How to Embed Multiple Google Calendars

One of the advantages of Google Calendar is the ability to share it. Embedding a Google Calendar in a website or blog is not only possible, but very easy.

As an example, take a principal who uses Google Calendar. He or she places personal events on the calendar. In addition, this principal has created a second calendar called "School Events." The principal enters holidays, report card dates, and dates of various happenings at the school. Our principal would like for parents to be able to view all of these school events without having to re-enter them anywhere else.

Our principal can go to the settings for that particular Google Calendar copy the embed copy, and paste it into the website or blog. To see an example of such a calendar, visit the Raymond L. Young Elementary School Blog and scroll to the bottom of the page. The items on the "School Events" calendar will show, but the items on the principal's personal calendar will not appear.

Let's look at a more complex scenario. The athletic director at a school is using Google Calendar to keep up with the games for each sport and the practice schedule for each sport. Down the left-hand side of his calendar is the name of each sport with one calendar for it's games and one calendar for it's practices. By toggling each calendar on and off, the athletic director is able to see calendars in combination. The list may look something like this:

• Varsity Football Games
• JV Football Games
• Boy's Basketball Games
• Girl's Basketball Games
• Volleyball Games
• Varsity Football Practice
• JV Football Practice
• Boy's Basketball Practice
• Girl's Basketball Practice
• Volleyball Practice 

The athletic director wants to publish these calendars in such a way that players can see the calendars which pertain to them. In other words, he wants to publish a calendar for the varsity football players which would show both their practice schedule and games (currently two separate calendars in the athletic director's Google Calendar). He would like to embed a calendar for the volleyball players which would list both the practice schedule and games. For the general public, he would like to publish a calendar which would show all of the games for all sports but not show any practice schedule.

As you can see, the question becomes, "How can I embed multiple Google Calendars in a website or blog?" Whether you already know how to embed any single calendar or whether you are totally new to this concept, the following video demonstrates the concepts you will need.




The video was created by Melinda Waffle. You can also watch this video on YouTube. I found it to be easy to follow. It certainly answered one of the "how to do it" questions I had.

Procrastination--Does This Sound Like You?

Why is The Web Clipper Not Saving to My Default Evernote Notebook?

This video illustrates features of the new Evernote Web clipper for Chrome. I did notice a problem that for me was significant. Take a look at the video, and then we will discuss the problem.

 

One of my key principle in using Evernote is having a default notebook. Unless I tell Evernote otherwise, anything I add to Evernote is to go in that default notebook. This practice lets me look in one place and see the items I have recently added. Many items in Evernote are simply reference material. I will then move those items to their proper notebooks.

Other items, however, are added to Evernote to serve as a reminder of something I need to do. If I am in a store and see a potential gift to buy, I might take a photo and add some supporting information to it in Evernote. I don't have to remember that photo and retrieve it later from the others photos in my phone. All of the new notes are in one place, my default notebook. I look in that one place and take needed actions on what is there.

My default notebook is called ".Inbox." Notice the punctuation in front of the word. Since Evernote alphabetizes the list of notebooks, using a punctuation as the first character causes that notebook to sort to the top of the list.

The problem is with the web clipper was that notes being added via the web clipper were not ending up in the default notebook. In essence, the notes were as good as lost. After doing some searching, I found the answer, and it boiled down to un-checking one box.

1. Click on the Evernote icon in the upper-right corner of the toolbar to access the web clipper.
2. At the bottom of the menu, click on your name just below the "Save" button.
3. On the menu which appears, click "Options."
4. On the box which appears, look in the "Tag selection" section for the box marked "Use smart filing." Un-check it. 
5. In the "Notebook selection" section, bullet"Last used notebook" and click "Done."

Since each time, you will be saving to the default notebook, the "last used notebook" is always going to your default notebook (".Inbox").

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Association of Montreal School Administrators Fall Conference

I had a wonderful time at the Association for Montreal School Administrators Fall Conference this past Friday. During our day together, we covered everything from handling the papers in our lives to managing them digitally with Dropbox and Evernote. We explored strategies for maintaining a digital to-do list, getting email empty daily, an easy way to document, handling multiple projects, and using voice input to make input into the to-do list easier.

The evening before, we all enjoyed good food and good company. This was a great group of administrators, and it was truly a pleasure to work with them.

 

My First Time Using "Clearly"

While I had read about Clearly, I paid little attention. Ads don't bother me. They are the vehicles which make so many Internet resources free. Like billboards, ads in magazines, and television commercials, I tune most of them out and only pay attention to the ones that interest me. Therefore, a tool which removes extraneous information from web pages was not at the top of my wish list.

My first experience with Clearly
I installed Clearly, a browser plugin, and want to share with you my first attempt at using it. I was looking for an online copy of an article I had read entitled "Do We Really Want to Live Without the Post Office?" It was an outstanding article from the February 2013 issue of Esquire, and while I wanted to keep the article, I did not want to add to the amount of paper in my life. By entering the title into Google, I found the article here.

The top of that web page appeared as follows:

After the one mouse click necessary to view the web page with Clearly, the page looked like this:

Big difference, huh?


Again, ads don't bother me. What does bother me is getting to the bottom of the page and having to click to continue to page 2, 3, 4, etc. Let's take a look at that element. Here is what the bottom of the first page looked like viewed normally:

Six times, I would have to advance a page. Six times, I would be presented with all of the social media icons. On each of those six pages, valuable real estate would be taken up with ads.


