Career – Page 4 – Stormy's Corner

September 18, 2009

7 ways not to procrastinate

While I've learned not to procrastinate, the truth is that I do procrastinate every once in a while. This isn't a post about why I procrastinate but rather how I deal with it. Here's how I deal with my own procrastination:

Do the first step. Sometimes I procrastinate because the task is too large to even know where to start. "Publish a GNOME quarterly report." That sounds like it's going to be a lot of work, so I put it off until tomorrow. Once I realize I'm doing that I stop and think about what's the first step? Deciding what's in the quarterly report. So I do just that step and then define the next one.
Redefine the scope. Some times a task is just so big or so hard, it's unlikely you are ever going to make time for it. "Research CRM systems." I had in my head that this was going to mean installing 4-5 CRM systems or getting live demos, writing up a huge list of features in a spreadsheet and tracking with CRM system did what, gathering requirements and mapping those to the features. So I didn't do it for a long time. I finally realized that I had been talking about it long enough that I knew what we needed and I knew what people recommended, so I should just write up a quick proposal to recommend the recommended CRM system and to verify it did what we needed.
Do it poorly – or at least not as well as I'd like. I like to do things well, so if I don't know how to do something or think I won't do a good job, I put it off. Every once in a while, I realize there's a task I've been putting off forever because I'm afraid I won't do it well. Then I just do it. And I put it out for review some where and cringe when I think of people seeing the unfinished work. But it gets done. (And the feedback I usually get is that it looks fine.)
Decide to do it as a favor for someone else. Another reason I procrastinate is because I don't think something is important – someone else asked me to do it. In those cases (when I realize that's happening), I either tell them I'm not going to do it or I decide I'm going to do it for them. Even though I don't think it's important, it is to them and so I do it for them.
Don't do it. Sometimes I procrastinate because I've really decided not to do it. There are two reasons I might decide not to do a task:
- Sometimes I procrastinate on things because I've subconsciously decided they aren't important. Crossing them off my list relieves my stress.
- Give it to someone else. Some times there are tasks that others can do
  more easily or with more joy. I really wasn't the right person for the job. If I can, I give it to them to do. You can trade. For example, I do the laundry and the dishes and not much of the cooking.
Hold something hostage. I've been known to say I'm not eating lunch until this is done. That usually works. (It's best to pick something that doesn't make somebody else wait for you!)
Promise someone else. Often I'll tell someone I'll do it and by when. Then I feel like I'm letting them down if I don't get it done. (Be careful. Some research shows that by publicly commiting to do something, you might be less likely to actually do it. Something about you already got the kudos for good intentions so now you don't need to do the task.)

How do you deal with tasks you keep putting off?

September 9, 2009

Why you shouldn’t do it all yourself

One of the hardest things to learn in management is how not to do it all yourself. People often call this a problem with "delegation". But the problem isn't with telling others what to do. The problem is learning how not to do it all yourself.

I talked earlier about how my style is to Trust and Empower, but I didn't talk about why that's hard or even why I chose that style.

Why is it hard not to do it yourself?

Satisfaction.You do it well and it's always satisfying to do something well.
Kudos. It's hard to give up kudos. People have always told you how well you do it, and now you are supposed to let someone else do it. And you won't get credit. (Actually, I think managers do get credit for what their teams do.
Their job is to make sure their team actually gets the credit.)
Quality. If you were the expert, it might be a while before someone else on your team learns to do it as well.
Speed. It might take a while for someone else to learn how to do it. And they might do it slowly for a while.
Urgency. The issue might not seem as urgent to the person you delegated to. You might have to remind them a lot, which takes time. (They might also be slow because they are afraid to start, don't have the right tools, etc.)
Your way. When you give it to someone else to do, they might decide to do it differently. It might not be the way you've always done it. The way you know is right. (And you might be right. Or they might come up with something even better. Who knows?)
Your time. Sometimes giving it to someone else to do can take longer than if you'd just done it yourself. (Coaching, helping, reminding, …)

