If you find there are things you really need to do, but don’t do, then scale them down, so that you do.  Make taking action so easy that there’s no excuse not to do it.  Or make it small enough that you can take action within the small windows you have.   This means shaving things down to the bare essentials.

When something is good to do, it’s easy to make it bigger than it needs to be.  It’s easy to tack on more things.   It’s very easy to make things grow so big, that you no longer do them.  It’s the little friction that adds up over time.

A perfect example is planning.  Whether it’s planning your day, or planning your week, or planning a month.  It’s very easy to make it big.  It’s very easy to make it so big that eventually you don’t do it.  Or it’s easy to make it so big that there’s no time to actually do your plan.   The trick is to do “just enough” planning, that you can execute it and actually implement your plans.

This is a very big reason why Agile Results is lean.   I had to keep it so lean that I could use it in any scenario, and get results fast.  I have way too much going on to skip planning.  I have to make sure I’m working on the right things, at the right time, the right way, with the right energy.   Because I lead project teams, planning is even more important.  Keeping it light weight makes sure that I can always do it.

Here’s how I use Agile Results in the lightest way for maximum results:

• On Mondays, I identify three wins I want for the week.
• Each day, I identify three wins I want for the day.
• On Fridays, I identify three things going well, and three things to improve.

This pattern for weekly results creates a “learning loop” of continuous improvement.  More importantly, it helps me rise above the noise by focusing on outcomes, not activities.   Because I have clarity in the outcome, I can shave off everything that is non-essential.

It’s this light-weight approach to planning that helps me take more action on the right things.  It’s this light-weight approach that helps me adapt for any situation.   It’s this same light-weight approach that helps me scale across a team very quickly to make sure that, as a team, we are all working on the right things, at the right time, the right way, with the right energy.

I’ve never had a day where it was a good idea to throw my time and energy all day at something without first asking myself, “What are three outcomes I want for today?”  It’s the difference between lucking into success, or succeeding by design.

My Related Posts

• Now Available on Kindle – Getting Results the Agile Way
• Free Time Management Training – 30 Days of Getting Results
• Free EBook – 30 Days of Getting Results

I made significant changes to simplify the home page for Getting Results the Agile Way:

• Getting Results the Agile Way Home - http://GettingResults.com

I focused on making the following scenarios simpler and more discoverable:

1. Browsing Getting Results the Agile Way in HTML
2. Getting Started with Agile Results.
3. Reading testimonials.
4. Reading stories and case studies.
5. Browsing the Knowledge Base.

I also put Checklists, Guidelines, How Tos, and Templates at your finger tips. You can master Focus, Goals, Motivation, Time Management, and more.

Hopefully the site better exemplifies simplicity, effectiveness, and excellence.  If there are key things you would like to see on the site, use the contact form on this blog and let me know.  Keep in mind I am building out a rich collection of How Tos, Slides, Videos, and more.  

Note that there is also a companion site of free time management training, 30 Days of Getting Results, at http://30DaysOfGettingResults.com .

You can drive your week or your week drives you.   One of the ways I add sanity to the chaos of my week is the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern.   It’s a simple way to setup a rhythm of results for the week.

Monday Vision – Three Wins for the Week
On Sundays or Mondays, I identify three wins I want for the week.   For example:

1. Alignment on approach X across the four teams.
2. A baseline information architecture for “fast-pathing” cloud architecture.
3. A usable prototype for cloud strategy “on a page.”

Power Hours for Exponential Results
Some of the work requires “heavy lifting” in terms of extreme concentration and focus.   To do that well, I make sure that I allocate some of my “Power Hours” to these problems.   This will help me take cover more ground in a better, faster, and simpler way.  For me, my best hours tend to be 8am, 10am, 2pm, and 4pm.   I’ll use these to move the big rocks each day, or at least chip away at the stone.

When I make the mistake of working on a tough problem during a non-power hour, I end up wasting time, unless it’s exploration and creative work.   If I need to make significant progress, my single best move is to use my Power Hours.   That’s how I do ten hours of work, within a single hour.   It’s me at my best.  It’s firing on all cylinders.  I can do mental sprints during those hours, and deal with the worst setbacks, and still make the most ground.

Stories to Light Up Meaningful Work
I use simple, “one-liner” stories to make my goals or tasks more meaningful.  I try to connect my goals back to my values.   For example, I value customer impact, so instead of “call a customer”, I “win a raving fan.”   I also value adventure, so instead of just driving my project, I’m “leading an epic adventure.”   It takes practice to frame work in terms of more meaningful achievements, but the key thing to remember is …

You are always the most important meaning-maker in your life.

The story is in the change.   You are the actor.   That’s the empowering part.   Whether it’s achieving a private victory, or making great things happen in your world of work, it’s about inspiring yourself with skill.  You do that by connecting what you do to your values, and making a story out of it.   This also helps when you have to tell and sell the value of what you do, and for yourself when you need to recap what’s going well.

Daily Outcomes – Three Wins for the Day
Each day, one of the best things you can do is write down three wins you want to achieve.   It’s not activities.  It’s outcomes.   Focus on the end-in-mind, and you can use these three outcomes to help prioritize and focus throughout your day.  This is the best way that I turn laundry lists and end-less “To-Do” lists into more focused results.   It helps me deal with information overload and task-overwhelm.   It’s a very simple way to step back and see the forest for the trees, at least for the day.  

When you combine the idea of three wins for your day with three wins for your week, you can easily zoom in and out to keep perspective.   When you need to focus on what’s in front of you, zoom into your day and focus on your immediate win.  When you need a little more perspective, step back, and look at the wins you want for your day.   When you need even more of a balcony view, simply step back and look at the three wins for your week.

Friday Reflection – Three Things Going Well, Three Things to Improve
On Friday, simply carve out an appointment with yourself, and ask the tough questions.   Ask the questions that will help you bring out your best.   Ask the questions that will help you continuously improve and take your game to the next level.   To do this, simply ask:

1. What are three things going well?
2. What are three things to improve?

They are simple, but revealing questions.   This gives you a chance to celebrate your wins.   It gives you a chance to formally acknowledge what’s going well.    Maybe things aren’t going the way you want them, but congratulations for making the effort and taking the steps, and doing the tough stuff.   Catch yourself doing something right.   This is how you build momentum and carry the good forward.

When you ask yourself what are three things to improve, use this as a chance to really identify some actionable things you can do to make things better.   You can think of big changes, but I think little ones work just fine, if you actually do them.   The beauty is, you can use all next week to try out your little changes.  Each day is a new chance at bat.   Repetition and practice are the best ways to improve.

