Reflect on the old year, plan the new year

Last week, I wrote about Beeminder, to help motivate you to keep your New Year's resolutions, and a few weeks ago, I reviewed the book "Your Best Just Got Better," which is a great book to read to figure out how to set meaningful goals.

This week I want to share some tools and methods to get past the "writer's block" that often stalls people when they sit down to write their goals and resolutions.

Getting your goals out of your head

It's pretty common for people to carve out a few cycles this time of year to make plans, new year's resolutions, and such.  I'm a very visual person, so I find that using a mind map helps me organize my thoughts and stimulates my thinking.  My tool of choice is MindManager from Mindjet, but you can find lots of other mind mapping alternatives on the other end of Google (FreeMind, for example, is free and Open Source).

I organized my map into three main "zones" (which you can see in the diagram below):

1. A review of last year, where I identify highlights, lowlights, and missed opportunities
2. A look ahead to help me frame my main areas of focus (more thematic or directional in nature)
3. Making more concrete commitments I want to achieve (specific commitments and projects I want to focus on)

I've included my blank map below, and you can download my "New Year Reflection" mind map here.  You can also launch an interactive (but not editable) version of the "New Year Reflection" mind map via this link (give it a bit of time - it has to download a Flash-based player).

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Feel free to customize it so the prompts are more meaningful to you.  And, if you use this approach, please let me know how it works out for you.

Still stuck? Try thinking about it another way...

If you'd rather think about your goals in terms of the roles and "categories" in your life, I have another template that may be useful, as well.

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You can download my "2013 Success Planning" mind map here.  And, if you don't have MindManager or a compatible alternative, the interactive (but not editable version of 2013 Success Planning can be accessed via this link (give it a bit of time - it has to download a Flash-based player).  In this map, the "writing prompts" are in the Notes attached to each of the major categories - click on the little notepad icons and you'll see the prompts over in the notes pane on the right.

Improve the odds of keeping your New Year's resolution

It's that time of year - the time for New Year's resolutions, new promises, and fresh starts.  If you're like me, some of them work out and others don't.  What's the problem when they don't work?  For me, it can be easy to just let things slide because there aren't any consequences for being a slacker.  When they do work out, it's usually because I feel a sense of obligation or accountability, so I don't end up letting myself off the hook.

This past year, I discovered a resource that can make a big difference in your chances of success in 2013.  The tool?  Beeminder.  I've written about Beeminder before, but wanted to revisit it in the context of New Year's resolutions - I think Beeminder is one of the best tools around to maintain individual accountability.

Accountability - and consequences - matter in New Year's Resolutions

The concept behind Beeminder is pretty simple: you set a goal, you pledge some money, you use the Beeminder site to track your progress, and if you don't meet your commitment you pay up.

My commitment, as reflected in my Beeminder project this year, was to post to this blog at least 4 times per month.  There was something very motivating about having the pressure of my commitment hanging over me - Beeminder helped me establish a new set of consistent habits for writing blog posts, even if my initial pledge was $5.

Even reinforcements are not silver bullets

Even with the commitment and penalty in place, I fell off my path once along the way.  What did I do?  I got back on the horse, paid my penalty, and set a new commitment amount of $10.  That pricier commitment has been a big help - I have been consistent about posting here at least 4 times per month and, with this post, I will satisfy my 2012 goal - pretty cool.

Time to set a new goal

Now, as we move into 2013, I will be setting a new goal to keep my momentum here on the blog.  I'm planning to set a goal of at least 52 blog posts in 2013, and will maintain my current financial commitment of $10 and, of course, I'll be using Beeminder to track my progress.

If you want to learn more, there are some great examples at the Beeminder site, such as losing weight, exercising more, quitting smoking, becoming more productive, achieving financial goals, learning new languages, and a lot more.  By the way - during this year, I've interacted with the Beeminder team quite a bit.  If you have questions about how to best represent a goal on Beeminder, reach out to them - they have been extremely helpful in getting my goals to work the way I expect them to within the Beeminder system.

If you want to see what goal tracking looks like, you can see my status graph for my 2012 goal at this link.  Going forward, you can follow my 2013 goal at this link.

And stay tuned - I'm going to share some other resources to help with resolutions and productivity in my first post in 2013.

Hands-on Review: iPad Mini vs. Normal iPad 3

I've been an iPad user for a long time.  In the past, I've written here about how I use my iPad to be more productive with a Zagg keyboard and Evernote.  I've had the original iPad, the iPad 2, and the iPad 3;  the the iPad 3 is the main basis for my comparison here.

