Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: In Context Blog

Productivity advice from Seth Godin:
Is effort a myth?

With that forewarning, here’s a bootstrapper’s/marketer’s/entrepreneur’s/fast-rising executive’s effort diet. Go through the list and decide whether or not it’s worth it. Or make up your own diet. Effort is a choice, at least make it on purpose:

1. Delete 120 minutes a day of ’spare time’ from your life. This can include TV, reading the newspaper, commuting, wasting time in social networks and meetings. Up to you.

2. Spend the 120 minutes doing this instead:

* Exercise for thirty minutes.
* Read relevant non-fiction (trade magazines, journals, business books, blogs, etc.)
* Send three thank you notes.
* Learn new digital techniques (spreadsheet macros, Firefox shortcuts, productivity tools, graphic design, html coding)
* Volunteer.
* Blog for five minutes about something you learned.
* Give a speech once a month about something you don’t currently know a lot about.

3. Spend at least one weekend day doing absolutely nothing but being with people you love.

4. Only spend money, for one year, on things you absolutely need to get by. Save the rest, relentlessly.

If you somehow pulled this off, then six months from now, you would be the fittest, best rested, most intelligent, best funded and motivated person in your office or your field. You would know how to do things other people don’t, you’d have a wider network and you’d be more focused.

What would you do with 120 minutes?

Solving problems in groups can be a process of trial and error, unless you have properly identified the problem.
Developing a clear and accurate understanding of what the problem is can help you avoid doing the work of solving the problem over and over again.

When you have a problem that has no obvious solution, ask the meeting attendees to define the problem to the best of their ability. Write these definitions down, where everyone can see them, without challenging any of the suggestions. Once everyone has proposed a definition, then you can get to work on crafting a single, unified version.

When the problem itself has been defined, you can get to work on the solution.

Liz Strauss has an excellent post about an alternative to the one-on-one mentoring concept:
6 Ways to Build Your Own Personal Developmental Network

Many folks find a mentor by accident. Some never had one. Some turn to the closest person they meet at a new job or choose to go it alone it. Others work with a coach or a trainer. A few make a commitment to a mastermind team. They’re similar, but not the same as a Personal Developmental Network.

In their Wall Street Journal report Kathy E. Kram and Monica C. Higgins defined a personal developmental networks this way.

A better approach is to create and cultivate a developmental network — a small group of people to whom you can turn for regular mentoring support and who have a genuine interest in your learning and development. Think of it as your personal board of directors.

Kram and Higgins’ approach to building a developmental network is career and business focused — pointing out how network composition might change based on where we are professional path: entry level, midcareer, or senior manager. Their suggestions focus on career goals.

Their key steps match my own, but their execution is more narrow.

I need a more holistic approach. I don’t want a professional life that’s divorced from my life as a human. When I face down my hugest goals and quests, I want my whole life — head and heart — focused on the same purpose. So I suggest that we start with their key steps to building a Personal Developmental Network and expand them to include more than what happens under the heading “business / professional.”

For me, the purpose of a Personal Developmental Network is to offer guidance in becoming the best I can be inside and outside the world of business. My approach to building my network is life focused — I want a network that helps me grow as a human meant to achieve something and I believe that a network that grows with me offers depth and insight that are priceless.

Here are the five solid, complete, and intuitive main ideas Kram and Higgins put forward and suggestions after each for building your own Personal Developmental Network.

Liz recommends these 6 steps:

1. Know Thyself — Start with a foundation of concrete not sand.
2. Know Your Context — Pick your path.
3. Enlist Developers — Choose unique and valuable guides.
4. Regularly Reassess — Seek opportunities to learn what you’re learning.
5. Develop Others — Return the favor and pay it forward.
6. Communicate. Let your network know when you need help, when you have questions, or even when you need to vent in a safe venue. A developmental network that doesn’t know where we are can’t help us move ahead.

This is a fantastic resource, and rather than copy it wholesale, I recommend that you pop over to Liz’ blog and read the whole thing. And subscribe. Liz has been my semi-formal blogging mentor for a couple of years now, and her knowledge is well worth seeking out.

Today’s post is from Mike St. Pierre of The Daily Saint