the.SWO.ter

Work as Binary

2009-02-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

In the Navy we have become obsessed with numbers, metrics and the quantification/measurement of work. While not a fan of the this trend in general, I will concede that for examining huge amounts of data, or trends across an entire fleet, class or squadron, it can be useful.

We must watch out, however, that the trend does not trickle down too far. Where it may make sense for an Admiral to use metrics to make fleet-wide decisions, it has absolutely no place in the day-to-day management of personnel.

The simple reason for this is the fact that we tend to forget, work can not be measured on a scale. In fact, work is binary. A task has been completed or not. An engine which is 95% repaired won't run.

I hate to keep jumping back to the productivity philosophy of David Allen, but, he has a lot of great ideas. The applicable one in this case is that every job or project can be boiled down to a series of recognizable physical actions. Each of these actions is either complete or incomplete. Therefore, the project itself is only complete when each of the actions is complete. It's ones or zeros, nothing else.

The difficulty in applying this as a leader is that the onus for defining what makes the job complete rests with us. Only with a clearly defined end state can one determine if the work rates a one or a zero.

It is much easier as a manager to present a nebulous goal and cook up an arbitrary number on a scale attempting to define how well you think the subordinate has done.

I hear what you are thinking now. You shouldn't have to spell out every single step for each of the people who works for you. They should be able to figure out for themselves what needs to be done.

That is certainly true, but you must present them with an understandable “binary point” to determine where they are going with their efforts. You must declare what the 'one' looks like and let them know that everything else is a 'zero'.

Only when they see that clear line in the sand will your people be able to produce the results you want. But you are the only one who can show them.

The Guru, David Allen, Shows Us His Office

2009-01-25T10:27:00.000-08:00

Does your home office resemble David's? Lets hear in the comments.

Guest Post: Getting the Inbox to Zero

2009-01-25T06:21:00.000-08:00

by LT Jeff Ferguson

So the other day I noticed that the Swoter had posted a call to delete all our pending email and send flowers to our closest associates with our regrets. That started me thinking. My problem isn't that my email accounts are overwhelming, but my inbox definitely is.

What do I mean? Well David Allen of Getting Things Done fame says that your inbox is made up of as many collection devices as you need, but no more than are absolutely necessary. So let me count mine. I have my email at work. That's one. Then there's my email at home which consists of three different accounts. I have my little notebook for work (or wheelbook for you nautical types), and of course a notebook for civilian life. If I wanted to I could probably keep just a single notebook, but I really like keeping a separate one at work that I can leave AT WORK.

Then there's the physical inbox at home for letters, bills. Now, I'm a dinosaur, and I still get bills by snail mail. Plus those boxes are filled with old keys, ticket stubs and the rest of my life's detritus. I have to keep a physical inbox at work as well for things like logs to be reviewed, award inputs to mark up, etcetera, and it's in about the same shape.

My point is that when I add all of that up I have a HUGE amount of stuff that's been collecting and is threatening to take over my space. Now to be honest, most of this is my fault. I'm not quite so diligent at processing all of my crud as I should be. That said, I still need to get out from under before I can count on any system keeping up with the influx of new items. So Here's what I came up with:

1. I'm definitely implementing the Swoter's Easy Zero (SEZ) solution for my personal email accounts. The business accounts have to be processed, but anything older than two weeks is gonna' get rapidly archived. I figure anyone worried about a reply has probably pinged me again since then.

2. The SEZ solution works for those two notebooks that I carry. Those notebooks are full of telephone numbers, to-do's, addresses, stock numbers, the name of that great beer I had at the bar, you name it. Like I mentioned, I keep one for work and one for everywhere that's not work. I went back through those notebooks, and I had no idea what most of those notes referred to. So I'm going to transpose a few of the notes that I took recently into a new notebooks, and the old ones and all that old stuff is going in the bin. I'm almost certain that I wasn't really going to do anything with the older stuff as much as I'd like to tell myself different.

3. OK, now for the hard stuff. Is there a SEZ solution for snail mail? You bet! Now, given that I still get some of my bills by pony express I can't just move the mess from my desk into the rubbish bin as much as I'd like to. I mean that most of its just junk mail, but if it makes it into our space it has to be processed or it builds into a mountain like the one I'm facing, and creates that "I've got to get organized" stress. So, keeping a wary eye out for that renegade water bill, I'm making a blitz through my piles of mail to get rid of as much as I can as fast as I can.

Trash it all! That's my motto. What I can't toss, I'll process tomorrow.

So I won't quite get my inbox to zero today. I'll get there. Even if I have to delete your email, 'cause Swoter SEZ I can.

