Found this poster in a local restaurant, wow, this is my life creed!  I immediately purchased one for my home office.  Here’s the poster on allposters.com.  #OCDftw 

Recently a co-worker and I attended a Get Motivated seminar, which in of itself was fantastic and I’d highly recommend catching one in your area.  My favorite speaker of the day was Rudy Giuliani, format NYC major.  Of all the distinguished speakers of the seminar, he had (in my opinion) the most well thought-out and presented personal advice.  His advice was delivered by (1) defining a principle, (2) giving direct examples from his own personal experience, and (3) was directly actionable for the listener with a call to action.  Thanks Rudy.  Here is a quick recap of the notes I took from his talk…

1. Consistently be reading a book for work and for personal enjoyment
   Always have two books you’re working through.  One to improve your occupation and skills, and one just to enjoy reading.  Read them all the way through (if they’re worth your time) and move on to the next. Keep enjoying life and learning through reading.
2. Copy people you admire, listen to, and learn from them
   Have a few people you can specifically name that you admire, respect, and endeavor to learn from.
3. Write Things Down
   “Nothing helps your critical thinking process more than writing down.”, it focuses your thinking and energizes your ability to think. Include pros & cons for decisions, keep an active action items list, and list your goals both big and small (especially for the people you’re working with)
4. Stop and Think
   Meditate 5-10 minutes every day. Stop and really think.  How you want to improve yourself?  What are your goals?  And what are your next steps to achieve those goals?
5. Love People
   Care for people.  Invest in people.  Be there for people when things go wrong.  Friends are the best social safety network.  If you’re there for people when they need you, they’ll be there for you. 

In my job I meet with a lot of partners and interview candidates, scheduling many meetings a day.  Trying to coordinate schedules over email is painful.  Typing out what times are open in an email, then getting a response back after other meetings are scheduled over that time, revising and sending, back and forth… inefficient!

So the solution?  http://tungle.me is a very useful (and free!) site that addresses just this issue.  With my tungle.me link http://tungle.me/noahcoad, people can see my work availably in real-time.  They have a little app that keeps the online calendar synced with my Outlook Calendar.  I just ask people in email now “http://tungle.me/noahcoad shows my availably, please propose a few times that work for you using that link”.  They click the link, select a few times that work for them, tungle.me send me their proposed times, I pick one, meeting scheduled.

A few other notes:

• Back at Microsoft my meetings were mostly internal and we all used Outlook so it was easy to see and schedule meetings within Outlook.  This solution is geared to working with people outside your organization.
• I have noticed a few glitches in the Outlook sync tool, particularly with reoccurring meetings that come from others, so you occasionally need to make sure it’s in sync.
• Not everyone is going to be familiar or comfortable with the tool at first so it does take a little educating sometimes, but it is still far easier for both parties.
• Office Live used to have a way to publish an Outlook Calendar, but the feature was abandoned.  That was a read-only solution anyway and tungle.me looks nicer.
• I also use an AutoHotKey AutoReplace string so that it’s quick and easy to insert the link into an email.  I just type ]tme and it’s replaced with the link.

My friend Daniel pointed out his wife was getting discourage trying to keep a TO DO list for the day and not getting things checked off it, because of being so busy with the kids and other responsibilities.  So instead they switched to keeping an “Achievements List”.  Now she starts each day with a blank page in a notebook on the counter, and writes the date and each accomplishment through the day.  Like Folded Laundry, Cleaned Living Room, Went on a Walk.  That way at the end of the day instead of being disappointed about the things not done, she’s encouraged by the number of things she did get accomplished.