Persistence Unlimited Personal Productivity Tips

You’ll Pay to Quit This Job! One Company’s Nightmare Hiring Policy…

One of the best email newsletters I subscribe to is Nick Corcodilos’ Ask the Headhunter. 

It is a fun newsletter that’s very informative.  And today’s issue was especially so.  A reader wrote in asking about an email received by a recruiter.  Apparently, the company in question requires all employees sign an agreement to stay on for 18 months and if they don’t, they have to pay to leave:

XYZ company has all of their new employees sign an agreement to stay for at least 18 months. This is because of the importance of their projects and contracts and because of the investment from their part with new employees and training and so on. They have everyone sign an agreement to stay for at least 18 months. If you do decide to leave before then, you are required to pay a small percentage of the fee that they paid to the recruiter for your hiring. The percentage lessens each month and the longer that you stay with them, the less you have to pay if you decide to leave. Unfortunately, this is becoming more common among employers.

Nick rightfully blasted the recruiter. 

What we have here is a recruiter who is a maggot trying to attract flies to a dying company.

It should be obvious to all, that when a company stoops to such schemes to retain employees, that their employees are very unhappy.  The solution to unhappiness is not punishment.  It’s not a poor reference.  It’s not a bill.

This situation is almost laughable if it weren’t so sad.  The company in question has their philosophy upside down.  If they had spent half the time, money and energy treating their employees with respect and appreciation instead of trying to trap them into some jail cell for 18 months, they wouldn’t be so desperate to find workers. 

As someone who hires and is hired, I know the power of employee appreciation.  Just last night, I had a contractor who worked for me before emailing me multiple times excited to get my next project.  That’s not because I made him feel like a prisoner, I didn’t make him pay to work for me.  No, I focused first on keeping him happy to be working for me.  I worked hard on developing positive feedback milestones and rewards for a job well done. 

This philosophy paid off for the both of us.  He acted as if this project was his own baby.  Every last pixel was in place.  His work was brilliant and stunning to look at (You’ll see it soon).  At project completion, I paid him cash within the hour and then sent him off with a sparkling reference he could use for other contracts.

What the company above can’t get through their thick skulls is people don’t want to be slaves.  They don’t want to work for leeches who will use them up and throw them away.  Not when they can go someplace where they feel good, have fun and are rewarded.

Do you have any work nightmare stories?  Feel free to share them in the comments below…

Listen to My Goal Setting and Motivational Meanderings On Your Cell Phone

Do you get a lot of ideas, but forget them before you can write them down?  Well my friend, if you aren’t using Jott, you should be. 

What is Jott?

Jott is a service you call and leave voice note, set an appointment, send an email or you can even do a short blog post!  The great thing about it is you don’t get back your voice… Jott transcribes your voice into readable text.  :)

That means, you can blast out a quick email you forgot to write at the office without having to find a computer or fumble with text entry on your phone.  You can record an idea when you don’t feel like writing or typing.

For longer writing sprees, you might want to check out my post at Lifehacker about Jotting into Evernote.

Ok, Jott is cool, but what use is it?

For the past few months, I’ve been using it (almost daily) to capture ideas that occur to me.  You see, I get a right many ideas while I am driving my car.  While driving, writing on a notepad or PDA could be deadly.  Instead, I whip out my phone and call Jott and send a note to myself.  If I need a reminder, I Jott directly into my Google Calendar.  Jott has a built in SMS reminder system as well so it can notify you in that way too.  But I prefer calendar reminders.

Other creative things I’ve done with Jott:

• Jotted to my Twitter feed
• Set ToDos and calendar entries with reminders
• Sent an email to friends
• Outlined blog posts
• Brainstormed headline ideas for ads

How can I listen to this site on my cell phone?

This morning, I was spending some time updating my Jott address book and clearing out some of the outdated notes when I noticed an icon called Jott Feeds. 

Jott Feeds lets you call Jott  and listen to your favorite web sites on your cell phone.  Amazing!

Step 1.  Click the button below to add this site to your feeds list:

Step 2:  You will see a screen that says add a feed.  I recommend you name it Persistence Unlimited for clarity.  But you can name it what you want.  Just don’t call it “I hereby declare my allegiance to Persistence Unlimited” because it’s too long, weird and frankly a little creepy.  ;)

Step 3:  Call Jott Call (866) JOTT-123 and say “Jott Feeds” then say “Persistence Unlimited”

That’s it!

