Thursday, September 22, 2022
Meta Work is my term for everything from leadership strategies to individual GTD and PKM workflows—the stuff that transcends any particular domain of work.
Meta (from the Greek μετά, meta, meaning “after” or “beyond”) is a prefix meaning “more comprehensive” or “transcending.”
Friday, March 27, 2015
Derick Bailey: I want this horrible, sick feeling because it means I care about what I’m doing. It means I understand that I can really screw this up, and I really don’t want to. It means I care enough to make sure I have every detail right… This gut-wrenching sick feeling that I have right now, means I am growing in some new way and doing something new and potentially amazing … and potentially terrifying and horrible, too.Thursday, January 8, 2015
Derick Bailey: For me, my work and my reputation are tied together. I’m not known for social graces, being easy to work with, or having the best bed-side manner when helping others. But I am known for quality work, for pushing others to do better, and for clearing a path on which others can travel. Sometimes my technical ability makes up for my lack of empathy. My experience exactly. I would add that as my reputation grows, I find that I get more interesting work.I just ran across this great bit of advice I got back in 1995 from Larry Wall, creator of Perl:
Don't get brainwashed by your education into thinking that all the answers have to come from teachers.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Organizational culture emerges from the process of answering questions. The answers aren’t necessarily articulated explicitly, but they’re expressed in the decisions people make, the way people treat each other, and in so many other ways. Organizational leaders may be unconsciously undermining the very culture they’re trying to create, but they can’t change it until they start asking the right questions.
Merlin Mann in Back To Work #41:
If you're not asking the right question, then there is no correct answer.
Monday, March 21, 2011
I’m a fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, but it suffers from one major shortcoming, at least for me: it offers some great methods for managing inputs and outcomes, but it is little help for managing knowledge in a usable electronic form, largely due to its reliance on paper as a least-common-denominator representation of ideas. Paper is inherently disconnected, and any given piece of paper can only be in one place at a time.Wednesday, March 16, 2011
I’m beginning a personal project to help me manage the barrage of different inputs I juggle every day. I know I’m not alone in this, so I’ll be sharing my thoughts here as I work through this project. I don’t know what form the end-result will take—could be software, could be a change of my habits or mindset, I don’t know. Step 1 was to list my main sources of input—email, IM, our help desk application, etc.Wednesday, November 10, 2010
This is a great video from Steven Johnson about where good ideas come from.Monday, July 27, 2009
Stressed at work? I highly recommend Getting Things Done by David Allen. The main thing I learned from GTD was how to manage my email—keeping my inbox empty and using a single folder for archived messages. It’s been several months, and I need to read it again, but even the few tips I remember from my first reading have helped me manage an ever-increasing workload without a mental meltdown.Monday, May 18, 2009
Inspired by an episode of the Ockham’s Razor podcast: Mark Dodgson: I want to argue that failure doesn’t get the credit it deserves. If you want to understand success, you must appreciate the ubiquity of failure, and if you’re not regularly failing, you’re not trying hard enough. William McKnight, Chairman of the Board at 3M Corporation, 1949-1966: As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative.