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The Secret of Working Out and Distracting the Mind with TED.com

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
BodyBreak Elliptical Machine

BodyBreak Elliptical Machine

I haven’t blogged in a while.  This is mainly because I have been busy with finishing up last term’s final exams, course selections and starting this term’s courses.  Well, over the holidays I purchased an elliptical machine.  Its a good one from BodyBreak with Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod.  I bought it at Walmart for a great deal.  Here is a picture of it. 

The first few days I used the machines were great.  It was new.  I worked out for about 10 to 15 minutes each session. 

After a few weeks, something changed.  I situated the machine in my unfishinished basement.  Although I was quite excited about working out each time I found that I soon ran out of the willpower to go down there and do my workouts. 

There’s a secret trick.  I learned about it from pure experience. 

During my workouts, there was very little to entertain me.  As soon as I started working out I set the timer for 15 minutes and started my workout.  Even though its not a really strenuous excerice I found myself quickly getting BORED with the workout.  I didn’t have a TV downstairs to watch TV while I worked out.  Nor did I have an IPOD to listen to music as I worked out on the machine.  I didn’t really have a problem keeping up with the pace of the workout.  I just realized I started getting really bored after I started the workout and could not wait to go back upstairs.

Just when I thought I had wasted a few hundred bucks on yet another piece of excercise equipment, I decided to try something new.  I decided to bring my laptop down to the basement to watch TED videos as I worked out.

For those of you who have not watched TED (http://www.ted.com) videos you will definitely want to check it out.  Its a really inspirational source of really great videos from the best speakers in the world.  Each video on the site ranges from about 10 minutes to 30 minutes.  This coincides perfectly with my workout requirements.  Working out approximately 30 minutes is perfect. 

If you find yourself lacking the interest in working out in your own home gym, try bringing your laptop with you so you can watch TED videos while you are working out.   I assure you it will keep you on your elliptical or treadmill or stationary bike working out form much longer than if you were to just rely on your willpower to workout for the duration of your desired objective.  Do yourself a favour.   Bring something like your computer with you to distract your mind during your workout.  I guarantee you will find yourself working out for far longer.

Key Takeaway
The bottom line is this.  Position yourself for success when you workout at home.  Create a conducive environmment for yourself to workout (just like at the gym).  Bring your computer laptop with you to your treadmill, elliptical or stationary bike so you can watch really inspirational videos from www.ted.com or www.youtube.com 

I am sure if you try this you will find yourself working out longer than if you had just relied on your willpower for each of your workouts. 

So what happened to me?  Well, prior to watching TED videos at ted.com, my workouts typically lasted between 10 to 15 minutes.  Now, after I introduced the TED.com viewing while I work out I find myself working out for at least 45 minutes on average.  This is a noticable improvement.   Hopefully it will work for you too!

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Posted in Best Practices, How To, Working Out

Project Management Best Practice Tips – Planning the Project

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Tonight’s lecture with the professor was interesting.  We learned about the actual planning process that typically takes place on projects.  This is essentially the core of Project Management.  Here are my key takeaways:

Key Takeaways:
1. Don’t confuse Technical Requirements vs. Deliverables
2. Do WBS starting from Deliverable and then go down to the Subdeliverables and Tasks
3.  Choose the communication plan carefully to keep your stakeholders informed of the project 

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1. Don’t confuse Technical Requirements vs. Deliveables
Deliverables are the major components not the minute specs. Rookie Project Managers typically make the mistake of treating the intricate details and specifications of the projects as deliverables. This is problematic because it makes the rest of the planning process more difficult and confusing because it gets too granular up front especially when you do the WBS (see bleow).  Technical Requirements are the low level detailed requirements and should not be confused with the overall deliverables of the project.  Otherwise, you’ll have a bunch of detailed requirements and no clear concept of the deliverables which makes talking to the client difficult as well as planning the work required.

2. Do WBS starting from Deliverable and then go down to the Subdeliverables and Tasks
When you do a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), make sure to do it from Deliverables (a noun) and go down to the Subdeliverables and then further down until you reach the Tasks (a verb). Don’t jump into tasks when you are trying to identify the work. Its crucial to start with Deliverables and Subdeliverables and tasks (eg. Venue, People, Activities). Everything will eventually lead to a task at the bottom.

3.  Use a Dependency Map to keep key parties informed throughout project via Communication Plan
Project Managers need to carefully choose what is the communication plan with key stakeholders in the Project.
What is to be communicated – need to cater what you want to communicate to each group of stakeholders.
When it is communicated – need to determine an optimal frequency of communication for each group
How will the communication be sent - Will it be email?  A Report?  Hardcopy?  Need to define this.
Who will receive the communication (this is derived through the Project Dependency Map) .  As well, you need to determine who will execute the communication on the agreed upon schedule.