With Clearly, the same portion of the article looks like this:

Notice there is no clicking to go page 2. Simply continue to scroll down the screen to read page 2, then page 3, and so forth. It was at that point I became a Clearly fan.


A video demonstration
This short video demonstrates Clearly. One click on the Clearly icon in the upper left-hand corner gets rid of the extraneous material. In the video, also notice how the user is able to change the background from a light background to a dark one.




So how do I get it?
So how do you get Clearly? Go here. Download for Firefox, Chrome, or Opera. Once installed, you will notice an icon resembling a small lamp in the upper-right corner of browser. While viewing a web page, clicking that icon kicks Clearly into action.

The toolbar which appears down the right-hand margin of the screen allows the user to highlight text, which will be saved that way in Evernote. Premium Evernote subscribers can click another tool which will read aloud the text on the page. Other tools clip the page and send to Evernote, print the article, or change the background. A "back arrow" on the toolbar returns the screen to the normal view of the web page.

Now you see why Clearly got my attention, and why it just may get yours. If you are an Evernote user, Clearly is almost too good not to use. I wish I had paid attention sooner! If you want to copy and paste an article into Microsoft Word, Clearly allows you to copy the entire article and paste it into your new document. Without Clearly, the user would have to copy and paste each of the six pages separately and also deal with deleting the ads.

When I come across an article I want to save for future reference, it looks much nicer in Evernote without all of the ads. If you are already clipping items to Evernote, I think you will agree.

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The 3 Evernote Notebooks You Must Have

This post is, for the most part, a re-post of information I shared in February. Last week, in The Daily Home, my article was an introduction to Evernote and invitation to create an account. In today's column, and in this space, the topic is one which is central to organizing information once you have learned the basics of how to enter information.


Evernote uses the concept of "notebooks" rather than folders to organize information. For the new user, knowing what notebooks are needed may be confusing.

First, look at your paper filing system and clean it up. Next, look at the folder system you have on your computer hard drive. For years, I have recommended setting up a folder structure on the hard drive which parallels your paper filing system. That way, documents which come to you on paper will have a place where they can be filed. Documents which come to you electronically will have a parallel place.

Let's extend that concept to Evernote. The categories which have emerged in your life for your paper filing needs and digital filing needs are likely to surface as the categories into which your Evernote information will fit. So, as you create notebooks and brainstorm what notebooks you may later need, let the filing systems you already have in place serve as a guide.

That being said, you need not worry about a complete notebook structure as you begin using Evernote. Creating a new notebook at any time you wish is easy. Moving information from one notebook to another is as easy as pulling from a drop-down menu. As you get more content into Evernote, the need for specific notebooks begins to emerge and morph on its own.

As an experienced user, I would suggest three notebooks for you to create at the outset:

.Inbox
The ".Inbox" is the notebook where everything new will go. If I take a photo using Evernote, the photo goes to the ".Inbox." If I clip a page from the Internet, that clip goes to ".Inbox."

No matter how busy the day becomes and how fast the world moves, once I trap something in Evernote, I can forget about it. When the dust settles, I am able to look at that one notebook, see all of the new entries, and ask the question, "What do I need to do about this item?" After taking whatever action is appropriate, the item becomes reference information, and I can move it to the appropriate notebook.

Notice the punctuation before the word "Inbox." The period is not a typo. Evernote alphabetizes the notebooks, and by placing a punctuation in front of the word, my Evernote inbox sorts to the top of the list, which is exactly where I want it.

Create your own ".Inbox." To make it your "default notebook" in Evernote, right-clicking on the name of the notebook, choose "Properties," and check the box which says, "Make this my default notebook" in the box which appears. Anything you add to Evernote goes there unless you designate some other notebook.

Some items are of only temporary need. For example, you might take a picture of the parking spot where you left your car so that you can remember where to find the car after a trip. Once the trip is over and you have retrieved your car, the photo is of no use, and you would delete it. The next time you examine your Evernote inbox, you will see that photo, and seeing it will be your trigger to delete it.

Everything goes into ".Inbox" first, and is then dispersed as needed. Just like your email inbox, you will want to get the Evernote inbox empty on a regular basis.

Miscellaneous
The second notebook you should create is one called "Miscellaneous." At first, while you are figuring out what notebooks you need, having a catch-all called "Miscellaneous" corrals in one place the reference items for which you have not yet come up with a good name.

As you add other notebooks, you will move items from "Miscellaneous" to them. I believe you will always have a need for this "Miscellaneous" notebook. You will always have items which do not fit neatly into one of the other notebooks, so you need a catch-all. This arrangement is much better than having a large number of notebooks with only one or two notes in each.

Personal Information
Your hotel rewards numbers, your airline sky miles number, the code to the copying machine...where do you keep that sort of stuff? We all have those little bits of information: account numbers, serial numbers for major purchases, clothing sizes, and code numbers. We need a place to put them, and that place needs to be somewhere we can get to them when we need them no matter where we are. There is no better place than Evernote. I have a notebook called "Personal Information." The notes inside it are labeled "A-C," "D-F," "G-L," etc. Within each note, the various accounts are listed alphabetically.
 
Over time, you will create a notebook structure which works for you. Look at your current paper filing system and digital system on your computer's hard drive. If you have friends who are Evernote users, look at the notebook structure they have and borrow ideas from them. Most importantly, jump in and start using Evernote.

Still need to create an account? Earn a free month of "Evernote Premium" by using this link:

Click here to create your account.

For those who already use Evernote, what suggestions do you have for a naming your notebooks?

Ask for What You Want

Good customer service is the norm, but poor customer service is far from rare. You are unhappy. They (halfheartedly and mechanically) apologize for your inconvenience. That mechanical apology, from someone whose whole day is spent apologizing to people for their inconvenience, does little to satisfy us. The other party is thinking, "All I can do is apologize? What else do you want me to do?"

Really? Is that truly all a business can do? What is it you want them to do? Put some thought into that question before you place the call. Then ask for it.

Businesses have quite a bit of flexibility. Even when something is "company policy," the policy was made by that very company. If they can make the policy, they can also build in exceptions and make judgements on the spot. Sometimes, the other party offers a particular perk. For those times when they don't, ask for what you want, and make it specific.

• Is the problem with a hotel? As for hotel reward points. 
• Is the problem with an airline? Ask for a voucher good for cash off a future flight.
• Is the problem with a restaurant? Ask for items to be removed from your bill, the entire meal being comped, or gift certificates for future meals.
• Was your television service out more than it was functional last month? Ask for a reduction in your bill.
• Were the company's instructions so ambiguous you thought you were doing exactly the right thing only to incur charges you did not want? Ask for the charges to be removed.

I have encountered every one of those situations at some time. These requests all describe solutions a business can offer. The only question which remains for you is to determine whether the person you are speaking with has the authority to grant the request. Either they do or they don't.

Figure out what you want, and ask for it. If they don't, then you ask to speak to someone who does. If they do, but are uncooperative, ask to speak to the next person up the chain. Nobody likes to have his or her boss involved in the problem, and everybody likes to able to make a problem go away. By being straight-forward about what it will take to satisfy you, and being reasonable in your request, you place yourself in a good position to turn "I'm sorry for your inconvenience" into something you can really use.

Poor customer service is no longer shared with only a few close friends and co-workers. It is Tweeted to hundreds of followers and posted for a thousand Facebook friends to read. Businesses know that unresolved customer complaints are shared throughout personal networks, often very large ones. 

While we normally receive good service from the businesses we frequent, the opposite is inevitable. When it happens, you need not be a victim. Figure out what you want, and ask for it.

When have you run into poor customer service? What sort of resolution were you able to get?

No More iGoogle? What Will We Do?

In the world of technology, good things come and good things go, and when they go, they are generally replaced with better things. iGoogle has been a good thing for me for quite a few years. It served as my homepage, so that every time I opened my browser on my work, home, or laptop computer, I was looking at my iGoogle page.

A little over a year ago, Google announced the shut-down of iGoogle effective November 1, 2013. Many people, me being one of them, began looking for an alternative. I found some good options, but one stood out above all others because it was user-friendly, close resemblance to iGoogle, and offering of an outstanding array of gadgets. That option is igHome.

I first wrote about igHome in February. I am writing about it here because, earlier this week, current iGoogle users were confronted with this message when they opened their browsers:

The same day, a message appeared on my igHome page apologizing for any slow speeds. They have evidently been inundated with people moving from iGoogle to igHome. In fact, this weekend, igHome is installing additional servers to handle the additional traffic. It looks like others are quickly going down the path I traversed early in 2013.

Why do you need a personalized homepage?
A personalized homepage allows you to design the content. When you create your page and save it as your homepage, you can then log into it and save as your homepage on all of your other computers. Now, when you open your browser, you are seeing your Internet tools regardless of which of your computers you are using.

With igHome, you will have a Google search window, and if you wish to use a different search engine, you have the power to change it. igHome features a black bar across the top resembling the black bar all of the Google products have sported until recently. The only difference is that with igHome, you can customize the black bar links to take you to the sites of your choice. I have mine set to open my email, calendar, Google News, Google Bookmarks, Google Maps, Google Images, YouTube, Google Drive, Google Contacts, Toodledo, and the page where I update my website.





The body of the page sports the "gadgets" you choose by clicking the "Add Gadgets" button in the upper-right corner. Enter a subject in the search window and see whether or not the gadget you want exists. On the left-hand side of the screen, a list of categories is visible. Clicking on any category name reveals a list of suggested gadgets.

You can have the weather forecast, news, your calendar, a calculator, a language translator, or the performance of your stock portfolio, jst to name a few.

If you don't find a gadget you want, create your own. At the very bottom of the "Categories," click "Create Your Own Gadget." From there, click "From a URL." A blank gadget labeled "Custom Gadget" appears. Click the "Add it now" button. The gadget appears on your igHome page with blanks for you to supply a title and input the URL. You now have a gadget for your desired website.

The creator of igHome is responsive to suggestions. He has a good system for taking requests and providing feedback on the status of those requests. For example, I found the Google Calendar gadget would display only the main Google Calendar, whereas I also have a second calendar which tracks my wife's appointments, and a third containing "FYI" events. I asked about the possibility of being able to show multiple Google calendars in igHome. Within just a couple of weeks, that capability was there.

Who will be the big winner?
When the sunset of Google Reader came about this past spring, Feedly was the big winner. When November 1 comes all all iGoogle users have made a different choice, where will the traffic go? My thinking is that igHome will reap the benefits. I have been a fan since the first day I saw it. Nothing has happened to change my mind.

If you are an iGoogle user, come on over to igHome. If you have never used a personalized homepage, why not create one and see if it doesn't make your online experience better.

 

Do you use a personal homepage, and if so, which one? Anyone else using igHome?