If you follow this recipe for results, each week you should notice that you improve your focus, you achieve more wins, and you get better results.   Another way to put it is, this recipe will help you spend the right time, on the right things, the right way, with the right energy.  

And that is how you flourish, while flowing value, and achieving meaningful results.

Additional Resources

• Getting Results the Agile Way – Kindle Edition (Amazon)
• Design Your Week (Getting Results.com)
• Time Management Checklist

My Related Posts

• Ability to Execute
• Agile Results with Evernote
• Time Management Best-Seller on Amazon – Getting Results the Agile Way

The cycle of change is short in the knowledge age and digital economy.  Jobs end.  We create new ones.   Do we create new ones fast enough?  Do we have the durable and evolvable skills to make it in our emerging landscape?

The cycle of change used to be longer.  One reason is the cycle of resource technology change used to be slower.   With a slower rate of change, you could go to school, learn a trade, do that job, maybe change jobs once or twice during your career, and then retire.  That cycle fundamentally changes when jobs are anchored to a different backbone, and the rate of change outpaces the skills you learn in school.

A colleague sent a great article from Strategy + Business on The Jobs Engine.   From the article, these are my favorite nuggets:

• “… the most important consequence of global entrepreneurship: job creation. Without the initiative and energy of entrepreneurs, the job engine sputters.”
• “Humans used to desire love, money, food, shelter, safety, peace, and freedom more than anything else. The last 30 years have changed us. Now people want to have a good job, and they want their children to have a good job.”
• “A great question for leaders to ask is: “Why is knowing that the whole world wants a good job everything to me?” Leaders of countries and cities must make creating good jobs their No. 1 mission and primary purpose because good jobs are becoming the new currency for all world leaders.”
• “Until rather recently in human evolution, explorers were looking for new hunting grounds, cropland, territories, passageways, and natural resources. But now, the explorers are seeking something else.”
• “When the talented explorers of the new millennium choose your city, you attain the new Holy Grail of global leadership — brain gain, talent gain, and subsequently, job creation.”

One of the things that’s always on my mind is the question, “What value can I create?”   In parallel, I’m always asking, “What value am I flowing?”    I hope the ideas or projects I work on, lead, or in some way contribute, to job creation.  I like to be a springboard and a platform or a catalyst for business.   In fact, several of the projects I’ve worked, have helped people grow or start businesses, create value, and create jobs.  I like to be a platform that empowers.

Personally, the way I find my way forward in the changing landscape, is to anchor to skills that should serve me well for the foreseeable future:   strategy, project management, and entrepreneurism.     As a program manager at Microsoft, I actually see the job of a program manager as a technical entrepreneur, where the goal is to bring new ideas to life, make things happen, and shape user, business, and customer goals into high impact, high value, results.  Strategy is a key skill because it’s about what I will do, won’t do, and why … along with how I’ll differentiate, while playing to strengths.   Project management is a key skill because it’s about making things happen as you explore and execute an idea from cradle to grave, while orchestrating teams towards a vision, while dealing with risks, and playing within the boundaries and constraints of time, budget, and resources.

I share these thought because I’m finding myself mentor more and more people on the art and science of effective program management.   I firmly believe that effective program managers (or technical entrepreneurs) play a key role in shaping the future.

If you’re familiar with Gartner’s Magic Quadrants, you’ll recognize Ability to Execute.  “Ability to Execute” is a powerful concept.   Here is a quick mental model to picture Ability to Execute:

Ability to Execute is a quick way to help prioritize ideas worth acting on.   After all, what good is a bunch of ideas you can’t do anything about. 

In the world around us, there are too many ideas, and not enough action.    I’m a fan of making things happen.   My strategy is aim big, but flow value along the way.   The little wins build execution muscle.    The trick though is to act on things that have value.  Otherwise it’s just noise.  It’s thrashing or churning and burning.  A better approach is to focus on meaningful results and high value.

In the spirit of Garter’s Magic Quadrants, here is a view of Ability to Execute and Value:

One thing to keep in mind is that value is in the eye of the beholder.

My Related Posts

• Now Available on Kindle – Getting Results the Agile Way
• Free Time Management Training – 30 Days of Getting Results
• Free EBook – 30 Days of Getting Results

Here is a map of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3.   ITIL v3 is organized by ITIL stages, processes, and sub-processes.  According to Wikipedia, “ITIL describes procedures, tasks and checklists that are not organization-specific, used by an organization for establishing a minimum level of competency.”   You can find an explanation of the ITIL processes at the ITIL Wiki.

If you’re doing any sort of IT work, it helps to know the lay of the land.  What better way to know the lay of the land of the IT landscape that to know the map of the minimum competencies that IT is supposed to perform.

Stages and Processes
Here is a map of the ITIL Stages and the ITIL Processes within each.

Processes and Sub-Processes
Here are the core ITIL v3 Stages:

• Service Strategy
• Service Design
• Service Transition
• Service Operation
• Continual Service Improvement

Here is a map of the ITIL Processes and Sub-Processes organized by ITIL v3 stages:

Here is a quick map of the process groups, knowledge areas, and processes in the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge).  Regardless of the PMI certification, I think it’s useful to know how the knowledge for project management is organized by experts and professionals.   This will help you more effectively navigate the space, and learn project management at a faster pace, because you can better organize the information in your mind.

If you are a program manager or a project manager, the categories are especially helpful for checking your knowledge and for thinking of projects more holistically.   You can also use the knowledge areas to grow your skills by exploring each area and building your catalog of principles, patterns, and practices.

Process Groups and Knowledge Areas
Here is a quick map of the process groups and knowledge areas in the Project Management Body of Knowledge:

Knowledge Areas and Processes
Here is a quick topology view of the Knowledge Areas and the processes:

Evernote tends to be my tool of choice when for Agile Results.   People often ask me what I use as my Personal Information Assistant (PIA) to manage action and make things happen.  Aside from pen and paper, I use Evernote and Outlook.   Outlook is my calendar and email communication stream.  I don’t use email to manage action because it leads to “paper shuffling.”  Instead, I pluck out action items into a list.   This gives me a lot of flexibility, and I either store that list on paper, or notepad, or Evernote.  I focus on “outcomes”, not “tasks.”  This keeps my lists simpler, my goals clear, and I avoid getting lost among a sea of tasks.

Here's my Evernote  structure:

It’s simple, durable, and evolvable.   It’s just folders and lists with notes.  Here’s the breakdown:

• Daily Outcomes is where I make a new list each day and add three goals, outcomes, or wins for my day to the top of the list.  I title each day using today’s date – “2012-01-29.”   This lets me make a new note without thinking about titles, and this format let’s me sort and flip back through to look for patterns … such as, what sort of wins am I going for.
• Weekly Outcomes is where I make a new list each week, either on Sundays or Mondays, and I write three goals, outcomes, or wins for the week.   I title each list with Monday’s date, so tomorrow’s would be: “2012-01-30.”
• If I do nothing else, each day, I do my Daily Outcomes, each week I do my Weekly Outcomes.   When I’m at my best, I do my weekly recap for me, and my Monthly Recaps for me, and I share it with the higher-ups.
• My Plate is always a short-list of what I’m juggling.
• My Work Projects and Personal Projects are simple lists per project – “One Place to Look” to capture the outcomes that count and dump my brain.
• Backlog is all the stuff I want to get to, but I’m not ready to start.  I track it as two lists – Work stuff and Personal Stuff.
• Shelved is stuff I start, but can’t actively work, so I set it aside – easy to rehydrate later as needed.
• Hot Spots are simple lists of key things like Vision, Mission, Values … my commitments for the year, a tickler list of my “Life Frame” (Mind, Body, Emotions, Career, Money, Relationships, and Fun).  It was acting as “My Plate”, but I found that I wanted an explicit “My Plate” place to list the balls I juggle in work and life.

In general, I don’t use tags.   I'm not a fan of tags ... just simple lists.  Tags and tagging require maintenance and memory to use well ... while simple folders and lists are in your face and what you see is what you get.   Views do help reinforce tagging systems and make them more useful, but what I found the trick is to actually just create the simple “80/20” views to start with, and then keep that brain dead simple and allow for mess and chaos over time, with easy cleanup -- batch and sweep style.

If it’s just lists in folders, it’s extremely easy to change the system when it’s not working.  While the folder structure is not perfect, it has been pretty durable for me.  I’ve used this system to manage million dollar projects and distributed teams around the world, and I’ve used it just for me in very simple scenarios.   The flexibility aspect is important, as is the ability to quickly tailor for your situation.

I think that’s the key though.  You have to find a simple system that works for you.   And if you can do the basics well, then you’re in good shape.  In it’s simplest form, it’s all about having lists of outcomes and actions at your finger tip, and being able to take the balcony view, and see the forest for the trees.

My Related Posts

• 3 Keys to Agile Results
• Now Available: Getting Results the Agile Way on Kindle
• Meaningful Work
• 30 Days of Getting Results

I’ve updated 30 Days of Getting Results based on feedback.  (Special thanks to Alik Levin for his feedback and insight above and beyond the call of duty.)   The site URL is simpler now and easier to share:

• 30 Days of Getting Results - http://30DaysOfGettingResults.com

I wanted to clean it up and improve the experience, especially for those that are using this as their 30 Day Improvement Sprint to bootstrap the new year.

Time Management Skills
Here are some of the time management skills you will learn, tune, and improve as part of the time management training:

• How to manage your time
• How to focus and direct your attention with skill
• How to spend more time on the things that really matter to you
• How to be the author of your life and write your story forward
• How to make the most of your your moments, days, weeks, months, and years
• How to use a simple system to achieve meaningful results
• How to achieve work-life balance
• How to play to your strengths and spend less time in weaknesses
• How to motivate yourself with skill and find your drive
• How to change a habit and make it stick
• How to improve your personal productivity and personal effectiveness

You will learn time management tips and strategies as part of a system, each lesson can be used by itself or “better together” with other lessons.

Time Management Training Lessons at a Glance
Here are the 30 Lessons at a Glance that make up the time management training:

• Day 1 – Take a Tour of Getting Results the Agile Way
• Day 2 – Monday Vision – Use Three Stories to Drive Your Week
• Day 3 – Daily Outcomes – Use Three Stories to Drive Your Day
• Day 4 – Let Things Slough Off
• Day 5 – Hot Spots – Map Out What’s Important
• Day 6 – Friday Reflection – Identify Three Things Going Well and Three Things to Improve
• Day 7 – Setup Boundaries and Buffers
• Day 8 – Dump Your Brain to Free Your Mind
• Day 9 – Prioritize Your Day with MUST, SHOULD, and COULD
• Day 10 – Feel Strong All Week Long
• Day 11 – Reduce Friction and Create Glide Paths for Your Day
• Day 12 – Productivity Personas – Are You are a Starter or a Finisher?
• Day 13 – Triage Your Action Items with Skill
• Day 14 – Carve Out Time for What’s Important
• Day 15 – Achieve a Peaceful Calm State of Mind
• Day 16 – Use Metaphors to Find Your Motivation
• Day 17 – Add Power Hours to Your Week
• Day 18 – Add Creative Hours to Your Week
• Day 19 — Who are You Doing it For?
• Day 20 — Ask Better Questions, Get Better Results
• Day 21 – Carry the Good Forward, Let the Rest Go
• Day 22 – Design Your Day with Skill
• Day 23 — Design Your Week with Skill
• Day 24 – Bounce Back with Skill
• Day 25 – Fix Time. Flex Scope
• Day 26 – Solve Problems with Skill
• Day 27 – Do Something Great
• Day 28 – Find Your One Thing
• Day 29 – Find Your Arena for Your Best Results
• Day 30 – Take Agile Results to the Next Level

Key Links

• 30 Days of Getting Results
• Getting Results the Agile Way - The Book (Amazon) (Now available on Kindle!)
• Getting Results Site and Knowledge Base (Checklists, guidelines, and how tos for focus, motivation, prioritizing, setting goals, time management, etc.)

Colleagues, friends, and family have been asking me how my book, Getting Results the Agile Way, is doing.   It’s doing well.   Today it was #10 on Amazon’s Best Seller’s list in Time Management.

Time Management is a great niche because time is such a unique and precious resource.   How you invest your time helps shape your happiness, your fulfillment, your work life balance, and your achievements in work and life.  I hope the insights and actions I’ve shared in Getting Results the Agile Way, serve you well on your journey and in your pursuit of mastering your time.

I think what makes this book unique for people is that I’ve tried to integrate as much as I could from many amazing mentors at Microsoft, my personal trials and tribulations, and even lessons from software development that we can apply to life (Think “Agile” for life or “Scrum for life” and the value of personal kanbans, timeboxing, etc.)

In related news, Getting Results the Agile Way will be featured in an upcoming article in a magazine with a reader base of three million.

Probably the biggest request I get now is training.   I’m exploring different ways to share and scale training in a more effective way.  I’ll be experimenting and testing approaches in the near future.   While I’ve done one-off sessions and Webinars, I’d like to better package it up and productize it.   I’m a fan of building information products to share and scale information and empower people.

What do great managers do?   To put it simply, they bring out your best.   Whether it’s fire you up or get on your path or help you overcome your personal challenges, they help you flourish.

