Workflow for New Year’s Resolutions
Thursday, January 4th 2007 | Ismael Ghalimi
For most of us, New Year’s resolutions are forgotten almost as soon as they’ve been taken, not because we’re not genuine enough in their proclamation, but because the process we use to follow through is broken. As much has been taught to us by David Allen through his excellent Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, but some simple truths are worth repeating on a regular basis if we want them to really sink in. Here is how to fix the process.
New Year’s resolutions, such as losing weight, or spending more time with loved ones, are goals, not tasks, and as such, they are not directly actionable. If you want to execute on the vision, you need to tie resolutions to actionable tasks, and define follow-up tasks for each of the later. For example, the goal of losing weight could be tied to joining a fitness club, or simply creating an account on FitDay. Similarly, you could follow through your goal of spending more time with your loved ones by scheduling to leave the office at a certain time tonight, or by reserving a couple of seats for the next blockbuster through Fandango. To summarize: never set a goal for yourself without defining the actionable tasks that will take you a step closer to reaching it.
Then, you should find a way to create the next task for any task you complete. This is where the process breaks for even the most disciplined among us, for two reasons: First, we usually do not know in advance the full sequence of tasks that will lead us to the completion of a relatively abstract goal. Second, the tools we are using to track the completion of tasks do a pretty bad job at suggesting follow-up action items.
In order to work around this problem, I usually make it a rule to always ask myself what comes next for any task I complete, and any meeting I attend. For the past two years, all my projects and all my appointments have been managed through a CRM system. I started with Salesforce.com, then migrated to SugarCRM (more on this later). With SugarCRM, any goal or resolution is captured as a Project, for which at least one Task must always be pending — SugarCRM does not enforce it, I do. I simply do not allow myself to record any project that does not have a pending task.
When a Task is marked as ‘Completed’, I make sure to create a follow-up one. If I cannot, one of two things happen: either I decide that the goal has been reached and mark the Project as ‘Completed’, or I turn the Project into a long-term goal (recorded as a Note) that has no start nor end to it, and is not much different than stating that I like blue as a color. It is not actionable, it is just a reminder that someday, I would like to achieve some objective, like visiting the Galapagos or writing a book, and all I want is the peace of mind that comes in knowing that such a desire has been recorded somewhere, in such a way that I can get back to it if I find myself having too much free time on my hands at some point in my life (unlikely to happen anytime soon). This is what David Allen calls the freedom and relief of ‘Mind like Water’.
Salesforce.com makes it easy to create follow-up tasks and meetings, but does not require it. SugarCRM works the same way for tasks, but has a very nice feature for meetings: when a Meeting is outdated, it’s Start Time turns from black to orange then red, but it’s Status remains ‘Planned’, not ‘Held’. This behavior forces the user to manually edit the Meeting to switch its Status from ‘Planned’ to ‘Held’, which in turns removes it from the list of upcoming Meetings. This serves as a convenient reminder that some follow-up action items should be recorded as Tasks, for any meeting worth holding usually requires follow-through. I do not know whether such a feature was intentional or not, but I find it extremely useful.
So here we are: we now have a bullet-proof process that should help us follow through our New Year’s resolution. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that we will get more things done this year. The curse is that we will have no excuses for not getting them done. It’s up to you now to decide what you will put on your list. I am still working on mine…
Reference: Getting Things Done with Office 2.0.
Update 2007-01-14: Fascinating CNET article on the science of procrastination.
Entry filed under: BPM 2.0, Office 2.0
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Ismael,
I have an infallible method of succeeding on all my New Year resolutions, I don’t have any! I should introduce my wife to the concepts that you outlined. No sooner have I started a project she then demands when I’ll be finishing the one after next, “Oh, and can you just do this and that please?”
Over the years I’ve tried many systems, but it really depends on the nature of my role at any one time. I’d carry my Filofax around with plans and to do lists when I was running projects. Then I’d start a new role that required little planning and then get out of the habit, when planning was more appropriate and start all over again with the latest approach.
The pace of change and availability of so many of these tools, with various access restrictions, makes choosing them complicated. In the end I have defaulted to my PDA. I can create lists, read documents (if I remember to sync.), have my contact list and so on. Best of all. I can set it to make a noise when my wedding anniversary is due!
Cheers
-Bob
Ismael,
I’m just curious, but which version of SugarCRM do you use? There a quite a few. I am debating moving from my existing CRM solution over to the Open Source SugarCRM (I like to keep my data on my server).