A few weeks a go, I received my iPad Mini (it took a couple of weeks for Apple to ship it - well worth the wait) and have been using it regularly long enough to share my experiences.

By the way, I have the iPad Mini with AT&T LTE broadband, and 64GB of memory - I went with the larger memory because I download a lot of movies to watch on business trips, and they take a lot of room.  I chose the broadband because I am often in high-security buildings where I cannot get on WiFi and I need another option.

Summary of my experience

Size

I wasn't sure what to expect from the iPad Mini, but I must say that I was very surprised at how much smaller, lighter and thinner it feels when you carry it.  It is comparable in size and weight to my Kindle Touch e-Reader, which means I don't have to think twice about whether to bring it with me or not (I sometimes left my iPad 3 at home on long trips to save weight and/or free up space in my laptop bag.  

Not only does the iPad Mini fit well in my laptop bag, it is small enough to fit in the pocket of my jacket - I love that.  Since I use the iPad for so much of my note taking, list making, etc. for my productivity habits, it is a huge benefit when I can take a device almost anywhere.

Screen and on-screen keyboard

The screen has a much lower resolution than my iPad 3, but the lower resolution works well due to the smaller dimensions of the iPad Mini. The screen is plenty bright when you turn it up, and I end up turning it down pretty far for normal use (which also saves battery life).

I didn't have trouble using apps normally, and haven't yet found any apps that don't adjust correctly to the iPad Mini screen.

One thing that required adjustment:  The on-screen keyboard.  in Landscape mode, the screen is now too narrow for me to try to mimic touch-typing (I have big hands) but in Portrait mode, I can now thumb-type very well.  As a side effect, for quick notes using the on-screen keyboard, I rotate it to portrait mode and jot things down in email or Evernote.

After a week or so of thumb-typing I ended up ordering Zagg's keyboard case for the iPad Mini, (right) as well.  This is the little brother of the keyboard I reviewed previously.  Zagg makes a 7-inch keyboard case that is the same width as the iPad Mini, but I went for the slightly larger 9-inch keyboard because I have larger hands.  Even the 9-inch version is plenty small to pack or carry, and I have been very glad that I bought the Zagg keyboard.

Battery life

In spite of its much smaller size, the battery life is comparable to my larger iPad and meets the claimed 10-hour battery life Apple claims.  This means I can use it to take notes  and check email all day, I can watch movies on flights, and I can look things up online without having to worry much about when I'll be near a power outlet.  

Miscellaneous

• I have the Apple Smart Cover for the iPad Mini but I don't like it nearly as much as I like the Smart Cover for the iPad3.  The smaller size isn't as stable when using the cover as a stand, and the new magnet mechanism doesn't hold on as firmly as on the larger iPads (Apple covered the magnets in rubber rather than leaving them exposed, which I think leads to a weaker connection).  Therefore, I rarely use the Smart Cover, and tend to use the Zagg case most of the time.
• The iPad Mini is another one of those devices that uses the new Lightning connector.  This is fine for me, since I already have an iPhone 5 and had to go through the pain of getting extra cables and adapters for my old docks and accessories to work with the new connector.  If you already have a sprawling ecosystem of chargers, cables, and docks from your older iPad, factor this into the transition process.  
  • I highly recommend getting a short adapter to convert your older, 30-pin connections to Lightning.  I prefer the kind with the short cable rather than the all-in-one adapter that is a solid block of plastic - I find the short length of cable makes it far more useful.

Net-net:

Pros of the iPad Mini:

• The size is perfect for everyday use, and much more practical than my larger iPad.
• The battery life is great.
• Cameras (front an rear) are very good (and you don't look quite so foolish taking a picture with this one, like you do with the larger iPad.
• Screen is bright and very usable for email, reading, note taking, movies, and games.
• Huge ecosystem of existing apps works great with the iPad mini.

Cons of the iPad Mini:

• On-screen keyboard is not great for extensive text entry.
• Smart Cover not as useful as on the larger iPads.
• Accessory ecosystem still limited (but this will improve once this device has been around longer).
• Pricey.

The bottom line?  I really like the iPad Mini.  If I were buying today, or I could only have one iPad, I'd choose the iPad Mini.

