had to give it back. It was great fun parking the car somewhere and getting out for a walk, only to return finding people crowding around the car taking photos.

The moral of the story is that while the initial surprise took me out of my comfort zone and I wanted to almost give it up, I went with the surprise and had the time of my life. My confidence in driving on the wrong side of the road has also increased immensely now. Hmmm, maybe I'll try the Mustang next time.

Later.

Den.

Sorry for the hold ups between posts

2010-09-27T07:48:00.001+08:00

I knew I hadn't posted for a while but was rather surprised to see it had been close to two full months! I have been pretty busy with a few trips back to back, but all the same, I need to make sure I don't let it slip for so long.

One of my regular web reads revisited Posterous the other day, which is the rather cool looking blogging site where you can send posts by email. I've decided to give this a go to see if easier posting increases the chance of me writing more regularly.

Let's see what happens...

Hopefully you'll see something else from me soon.

Later,

Den

Facebook: a follow up

2010-07-31T20:03:00.002+08:00

I thought I had better add some comments on things I've found about Facebook since my previous post.

Firstly, it can be easy to get swamped with posts that don't necessarily add much to the experience. Thankfully you can tweak your options so that some posts don't appear. I'm not trying to put any particular type of user down here, but there are some who seem to put up stuff almost for the sake of it, which is not so interesting to me.

My bigger concern though is how you can end up getting info on people you don't necessarily know, because one of your "friends" has commented on something. This can be good and bad. I surprised a work colleague recently when I got to see photos of his new baby. His partner had posted them on her wall, and one of my friends had commented on them, so I got to see the photos as well. The good was that I got to see the photos. The bad was that he was obviously surprised I could see them without being made officially his friend in Facebook.

Clearly it is a little too easy to have stuff you think only your friends will see on your wall, but it can inadvertently become visible to others if someone you know posts a comment, or even marks it as liked.

I have also been caught by surprise when others tag me in their photos. Thankfully they have only been daggy old school photos so far. Another reason to keep those awkward drunken party photos to yourself.

I'm glad I've seen what Facebook has to offer, and I'll be keeping my account open, but you certainly need to take the time to understand how it works, and what can end up out there...

Later.

Keeping your $^&# together when going through a tough patch.

2010-07-03T06:40:00.008+08:00

I've posted bits and pieces around this topic before, particularly earlier this year when the issues around my mother's care became rather complicated, and then later when she passed away.

During my daily browse through my Google Reader subscriptions this morning, I came across this post on the often excellent Stepcase Lifehack web site.

I can't see much point in adding to this, I believe this covers the best approach for working through one of life's tough patches perfectly.

I'd like to say that I implemented this to perfection myself earlier this year, but that wouldn't be completely true. If I look back I can think of a couple of things I could have done a little better, but my family and I survived, and we can now get on with enjoying ourselves again.

I hope this can help you get through a difficult period, should you need to. Of course, it will be even better if you never need to think about this at all!

Later.

Facebook: what's the fuss all about?

2010-06-19T05:39:00.003+08:00

I have finally sucked it up and joined Facebook. As a reasonably avid surfer and someone who has been active online since dial up modems were all the rage, I became aware of Facebook when it first came out, but decided at the time that it wasn't for me.

Why?

Well, I was already maintaining a blog of my own albeit intermittently, and was wondering what Facebook could really offer me.

I was (and still am) receiving hundreds of emails a day from both work and my personal contacts.

I was (and still am) kept busy with my work commitments, family life and existing hobbies.

How was I possibly going to have time to keep up with all my existing correspondence, plus keep my profile/status/whatever up to date? I was hearing horror stories of Facebook junkies who felt the need to update their status every hour of the day, even resorting to using their mobile phones to update their status while stuck in traffic, waiting for the bus, or even sitting on the toilet.

Please...

As you can imagine, despite my best efforts to ignore Facebook, I kept hearing about it. If I had a dollar for every person who asked me why I wasn't on Facebook yet...well let's just say I wouldn't need to work. Some of my friends know I'm a bit of a geek and so it was often assumed that I must have been on Facebook.

I've managed to resist, up to the end of last week. What changed?

When I was travelling in China and Taiwan earlier this month, I was with one of my business partners, who is also a geek. I realised through our discussion that he was on Facebook, yet I knew that he was also incredibly busy, and didn't have the spare time to do everything else he wanted to do, let alone keep his profile or status up to date. I remembered how he used to be an IM junkie and kicked the habit because it was simply taking up too much of his time.

He explained that he didn't use it to regularly tell the world how he was feeling. It simply served as a place where people could find him. I assumed he meant the often quoted example of long lost school friends. When asked, he said it did provide that, but for him it was more around customers. Clients who you may have had some business with a long time ago, but for whatever reason the business falls over and you lose touch. Facebook served as another place where someone trying to track him down could do a search and find his basic contact details and get in touch again.

I thought about this some more, and so I decided to join Facebook.

The verdict so far is that I can see the benefit. While most of my incoming inquiries until now have been long lost school friends, I have had a couple of old clients come through, so it has made itself worthwhile already.

I still can't help but think it is a little overhyped, and I would encourage anyone who wants to get somewhere in business not to get too personal on Facebook, because posting photos of you partying hard on weekends semi naked is probably not going to help you land that senior position somewhere one day.

But if you need to ensure people who you haven't seen for a while can track you down for work or for pleasure, you could do a lot worse than a minimalist Facebook membership.

It appears to be working for me.

Later.

Making the best use of what is in front of you

2010-05-23T06:49:00.003+08:00

After a pretty ordinary start to the year, with my mother becoming ill and then passing away, I finally managed to get away on my first business trip for the year. I cancelled this trip twice before, and then delayed it again, but at last, I was on my way.

I had an excellent first week in Europe. I was actually travelling on a round the world fare (which is the cheapest way to visit the US from here) spending my first week in Europe, and the second in the US. There were several stops involved along the way, far more than was allowed for in my RTW fare, so for the first week, I tranversed Europe by train, which was a first for me. Normally in the past, I would have flown, but found the train a refreshing change. In the past, I've often thought the train would be too slow, but to the contrary, I actually found it worked better for me time wise. Rather than spend two hours before and after every transfer with dead time in airports and getting from the airport to the central business district of each city, taking the train allows you to only get the station just before it is due to leave. They also tend to depart and arrive in central city locations, so you don't have the lost time heading out to the airport when you leave, or transferring in from the airport when you arrive. Highly recommended.

With the first trip of this year I was however still to be caught out. Something was to again get in my way, and make me wonder if this trip after two cancellations and one postponement was ever meant to happen...

...and its name was Eyjafjallajokull.

Yep, I took the "Chunnel" Eurostar from Paris to London, popped up in London, only to find I was stuck, thanks to the volcanic ash in Iceland.

Don't feel too sorry for me. I've been stranded in far worse places than London, and while my heart goes out to the holiday makers that are travelling on their own funds, being caught there during business travel was not a massive hardship, just a little frustrating when I realised I was not going to be able to get to the US for my meetings.

