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

Last week’s conference call was a good discussion about using Tickler files for analog and digital uses. We had some input from the callers about real-life applications, and setting up a digital workflow.

The call lasted just under 13 minutes and I would love to hear your thoughts.
Join in the discussions at the Work.Life.Creativity forum, where we kicked things off.

Be sure to register for the next Productivity Mastermind call [Upcoming link] this Thursday, 15 January, at 2:00 pm!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/82h2jx. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

I am considering starting a weekly conference call with anyone interested on chatting about productivity practices and principles. I am thinking that this could be fun and educational, a way for the readers to connect with each other and share their problems and their solutions.

Would you like to share?

I also think that this would make an excellent podcast - a recording of this conversation might be very helpful to those readers that can’t make the call, so I am considering recording the call and making it available here as well.

So the question is this: Would you be interested in participating in a conference call to talk about your own productivity needs, and if so, what time and day are best for you?

Lets talk about it in the comments, and if enough people are interested I will go ahead and publish the phone number, we should be able to make a go of it this week!

UPDATE: The call went very well, we had a good discussion of tools and using them to manage inputs and organize your day. Watch for a new feature and the podcast on Tuesday, 14 October.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/53x3vf. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

A while back I was reading Turning the Future into Revenue (Hiemstra) and I came across this paragraph:

“To be strategic is to move to integrate daily work with strategic work, so that over time they will become one and the same. If one is ‘being’ strategic, then virtually all work activity can be seen and is interpreted for how it contributes to the agreed upon strategic directions. Rather than strategic work being seen as an interruption of daily activity, daily work that is not strategic is seen as the interruption.”

I was so moved by the clarity of this statement that I had to put the book down and give that some more thought. I knew that I had written about making sure that your principles point toward your goals and that your actions should follow your principles.

I had also made a practice of using my Quarterly review to make sure that I planned and executed at least one thing toward achieving my Someday/Maybe goals during the next quarter.

This paragraph took that thinking to the next level. I decided to Tweet about it, and pare it down even further.

Note: Twitter is not an interruption, it is a good, quick easy way to share some ideas.

Put Strategic Practices to Work

Since the spring, I have been working diligently on executing a strategic plan for making this blog into a much larger business venture and community. I have been working with a few teams of people on some really cool projects, and it was all coming along nicely. Then this book inspired me to take that vision further, to be bold and take a risk. Hiemstra actually lists four ways that companies (even little ones like In Context MultiMedia) can experience fundamental, transformational change.

1. Be Future Oriented
2. Be Vision Driven
3. Be Collaborative
4. Be Strategic

There it was, my whole practice, sewed up into a neat little package. I had not seen it like this before. Mainly because I am one of those people that like to make things a little more complicated than they have to be! (the rest of you with ADD will understand)

Now I had that extra push that I needed. My “future-oriented vision” had reached its tipping point, and I knew exactly what to do.

Take it further than you think you should

I had been toying with the idea of using this platform strictly for my productivity and workflow writing, and moving the other topics that I am interested to other places, such as guest-posts on other blogs. You, as readers, seemed to like that idea, since you primarily come here for the workflow tips and learning simple practices for controlling your inputs. Several of you have communicated with me privately, indication that you just don’t like the non-productivity stuff.
Okay, you’ve got it.

Productivity in Context, the blog, will become part of the In Context MultiMedia network. Keep your eyes on the new universal portal for In Context MultiMedia, here [link]. As of today that is the new home for my writings on Blogging, on Leadership and Management, and on some new topics like Networking and Conversations. Please take a few minutes to check it out:

“This resource has been specifically created to teach you how to develop your small business and yourself, from the inside and out. This is not just another blog purporting to tell you about how to grow and strengthen your business and brand, I am doing it right now. I am living it right now.

And it is time for me to pay it forward and tell you what I did, show you the steps I took, and work with you as your business grows.”

Thank you all for putting up with the non-productivity related posts over the past two years. From now on, this blog will be strictly about productivity workflow and getting your tasks done. I do trust that many of you will be interested in the new blog as well, you can find out how to subscribe here [link].

Thanks again, I look forward to hearing from you. Leave a Comment!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5pv3eo. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Leo has a post up at ZenHabits where he is promoting a new e-book on setting up your workspace. He includes a disclaimer at the beginning of the post, but that seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest in the comments.

This is the beginning of the post:
Jump-Start Your Workspace: Small Changes That Improve Focus and Shorten Your Work Day | Zen Habits

Full disclosure: I’m part owner of Web Warrior Tools, the ebook publishing company that is selling the ebook below. However, I’m only sharing this ebook because I really like it and think you will find value in it. I don’t do advertising posts here at Zen Habits, but if you’re not interested in ebooks, you can skip this post.

I’m excited to share with you a new ebook from Glen of LifeDev that I think will be of value for anyone looking to optimize their workflow and generally make the most of their time.

While many of the Comments are positive, there are a few that are strongly negative.

Gideon Says:
August 6th, 2008, 19:25 pm

I dunno… 10 bucks for 26 pages? Also, I assume it’s in PDF?

Maybe if it was offered in something else… ePub, Mobi, etc.. something I can put on an ebook reader, I’d be interested. But 10 bucks for 26 pages is still pretty steep. Maybe I’m just used to Kindle prices where that much will buy me a 500 page book.

And

joe falcom Says:
August 6th, 2008, 22:23 pm

I am really disappointed to see such a blatant advertisement.
The disclaimer is bogus as far as I am concerned

I have written a few posts like this and never saw that kind of negativity. Do you, as a reader, appreciate this kind of review and respect my decision to participate in an affiliate program? Or do you get a negative impression?

Please let me know in the comments.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5vnfn5. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen