Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the month “August, 2008”

08 Aug 2008

The Revelation of Micro Task Planning and Thinking?

Life in Detail 2 by Nate Brelsford

I was struck today by the power of planning. Not planning of your life goals: the goal setting and vision lifeblood of success. No: micro planning of the very task that you’re just about to do.

I think we’re so used to what we know how to do; our routines and our learnt ways of doing things. We probably know how to do most things that we come upon in our average work day. We think we know the ‘best ways’ of doing most of the things that we do on a daily/ weekly and monthly basis.

It’s interesting that when ‘cost’ or ‘efficiency’ consultants go into businesses, the things that would need to change to optimise a process are so simple; and afterwards so obvious. The ‘way we do it’ in both personal and business life becomes so ingrained we often don’t even think to think. And we rarely challenge it.

Blockers feel like they arise in our ability to achieve new things or do new tasks because:

1. Confidence is sometimes an issue

2. We are unused to thinking (or stopping to think)

3. We are unused to intelligently planning on a practical basis

It feels like we are so built to be responsive [link to article] that we are destined to respond poorly to new situations because of this lack of micro-planning.

What do I mean by micro-planning? I’m thinking about:

· Taking a short period of time to brainstorm the elements of the task you need to do

· Thinking about a realistic sequence

· Resources

· Restraints

· Other people

· Timeframes

But most importantly, taking the time to think…

Posted in Action Orientation, Focus and tagged action, Focus, Micro planning | Leave a comment

07 Aug 2008

The Social and Information Web Drug III

An observation from Slate.com that adds item 12. to my splurge on the above topic (see these posts from

Money Symbols Abstract 4 - svilen001

earlier in the week on the Social and Information Web Drug):

12. Social media is the new provider of social currency

Defining social currency as ‘The phrase, which comes from sociology, is often used to describe the information we acquire and then trade—or give away—to start, maintain, and nurture relationships with our fellow humans’

Christopher Carfi has a great post on social currency that expands further

So, particularly the tools of social media that aggregate/ channel/ filter and weight information are providing multiple opportunities to socially interact by trading ever more pertinent, timely and (to the individual hoping to interact) valuable information.

Those face to face ‘watercooler moments’ are being replaced by snipping content, feeding, streaming and adding to comments…..

Posted in Communication, Learning, Social Networks, Writing and tagged Communication, FriendFeed, Learning, Life streaming, Social Media | Leave a comment

06 Aug 2008

The Personality of Change

Blue Planet by Dez Pain

The Anatomy or Structure of Change. How does change happen? How does it last? Whether for you as an individual, or for a team of individuals in a company.

I struggled with the title because the drivers of a successful change seem to come from many different areas. The structural shift. The psychological shift. The habits and routine shifts. etc.

First, a definition. I see successful change as being the thing that happens to make you move from one state to another state; that state then remains and becomes the norm.

I redrafted from my initial attempt at this post where I had considered that successful change was pre-planned to achieve a desired/ better state. I believe that as much can be learnt from change happening for the worst. So that the new state of affairs is less desirable than pre-change.

As an initial brainstorm of the various aspects or elements of the personality of change:

The theory: mentally I start considering the process of change in a systematic, paper-based way. It can be planned and structured and implemented.
The quick win: there are immediate rewards in the case of change to a desired state. Immediate benefits are seen by those involved to motivate into starting routine and repetition.
The buy-in: reality is that the mental acceptance and then physical behaviours of those impacted have to align with the new future state for it to be considered successful.
The language: language shifts. The new state is articulated as a ‘done deal’. The new language associated is used (stiltedly at first) by those involved, but more confidently as time goes on. This seems to have a viral effect.

To be continued.