Aside from all the managers I’ve had before Microsoft, I’ve had 14 managers at Microsoft.  I also regularly mentor people from different teams, so I get exposed to a lot of different management styles and patterns.   If I take a look from the balcony, what ten things do the best of the best managers do?    Here’s the list …

1. Know the priorities.   The best managers know what’s important.   They make priorities clear and trade-offs make sense.   They help you and the team know what counts.   They focus on the vital few.   When the priorities are clear, a lot of things fall into place, and the work becomes meaningful.    The opposite is when everything is a priority.   The worst is when the priorities aren’t clear.   Without clear priorities, you don’t know what to optimize for or what success looks like.   You don’t even know whether you are even on track.  It leads to confusion, churn, and waste.     
2. Focus on goals.   Focusing on the goals sets the stage for collaboration, focus, and priorities.   When the team knows the goals, it’s easier to know what success looks like.  It’s also easier to stay motivated.   It’s also easier to focus on the bigger picture and see the forest for the trees.   The opposite is “The How Trap.”   The How Trap is when a manager focuses on how people do their jobs.   Whether you call it micro-management, or too many cooks in the kitchen, or “my hands are tied”, it gets in the way of people playing their best game.   The best managers pair with you on setting the goals and give you the room to do what you do best.
3. Know the capacity.   The best managers know the capacity.   They don’t overload you or the team beyond capacity.   They plan and design for smart work, rather than heroic efforts.   If all the work is dependent on long hours and going above and beyond, then it’s a risk to the business.   It’s not smart or effective execution.     
4. Focus on learning and growth.    The best managers are great coaches.   They coach for growth.   They know when to provide direction, and when to back off.   They provide actionable feedback.   They don’t make things permanent, personal, or pervasive.   They focus on the challenges or the goals and they provide specific and actionable recommendations to bring out your best.   Call it “tough love”, but the best of the best managers here, tackle the tough stuff.   They do it with your best intentions.   They do it in a way that makes it safe to be vulnerable.   They use a language that’s empowering.   When something goes wrong, it’s not about blame, it’s what’s the learning and how to move forward.   The opposite is a critic that is only good at finding the flaws.
5. Acknowledge the wins.   The best managers acknowledge the wins.   They catch you doing something right.   The best managers are aware of the tough stuff and the key challenges.   They know when you make progress, jump a hurdle, or scale a wall.   The opposite is a manager that only pays attention when something is wrong.
6. Champion the work.   The best managers evangelize the work.   They are your champ.   They tell and sell your work so that it’s recognized and rewarded.   They amplify the impact by spreading the word.   They get the charter and defend the work so you don’t have to.   The opposite is when your work lacks any meaningful visibility or acknowledgement.
7. Build vulnerability-based trust.      The best managers make it safe to fail.   It’s OK to bring your problems and challenges to them, and get open and honest feedback, without it being thrown back in your face.   It’s OK to go out on a limb, as part of driving for stretch goals and learning the ropes, and growing your skills.   In a nutshell, the best managers have your back.   The opposite is when a manager is waiting for you to step out of line or do something wrong.  Anything you share with them gets used against you.   Rather than go out on a limb or go the extra mile, you spend more energy defending or protecting yourself.
8. Focus on strengths.   The best managers have you spend more time in your strengths.   They find the work that challenges you and grows your strengths.   The opposite is a manager that has you spend more time in your weaknesses or doing things outside your passions or strengths.    The secret that great managers know is that when people do what they love and they do what they’re great at, they do great work.   And it’s doing more great work that creates an arena of high-performance teams.  
9. Lead with principles.   Rather than have a bunch of rules, great managers have a set of principles that establish the working environment.   The beauty of establishing principles is that people are empowered, but are governed with principles.   The principles help find the way forward within boundaries, while embracing and enforcing the values.   The opposite is chaos where there are no rules, or the other extreme where there is a rule for every little thing, and sometimes the rules aren’t shared.   A principle-driven leader helps create a work context where people are empowered and share a set of operating principles to guide and shape the way forward.
10. Inspire action.   Great managers don’t use a bunch of carrots and sticks.   They inspire action.   There is a lot to say here.   Sometimes this means having a compelling vision that you connect with and want to be a part of.    Great managers know what fires you up and how to connect the work you do, with your unique talents and passions.   The best managers help you connect the work to your values.     The best managers help you internalize the rewards so that you are driving from your values and your passions and your strengths.     The best managers fan your flames by helping your see meaningful progress and they make the journey as rewarding as the destination.   They find a way to make the work something you would do for free.   The opposite is a manager who drives from fear, uses threats, or relies on extrinsic rewards and penalties.

Now it’s your turn … In your experience, what are the best principles, patterns, and practices that great managers do?

This is a mental model we often use when connecting business and IT.

The big idea is that IT exposes it’s functionality as “services” to the business.   When speaking to the business, we can talk about business capabilities.  When talking to IT, we can talk to the IT capabilities.  

In this model, you can see where workloads sit in relation to business and IT capabilities. Business capabilities (i.e. “what” an individual business function does) rely on IT capabilities. The IT capabilities, together with people and processes, determine “how” the business capability is executed.

The beauty of the model is how quickly and easily we can “up-level” the conversation, or drill-down … or map from the business to the IT side or from IT to the business.

If you want to nail your goals for 2012, here are some guidelines, checklists, and tools to help you do it.  It's a new year and  fresh start, so now is a great time to start off on the right foot, or tune and prune your skills for action, focus, goals, motivation, and time management.

At the end of the day, it's these skills that will serve you for the rest of your life, in whatever you try to achieve.  They are your personal tools for empowerment and impact your ability to execute.  It's these skills that limit or enable you.

A Time-Management System
If you don’t have a time management system, get one.  Time management is the one resource that we just don’t get more of.   The best we can do is invest our time well and spend more time in our values and balance our priorities.  An effective time management system will help you do that, as well as balance what’s right in front of you along with your long term goals and ambitions.

• Getting Results the Agile Way – Agile Results is a simple system for meaningful results.   You can use it as a personal results system for work and life.  This is the same system I’ve used to lead distributed teams around the world for major projects at Microsoft, and to coach teams on execution … and it’s the same system my Mom uses to get things done around the house.

Agile Results is principle-based so you can use it with any time management system you already use to get more out of it.  The big idea in Agile Results is to define three wins each day, each week, each month, each year, and use these to guide your actions.  Another big idea in Agile Results is to focus on Hot Spots.   Think of your life as a heat map with hot spots of what matters and invest more time in what counts.  The most important idea in Agile Results is to have a pattern to drive your week.  In Agile Results, this is the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern.   This helps you get a fresh start each week and each day, and bring out your best, while focusing on meaningful results.  You can use stories to drive your day, connect to your values, and light up your life.

