Tag Archives: planning

A Personal Observation on My Goals Planning for 2022. Do you have the same challenges?

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Years ago I read the book ‘Your Best Year Yet’ by Jinny Ditzler, who sadly passed away last year. In a nutshell (because it’s a lot deeper than the following might suggest), she proposed that every year you go through a process of examining past success and failures, identifying what you learned from both. From that learning you consider looking at life through a new paradigm, and list three (could be more but not too many) Personal Guidelines for the next 12 months. Only after you’ve done that should you then identify your roles, values – and ten goals for that period. It’s called a BYY Plan.

(I’ve written before about ‘only’ having term goals and ‘what to do when you’ve only got 5 left and loads of time.)

Anyway, I have been doing that on and off for a while (and amending the list every time I complete one or more goals on that list) and this year was no exception. Except I wasn’t feeling the love. It’s 4 weeks in to 2022 and after a spectacular start I was feeling unmotivated. So what was wrong? I decided to look at last year’s BYY Plan.

Last year went well. I had a list, and one of my Guidelines was ‘Make Hard Choices and Act’. That was possibly the best one. Many’s the time I read that and went out and exercised, or pushed myself a bit harder, or did something towards a goal that I otherwise would have avoided. And I would guestimate I completed on well over 80% of the goals I set for my 60th year. I rewrote books, requalified as an advanced driving mentor, and drove three racing circuits of the four I planned, only being defeated when my brakes developed a fault and, let’s be frank, a race circuit is one place you need good brakes. I completed on a few procrastinated house development plans, and generally succeeded all over the place.

So why not this year, so far?

First of all, I realised that some of my goals were a bit vague. Well-intended, but vague. They needed sub-goals to make any sense, or just needed more specificity than I’d initially stated. (30 years of receiving AND giving SMART Goals input and I still screw up….)

Second, I realised that some were the goals you’re ‘supposed’ to have. Which means they weren’t really mine, they were someone else’s.

And third, I set the bar way too high. I decided to ride my bike 100 miles a week. For three weeks (and one day, to be honest) I did exactly that. And I felt absolutely wrecked, bored, unmotivated. The time it took out of each day among all the other commitments I made was mentally wearing.

And one goal was a combination of both the ‘someone else’ and ‘high bar’ faults, and it was debilitating mentally as I struggled with the effort of trying to meet it while not really wanting to. I’d walk the dog and the whole hour was my conscience debating ‘can I?’ ‘can’t I?’ and ‘How do I/Should I get out of it?’

In the end, I chose to disappoint the someone else, and in fairness they didn’t try to talk me back around, and respected my decision. It’s great to have understanding friends.

Anyway, long story short, today is the day I address all those errors and create a plan that is still challenging, but which I want to do as well. For example, one of my guidelines read ‘Exercise relentless self-discipline’. It may seem soft, but that word ‘relentless’ was causing mental and physical pain. Every time I didn’t train because of the motivation/physiological challenges, it just added more pain. Just removing that word is going to make the plan easier to execute without excusing laziness, for example. And if you’re being truly relentless, some things have to give way to other things, which in itself pulls at the conscience, which drives you nuts.

I know I promote self-discipline on this site, but in my book The Three Resolutions I address exactly when self-discipline becomes self-defeating, so my integrity remains intact!

So I recommend Jinny’s book (after you’ve read mine 😊) because properly executed in a considered way the Best Year Yet Plan I made for 2021 resulted in the best year I’ve had in quite a while.

And I was faster than the Stig around Castle Combe Race Circuit. (have I mentioned that before?)

(I admit that’s Anglesey Circuit and not Castle Combe, but I haven’t any pics of that day. Sorry.)

Handforth and the Third Resolution

11 Thursday Feb 2021

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As I write this blog, the Handforth Council Planning Committee video is viral, the major press has got wind of it, and it has apparently chosen sides. Having been party to many a committee meeting myself, I thought I’d explore the concept from a Third Resolution (service) perspective. The question so obviously arising from this amusing event is – why do people choose to serve?

The most attractive and most frequently given answer will be ‘I want to serve the association, public, country, community’ (delete as applicable). For many, that is true. I know I wanted to serve my own Institute when I volunteered. Which was not necessarily my only motive, and therein lay the crunch.

In my opinion, when volunteering there is also the ego-driven desire to be/do something of importance. Don’t judge – there is an element of ‘What’s In It For Me’ in everything we do. That is a psychological truth. If there was nothing at all in it for you – what possible reason would you have for doing it? My evidence? ‘I want to be a nurse’ is a worthy vocational ambition, but years later ‘emptying Gladys’ colostomy bag’ loses its edge. You still do it because it serves your greater vision, but you’d be equally happy if you didn’t have to. We want the good stuff of the service we provide, and we endure the bad. Which is why there is no such job as ‘colostomy bag emptier’. No-one wants it. But they will do it as part of work they do want. You wanted the overall job, and to serve. You do the bad because it serves something else that IS in it for you.

The problems arise when instead of serving in order to get ‘something’, you start to serve with a view to making that service – serve you. Instead of giving to the cause, you start to demand that the cause gives to you – not just emotional contentment and a sense of purpose (which is why you started), but everything. The cause/organisation you serve now belongs to you, and you demand to direct it.

When I watched the Handforth video I found myself asking questions the press seemed to have ignored. Why was this ‘volunteer’ running the Zoom meeting and deciding who was in charge? Was she there because she wanted to serve – or because she didn’t like what she (or someone else) was hearing and wanted to stop it despite really having no business doing so? Watching the earlier part of the meeting suggests at least some internal politics at play.

If someone turned up in your meeting and declared she was running it because a third party ‘asked her’, what would your response be? If s/he rejigged the agreed agenda, added bits in and threw the Chair out because he wasn’t content to allow the hijack – would you go, ‘Fine, no problem’? And what if it was clear that half the attendees seemed to be either in on the hijack or willing to endorse it? (Which, if that was the case, would explain the anger displayed by the Chair/Vice-Chair particularly if it was happening ‘again’ and they’d had enough of it. Half a story is not a whole story.)

The Third Resolution is intended to counter the Restraining Force (possibly) demonstrated in Handforth. (And I emphasise – none of us knows the whole story, so that’s a big ‘possible’.)

That RF is UNBRIDLED Aspiration and Ambition. Note the importance of the adjective ‘Unbridled’ – aspiration and ambition in an individual is laudable until it becomes self-serving, and serves the individual at the very expense of the body being served. My observation of the meeting – which is admittedly subjective and may be misinformed – was that someone appeared to be interfering in someone else’s game, as modest and (in fairness) emotionally cool as she appears in the video, and perhaps shouldn’t have. I have done some research and have some questions but – not here. 🙂

So was she there to serve? And if so, serve whom? Only the parties involved know the whole truth. But if I wanted to serve the local authority I’d seek election or employment. And I’d only do it because I wanted to serve, even if I wanted to progress and serve from the top. Ambition good, unbridled ambition, bad.

 In the interests of balance, I might do a blog on emotionally-controlled addressing of interference and trespassers…….

Now, more than ever – Plan Your Future.

13 Friday Mar 2020

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Okay, yesterday I said I’d only do one pandemic post, but circumstances change and so does our approach. Here is take 2. It’s more important than yesterday’s.

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who was sent to the concentration camps in WWII. Famously, he was academically interested in why some people survived the camps, and others didn’t. notwithstanding the misfortunes of selection and random execution, the ones who weren’t so unfortunate either died, or they did not.

To cut a long story to the chase, Frankl concluded that the ones who lived were those who had a firm vision of their future. For Frankl himself it was a vision that he would teach what he’d learned to students, with a view to it never happening again.

Norman Cousins was a man who, according to Wikipedia, used his mental faculty to overcome a debilitating condition. It is said he made laughter one of his main medicines, along with a personal determination to overcome his personal, physical challenges – and he succeeded.

We live at a time when a virus threatens the existence of those physically unable to fight it. I’ll admit it plays on my mind, as I have what may be one of those pre-existing medical conditions. But it isn’t just about me – I have two beautiful grandchildren, four lovely kids and a beloved wife. I can’t conceive of life without any of them, particularly the young. But that also means if I’m gone, I don’t get to see them grow. So it is me, but it’s them too.

So now, more than ever, I think it is time to consider positivity, laughter, and a firmly envisioned plan for the future that will provide hope for us as individuals and, in the end, for all of us.

I have no doubt that despair does not serve the physical body, and I firmly believe that some people who died did so because they lacked hope, or a sense of purpose. They thought, “I’m done here.” Which in the case of the elderly may, for them, have a been some kind of satisfaction. It’s not cruel or judgemental to say that. If it was, then the person who thought of the term for the dying of ‘Blessed release’ is equally evil. It is just a belief, no more.

