MyLifeMyCareer.com

I know the title sounds like some bullshit PR, but it's a message with truth behind it. And NBC was also right about the whole "The More You Know" Saturday morning positive messages in between mindless cartoons. Eek the Cat, anyone?

You don't just get an innovative idea by sitting on your sofa watching American Idol or playing Halo 3. Actually, you can if you allow yourself to, but reading still yields the most inspiration for me. I'm not talking about leather bound books with gold trim on the pages. I'm talking about blogs from other entrepreneurs, websites, and my favorite - magazines. Printed media is not dead (yet), and at $6-20 a year for 12 issues I load up. I try to stay away from more traditional "business" magazines like BusinessWeek or The Economist since they generally report on proven strategies or established methods which are usually common sense to most people or widely reported and you've already heard about them.

Non-fiction books about "new age" business concepts, like The Tipping Point, Long Tail, Wikinomics, etc contain great ideas, but the books are dead to me. No one needs 300 pages to prove a point. Reading a non-fiction book is a huge waste of time. The point of each chapter is usually made in the first few paragraphs, and is followed by 43 more pages of citations and similar examples. The author is basically saying, "Here you have my idea, and here are many other resources that I have arranged in a way to make my idea seem like it is supported whether it is or not." Once you catch onto the pattern, unless the subject is extremely interesting to you the book will be back on the shelf in no time. I would rather go on-line, get the basic premise, and see what other people have to say. It's quicker, more interactive, and rather than one person pitching some crazy new idea there will be many people with different opinions selling it to you or throwing it away. And you can ask them, "Why?", like the inquisitive 2-year old version of yourself is wanting to know the entire time you are trapped reading the book. Pick up a book from the Fiction section, and at least entertain yourself if you're going to spend days or weeks reading one thing.

Magazines have time-sensitive material. The articles are shorter, straight to the point, and more relevant to current trends and events in the world. Most magazines have a consistent voice, so you can usually find several that match your style and you end up reading cover to cover. Most of the articles are on-line for free, but let's be honest, you will get distracted after half an article and mosey on over to Facebook to see pictures of your buddy passed out on some beach during Spring Break. Get the actual magazine, and step away from the computer, and you would be surprised how quickly you will breeze through it picking up ideas to research or look into when you get back to the computer.

So, which ones do I read?

FastCompany
Inc.
Wired - not a "business" magazine, but I'm a tech guy and I would argue that it does contain valuable business info
Esquire - a lifestyle magazine, I know, but successful people are interviewed and popular trends are identified among some other stuff that I would qualify as crap
GQ - same as above - you need to stay in touch with pop culture at some level. It's all about balance.
PopSci - technology mentioned in this bad boy is usually featured 6-12 months later in mainstream media
Technology Review - The intelligent and more research oriented version of PopSci
Scientific American - I read very little of this magazine, but pick up just enough information to be dangerous in conversations that I have no business being included in. You never know when an investor may start discussing the possible types of life in underground oceans recently discovered on a different planet. Or you may be on Jeopardy and win money.

Surprised by the variety? I feel it's important to keep a broad perspective, so that you do not get on one path. Think about it: you are thinking about ideas from different perspectives, picking up general information that may help you or simply rot away in your brain, and you are well-equipped to hang in conversations with many types of different people. If you're ever a manager or business owner, this will be a killer skill in my opinion allowing you to hopefully connect with all of your employees at some level outside of work-related conversations.

Reading is a bore when you could be watching a movie or playing Wii, I realize this. I look at it this way, though: I just spent 20 years going to school, spent close to six figures on college, and I am not going to quit the personal investment just because I have a degree.

You are your greatest asset. There, another BS corporate zinger for you. I'm sure many people who think they are important have said those five "inspirational" words with a straight face. I have always laughed at them when they say them, and chuckled as I typed the phrase. We know this already, and choose to deny or accept it. Thanks for the coffee mug worthy slogan, though. All right, I'm done. Two posts in two days? It's been awhile.

There's a wide spectrum of style to "professional" email etiquette, and both ends of the spectrum suck. On one end you have the people who act like they are writing a letter with a piece of papyrus and a quill dripping with ink. They usually look like this:

Jared,

Thomas The Train
555-555-5555 office
555-555-5556 fax (I know, who still has these, right?)
555-555-5557 home
555-555-5558 cell
555-555-5559 mobile
tommytrain wm
tommytrain2 aim
123 Central Station
London, Bulgaria 129312A-233AB
[ridiculous logo]
"Some slogan our marketing department came up with which sounds self-centered and ridiculous"

That's one extreme that you will experience. You will open a novel like this, and quickly delete it. The other type of email you may receive are the one-liners with no specific information like this:

He said you could call him sometime at the old number. He still works in that department with the other guys at that one location.