Sometimes I feel like people think I should do more and encourage others less. The reason I don't do more (even though there are times I'd really love to just do it myself) is:

Growing the team. If I do it all myself (write all the press releases, lead all the projects, make all the decisions) then we will be constrained by what I, one person, can do. (And just getting information from everyone and passing it on to the right people would mean that'd I'd spend all day sending emails or in meetings.) By delegating, or recruiting others, and empowering them, we grow the team to be much more than me.
Better results. If I do it all myself people are less likely to give me feedback. If we do it together, we get more people involved, more skills, more feedback and we end up with a better result. (And I have no doubts we already have an amazing team that can do not only more work than I can, but lots of things that I don't know how to do.)
More results. Don't break what already works. For example, GUADEC is an excellent all volunteer run conference. There is no reason for me to step in. It's better for me to let others continue to do a great job and I can help with other things that may not be working so well. (I did offer to work with sponsors as the sponsoring companies had told me that it's confusing to be approached by multiple people throughout the year for different events. That's something I can help with and hopefully build into a process that is less time intensive … see the next point.)
Success. If I do it all myself, the GNOME Foundation will always need me. I hope to be part of the GNOME community for a long time but I think you do the best job you can when you work yourself out of a job whether it's because you solved the original problem or you automate everything. There's always more work to do, more problems to solve. You shouldn't be solving the same problems year after year.

Encouraging, empowering (and reminding) people takes a lot of time. The more you work to get
others involved, the less time you have left to just do it yourself. But in the
end, you end up with more done overall. And an excited, motivated, knowledgeable team that can do way more than you could ever do by yourself.

So Trust and Empower. And encourage and remind.

September 7, 2009

Don’t let others limit you

When given choices in life, remember that there are always other (unspoken) options.

Here's a recent conversation with my 3 year old.

Me: Would you like milk or water with dinner?

3yo: Gatorade!

Me: Milk or water?

3yo: Gatorade, please.

Me: Milk or water?

3yo: Chocolate milk?

So next time you're asked which team you'd like to be on or which task you'd like to do or what hours you'd like to work, remember there might be a few options that aren't mentioned. For example, see 20 things you can negotiate in a job offer for some options available when you are considering a new job.

September 3, 2009

3 ways our awesome habits get us into trouble

Those of us that spend a lot of time in email have developed a lot of habits that make us more efficient. They work really well when the people we are working with also do them. But lately I’ve been encountering situations where they misfire. For example:

Good habit: Replying in the message.

When replying to an email, we tend to leave most of the conversation intact and we insert our comments where appropriate. That way you keep the context. If you have a lot of emails conversations you are following, or if new people join the conversation, that is essential. Otherwise you have to go back and read all the old mail, remember the conversation and piece it together. It would take me forever to read mail that way.

Problem: I recently had a case where someone was asking for help. When another person wrote back some nice ideas and thoughts, the person asking for help never responded. When I asked him why not, he told me he hadn’t seen any ideas. He opened the mail, but since there was nothing at the top and it looked like just his original mail was in there, he assumed there was no response. He didn’t scroll and look for the answers.

Solution: Always start a new thread with a greeting or header and be sure to say something like “My comments are embedded below.”

Good Habit: CC’ing someone who needs help.

When forwarding someone’s question to the mailing list or to another person, we cc them so that they can see all the responses and ask follow up questions. (Otherwise we’d have to watch the responses and forward them or summarize and forward back to the original person.)

Problem: People reply back to the mailing list or to you without cc’ing the person. Sometimes this happens because they don’t notice that someone is cc’ed. Sometimes it happens because they are “shy” and want to make sure their answer is something you are looking for. Sometimes it happens because they see you as the authority figure to report to.

Solution: Explicitly ask people to reply to all or “reply to Bob” with ideas. (And I realize that all my solutions require more typing and more work. If you’ve got better ones, please let me know!)

Good Habit: Putting information in wikis (and expecting others to update it)

We put information into wikis so that people can correct it and update it themselves.