Anyway, like Hemingway, I want to die only when I am all used up, and that isn’t yet.

Today is the day I carry out my planning for the week, and part of that plan will be to consider my long term future. What do I want to create in this world, what legacy do I wish to leave for those kids? How am I going to achieve that? Not just in terms of tasks but in terms of the way I conduct myself – hopefully with integrity, with the fullest congruence between my values and my behaviours.

I’ll ask you all to do the same. Design your future as if all will pass as well as it can, for you.

At the same time, I will tie up my camel by ensuring that my immediate family is cared for, provided for, supplied and kept as healthy as they can so that if it does strike, they can be part of the 80% who just get a sniffle. But not, I hope, at the expense of anyone else. I will get enough for our needs, and no more. those who are stockpiling a year’s worth of soap for the 14 days they may have to stay at home are selfish. No question.

Plan a spectacular future. See it in your mind’s eye and start working towards achieving your dream and towards leaving your legacy. Review and recommit to your Mission. Frankl and Cousins need your support. And your health and welfare may depend on it.

And if fate should decide otherwise, let me face it with integrity and set a good example.

Establish a Planning Process – here’s mine.

30 Monday Nov 2015

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Why plan weekly?

It’s difficult to prescribe any particular time frame for planning because so many of us have different working lives, from those whose work is set for them to those who have to seek it out and sell it, and whose planning is therefore dictated to a larger degree by what arises rather than what was set in advance. The reason I chose the weekly approach was because I was a shift worker, with varying start and finish times, and things that had to be done being constantly interrupted by emergencies, the curse of the emergency services, which in turn gave rise to more new things that had to be done. I also chose it because I read First Things First by Stephen Covey, who proposed that it wasn’t ‘the week’ that was inherently magic, it was the perspective of a week that changed one’s approach from one of managing crises on a daily basis to looking at a week in the whole and planning not only for an appointment but also for the preparation for that appointment. Planning a week turned life from a collection of last minute, almost panicked activity conducted during breakfast, to the creation and recognition of a blueprint for the week that allowed for a gentler introduction to any day.

Other rationales for choosing a weekly approach is because the world works in weeks – schools, offices, factories – the vast majority of the working world works in week cycles and so there is a logical basis for us to do the same. Next, daily focus tends to result in constant readjustment around what is right in front of us rather than our ultimate objectives – interruptions rule, and we let them. Having a wider perspective allows for focus ON that longer term plan. And that includes planning renewal time, time for reading, study, exercise and social-emotional activity where we focus on relationships with ourselves, and with others.

Once you accept that planning a week is better than coping with a day, it makes sense that you should establish a calm routine for doing just that. So the first appointment to make is one with yourself, before the week begins or, if you prefer and I occasionally did, at the end of the week where the work you recognise needs to be done remains fresh in your mind because you are still slightly engaged in it. But try and establish a routine time and day when your planning will be done.

You may have a preference for a particular planning tool. Many people have several, but the wisdom suggests that having one tool into which all tasks, appointments, notes and contacts should be placed. This system – for it is intended to be a system – is intended to be a one-stop shop for listing the things you have to do, the details of those with or for whom you do them, the appointments you have to attend, and the primary notations that arise, which can be properly filed later. I prefer a paper system but many prefer electronic. The only emphasis to be made here is that whichever you use, the objective is to keep all four of the TANC in one place as much as possible. Many CEOs who followed the popularity of the electronic route reverted to paper and claimed an improved sense of awareness of what was going on, as if the electronic planner had taken over whereas the paper version put them back in charge. For me, the main rationale for using paper is that it’s portable, whereas some ITC systems just aren’t. They can sync, so if you insist on electronic then try and make all tools compatible so that an entry in one automatically gets created in another. Multiple diaries or repositories allows for greater potential for clashes and omissions. (Cloud? As secure as any open bag on a bus.)

And so to the Planning Process, illustrated on the screen.

First, connect to Mission. Regardless of whether or not you like that term, those of us involved in coaching and personal development training will be aware that clients who have a long term, even life plan tend to be grounded and have an idea of where they are going in life. Kerry spoke of vision statements a couple of weeks ago and I encourage anyone who doesn’t have a mission statement, or vision statement, or at the very least a clearly set out and defined personal values, should set out and discover that code of conduct and identify a life objective – because everything you do should in some way be a reflection of that statement as far as humanly possible, if you are to feel any sense of inner peace and achievement.

