Take Control of Your Schedule

The entire time I was reading this article I was in awe – what an awesome way to take back control of your day at the office.  It is a 5 to 10 minute read and worth every minute.

Thinking through the feasibility of setting boundaries of when you are available, when you are not available, when you are open for meetings and for how long… may be a stretch for some.  However, the point is not to copy and paste this example into your life – but there are pieces and parts that may provide a bunch of structure in your day and at the same time provide what seems like an unlimited amount of freedom.

I originally read this on the David Allen blog – RSS feeds here.

- Bill Weber

photo credit: jay_que

Watch it Grow

I added a page to the main navigation to track the progress of my desk plant with pictures – “Watch it Grow“.  Stupid – maybe.  Interesting in 6 months – maybe.  This is a lot like project 365 except I am not always at our Independence, OH location where my desk is.  I float between Independence and Beachwood locations. So each day I am at my desk I will snap a picture, probably 3-4 times per week.

It’s a spider plant baby from a larger one plant at home.

Link to the Page

- Bill Weber

Getting Things Done – Almost Done!

I am near complete with the re-reading of David Allen’s Getting Things Done .  I am at the beginning of chapter 9 “Doing: Making the Best Action Choices” and have about 65 pages remaining the book.  While reading last night, I came across this sentence – “If you have a bunch of things to do on one to-list, but you actually can’t do many of them in the same context, you force yourself to continually keep reconsidering all of them.” This really hit home for me.  I know my biggest obstacle to overcome is thinking of things in context (tasks grouped by how/when you can do them) – Calls, At Computer, Errands, At Home, Work, etc.

I am still living in the one to-do list world for the time being.  I am slowly but surely starting to incorporate GTD into my workflow… and yea, it’s a bit uncomfortable.  I relate it to golf.  In golf lots of things are “backwards” – you hit down on the ball to make it go up, you hit the ball from the left side and it goes right to left, you hit it from the right side and it goes left to right – doesn’t FEEL right.  I am figuring out, much like golf, you have to trust what you are doing is correct.

I will check back in in the next week or so, I imagine I will have the book complete by then.  I am looking forward to implementing more and more of the workflow changes to my daily life.

- Bill Weber

photo credit: sookie

Creating a Transition Plan – Effectively Moving On

In a fast paced consulting environment it is very common for resources to change projects several times per year – especially for junior resources.  Commonly, at Rosetta, we are asking junior level business analysts to assume more responsibility so more experienced business analysts can take on more value-add roles with our clients. This is the basic leverage model of many consulting firms.

This presents a real challenge for the person “rolling off” the project – you must…
1. continue to operate at a high level on your current engagement
2. effectively transition your current responsibilities to someone else
3. quickly become effective on your new engagement

In this post, I will visit item #2 – effectively transitioning your current responsibilities to someone else.  I believe that, of the three points above, this is the most critical.  Being effective at #2, will allow for minimal impact to your current engagement (#1) and maximum impact to your new engagement (#3).

There are three keys to an effective transition…
1. Task Transfer
2. Shadowing
3. Structured Oversight

Where are Online Retailers Focusing their Dollars?

The client I currently work with at Rosetta is a very large retailer and of course has been impacted by the economic downturn – hell, who hasn’t been?  Dollars are scarce and projects of all sizes are being evaluated and re-evaluated to ensure they will impact the bottom-line.

I have been spending more time over at shop.org, following the Strategy & Innovation 09 Forum that the National Retail Foundation (parent of shop.org) puts on each year.  Given the economic challenges that retailers are facing, this article on shop.org really caught my eye – Focusing Ecommerce Investing: Smartly Stretching Your Ecommerce Dollars While Still Innovating for Differentiation . It was a discussion with panelist from eBags, Patagonia and Bluefly.

Some similarities I found in each panelist’s comments about their focus -
- filtered navigation (guided navigation is different and somewhat specific to Endeca)
- SEO landing pages (marketing) and SEO in general
- better product content – descriptions, images, videos, make shopping exciting
- increase product lines
- reviews both online and across channels

221 Visits in January

Just took a look at the stats for the month of January and was pleasantly surprised to see well over 200 visits for the month – surpassing the 206 visits in December.  I am not really sure what is considered good for a blog that has been around for 2 months.  But 7 visits a day seems… well I have no idea.

Regardless, I am going to continue to keep writing and posting and stick with the committment I made to myself on Dec 5th.  I am continuing to seek out guest writers and thinking of creative and interesting posts.

Thanks for stopping by and please… tell a friend.

edit 2/4/09 11:20pm : I just checked FeedBurner and I have 8 RSS subscribers – more than I thought.  Even when I consider that 1 of those subscriptions is me.

- Bill Weber