For the first couple of days (which was a weekend) I just kept extending my stay at the hotel on a day by day basis and monitored the situation. When I then rang our corporate travel agent on the Monday, she rightly recommended that I grab a seat on the following weekend flight (which was the first available seat in any case) and wait and see if the flights recommence. After the second day of being stranded, the hotel rates were starting to increase which annoyed me a bit, but I spent the time catching up with reports in my room, and phoning/emailing clients in the US apologising for my no show.

By the Tuesday of the following week though, I was starting to think that it was all a bit pointless, and then it struck me. I should be using this time better. I started going through my emails and address book, and made a few phone calls. Before I knew it, I had a day trip planned up into Northern England to visit a potential customer by train. I had a lunch date with an existing customer. I had meetings and lunch another day with one of our shipping brokers. Last, but not least, I used the fact that I was nearly in the same time zone as mainland Europe to phone customers who I didn't see in the first week and conducted a number of meetings by phone.

In the end, the second week was actually quite fruitful. I managed to conclude some new business in the week itself, and one of the companies I visited came back with orders only a couple of weeks after I returned to Oz with minimal follow up. Well worth it!

The trip home was a long one. The airports ended up opening up fully on the Friday at the end of the first week, and I took that flight that my agent had booked. It went from London to Los Angeles direct, followed by an 11 hour gap and then I could catch my original flight home from Los Angeles via Brisbane. So yes, I took two long haul flights back to back. As horrible as that sounds though, I chose to exit the airport at LA, went to a nearby hotel (Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles, basic but comfortable), showered and rested, and then returned to the airport and flew home.

...and the amazing thing was I didn't get any significant jet lag after getting back! I think my body clock was just so far out of whack it gave up and reset itself.

So, if you are ever stuck somewhere, or left in a situation that was not what you had planned, don't despair. It doesn't get you anywhere stressing over lost opportunities. What are the new opportunities in front of you now? How can you use the time and situation to get something else useful done? You'll surprise yourself.

Later.

Q1 2010 - Hasn't been my best quarter...

2010-03-28T07:19:00.003+08:00

This year has been moving along very quickly, after all it is nearly the end of March, so the year is effectively 25 % gone already.

For once though, I am grateful, because quite honestly, the first three months of this year have probably been the worst period of my life in recent memory. This might seem extreme, but alas it is true.

From my previous posts, you would have already been aware of my mother's failing health, the fact that I returned to work to find myself completely swamped, plus our ongoing house extensions/renovations have been happening in the background. This was all more than enough to stretch me about as far as I can handle without it starting to catch up with me.

Well, it then all took a turn for the worst. After Mum came down to live with us for a while, her health deterioated, and she passed away earlier this month. It was a sad time for me, because it happened so soon after the difficult period she had to go through in January, being effectively forced to move out of her own home as she needed a higher level of care. My father died when I was seven, so it also hit home that I am the last one left from my childhood family unit.

Anyone who knows me though, also knows that I am more of a "glass half full" type of guy, and there has been a silver lining from these recent events. Firstly, the day my mother's death progressed about as perfectly as such an event can. I arrived at the hospital the morning after she was admitted, and was told by her doctor that she only had a few hours left. He gave me some time to process this, and then said that because Mum was suprisingly alert and also because she seemed like a "brave soul" (his words), that we should tell her that she was going to die, so we did.

Mum took this remarkably well once she clearly understood what was going to happen, and we then spent the next four hours together, talking about all sorts of things. She kept interjecting to apologise for leaving a bit of a mess behind, but I told her not to worry about it. Later, when she had recevied some pain relief, she became sleepy, and we said our goodbyes. Right at the end, she said "goodbye son", and I replied "goodbye Mum" and she went to sleep. About 4 hours after that, she simply stopped breathing, and that was it.

The fact that we could say our goodbyes, and to see her drift off to sleep, completely unafraid that she was not going to wake up again was a real gift to me and others who were present. It was the type of scene where if I had seen it in a movie, I would have scoffed that "it never happens like that", but it did.

It was also a real relief to know that Mum did not have to end up going into a nursing home, or witness her own loss of mental capabilities, as these were two very confronting issues for her, and I think she would have had a lot of trouble dealing with.

So yes, it has been a rotten start to the year, but somehow, I now think it is going to get a lot better. We still have a few things to sort out with Mum's affairs, we have a house extension to finish off and I now need to get back on top of my work, but I have no doubt it will be a lot easier now.

I am sorry for the space between posts, but I am sure you can understand.

Later.

DWM - Mark Forster has been at it again

2010-02-20T15:31:00.005+08:00

Those of you who have visited my blog before will know how I have been using the various evolutions of Autofocus by Mark Forster for managing my tasks in recent times. They have all worked quite well for me, although each variation has had its strengths and weaknesses. None of them have been completely perfect, but they did seem to be a better overall fit for me compared to categorised lists in Outlook and my Blackberry, such as those proposed by David Allen's GTD system.

I'm sure much of the benefit for me has been the revelation of using a pen and paper/analogue solution rather than a digital one, but the various combinations of open and closed lists and the way your subconcious works when reviewing the lists to select the next task is also a major plus for me.

Mark's latest Autofocus variant is known as DWM, for the Day/Week/Month time management system. I won't go into too much detail on how the system works here, or introduce the concept of Autofocus in the first place. Mark's web site has all the information you might need if you are interested. I will point out that like Autofocus, DWM uses combinations of open and closed lists to manage your tasls, but there are some key differences.

The previous Autofocus systems did not have time or dates, they were timeless lists of tasks, and appointments were maintained separately. DWM still works on keeping your appointments on a separate calendar, but it does use a day to a page diary or its equivalent for the lists of tasks, and if tasks are not at least progressed when their date expires, they are dismissed/removed from the list, no exceptions. This makes a huge difference in that as the date a task is listed on gets closer, it's amazing how you will suddenly feel compelled to progress a task at least a little so it doesn't get dismissed, or fall over the edge and get lost forever. Brilliant motivation. Even tasks that seem stale, or those you simply don't want but unfortunately need to do suddenly jump out as something that must be progressed before they are lost, even if only for a few minutes. The fact that even working on a task for only a few minutes saves it, but only for one more week, also prevents you from forgetting about it again for too long. It really is incredible just what a difference this makes with procrastinating over unpleasant tasks.

Another key difference is that Mark has released the system without testing it thoroughly himself this time. In the past, he has told followers of his blog that he has a new system but will test it for a few weeks first before giving the details. You can imagine how some of these productivity junkies keep coming back every day checking to see if the details are posted. For DWM, the basic procedure has been provided early in the piece, and those who wish to try it out at their own risk can, almost like a beta release. I was going to wait, but decided to give it a go, because I know in Autofocus some of my tasks do tend to stagnate, although not so much in the last version.

My early impressions are very favourable. I think this is the best Autofocus variant yet, but it is early days. I'm about to start hitting some task due dates, so that could be interesting, although so far I am generaly finding myself keeping ahead by at least a few days. The other big test will be when I head overseas again for a 3 week business trip in March. I will need to ensure that any home task I have listed are progressed sufficiently so they can wait until I get back, or are closed off so they don't expire while I am away. My time away on business trips have always tended to knock my to do lists around, or allow tasks to stagnate.

Hopefully this time will be different, but I will let you know in late March...