When Yer Right, Yer Right.

2009-01-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

My first product review ever was for Jott.com. It didn't rate too well in my estimation. Now it seems that they have dropped all their free services and only offer pay services. Pay for internet services??? What a joke. Jott.com has fallen totally out of favor.

Type rest of the post here

Tip of the Week: Easy Inbox Zero

2009-01-12T06:28:00.001-08:00

I have made at least a couple mentions of the concept from David Allen, Merlin Mann and others, Inbox Zero.

If you are anything like I was though, your inbox is so full now, with an unorganized mix of unread mails, taskers and reference material, it is impossible to imagine it empty.

The solution may be easier than you thought. Declare today to be Zero Day. Erase everything from your inbox and then empty the trash to avoid the temptation to sift through it later looking for this or that.

Next, send out an apologetic email to all the folks in your contacts, explaining that their mail, tasker, etc. had been erased (it's up to you if you want to explain further as to why they were erased) and could they please send another copy.

Now you are starting with clean slate and can deal with the items as the come in anew rather than sorting through the overwhelming pile you had.

The added benefit of this method is that many of taskers will never be sent back to you as the originator often did not have an effective method for tracking what he or she sent out.

Five Rules of Delegation

2009-01-11T07:23:00.000-08:00

In our profession (as well as any other executive or management position) the only means is survival is delegation. Even on a DIVO level it would be impossible to handle all the assigned tasks yourself. Of course, it is touted as the the most important solution for management woes from everyone from Stephen Covey to Timothy Ferris.

What does it take to be an effective delegator? The.SWO.ter has boiled down successful delegation into five easy to follow (okay, maybe not so easy, for you overbearing 'A' types out there) and vital rules of being a damn good delegator.

1. TRUST – this is the most important of all. Subordinates can sense when you honestly trust them to get the task done. You must put your faith in them. Fully. Or don't hand them the task. No trial periods; no working under supervision. Use some Jedi mind tricks and convince yourself that your instincts in delegating this particular task to this particular person are correct. Your confidence will inspire their confidence, or vice versa.

2. KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT – Evaluate the final product, or in longer projects evaluate progress at pre-determined milestones. The person doing the work should also be tasked with recommending a list of these evaluation milestones to provide him or her with a sense of ownership of the total project. Don't ask about progress everyday. Don't stop by unannounced to see how things are going. In other words, don't be a nag.

3. BE FLEXIBLE – When you delegate a task, be aware that there will be some variance in the final product from what you imagined. Ask yourself; does this output accomplish the goal of the assignment? If so, move on, even if there are details which you would have preferred to see done a little differently. Don't ever, ever ask for work to be modified for nitpicky items such as changing the font or slide color. All you do is demonstrate that a) you pay more attention to valueless minutia than the big picture and b) you have psychological issues.

4. BE AVAILABLE TO SUPPORT – Just because it would be counterproductive to meddle in an ongoing delegated task doesn't mean that the person to whom you assigned the task won't need your help. Make it clear from the beginning that they can approach you with problems. But be sure to let them initiate the request for support. You don't want to go offering support all the time and violate rule number two. Also remember that support equals support and not completing parts of the task for them.

5. REWARD FAILURE – What, you scream? You heard me correctly, even failure, if it is the result of an honest mistake should be rewarded. If the person to whom you assigned the task put in his or her best effort and still came up short, they should be commended for those efforts. Let them know there is still work to be done, but give them an early day off, with the knowledge that you will be getting together the next day to discuss where there efforts fell short so that they can make the appropriate corrections.

Do you have any other ideas for great delegation? Leave them in the comments.

Workplace Anxiety

2009-01-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

The New York Times ran an article yesterday discussing the impact of fear, specifically the fear of losing one's job in uncertain economic times. (Fear Factor in the Workplace)

Various experts weighed in on how the anxiety prevalent in today's workplace is stifling productivity, risk-taking and creativity.

Myra White, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, interviewed for the article, made the following assessment:

“Anxiety affects people’s memories and ability to concentrate. They forget names of people or forget what they need to do. They often don’t process information well, and have trouble understanding and following instructions. No matter how carefully you explain what you want them to do, they can’t seem to get it right. It is easy for bosses to mistake the lapses for signs of incompetence or a lack of motivation rather than as the byproduct of high anxiety levels.”

While most of us in the Navy do not live with the day to day fear of being laid off for economic reasons, we do live in a culture that is steeped in anxiety. Hyper-competitiveness, impossible to meet deadlines (often artificially designated) and a “Zero Tolerance for Error” mindset lead to the same psychological fallout as the angst faced in the corporate workforce during the recession.

