Free Download: BubbleMap Focusing Tool in PDF
BubbleMapping is a simple method for focusing your efforts on what needs to be accomplished in any given 30 day span. It can be used in conjunction with your other planning tools, such as your yearly plans, your quarterly goals, etc. This just helps you focus on the thing that matters most in the near term.
For instance, you could fill in the green-blue oval with: Create Content. You might then fill in the first line beside a circle to say: “write 2 blog posts a day” or “write 7 pages of technical copy” or “draw storyboards for next short work.” Whatever. Allot a slice of time in each day to the three options. (I reserve option 3 in my day for firefighting and email/surfing stuff).
Let me know how you’d improve this, modify it, etc.
Moved Back
I have decided to keep my posts centralized at chrisbrogan.com. If you are receiving this as an RSS feed, please add the following feed instead:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/chrisbrogandotcom
Towards a More Balanced Toolkit
I like tools that I can apply to multiple situations. There’s a place for incredibly specialized tools, too. I wouldn’t want to use a hammer to put together an iPod, for instance. But, when dealing with thinking, I like open-ended tools. Covey’s and Allen’s books are great open-ended tools. This means that a minister, a doctor, a marketing executive, and a gas station owner can use what they learn and apply it to their own lives. It becomes important, however, to understand which tool is right for which job. At the end of this post, I’ll give you a few up-stack tools to consider adding to your kit.
David Allen has created a useful tool through his work in Getting Things Done. His tool shows someone how to make good use of their time, especially in the area of organizing information. But it is a down-stack tool. It is something at the “feet on the ground” level. It is very important, and necessary, but must be “front-ended” by some kind of tool to focus you on what you’ve determined matters most to you. Let’s open this conversation up a little.
Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s The 8th Habit is an up-stack tool. (So is the older work, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, but I think the 8th Habit does a better job of “skinning” the material in a more useful way.) It helps you sit down, decide what matters most to you, and then build methods to focus on what you’ve decided matters. But let’s go even further up the stack. How do you decide what matters most? In the case of this post, I’ll limit my discussion to you in your role as knowledge worker. I could easily tailor this to your own vocation (email me if you want to talk more).
There are a few levels of thinking you must engage in when considering what matters most in your vocation:
Once you have a better understanding of what you want to do, you need a tool to help you FOCUS your energies on those. Here are a few that I’ve seen and used, with some thoughts.
- Stephen Covey’s four quadrants First Things First planning- The premise is simple. Divide a square into four quadrants, and label them 1 – 4. Quadrant 1 consists of things that are urgent and important. Quadrant 2 are things that are not-urgent, but important. Quadrant 3 are things that are urgent but not-important. Quadrant 4 are things that are neither urgent nor important. Covey posits we should try to keep our “internal compasses” focused on Quadrant 2 activities. These are those things that are important but not immediately urgent. This seems like a good plan, but it’s a little complex to use as a way to stay focused. And it doesn’t address time. There is still the built-in notion that we shouldn’t use clocks, we should use compasses. Great, except try showing up 40 minutes late to a meeting and tell them that your compass work was dictating your time. I think there’s value in understanding how to break out the things that matter, but that we must use a more solid tool to convey this to “feet on the ground” activity.
- Steve Pavlina’s 50-30-20 Rule- I like the basic idea here, but not the drill-down. Steve breaks down tasks into 3 categories: A tasks, B Tasks, and C Tasks. A tasks deliver benefits over a 5 year time frame, B over a 2 year, and C over 90 days or less. My personal problem with this is that I can’t think in 5 year time horizons. I’m good for one or two.
- David Seah’s Printable CEO – This is straightforward. Assign the things that matter most points. Rate yourself against how many points you achieve throughout the week. Of the three I’ve mentioned before, this is probably the one to follow.
Takeaway
To better navigate your success, you should rely on a balance of tools with which to think about HOW you’re doing what you do. I split them into the categories of “up stack” tools, the ones used to better focus you on doing what you’ve decided matters most, and “down stack,” the ones you use to successfully execute against your goals and tasks, once you understand your focus. One size doesn’t fit all, but for the most part, if you want to see results against your goals, tools like these are what will help you succeed.