If you think you could do with revisiting your own task management system, check out Mark's blog and his systems, there just might be something that works well for you there too!

In the meantime, I hope you have a productive day!

Later.

Are your affairs in order?

2010-02-07T10:33:00.007+08:00

I've been a little swamped of late with lots of things happening on all fronts, home, work and family!

As touched on in my last post, I had to get more involved with my mother's affairs because she had a fall, and we were told she could no longer live in her own home. This had a significant impact on everyone. There was the obvious shock to Mum. She had become quite comfortable in her home with a friend there as a live in carer but up to this point it hard worked reasonably well. I had the odd concern from time to time, but overall Mum's needs were appearing to be met.

When it was realised however that Mum couldn't return home, everything became very complicated, and it was made more so that Mum was starting to shut down from the shock of it all, and was not always consistent in her state of mind from day to day. She is also went through denial at first, essentially not accepting that she couldn't go home, and that this was all temporary. I won't go into all the details of what happened next, because my Mum is a very private person, but let's just say that my right as her only next of kin to help determine what happens next was challenged. Even though I have enduring power of attorney over Mum's financial affairs, the laws here are such that Mum had to make the decision, and it was at times doubtful whether she could actually make it, as she was refusing to accept that she could not return home. Other parties became involved who have been associated with Mum and my family in the past, and the whole situation became very complicated, and at times rather nasty as they tried to sway Mum's decision as to where should would live. Even aspects of Mum's estate were coming into the discussion, even though she was well and truly still with us in the land of the living.

After a painful two weeks or so, we managed to get a decision from Mum to let us care for her in our family home for a while, and then when she is ready, she can go into another form of care. I must stress though, only when she is ready.

So what is the point of this post?

A time will come for all of us where we are potentially forced to change our life situation, and you may not have a say in it. You could become disabled in a motor vehicle accident, you could be struck down with a serious illness or worse. No matter what age you are, you will have affairs, assets and liabilities that will need to be managed. Do you have your affairs in order?

Depending on your age, you may need to consider different things. If you are out of school and earning, the very minimum you will need is a will. As you get older however, it is also prudent to have a form of power of attorney in place with someone you trust and also ensure that those you have allocated this responsibility are well aware of your wishes, preferably in a documented form. Then, when the unexpected does happen, not only will your affairs be cared for, you will also be making it much easier and less stressful for those who need to become involved.

My Mum's affairs were partly catered for, but there were avenues for others to exploit and generally make it more difficult for everyone. It is also amazing how nasty something can become when there is money potentially involved.

You owe it to yourself, your friends and family. Be prepared, and have your arrangements in order. Also, as your situation changes, keep your affairs up to date with regular reviews.

Top of my projects list now is to sort my own arrangements out after having been through what was essentially hell for the last few weeks. I wouldn't wish what I have been through on anyone.

Later.

Swamped!

2010-01-20T22:01:00.003+08:00

I've just got back to work and am completely swamped when it comes to my life at the moment. Then, just to make matters worse I have some family matters to deal with that are rapidly turning very ugly, and our house is still in bits with the renovations. Nothing like a challenge to make you wonder where to next...

I am going through periods of anxiety, stressing that I will not get to everything, but at the end of the day I can only do what I can get to with the time and the resources I have available. I must say Autofocus is helping me there. As long as I capture everything I need to do, and work through my list at least once per day, I will keep finding things to progress and sometimes even get them completed. Even if I do not get everything I would like to get done completed within the day I would prefer, I at least know it is there and can look at it again the next day.

I've been in this place before and it nearly beat me. It didn't beat me then, and I won't let it beat me now.

Taking just a few minutes to knock out this blog has helped me. Yes, I could have spent these ten minutes doing something else, but it is nearly bed time here, and the simple act of writing this has reminded me that I do have a system to capture everything, and all I can do is work through it with the time I have. Trust the system, and it will look after me.

Good luck if you are just returning to the grind after taking some leave for the holidays, and hopefully you don't have quite as many challenges coming in on separate fronts as I do at the moment.

Later.

The annual review - do you need some New Year Resolutions?

2009-12-31T23:36:00.006+08:00

Well, we are now at the end of one year and are about to start a new one. What's more we are also about to enter a new decade.

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions. It is too easy to make "promises" to yourself that you will lose some weight, become more organised, quit smoking or take on other admirable goals, but unless you also determine how you will do it, nothing happens.

I will however spend some time tomorrow listing what I have achieved in 2009. I will also include things that I think I am now doing reasonably well. I've noticed other productivity bloggers have published their annual review online, but I won't do that. This is for me, not anyone else sorry.

Then, I will also make a list of concerns I have, or things that I am not doing as well as I would like. Some of these may be to do with the relationships I have with family, my wife, work colleagues and friends. Some of them could be to do with my own fitness. No doubt there will be at least a couple regarding my finances and ensuring I am providing for my family in the future.

Last but not least though, I will then look at each of these concerns and establish initial actions to try and fix these and add them to my task list.

To the outsider, these may seem like another form of New Year's Resolution, but if I can at least define next actions and get them onto my regular to do list, there is a good chance I can make some real changes to my life in 2010.

Good luck with your plans for the New Year. For most of us, 2009 was a tough year, but I am sure 2010 will be better.

Some travelling tips from a travelling manager

2009-12-19T18:19:00.017+08:00

Just in case you hadn't worked it out, I travel fairly regularly for business. In my case, it is mainly overseas, but I also fit in the odd domestic business trip as well. As we wind down for the end of the year, and I am on the tail end of my last business trip for 2009, here are a few useful tips and observations I've picked up over the years from my travels.

They are not in any particular order, but hopefully you might find some of them useful.

Use packing lists. I use a base one that covers all climates/trip types and I simply ignore what I won't need. I have it on the PC, so I can print it out and go for it, which allows me to pack at short notice if required without the risk of forgetting anything major. It also has some tasks listed on it, such as turn on my "out of office" message before leaving.

Maintain a travelling toiletry bag and top it up after each trip, then you can just grab it and throw it in your suitcase, ready to go.

Explore different packing techniques. I found a way of folding shirts, pants and jackets on coat hangers in my suitcase that really works for me. They pack quite thin, and I simply pull them out when I get to my destination, give them a flick with my wrist and hang them up, quickly and with few wrinkles. I know other people who use a bundling technique where shirts and trousers are placed inside one another and a jacket on the outside, which is then all folded up into one large single bundle. Another friend of mine still swears by rolling his clothes, like the way some backpackers do. Try googling and you will find a stack of different ways to fold and pack clothes, and chances are there is a way that will help you get more in with less wrinkles or be able to pack more quickly than you do now.

Also, a steaming shower is a good way to get rid of any major wrinkles your clothes have picked up along the way, and can also help freshen up a suit after its been trapped in your case for a while. Its amazing what a difference letting your clothes hang in a steamy bathroom for 10 - 15 minutes can make.

I tend to travel with one piece of check in luggage for my clothes and a carry on bag or small case for the laptop, paperwork etc. Some hardcore travellers do the carry on thing only. Either is fine, but I prefer to have a couple of extra clothing options rather than just one basic outfit with a spare shirt and having to make do with the same clothes for all occasions. It really isn't that inconvenient to pick up your suit case at the end of each flight and get it to where you are staying.