Guidelines, Checklists, and How Tos
Here are some guidelines, checklists, and tools you can plug in to Agile Results and make thins happen.   I created these the same way that I’ve written patterns & practices guides at Microsoft for more than 10 years.   It’s hard-core prescriptive guidance to help you be YOUR best.  As a quick example, some people I know are using the Focus Guidelines to help build coping skills for ADD and get off their medication.  If you read just one thing, read the Motivation Guidelines so that you fully understand how to push your own buttons, light your own fire, and stoke the fire in your belly.   Your motivation, combined with goals, focus, and taking action will give you an unfair advantage against your toughest challenges.   Life’s not fair, so stack the deck in your favor

Guidelines

• Action Guidelines
• Focus Guidelines
• Motivation Guidelines
• Time Management Guidelines

Checklists

• Action Checklist
• Focus Checklist
• Getting Results Checklist
• Motivation Checklist
• Time Management Checklist

How Tos

• How To - Achieve Peaceful Calm
• How To - Design Your Week
• How To - Have a Strong Week
• How To - Set Goals and Achieve Them
• How To - Use Timeboxing for Getting Results

If you want to find out more about the book, Getting Results the Agile Way, and the Agile Results system, be sure to explore Getting Results.com.   You can read the full book online in HTML, and there is a rick knowledge base with templates and tools to help you bring out your best and deal with changing times.   Be sure to read the stories of people getting results and watch the video on how a non-profit uses Getting Results the Agile Way to help doctors and patients around the world.

Here’s to your best year – Happy New Year 2012!

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Happy holidays and best wishes for 2012!

I'm looking forward to a fresh start in the New Year.  I want to make the most of January.  Rather than a New Year's Resolution, I'll identify three wins that I want for the year.  I'll also start January off with a 30 Day Improvement Sprint.

I know a lot of folks that are also planning on doing a 30 Day Improvement Sprint in January as a way to bootstrap their year.  They have Getting Results the Agile Way, and they have the free eBook 30 Days of Getting Results.  For many of them, they are going to focus their 30 Day Improvement Sprint on Getting Results.  For others, they are focusing on fitness, or personal development, or a habit they want to change, or a new skill they want to learn.

For me, so far I am thinking that I am going to do a 30 Day Improvement Sprint on Self-Awareness.  I figure it's a great way really make the most of the year, by really diving deep on self-awareness.

Here are some of the self-awareness tools that I think are useful to “know thyself”:

1. 6 Personality and Work Environment Types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional)
2. 360 Degree Feedback
3. Character Strengths Assessment (Martin Seligman)
4. DISC Assessment
5. Golden Circle (Find Your Why)
6. Insights Discovery Profile
7. Johari Window
8. Journaling
9. Keirsey temperament sorter
10. Leaderhsip Style
11. LIFO Survey
12. Management Style
13. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
14. NLP Meta-Programs
15. Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator
16. Rules (Dump your rules - "In order to be a great leader, I need to ...")
17. Strengths Finder Assessment
18. SWOT Analysis
19. Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Style Assessment
20. Vision, Mission, Values

I’ve found the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the strengths profile, the Insights Discovery, and Vision, Mission, and Values to be very insightful, practical, and useful for everyday experience.   In terms of the most surprising and revealing, I found the Golden Circle to be a great tool for really getting on path and making work and life more meaningful.   A lot of executives use it and it’s great for anybody who wants to find their purpose, and connect that with their daily work.

My Related Posts

• Now Available: Getting Results the Agile Way on Kindle
• Goals and Your New Year’s  Resolution
• 30 Day Improvement Sprints Revisited

As we get ready to turn the page for a new year, it's a great time to reflect on what you achieved, and an ever better time to set fresh goals.

This is a short story on how I changed my approach for goals and New Year's Resolutions.  A few years back, as New Years was approach, I decided that I would do a deep dive on how to set and achieve goals.

I wanted absolute clarity on goals.  I wanted to know the distinction between goals and objectives.  I wanted to really understand how to create SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timely.)  I wanted to know how to really use goal setting as an effective tool to guide my focus, and to move me forward, while reaching for the stars.

So I studied goals.  I learned a lot.   I found useful metaphors for goals and objectives.  For example, one way to think of them is that the goal is the touchdown, while the objectives are the milestones and yards you gain along the way.  The objectives are like the mini-goals and the stepping stones.  Of course, then I wanted to know whether it made more sense to set SMART goals or SMART objectives, or both.

By the time I figured out how to write goals well, I lost the most important part.  Somewhere, along the way, I lost the "Why" behind the goal.   I spent so much energy on structuring the goals, that the SMARTER I got about them, the less I wanted to do them.

Since New Year's was coming, and I wanted to start the year with a fresh focus, I pushed my goals aside, and asked a simple question:

“What are three wins I want for the year?” …

Instantly, I responded with three things:

1. Get to my fighting weight.
2. Finish my book.
3. Take an epic adventure.

I was surprised by how clear and compelling those answers were.  What I realized is that when I was first working my goals, they were based heavily on things I thought I should do, or things that I thought were important.  And maybe they were important, but they weren't compelling.   But, my new set of three wins for the year was.

I then designed my year, with those three goals in mind.   I picked a specific month where each one would be the main focus.  Meanwhile, I would do little things along the way, throughout the year, to support hitting my goals.

The most significant thing was that now I had compelling goals, I had clarity in priorities, and I had wins that I could look back on, if the year were over, and find fulfillment.   If those three wins weren't enough for a compelling year, then I would have to do a rethink and find new ones to inspire and drive me throughout the year.

In the end, what I learned was that the most important thing about goals is the "Why" behind the goals.  Instead of a "push", it's a "pull."  Your goals lift you.   They inspire your daily action, and they get you back on track, when you lose your way.  But if, and only if, you have a compelling "Why" behind them.

So I do things a little differently now.  When it comes to New Years, instead of a New Year's resolution per se, I come up with three compelling wins for the year.   And to really make things happen, I use 30 Day Improvement Sprints from Getting Results the Agile Way to pull it off.   And if it's a really tough challenge, or a tough habit to change, I can throw multiple 30 Day Improvement Sprints at it, until I find my breakthrough.

This little recipe so far has been the most effective way I've found to make big things happen, by taking little actions along the way.

If you really want this year to be different, identify three wins you want for the year, and pick a 30 Day Improvement Sprint to do in January.   It's a simple way to bootstrap your success for the New Year.