And it is pervasive. The majority of my bosses were openly fearful of repercussions from up the chain of command, seriously impacting their ability to be creative, effective leaders. Likewise, the JO conventional wisdom that one does not leave the ship before the XO, even if it means hanging around playing Xbox in their staterooms for a couple hours, is certainly not adding to the productivity of the wardroom.

Even the move to rank all Ensigns and JG's as Promotable to remove the competitiveness from period where the Officer should be concentrating on qualifications is seen as an open joke. No one works under the illusion that their DIVO fitreps are not being scrutinized for how they compared to their peers.

This atmosphere ends up reducing productivity severely. As Dr. White puts it, “Anxiety can also elicit strong emotional reactions....(People) engage in endless checking behavior — like checking several times to make sure they turned off a piece of equipment or proofreading a report over and over to confirm they have completed it correctly. This behavior increases the time it takes to do something. What took 10 minutes becomes 20 minutes.”

But all experts agree that certain amount of stress is good for productivity. So how can we fine tune that balance so that we are getting better, more creative work done?

In my opinion, we must continue to work with high standards and reasonable, well thought-out and well-planned deadlines and clearly defined goals that have been created well in advance.

But be flexible. Have tolerance for situations where the goals either cannot be met, or cannot be satisfied to the degree that was originally planned. Be open to having your subordinates tell you “No” once in a while. Perhaps most important of all, protect your Officers and Sailors from those above you who are still trapped in an atmosphere of fear and want to transmit it downstream.

Let's hear your ideas in the comments!

The Swoter Goes Hi-tech

2009-01-06T06:47:00.001-08:00

In my effort to stay on the bleeding edge of productivity technology, I have now started using a program (Blogwriter Lite) which allows me to update the website from my iPhone.No longer will I have lengthy meetings and other work related items keep me from productive blogging. Now I can sit in the back of the room, nodding my head, quietly tapping out articles on my new tool.It is possibly the closest I will ever come to multitasking.

2009-01-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

GTD Guru David Allen presents his ideas at the Googleplex.

What did you think of David's GTD seminar? Leave a comment.

Tip of the Week: Backup Your Data!

2009-01-04T08:01:00.000-08:00

The crash and burn of moderately popular blogging site Journalspace.com reminds us once again that regular, thorough backups of your data is the only way to stave off disaster.

Journalspace had been in business for five years and because they never made offsite backups (instead relying solely on a type of physical redundancy (RAID) system) lost all of their customers' data last week. The owners then threw in the towel and closed shop, leaving their bloggers scratching their heads.

For your home computer, you are foolish if you do not have automated backup software running. They are plentiful and cheap (if not free;) just Google "backup software" for your platform.

At work, the inability to install extra software, and the current ban on USB sticks in NIPR computers makes it more challenging.

If you are not interesting in relying fully on the Navy's IT solutions to ensure your data is safe, you are going to have do it yourself.

A simple method, for UNCLASS items, is to save your important data to a single folder, and once a week make a .zip file of the folder. The .zip file can then be emailed to your off-ship email account. Gmail, for example allows attachments of up to 20MB and unlimited storage space.

Navy Tests Work from Home Program

2009-01-01T06:17:00.000-08:00

This is some of the best, most forward thinking news I have seen in a while....

From Navy Personnel Command Public Affairs

MILLINGTON, Tenn. (NNS) -- The Navy announced the Virtual Command Pilot Program, allowing a select group of officers to work from home, even if their new assignment would normally require a permanent change of station.

"This program will allow officers to fill career-enhancing billets without necessarily having to transfer to do so," said Capt. James Oakes, in the office of the chief of naval personnel (CNP) where the jobs will be located. "The pilot offers the opportunity to reduce permanent change-of-station costs for the Navy while providing stability for Navy families. It's a win, win."

The test program will initially be open to eight officer billets. The officers selected for these billets should be self-starters, capable of working independently and maintaining open lines of communication with their supervisors via phone and e-mail. They must be able to travel periodically to their parent commands.

The parent command furnishes the Navy Marine Corps Intranet seat to include: laptop, docking station, monitor, keyboard and mouse and government cell phone for the officer's daily work. The command closest to where the officer is geographically assigned will assist with administrative requirements like fitness reports, physical readiness tests and physical health assessments.

"My geographic command is Navy Recruiting District (NRD) Pittsburgh. That is what my BAH is based on, but my duty station is Washington D.C.-based. It saves the Navy a lot of money, and I'm not a geographic bachelor," said Oakes, "If you call my Washington D.C. office number, it rings on my government cell phone here in Pittsburgh."

