Tag Archives: Productivity

Personal Knowledge Management System – Revised for 2016

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

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I originally blogged about my Personal Knowledge Management System back in January 2015 and as we are beginning 2016 its time to review it again. I use my Personal Knowledge Management System to collect, sort and store useful artefacts, blogs, information, inspiration, articles and bits I find on the web.

PKMS

Journal

Journalling in both a Personal and Work life is a useful tool to keep notes on your thoughts and ideas. In my personal life I opt for recording these in a Moleskine – See my blog post No batteries required for further details.

Personal Social Media

This side of life I separate from my work life using things like Instagram and Facebook.

Research

I have split this into two areas:

  • Podcasts
  • Web

Podcasts cover both Audio and Video casts that I watch/stream online or download to my Media Player to listen to on journeys.

Web I pull down into one feed to read using Feedly.

Feedly

I am using this to collect the stories from blogs and web sites I regularly ready. A good tip picked up in the office today from a colleague. This allows you to scan the articles in a few minutes on a single screen without going via multiple sites. Using a series of key strokes you can read the headlines, then move down the articles, opening each one on the screen if you so wish.

Instapaper

I am using Instapaper to store the articles that I like and want to save. This is done via a manual process at the moment.

Twitter

Apart from my normal twitter account (link at the side of the screen) I now have a twitter account to show what I am currently reading. @HemingwayReads

Publishing my Blog

I publish my blog using WordPress which then posts to Twitter, Linkedin and G+ (While its still going)

Further Inspiration from others

Some other good Personal Knowledge Management Systems from my colleagues to read are:

 

Pen Based Productivity Tools – The Chronodex 2016

15 Tuesday Dec 2015

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ChronodexI have blogged several times now about Pen Based Productivity Tools and a particular favourite is still the Chronodex by Patrick Ng.

Its good to see the 2016 Chronodex released for Jan to Jun 2016, but also a Chronodex Daily Scheduler and GTD To-do List option.

Link to downloads:

http://scription.typepad.com/blog/2015/12/scription-chronodex-weekly-planner-jan-jun-2016-released.html

This is primarily meant for the Midori Traveller Notebook system, but can be used without.

There is still a place for journalling using a pen rather than a blog post as discussed here No Batteries Required: My Personal Journal.  I’m now on Journal 16 as an update since that post.

 

Pen based Productivity Tools – Chronodex Daily Scheduler and GTD

28 Monday Sep 2015

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ChronodexI have blogged about the Chronodex a couple of times now as a Pen based Productivity Tool.

This tool has now been enhanced and developed further into a Daily Scheduler and GTD (Get Things Done) Pen based tool.

Chronodex Daily Scheduler and GTD To-do List.pdf

Whilst nothing new in realms of GTD Tools, this is for the Midori Travellers Notebook for those who prefer a paper based “thing” opposed to an electronic “thing” and sets out an easy to use daily page. It can be used in a standalone version if a Midori is not owned.

Source :http://scription.typepad.com/

Pen based Productivity Tools – The Chronodex – Part 2

12 Friday Jun 2015

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If you have been using The Chronodex (I blogged about this back in January) you will soon be coming to the end of the 6 months in the tool. Patrick Ng has now released the next part for the second half of the year.

Download available from here

The format of the Chronodex is meant for the Midori Traveller Notebook style of (http://www.midori-japan.co.jp/tr/english/) but you don’t need one of these to use it.

Chronodex

Upon first glance it looks a bit quirky and hard to use, but once you get used to the format of the Chronodex it does become an interesting tool to use. A bit different from a normal day to a page diary with times down the side.

Using shading, colours or other types of marking you can block out parts of the Chronodex for tasks/appointments and add keys or words alongside the areas filled out.

Source: http://scription.typepad.com/

Professional vs Personal Social Media

26 Thursday Mar 2015

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Having read an article from HBR on “How to Separate the Personal and Professional on Social Media” I decided to look at the Social Media tool I often use and in what part of my Professional and Personal life they fall.

Working on from my Personal Knowledge Management System there are a couple of others shown in the diagram. This is just my quick classification of SMT (Social Media Tools) – everyone else may have a different view such as Facebook for business to reach consumers in particular markets. However it is worth looking if you class the tools as Professional or Personal. A few do sit in the middle for me as they have a place on both sides of the page.

Some of the tools are clearly for Professional use, but some do step either way across the line.

One potential way of keeping things apart is multiple accounts on a platform, one personal and one professional, but it is important to understand and set some guidelines on how you use these.

SocialPP

If you are communicating on Social Media representing an employer, always check their policy on Social Media and communications.

If you don’t have any, there are a number of good rules available.  Kevan Lee has done some research into these and had come up with a list of 29 Social Media Rules

For all social networks

1. Share several times a day, but space out your posts every few hours.

2. Respond to all comments as quickly as you can.

3. Know the art of the hashtag. 1 hashtag is fine. 10 hashtags are not.

4. Always keep the 80/20 rule! Entertain and inform your audience first, sell to them second.

5. Use first person plural when talking about your company brand (We, Us).

For Twitter

6. Don’t automatically direct message people that follow you.

7. Don’t use all 140 characters. Give people room to retweet with a reply.

8. Don’t hijack another company’s hashtag.

9. Don’t buy followers.

10. Don’t stuff your tweets with keywords.

For Facebook

11. Don’t Like your own post.

12. Don’t post or tag photos of fans, customers, or employees without permission.

13. Don’t tag people or pages that aren’t relevant to your post.

14. Don’t ask for Likes, Comments, or Shares.

LinkedIn

15. Personalize your connection requests. Tell them WHY you’re connecting.

16. Once connected, send a “welcome” message.

17. Don’t join groups and immediately start selling yourself.

18. Don’t ignore the more professional tone of the network.

Google+

19. Always +mention users when commenting on their posts.

20. When sharing a post, always add your own commentary to it first.

21. Share to Circles to target your content.

22. Use Google+ formatting for your text—bold, italics, and strikethrough.

Pinterest

23. Don’t neglect to provide good descriptions for your pins.

24. Always link back to the original source and give credit.

25. Don’t use images that have nothing to do with your clickthrough content to get more pins or clicks.

26. Don’t pin just your own material.

Instagram

27. Don’t ask people to follow you or use hashtags like #tagsforlikes – it’s unprofessional.

28. Don’t overgram. No one likes their feed filled up with one user.

29. Use hashtags for your brand appropriately. The golden number of hashtags is 11.

– Kevan Lee (https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-rules-etiquette)

