Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Harvard Business: Schedule Meetings With Yourself

I have somehow become convinced that I want to get an MBA from Harvard Business School. I have no idea if this is possible or practical. OK, it's possible with a lot of sweat and sacrifice, and patience, but it may not be practical at this point in time unless somebody would like to pay for it. I figure I can do the next best thing: start reading material put out by HBS.

This morning I came across a blog post (I added the HBS blog network to my Google Reader feeds) by a lifecoach named Gill Corkendale about scheduling meetings with yourself. This is hardly a new concept for me. As long as I've read books on productivity, I've come across this idea. Hyrum Smith, and "The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management" says to block out 15 minutes every day to plan. David Allen in "Getting Things Done" says to schedule at least an hour every week for a Weekly Review. Brian Tracy in "Eat That Frog" also advocates a similar concept.

As great an idea as this is, I have to admit, I don't do it. I might take a few minutes to get my bearings and enter my tasks into Outlook or Pocket Informant or MyLifeOrganized, but I can't say I've every been successful at a regular, planned session.

One thing I started doing occasionally in the last couple of years is journaling. Sometimes I'll journal just to get something off of my chest so I don't have to burden other people with it. Other times I'll use the journaling process to work through a problem. Other times I'll use it to flesh out an idea I'm working on, or to explore an irrational dislike of mine. The few times I do journal, I find it helpful. I've been using Evernote to keep my journals lately, as it's multi-client and easy to use and sync across my devices.

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