In announcing the virtual command pilot, Vice Adm. Mark Ferguson, the chief of naval personnel, said the pilot will test whether physical assignment away from the parent command is feasible.

"It offers individuals the opportunity to work in high-impact positions while maintaining geo-stability to support personal and family needs," said Ferguson.

The initial eight billets, all within OPNAV N1, are:
* Deputy, Manpower Requirement Branch
* Center for Career Development Assistant Liaison Officer
* Navy Personnel Command Planner/Strategic Roadmaps – Production Management Detachment
* N131 Head Professional Development
* Staff Ops and Plans
* IRR Force Management Head Planner
* ADP Program/IT/Web Products Support
* Director AED/AMD Career Management

Only officers eligible for shore duty as part of their normal sea/shore rotation may apply. Interested officers must request a chain of command recommendation be sent to their detailers via an e-mail nomination by either their commanding officer or executive officer. The nominating e-mail should state that the officer is a volunteer and provide justification on why the officer is suitable for this pilot.

2008-12-26T12:21:00.000-08:00

Another great talk by Merlin Mann.

Type rest of the post here

CDR Shinego's Thoughts

2008-12-26T11:57:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to hear CDR Steve Shinego speak while in Newport. He is one of the most forward thinking creative leaders I have encountered in the Navy.

He has graciously allowed me permission to post an abridged copy of his "CO Thoughts".

The ship will succeed. Make the ship’s game plan work. Getting credit isn’t the goal – a team win is.
Respect the Chain of Command at every level and in both directions.
Think Ahead, Plan Ahead, Stay Ahead of schedule. Who is looking 6-12 months down the road? It can’t just be the CO and XO. Pick another player and free them from the inside-the-lifelines “drudge” work. If it’s OPS, don’t let the CO hassle him about everyday Deck or Comm issues – we have Divos and CPO’s running these divisions.
Work your best people at 50% - they’ll make the ship better with any free time (and do things you haven’t thought of).
Work the worst people at 100% - they’ll waste any free time and distract others.
Protect the best people from “drudge” work.
Don’t make the best people ask for a special “bennie” – offer it unsolicited.
Never hold a grudge if a slug becomes a star (and earns it).
Trust is earned by consistent great work. Autonomy is earned by gaining trust. Everyone who is not autonomous should expect some level of XO oversight into their tasks. Don’t gripe – just do better work so I can trust you and give you autonomy (note – this reduces my workload, too!)
Don’t confuse motion with action, or volume with effectiveness. There are people willing to work 15 hour days filling inboxes with admin – if it isn’t making the ship better stop them. This excess admin just slows down everyone who has to read it.
Promote/favor those who elevate the team.
Recognize “steady strain” is better than “heroics.”
Remember the above at FITREP/Eval time – remember those who get great results without creating a crisis.
Keep a sense of humor and have fun – promote camaraderie at appropriate levels.
I don’t want to do your work; I don’t want credit for your good work. I’ll take the blame when it’s important for the good of the ship and Chain of Command.
Deescalate arguments. Good rule for ships and marriages/relationships.
Don’t game performance – reward the best always. The best will be motivated and the weaker ones will know what your true expectation of performance is. DO NOT feel compelled to give the people who work the longest hours the best fitrep. Are they the best? Why such long hours – are they inefficient/incompetent? Does their inefficiency hold back the rest of the team? Or crush morale? The goal is performance that elevates the ship, not hours per task.
Rest/sleep is an important investment – ensure the CO and your DHs get sleep or take naps. XO should do the same. If there’s a major issue or, for example, JTFEX event, the oncoming watchteam must, must resist the urge to hang out in CIC just to be there. Go sleep so when the event is done you can assume the watch and the CO/XO won’t have to babysit because you’re operating on no sleep. Your value to the team in this instance is letting the rest of us sleep while you stand a taut watch.
Be a good father/parent and husband/spouse. Let others be the same. Be aware of important events and let them go. But, as always, the best people ‘buy’ liberty time by getting ahead of sked. They deserve the most consideration.
Figure out the Boss’ psychology and how to work with him. (Whoever the Boss is). A war of wills, even if you are ‘right’, doesn’t make life easier for the crew.
Any ship can get great results – the real goal should be great results with good working hours. The best ships make success effortless, and a winning streak creates its own inertia.
If you know the sked will be crunched or accelerated, consider pre-deployment leave periods that start months earlier – then let a portion of the crew take 15 – 20 days when they are not critical. This will reduce the amount of key manpower losses in the weeks before an accelerated deployment. Another comment on leave – leave policy shouldn’t be equal across the crew – slugs shouldn’t be given as much good grace as the best people. Leave consideration is equal across plateaus of performance, not across the entire crew.
Keep a small greaseboard or dry erase board – keep notes about events (good and bad) in sailors’ lives. Quickly review it daily so if you see sailors in the P-way, gym, etc you can ask the appropriate question in an informal setting.
Brief the crew on major events/exercises – review the messages and gameplan, the geography, the people, the goals. Pick a POC that will organize the CO, XO, CIC, Bridge, W/R and CPO Mess binders. Same POC reads every msg in detail, and briefs the crew to ensure we have a good grasp of what’s required. It works better if a couple of competent minds absorb the entire event package than to expect EVERYONE to read all the messages independently. Then ensure everyone reads the messages that apply to their watchstation.
For upcoming events, start:

with the key players meeting,
the khaki briefing,
the watchteams involved (as applicable),
EVERYONE ELSE.

Try to get every brain onboard driving the gameplan forward at their level in any situation.
Don’t praise falsely. It is enough to thank the sailors for working hard without saying “we did great.” – if the command didn’t do great. Only say “we did great” if we really did great. They will trust your praise.
Resist the urge to badmouth other ships, shore commands, BUPERS, etc. when something goes wrong.

What could we have done to figure this out ahead of time?
How do we fix the problem?
Don’t assume you have to talk about #1 immediately – wait until the problem is solved or you have a gameplan to solve it.

Let people sleep. If you can put out a POD around dinnertime that is accurate, then give people a quick heads up with the 1MC in the morning… do you really need to do O Call and Quarters daily while underway? Or more than just a few times per week?
If a well-intentioned idea has bad consequences, don’t:

Overreact,
Flay the originators of the idea,
Publicly second-guess or criticize the CoC involved.

Set up the good subordinates with great ideas that make them important to the ship/command.

You’re increasing their clout with the JOs and the crew.
You’re training them how to think.
You’ve bought yourself liberty time – think about it – if the CO only trusts the XO then you will not be giving him the comfort margin to allow you to delegate – you’ll lose liberty time, holidays, ropeyarn, etc.

JOs have got to see the XO enjoying good quality of life with his/her family or they won’t want to be an XO someday. Still gotta make the ship great, but a great ship with good working hours creates retention.
'Notice when things DON'T go wrong' - it must mean something is going right. Examples - Deck Seaman aren't going to NJP, the crew ISN'T griping about food, laundry, barbershop or ship's store hours, etc. This makes the assumption that you can see things are working as expected and there isn't phoniness like hiding violations of the UCMJ.
The important thing to do with new sailors or 'dirtbag' sailors and/or dirtbag divisions is to find the things they do well and ensure they excel and get noticed. I.e. - set them up for a win. This will allow them to be respected in the mess line, berthing, etc. Once they feel respected they'll become part of the team and you can branch them out into new areas.
The good ships never have to be 'territorial' or adversarial with inspection teams. If you’re really good, then after a day or so the inspectors respect the ship and they start genuinely teaching your people what they know from decades of experience, not just what they need to know to pass the inspection criteria.

Expectations

2008-12-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

Is it possible that some of our best intentions are ensuring substandard performance? Could we get a higher level of productivity and effort from our Sailors by altering our own perceptions and behavior?

Of course we can. One of the traits of human nature that we need to be aware of is that generally people will always attempt to rise (or allow themselves to fall) to the level of expectation held by those whose approval they seek.

If Sailors feel your confidence in their abilities, level of maturity, work ethic etc. they will move towards fulfilling optimistic expectations of them. Conversely, if you make it clear through your actions that you expect they will act like knuckleheads and perform poorly, your wishes will almost certainly come true.

In speaking of the attack on the COLE, CDR Lippold has stated on numerous occasions that the Sailors who performed the best, the ones who really pulled together and saved the ship, were in many cases his “problem children.” How can we then explain that these young men and women were suddenly transformed into dependable life-savers?

I argue that they were likely always reliable and hard-working and the dramatic event which they endured served to shift expectations and bring out their true colors.

During this tragic event, they were not falling to meet the expectations of a COC that had decided, for whatever reason, that they were “dirt bags,” but rising to the exponentially higher expectations of desperate and injured shipmates who fully expected that they would pull their weight to save the ship and their lives.

Am I saying that the poor performance in the past was the fault of the COC and that the individual Sailors didn’t deserve their reputation? Not at all, I am sure that there had been legitimate problems. In the Navy, we do, however, have a tendency to let the downward spiral of negative expectations progress much more rapidly than we should.

