Category Archives: Discipline

David Allen’s GTD

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One day as I was talking about my blog and my newest love affair with Twitter and how it pushes to update my Facebook account, my sister-in-law (Jes) stopped me and said “How do you get everything done?”

For a moment I was proud that she noticed all my efforts and even areas (or glimpses) of expertise.  I work hard to create excellent content on my website and stay connected to friends and family on the social networks.  And lately I’ve been building some great relationships with people around the country who have interests similar to mind.

But Jes hit a little too close to home.

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Last Year I Joined Two Cults: Part 2

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Last week I revealed that in 2010 I joined two cults.  I talked about two organizations that our culture talks differently about.  The first was Apple.  You can read about my Apple affiliation here.

The other cult I joined has to do with my blogging hobby.  I started blogging in 2006 as a way to take my thoughts of organizing my Game Plan for life to an online forum.  I’ve always kept a journal and made plans, and this was my attempt to take it to the next level.  I’d say I accomplished that.  But just to look back, here’s my first post welcoming all my readers to the Game Plan.

Over the next four years my blogging evolved.  Last year, after subscribing and even studying some of the best bloggers in the world, I decided I needed to take my blogging yet again to the next level.  At this point I had focused my content and even created a moto: in pursuit of a healthy and disciplined lifestyle.  I had established my voice through my blog.  The blog was no longer an online journal but rather a platform for me to talk about areas where I could add value to people’s lives – specifically areas of exercise and personal discipline, including leadership.

One of the most significant areas where my blog was behind other prominent bloggers was the platform.  I had started blogging on Google’s Blogger and that was a great start to blogging.  After all, I didn’t know if this hobby would stick and I knew most blogs fail after about three months.  My blog made it – here I am five years later and 100% better.

So this brings us to the next cult I joined – WordPress.  Every serious blogger I read except one (Seth Godin) was using the (free) software developed by Matt Mullenweg.  This upgrade required me to purchase a domain and a hosting plan (you know the domain, hosted at DreamHost).  There are many other reasons and decisions built into this, but for now I want to highlight WordPress.

I still consider myself an amateur blogger, but WordPress offered me three components that Blogger couldn’t:

  • ownership – I was forced to purchase an online domain.  This is becoming more and more important as the digital world develops and an online presence is increasingly important.
  • appearance – Blogger is good for many people, but my ambition is to develop my blog into an extension of my business in the exercise and fitness industry.  WordPress is much more professional looking.
  • options – As a profitable business, not just a free add-on of Google, WordPress is loaded with options and customization that allow me to organize my content as a legitimate content management system rather than simply a series of posts.  To be fair, Blogger has added some nice features.  But WordPress is a legitimate piece of software for building an online business.

The reason I was inspired to talk about these two cults is because as I spend time studying business, leadership, and publishing (including blogging) there are certain organizaions and best practices that jump off the page.  Two fo those for me have been Apple and WordPress.  Have you ever heard of anyone promoting their HP or Dell computer as a machine worth talking about?   Have you spent time in the blogosphere and heard people rave about Blogger, Tumblr, or Drupal?  I don’t have any significant research here, but I’ve had my hands on the pulse of the digital world, and these two products are superior.

But as any practitioner will tell you, it’s not the software that will make a person successful.  It’s not the tools (in and of themselves) that will provide an advantage over the competition.  It’s how you use the tools – ultimately it’s about the content.

The my new products I enjoy writing, I am more efficient with my time, I look more professional, I have more options, and at the end of the day I’m putting a better foot forward.

Last Year I Joined Two Cults

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“It just works.”

“I want one.”

“Geeking out.”

These are phrases I heard and read a lot last year. 2010 was the year I joined two cults. Technically a cult is a group of fanatics that are typically not only strange, but often destructive and leaning towards evil. Anyone who knows me can already figure out that’s not where I’m going with this. But I did in fact affiliate myself with two organizations that have a strong following of people. Let me explain.

The possibilities...

The first cult I joined in 2010 was Apple. As I was getting to know some people on blogs and in the business world, it seemed like everyone had a Mac. There’s also this subculture of Christian leaders who swear by their MacBook Pro (“MBP” when referring to your machine online). These same people also kept talking about their iPhone. Have you ever heard a group of people go on and on about their Dell computer or their Nokia phone? In my defense I was against both the computer and the phone. My ThinkPad was my favorite computer of all time. It was powerful and very mobile-friendly. And with the phone, I had always purchased high-end phones that were small and very powerful, allowing me to be very productive and organized. So I wasn’t looking to change my computer or phone.