Social Media seems to have taken the theory of Six Degrees of Separation and in some cases turned it into One or Two Degrees of Separation!

Lunch? No I’ve got a meeting!

19 Thursday Mar 2015

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A recent study from the University of Toronto looked at Restorative Lunch Breaks and the effect of having a good relaxing lunch break on employees.

The study found that relaxing activities during lunch, freely-chosen by workers, led to the least amount of reported fatigue at the end of the day.  Getting work done resulted in employees appearing more tired, but that effect was reduced when employees felt it was their decision.Socializing, however, also led to higher levels of fatigue; something the paper says has to do with whether workers feel free to decide if they want to socialize and who they’re socializing with.

Bupa state that “UK companies are losing close to £50 million a day in lost productivity as workers fail to take a lunch break”.

Bupa also point out that the levels of productivity plummet in the afternoon if no lunch break is taken. A similar finding to the University of Toronto.

The UK Government state that “Workers have the right to one uninterrupted 20 minute rest break during their working day (this could be a tea or lunch break), if they work more than 6 hours a day.” But how many workers are actually doing this?

To get around this I have block booked a whole year of Lunch Breaks in my diary to try and reclaim sometime around Lunch to disengage and get away from the keyboard. An ambitious move! time will tell if it works. The challenge to this approach though is that people booking slots into your diary do not often use the booking tools to identify a free/busy time and book it because they are free at that time.

Recording your CPD

02 Monday Mar 2015

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There are many methods for recording your CPD (Continuous Professional Development) plans available on the internet and through various professional bodies.

For me I prefer a Spreadsheet with a few column headings. Its what goes into those headings that makes the record though:

Date

Date the training took place

Training

This is the title of the training and any course number/reference

Category

I split the training up into various categories such as:

  • Architecture Training
  • Finance
  • Innovation
  • Leadership
  • Security
  • Strategy
  • Technical Training
  • Vendor Training

Sub Category

Under each of the Categories I then divide into a number of Sub Categories so I can view how much training I have undertaken on a particular subject. These can vary as each Category can have many Sub Categories, however I do not split more than around 5 per one Category.

For example I split Leadership into:

  • Communication
  • Emotional & Business Intelligence
  • Engagement
  • Leadership
  • Staff Management

Source

This is normally a URL or name of site/book

Training Type

This is the type of training such as:

  • MOOC
  • Online Class
  • Replay
  • Webinar

Time

This is the length of time that you spend learning. Even a 5 minute video here and there on a subject you are learning adds up.

Key Learning

Under this heading I list the key points from the training as a reminder as to the learning points. Bit like a flash card. This is normally a list of the key points.

Using a CPD Cycle reminds me to reflect on what I have learnt and how I will apply it. Also what I need to relearn or expand on in future training.

CPD Cycle

Architecture Thought Tool: Working out your Risks

24 Tuesday Feb 2015

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An Architecture Thought Tool I use when looking to identify any Risks in a projects or assignment is to use the STORMCLOUD method.

This involves identifying the risks by going through the following areas:

  • ScheduleRisk
  • Technology
  • Organisation
  • Resources
  • Methods
  • Compatibility
  • Lifecycle
  • Over-engineering
  • Users
  • Dependencies
  • Suppliers

Once identified its then a case of mitigating the risks that can be and calling out those that cannot.

Using this method is just one of many, but helps focus on the important areas to consider.

Cherish, Adorn and Construct

19 Thursday Feb 2015

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In the front of each of my Journals I normally write a quote to help inspire the words I am crafting to tell my tale.

The one I use the most is by Clough Williams-Ellis which I find helps me when considering problems and solutions as well as writing:

Cherish the past, adorn the present and construct for the future

– Clough William-Ellis

Maybe it will help to inspire you to…….

Walking and Thinking

06 Friday Feb 2015

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Having read two interesting articles recently-“Thought experiment walking conference calls sitting is killing me” and “Hiking makes you happier“, I have been thinking about how much as slave to the keyboard I have become recently and need to break away from it. Unfortunately there is the need to still sit at my desk and type lots of documents and architect pictures, however there is a need to move round more frequently.

Have you summed up how long you sit or use a device?

I combine walking and hiking (outside of my normal work hours of course, mainly at the weekends) with one of my other outdoor pursuits of bushcraft where I can spend time outdoors getting exercise and away from a keyboard.

Lugging a laptop or tablet up a hill detracts from looking at the view, and not the best thing safety wise. Using my own computer “Brain” which is portable within the bounds of my body I can at least use it to process information from the week and gather my thoughts

Taking some inspiration from The Hike Guy and my Personal Journals, I have created a Hike Journal/Log Book. The page below is from a walk I have done around “Hanging Stone” and “Luds Church”. The page describes some of the history about the Hanging Stone and the plaques on it. Hopefully will add many more walks into the Journal.

Walking Journal

Where will your feet take you this weekend?