First, it is important to recognize that Sailors are automatically assumed to be incapable, poor decision makers from the start. There are numerous programs in place (many of which are geared much more towards CYA than helping the Sailor, but I will cover that in another article) which constantly reinforce the perception that our expectation is, that given the choice, most Sailors will make the wrong one.

A perfect example of this is the push to implement the use of the Army designed TRPS program for our Sailors planning holiday travel. What better way to demonstrate quite clearly to our personnel that we believe them to be morons than to force them to use a web-based computer program to tell them which route to take, where and when to rest and if their car is in good-enough repair to drive for the holidays. An activity, it is important to note, that tens of millions of other Americans accomplish with no outside intervention.

How do we overcome this? Treat all your Sailors like you fully expect that they are capable and industrious. Step back from the CYA attitude and leave room for them to commit errors. Unfortunately, allowing people the freedom to screw-up is the only way they learn and develop.

Raise your expectations. Whatever you think a Chief should be doing, assign to a first class and so on down the line. You will certainly get some people who fall on their faces, but there will be just as many pleasant surprises. And you have demonstrated faith in your Sailors, which will pay dividends far beyond any temporary set backs this might cause.

Getting what you inspect and not what you expect has long been a bit of conventional wisdom, but truth be told it is much more accurate to understand that we get what we inspect and what we expect.

Tip of the Week: Ecofont

2008-12-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

Be the one to let your CO know that you can save him 10-20% on the ship's printer toner bill. By downloading the new Ecofont, (which can easily and safely be installed into the font folder by the ITs) you can replace the default Times New Roman with a toner-efficient substitute. It is designed with tiny holes in all the letters, which maintains readability while reducing ink use.

This will be the easiest FITREP bullet you ever got!

Don't forget to leave a comment if you found this handy or if you found it worthless. the.SWO.ter wants to know!

Spam Detective

2008-12-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

We have all seen the promises: we will respect your privacy...we will never give out your email address. Yet somehow my mailbox is crammed with offers for pirated software, masculinity enhancing creams and and low, low priced prescription medicine each and every day. So I have come to the inescapable conclusion that someone is handing out email address. The question then, of course, is who?

Gmail has a great feature which allows you to append a distinctive word or phrase onto your address so you can determine who the culprits are.

It works like this:

1. I buy a new pair of cowboy boots from billybobswesternshop.com.
2. Instead of using the.swo.ter@gmail.com, I use the.swo.ter+billybob@gmail.com (which, incidentally still goes to my regular inbox.)

Now, each time I get a Viagra offer email sent to my address with the appended +billybob, I will know who is selling my personal info.

Don't forget to leave a comment if you found this handy or if you found it worthless. the.SWO.ter wants to know!

Tip of the Week: Keyboard Shortcuts

2008-12-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

The mouse is simply not quick enough. Any computer whizkid will tell you that keyboard shortcuts are where it is at. They will increase your ability to get things done on your computer while reducing the clumsy time spent switching hands from typing mode to mousing mode. (And they have the added benefit of mitigating some of the wrist discomfort I have been experiencing from using the mouse all day.)

The problem is that they are a pain to learn initially. Luckily, this problem is easily solved. Using the Dymo labeler I purchased to label files in my GTD system, I created a bunch of tiny labels and placed them on the appropriate keys corresponding to the shortcuts I wanted to learn. Now, a quick glance at my keyboard and I am instantly reminded that I should be using ctrl+t to open a new firefox tab rather than resorting to my mouse.

A full list of keyboard shortcuts for Windows.
OR if, like myself you are a MAC person, look here.

SWO.ductivity=5

Don't forget to leave a comment if you found this handy or if you found it worthless. the.SWO.ter wants to know!

Productive Magazine

2008-12-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

All the big names in productivity are in it. An interview with David Allen, an article from Leo Babauta and best of all, the initial issue is a free download. Give it a read!

Productive Magazine

Personal Outsourcing

2008-12-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

Can personal outsourcing work for a SWO? Would you trust a faceless virtual assistant (VA) in Bangladesh or India handle some of your more mundane tasks in return for a few dollars an hour? I say, why the heck not?

Personal outsourcing, also often referred to as 'Outsourcing Your Life' is the hottest trend in increasing productivity, freeing time or both for busy American professionals. Based on the internet, phone and email, agencies provide VA's with the requisite skill sets and then facilitate a purchase of their time to do your work.

One of the most popular agencies is GetFriday.com. Their rates range from $15/hour for a 'pay-as-you-go' plan to $8/hour if you are willing to commit to purchasing a large block of time per month. Their smallest subscription block is ten hours for $120. And the hourly rate decreases as the amount of time you purchase increases.

