Jason's Notes About Stuff

I think most people, do better when they open, look at, and deal with physical , postal mail rather than email. For me it's the opposite. After growing up with email and having it be a critical part of my life for so many years, I can read, process and respond to email wickedly fast. I use a pre-screener that lets me quickly archive and mark spam, and I know the Gmail shortcut keys instinctively. Getting to Inbox Zero in the morning generally takes minutes. On the flip side, if someone hands me a piece of postal mail or paper, I literally have no idea what to do with it. Paper blows around in the wind if it's not weighted down. Paper is flammable . It gets lost in stacks or under things. There's no way to set a reminder about them (unless you go all out and use a physical " tickler file "). I use paper for grocery lists and sometimes jotting down quick notes that I'll transfer to digital later (although I'm using Google Keep more and mo...

Do you have any problems? I sure do. Tons of them! Everyone has problems. You might even call them "challenges" or "puzzles" or "opportunities". I use an incredibly complex, patent-pending 3-step methodology for dealing with them: Identify Plan Do This may seem like a very  simple idea, but I assure you, most people do not follow this. Everybody gets step 1. Most people know their problems. Then then add: Step 1.a) Worry about the problem. Step 1.b) Complain about the problem. Step 1.c) Make up excuses for not addressing the problem I call this the WCE problem-solving methodology -- pronounced "wuss" ;) I have news: WCE does not work. They are unnecessary steps. A few people get to step 2, the planning stage, but never complete that step. What about step 3: Doing -- the one that really matters? Hardly anyone ever makes it there. They're still too busy cranking out excuses. So next time you come across a pr...

I return most  business phone calls (and all personal ones).  However -- There is a type of messages that I don't reply to anymore.  It goes something like this: "Hi, this is John Doe from Acme Corp. I've tried calling you several times but was unable to reach you. Could you please give me a call at 123-4567 x890.  That's John Doe at  1 2 3 - 4 5 6 7  x 8 9 0 . Look forward to speaking with you then.  Thanks! " This seems to be a standard template for a sales "cold call."   It's made to sound like it might be a potential client or other important call, but over the years, I've learned that most worthwhile messages include the reason for the call. When I return messages like the above, it is always some random provider trying to sell me something. What I don't understand is why they don't mention the product or service they're trying to sell in the message. Do they think they're being sneaky ?  Do they think they...

I read a nice little example of ROWE*-based thinking in a recent blog posting. (link to the full article below) ... Pre-ROWE Manager: “We’ve been working on this strategy for awhile, and I really want you to crack the nut this year.” Employee: “Got it. I’ll do my best.” ["I have no idea what you're asking for, but if I show up every day, stay late, and come to you next year with something that I think you might like, I should be okay."] Post-ROWE Manager: “We’ve been working on this strategy for awhile, and I really want you to crack the nut this year.” Employee: “Let’s define ‘the nut’. How will we know if I’ve cracked it? How will it be measured? What’s ‘meets expectations’ and ‘exceeds expectations’ on cracking the nut?” ["If I can get clear on how to exceed expectations on cracking this nut, I can figure out the activities that will get me there and also plan how I'll volunteer at my child's school, coach her basketball team, and take a vacation to ...

Tim Ferris recently posted about a Dutch ROWE office implementation. It was a good read, but I was more interested by the bit at the end about his own home office and techniques for simplifying life. "I limit misbehavior by limiting options. Notice that I have no shelves. This discourages accumulating papers and encourages both elimination and immediate digital note-taking." ... "Don’t want to eat too much chocolate? Don’t put it in your house." ... "Constraints — a precursor to simplicity — aren’t always a bad thing. In fact, they’re often better than increasing options." This reminded me of some simple "tweaks" I use in my own life to achieve optimal results. For instance, there are certain types of junk food that I just can't resist if they're in my cupboard, but at the grocery store, I have the discipline to simply not buy them. I buy healthy food instead. Then, when I'm at home looking for a snack, I end up eating cottage...

SPAM email. Everyone hates it. Company and individuals alike have built various systems for dealing with it, but from what I hear, most solutions are sub-optimal. I currently receive about 365 spam emails per day. 290 in my personal account, and 75 in my work account. But I hardly ever have to think about this! That's because I use hosted Gmail for both my personal and work accounts. Every time a spam email makes it through. I simply check it, and hit the "Report Spam" button. Hundreds of thousands of others do this every day. Then, the Google algorithm goes through and figures out which emails are spam based on this aggregate result. It ends up being extremely accurate. I've only had 2 or 3 false positives* over the past 3 years I've used Gmail. Because of this, I can confidently ignore the spam/junk folder. Gmail saves these messages for 30 days -- just in case. Yet another reason to use hosted Google services... :) *A false positive is a legitimate ema...

In the business world, there are phone people, and there are email people. I'll admit right upfront that I'm an email person. There are situations when phone or face-to-face meetings are necessary or more appropriate, but for most day to day issues, I think email is great. Consider this scenario: I send an email checking on the status of something. The other person gets the email, and realizes they need to ask me something that basically requires a yes or no answer. Instead of emailing, they phone me. Naturally, I miss the call and they leave me a long message re-explaining the entire situation, asking me the question, and leaving their contact information and the times they can be reached. I have to log into my voicemail, retrieve the message, listen to it (possibly more than once) and take down the contact info. Then I call them back -- and, you guessed it -- they're not available. By the time I finally get them tracked down and give them their answer, I've proba...

There's a great little article over at What's the next action about how to make an effective To-Do list. If you don't find making lists effective, it might be because you're doing it wrong! Some of the key points are: Use verbs: Everything on the list needs to be actionable, which generally means it should start with a verb. Be specific: If an action isn't specific enough, it's easy to defer it since you don't really know what the "next action" is. Group by context: Group your tasks by context. (at the computer, on the phone, running errands, etc.) Focus on "next": Filter out everything except the very next task for each context.

Tim Ferriss (author of the 4 Hour Workweek) recently posted a great list of "stressful and common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to eliminate." My two favorites: 1. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers (I never do) 4. Do not let people ramble (I almost always answer personal calls with "Hey, what's up?" and business calls with "Hi, what can I do for you?"

A couple of the worst possible ways you can manage people: Ostrich mentality (a.k.a. Head in the sand): Refers to the "ignore it and it will go away" attitude. Some managers think that if they just "leave it until next week" somehow the problem will just go away. No. It'll get worse. Act on it now. Ditch digging theory of management : This is the belief that every task in business is the same as simple manual labour (like digging a ditch). In other words, they think that to make a project go faster, they just need to add more people ("horsepower"). No. Often adding more people to a complex project will just slow things down. Some things just take time. Warm body theory of management : This is a personal pet peeve of mine because I see it everywhere. This is the belief that people ("warm bodies") in the office, sitting at their desk somehow equals productivity. Some managers frown on personal time, and reward people who are th...

Estimating software development time is hard. There are so many variables, unknowns, "unknown unknowns", and the specification always changes. Besides that, developers tend to be optimistic by nature. Here's a handy little way to come up with a quick, yet accurate estimate: Come up with your best, overall estimate that you feel is realistic using your favorite technique, or pure "gut feeling" if you are a very experienced developer and you know the problem domain well. Ok, you have your absolutely realistic number now, right? It's not realistic. I guarantee you there are aspects you haven't thought of. Double the number. This is your best case scenario estimate. This is how long it will take assuming everything goes well and there are no snags or major changes along the way. Now double it again. This is your most likely estimate. This is how long the project will probably take, when all is said and done. Now double it a final time. T...