Emails are meant to be short, informal, and to the point. That does not mean you can roll out of bed, fire up the blackberry, and send something like the above message while taking a piss and rubbing the sleepy dust out of your eyes. I will delete this on account of you assuming that I am the keeper of all that is knowledge - which I am not nor do I claim to be.

You have to use a few descriptive or key words to make that second message a winner. Here is a nice re-do:

Johhny T. said that he would be available after 2 PM EST for a short call. Tom and Gary from the products group will be on the call. Just set up a conference call, and send him the number/appointment. Thanks.

I now know who I am going to call, who else will be on the call, what time to call (always include the time zone to avoid confusion), and which one of us will be calling the other and at what number. All in three sentences. If it is an internal email you don't need to sign your name at the end because most email clients say who the email is from. As my 7th grade algebra teacher would say, "We're not lazy, we're efficient.".

There's so much more I could say about email and probably will on another day.

I am just getting over a real bad cold that was all respiratory the first week, and all sinus infection this past week. I don't have remote access to my work computer, so I was at the office every day hacking, sneezing, coughing, and blowing my nose - just like everyone else the previous weeks who probably got me sick. How do you prevent getting sick when everyone around you is sick?

Rest on the weekends The weekend after everyone had been sick around me at the office I was out both Friday and Saturday night until 3-4 AM in the morning. I was worn down already on Monday, and by Tuesday I started feeling the first symptoms of the Bubonic plague. In retrospect, I wish I would've stayed in doing a few lines of multi-vitamins instead of using community cups of beer in Flippy Cup and Beer Pong, and started that week with a re-charged immune system.

Really wash your hands A hand-washing that actually results in the killing of germs and bacteria on your hands should last at least 15 seconds. Use warm water, lather up with some hand soap, get the front and back of your hands and wrists, and be sure to run your fingertips across your opposite hand's palm to try and get underneath your fingernails. If you are unsure about the proper technique just watch your doctor the next time you go in for a check-up as he/she washes their hands in your check-up room.

Don't void the hand-washing You've just had a great hand-washing experience, now you just have to get back to your desk without touching anything. Air dryers are preferred as long as you use your arm/elbow sleeve to push the button that starts the flow of air. If you have paper towels, hopefully they are automatic so that you can just pull off what you need without touching a handle. Only dry your hands with one side of the paper towel to keep any remaining bacteria on that side of the towel that rubs off from your hand. Throw it away and grab one more paper towel before exiting to open the door handle without touching it. Hang onto the paper towel if you have other doors to walk through to get to your desk, and throw the paper towel in a public trash can or recycle bin on the way back to your desk. You now have far fewer germs coming with you into your workspace.

Call into meetings Instead of sitting in a conference room with other infected individuals, pretend like you just got off another call or are extremely busy and call into the meeting going on in your building. I rarely do this, but if someone in that room is coughing frequently I do not want to be in the same room. It's kind of a dick move, but people will get over it. You're doing it to stay healthy and use less sick time, so they should understand that you are just trying to protect the bottom line like any good corporate workhorse.

I've made it my initiative as of late to do the little things to get back onto the track of lower levels of stress at the office.

Deadlines
I dream of the day where everyone realizes that deadlines lead to anxiety, rushed or poor deliveries, and the never-ending acceleration of the pace that we work and deliver. Yes, there are people out there who need deadlines in order to function, but I fully support the idea of respecting that others will work as quickly as they can while remaining sane and maintaining a high level of craftsmanship. If I doubt that they are intelligent enough to handle themselves in a deadline-less world, I'm not hiring them, working with them, or buying or selling to them. If someone told me that I could have my newly ordered cell phone in a week, but that it really takes them three weeks to produce it correctly in a low-pressure environment I would rather wait the three weeks to ensure top-notch production of my phone to ensure the long-term value.

Unfortunately, deadlines do exist in my current position, and they are created by clients, project managers, other managers, co-workers, and myself. I've learned in less than two years that up to this point in life you really could please almost everyone. Working, going to school, and maintaining a social life seemed rough at the time. There were times in college where tests or project due dates fell closely together, and I was challenged. In the workplace though, especially in the technology sector, the pace of business blows anything I experienced in college away. It comes in waves just like college, but the intensity level gets a little nuts at times. My first reaction is to get frustrated at the lack of time left, the effort of others, the wrong expectations by involved parties, or any other factor outside of my control.