Problem: People email you back with corrections and never put them in the wiki. So you have to continuously update the wiki.

Solution: Write back and say, that’s great, can you add it to the wiki please? (Note that this only seems to work 30% of the time, so I’m open to better suggestions. I think the main problem is they already answered your question so now there’s one more step they need to do.) Maybe a better solution would be to say in your original mail, “Please update the wiki directly – don’t email me updates” but then you might shut off discussion. Sometimes people email you the updates so that the group can discuss them.

What other good habits don’t work well when the other person isn’t aware of them? What other solutions do you have for making good habits work with those that aren’t aware of them. (Without trying to change the other person’s habits.)

September 2, 2009

How I learned not to procrastinate

I’m not much of a procrastinator. And I owe that to Carmen. (Montse, be sure your mom hears this!)

When I was 12, every day after school we went to Carmen’s house. We all sat around the table and, after eating a snack, we sat there and worked on homework until we were done. Carmen either helped us with our homework, or if we didn’t need help, she sat with us and knitted or ironed. (And before my sister and I learned Spanish, she’d spend time teaching us new words and reading books.) That habit of sitting down and just doing it has stuck with me. When you have a lot to do, you sit down and do it.

Some background.

We moved to Spain when I was 12. Although I was born in Spain we moved away when I was 2, so at age 12 when we returned, I spoke no Spanish. My parents put us in a Spanish speaking school. Then they got jobs teaching English in the evenings and arranged for us to stay with Carmen and her family after school. The first day I ended up in the wrong classroom. The first month, I got a zero on a homework assignment I didn’t even know I had. And I couldn’t even tell the teacher I didn’t know there had been a homework assignment. (For someone used to getting all A’s, that was traumatic!)

After school Carmen patiently spent hours working with us in the evenings. First helping us to do our homework, pantomiming all sorts of words and looking them up in the dictionary when that failed. Then when we were done with our homework, she’d bring out kids’ books and have us read them.

Over the months, we got better and faster at our homework and had more time to play. And eventually my parents got jobs teaching during the day. But for years afterwards, I still stopped at Carmen’s house after school just to sit at the table and chat. I still do, whenever I get to Barcelona!

I didn’t realize until recently that she had taught me how not to procrastinate. Don’t get me wrong, I still procrastinate, especially when I’m not sure how to do something, but it’s nothing like what it would be without the habit of sitting down and doing it. And it was a fun, friendly environment. One that I returned to even when I didn’t have homework. We all sat together at the table, Carmen, her two kids and my sister and I. We ate, worked and talked together.

Now I just have to make sure I pass that on to my kids. I guess I’d better start sitting at the table when my son is doing his homework!

How did you learn how not to procrastinate?

And here’s how I deal with the times I do procrastinate.

May 28, 2009

What do I do at work?

A couple of people have asked what I do. I blogged about it a while back, What do I do as Executive Director of GNOME, but I get the sense that people are looking for regular updates. You can find those on the Foundation blog, I post a weekly update there.

(And I think a lot of people have questions about what Executive Directors do. My post is now #3 in Google if you search for "executive director job description", #2 for "what does an executive director do" and #3 for "executive director do". So if you are an executive director, you should probably post what you do for your community, employees and shareholders … it looks like they'd like to know!)

May 10, 2009

The challenge is the fun part, not the winning

People think winning is fun. But they're wrong, it's the challenge that's fun. Don't get me wrong, losing isn't fun, but winning without a challenge isn't fun either. Knowing you stepped up to a challenge and overcame it – now that is satisfying. (And challenges are also what keeps life interesting – it's what we talk about when we tell stories. It's what we watch in the movies.)

A bit of career advice I've gotten several times is to pay attention to when you're having fun. Then you'll really know what you enjoy doing. (And I find it's best to check during the task. It's hard to think back and remember if you had fun while you were doing something.)

Some times it's really obvious …

A couple of weeks ago, I played an entire shift of 4 on 2 in hockey – as part of the two player team. (Two of my teammates were in the penalty box.)