Carry your medication in your carry on. It is easier to keep up with your regular dosage requirements if your checked in luggage goes astray enroute.

Take advantage of usb charging. Use your laptop or if you want extra capacity, take along a small usb charger such as the apple one for your phone, Blackberry, handheld gaming, ipod, camera or batteries. Much easier than packing a single charger for every single gadget in your travelling kit.

Scan heavy business documents and store on your laptop for reading. Only take print outs for meetings where you won't have access to your PC. Maintain a small file of must have monthly reports, forecasts, inventory levels etc which is compiled every month as a separate spiral bound copy for meetings as required. Can be ditched at the end of the trip if you need extra space for shopping.

Buy cheap novels from second hand book stores or garage sales for the trip and ditch them after you have finished them. Again, it gives you some space and/or weight towards the end of the trip for shopping. I also like hiding my finished ones in hotel rooms for someone else to find.

I like movies and foreign TV can sometimes totally suck, so keep a couple of favourite flicks on your laptop or ipod/psp. I also pack a small media player in my main suitcase for some chill time when I am not working, but some hotel TVs won't accept having other devices plugged into them, so my laptop also helps out in that regard.

Maintain routines. If you are a regular exerciser, keep it up on your trip. Similarly if you like to meditate or spend regular thinking time on things. I do a weekly review in the office, checking my calendar, inboxes and project files a la GTD, so I do my best to maintain this when away and not let little things slip through my fingers. I also keep a red folder in my travel bag which acts as an inbox for things to be processed later, either on the trip or when I return home.

Stay on top of your expenses on a regular basis. It is too easy to shove a receipt in your wallet and later forget what it was for. A few minutes at the beginning or end of each day is easier than spending hours in the office days trying to figure out if you have captured everything. If I incur an expense that does not issue a receipt, such as subway tickets in some countries, I send my self an email on my Blackberry so that I can process this later and make sure I do not forget it.

There's nothing wrong with comfort food from your home country when you need a break from local cuisine, but most countries have some delicious specialties that will remain unknown to you unless you give them a try. Having said that though, I have been known to attack a burger or a decent steak like a madman after 7 days of straight sushi/sashimi in Japan, and I typically eat at a Hard Rock at least once in most places I go to. I like the food, and as I am a music junkie, I love the atmosphere as a place to chill out, no matter where I am in the world.

Try the local beverages too. I make it a habit to try the local beer everywhere I go, and there are some real beauties to be had!

Have a couple of reminders of home/family with you, perhaps photos on your phone or laptop. It's amazing how useful they are at reminding you why you do what you do when you are tired, lonely or homesick when "on the road".

There are three letters that can make your travelling in strange locations so much easier. GPS. Get it on your phone, or make sure your next phone has it. My Blackberry runs Google Maps nicely, and while there are some global roaming charges associated with using it, I have lost track of how many times I have come out of a subway somewhere via the wrong exit, and can not recognise any of the landmarks, so I whip out my phone, let it get its coordinates, enter where I want to go, and then I can start heading straight there. If you are planning to do any serious driving though, hire a car with a navigator included or bring your own. They handle this task better than a phone.

I wish I could tell you that I have the easy answer to jetlag, but I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't exist. There are some things you can do to minimise the impact, but just like how a night shift worker can not typically change from day shift to night shift without taking some time to adjust, as a traveller you can not expect your body to snap ahead or behind by 8 hours or so without feeling it. I find if I do the normally recommended things like setting my watch to the destination time before take off, and try to have my meals and a nap in sync with where I am going rather than where I have come from, it is not so bad. Once I have landed, if it is day time I spend time outside walking around in the sun light to get my body clock used to the idea that it is time to be up. I also stick to the local meal times and bed time as much as possible. If I must nap during the day because I am tired, I stick to a 15 minute power nap only, and use an alarm to get back up.

There also have been some studies that found that if you fast for 12 - 16 hours before breakfast time in the destination time zone, and then eat your three meals on the first day you are there, it really helps you reset your body clock. I have generally found this to be true as well, but it can be hard to pull off if you have skipped a meal on a previous flight, and start to get really hungry in that 12 hour period before local breakfast time if you can't sleep.

The key thing is, if business travel is a regular part of your life, make it work for you, as an integral part of the whole you. If you treat it as an extra, it will always be just that, and before you know it you will be sick to death of travelling, and it will become painful and tiring. Instead, accept that you now one of the many people out there who spend a reasonable portion of their life travelling to new locations, and embrace it, enjoy it. It is a lot easier to travel and get things done once you accept that travel is part of your normal life, and you maintain your routine while you are doing it.

Media Players - a godsend for the travelling movie buff

2009-12-01T21:54:00.010+08:00

As you might have been able to guess from this blog title, and from my profile, I travel a fair bit for work, and I also happen to enjoy movies. I love watching movies of all genres, and can usually get something out of watching anything, from a trashy piece of straight to DVD, to an absolute classic. The ultimate though is when I come across a movie I have never heard of before, and find a real gem.

There are few things that beat catching a really great piece of film for the first time with people I am close to, be it my wife, my kids, good friends or a great bunch of mates. I sometimes enjoy my movies on a very basic primitive level, reveling in the action, gore or comedy. Other times I get more involved at a cerebral level and consider the characters, the story that is being told and the point being made by the screen writers, directors and producers. Last, but not least it can be a real joy seeing actors apply their craft and breathe life into a character.

I try to watch movies whenever I can, but this is harder when I am travelling. Yes, I can catch the odd movie on planes, but it isn't quite the same on a small screen. I also sometimes will go out of my way to catch a movie in the local cinema somewhere when I am overseas. As long as the feature is shown in English, it can be a lot of fun to sit amongst people from another country in their home city, and enjoy their reactions/participation in the cinema as well as the movie itself. (I saw Braveheart in Scotland, which was one of those experiences I will never forget.)

Lately though, I have been travelling with a media player, and it has quickly become an essential part of my luggage. I have travelled with an iPod classic for years, and I used to regularly keep a few movies encoded on it so that I could plug it into a hotel TV and watch a movie when I needed a break. It worked well, but it relied on me being organised and having some movies on it, or re-encoding something to watch via my laptop, which was a pain. I would sometimes watch something on my laptop instead, which can also work quite well, but it is never as comfortable as lying back and watching it on the TV in my room.

I now have a WD TV Mini, which is a small media box with a remote control, into which you can plug in a USB drive and watch media files on a TV. It can play virtually anything that is not encoded in an HD resolution. I always have heaps of files available as Xvids, Mpeg2, DVD isos, VOBs, H264, MKVs (SD only) and the Mini can play all of these without even thinking about it. If the screen you are using supports it, you can even use component inputs and the Mini will upscale into 1080i. We need to be clear here, the Mini can not play back HD files, for that you need one of the other WD media players, but it can upscale your SD media nicely. If subtitles are your thing for catching your favourite foreign flicks, all the common soft subtitle formats are supported as well.