I go home, I get pissed thinking about it, and then I sleep. I wake up the next day thinking more reasonably, and realize that I brought most of that stress onto myself by trying to do too many things at once, rather than doing what I can do now while waiting for other pieces to fall into place. I realize that learning to estimate how long it takes you to do something is tough. I always want to deliver lightning fast, and make the mistake of giving myself a deadline that is overly ambitious, to say the least. I'm starting to really know what I am capable of, and actually and realistically delivering. Many times I tend to give an unrealistic date of delivery out of fear that the other person will be disappointed with what I predicted. More often than not, they would not have cared at all. I'm getting the hang of this and slowly regaining control. Deadlines were always set for me my entire life: test dates, homework assignments, sales goals, athletic development planning, and so on. We need to do a better job of educating students on setting their own deadlines and project planning - a skill that I was definitely in need of more practice on before entering the workplace.

Email, IM, Phone
If you want to get anything done, ignore at least 2 out of the 3 at all times. Plan meetings and times when you can call a client or they can call you. I like to provide top-notch service and convenience for my clients, so too often when they ask when I am free on a certain day I will respond anytime if I only have a few short meetings. They then hang up, I start to work, they call out of the blue, we have an unplanned 45 minute conversation, I hang up, go to the bathroom, have a quick chat, and finally sit down taking another 20 minutes to figure out what I was doing before the call came in. It's much easier to know when the call is coming in, so that you can plan to take it and work on a task that should wrap up around the time they are calling. You can at least form a more defined stopping point in a more continuous or larger task. You cannot eliminate all surprise calls thanks to our "on-demand" nature and way of life, but limiting these types of calls leads to you keeping your head on straight. Voicemail is a good thing, though.

For email, I recently turned off the Outlook pop-up feature that lets you know if a new message has arrived, who it's from, and the first part of the message. I have my inbox and calendar minimized most of the day. I try to check it at stopping points or breaks in my current project or task, or at the four logical breaks of the day: arrival to the office, before lunch, after lunch, and before leaving for the day. Now, since many people have become accustomed to instant responses from almost everything else in life thanks to everything from McDonald's to Google, some people get ticked if you don't respond right away. I always say if something is on fire, they will probably call me. I can't always count on this, as some people for whatever reason would not pick up a phone and make a call even if they were on fire. I'd love to check my email only 4 times a day while at work, but you just can't due to the way email has evolved. My best plan of action (and most reasonable) is to only plan to answer emails 4 times a day at the intervals discussed above, check it during breaks in project work or right after a meeting, and only respond to frantic or immediate attention emails outside of the planned answer periods. That's about as managed as you can become with Outlook without being a dick to everyone who is emailing you.

Pray that your IM goes out or is destroyed somehow. Ours was just out for two weeks, and now no one uses it now because two weeks is a long time and everyone has forgotten. 9 times out of 10 I use it to receive a comedic remark from another employee or to make a similar point. Older employees take it more seriously which is nice, I guess, but at the same time just come over and talk to me rather than trying to have a formal conversation through IM. If you put up your "busy" or "away" icon, people still send you messages that pop up, so just turn it off if it is not a "mandatory" communication tool in the company you work for.

If your company has not blocked AIM, GChat, Yahoo, or Windows messenger, don't even open it. One, most of the people my age are starting to grow away from it, and those who aren't it seems like are never available at the same time to actually have a conversation. Personal messaging at work is probably not a big deal as long as it is minimal, IMHO, but as a young gun in a corporate office it definitely would not send a good message if you are seen chatting every time someone walks down your cubicle aisle unless you are in data entry and they recognize your mad typing skills. I have never used a personal IM service while at work, but see people doing it all the time - especially through Gmail since it is not detected.

Breaks
Basically, if I'm thirsty I go get a drink. If I have to go to the bathroom, I make a trip to the bathroom. I don't plan these breaks, but the urge to get up usually occurs when I am just finishing up something or running into a wall of frustration - both of which are good times to get up. My eye doctor stresses the importance of a 5 minute break to stretch your eyes every hour is so important in a monitor-staring intensive job. I do not do a good job of this as I don't plan my breaks, but maybe I should.

The biggest productivity killer for me is going out for lunch. You have the 10 minute period prior to lunch trying to figure out where to go, you eat way too much, you come back and keep a conversation going for another 10 minutes, finally get to work, and then fall into a food coma. Bring smaller portions of food in a brown bag lunch with snacks for throughout the day, and you will be more aware and capable of staying on track. Not to mention, you could leave early or accomplish more in the same amount of time. Plus, you save a crapload of money. Brown bag your way to a million.