But the summer of 2010 had a series of events that all converged into a season of change for me. My laptop started to have issues with the hard drive and the USB ports. It only had 40GB of space, which is obviously small by today’s standards (that also shows you how long and devoted I was to my ThinkPad). And my phone was a Blackberry that I really liked. But do you want to know the backstory? I traded a jacket for an iPod Touch and fell in love with it. I was carrying it everywhere for my email, notes, pictures, music, internet, podcasts – everything entertaining and educational to fill any downtime in my day. I thought, “If the iPod Touch is so useful, and I’m carrying it in addition to my phone, why don’t I get the iPhone?”The evolution of my productivity

The ThinkPad and the phone were at their end and I was faced with a decision. All the cool trendy people where using Apple. But that’s not a reason to switch. What put me over the edge was seeing some high-end people, CEOs and very successful large and small business owners proud of their productivity workhorses – their Apple iPhone and MacBook Pro laptops.

So I converted.

And I’ll probably never go back. As many people say of an Apple product: “It just works.” I’m not going to pretend to be a tech geek that can tell you the 10 reasons Mac is better than PC. I don’t know the ins and outs of Mac OS. But I’ll just say that I demand a lot of my phone and my machine, and my iPhone and MBP don’t disappoint – in fact they’ve exceeded my expectations for productivity. Additionally, I literally look forward to using both devices more than my old phone or computer.

Want to hear the other cult I joined in 2010? I’ll write about that next week.


Training Tool: Calendar

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We’ve moved past January where everyone has their new resolutions and goals for the new year.  Now we’re back into the swing of things where everything is back to normal.  But is it really?

Here in Wisconsin the winter is not too popular for most people.  That’s a topic for another post, but what I’m trying to say is that there’s a sense of excitement for the rest of the year, and more specifically for the arrival of spring.  Then summer!  And if you wait until that warm weather to start getting into shape or to start training for your first half marathon, it will be too late or too stressful.

What if… What if you put some goals on to the calendar this week and started to work backwards with your training to start your foundation now!

A close friend has approached me to become his personal trainer for an event this spring.  The time to start training is now.  Our plan is to put a detailed calendar together full of benchmarks and goals.  Isn’t this how all other industries work?  Goals for sales, scores in the classroom, votes, articles written, or audience approval rating.  Effective leaders and producers work off a schedule organized on a calendar.

The same should be measured for fitness goals.  I’m excited to put this calendar together for him, and I’ll be doing one for myself pretty soon also.  This year I’ll be running at least two races this spring and probably one in the fall.  And although I’m an experience runner in both the half and the full marathon, I want to take my training to a new level like I did last year.  The calendar of my training goals and training log will help me to that end.

What will it look like?  Stay tuned.

What about you?  What kind of calendar could you produce and hang in your office that would move you towards achieving some worthy goals?  For example:

  • number of books to read this year
  • number of hiking trials to finish
  • different restaurants to try
  • different blog posts to write
  • hand written letters to friends and family
  • number of dates with your spouse

CHALLENGE: Pick one area of your life where you want to see some significant progress this year.  Create a calendar that will track your goals and your accomplishments and let us know how you’re making your calendar work for you.

Prepare the Cuisinart, Prepare for the Day

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I like coffee.  A lot.

And so when my father-in-law found out we were using a European coffee pot that brewed about 1.5 cups per attempt, he knew I needed an upgrade.  So for Christmas he bought me the Cuisinart 12-cup coffee machine.  My favorite feature on this model is the ability to preset the machine to brew.

But as great as the machine is, it won’t brew coffee all by itself.  I need to do a few things each night:

  • clean out the last round’s coffee grounds
  • grind new coffee
  • fill the water
  • make sure the preset is for 10 minutes before my alarm wakes me up

If I do these things the night before, my next day starts without a hitch.  (Unless my daughter gets up too early.)  This ritual got me thinking about personal productivity.  What other things can I do the day before to make the next day go without a hitch.  The more accurate question (using football lingo) is how can I call a few plays the day before to make the next day start off with energy?

Successful leaders are like the Boy Scouts: always be prepared.  I always loved that motto, and as life seems to be getting more complicated and even more dependent on my decisions as a husband/father, I’ve realized that planning is essential for my success.  When I think through the next day’s first few plays, I rest easier at night and transition to work more smoothly the next morning.

So each evening I try to call a few plays for the next day – I prep my schedule and I prep my Cuisinart.   What about you?  Do you prepare a detailed game plan for the day, week, or month?

Productivity Essential – Evernote

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As our world goes more and more digital, the tools and resources at our disposal are increasingly more efficient. Do you find yourself taking notes on multiple sheets of paper? Do you find websites or pictures you’ll want to access later on? Do you have meeting notes from work or from your spouse that you cannot afford to lose? With Evernote, you can keep all these things and more in one place. The best thing about it is that you can access it from multiple devices. I have mine on my personal phone, work phone, iPad, and laptop!

I use this app most often while I’m at work. On any given day, I use Evernote to:

  • take notes on the details of our work from the day
  • get customers’ contact info
  • track hours
  • take notes on our staff for the purposes of leadership development
  • Take pictures of a job site to discuss with the boss or customer at a later time

One time I took some notes from a customer and I emailed the note to the boss. All of the notes are fully searchable, so nothing gets lost.

My free account does everything I want right now. I currently don’t need the Premium versions, but your use may differ. On my free account, I have two notebooks set up – one for personal and one for work.

So if you’re looking for a free app to take all your notes and never lose another piece of information, check out Evernote. I’d love to hear in the comments if you use it or if you’ll give it a test run.

** UPDATE 1/29/11 **
After hearing in the comments section that you can search the text of a picture in Evernote, I was shocked! But I tried it. I took a picture of a notecard that I used on Thursday for my list of things to do. I uploaded it to Evernote and then searched for an item on the card – it worked! Whiteboards, menus, notecards, recipes – everything to Evernote.

Consuming vs. Creating (part 1)

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In the digital culture of today, we have the ability to co information as if we’re drinking from a fire hose.  I know because I live it.  If I’m not very careful with my time and boundaries, I could sit in front of this computer for hours at a time.  The problem is that it would all be good stuff, really good information.  My Twitter list called “Thinkers” could keep you chasing links for at least three hours per day.  My Facebook friends are constantly busy and  seeing their pictures and updates with family and friends could fill another afternoon.  Then there’s my RSS feed.  Leadership, business, fitness, Chritianity, commentary.  It’s all there.  And like I said, it’s all good.

Consuming information these days is very easy.  We subsribe to things and we don’t even have to chase them anymore – they come to us because we’ve asked for them.  This is very good.  But this can be very overwelming and a complete distraction if it’s not managed properly.

I subscribe to these sources of information because I know they are what sharpen my thinking and challenge my decision making as I navigate work, family, leadership, and growing as a man.  Have I mentioned these are all good?  But when I consider managing this overflow of information, I think of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits, specifically Big Rocks.  The idea here is this: if you’re going to appropriately fill your schedule (or in this case pick and choose which information to read and which to ignore) you must fill your schedule with the big rocks first, and then fill in the little rocks where there’s room.  I simply can’t read every Tweet, look at every friend’s Facebook status, and read all the RSS blog posts.  It’s obviously impossible.  So I must be disciplined enough to find the important items and focus on those.  The ‘good’ items have to come second to the ‘great’ ones.

It’s easy to consume information.  And it’s good to consume information.  Great and successful people are life long learners and spend their time appropriately.  But consuming information is only the first step.  What then do we do with all the information?

Thursday I’ll be talking about what we do with all this information we consume.  How does our creativity flow out of what we’ve learned.

3 Words for 2011

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Last year I did an activity suggested by Chris Brogan called 3 Words.  Essentially the idea is to take your goals and attitudes for the year and narrow them down to 3 words.  Your mission is to have most of what you do on a daily basis fall under one of the three words.  Brogan takes his three words and breaks them down into more specific areas adding layers and layers of detail.  He keeps this private, and I too reserve details for myself.  But these general overviews give you a good idea of where I’m focusing my energy and workflow in 2011.  Consider finding 3 Words for yourself.

Pillar

I’m re-reading one of my favorite books this year called Four Pillars.  It’s written by Stu Weber and it talks about the four pillars of a man’s heart.  I’ve highlighted, underlines, and made notes all throughout this book.  It’s so inspirational and educational, especially as I grow into this new role of a father.  My idea here is that I want to be very intentional with how I”m growing as a man – how I become the father I want to be to Sorin and Norah, the husband I need to be for Katie, and the friend I want to be to those closest to our family.

Platform

Having a platform sounds like something for authors and public speakers.  But God has given each of us a platform and thus a level of influence.  Some are larger and more prominent than others, but we all are recognized according to who we are, what we do, what we talk about, what characterizes our lives.  I’ve always been a very reflective person, and so I’ve always journaled a lot and read as much as I can find time for.  To take this reflective quality a step further, I get a lot of value out of my time when I process these thoughts and write here on my blog as a public platform discussing things important to me (and important to a lot of my readers, too).  It’s not about personal journaling and it’s not about starting a business.  It’s about having an online presence where community and conversations can happen.  Hopefully it’s helpful for both me and the reader.