Any downsides? I wish it did support HD playback as I also have a bunch of bluray rip MKVs which I can't take on the road with me to play on the mini. I have plenty of other format files though, and in the end I am prepared to give up HD for the nice small compact size of the mini. Also, if your files have a DTS soundtrack, it can only pass the sound through to a DTS receiver through its TOSLink port. It will readily downmix AC3 and others into stereo but if you are stuck on a trip and your file has a DTS soundtrack, there are plenty of free utilities that can take a DTS soundtrack and remux it into AC3 in a few minutes so you can then watch it.

If you travel, and you love your movies, one of these, or another similar spec'd player for under $100 is a bargain, and it will become a permanent part of your travel kit.

My new found love for WD media players does not end here. I do also have a WDTV HD Live player for home, which absolutely kicks butt. It does everything the Mini does, plus it has HD and network streaming, but I'll perhaps rave about that another time.

Enjoy.

PS: In case you are wondering, I am not sponsored or have any commercial ties to WD, I simply came across these media players by myself and felt they were worth mentioning.

Considering what is going through someone else's mind

2009-11-22T22:04:00.007+08:00

My family was walking through the city tonight. We thought we would do a bit of Christmas shopping, grab some dinner and then look at the Christmas lights. The lights in Perth are traditionally not a huge deal, but checking them out always reminds you that Christmas is coming, and it's something we like to do together as a family.

While walking through Perth, we came across some people who my wife used to know from her last job. I won't go into the details here because it is not important, but let's just say that her departure from that job was not planned or pleasant, but at least she exited on her terms, and moved on. She chatted with them for a while, asked how the shop where she worked was going and then we headed off to get some dinner.

About 10 minutes later, my wife was starting to get quite short with both me and my two daughters, and within about 5 minutes after that, it was hard to converse with her, because my daughters and I couldn't basically say the right thing when it came to expressing what we felt like for dinner etc.

It would have been easy to react straight back at her, or allow the situation to fester into an argument in the middle of town and ruin the evening for all of us, which to be honest is what nearly happened. As we were ordering dinner, we briefly separated into two groups to get our food. It became clear while I was waiting that this was not my normal, cheerful wife, and that something had happened. The chat with her former associates from her last job had dredged up some very raw emotions that we thought were a thing of the past.

...and as we sat down for dinner, we talked about it, everybody including my daughters expressed their regret, and we got on with enjoying the rest of our family evening.

I think it is important that when we are interacting with others, whether they be our partners, our friends, our customers, our work colleagues or even our enemies/competitors we consider what is going in their minds and take that into account when dealing with their reactions to our statements, expressions and behaviour. This might seem like stating the bleeding obvious, but when we get caught up in the heat of the moment, it is too easy to overlook, and then everyone can end up reacting inappropriately and drive the situation to a very unrewarding conclusion for all concerned.

So the long and the short of this post is that my wife is now relaxing and putting the negative bits of our trip to the city behind her, and concentrating on the positive, enjoyable family time we had with shopping and checking out the Christmas lights.

I am going to make sure I keep an eye on her for the next few days to be comfortable that she is ok.

...and try to remember to be aware of what might be happening in someone's mind when I am caught by surprise by how they react to something I've said or done.

Later.

Nothing like a project to bring a family together

2009-11-07T10:17:00.004+08:00

Our family is going through an interesting time at the moment. We decided to go ahead with extensions on our house. We could have taken the easy route, and move out while the construction was underway, but no, that would be too easy, so we opted to save some money and stay.

It's been an interesting experience so far, to say the least. The changes are quite extensive, including tearing down effectively half of the house and then rebuilding it further out to give us a much larger kitchen for my wife and a slightly bigger home theatre for me. The driving force for these changes however were my daughters needing bigger bedrooms as they approach their teenage years. To that end, we are also adding a second storey which will feature a new master bedroom for my wife and myself, so that our eldest daughter can then move into our old master bedroom, and we will then knock down the wall between our two existing daughters' bedrooms, effectively turning them into one double size bedroom for our youngest.

At the end of the construction, it will all look fantastic, and I have no doubt that we will be very happy with our "new" home. The only challenge in the meantime, is that we have had to move everything into half of our original house space, and then live with dust and noise as the other half gets demolished and rebuilt. There is also the problem of keeping comfortable during periods of no roof over some of the area where we are still living, and trying to keep our clothes etc relatively clean. We are also also living without a true kitchen, which has also kept things interesting, but we have put together a very basic camp style kitchen using our outdoor camping stove and a basic tub on a table as a kitchen sink. It's basic, but it works.

We will have to keep living like this for another 2 - 3 months, but I think we will make it, and our family will be stronger for it. There are definitely times when we all want it to stop and get our house back, but at the same time we are taking on the challenges of making do with less, and on the whole enjoying the adventure together.

My daughters are getting a little fed up going to see kitchen fit out stores and lighting shops as we seem to spend most weekends choosing light fittings, and tapware etc for the new kitchen and other new rooms, but even this has brought us closer together as we go out and between all of us have some say in how the new parts of the house will be decorated and fitted out.

...and we are all waiting to reap the rewards when it is finished. My wife in her new open plan kitchen, my daughters in their new larger bedrooms and me in my new home theatre. It has only been a few weeks so far, and I am already missing my 132" screen and projector setup. The television we have is not a bad size, but it is just not quite the same...

Projects like this, taken on as a family, or challenges taken on by a work team from the office can sometimes stretch relationships, but seeing it through and enjoying the final outcome makes it all well worth it.

You never know, but you might also just grow a little more out of the experience as well.

Later.

Sorry for the lapse

2009-10-27T12:52:00.003+08:00

Firstly, I must apologise for the insufferable delay between posts. As I mentioned last time, I came down with another case of iritis last month, and I have only just now got to the point where my vision is clear again. It has been steadily improving, and the pain subsided fairly quickly once the combination of drops I was prescribed started to take hold, but things were still quite blurry for the while, which made detailed work like typing and proof reading difficult.

As a result, I kept putting off sitting in front of the PC and writing this post.

Thankfully it is better now though, and I will endeavour to get back to regular posting. All being well, I'll add something more significant in coming days, rather than coming weeks.

From this I have also learnt however that taking care of myself is important, and I should also consider "little and often", rather than longer more detailed posts. I am sure I could have gotten back to this sooner than now, if I was prepared to do some small posts in the meantime.

Later.

Know your own body.

2009-09-27T06:29:00.003+08:00

I've been reminded in this last week why it is so important that you know your own body. It is so easy when you are busy with work and family, to ignore any signals that your body might be trying to send to alert you that there may be a problem. Unfortunately, you ignore these at your peril.

I have ankylosing spondilitis or AS for short. I was first diagnosed approximately 15 years ago when I started to suffer joint and lower back pain, and after eventually getting to a specialist and receiving a correct diagnosis, I was able to get on with life, and most people who know me would not be aware that I even have AS, unless they happens to catch me during one of my rare moments of inflammation.

Last weekend however, I could feel a strange stabbing pain in one eye, which became more prevalent when I stepped outside into the sunlight, or focused on something close by with my left eye. I looked at it closely in the mirror and it seemed similar compared to my right eye in appearance. I persisted with this for a couple of hours, but realised that it was getting worse, not better, so I went around to the local emergency centre in the small country town I was in at the time. I was quite certain I was getting the initial symptoms of iritis. The doctor on duty was not sure, but when I explained that I had experienced iritis once previously and also had AS, he decided it was better to be safe than sorry and gave me some steroid eye drops. Once my eye settled down a bit, I drove home, and saw my own doctor who confirmed the diagnosis.