Wonderful Day: Productivity, Jerry Seinfeld style [Updated]

I've been experimenting with a new productivity / motivational tool that I discovered the other day.  It is called "Wonderful Day," and it is an iOS app that is designed to give you an easy, in-your-face way to establish and reinforce productive habits.  It reminds me of that old adage, "How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time."

Apparently, this app was inspired by Jerry Seinfeld's productivity technique - very interesting.

Set a goal, create a chain

The premise is simple:  You pick a goal you want to achieve that requires persistent commitment, and you put it in the Wonderful Day app.  You decide how often you want to perform some activity that contributes to your goal (daily, weekly, etc.), and set up how often you want to be reminded / nagged so you don't forget.

Now, for each of your goals, you have a "punch card" that you use to record whether you actually did what you set out to do.  The objective is to build a "chain" of punches that advance your goal, and to keep at it so you don't break the chain.  If you stick with it, you'll get a lot done, improve yourself, and establish new habits.

My example

One of the goals I used Wonderful Day to track was to spend at least 30 minutes each day working on a specific work project.  I wanted to do this because I keep forgetting about this particular project, but I want to get it moving.

Now, the app reminds me of this project every day and I pick some element of the project and work on it for 30 minutes.  Each day I do that, I get to punch my card in Wonderful Day.  I didn't think this was rocket science, but punching that card turns out to produce a rewarding feeling.  Here are a couple of screen shots to give you an idea (these aren't mine - they are from the App Store, but I think they illustrate it very well and show a longer "chain" than the ones I have so far):

In the screen on the left, you see the Activities (I call them Goals in my head) and you can have as many as you'd like.  I recommend starting with no more than 5 to keep from overwhelming or annoying yourself.

On the right, you see one of the "punch cards" I mentioned.  Each dot is an interval (in this case each dot represents a day).  The green dots represent the times you did what you wanted to do, and the red dots are times when you didn't do it.

This is a pretty simple and effective way to log your progress and ingrain habits into your daily life.  I think the Wonderful Day app is a novel approach to getting things done, and worth a look.

If you try it out, let me know how it works for you.

Stay In Sync On Holiday Shopping

Well, it's that time of the year - holiday shopping time.  Maybe it's just me, but one of the challenges of shopping is coordinating the "divide & conquer" approach with my wife.  

We have 3 kids, grandparents, nieces, siblings, etc. that we want to buy gifts for and we have busy schedules, so we want to make sure everything gets covered, we don't duplicate efforts, etc.  There are a couple of tools we've evolved that make this easier and I wanted to share them here in case they'll help you, as well.

Part 1: Gather ideas during the year

The first method is pretty easy - I create a note on my smartphone for each person I want to buy gifts for.  I call them "Gift ideas for <name>" so I have a separate note for each person.  Then, during the year, when I hear them mention something they want or I see something that might be a good gift, I add it to the list.

The list gets replicated on all my devices (iPad, computer, phone, etc.) so I can add items (and URL's if appropriate) to make it easy to shop when the time comes.  You can use notes in Outlook, iOS, Google Notes, or Evernote - it's your choice.  I'd pick one that can be replicated across all the devices you use - that makes life a lot easier.

By the way - these lists work for birthdays and anniversaries, too - not just holiday shopping.

Part 2: Stay in sync with your shopping partner(s)

When we get into the shopping season, I create a shared spreadsheet in Google Docs.  You could also use Office360, a cloud storage location, or something similar;  I like Google Docs because it is free and multiple people can edit simultaneously so there are no versioning problems.

The tool is pretty simple.  As you can see from the screen grab above, you just make a list with one column for each person you want to shop for, along with a Status column.  You farm your "Gift ideas…" lists and add them to this spreadsheet, then you share the list with your shopping buddy (my wife, in my case) so they can get to the list.

In the status column, you can enter things like "Have," and "Ordered" to indicate which things are already covered.  You can also enter someone's name so you know who is expected to handle the shopping for that item.  Don't forget that you can add comments and notes to the items - this is a great place to elaborate, add URL's, specify colors, etc.

The only caveat:  don't share the sheet with anyone who's in it, otherwise they'll know what you're getting them!  For my wife, I just stick with tracking things in the "Gift ideas for…" note - including tracking what my kids have gotten for her. (That reminds me: when we hear what other people in the family are getting our kids, we track that in this spreadsheet, too - that helps prevent duplicate gifts.)

If you have your own tips and tricks for holiday shopping, please share.