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Personal excellence and playing the blues

0 comments By Steve Filed in msn Tagged with , , , , , , January 10th, 2010 @ 8:46 PM

Howdy. This week I was lucky enough to attend a two day conference all about achieving ‘Personal Excellence’. Delivered by thought leader Nicholas Bates, it wasn’t as painful as it sounds, it was actually really good fun. And here’s why.

I’ve only just started to invest time in my own professional development by reading productivity and management books – they usually scare me off with their highly unimaginable book covers and ‘corporatespeak’ glossy summaries. However, having recently read David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done’ , it was great to meet one of these work/life guru’s to quiz them about their thoughts and get a down to earth response. Needless to say, I now am a proud owner of my very own ‘Master List’, a document that contains everything I want to achieve over the next three months and beyond. It might sound anal, but I think it’s going to help me out a lot. 

So, for example, if I take one of my ‘objectives’ I then break it down like so:  

Learn more guitar
1 hour per week/be consistent
Get Blues basics book
Learn CAGED system
Get guitar tutor
Online lessons (research)
Master electric guitar sound
Unlock fretboard (book)
Song per week (plus vocals)
Get new acoustic guitar?
Find backing tracks for practise
Crack the Pod
Read music theory book
Practice with mates
Listen to more blues

This might look like a simple ‘To Do’ list but, as part of a single ‘Master List’ which tracks both life and work, I know I’m going to look at this each day and get on with it. Or as Nick says – ‘JFDI’. Hope this doesn’t make me sound like a robot.

(Please note: I know the list above looks extremely unrock n’ roll. Patty Smith would have a fit. I don’t think anyone wrote a song about master lists, but there’s a first time for everything!)

Finally, and staying on the theme of learning the guitar, I just had to flag up this tutorial website by Justin Sandercoe. I love what he’s done by offering all these tips for free. So, please excuse me if I sign off now as I’ve still got to spend an hour learning the Pentatonic scale. Or something like that.

Peace. Out.

PIC 0038 1024x768 Personal excellence and playing the blues

Things I’ve Learnt this week: David Allen and Fish

0 comments By Steve Filed in microsoft Tagged with , , , , November 29th, 2009 @ 8:12 PM

This week I’ve been ploughing through ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen – and I’ve been liking it. Now, I’ve never read a productivity book before, partly because I never knew they existed but also because I used to think productivity consultants were really the great undead who walked the earth with a vague sense of what life was truly about. However, I recently watched a Live Meeting which David led and it inspired me to pick up one of his books and give it a go.

So here goes:

stuff-diagram

The key message behind ‘Getting Things Done’ is simply ‘action’. You’ve got to plan how you are going to deal with all the ‘low level’ tasks that hit you everyday in order to give yourself time and space to focus on the big wins. It’s a little early to say if this book has worked out for me but it’s definitely helped me to be more aware of of my own planning techniques and how I deal with people. Plus, my desk at work has now benefited from a spring clean. ‘Everything in its right place’ as someone used to sing.

Second thing I learnt this week is ‘HAVE FUN!’ So that’s what I’ll be doing from now on.

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