Getting Started With Evernote

If you are a subscriber of The Daily Home, you may be here as a result of reading my column in today's paper. Creating an account is the first and most important step in learning Evernote. Thanks to a recent program from the company, you can experience a month of "Evernote Premium" for free as a result of Evernote's "refer a friend" program. At the end of the month, you can either to continue Evernote Premium at a cost of $45 per year, or you can allow the account to revert to the free version. By the way, the free version is what I have and with which I had been very satisfied.

Click here to create your own account.

Before entering information into your account, watch this 12-minute video by Steve Dotto. Steve is well-known for his instructional videos where he explains relevant technology simply.

Now that you have watched the video, you may want to try your hand at creating a note. Below is a second video by Steve Dotto which goes into a little more depth.




Next week, in both the newspaper column and on this blog, I will give suggestions for the notebooks you need.

Consolidating "My Documents" into SkyDrive

If your hard drive crashed today, what would you lose? That's a question I have posed for years during workshops. The "train wreck" picture invokes a reaction not unlike the one you or I would have if suddenly finding everything gone. Having a backup is a necessary insurance policy. Like everything else, the available tools make the process easier.

My Pre-Cloud System

For many years, my digital filing system has centered around three folders on my desktop:

• My Documents
• Current Projects
• Fingertip

The "My Documents" folder has served as my digital filing cabinet. Open it, and you see neatly-labeled folders containing reference material. No action is required on the documents which reside there. Just like the metal filing cabinet which houses reference papers, the "My Documents" is where I can go when I need to find information. My practice has been to backup everything in this folder once per month on an external hard drive.

The "Current Projects" folder served as the place for anything classified as a work in progress. The report on which I am working, the unfinished term paper for the class I am taking, and supporting documents for open projects will be found there. In fact, just opening that folder provides a clue as to what is on my plate. My procedure had been to backup this folder weekly on that same external hard drive.

The "Fingertip" folder is for those few items I use regularly. The school letterhead would be one example. Rather than having these items nested in folders requiring multiple mouse clicks to access, I have them in a folder on the desktop. I included this folder in my monthly backup.

The upside of the system was that I was creating a backup on a regular basis. If the hard drive crashed, I would not lose everything. At most, I would lose what had been created or changed during the past week from the Current Projects folder and whatever had been created or changed during the past month from "My Documents."

The downside was I could still lose some data. In addition, if something happened to both the computer and the external hard drive, all of my data would be gone.

Enter Dropbox

Dropbox offers me two significant advantages:

• What is saved to it is available from anywhere.
• What is saved to it is immediately synced to the cloud. If my hard drive crashes, anything in Dropbox is safe.

Dropbox became my "Current Projects" folder. I dragged all the documents and folders that were in the Current Projects folders into Dropbox and deleted the old folder. My rationale was that anything which was a work in progress was something I would want to be able to access from anywhere.

Likewise, the items in the "Fingertip" folder also need to be accessed from anywhere. To accomplish this objective, I dragged that entire folder into the Dropbox folder. So that I could still have the "Fingertip" folder on the desktop, I created a shortcut to the Fingertip folder and dragged it to the desktop.

Now, I had a system which would provide an instant backup for those items which are works in progress. In addition, I could get to them from anywhere.

Enter SkyDrive

The final move was to put "My Documents" in the cloud. When SkyDrive became available, I was one of the early ones to create an account. Back then, the account came with 25GB of free storage. That number has dropped to 7GB for those who sign up today.

My idea was to have everything in the "My Documents" folder sync to SkyDrive. Here is how I accomplished that objective:

1. Download the SkyDrive desktop application.
2. Open Windows Explorer, and click the arrow to the left of "Libraries," so that you see the various libraries (Documents, Music, etc.)
3. Click the arrow to the left of "Documents" to reveal the "My Documents" folder.
4. Right-click on "My Documents."
5. Choose "Properties."
6. Click the "Location" tab.
7. Click the "Move" button.
8. Browse to "SkyDrive" and select it.

Do you have a laptop or other computer from which you work? If so, download the SkyDrive desktop application there and perform the same steps to have the "My Documents" folder move to SkyDrive. The documents from each computer will now be available from each of the other computers. In addition, you would be able to log into SkyDrive from any computer which has Internet access.

My "filing cabinet" is now stored in SkyDrive and instantly backed up. If the hard drive fails, I lose no data. If my external hard drive is stolen or damaged, my data is still safe in SkyDrive.

I continue to perform a monthly backup of SkyDrive to that external hard drive. Just in case something was to happen to delete items from SkyDrive, and hence delete them on my computer, I want one more level of protection.

Safeguarding our important data has always been important. That's why people purchase a fire-proof safe or rent a safe deposit box. Our tools have changed, but the vigilance in protecting our data remains the same. SkyDrive for my reference items and Dropbox for my current projects and commonly-accessed files gives me the peace of mind and the convenience I seek. 

How to Follow Up

In our busy lives, a to-do list keeps us focused on what we need to be doing. Wouldn't it be great if everyone operated that way? What if everyone followed through on his or her responsibilities without reminders? While it would be great, it's not reality. We all know people we must stay behind, remind, and remind again. Moreover, we need a system to make it easy.

Consider the following scenarios:

1. You are working on a project with other people and have delegated certain tasks to them. How do you make sure everyone comes through with the deliverables?
2. Someone borrows books or other belongings from you. How do you keep up with what you have loaned? What sort of trigger will cause you to mention something when an item is not returned?
3. You have placed an order with a company. How do you keep up with what you have ordered? At what point would you call to ask about the status of the order? What is the trigger that would cause you to make that call?

