Photo by Jay Simmons at RGBStock.com.
I don’t mean that in a negative sense…
There are times when life gives you an opportunity you can’t resist, but you might have to work hard to be successful.
And then you gotta do what you gotta do. Because if you don’t, you’ll always wonder, “What if?”
It’s OK to work hard every now and then. In fact, it’s OK to work hard often. As long as you love what you do and you feel that you are reaching higher.
But if you work hard, you also have to play hard. Don’t forget that.
I’m currently at one of those magical crossroads in life where I gotta do what I gotta do. It’s not going to be easy. But it’s a great opportunity. And I’m going to seize it.
As such, I won’t be posting to this blog for a couple of months. I’m not going to be on Facebook either. Or Twitter. I’m simplifying and eliminating every distraction possible.
However, there are a few things I will not eliminate:
- Working out (training for Race for the Cure on 9/26)
- Sleeping (sleep is NOT overrated)
- Eating healthy, seasonal, and unprocessed food
- Spending time with my family & favorite friends
- Snuggling with my dog
- Writing on Simply Enough (I need one writing outlet!)
- Reading books
- Singing (especially with my daughter)
I’ll be back somewhere around September 27. Until then!
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” ~Thomas Alva Edison
My sister Miriam in Oxelösund, Sweden
A rested product manager is a productive product manager. There are many stories out on the web that talk about the benefits of taking a “real” vacation (by real, I mean at least one week and fully disconnected). In addition to improving productivity, it also reduces stress, makes you healthier, and just plain happy.
“But wait,” you say. “I’ll be even more stressed when I get back to find hundreds of emails in my inbox, development behind schedule, and support breathing down my neck for a really important patch.”
I understand. It’s scary. You make things happen and leaving for a week or two seems almost impossible. Let me tell you something. It’s worth it!
Here are a couple of ideas for worry-free vacationing:
- Designate a trusted colleague to keep an eye on high-risk items and respond to escalations. (You should do the same for her when she goes on vacation.)
- Provide above-mentioned colleague with a phone number where you can be reached in case of an extreme emergency (make sure to explain that a dispute over button placement on a screen does not constitute an emergency). This way, you don’t have to keep an eye on email, which would defeat the purpose of vacation.
- Make sure things are in order before you leave, but don’t overdo it. (Once when I was about to leave for a four-week vacation, I worked two 75 hour weeks leading up to my time off. I spent the first 48 hours sleeping. Not recommended.)
- Turn on your Out of Office notification and make sure people know who to contact in your absence.
- Encourage people to keep you off of email threads when you’re gone, unless it is important. You can get the lowdown when you return.
- Try to plan your vacation when there’s not a major release happening (I know, it never fails that the release moves to coincide with your time off). It’s worth a shot.
With that, I’m taking a two-week vacation starting tomorrow! I’m going to visit my family in Oxelösund, Sweden, make some day trips to Stockholm, spend a night on an island in the beautiful archipelago, and hop over to Paris for three nights. The beauty of vacationing abroad is that you’re likely to be in a different timezone, phone access is spotty, and you just don’t seem as accessible.
Do you take regular vacations? If so, how do you unplug/disconnect/unwind?
Dr. Muhammad Yunus
Today is the First Annual Social Business Day. So what does this mean? Well, according to the Yunus Centre website:
A social business is defined as a non-loss, non-dividend company dedicated to meeting social needs; such as ensuring affordable healthcare for all, promoting better nutrition for children, creating employment for the unemployed, moving towards a safer environment, enhancing the process of women empowerment and providing safe drinking water.
Sounds pretty good, right? I’ve read Dr. Yunus’s last two books and I happen to think the social business concept is pretty awesome.
The idea is that you run the social business like you would a “profit-maximizing” company with competitive salaries for human resources and with a business plan to at least break even. However, your goal is not to pay dividends to investors. Rather, your goal is to make the world a better place. This includes providing opportunities to people who may not otherwise have them, going easy on the planet, and providing affordable life-enhancing products to those who may not normally be able to afford them.
The Grameen family of companies (Dr. Yunus’s life’s work) is working with various profit-maximizing companies like Dannon (the yogurt company), Adidas, and others to bring affordable products to the poor while not exploiting them.
It will be interesting to see where this concept goes. I would highly recommend that you read Dr. Yunus’s books. They are so inspiring!
Photo by Neil Rhodes at stock.xchng.
So, sending five emails per day is hard. Really hard. I managed to pull it off the first week or so and then I realized that the limit was not productive. Every now and then I really did need to send a “Thanks!” email (some people do appreciate, or even expect, those) or forward information to people not included on a given note. Those add up quickly… And if somebody isn’t available via IM, phone, or in person, sending off an email is more efficient than writing a reminder note to contact the person later.
The good thing about this experiment is that it has made me more conscious about choosing the appropriate form of communication. I am more apt to pick up the phone now and try that first. And that’s good.
I agree with the comment on the last post that email is good for dispersed teams (which is what we have). Email is powerful indeed when used appropriately.
Hence, I’ve decided that the specific limit on sending emails isn’t the way to go. Rather, it’s a matter of being conscious about making the appropriate communication choice. A phone call is better than 10 emails back and forth. IM is better for a quick question (assuming the person is online). Walking over to talk to somebody face-to-face is best for any (even so slightly) potentially emotional topic.
Perhaps I just need a sign in my office: “Email: Handle with Care” as a reminder.
Image by Sanja Gjenero at RGBStock.
If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that one of my favorite topics is how to manage email in order not to let it take over your life.
When I was on a business trip the other week, I had an idea that is so simple, I was baffled that I hadn’t thought of it before.
What if I limited my email send to five emails per day?
Think about it. One of the best ways to ensure a stuffed inbox is to send loads of emails. I’m guilty as charged. Even with my level of email consciousness, I send 30-50 emails per day. Granted, some of these are meeting invites and the like, but still! Many of these communications would likely be better and more efficiently handled with a phone call or walking down the hall for a chat.
I haven’t been in the frame of mind to get started on this experiment until now (or maybe my mathematicalself just needed a new month to get going). Also, I’ve found that I do better with these types of things if I announce it publicly, so here is my announcement:
Starting tomorrow, I will send at most five emails per day. This includes forwards, looping people in, “thanks” emails (which are completely useless anyway), “go team!” notes, CYAs, and all other email communication. I predict that this will cut my incoming email in half (at least). We’ll see at the end of the month. I have no idea how hard or easy this will be. I’ll keep you posted.
Wish me luck!