I love one-liners that really encapsulate ideas.  A colleague asked me how work was going with some new projects spinning up and a new team.  But she prefaced it with, “Your book is all about making sure your life energy is well spent.   Are you finding that you are now spending your energy on the right things and with the right people?”  (She was referring to my book, Getting Results the Agile Way.)

I thought was both a great way to frame the big idea of the book, and to ask a perfectly cutting question that cuts right through the thick of things, to the heart of things.

… Are you spending your life energy on the right things?

“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”  -- Voltaire

With New Years, coming, I think it's a good time to remind you of a technique you can use to increase your success exponentially.

It's 30 Day Improvement Sprints.  If you have a goal in mind that you seriously want to nail, then 30 Day Improvement Sprints might be exactly what you need to help you knock it out of the park.  I've talked about 30 Day Improvements Sprints here on this blog, but I've also shared them in my book, Getting Results the Agile Way.

What You Need to Know About 30 Day Improvement Sprints
Here's what you need to know about 30 Day Improvement Sprints

1. Chip away at any stone.  30 days is a great way to chip away at any stone.
2. Use them as a force multiplier.  By doing a little something each day toward your goal, it adds up.  It's a force multiplier.
3. It’s easier to sustain, because it’s not forever.  It's a sprint, meaning you can apply extra force and focus, since you don't have to sustain it forever.   This is especially helpful for experiments and changing behaviors or habits.
4. Get a fresh start each month.  You get to choose a focus each month.  Each month is a new page.  A fresh start.  A do-over.
5. Meaningful months.  Rise above the noise.  When you have a theme for the month, you have something bigger you are working towards.

Born Out of Necessity
I originally created 30 Day Improvement Sprints as a way to deal with the fact that I had competing priorities.  I had a lot of things I wanted to focus on, but then I was constantly hopping back and forth, and not making enough progress on any one thing.  Then I stepped back and look at my year as a portfolio of possibility.   I have 12 months to invest and play around with.  I then asked the question, what if I used each month as a way to focus on something I really wanted to learn or improve?  Then each month, I could either pick the same thing again, or choose something new.  Finally, rather than do everything at once, I could focus on one key theme for the month, knowing that next month, I could then focus on my next big thing.  The side benefit of this is peace of mind.   When you have a time or a place for things, you can put them to rest.  Otherwise, they keep competing for your attention, until you finally say, next month is when I’ll focus on XYZ.

Benefits of 30 Day Improvement Sprints
30 Day Improvement Sprints turned out to be one of my biggest game changers.  Here are some of the benefits I experienced:

1. Monthly Themes.  I had a specific focus or theme for the month.  This alone was worth it's weight in gold.
2. Breakthroughs.  I was suddenly having breakthroughs because I was spending enough time on a problem.
3. Exponential learning.   Because it was a longer stretch of time, I started taking on new challenges, and learning new things.
4. Changing habits.  Changing habits became easier because I could easily set a theme and focus for the month, and just do a little each day.
5. Domain deep dives.  The distinctions and insights that I learned from focusing on a goal for the month, lead to some deep discoveries and self-awareness.

Examples of 30 Day Improvement Sprints
I used 30 Day Improvement Sprints for everything from learning Windows Azure to improving roller blading to experimenting with eating living foods and getting 10 years younger.   One of my most memorable 30 Day Improvement Sprints was a focus on 30 Days of Getting Results.   Each day, for 30 days, I took 20 minutes to write about one thing that really helped me achieve better, faster, and simpler results.   The results was a large body of insight and action with mini-lessons for getting your groove on and changing your game.   (I ended up creating a free 30 Days of Getting Results eBook to put it all at your finger tips.  If there’s enough interest, I’ll figure out how to put it on the Kindle too.   It’s the perfect thing to help you start the New Year with some of the best patterns and practices for getting results on your side.)

Results at Work
I’ve also used 30 Day Improvement Sprints to focus and energize teams at Microsoft.   For example, when I first joined the Enterprise Strategy team at Microsoft, I made one of the themes a focus on “simplicity.”   This theme caught on, and soon our General Manager was driving action and focus on simplicity.    This helped us take a fresh look at one of our products and find ways to dramatically simplify the experience.   As the simplicity focus gained momentum, more and more breakthroughs started to show up, all in the name of a simplified experience.

Use 30 Day Improvement Sprints as Your Unfair Advantage in the New Year
I’m a fan of Voltaire’s original quote, but I would twist it a little … “Few challenges withstand the assault of sustained action.”   Using 30 Day Improvement Sprints really does put the advantage of time on your side, as well as the power of focus and motivation.   It also creates an incredible learning loop.   Your little actions and feedback loops each day teach you distinctions you can use each new day to keep improving and getting over the humps.

Here are a couple ways you can use 30 Day Improvement Sprints to get exponential results in the New Year:

1. Use January to go through 30 Days of Getting Results.
2. Turn your New Years Resolution into a 30 Day Improvement Sprint.
3. Choose one of your most self-defeating habits and go up against it in a 30 Day Improvement Sprint.

Think about it … A New Year.  A fresh start.  Twelve months in which you can choose a new theme or focus each month.   Maybe you learn a new language?   Maybe you learn the Tango?   Who knows.    There are a lot of opportunities and potential when you have a system on your side.

If you’ve used 30 Day Improvement Sprints, I’d love to hear how you’ve used them.  I’ve had various folks send me their stories on their breakthroughs and changes.   I always enjoy reading the stories, so keep sending my way.

My Related Posts

• 30 Day Improvement Sprints
• Making 30 Day Improvement Sprints More Effective
• Now Available: Getting Results the Agile Way on Kindle

I finished sweeping my Leadership Books list.  It took a while to update it, but I think it reflects a good set of leadership books by key categories now. 

I added a few new books to my leadership books list including The 5 Levels of Leadership, by John Maxwell, and StandOut, by Marcus Buckingham, which weren’t available when I first put my list of leadership books together.I also added some books to the list based on feedback from different folks.  For example, I added 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class, by Steve Siebold, Executive Presence: The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO, by Harrison Monarth, and The Leadership Test, by Timothy Clark.

This is my current list of top 10 Leadership Books:

1. Emotional Capitalists: The New Leaders, by Martyn Newman
2. Leadership Gold, by John C. Maxwell
3. Principle-Centered Leadership, by Stephen R. Covey
4. The 5 Levels of Leadership, by John Maxwell
5. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, by John C. Maxwell
6. The Art Of War, by Sun Tzu
7. The Effective Executive, by Peter F. Drucker
8. The Essential Wooden, by John Wooden
9. The Leadership Challenge, by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner
10. The Leadership Test, by Timothy Clark

Enjoy and explore the list of leadership books.