Therefore the first task in weekly planning is to review and re-engage with that mission and remind yourself what you are about.

Next, consider your roles. We all have roles, and if you were to ask the average client for a role the first one they identified would almost invariably be their job title. But we all have other roles related to family (son, daughter, spouse, parent); our community (volunteer, contributor); our professions (union, professional associations) and so on. The reason we consider roles is because they provide a context to the planning – we have things to do in each role that need to be part of the plan.

Another reason for considering your roles is because roles invariably involve other people, and this is important – we manage our time only in the context of the relationships we have with the people we live with. When you make a plan you take into account the needs, wishes and even the availability of those people. Doing this on a daily basis means you inadvertently make your crisis their crisis. How rude is that? Planning on a weekly basis allows them to be as prepared as you are for whatever it is you need to work on together.

Third – ask yourself, ‘what goals do I have to achieve in each role in the next 7 days?’ Write them down because the objective is to make sure that those things get progressed. This is an opportunity to make sure, for example, that a family goal is catered for even when work is pressing. By knowing in advance what needs to be done, you increase the likelihood that it will get done.

Fourth – set out the plan. Most time management texts instruct the reader to make a list of the things they have to do that day, and then prioritise those tasks using an ABC, 123 method. They call this ‘Prioritising Your Schedule’, listing tasks in the order that they need to be done. The weekly process has a different focus – it’s called Scheduling Your Priorities. You have your goals, and by virtue of the fact that they ARE goals and they (should) be representative of your priorities – or they wouldn’t BE goals – then they are ALL priorities. So the weekly process states – plan a point in the week where you will do the thing that you consider to be important. Subject to ‘life’ getting in the way, decide when, in the week, you will do that thing. Appointments are obvious; their place in the plan is already set. But here’s another mind blower – when you have a prioritised task to do, why not plan an appointment with yourself? You may have a goal to write a letter to Fred, and you put it on a to-do list. At the end of the week, Fred’s letter remains undone. But if you take that task and turn it into an appointment – say for 3pm on Thursday – what are the increased chances that by 3pm on Thursday you will be sat at your desk with the letter’s content firmly in mind?

The fifth part of the system is the hard part. Exercise integrity in the moment of choice. As the cliché says, this is where the rubber meets the road. It’s the point where your willingness to do the thing is challenged, be it by fear, doubt, laziness, ennui, boredom, diverted attention or other distraction – and you have to decide whether, or not, you are going to do it. Integrity requires only that you decide whether doing it as intended is the right thing to do, or whether the thing that is challenging your willingness to do it is a genuine, mission-related and justified alternative to what you had planned. For example – your plan involves making 10 cold calls about keynotes. If an opportunity to go shopping with a friend arises, your integrity dictates which you do. If it’s a neighbour who suggests food shopping, what do you do? If it’s a friend you haven’t seen for 15 years and who is in the area only that day, what do you do? Integrity allows for genuine plan changes, but does not permit procrastination!

Finally, at the end of the week and just before planning the next one, you conduct a quick Evaluation. How did the past week go? Did you achieve what you intended? If not, did you act with integrity? If not, was what you didn’t do really mission-orientated anyway? Or can it be rescheduled for the next week? What didn’t you do that still needs to be done? What can reasonably be dumped? What challenges did you overcome? Did you break any promises, under perform, or excel in any way? In the final analysis – what did you learn?  And next week – how will you apply what you learned?

In conclusion: What is the underlying benefit of weekly planning? It is the possession of a clear line of sight from what you believe is important to you – your mission – to a personally created, focused plan of action, to the exercise of integrity that develops the character that results in that mission being achieved. It overcomes the challenges created by trying to plan day by day, when doing so is fraught with the ever-present reality that something will get in your way, something unplanned. When you have a longer term plan you plant the intent to see it through, and when challenged, its very existence – and your emotional commitment to seeing it through – will make sure that you find a way to get things done.

For  more on creating and using a paper planning system, go to THIS PAGE and download a FREE copy of the book.

How to plan for Peace.

04 Sunday Oct 2015

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“The more completely weekly goals are tied into a wider framework of correct principles and into a personal mission statement, the greater the increase in effectiveness will be.” Stephen R Covey

I recently met with a good friend and colleague who ambushed me (in a nice way) and asked for a bit of time management input. Right off the bat I was initially a bit ‘errr, ummmm, aaah’ but after a few seconds of confusion (resulting from the lack of the time available for the preparation I usually could have put into such valuable teaching) I knew what was needed. The Weekly Planning ‘Line of Sight’ approach reflected in the above quotation.