So now I am sitting here with one fully dilated eye with 2 hourly eye drops. It's painful, but I'm on the road to recovery.

Know your body. If you want to be successful in life, and enjoy time with your family, it will be ever so more difficult if you let yourself fall into ill health through ignoring symptoms. Your health is the biggest asset and most powerful resource you have. It is really important that you listen to what it is trying to tell you, and look after it.

Later.

(Image courtesy of www.iritis.org.)

Mark Forster has been at it again - Autofocus

2009-09-19T09:36:00.004+08:00

Those of you who have followed my previous postings before, know that I have been playing around with different task list systems. I basically use the principles of GTD, but the way I process my task list tends to follow Autofocus. It seems to work quite well for me, most of the time. I sometimes find I either end up doing too much backlog, or too much immediate/urgent type stuff, but I am sure I am not alone in trying to get the balance right.

Since late last year, Mark has introduced Autofocus, and then two revisions before coming to the current version, which is now AF4. Here is a link to the latest AF4 news, with a demo pdf "animation" which shows how the system works, and here are Mark's initial instructions. I think the notes for version 4 are not as obvious as his previous versions, but I also get the impression there is a clearer version to come, and the one posted at the moment is a quick draft to get the system out there.

I am going to move over to AF4 and then report back how it goes, because it might just fix my balancing problem between urgent and backlog/long term tasks.

If you want to give it a go, work your way through Mark's web site, but if you are completely new to AF, I suggest you read through the earlier versions too, so that you understand the background as to why it is reported to work. The forums are also very good reading, as you will come across many others who are using the system, the problems they have experienced and how they got around them. It might save you a fair bit of time and effort, but at the same time, like any productivity system, you do in the end need to make it work for your own specific situation, which will be different from anyone else's.

What is also impressive, is that Mark publishes this for free. Despite having written and successfully sold books in the past, he seems happy to put this out there for everyone's benefit at the moment, which is admirable to say the least.

Later.

Blocked by the Great Firewall?

2009-09-11T07:42:00.003+08:00

Hi there,

I am sorry that I haven't posted of late. I've been travelling through China, and for whatever reason I could not, for love nor money, get onto Blogger and post. The conspiracy theorist inside of me assumes it was blocked by the Chinese firewall we hear about sometimes, but it could have been technical difficulties elsewhere. I will probably never know.

I did however enjoy my time in China very much just as I always have previously. It is an amazing country that is really going places. It is steeped deep in culture and history, yet also at the cutting edge of new development. If you haven't been there, you must go and experience this for yourself, for business or for pleasure.

In any event, I am typing this now on the way back home in an airport lounge, but I will be home soon, and will then get back to posting more regularly.

Cheers.

On the road again

2009-08-30T19:33:00.006+08:00

Hi there. I'm on the "road" again, or at least catching planes, and this will be the first time since I started this particular blog that I have done that.

One of the challenges I always find when travelling, is keeping up with my required tasks and projects. It isn't just a time thing, it is also one of focus and context. When I was a 100 % GTD zealot, I used to struggle with context. When I was overseas, was I at "work", or at "computer" or "email"? I used to have a "travel" context to capture things I was going to specifically target to get done while away, but I would then start to miss reviewing my "work" or "email" contexts often enough and things ended up being missed.

The last two trips, I used Autofocus, and I must admit this made a huge positive difference. At the time I was still getting a feel for it, and wasn't using it as consistently as I am now. Hopefully this time, it will work even better, but let's see. I like how it isn't as reliant on context, so that is probably the key that makes it work better for me when travelling. I actually use RAF, or the Revised Autofocus process as described in the above link, and this seems to capture urgent (such as recent email and phone message requests) while still allowing me to work my way back or forwards and tackle other projects, and bits and pieces.

Watch this space, and if I am more on top of things, you should see another post within the next 7 days. After I return home, I will certainly also follow up with a review of how my current system fared as well.

Until then, later.

PS: ...and I am already missing my ripstik.

Learn from trying something different

2009-08-23T14:16:00.006+08:00

There's been a couple of instances lately, where I have tried something different, and learned from the experience. In one case, I was nervous about trying something, and probably wouldn't have done it unless I was pushed into it, and the other was something that I chose to do.

In both cases however, I came out from the other side of the experience, having gained something positive from it.

The first example was something I have never wanted to do, and had never really thought of even trying it. If you have read my profile, you will know that I travel overseas regularly for business, including the US. Whenever I have been there, I have always really enjoyed myself and have found the people I meet friendly, polite and very easy to get along with. I have however always had to rely on public transport or taxis to get around.

Recently, I went to the US to attend a trade show in San Diego, and my wife came along (minus the kids) to do a little sight seeing, and have a little holiday while I was attending the show. She also wanted to explore on the weekend, and proposed we hire a car. The mere suggestion of doing this made me break out in a cold sweat. I simply could not imagine myself driving in the US on the wrong side of the road (as far as Australians are concerned), nor was I brave enough to consider driving in LA or San Diego in what I assumed would be much busier traffic than sleepy old Perth, Western Australia. I also couldn't imagine stepping off a 20 something hour flight from Perth to LAX, jumping into a car at the airport, and driving from LAX to San Diego without having some sort of incident along the way!

We really wanted to cover some ground on the weekend after the show though, so my wife managed to twist my arm and convince me to hire the car. She used cunning arguments like "Don't worry, it will be Sunday morning when we arrive and the traffic will be quiet..." and "You'll have me helping you, I'll keep an eye on the traffic and where we are going."

As the day got closer, I was getting more nervous, but I also accepted that it was going to happen, and couldn't get out of it now.

How did it go? It went remarkably well. When I first got off the plane and started heading down the freeway to San Diego, it felt very strange and I kept having to force myself to check my mirrors etc because they simply weren't in the places where my eyes naturally wanted to go. I also found I was drifting in my lane from time to time, and getting a little too close to vehicles in adjacent lanes. My wife however kept me honest, and before we knew it, we made it to San Diego. On other days, we drove around a fair bit, and I actually started to find it very enjoyable. It was much easier being in charge of my own destiny, being free to drive anywhere, whenever I wanted, without having to rely on others.

I did have three "uh oh" moments where I forgot what side of the road I was driving on. Nothing particularly scary, more embarrassing really. The best one was where I parked in front of a hotel, hopped out, quickly checked in and then jumped back in the car to go and park it. I put on the seat belt, went to put the key in the ignition...

...and found myself on the passenger side of the car.

In the end, I absolutely enjoyed the challenge and the freedom of driving in the US, and I will now hire a car pretty much everytime I go there. I actually saved money this last time around compared to catching cabs everywhere.

The other new experience was when my daughter bought herself a Ripstik about 3 weeks ago. For those of you who are not aware, they are all the rage with kids at the moment and you will see them all over the place here, particularly along bike paths, parks and skateboarding areas and the like. I used to ride a skateboard when I was a kid and thought that these look like good fun, but not something I could do now without seriously hurting myself.