Overall, these are some of the key best practices when engaging in the planning process of a project.

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Management By Walking Around – A Project Management Tip

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

This evening I learned a good simple tip about management and project management.  Its known as MBWA aka  “Manage By Walking Around“.  Its another interesting technique I learned in class.  Its key points are essentially:

- Initiate contact with the key players on a regular basis by walking around to visit people.  It works because its supposed to build trust with the people.
- Spend most of your time wandering around to establish face-to-face interactions
- Maintain familiarity to understand others and to sustain relations
- Reduce tension because not all encounters are prompted by problems

I think  I will try this technique at work on a scheduled basis.  I setup appointments to myself in MS Outlook (my planning tool) to ensure that I will get to walk by each key area on a scheduled basis.  (The reason I keep this list is so that I don’t forget anyone important).  If everyday i go from person to person to say go for a coffee or have a lunch with, it will to build trust with these people.  My prof emphasized this in order to build the loyalty with the team.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Key Project Management Skills and the Project Selection Process – Class 2

Friday, September 25th, 2009

As part of my day job I work with many project managers at work.  Each PM I work with has their talents and strengths.  But each also has their weaknesses. 

When it comes to project management, I am surprised that one of the most fundamental things that I did not learn when working with PMs at work is the importance of building alliances with resources that you have no authority over. 

Key Takeaway:
- When a Project Manager has no authority over resources in a project (which is often the case on most projects), the Project Manager must cultivate the relationships with the resources in an informal manner.  This includes chatting with the individual resources and potentially even “befriending” the resources in order to gain the trust and committment from resources to work on the project. 

Its amazing.  During the class tonight we were asked to read through a case study.  It described the activity of a Project Manager in what seemed to be a typical day.  The key points I got out of the 2 page case study was that there was this PM that would go from person to person chit chatting about the latest gossip and what people were doing on the weekend.  Granted, the PM did do other things as well like meet with the clients to talk about scope creep etc and managed those quite well.   At the end of the case study we were asked whether or not the PM was doing a good job.  To me, I felt that the PM was doing a lousy job because all she was doing was going from person to person chit chatting about what was happening in the person’s personal life.  During the day, the PM had the audacity of turning on the music in her office and resting.  This gave me a very bad impression of her as a PM.  So naturally I responded that way.

Little did I know that that was exactly what a good PM ought to be doing.  IE building alliances with people that she did not have authority over.  Professor Bedour Osman did a great job in explaining why it was so important for the a PM that gets a job at a new company to get to know the staff and to befriend them.  This was a major epiphany for me because I turned around to my experience at work with all of the PMs that I’ve worked with over the years.  I always seemed to have the impression that the BEST PMs were always the ones I got along with best.  The absentee PMs were ineffective in my mind.  The ones that were authoritarian never got their way since they did NOT have authority over the resources in the project.  As such, it was a huge lesson learned that a successful PM is one that gets work done through others that the PM has no authority over.  How?  Through building alliances and building friendships with the resources on the team.  Because of this, I like this course because I’m actually learning something useful at work.  As an Architect, I think I need to do more of that.

The rest of the class discussed the project selection process.  This was the usual info I expected:  eg. doing an  assessment of different projects based on criteria that is weighted and with each option scored.  Refer to my other post for more info on this.

All in all, it was a good class.

Photo by icebirdy

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Posted in Best Practices, Project Management

Weekly Performance Reviews vs Annual Performance Reviews

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

What’s more effective to creating better performing among employees?  Annual Performance Reviews?  Or Weekly Performance Reviews?

Well, lets see.  If I have to wait one year before I find out how well I’m doing from my boss, and I happen to be doing a crappy job at work, I’d rather not have to wait a full year to find out that I’m not doing well.  I’d rather find out after a week. 

If I get a weekly performance review, at least I can find out after the first week to make changes to do a better job for the other 51 weeks of the year.

So what do you do if your company only has annual performance reviews (ie you have to wait a full year before you find out if you are doing a good job or a bad job?  Well, here is what I do:

1.  I book recurring weekly appointments with myself  on Microsoft Outlook.  Once this reminder alerts me, I stop what I’m doing, get up and walk over to my boss’ office and wait for him to have a brief “informal” meeting leveraging the “open door” policy.

2.  When i get my boss’ attention, I ask him how things are going?  And then I ask him simply if there is anything I can do to improve what I’m doing to make sure I meet.  I will say something like, “Hey Rob, I’m working on such and such…..  Do you think there’s anything I can do to make sure I’m focusing on the right things.  Is there anything more I can do to make sure I’m working on the key objectives that you need”?

This is my sure fire way of making sure I’m working on the right things at the right time for my boss.  If there are any inconsistencies, at least I can find out within the week and make adjustments if I need it.

Happy working! 

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Posted in Best Practices, Performing at Work, Productivity

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