weekly review week ending april 6, 2013

Blog Posts

weekly review – week ending march 30, 2013
think of your business card as a doorway instead of a signpost

Quotes

Platforms

Most of the platform work this week was on my own blog. I installed stats tracking and started paying attention to where my traffic is coming from and what is causing reactions to my content. I have a couple of tests running currently to see how I can more effectively reach people and provide them with meaningful content.

I also did some tweaking to the design to make headings within posts more prominent in blue.

Hard Edges

I finally declared ‘bankruptcy’ on my Evernote inbox and moved everything to a >>PROCESS notebook so I can chip at it gradually. I want my INBOX notebook to be meaningful and only contain notes for things I am actually working on, so that’s part of the clean up of hard edges this week.

Auto-transfers for the Quicken plan are all scheduled. Now to monitor the test and start tweaking where things don’t go as planned – in other words – “now the fun begins”.

Reflection

I did a lot of thinking about identity and what types of symbols we identify with in different areas of our lives. I was especially interested in flags and the kinds of emotions they evoke. Some good writing fodder here.

I am not reading enough long form non-fiction so this coming week, its back to books and less blogs.

This week is also my 11th wedding anniversary – lots to reminisce about and dream for the future about.

Mentorship

I had a good coffee meeting with a young man who is doing an internship this summer in the same industry as I’m in. I was very impressed by how proactive he has been to this point in his junior year. Most of the opportunities he has gotten have come from making himself ‘visible’ to leaders at companies or startups that he is interested in. His internship last summer came from him attending an event and talking to the heads of the company – and then following up and keeping the relationship going.

I recommended ‘The Start-up of You’ to him because I think he is exactly the kind of person that would take the advice in that book and use it very effectively.

Lean Methods

I could have done a better job using lean methods for my analysis at work last week but I allowed some temporary roadblocks to slow me down instead of attacking the problem from a different angle. This week, I will be more aggressive about getting to results.

weekly review – week ending march 30, 2013

Blog Posts

doing teaches you a lot more than planning
how passion works in guiding your path

Quotes

the fear of missing out
studying without doing

Platforms

This week was primarily web design work and updating my WordPress CMS skills. Updated my sister’s fashion website homepage using CSS grid and div styling. Updated another platform website for LV and learned how to convert posts to post excerpts on the homepage as well as creating a gallery for displaying pictures.

Hard Edges

I finally updated Quicken to the point that I am comfortable setting up automated system for finances. This week’s focus is calculating amounts and scheduling all the auto-transfers.

Reflection

Easter weekend is always a time of reflection for me about my faith. The most powerful thought that I need to process more and blog about this week was the idea that God is both in the Light and the Darkness in our lives. We tend to attribute too much to the Enemy without seeing what the Lord is working through us with adversity.

I’ve also started reading Decisive by one of my favorite writing teams, The Heath Brothers. Plenty to chew on here about how we make decisions and the flaws in most of our approaches to deciding.

Mentorship

I’m still working with my brother and his job search. I have to think through some additional strategies and contacts in my network that could help him get more traction. I need to be a better coach to him too. I’m thinking about the importance of balancing strategy, coaching and cheerleading as a general approach to mentorship.

I’m also helping another mentee with career/job search related issues that led to this post.

Lean Methods

Not much update here this week but this upcoming week, I have to use this approach to some analysis at work.

weekly review – week ending march 21, 2013

With my newfound resolve to defeat the resistance and get more meaningful things done, I think a little public accountability couldn’t hurt.

My goal is to write a weekly post about how I am progressing with the 5 themes I laid out for myself earlier this year.

By focusing on those themes, I have definitely improved my understanding of of myself over the last 2 months and am becoming more realistic about how I truly behave – my hope is that writing my progress down will help me solve problems where I’m stuck and make connections that I would not have otherwise seen.

Platforms

I have two very exciting platform building projects in flight. One is for a couple who have been doing public speaking for years and now realize that the urgency of their message means that it has to scale. I am part of a working group of volunteers that are helping them to design and deploy the various aspects of their platform. So far I have helped by building their website, helping with the design of their logo, and set up the ‘containers’ for their social media strategy. I will write about this project more as it develops.

The second project is for a young business where the owner wants to differentiate herself and build something special. More on this to come too.

Hard Edges

I am in the process of tightening up our home budgeting systems so that more of it can be automated. The clearer edges around what goes where and is used for what is an experiment I am hoping will free me up from some of the detailed reconciling I do every other week.

Reflection

I read an excellent book by the founder of LinkedIn called The Start-up of You. Because of this a lot of my reflection recently has been about how I need to practice more “leading with generosity” in my networks.

The book also helped me make the decision to join the board of directors of a non-profit that was started by a friend. I am honored that he even asked me to serve and after attending my first meeting this week, I am truly enchanted with the work they do and ready to share my time and talent to help them.

Mentorship

One of my younger brothers recently lost his job and I am helping him navigate the process I had to go through when I lost my first job out of college. I am really proud of him for how resilient he has been and we are praying that one of his leads will yield some fruit very soon.

Lean Methods

I am working on a website project for a client who has provided very little direction in terms of content or branding. In the past, I would have insisted on getting these full details before touching any HTML or CSS, but I realized in this case that I had enough information to do an MVP. So I put it together over a weekend using a WordPress theme as a base and sent it to him for review. It felt good to ship and now he has promised to provide me content because he can see the finish line.