Many people plan in a vacuum, if they plan at all. Occasionally by virtue of their work responsibilities or other influence there isn’t a great deal of planning the see themselves able to do. Their work is identified for them by others, in advance, and their total input is just to see that it gets done. Their perception is therefore that they need not plan at all.

But that view doesn’t reflect the reality that we are ‘people’ 24/7 and the non-work time needs to be planned too, if it is to be of any value.

So the advice I gave my friend was to use the 6 Step Planning method used by Stephen Covey in the book First Things First, later edited, jiggled with and reframed by others, but nevertheless the original and best. To plan your week:

  1. Reconnect with your Mission. (Haven’t got one yet? HOW MANY MORE TIMES!) Re-read your PMS and decide what you are about.
  2. Identify your Roles. List the roles you will be acting this week, and omit those which have no part in this week’s intended activity. Leave them for next week. Or never.
  3. Set Goals for each Role. Set a goal or two for each role, a goal that will stretch you but stil direct you towards your intended destination.
  4. Schedule your priorities. Not prioritise your schedule. The former means planning to execute your priorities at scheduled times. The other means only deciding your appointments are important, and they might not be.
  5. Exercise Integrity in the Moment of Choice. That means doing what you intended unless a genuine emergency, or better PMS-orientated opportunity arises. And ONLY then.
  6. Evaluate your week. At the end of the week and start of the next, look at how well you performed – or not.

Where’s the line of sight? It’s Mission through planning to execution to success. I know that some things we are responsible for doing aren’t PMS related BUT if your PMS includes references to excellence in performance then even the things you don’t want to do as ‘things’ can still serve that part of your mission. (I wish I’d learned and committed to that a bit better before I retired.)

The result – higher self-esteem and a sense of satisfaction at a job done well, and movement towards what you have defined is important to you. Can’t ask for better.

I’m just off to plan my week; the personal and professional commitments that I have decided through my PMS will receive my fullest commitment, including “excellence in the study, understanding, observation and presentation of principled-centred personal leadership to my clients, recognising and supporting their need to be successful,” and to being “proactive and disciplined in the gap between desire and reluctance when doing what must be done.”

I’ve already “maintain(ed) both my body and my mind by putting into them that which serves their wellbeing, and by actively exercising both.” And my legs ache.

But the sense of accomplishment is great.

Do it – plan your week using the 6 step process, and if that is 7-steps because you haven’t written your PMS yet – make that a scheduled priority. You won’t believe the peace of the results even when you see them.

One life, one system.

02 Sunday Aug 2015

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“Identifying roles gives a sense of the wholeness of quality life – that life is more than just a job, or a family, or a particular relationship. It’s all of these together.” Stephen R Covey

It’s automatic, as a rule. When someone asks us a question seeking information about us (after name, etc.) we routinely respond with a job title. At a professional shindig we’ll say who we work for, and if the person we’re with is already a colleague in our big organisation we’ll narrow it down a bit more with the name of our department. We identify ourselves very much with that professional role.

From a time management perspective this ‘professional’ mind-set often results in us organising our time on a work-based electronic system – sometimes enforced, occasionally not so. And because we don’t (want to) organise our whole lives on a work-based planner like Outlook, we can’t effectively organise ourselves with it at all.

But a job is only one of our numerous roles, and it is not necessarily the one that is most important. And organising your time only in respect of a professional role means that the other roles – family, social, community – don’t get the appropriate focus that they deserve.

That’s one reason why you ought to be organising on a weekly, rather than a daily basis. Organising on a daily basis often means waking up and immediately going into crisis mode about ‘the day’ at the precise moment that new crises are arising ‘now’. You’re trying to consider what you need for a meeting, how to travel, about another project plan, etc., just as the kids declare they need something for first lesson, there isn’t any breakfast cereal and you have a flat tyre on the car. (That really is a bad day, described for effect. Only happened to me once.)

On the other hand, organising weekly around roles means that the day is pretty much already sorted and organised and any new crises can be approached with calm. You don’t need to plan ‘today’ because it was planned days ago – so the cereal/lesson/tyre issues don’t cram your head with ‘more’, just with ‘new’. There’s room in your head to cope.