I was amazed at how well the service works when I tested it.  I called up and listened to the first post.  The voice was clear and easy to understand.  She muddied a few words here and there, but you tend to understand anyway. 

So I recommend you give it a try.  I’d love to hear your feedback. 

What do you think of the new Jott feed service - especially with regards to this blog?  Do you use Jott for other interesting purposes?  If so, please share in the comments on the blog.  Thanks!!

Pen Pr0n: Montblanc Skeleton 333 Limited Edition

There’s just something about my secret love of fine writing pens I really can’t explain.
The right pen feels comfortable to hold.  The ink flows freely.  Writing feels smooth and effortless.  The words come a little easier they hit the paper .
The wrong pen, however, is a headache.    It’s true of my Montblanc Meisterstück fountain [...]

Freeware: Turn Off Windows Update Restart Nag

Nothing is more annoying than working in the zone and getting interrupted.  When it turns out Windows Update is pestering you to reboot, a double homicide is imminent. 

Microsoft likes to “help out” by installing patches in the middle of the night.  That is a good thing.  But whatever goodwill they earn with this convenience is immediately destroyed when first thing in the morning a “reboot computer” message appears.  And appears… and appears…

If you choose Restart Later, it waits about 10 minutes and then pops this screen up again.  Argggh!

It occurred to me some of you may hate this as much as I do, but you don’t want to go fiddling around in Services.msc or have to memorize “net stop” commands.  Worse is the articles that teach you to shut it off permanently.  If you shut it off for good, you don’t get updates unless you manually go to Windows Update.  In the long run, this can be more painful than rebooting as soon as you see the message.

So to address this problem, I created a simple little app called Leave Me Alone!  When you run it and click the “Leave Me Alone” button it temporarily turns off the source of these restart messages.  It is certain to boost your productivity when the WU Restart beast comes calling.

I see about 5 advantages to using this software:

1. You can get back to work immediately
2. Does not permanently disable your updates
3. You don’t have to memorize net-stop commands
4. You don’t have to fish around in the system services panel
5. You don’t have to set a system policy

Trivia:  I coded Leave Me Alone! in C#.  It is my first stand alone C# program.  Woot!  

Download Leave Me Alone! (Windows XP/Vista)

Best Goal Setting and Personal Productivity Articles from May 2008

May was a fun month for the blog. Although it didn’t start out that way. I spent the first part of the month rebuilding the site due to it being hacked. But I think we quickly recovered with some good material and great comments.

We came very close to crossing the 5000 daily reader mark once and for all in May. One day, it hit 4,985. Stop teasing already! :) You can help me break this goal by telling a couple friends about this blog. Refer them to an article you might have liked, or post a link from your website. I want to cross the 5,000 reader mark this month!

Here are the most warmly received articles from May - which are also a good place to start when telling a friend about Persistence Unlimited:

12 Hacks for Becoming a D.I.Y. Master - Amaze Your Friends & Baffle Your Enemies - DIY masters are the Renaissance men and women who you can call on at any time to build, repair or mod just about anything. If you are new to DIY or want to go deeper down the rabbit hole, this is a good article to start.
10 Tiny Things That Make My Life Easier - Sometimes big productivity comes in small packages. Here are 10 tiny things that help me. Maybe they’ll help you too.
I had a blast writing a review series of my new-favorite shoes. They’ve eased the pain in my feet and actually helped me sleep better believe it or not!
Finn Comfort Shoe Review part 1
Finn Comfort Shoe Review part 2
Finn Comfort Shoe Review part 3
Finn Comfort Shoe Review part 4
Multitasking is Madness. 10 Tips to Stop - This was the most popular article of the month. A Stumbler voted for it and it got loads of traffic. Check it out to see what all the hub-bub’s all about.
A New Emotionally-Based Way Of Prioritizing Your Task list - This is a creative new way for managing your tasks. I find that every now and again taking a fresh look with a new technique spurs my motivation.
Gadget Lust: Kindle e-Book Reader - Should I or shouldn’t I? I ask the Kindle lovers out there whether this device is a productivity wrecker or something that will reinvigorate my reading habit.