First Down

(I know, it’s not one word.)  In this last area of focus for me this year, I’m working towards the idea of “finish.”  I thought “finish” was a little too straight forward for 3 Words, so I went a little deeper and I ended up with a football analogy – win!  First Down reminds me that I want to be constantly moving forward, and not just one yard at a time.  I want significant progress such that I get the first down.  The goal is the end zone, but if I get a first down, I get to keep the ball, keep possession and I’m still on the offense.  I need to finish.  Not necessarily to the goal line, but enough to get me a first down.

These descriptions may not be fully explained for you, the reader.  But they give you a good idea of my mindset for the year.  This is the second year Katie and I have done this activity and I’m looking forward to processing it a few times throughout the year with her.  For me it provides a great structure for compartmentalizing big areas of my life and gets my mind thinking proactively.


Might you consider Three Words that will frame your attitude and focus for 2011?

Resolution or Reset?

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I’m not one of those guys who has been to the gym four days this week in an effort to reinvent myself for the New Year.  Fitness goals have to be the number one resolution and as a fitness specialist, I applaud their ambition.  But it’s usually not executed with a proper base or in the appropriate context (of a structured exercise program).  Is it a valid pursuit?  Yes.  Do they mean well?  Yes.  But exercise goals often come as an all-or-nothing pursuit.

What I am more concerned with is the journey towards greatness, excellence.  I’m more interested in the process towards a disciplined life.  A person who lives a disciplined life doesn’t need to make a list of resolutions, but rather needs to simply reset.  Do you see the difference?  A resolution is going from something that isn’t working towards something brand new.  A reset is simply an adjustment to a lifestyle.

When is the last time you heard someone say, “It’s the first week of December, and boy am I doing great at this year’s resolution.”  It’s an attitude shift.  Building versus reinventing.  Building leads to success, reinventing is often a recipe for failure.

I have fitness goals to build on from 2010 (and earlier).  I have writing goals to build on.  I have personal productivity goals to build on.  I don’t need to reinvent myself.  I need to build.

I’m really excited about launching this blog late last year.  I have been challenged by the likes of Michael Hyatt and Desiree Scales to be a better writer.  This blog is a personal hobby but it has professional significance and I develop it to be a resource for anyone pursuing health and discipline in their lives. As a little teaser, I’ll be doing a lot more video, I’ll be referencing experts in the field, I’ll be doing a series on P90X, and I’ll certainly be more consistent and polished than I was last year.  That’s my reset.  Far from a resolution because it’s not new, it’s just better.  You?

Discipline in Scheduling

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This fall I enrolled at the University of Wisconsin to take a refresher course in Kinesiology in preparation for application to the department next fall.  The “refresher” course is Kines 773: Cardiovascular Adaptations to Exercise and Environment.  The class has totally kicked my butt and has taken up countless hours each week.

Two-third of the way through the semester, life is getting busy.  I’m starting to work on a grant proposal which is our final project for the course.  It’s very time intensive, especially since so much of the literature is new to me.  Up until this point it’s been pretty clear how I prepare for each week’s class.  I read between three and eight journal articles.  But with this new project it’s much more open-ended and so it’s up to me to pace myself each week so that I am ready to present it on the last day of class.

So this has me thinking about scheduling.  A disciplined person is one who can master their schedule. How important is time these days?  Invaluable, right?  It seems like more days than not I find the hours slipping out of my hands as my To Do List just gets pushed to the next day.

What’s a man to do?  According to Stephen Covey, I need to organize the Big Rocks first.  When push comes to shove, I need to be crystal clear what needs to happen.  When I plan out my day, the following four things need to be prioritized, in this order:

  1. my relationship with God
  2. my relationship with family
  3. my study for class
  4. my personal reading and writing projects

I love to read blogs.  I love to think about and craft a good blog post.  I love to check Twitter and Facebook for fun research and catching up with friends.  But right now that has to take a back seat.  I mention this because it’s my biggest distraction and essentially it’s the reason why I’m thinking about the importance of this post.

As I do my research for this grant proposal, I’m constantly on the internet and I’m often emailing my professor or another classmate.  The blogs and social networks are one “Open-Apple+T” keystroke away from anything I’m doing.  Distraction is right around the corner.

But that due date is also around the corner.  And it’s yelling pretty loud.  So I need to listen, prepare, and pursue that goal.  My Game Plan for this is to write these four priorities on a notecard and post it right above my desk.  (I just did it.)  Then I’m going to put a sticky note on my computer so that every time I open it I’m reminded of my priorities.  (Also done.)

How are you managing your schedule and priorities?  Are things getting done?  What kind of season are you in?  Do you need to take a few steps to think about your priorities and how you’re going to execute them?