I’ve put together a comprehensive collection of leadership quotes.  It took me a bit longer than I expected, but I wanted a lot of things to be right.  I wanted to choose the best quotes.   I wanted to organize them in useful and meaningful categories.   I wanted this particular collection to really say something on the art of leadership from a variety of perspective and people, drawing from the wisdom of the ages and modern sages.

There’s always room for improvement, but I think you enjoy the richness, breadth, and depth of the collection.   To bring you the best insights, I draw from a number of folks that have something to say about leadership, including Gandhi, John Maxwell, George Patton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Sun Tzu.   It puts a lot of wisdom right at your fingertips with a wealth of perspective and depth on the art of leadership.

To make the collection fast and easy to skim or to read in depth, I've organized the leadership quotes collection across a variety of categories, including boldness, challenges, communication, connection, conviction, credibility, encouragement, fear, heart, influence, inspiration, learning, self-leadership, servant-leadership, teamwork, and vision.

To give you a taste of the collection, here are the top ten leadership quotes from the leadership quotes collection …

Top 10 Leadership Quotes

1. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” –  John C. Maxwell
2. “A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn’t like the tune.” – Anonymous
3. “All Leadership is influence.” — John C. Maxwell
4. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. “Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” — General George Patton
6. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren Bennis
7. “Managers help people see themselves as they are; Leaders help people to see themselves better than they are.” — Jim Rohn
8. “The art of leadership is saying no, not yes.  It is very easy to say yes.” — Tony Blair
9. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” — Winston Churchill
10. “When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.” — Lao Tzu

For more words of wisdom on the art of leadership, check out the full collection of leadership quotes.

I’ve done a major overhaul and sweep of my Best Business Books list. 

I use business books to get the edge and get ahead.  In fact, in addition to quotes and people, books are one of my greatest sources of knowledge.  My book recommendations are hand-crafted indexes of the books that I’ve found to be the most useful.  I spend a lot of money on books each month.  By a lot, I can safely say that there have been several extended periods in my life where I’ve spent a few hundred dollars on books each month.

I’ve included new gems as well as timeless classics.  The most important aspect of the list though, is that I organized the books by meaningful business topics.   One of the issues I usually find with book lists is that they are just flat lists, and it’s hard to know what topic they cover.   While I like the simplicity of a flat list, I think it’s way more valuable to have a list that organizes the books by categories so that you know what the focus is.

Here are the topics I used for my best business books list:

• Branding
• Business, Business Models, and Value Chains
• Change and Change Management
• Competition
• Culture
• Customer Focus, Service Delivery
• CxO, Executive
• Decision Making
• Effectiveness
• Entrepreneurs, Start Ups
• Excellence
• Execution
• Finance
• Globalization
• Home Business
• Innovation
• Knowledge Management, Performance Management, Training
• Management
• Marketing, Sales
• Motivation
• Negotiation
• Organizational Design
• Outsourcing
• Productivity
• Strategy, Purpose
• Strengths
• Survival, Longevity
• Systems
• Teamwork
• Trust
• Vision, Mission, and Values
• Work-Life Balance

As you can probably tell, it’s a pretty comprehensive list.  I’m not a fan of piece-meal lists.  I wanted this list to reflect many of the best business books that I actually use at work that make a difference.   For example, Blue Ocean got me focused on whitespace opportunities, Go Put Your Strengths to Work helped me refocus on playing to my strengths, and The Spider and the Starfish taught me the power of using principles and values in a federated way to create meaningful change and empower people and teams.

This is a serious list for the avid business book reader.

Please enjoy my Best Business Books list and may it serve you as it has served me.

By the way, if there is a great business book that you have read, that I need to know about, please be sure to share with me.  I’m always on the prowl for the next best business book that will change the game.

30 Days of Getting Results is a collection of little lessons you can use to improve your personal productivity and personal effectiveness.   It’s an off-line version of the 30 Days of Getting Results Boot Camp.     If you’ve already gone through the 30 Days of Getting Results, then this is a great way to refresh what you learned at your finger tips.  If you haven’t gone through it already, the 30 Days of Getting Results will help you build a strong foundation for personal excellence.  You start off by building a rhythm for results for your day and for your week.  You then map out the most important things in your work and life.  You then learn how to prioritize with skill and spend more time in your strengths.  From that foundation, you grow your ability to think, feel, and act your best.    You then learn how to add more power hours to your week, as well as creative hours.   This empowers you to achieve more in less time, as well as amplify your chance to flow more value to yourself and others, both in terms of getting results, and unleashing your creative ideas.

To get the system on your side, and to learn how to achieve better, faster, simpler results, download the 30 Days of Getting Results.  It’s free.   It’s 130 pages.  Share it with friends and family and help them make the most of what they’ve got.

Download

• Download 30 Days of Getting Results (PDF)

Key Challenges Addressed

• How to achieve work‐life balance
• How to focus and direct your attention with skill
• How to motivate yourself with skill and find your drive
• How to use a simple system to achieve meaningful results
• How to manage your time
• How to spend more time on the things that really matter to you
• How to play to your strengths and spend less time in weaknesses
• How to change a habit and make it stick
• How to make the most of your your moments, days, weeks, months, and years
• How to be the author of your life and write your story forward

Contents at a Glance

• Day 1 – Take a Tour of Getting Results the Agile Way
• Day 2 – Monday Vision – Use Three Stories to Drive Your Week
• Day 3 – Daily Outcomes – Use Three Stories to Drive Your Day
• Day 4 – Let Things Slough Off
• Day 5 – Hot Spots – Map Out What’s Important
• Day 6 – Friday Reflection – Identify Three Things Going Well and Three Things to Improve
• Day 7 – Setup Boundaries and Buffers
• Day 8 – Dump Your Brain to Free Your Mind
• Day 9 – Prioritize Your Day with MUST, SHOULD, and COULD
• Day 10 – Feel Strong All Week Long
• Day 11 – Reduce Friction and Create Glide Paths for Your Day
• Day 12 – Productivity Personas – Are You are a Starter or a Finisher?
• Day 13 – Triage Your Action Items with Skill
• Day 14 – Carve Out Time for What’s Important
• Day 15 – Achieve a Peaceful Calm State of Mind
• Day 16 – Use Metaphors to Find Your Motivation
• Day 17 – Add Power Hours to Your Week
• Day 18 – Add Creative Hours to Your Week
• Day 19 — Who are You Doing it For?
• Day 20 — Ask Better Questions, Get Better Results
• Day 21 – Carry the Good Forward, Let the Rest Go
• Day 22 – Design Your Day with Skill
• Day 23 — Design Your Week with Skill
• Day 24 – Bounce Back with Skill
• Day 25 – Fix Time. Flex Scope
• Day 26 – Solve Problems with Skill
• Day 27 – Do Something Great
• Day 28 – Find Your One Thing
• Day 29 – Find Your Arena for Your Best Results
• Day 30 – Take Agile Results to the Next Level

When you can speak the language, it’s easier to find your way around.   One of the key things I’ve learned at Microsoft is that I can find my way around the platform fast, *if* I know the language.   The language usually consists of scenarios or topics, features, and APIs.