What’s more, planning around roles means that as you are planning, you’re also aware of how roles interconnect and (therefore) how multiple role-needs can be dealt with in coterminous time periods. In other words, multi-tasking, but only in the sense that one event can have two important outcomes. To use Covey’s own example, the ‘self-renewal’ role and the ‘family’ role could be worked on together to create an exercise/sports session with a member of the family. A ‘management’ and ‘training’ role combination could be mentoring of a staff member while ‘managing by walking around’. For me it is often a business conference accompanied by the wife. She gets to shop and I get to not shop. Bargain!

Gandhi said that we are not one person in one moment and another person at another time. We are ‘one indivisible whole’ person. We are what we are all of the time, it’s just our roles that may change in any given moment. Our focus may change but we don’t change ourselves.

Charles Hobbs, in ‘TimePower’, emphasised the need for us to carry/use ONE planning system into which everything was planned, referenced and stored. I’m inclined to agree with that approach – one person, one system, everything in one place. Information Technology provides caveats about storage and security, but the planning, in my view, should be in one system even if the ‘reference’ has to be secured somewhere else.

How do you do yours?

Go HERE for my book on the subject of time management. Although it is aimed at police officers I assure you its content can be wholly applied to any profession and to any LIFE.

TMP Cover 2014

Hyrum Smith on Paper Planners

24 Friday Oct 2014

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Hyrum Smith, co-founder of FranklinCovey and seller of thousands of Palm Pilots, was asked in 2009 about technology and planning. This is what was said.

Q; Technology today offers many electronic options for managing time, but I still love my paper Franklin Planner. Are we seeing a return to paper and pencil, or is the trend going toward electronic tools?

“My impression is that there is a surge returning to paper. I will never forget when 3Com brought in and put on my desk the first Palm Pilot. I played with it and thought it was a great toy, but no one will ever buy one. I turned out to be wrong about that. We strongly embraced technology at FranklinCovey and sold 10,000 Palm Pilots a week for several years, and then all of a sudden, we didn’t. People stopped buying PDAs. I thought, “I’ve got to try the Palm Pilot.”

I put away my paper planner for 13 months. I went to a PDA and I discovered that I could do everything in my Palm Pilot that I could do in my paper planner, but I wouldn’t. The reason I wouldn’t is because it took too much time. It was too hard to do. I came back to my paper planner because of the ease of the operation. What I discovered was that for managing tasks, appointments, and taking notes, a paper planner is four times faster than any electronic device. There is a whole host of reasons for that, but I will just leave it at that level. A paper planner for tasks, appointments— managing me—is four times faster.

Now, there is a place for technology. I carry a BlackBerry. I love my BlackBerry. What do I use it for? I can communicate my calendar to my people. I can download The Wall Street Journal. I can check my email. It is a wonderful phone. But for managing me in the heat of the day, my paper planner is more effective and it is faster. I have had letters from CEOs, senior vice-presidents from all over the country, telling me, “Hyrum, I’m back to my paper planner. I’ve got control back in my life.” In fact, just a year ago, a senior VP from Merrill Lynch went through our seminar. She said, “Hyrum, you trained me 18 years ago, I went to an electronic device 3 years ago, I lost control of my life. I went back to my paper planner and my control is back.” There is something about writing on paper that a human being likes.

The thing about those three things: tasks, appointments, and taking notes, and if I know how to retrieve those notes—the magic of the Franklin Planner is the retrieval system. The minute I write a note in my planner, I’ve given that note a root in time. I will always be able to find it. There are three different ways for retrieving information from a Franklin Planner. I can do it with lightning speed. If you don’t understand the mechanics of the Franklin Planner, you don’t understand why people would use that instead of technology. If you’ve gone through the class and you’ve been taught well how to use it, it is a dangerous tool. I’m a paper guy myself.”

I’ve spent a few hours pondering about using my smartphone for planning, but I can’t get around the size of the keyboard, the fiddliness of the note-taking facilities, the constant spell checking by me or machine, the fact that the phone will be gone at the end of a contract along with all that I record on it (no, you never really take the time to transfer it all), and the poor way the diary/task management software works in reality. Not to mention the fact that for all that tech provides, all smartphone users are still carrying around heaps of paper anyway.

If the leadership of companies like Merrill Lynch think papers I best, who am I to argue?

HAPPY STEPHEN COVEY’S BIRTHDAY DAY TO ALL!