As long as we live in a world where our happiness, success, longevity, or whatever else is in part dependent on someone else, we need to have some system that will allow us to hold others accountable.

At the start of my career, my organizational tools consisted of  a pocket memo pad and a set of tickler files. When someone borrowed something from me, I immediately made a note in that memo pad, something like "Expect to receive XYZ book from Steve. Loaned on Oct. 3." After asking myself when I wanted to see that reminder, I would drop the little slip of paper into the appropriate tickler file.

When I placed an order with a company, I would take a copy of the order and write "Expect to receive" on the top of the form, ask myself when I should expect for it to arrive, and throw the form in the tickler file for around that time.

When someone was supposed to handle a task and then get back with me, a little note saying "Expect to receive reply from John" went in the tickler file for around the time I wanted to check on progress.

Over time, "Expect to receive" was shortened to "ETR," and although the tools have changed, that acronym has stuck. Instead of a slip of paper thrown into a tickler file, most of those "ETR" items become tasks on my digital to-do list. When the ball is in the other person's court, I have a to-do beginning with "ETR," containing the name of the person, what I am expecting, and has an appropriate due date assigned. I can forget about it. The system does my remembering.

When the due date arrives, I am looking at the "ETR" item, and there is my trigger to take action. What if I want to see at a glance all of the things that I am expecting from other people? On my digital to-do list I search for "ETR." The result is a complete list of everything I am expecting from someone else in order by due date.

The further we advance in our chosen professions, the more our success depends upon getting work done through other people. Training is important. Having confidence in those with whom we interact is important. However, in spite of training and confidence, people drop the ball. When that happens, the consequences are often felt far up the chain of command.

When we delegate, it takes only a second to decide when we should expect completion of the task and make the appropriate entry on the digital to-do list. That simple habit provides peace of mind. You develop the reputation of being someone who follows up.

Relying on memories for all of our responsibilities does not work. Adding to that trying to remember what we are expecting from others makes the whole thing a recipe for disaster. Our lives are complex, and the complexity requires simple systems.

What are you waiting on from other people? Take a few minutes to identify those tasks, put them on your list, and assign due dates to prompt you to follow up. It's too simple not to do.

Not an Evernote User? Now is a Good Time to Join

If you are unfamiliar with Evernote, it is a web-based service allowing you to store information and access it from anywhere: your computer, tablet, phone, or any computer in the world with Internet access. That's the best one-sentence explanation I can offer. Not only can you access the information from anywhere, but you can also make changes to it from anywhere.

We are used to storing "stuff" on our computers: documents, presentations, pictures, music, etc. Only a few years ago, the computer was the hub of our digital lives. The model has shifted to one where our information is stored in the cloud and we can access it from many devices. The more that model becomes the standard, the more important Evernote becomes.

I started using Evernote a year ago and wrote about it in this post. The ability to create a new note and include text, audio recordings, and photos, all stored in one note, was the selling point for me. The note I create on my phone shows up in Evernote on my computer desktop. Evernote has taken the storage of reference information to a whole new level.


Evernote has both a free account and a "Premium Account," for which you gain more resources. I have the free account, which allows me to upload 60MB of information a month.

The purpose of this post is to invite you to create your own account in Evernote. I will admit that there is something in it for me. Evernote has started a "refer a friend" program. If you use the link I provide to you, not only will you be creating an account, but you receive the Premium version for a month. After that, you can pay for the Premium account, or your account will revert to the free version.

What do I get out of the deal? Well, when enough people use my link to create accounts, I get addition storage. To get started, click on the link below and create your account. Once you understand Evernote, you will be glad you did.

Click here to create your Evernote account.

Here Is How Email Starts Fights

E-mail is great, but not for everything. This short video tells us when e-mail should not be used.

Click here to see the video.

Ordinary People...Extraordinary Things

What can you and I do that is a little extraordinary? What are we waiting for?

Is Your Phone Tree Outdated?

In the last post, we examined the value of using your voice mail's "temporary greeting" function to give callers accurate information as to when you are available. Far too many people record a greeting and then forget about it. A second common area of neglect is the telephone tree. Since the people who work  in a business day-to-day are not the ones who call in and hear what customers hear, they may miss information which is no longer accurate.

Change of Hours
Has your business changed its hours of operation? In particular, does your business change its hours during a particular season of the year?

The most common situation I run across, due to my connection with the education world, is school systems which are closed on Friday during the summers. They work extended hours Monday through Thursday and are closed Friday, realizing a cost savings in air conditioning and employee gasoline consumption, just to name a couple of advantages.

The problem becomes that the telephone tree, which was accurate from September through May, is now inaccurate from June through mid-August. Anyone who calls the school or school district on Friday hears a greeting which indicates today is business as usual, yet the person cannot get through to anyone. No matter what extension one selects, voice mail is the result. Leave a message early Friday morning, with the expectation of having the call returned later in the day, and you will be sadly disappointed.

Does your business change its hours during a particular season? If so, has your organization assigned one particular person to be responsible for updating that greeting? Do you even know how to update the greeting on that telephone tree? Typically, the focus is on setting up the tree when a new phone system is installed. Once the initial setup is complete, maintenance of it is forgotten.