As we skated out I asked Jeff, my much more experienced teammate, "what do you want me to do?"

He said "I'm going to mumble-mumble-mumble."

"Ah, ok." (mumble-mumble-mumble??) "What do you want me to do?" (We only had seconds and I really didn't know what I was supposed to do or I would have asked about the mumble-mumble-mumble part.)

"Chase the puck."

"Chase it??" (That didn't seem very wise to me … I mean there were four of them.)

"Chase it."

"Chase it?"

"Chase it."

So I did. I skated like a ball bouncing between cat's paws from one skater to the next, getting there just in time to block a direct shot on goal and time to chase the puck to the next guy …

What stood out for me was the comment one of my teammates made afterward. "I was so glad it wasn't me out there, but you were grinning the whole time!" And I realized it really was fun. It was hard, it was even a bit scary, and I skated harder than I ever had before in a single shift and every move counted. But it was fun – much more fun than making a couple of assists and a goal.

And it was fun because it was a real challenge. And Jeff, the goalie and I stepped up to it. And even if they had scored (they didn't), I still would have had fun – I was grinning because I was playing hard and it was fun, not because we were winning. But I played harder because it was a challenge and I was having fun, and that's part of the reason we won.

Photo by Eduardo Amorim.

April 29, 2009March 31, 2010

Why do people go to conferences? For the people!

People go to conferences to see friends, meet people and learn new things.

Over 80% of people said that seeing friends and meeting new people was the reason they went to conferences or it was very important. 53% of people said "attendees they want to hang out with" is the reason they go to conferences. The comments really reflected this with people talking about how meeting people renewed their energy and many talked about how "fun" it is!

Good speakers followed as a close second with 96% of people saying the talks were at least somewhat interesting. (Two thirds thought the talks were very interesting or the reason they go to conferences.) Interestingly enough 100% of people thought meeting the speakers was at least somewhat interesting. I didn't ask why they wanted to meet the speakers … I assume to talk to them about their topic but perhaps it's just meeting someone famous!

Keynotes were less of a draw, 15% of people couldn't care less about them and half (51%) thought they were only somewhat interesting. So that would kill my fame idea …

Closely related to meeting people and listening to talks is learning new things. Both learning more about topics you are already interested in and learning about new topics ranked high for most people.

But here's the data. You can see for yourself.

This data is not necessarily statistically significant. I didn't ask for any demographic data. I recruited people on this blog and on twitter. That crowd is definitely not representative of the general population. (But I wouldn't want to ask the general random population about attending conferences.) You are welcome to use the data and blog about it yourself, just link back to here or explain where you got it from.

In this first question, I added two items to the list after it started, so that's why the responses for the last ones are lower. Also, the first two respondents couldn't pick an answer in every row. They alerted me to the problem and I fixed it for everyone else.

I was impressed by how many people would go out of their way to see their favorite speaker speak again. Especially since most speakers tend to talk about the same topic.

This question would have obviously been better as a percentage and I did open a new survey just for this question (redone) but very few people responded to that one.

And then I asked people in their own words why they went to conferences:

To learn something new, meet new people, and touch base with people I've met previously.
I think good conferences are inspirational for the attendees, and I like to travel, so both thing make me go to conferences.
That is a good question…
To meet my preferred e-mail addresses contacts face to face
To be an active member of the community
To hook up with people
Meet old freinds, make new freinds, be seen, learn about the latest developments
To meet F2F with colleagues and come to concensus on how to solve the problems that vex us, where email/irc/other distractions simply don't allow progress to be made otherwise.
To learn, expand my horizon, see / hear about technology 'at the edge'
to learn new stuff
A combination of the talks (news), friends and beer.
I go to present, to meet people and to hang out in the "hallway track"
Sell, Sell, Sell! Party!
networking
because they rock
To Learn more about the organization and product.
to collaborate, start collaborations, and have a good time with friends
To renew energies in my FLOSS involvement
Because of the people I meet there!
meeting co-developers, learning interesting things about other projects (by talks) or even your own project
Meet people, help build up the FOSS community, learn about technologies
I want to know where the open source community at large is heading.. also I really like keynotes but if they get posted as OGGs I skip them because I don't want to miss the small parallel tracks
Its vital for making me feel that im part of a community made up of real people, not just hacking gods. The creativity blossoms at conferences, while there is some creativity in irc channels, i havent seen this offline creativity and lust for hacking replicated online.
fun and interesting
It's fun! 🙂
For the feeling you get that you are part of something big.
Metting people. It's easier to interact with people through the Internet if you konw them in real life
I go to get an introduction on technical subjects that my peers find exciting
networking
for the people
Spending time with peers, interesting venues (fortunately I'm "new" enough that every conference has been a different city), renewing my interest in volunteering on specific projects.
It's different for "work" conferences compared to "play" conferences. But in both cases you get a chance to hear the best in the field, make new contacts, learn what others are doing (find out the cutting edge), and publicise yourself/your company.
Meeting with Friends
Learn new Things meet great ppl
To expand my circle of contacts and learn about new tech.
To meet people
People! 🙂
To learn new things
I typically go to conferences to meet new people and hang out with old friends. However, it really depends on why I am at the conference. When I am at the conference for a project I am usually in a booth or talking to people about the project. I catch a few talks if I know they will be good. If I am at a conference for myself I usually hang out around booths, see a few talks and talk with people in the halls. If I am at a conference to attend for work I feel I have to see as many talks as possible and end up limiting my talking with friends and new people.
No single reason; meeting up with folks, learning new things, promoting our work, arguing about stuff 😉
meeting and talking to people who work in the same/related space
I go to meet people, show what I've worked on, plan for future things. And to party!
To better myself, via the sharing of ideas with like minded people
for the bandwidth of face-to-face ideas exchange
To hear other people opinions about the stuff I think I'm good in. And then to rethink if I'm really good.
To Connect!
Learn, network, and recharge.
network with people
To gather with interesting people and listen to them talk about interesting things.
To meet people
To learn and to network.

April 22, 2009

Why do you go to conferences?

To be honest with you, I go to conferences to meet people. I see old friends, meet online friends in person and meet new people. While I occasionally see a good talk, like Dries Buytaert's rules for creating a great community, I usually only go to talks to start conversations in twitter or on my blog.

Lately I've had a strong desire to turn my talks into conversations instead of lectures. That's what I did at SCALE and at the Collaboration Summit. (Losing my voice at the Collaboration Summit ensured that I had to make it a conversation!)

So today when I got an email advertising a conference's keynotes, I wondered – who goes to see the keynotes and why. And if not to see the keynotes, why do people go to conferences?

I created a survey in SurveyMonkey, and you can see the results on my blog.

Photo by dkalo.

April 20, 2009

Actually, it is all about you

We spend a lot of time telling people "it's not all about you". At least I tell my 8 year old that every once in a while and I've heard it a few times myself. (And I sometimes really want to tell other people that it's not all about them.)

But playing hockey on Sunday I decided it is all about you.

When teams are doing poorly, some people do nothing different (which is frustrating), others blame everyone else on the team for doing the wrong thing (which is demoralizing) and some people buckle down and try harder. Which ones do you think make the best team players and help the team win?

I have to admit that all too often I fall into the blaming others group. It's much, much easier to see what everyone else could be doing differently. However, since this was my second hockey game in 5 years, this time it was easy for me to realize that I was probably part of the problem! (We won the game. Probably not due to anything I did. As the matter of a fact, it was probably due to the 10 year old that joined our team …)

So the next time your team is having trouble, remember, it is all about you. Figure out what you can do differently and work your hardest! (For my part, I'm going to work on transitioning from skating forward to backwards without losing momentum, picking up the puck when I take a shot, passing to where people are, not where they were, … well, you get the picture.)

Photo by DVS Photographer.