The Illusion of Difficulty Makes Task Management Hard

Have you ever had a task you were putting off and putting off until you just couldn’t stand it anymore.  Then finally, you start and it takes a whole 10 minutes to do? 

I’m sure we all can relate to this. 

Some tasks are great at creating the illusion of great difficulty.

• The task says “This is going to take forever.”
• The task says “You’re going to hate working on me.”
• The task says “There’s going to be lots of pain involved when you start.”
• The task says “Hope you are ready to be bored because a lot of boredom is coming your way.”

It’s easy to get faked out by tasks like this.  If you let enough time pass, you’ll start to believe what your mind is telling you about the task. 

But the best answer for tasks that speak such nonsense is action.  Action puts a lie to the task’s devious ways. 

• Action says “It’s actually not bad once you get started.”
• Action says “I am more motivated after I get started.”
• Action says “I was putting this off for nothing.”
• Action says “Automatically, I cross the finish line.”

Action requires one basic commitment - a commitment to start. 

Do something, ANYTHING to get started.  Start by cracking open a book, plugging in a cable, unloading one dish from the dishwasher.  All you need do is start, then like magic, action takes over. 

But first you must start.

So…

Start — > NOW!

A New Emotionally-Based Way Of Prioritizing Your Task list

James over at Organize IT is talking about a new way he is prioritizing his tasks.   He makes some good arguments for ditching the high, medium and low task priorities most of us are used to for a new 3 step priority method.

The traditional approach of prioritizing, where you assign a task a high, medium or low priority (or maybe even something more meaningless than that) is outdated and largely ineffectual in today’s workplace. In fact David Allen of Getting Things Done fame actively downplays the importance of prioritizing, claiming that each task is equally important otherwise you wouldn’t be doing them in the first place. However, this implies a “need to do-don’t need to do” attitude which, as I’ve discussed before, can be a surefire way to end up burnt out as you continuously feel compelled to do something.

He has his 3 priorities laid out thusly:

Photo by geri-jean

• Need to do
• Should do
• Want to do

Of course the highest priority in this chain is Need to do.  These are things like putting gas in your car, turning in work on schedule and subscribing to my RSS feed ;) .  These are the tasks that if you don’t do them, you’ll be punished either directly or by the universe.  Not putting gas in your car punishes you by you breaking down at the side of the road and having to walk 3 miles to a gas station.  Not turning in your work in time results in getting in trouble at work.  I don’t even want to get into the horrors you’ll experience if you haven’t subscribed to my updates yet. :lol:

His next is Should do’s.  It’s my understanding the should do’s are things like writing thank you notes and turning in your work early.  There’s no consequences for not doing a should do - at least for now.  But you’ve committed to doing it so you might as well do it.

Finally there is the category Want to do.  Probably all of these tasks will get done because you want to do them. They are things like going out to eat or watching a movie.

As I use the old style ABC 123 priorities on my daily task list, I am not sure how well I’d adjust to this method.  It seems to me there would be some confusion in not knowing what comes first, second and third. 

Example:

• A1  Put Money in bank
• A2 Write checks for bills
• A3 Mail bills

In an ABC 123 prioritized list you know the first step, second and so on…

Where if you had one category Need to do and put the same tasks in there, depending on the order, you might have something that looks like this:

Need to do:

• Mail bills
• Write checks
• Put money into bank

Where do you start?  Logic dictates you’ll figure it out of course.  But I like the first method because you have a start and an end. 

That’s not to say James’ method isn’t sound.  I think he’s onto something.  Since many are motivated by pure emotion, perhaps knowing “I need to do this, this and that.” is enough.  But I’d like to see more of how to actually work the tasks in the list.

By the way, the first thing I think of when you put things on the Want to do list is that they are probably the least important to do.  They likely bring in the least profit, cost the most expense and lost time.  So after a week or two of implementing the method, a productivity maniac might consider just throwing out the want to do’s. 

What are your thoughts on James’ method?  Would you be better motivated by having a 3 category list of Need, should and want to dos?  Or do you like another method?  Please tell us in the comments.