When people call your business, do they hear a list of extensions which include people who haven't worked there for four years? Change of Personnel
When people call your business, do they hear a list of extensions which include people who haven't worked there for four years? Has your company reconfigured departments, yet no change has been made to the telephone tree? From your end, you are frustrated with people who keep calling your department when they clearly need to be talking to someone else. From their end, they did exactly what the outdated telephone tree prompted them to do.

When someone is hired or someone leaves the organization, who is responsible for updating that extension in the message customers will hear? What is the procedure for keeping that person updated on personnel changes?

Call Your Own Business
One of the best tips I received as a new school administrator was, "Call your own school." You then see how long the phone rings before someone answers and the manner in which the call is answered. In addition, you get a chance to work through your own telephone tree and see how accurate it is.

"Call your own school." Checklists are the Answer
We are busy people. We are often too busy to put in place the systems which will maintain our work. Simple checklists serve as the vehicle for identifying the tasks which must be done, by whom, and when, in order to keep the the system maintained.

What are the steps to be taken when someone is hired? For those who handle hiring, does the list of steps include informing the person who updates the voice mail extensions? What are the "to-dos" when someone leaves the organization? In addition to being sure you get their keys, does that list include notifying the person who will remove this person's extension from the telephone tree?

Do the hours of business change seasonally? If so, does a particular person have as a repeating task to update the greeting on the telephone tree? And, since changing that greeting involves a number of steps, is the list of steps readily available when it's time to update the tree?

The first question for some businesses will be, "Where is the manual explaining how to do all of this stuff, anyway?" My question is, "Who will be the one responsible for finding it or making the phone call to secure a new one from the company which installed your telephone system?"

Our technology needs to work for us. But for the technology to work, we must be serious about maintaining it.

Do You Know How to Set a Temporary Greeting?

"Hi, this is Penelope. I am away from my desk right now. If you will leave me a message, I will call you back just as soon as I can."

So, you leave a message for Penelope and assume your phone is going to ring later that day. It doesn't. And it doesn't ring the next day either.

You call again, get the same outgoing message, and leave the same request for a call, although probably not in the same chipper tone as last time. The day passes with no response, as does the next day.

You call again, but this time you navigate the telephone tree to a receptionist. Your conversation begins with, "I left a message on Penelope's voice mail last week and left a second message earlier this week, but she has not returned my calls."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Penelope has been on vacation and will not be back until Monday of next week," is the response. Wouldn't it have been nice to know that last week?

...find the manual which came with the phone when the system was installed. Technology has the capability to make our lives easier, such as being able to offer helpful information through our voice mail greetings. Yet when poorly used, it creates a frustrating experience for those who are getting old and inaccurate information.

If you have the ability to create an outgoing voice mail message, you more than likely also have the ability to create a "temporary greeting." The temporary greeting allows you to record, "Hi, this is Penelope. I will be out of the office from August 4 through August 16th. If you need assistance, please call Jane Doe at 555-1234. If you would like to leave a message here, I will return your call on August 19th." Your system will even allow you to specify a date when this temporary greeting will expire and your normal greeting will magically return.

If you do not know about this capability, find the manual that came with the phone when the system was installed. It will explain helpful features about which you may not know, features that will make life easier for you and those who will be contacting you.

Save Time for What?

In a blog all about saving time and getting organized, one of the questions we must keep ever present is, "Save time for what?" The answers differ for each of us. For many of us, the answer is that we can save time on the mundane and direct it to the creative aspects of our lives.

By the way, in this performance, it's not a band with a choir behind them. It's the band that's also doing the singing.

Productivity is Not Just for Adults

Talking with elementary students after a workshop on student planners.

A child's to-do list
via Carissa GoodNCrazy

While we see examples of successful adults who did not experience much success in their formative years, those stories are the exception rather than the rule. Even then, success did not come because of the mistakes made early on, but in spite of them. Success in one's youth opens doors and puts a young person in a position for later success.

Teachers will tell you they see their share of students who have more than enough ability, yet poor organization holds them back. At the same time, many other students of lesser ability make school look easy. Organization is a gift we can give young people that will benefit them long after their school days are behind them. In fact, how many times do we hear adults talk about being thankful for good habits, instilled early, which pay dividends now. 

Writing things down, and having one place to record them, is the single most important step for a person to get organized. When it's all written down in one place, it's easy to decide what needs to be done next, regardless of your age. The excuse of, "I forgot" becomes a thing of the past. Prioritizing becomes easy, planning becomes easy, goals start to be accomplished, productivity goes up, and stress goes down.

It Starts in Elementary School

As a former elementary principal, providing students with a planner (starting in first grade) was a priority. That single notebook was the one-stop-shop for students to record homework, tests, school events, and happenings outside of school. It also served as the perfect place for writing communication from school to home. Parents only have to look one place to see everything.

Does your child's school use student planners? If not, purchase your own in the school supply section of most any store. Encourage its daily use and take a moment to look at it each day. That one tool, used consistently, makes a huge difference. 

The to-do list from a younger child.
via tumblrisforlulz

Too Cool for High School?

The high school years bring a flurry of activity. For a planner to work, it has to be with the person, and teenagers often don't want the bulk of a notebook-sized planner. Day-Timer and Franklin-Covey manufacture excellent spiral-bound pocket-sized planners that fit in a back pocket or purse.The best style is one which features two pages per day. The left-hand page features a spot for appointments and a section for to-dos planned for that day. The right-hand page provides a place to record anything which comes up during the day: homework, announcement of long-term projects such as term papers, or pertinent items from the daily public address announcement.