Don't want to go outside the U.S.? Havingthingsdone.com uses American college students and charges a flat rate of $15/hour.

What type of tasks could possibly be outsourced? And what about the large amount of things that we deal with that are classified? The issue of outsourcing classified items can obviously not be overcome, but what about the unclass stuff. How about reformatting an INSURV POAM? Researching the SURFORTRAMAN and developing a plan for submitting awards? Or putting together your travel claim? And certainly don't forget all the 'work' that we do after we come home from work. Balancing your checkbook, searching for hotels for your next vacation. The list could go on and on and each item is keeping you away from your family and the things that you would prefer to be doing.

Whether that is worth it, is, of course, a personal decision as to how much you value your free time. Essentially though, one pays $100-150 a month for an extra day of free time by outsourcing ten hours of work that you would have otherwise been compelled to do personally. (Considering I have seen people pay $50-100 for a shipmate to take their duty day, this price does not seem unreasonable.)

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Don't forget to leave a comment if you found this handy or if you found it worthless. the.SWO.ter wants to know!

GTD: The Art of Stress Free Productivity

2008-11-22T07:57:00.000-08:00

I am on the GTD bandwagon. It is one of the most down-to-earth, simple productivity system (system is not quite the right word, but we will get into that later) to which that I have ever been introduced.

GTD is short of “Getting Things Done” the action management method created by David Allen, and described in a book of the same name. (David Allen's Site)

In a nutshell, his approach is based on the idea that each person has a finite amount of available active memory (think RAM in a computer) and that we often have it filled to capacity simply keeping track of what we have to get done. The implication here is that all the energy or psychic RAM that is focused on remembering what must be done is not being focused on getting things done. Close the 'open-loops' as he calls them by getting the info out of your head and into a trustworthy system and you can redirect energy towards 'doing.'

(Don't think you are keeping track of too much? I challenge you to set aside a half an hour and begin to make a list of all the commitments you are tracking with your brain. Write down everything. From the most mundane like going to morning quarters to yet unanswered message traffic or email to buying your wife a anniversary present or making it to your kid's soccer game. I think you will be surprised how long the list gets and how many things pop up that you weren't even consciously tracking but were nevertheless eating up some of your RAM.)

Allen's process for dealing with these open loops is simple. Collect everything in an inbox, sort through the inbox, one item at a time and make a decision about it:

1.Is it actionable? If yes, go to number 4. If no, continue.
2.Is it really important enough to save? If yes, file it. If not trash it.
3.Move on to the next item.
4.Determine the next physical concrete action.
5.Can it be done in 2 minutes or less? If yes, do it. If no, move on.
6.Are you the best person to do it? If no, delegate it and place in your tickler to track. If yes, move on.
7.Defer it. Based on the item, this can go on a todo list or if it needs to be hard-scheduled, on your calender.

This seems like common sense, but the most important part of the process is defining the next concrete action. For example, “Prepare for ULTRA” is not a concrete physical action. The next physical action would more likely be things like “Call ATG liaison about sample POAM” and then “Email Ops regarding scheduling meeting to discuss POAM.”

The other tip that is integral to his process is that of having todo lists that are context specific. “Call ATG liaison” goes on the @phone todo list. “Email Ops” on the @computer list. That way, you only concern yourself with tasks that can actually be completed in your current context. For example, it does you no good to mull over what email you have to send while waiting for your appointment at medical. But, if you have your cellphone on you, you can start banging out things on your @phone list. Seems self-evident but, I know that I have spent plenty of time thinking about all the stuff I had to do when I got back to my desk, my stateroom etc. If you get EVERYTHING into your trusted system, you don't have to expend any energy on things that cannot possibly get done where you are now. When you are in the proper context it will be right there waiting for you.

A brief word on systems:
Allen goes out of his way to point out that he does not endorse any particular system for putting his processes into action. If you are a Palm Pilot person, use that. If you are an Outlook fan, there is a very effective method for setting this up using its capabilities. Even if you are a technophobe, a little system called the Hipster PDA is a very popular method of implementing GTD. (I use a combination of a small Moleskine notebook and a program called Things which syncs between my Mac and my iPhone.)

GTD has been around for about seven years, so I may be behind the power curve just starting to tout it now. But, for those of you who haven't come across it yet, do yourself a favor and give it a try.

SWO.ductivity=5+

Numbers Brief

2008-11-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

10, 20 and 30....these are the numbers you must keep in mind when preparing that next brief. Based on a theory put forth by venture capitalist and author of one of the top-rated blogs in the world “How to Change the World,” Guy Kawasaki, the 10/20/30 formula is quite simple. When you brief, use a maximum of ten slides, finish in twenty minutes or less and never, ever use a font size of less than thirty.

