“If you want others to be happy,
practice compassion.
If you want to be happy,
practice compassion.”

~ Dalai Lama

Today’s guest post is by Al at 7P Productions.

For those of us who are warriors of the Information Age, we use the email and calendar applications like a sword and shield. For the apps, the usual suspects include Microsoft with MS Outlook and Google with Gmail and Google Calendar (gCal). Because I do much of my work on Linux, I cannot use MS Outlook, or any other Microsoft-based app for that matter. My primary browser is Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla’s second-most popular application is the Thunderbird email app.

One of the reasons why Firefox is very popular is because of the vast amount of useful plugins (my favorites include AdBlock, Screen Grab, Read It Later, and PicLens). Thunderbird also has a library of useful plugins, and one that I recently tried out is Lightning. One of the commonly cited drawbacks of Thunderbird was that it had no calendar feature, but Lightning addresses this shortcoming by integrating the Mozilla Sunbird calendar app into Thunderbird.

I’ve been following the Sunbird project for a while, and although the earlier versions did not impress me, the current version (v0.7) has shown much improvements to the point that I am now a user. Having a separate email and calendar app is tedious though, but the Lightning plugin takes care of that.

I Sync, Therefore I Am
I mentioned in an earlier post that having multiple calendars over-complicated my organizing system. My PDA uses the Pocket Outlook version, and this calendar is my primary one. However, I sync up with my Google Calendar for a couple of reasons: (1) it serves as my backup/emergency online calendar, and (2) it helps to sync my Outlook to Lightning.

Although my primary calendar is my PDA’s Pocket Outlook, my primary inbox is with Thunderbird, which made trying to manage my schedule between my email inbox and my PDA calendar a bit inefficient. Having a combined email/calendar app was something Outlook had for a long time, so the Thunderbird/Lightning combo isn’t earth-shattering news to the staunch Outlook users. However, for those who are considering Thunderbird or are currently using it, Lightning is a must-have. Lightning has streamlined my email/calendar management.

The Setup
The following is how I sync my different calendars (Lifehacker has various methods to sync Google Calendar with many different calendar tools as well):

• I use the free version of SyncMyCal to sync up Outlook with Google Calendar. I am currently considering upgrading to the paid version as well.
  • Alternatively, a free open-source software (FOSS) called Remote Calendar is available that does something similar.
• Lightning is synced up to Google Calendar using the Provider plugin (thanks to this Lifehacker article for helping me find out about this add-on). Installation instructions can be found here.
  • An alternative to Provider is GCalDaemon, which works for Lightning as well as other calendar apps such as iCal.

The setup works pretty well. To demonstrate, I created an event on Google Calendar, and a separate event on Lightning. Here’s proof that syncing was successful on Lightning:

… as well on Google Calendar…

… and afterwards syncing Outlook to Google Calendar was also a success.

About the author: Al writes a blog about the 7 P’s: passion, purpose, planning, pursuit, progress, power, and peace. He also recently adopted the GTD system and frequently shares his personal experience with it here.

Greetings - here’s wishing a Happy Holiday to everyone!

-Al at 7P Productions

Source: nickobec

Some time ago, I remember going to a kickoff meeting for a very high profile project that required different departments in the company to cooperate and work together. Each department had their own agenda and wanted to steer the project towards a direction that benefit them the most, and there were a lot of banter by everyone for the sake of positioning themselves favorably.

At first, the project manager allowed everyone to speak their mind, but after seeing how the direction was not productive, she stepped in and took control of the meeting. It was impressive how she knew how to manage people and to put them in their place. The next set of meetings unraveled in a similar way: individuals trying to push their specific agendas while the project manager steered the meeting in the best overall direction of the project.

At one point, a vice president came in to a meeting to participate and see how the progress was coming along. I forgot the official title of this VP, but basically he was responsible for some of the biggest contracts the company ever sold. He was one of the highest ranking people in the company, but he never told people what to do. He had a certain charisma that inspired people and motivated people to perform. In this meeting, he basically told everyone how important the project was to the company and how it can take the company to another level. He also shared how if the project failed, that the company could be in a very vulnerable position and may not survive. He ended his talk with a positive note by pointing out how each of the departments were in a good position to make the project a success. Everybody was fired up and motivated, and there were no more political maneuvering in the meetings afterward.

Sometimes a situation calls for a manager, and sometimes it calls for a leader. There’s some level of both qualities in all of us, and it’s important to cultivate both within ourselves and to use the role that best suits the need at hand. The project manager in my story was great in managing people, but was not necessarily a good leader. I don’t know for a certain, but I do believe she was the person who asked the VP to help motivate the team. If either the management quality or the leadership quality is not sufficient within us, outsourcing it is always an option.