After school, the student has one responsibility: handle what is written on those two facing pages. Do what is in the "to-do" section on the left-hand page. Clarify what has been written on right-hand page. If the teacher announces a term paper will be due two months from next Wednesday, the student quickly jots that announcement on the right-hand page. That evening, the student breaks down that big project into its components and puts dates and to-dos on the appropriate pages.

Smartphones are Way Cool

For those of you who don't read "5-year-old," the list reads:
"Find a Bad Guy" and "Be Wolverine."
via imgur for werewolf

Not only are they cool, but smartphones serve as fantastic organizational tools. Mobile phones have become ubiquitous, and sales of smartphones now outnumber those of other cell phones. A smartphone does not magically make one organized, but it makes organization easier, allows for far more detail about any responsibility, and makes retrieval a breeze. I keep my calendar on Google Calendar, store a very-complete contacts set on Google Contacts, house a wealth of reference information in Evernote, and keep up with every single to-do for now or the future in Toodledo.

The great thing is that every one of these items synchronizes across devices. A student can add to or retrieve information from these sources from a smartphone, tablet, or any computer that has Internet access.

I wrote about Toodledo in a six-part series on my blog beginning with this post. Having been an Outlook user for 10 years, Toodledo gives me all of the power I enjoyed in Outlook, and will handle the workload of the busiest executive. Yet,it is simple enough a student can use it. Toodledo offers two types of accounts. I use the free option, and feel that will suit the needs of most people.

We want students to acquire skills which are relevant for later life. Organization is one of them, and it's an amazingly simple one to acquire.

"Planning is bringing the future into the present
so you can do something about it now."

                                                       --Alan Lakein

Saying "No" Isn't Just OK; It's Imperative

During one presentation, participants and I talked about how to organize the task list to get the most done in the shortest amount of time. One participant asked, "Is it OK just to not do something?"

What a great question, and what an important question! The answer is not only "yes," it is OK to leave certain things undone, it is essential. Today's world presents unlimited choices and finite time. We could easily spend all day watching YouTube. One diversion blends into the next and all of them are "nice."

There is nothing wrong with a little diversion, but I think there are two important points to be made:

• We must recognize when we are engaged in diversion.
• We must recognize that if important tasks are not being handled, minimizing what does not need to be done in the first place is a prime place to start recouping some time.

Take a good look at your to-do list. Is it longer than you would like? If the answer is "yes," start looking at what could simply be eliminated with no harm being done. This sentiment was echoed by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, in his keynote to educators several years ago at a national conference. Collins advocated having a "stop doing" list.

Examining your to-do list will help in another way. When you realize the volume of what you have on your plate, you are less likely to take on trivia.

When we say "yes" to one thing we are by definition saying "no" to something else. In these busy times, let's make sure we are saying "yes" to the right things. Learning to say "no" to the others is a good place to start.

Control Without Being Controlling

TED talks are lectures of 18 minutes or less heralded as "ideas worth sharing" in the areas of technology, entertainment, or design. For a little more background on the series, you may want to read this entry on Wikipedia. This particular talk should be of interest to the musicians reading this blog. The speaker and former conductor Itay Talgam uses video of six twentieth-century orchestral conductors to illustrate the concepts of control and collaboration. I found it to be a very interesting piece.

Peter Drucker on Focus

Cell phones ring, visitors drop in, e-mail comes rolling across the screen. Maintaining focus can be a challenge, and the challenge is only become worse in this age of constant and instant availability.
One of my favorite books is The Effective Executive by management guru Peter Drucker. Despite its 1966 copyright date, it remains a hallmark book on time management. One of my favorite passages is this one:

"To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive, therefore needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours." (Page 29)
While opportunities to fragment our day increase, the fact remains that nothing of much worth is going to be accomplished without some degree of focus. How can we create the "chunks" of time in an age that so desperately tries to fragment our lives? Below are five suggestions:
To have dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.

1. Allow things to "pile up" and handle them in one group. This technique applies to such things as e-mail, voice mail, and the U.S. mail.
2. Stay ahead of deadlines. When we bump up against deadlines, we are invariably causing problems for other people. Naturally, they call, e-mail, and drop by for a "status report." Staying ahead of the game eliminates the need for others to "check up" on you, and provides more time to focus on the project at hand.
3. Visit other people on your own time schedule. If drop-in visits from the same few people are a problem, drop in on them first. In this way, you are doing it on your schedule. As a principal, I made it a point to be in the halls before the start of school and circulate through the building. If a teacher had a quick question, my presence coming down the hall provided the perfect opportunity. Those quick interactions in the hall reduced the number of interruptions throughout the day.
4. Plan your work, and make it easy. We interrupt ourselves. We often do so by turning from the difficult job at hand to some diversion that is easier and more fun. To combat that temptation, make what is at hand easy, and hopefully make it fun as well. Break the overwhelming goal down into manageable tasks that are clearly worded. All to often, the to-do list contains items which have rolled from day to day simply because they are ambiguous. Clear up the ambiguity by making decisions and asking questions.
5. Group related tasks. Grouping applies to more than e-mail and voice mail. When a few quick face-to-face meetings are needed, handle them all in a group. Go from one person to the next as you make your way through the building. Do the same with errands. Once you get in the car, go from one to the other.

When our work is easy, interesting, and fun, there is less temptation to succumb to the interruptions in our lives. Focused or fragmented? It's a choice. Nobody is going to protect our time for us. That one is up to us.