My daughter (11) had trouble getting going with hers, so I surfed You-tube, and picked up a few tips about learning how to ride one of these deadly contraptions. I then helped Emily to get onto hers and ride it a little while holding on to me. After a few attempts however, she was sick of falling off whenever she let go, and went inside.

I saw the Ripstik sitting there, and couldn't help myself. It looked like so much fun on You-tube and it had been about 20 years since I was last on a skateboard, so I gave it a go...

...and fell off.

I tried again and came off, this time taking a bit of skin off my palms as I fell to the ground.

I then tried one more time, and I manage to roll all the way down the patio before I came to a semi controlled stop. I was bitten by the Ripstik bug!

The next day, we went to a car boot sale, and there was a cheap and slightly battered Ripstik lookalike which I bought for about one third the price of Emily's. From that day on, we have been regularly trying to learn how to ride our Ripstiks together at home, in parks and anywhere else the opportunity presents itself. Neither of us are exactly carving up the pavement like you see in the videos, but we can both get going now without assistance and ride along quite confidently and dodge obstacles etc, without hurting ourselves. We're having an absolute ball, and it is quality time where we spend learning something new together.

Both of these experiences have made me realise that as we get older, it is very important that we keep trying new things. It helps us by keeping our minds active, making us more aware of things outside our normal spheres of influence and experience and it gives us opportunities to do things with those we love. It's a win win situation, and if something doesn't end up working out, we have still gained by having the new experience in any event.

So the next time you are confronted with a challenge, I suggest you embrace it, and learn something from it, rather than decide it is too hard. You won't regret it. All of this has also made me realise it is healthy to set yourself new challenges, or new things to try on a regular basis.

It can be riding a RipStik, it can be driving in a foreign country on the wrong side of the road, it can be trying out Linux for the first time, or learning a new language. The opportunities to learn are endless.

Later.

PS: There were two things that really made driving on the "wrong side" of the road much easier. Firstly, I took my TomTom navigator with me, so the worry of not knowing where I was going was completely taken away. I just followed its directions blindly without caring if it did or didn't feel right. The other was a hint I received from someone, which was to always remember that the driver had to be on the inside of the road. This made remembering which side of the road to turn into for a left vs right turn semi-automatic, thereby removing the other main worry when driving on the other side for the first time. Just keep yourself always towards the innerside of the road (not the outside edge) and you pretty much can't go wrong!

Spending quality time on a task

2009-08-16T06:45:00.000+08:00

I was asked to prepare a product marketing strategy the other day. In my mind, such a strategy is normally presented as a fairly detailed document with sections on market analysis, arguments on where your product should be positioned within that market, and then a set of long term actions/goals that need to be aimed for, in order to get your product where it needs to be. The document will then conclude with another set of shorter term actions, which form your tactics to start implementing your strategies.

Unfortunately, as is often the case at the moment, I was given a fairly short deadline, and I also had a number of other tasks to complete (such as a 5 year sales forecast) so I had one full day to submit this marketing strategy document.

As you can imagine, I went into full report writing mode. I quickly fleshed out a skeleton of what I needed to cover as a very rough mind map, and then started populating the sections. I was basically composing on the fly, and was typing out section after section, paying little heed to formatting, and occasionally switching across from Word to Excel, to churn out a few sypporting tables and charts.

At the end of the day, the report was effectively written, but was still in only a rough form that needed some extensive proof reading, formatting and a decent tidy up before it could be submitted. I realised that I was not going to meet my deadline, but because it was set as close of business on the Friday, I knew that I could tidy it up over the weekend and email it in, so it would still be in place when the office reopened.

All the same, I decided to do the right thing, and advise the recipient that it would not be in their hands by close of business, but it would in their inbox for the start of business on their next working day. It was then that I was caught by suprise.

"Thanks, but we don't need a full marketing strategy document. All we require are perhaps 3 or 4 Powerpoint slides with broad bullet points covering the key part of your product marketing strategy going forward. As long as you get something to us by Monday, all should be fine."

I had a mixed response to this at first. I felt stupid for putting so much effort into it, and not obviously taking the time to determine just what was required. I felt relieved that not quite hitting the deadline wasn't seen to be a problem. Finally, I felt frustrated because I had "wasted" a fair bit of time and effort writing up a detailed document.

I then realised that it had actually worked out well however. My day of pounding away at the keyboard proved to be a good exercise in getting my thoughts together on the topic. I had also written many powerful phrases (well at least to me) that captured the essence of my marketing strategy, with sound arguments and backing information. The exercise of then taking this information and putting into a handful slides was easy in the end, and I actually think my submitted strategy is all the better for it.

What did I learn from this experience?

1. It is important to understand exactly what are the deliverables when you agree to provide some output for someone, be it a marketing strategy, a production report, a budget presentation or whatever. It will save a heap of frustration on both sides later on.

2. It is also however very beneficial to spend a lot of quality time, working through your main arguments for a report or presentation as if you are having to provide a lot of fine detail, even if the final output is relatively simple with only broad main points required.

3. The act of generating all the background information and arguments, and actually typing them up, or capturing them in writing does truly help crystallise the important facts that need to be covered even at a higher level.

I won't always have the time to spend the same amount of effort working through detail for what might end up being a simple, high level presentation or report, but when I can work through it as if it is a detailed document, the end result will always have much better developed main points, supported with well thought out arguments.

Later.

Linux revisited

2009-08-08T16:54:00.000+08:00

A little while ago, I posted about my initial experience of using Ubuntu on an old box here at home. It worked remarkable well straight off the CD, and it didn't take long for me to get used to it and appreciate the capabilities of this free operating system.

After a while though, I started to recall some of things that made me drift away from Linux a few years ago, when I tried it then in the form of Red Hat and Mandrake. Any long term user of Windows who has strayed into Linux will know what I mean. Things like some function or application not working quite the way it did last time, because something else has changed a configuration file somewhere, and upset the balance of the universe. If it was Windows, it would crash, where as Linux will actually still work, but not quite as you want, and the fix is not always obvious so you end up just putting up with it. Later, you might decide to try a cool new window manager that you've read about, but then decide you don't like it, so you switch back, and again, the system doesn't quite work the way it did before. Yes, it runs without errors, but it isn't quite as smooth as before, or your preferences aren't saved between sessions, or similar.

Windows might not be as reliable as one would like, and security can be an issue, but if anything, it is consistent, and Linux still doesn't quite live up to that, yet...

It's getting much better than before though, and I am sticking with it this time.

I recently installed the latest Ubuntu on my Lenovo IdeaPad, and it runs beautifully. I also removed Ubuntu on the old box at home and replaced it with the Xfce community edition of Linux Mint, and it runs smooth as silk. For those cats who curiosity is getting the better of them, or you have tried Linux before and moved back to Windows, now is a good time to try again.

Is Linux better than Windows? I'd still say no overall.

But Windows isn't better than Linux either. They are both...different.

Sometimes you just have to say no

2009-08-06T20:26:00.000+08:00

I've had a pretty full on last few days. It's budget time at work, and I have been spending a lot of my day and night time trying to get it finalised. Even now, after this post, I will need to get back to it and hopefully put it to bed.