Ismael,
The downside to the PDA for me is the inability to synchronize with more than one email tool or calendar.
Perhaps someone from these Web 2.0 companies could work some magic and contrive to break this selfish Microsoft habit. That way we could share meeting and event information with others through Web 2.0, as well as email.
I’d like to selectively grab emails from my work email and personal email accounts, so that I have near instant access all the time. No more printing out travel confirmation emails with booking codes and the like. Perhaps I could be sent a code in a message that I could Bluetooth to the check-in machines!
The one thing (desire) that would pull me into Web 2.0, more quickly than it is now, would be a small PC that could connect anywhere and be instantly on. But then the work|life balance would tip further towards work! Then my wish (plan) to meet with one very busy Ismael might be easier to arrange!
Cheers
-Bob
Chris,
I am using Sugar On-Demand, which will be upgraded to Sugar 4.5h very soon. I am very impressed by the functionality offered by the product, and I have just scratched the surface at this point.
Best regards
-Ismael
Bob,
I find the BlackBerry Pearl to be close to this ideal device you’re talking about. Synchronization is fairly easy with it, and it gets online in no time (compared to a laptop). Also, because it does not have a full keyboard, I find myself not using it that much to type emails, which is a good thing if you want to preserve this work|life balance.
Best regards
-Ismael
Ismael,
I’ve been a long time user of SugarCRM (Open Source on my personal server), and a long time GTD’er. I’ve tried to get SugarCRM into my GTD flow, but I’ve found two restrictive aspects to that approach:
1. Mobile access to SugarCRM is a challenge. When I’m on the go, I really need to be able to access my contact lists on my PDA, whether it be through a synchronization mechanism or (preferrably) over the air using an EV-DO powered Treo.
2. The project module seems a bit heavy to use for GTD. I could be wrong, or over complicating things, but that’s been my impression.
I’d love to hear about your impressions on both, mobility with SugarCRM and the heaviness aspect of SugarCRM for GTD. As you explain it above, it makes sense, but a little more details would be appreciated.
By the way, with the ability to custom build modules inside SugarCRM, I think it would be really wonderful if someone could develop a nice GTD module for SugarCRM…
Nitin,
You’re right on! Mobile access to SugarCRM is not practical, neither is it with Salesforce.com by the way, for it only works with a limited number of standard objects, and does not offer support for custom objects. Your best option there is synchronization, which I achieve by making a TSV export from SugarCRM, followed by an import into Mac OS X’s Address Book, then synchronize with my BlackBerry Pearl over USB (Bluetooth is not supported to date). Cumbersome, but it works. One tiny detail: when doing so, you need to manually clean the TSV file up, by removing the double brackets that surround company names having more than one word. I cannot comment on what is required for Microsoft Windows or any other contact manager though.
Regarding the Project module in SugarCRM, I found ways to make it work, as described in this past article. The article was written for Salesforce.com, for which I built a Goal custom object, but the workflow I’m describing there is almost identical to the one I have now within SugarCRM.
As far as building a GTD module for SugarCRM, this is something that I am seriously considering. I might very well do it myself if I’m still using SugarCRM as my primary platform two or three months from now. If I do, I won’t be able to call it GTD though, for the acronym is a registered trademark, but the concepts will be the same.
Best regards
-Ismael
Hi all,
I use SugarCRM, and synchronize it with Microsoft Outlook. Then I use ActiveSync to link to my HP iPAQ… It works like a dream. I think my IT manager bought software that provides this link (SugarCRM to Outlook).
[…] Personal Favorite I originally started using Salesforce.com two years ago, and enjoyed it very much. Later on, I migrated to SugarCRM, mainly as a way to learn what is available out there. I have been using it extensively for the past three months, and I am very impressed so far. I am using Sugar Enterprise On-Demand Version 4.5.0f (Build 1202), and found it very stable. Over the past three months, I have not experienced any interruption of service, and found the application to be very responsive, with average server response time lower than one second. I use it to support my own GTD process, as described in this previous article, and it’s working as well as when I was using Salesforce.com for it. My only requests at this point would be for improvements of Calendar views by displaying Contacts and Accounts that are related to Calls and Meetings, as well as the addition of a wizard that would allow the creation of custom objects without having to develop a separate PHP module. […]
Has anyone used the new marketing features? Thoughts for email campaigns?
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