Clever Way to Escape from a Bad Meeting

Last week, we learned how to create a recipe in IFTTT that calls your phone when your favorite team scores. (Well, there is some lag time. You actually get a phone call at the end of each quarter.) Today, you will learn a clever way to escape from one of those bad meetings.

Read any time management book, and you are sure to mind discussions about meetings. Most of them are bad. They are ill-planned. They drag on for too long. Little thought is put into who really needs to attend and at what point some members may be dismissed. Does this description sound like what happens in your organization?

 How many times have you been sitting on one of these meetings wishing you would get an urgent phone call, one which would require you to excuse yourself from the meeting? Let's set up a recipe with IFTTT which will do just that.

If you have not already done so, go to http://ifttt.com and create a free account. You will then be ready to create your first "recipe."

On the dashboard, click on "Create."

On the next screen, click on the "this" link. You are creating the "trigger."

You will now see a list of "channels." In this case, we are going to choose "Email."

You may get a message to "Activate" the channel. When you use a channel for the first time, you will generally be asked to activate it. It takes only a couple of mouse clicks.

On the "Choose a Trigger" screen, select "Send IFTTT any email."

On the next screen, click "Create Trigger."

We move on to the "that" part of the recipe. Click on the "that" link.

I see another list of channels. Choose "Phone Call." 

On the next screen, you have only one option. Click on "Call my phone." IFTTT will use whatever phone number you gave it when you created your account. You will want to use your cell pone in this trigger, so be sure your cell phone is the one IFTTT has in your account settings.

On the next screen, click "Create Action." You can customize your messages. Highlight and delete the fields which appear be default in the message box and write your own, such as the one I composed for my recipe: 

After clicking "Create Action," the next screen presents our recipe: "IF Send trigger@ifttt.com any email from (your email address) THEN call my phone at xxx-xxx-xxxx." If you wish, write a description in the space provided. Click "Create Recipe."

One small task remains. In your phone's contacts, create a new contact. Call it something like "IFTTT" and for the email address, enter "trigger@ifttt.com." You are ready to put the plan into action!

The next time you are in a meeting from which you need to escape, take out your phone and create a new email message. Choose "IFTTT" and cllick "Send." You do not need to compose a message nor even a subject line. When your phone rings, you hear your "urgent" message, offer your apologies, and make your escape!

Keeping Your Blog Going, and Going, and Going

This blog began on August 30, 2004. The primary reason for starting the it was to serve as a follow-up for people who attend my workshops. Nine years and over 1,200 posts later, that primary focus remains unchanged. At the same time, I realize there are many who visit who has never met me, yet are enjoying what they are finding.

Starting a blog is easy. Keeping it up, for many people, is the tough part. The newness wears off. We get busy. We run out of things to say. Pretty soon, the blog has gone the way of most of our New Years resolutions.

What has kept this blog going at a fairly regular pace for nine years? What has kept it fresh and fun to write? In this post, I am going to share what has made a difference for me in hopes that it will help other bloggers.

Compose posts now. Post them in the future.
The posts you are read on any given day are not composed that day. They are sometimes composed weeks ahead of time. They are composed when the thought occurs and schedule to post on a day which seems appropriate. Blogger allows me to schedule a date for the post to appear. I can write the post when the thought is hot, schedule a date, and let Blogger handle the rest.

I generally post three times per week. It's not that I have been writing at that interval. Sometimes I will write three or four posts in a single day. Sometimes I will go a week without writing anything. We all get busy and at other times, we all have "down time." I use some of that down time to compose material that will automatically appear during the busier times.

What I write has to matter to me, and if it matters to me, maybe it will somehow touch you as well. Remind yourself to post.
Anyone who knows me well knows how important my "Repeating Task List" is to me. I wish I had a nickel for every time I hear someone say, "I do it when I think about it." The same holds true for me. The only difference is that I set up a system that causes me to think about it when I need to be thinking about it.

I have a repeating task in my digital task list reminding me to compose new blog posts. This reminder appears every Monday. My goal is to compose five new posts that day. I believe in "batching" my work. When I get into the blogging mindset, and am "on a roll," I find my self more successful than if I write a single post at more regular intervals. Once a week, a task stares me in the face reminding me to post.

Read.
Material does not have to come exclusively out of our heads. Responding to the thoughts of others and putting a different twist on those thoughts makes for interesting material. We can also take current topics and combine the viewpoints from different sources into something that is fresh and interesting.

Take notes on the fly.
Good ideas occur at unlikely times. They come to us in the middle of meetings, sitting at a traffic light, during conversations, and reading the works of others, just to name a few. My phone is never more than an arm's length from me. A memo pad (that also holds my drivers license and credit cards) is always in my shirt pocket. I realized back in high school that good ideas, like opportunity, sometimes knock only once. Getting it from the brain to paper (or in recent years, digitized) is one of the best habits I ever acquired. When the idea occurs, I create a new task in my digital system, enter the basic idea, and include the word "blog" somewhere in the task. The search capabilities of that digital list allow searching for the word "blog" and seeing a list of all of the blog ideas accumulated.

Make it matter to you.
I enjoy going back and reading my own blog. I hope that does not come across as egotistical. If I don't enjoy it, I shouldn't think that you will enjoy it. What I write has to matter to me, and if it matters to me, maybe it will somehow touch you as well.

Comments matter.
For those who comment from time to time, thanks! From my end, I can never be sure what resonates with others or where I need to go into more detail. Your comments help steer the ship. They also remind me that my time putting this blog together does make a difference.