Impossible, you scream! What about that embedded Excel spreadsheet detailing our next ITT drill? What about the fishbone chart depicting our path to INSURV success? Those things take time to brief and cannot be summed up in large font bullets!

Guess what, whether you think your information is too important not to include or not, when you attempt to show extremely granular detail or oodles of data, it will not be retained. And if it is not retained it is not worth spending the time to put it out.

At the Annual Conference of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Dr. Vladamir Sistek claimed that “Studies on attention span....shed light on why students have difficulty with the traditional lecture format. Adult learners can keep tuned into a lecture for no more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time, and this at the beginning of the class.”

Do we expect that sleep-deprived, port and starboard watchstanders are going to be able to functionally retain more than than the students in Sistek's studies?

Of course, I concur that we often deal with subjects which require quite a bit a granularity. But there is no reason that we cannot provide that detailed information to the key players as an email or a paper handout prior to the brief itself and then concentrate only on the key points while we are briefing. (Most of those attending any given brief only need a cursory understanding of the 'big picture' anyway.)

This method will also have a valuable side-effect. It will make us better briefers. How many time have you sat though a brief or presentation where the presenter was simply reading off the plethora of info he had jammed onto each slide. By including only ten slides of big font bullets, the briefer is forced to do the unthinkable, namely, really learn the material being presented and put it out in a succinct and understandable manner.

So the next time you are putting that brief together, just chant the new powerpoint mantra 10-20-30 to yourself as you type. And then stick with it!

SWO.ductivity=4+

Don't forget to leave a comment if you found this handy or if you found it worthless. the.SWO.ter wants to know!

Down and Dirty Powerpoint Lesson

2008-11-19T13:50:00.001-08:00

Small-Business Executives Learn Leadership Under Fire from Navy SEALs

2008-11-16T03:19:00.000-08:00

Four days with no sleep. Almost round-the-clock physical challenges. Mandatory push-ups (at least 10) for every meal, at exactly every six hours. And swimming 1,000 meters in the Pacific Ocean.

“I had never swam in my life before, in the ocean,” says Yacov Wrocherinsky, founder and chief executive of Infinity Info Systems Corp., a New York-based company that specializes in customized integration of customer service, marketing and sales management for other companies. (He’s also afraid of sharks.)

These are just the kinds of stresses that Mr. Wrocherinsky and 47 other business executives from around the world underwent as part of an unusual physically and mentally taxing leadership program from one of the elite commando forces in the world. Held in early October, the YPO/U.S. Navy SEALS Challenge: Leadership Under Fire Seminar is not for the faint of heart or the out-of-shape.

Read the rest of the Article.

Inbox Zero -- Merlin Mann Presentation at Googleplex

2008-11-15T18:35:00.001-08:00

Merlin Mann is the creator of the fantastic website 43Folders.com. His productivity methods have gained such a great reputation that he was called into the Googleplex to present his notion of how getting your inbox down to zero shoots productivity through the roof.

This presentation is at least as valuable for it's style of presenting (Hey, a powerpoint that doesn't put you to sleep) as it is for the information presented.

Crummy briefers with overloaded inboxes should certainly pay attention.

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Product Review: Jott.com

2008-11-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

This weekend I gave the productivity program/system Jott (http://www.jott.com) a spin to see what it could do. I was interested in finding a simple voice recorder feature for my iPhone, but the lure of Jott's extra features (such as automatic transcription) sucked me in.

From their site:

Jott makes sure you stay on top of everything. With a simple phone call to 866-JOTT-123, you can capture notes, set reminders and calendar appointments, stay in touch with friends and family, and interact with your favorite web sites and services...all with your voice!

It was less than 24 hours after I downloaded and registered that I dumped the program and started looking for another voice recorder. The reasons were as follows:

1.The really cool stuff, voice-to-email and getting an email with the notes to yourself are only available in the premium accounts. (Subscription Fees...yikes!)

2.Without an internet connection, it is worthless. Meaning, of course, that it is difficult to use underway. (So, not SWO-friendly)

3.And this was the most annoying. Even with a 3G connection and then later with a Wi-Fi connection on my iPhone, my recorded notes did not upload. A system to leave yourself reminders that is only reliable sometimes is no system at all.

As I had very high hopes for this little app, I am sad to say that it rates only a 2 on the SWO-ductivity scale. Maybe if you are on shore duty with a constant internet connection and only use the phone number to record your notes, it could be of some use, but for the average SWO, this is something to not waste time on.

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