Finally, what are some of the “up stack” or “down stack” tools you use to achieve results? How do you know they’re working? What matters most to you?
Launch: Grasshopper
Welcome to Grasshopper!
Happy 2006! Grasshopper is a place to grow your capabilities. We’ll learn about new ideas, tips, techniques, and skills for developing you or your team or your small business. We’ll share with each other links to useful information, publications, and websites that will be useful. We’ll collaborate on finding ways to be more productive, more valuable to our organizations, in better control of our time, our resources, and our efforts. We’ll find new ways to think about what we are doing with our lives.
Collaborate
The strength behind Grasshopper is you. Read. Comment. Author. Share. Teach. Present. These are the types of activities I want to foster. I want you to share your best ideas. I want to hear your thoughts on things that are posted. And I want you to call out for whatever you need. Here are the three key points of Grasshopper in 2006:
- Ask
- Share
- Grow Yourself
Ask– I have already met with great success using this simple formula. Ask for things that you want or need, and ask if you can be helpful.
Share– Share what you know, and what you want to know. By sharing, our efforts magnify more than what we can accomplish separately. Think of this as the “compound interest” of knowledge work.
Grow Yourself– You have to do this work yourself. When it comes to personal development and self improvement, companies aren’t spending as much time, money, and effort to train you on the skills you need to succeed. Further, lots of them don’t even KNOW themselves what you REALLY need to succeed (maybe even survive) in this new age.
Coming Up
Look for these types of activities through Grasshopper in the first few months of 2006:
- Great posts full of ideas, skills, and practical knowledge that will help you grow yourself.
- More authors, include some regular authors and some guests.
- Cross-blog presentations: where a post will link to another author’s blog and resources, and then another, to tell a larger story.
- Face-to-face presentations and workshops. (Grasshopper can come to you!)
- Podcasts- audio programs you can take with you.
- More resources- All kinds of ways to grow your own capabilities.
This will be Grasshopper, and it’s yours. Come join in and let’s get to work.
Rockstar Experiences
The day I realized I was going to kick off a professional services company was the day I successfully coined the term “Rockstar Box” for our demo platform, and got everyone saying it in short time. I had just finished The Professional Services Firm 50 and was jazzed and ready to go. Life became a swirl of connections and experiences that worked in rapid succession to make me jazzed to do this. But on my own terms.
I’ve noticed a huge CULTURAL gap going on. There are some great minds and wonderful people out there who are nearing the end of their career. They have “grown up” in the big business world. They have “departmental thinking” boiled into them. (Disclaimer: I started my professional career in a big company, and have been department-boy for a long time.) It’s not working well for folks who are growing up in the post-bubble, Web 2.0, culture of participation community that’s out there.
Old Ways
- Use lots of words. Make more buttons. Get lots of people to buy off. Stay within the lines. Report up the chain of command. Desk-time = work.
New Ways
- Simple. Simple. Brief. Collaborate. Lines? Get it done. Work=work.
And, of course, it goes a little deeper than this, too. It’s the same hurdle I will find myself at probably in the next 20 years at some point. I will be thinking, “Hmm, you should scale horizontally, take advantage of open source, make things simple,” and some kid will say, “Scale? There are no boundaries. Open? Oh! You mean back when there were software-only companies? Simple, old man? It’s simple.”
I like using over-the-top words. I bit into the apple Tom Peters handed out. I’m there. To that end, here is the mission for Grasshopper Professional Services:
We grow your capabilities.
That’s the mission. How? By creating “rockstar experiences” for individuals and organizations. Over the course of this blog, I’ll talk more about my experiences with creating a professional services firm, starting up a business, and everything else that seems to go along with this.
Open for business: I’d love to collaborate with you on self-improvement or organizational-improvement strategies. As for products, I’m currently offering presentations on productivity, self-development, technology for small and medium businesses, and offer lots more. We can talk about your needs and ideas.
Watch this space for conversations around self-improvement, development, professional services, start-ups, technology in small and medium organizations.
And welcome!