The toughest part is usually mapping out the features.   The beauty is that if you know the features, they tend to be a token or a handle that connects you to various documentation sets, presentations, samples, and a plethora of other resources.  The other value of knowing the feature names is they tend to be unique names, so they are more precise and they help cut to the chase when searching through vast seas of information.

Here is an initial map of the Microsoft Application Platform from a topics, features, and API perspective.   It’s effectively a language for the Microsoft application platform.  Note that while many of the feature or API lists may be out of data, you can use the idea to build your own maps.  Once the frame is in place, it’s a lot easier to update it with current information.   In fact, this would actually be useful as a Wiki map.   It would serve as a master map of the application platform, that would make it easy to connect to relevant resources, using a common frame and vocabulary.

The map starts off by focusing on the most common application types, and then walking each core technology building block, then drilling into topics, features, and APIs.

Enjoy the map … and please extend.

Application Types

Application Technology Patterns

ADO.NET Topics and Features Map

ASP.NET Topics and Features Map

Silverlight Topics and Features Map

WCF Topics and Scenarios Map

Windows Azure Topics and Features Map

Windows Client Topics and Features Map

Windows Phone Topics and Features Map

Development Languages

Additional Resources

• Visual Basic - Getting Started | Reference | What’s New in Visual Basic
• Visual C# – Getting Started | Reference | What’s New in C#
• Visual C++ – Getting Started | Reference | What’s New in C++ 
• Visual F# – Getting Started | Reference | What’s New in F# (including info on F# Type Providers)

According to Christopher Alexander, "Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice."

I think the value of patterns is two key things:
1. Concise solution descriptions
2. A common vocabulary

I also think the best way to think about patterns is that they are a simple way to share strategies and principles.  By naming them, you give them a simple handle.

Recently, a colleague asked me for a simple pattern template, and I didn’t have anything to just point to, so I did a quick roundup of some examples.

Pattern Templates
Here are example pattern schemas and pattern templates from a few key sources:

Sample Patterns

Pattlets
Pattlets were used in Enterprise Solution Patterns to briefly summarize a pattern, without fully documenting it.  Here are a few samples:

A page of pattlets is available on MSDN.

Key Links

• C2.com
• Enterprise Solution Patterns
• Prescriptive Guidance Engineering
• Web Services Security Patterns
• Windows Azure Design Pattern Catalog

Trying to plan for a month can be a challenge, especially if you don’t have an approach.  I’m going to share with you a very simple way to plan your month.  It’s simple, but powerful.  You can use Agile Results as a way to simplify your monthly planning.  Agile Results is the system I talk about in my book, Getting Results the Agile Way.

3 Steps to Plan Your Month

To plan the month using Agile Results, simply do three things:

1. Pick a theme for the month.
2. Identify three wins you want by the end of the month.
3. Write them down.

Monthly Theme
The monthly theme will give you focus.  You can use it as a mantra.  For example, let’s say the focus for this month, is simplicity.  (I happen to like that one because I used simplicity as a focus for one of my projects at work, with great success.)   For the entire month, you will have this one theme to keep going back to.  It will remind you of what’s important.  It’s like a mini-mission for the month.

Three Wins for the Month
The three wins you identify will help you set a target for the month, in a way that’s goal oriented.   As soon as you start to think about what you can achieve in a month, you will start to ask better questions.  You’ll start asking questions about what’s important.  You’ll start asking questions about what’s next.  You’ll also start asking questions about, what’s possible.

Meaningful Months
Meaningful months are made up of your weekly wins and your daily dos.   The Rule of Three is your friend and will help you focus, as well as zoom in and zoom out.  For example, you can use The Rule of Three to identify three wins for the day, three wins for the week, and three wins for the month.   This helps you avoid getting overwhelmed, and we tend to be pretty good at remembering three things.  Three is also a good way to focus your time and energy.

The best part is that each month is a chance to turn the page and start fresh.  You are the author of your life and you are always writing your story forward.  Use each month as a way to add great chapters to your life.  When things don’t go as planned, carry the lessons forward, and use each day, each week, and each month, as  a fresh start on your path of meaningful results.

My Related Posts

• Simplified Site and Knowledge Base for Getting Results
• 3 Keys to Agile Results
• 30 Day Boot Camp for Getting Results

OK, after testing multiple iterations against 7 competing designs, I’ve updated the Getting Results.com site and the Getting Results Knowledge Base.  It should now be a lot easier and friction-free to learn about the Agile Results Time Management System.

Here are key changes:

1. Simplified the Side Bar – a few vital choices, less words, less confusion, simpler paths.
2. Created simpler, visual impact up front – less complex, less overwhelm, yet more focus … more like a newspaper with headlines, with easy ways to read more.
3. Put the focus on The Book and The Knowledge Base.
4. Balanced the visuals up front – the book and Dr. K – to keeps the eyes happy.
5. Stuck all the floating text into the boxes and frames for focus.
6. Balanced some more text, with less text, and less links.
7. Brought the idea to life how the Knowledge Base “supports” the book, as well as “extends” it (it’s on the bottom as  a platform vs. off to the side.)
8. Made the knowledge Base more of a glide-path into the book.  I focused on timeless hot topics such as goals, motivation, and time management (Previously I focused on the How Tos, Checklists, etc.)
9. Made a few key ideas pop more, such as the idea that Agile Results is the system inside the book, and that you can use The Rule of Three to shape your life.
10. Hacked away at the unessential Bruce Lee style.  It’s tough not to want to expose more than the tip of the ice-berg.  There is depth on the site.  After all, you can read the entire Getting Results the Agile Way book for free, and the Knowledge Base has prescriptive step-by-step How Tos, such as How To Set SMART Goals and Achieve Them, and in-depth Guidelines, such as Focus Guidelines, and Motivation Guidelines.   These are aren’t your ordinary tips and tricks -- the Focus Guidelines are so powerful that some folks with ADD tell me they are actually using them to get off their meds and learn new coping mechanisms.

Hopefully you find the site a lot easier to use and to find your way around.   I’ll continue to simplify, test, tune, and refine … after all, that’s the agile way

Many thanks to Alik Levin, Paul Enfield, Steve Andrews, Tobin Titus, and Will Kennedy for inspiration and ideas on how to take Agile Results and Getting Results the Agile Way to the next level.