Today out of left field, a request came in from a colleague for another report, with a very short deadline. I was stunned that I was even asked, given that everyone knows that most managers are swamped with budgets at the moment. Didn't they know I was preoccupied trying to meet my deadline?

I politely explained that we didn't have the resources to quickly assemble the information they were looking for, and returned to my budget.

The request came again, albeit slightly modified to make it easier to achieve, and I felt under pressure to somehow find a way to get it done, which to be honest made me feel quite stressed.

Rather than dance around it again, I got straight to the point. "I don't have the time for this because I am doing the budget. I can only do your report, or our 5 year budget, not both, and I am choosing the budget. Sorry."

I waited for the push back, or raised voices insisting I drop what I was doing and put the report together...

Thankfully though, they got the message and left me alone.

What's the point of this post? Sometimes you just have to be upfront, and rather than try to defer a request politely, demonstrate that you can't do it right now. You save the additional time of having to refuse it a second (or even a third) time, and you make it clear that you are busy on something important and the interupter will hopefully leave you alone.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my budget...

Later.

Blu ray - I love this format

2009-08-01T10:10:00.000+08:00

Readers of my older blog, would know that I purchased a Blu ray burner a while ago, and while I found the digital rights restrictions a royal pain, the video and audio quality is mind blowing, and even on my 720p projector (rather than 1080p), it leaves DVD for dead.

One of the problems with the format is that it is difficult to view it elsewhere. I became quite used to watching my DVDs on all sorts of devices ranging from my iPod, PSP, PC, home theatre to my laptop on the road, or even streaming it to TVs in other rooms of my house.

None of this is immediately possible with Blu ray because it is relatively difficult to rip, compress or basically transfer or transcode it to something else, apart from using another Blu ray device.

I think I've now found the answer to that problem, with Ripbot264. I'm currently in the middle of some tests, and once I'm happy with it, I'll come back with a basic guide. I have it working now so that I can compress movies into 4 - 8 Gb mkv files, which are nice for media storage with minimal loss of quality. I'm also going to play with shrinking it further for playback on a couple of other devices around the home, including less powerful PCs that choke on HD.

Later.

Core Human Skills

2009-07-24T08:09:00.000+08:00

I came across this post the other day on one of my favourite sites, The Personal MBA.

I can really relate to this site, which promotes using self learning and your own business networking opportunities for your personal development, rather than spending an extraordinary amount of time and money, completing an MBA at one of the well known business schools. I particularly support the argument that this should not been seen as a cheaper, or quicker way to get the equivalent of an MBA, but it is in reality a superior approach. A big claim yes, but the more I read from this site, the more I agree with it.

I have not put myself on the personal MBA program yet, but it is in my plans...

But I digress.

In this specific post, Josh lists a set of core human skills, that I believe really nails it. These are core skills that if you can master, you can go as far as you want to go, or do anything that you put your mind to, in the organisation of your choosing. Also, your peers, superiors and subordinates will respect you.

Like any of these productivity/self improvement type posts, they may seem obvious, but it is always good to see a list like this, just to remind us of the skills we should always be aware of, and be seeking to develop.

Information-Assimilation

Writing

Speaking

Mathematics

Decision-Making

Rapport

Conflict-Resolution

Scenario-Generation

Planning

Self-Awareness

Interrelation

Skill Acquisition

Rather than steal Josh's thunder, why don't you visit his post and get the detail to each of these skills yourself.

Then it's time to ask, how many of these skills am I proficient in, and how many do I need to work on?

Later.

2009-07-21T19:28:00.001+08:00

PS: and just to add to the post below, the other thing to remember is that you know more they do...

Public speaking - a quick and dirty way to beat those nerves

2009-07-20T18:43:00.000+08:00

I wouldn't describe myself as an accomplished public speaker, but I certainly need to give talks and presentations from time to time to customers, colleagues, subordinates, peers and my superiors.

It's never what I would call easy, but I find that as long as I am prepared, it is not that hard to stay on song and get the message across.

Despite spending a lot of time preparing, and being completely familiar with the topic however, I can still get a little nervous, particularly when I have to speak in front of people I have never met before. In fact I have a speaking engagement tomorrow morning, and apart from a couple of people I know from the industry, most of the audience will be completely new to me.

How am I going to stay cool, calm and collected, and perhaps even smile occasionally?

Simple...I'll do what I always do. It works every time.

I'll just look at some of the people in the crowd, and imagine them in their underwear!

As I say, it works everytime.

Later.

Hi there

2009-07-19T07:52:00.000+08:00

Welcome to my new blog, courtesy of Blogger/Google (thanks guys). I've been on and off the web in the past, and basically blog in order to practice my writing as much as anything. I can't help but think there is still a great novel deep down in me somewhere, and I've always been one to write emails that are just a little too long or write reviews for others, almost just for the sake of it.

My web publishing started with a small web site I kicked off in 1996, called Den's den of Quake, where I would review one single player Quake or Quake 2 map per week. The site is now long gone, but I still see my name pop up in the odd text file from some of the older Quake downloads from time to time. (Thanks Neil.) I also had a sister site, called Den's den of Duke to cover user made Duke Nukem maps, but it never received the same attention from myself or the gaming community so it was retired.

Through my little website, I managed to score a brief stint as a game reviewer for the Australian edition of PC Gamer. This was a lot of fun, but also harder than I thought. Yes, I was sent games for free to review, but I was expected to play them all the way through in as short a time as possible, and give a thoughtful review. I used to find it enjoyable for big title games I was interested in, but it was bloody difficult when it came to being sent some very ordinary piece of gaming software that history would soon forget. Unfortunately PC Gamer made a good go of it, but it couldn't crack into an already fairly limited market space in Australia occupied by two other publications, PC PowerPlay and Hyper, and after about 13 issues, it went out of business, which was a shame.

More recently I turned to a basic blog, just to keep my writing brain active as much as anything.

I've only ended up here because my existing blog has just stopped working. When I decided to try and blog on a semi regular basis, I opted to host my own at the time, using Greymatter on my allocated webspace included with my internet account at iinet. The pages are still there if you want to check them out.

The Greymatter engine however appears to have fallen over, and to be honest, wasn't giving me what I really wanted anyway. I could try a little harder to fix it, as it is probably just a broken script or perhaps some changed permissions, but I think in reality it is a sign for me to try something else, so here I am!

My profile already describes me fairly well, but in essence I am a 40 something year old husband and father of two, who loves gadgets and generally just finding stuff on the web to try out. I also really enjoy movies and music of all genres, and while I come from a technical/engineering background, I turned my back on a professional music career early on, so I do have that fairly unusual mix of left brain/right brain, science vs arts aspect to me, and I am equally comfortable talking about both. Lately, as I have had more at stake with my career in management, I am also paying more attention to my personal productivity. So yes, I can sometimes get a little preoccupied with how well my own application of GTD is progressing, and more recently I have been dabbling in Autofocus as well.

Maybe one day I will get that novel out, but in the meantime, I'll keep practicing expressing myself through my ramblings as a travelling manager.

Later.

PS: I must say for my first posting, the tools here at Blogger make it very easy. I'm starting to wonder whether I should have switched to this ages ago!