Author: Merrill III

Short-Term Press Release

You have a direction in life? Holy cow! Congrats!

Wait, you don’t? That’s cool. Having a direction for life is pretty major. Let’s start with setting a direction for, say, the next two weeks.

Before I found my life calling, I had a large prioritized list of things I wanted to be and do. Spanning numerous aspects of myself (musician, ScrumMaster, runner, host, boyfriend, …), I had little focus to my stories within each two-week Sprint. At some point, I adopted something I read in ‘Rework’ by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, a couple of guys from 37signals: the concept of a short-term press release – What is the exciting new thing you will share proudly with the world at the end of your Sprint?

The Sprint Press Release became a focal point about which my stories would congregate and, in a sense, filter themselves. A theme would arise. The similarly-themed backlog items would, through the Sprint, help each others’ completion because they were related. They would all share the same spirit, that which is represented not by the sum of parts (functionalities of all stories, combined), but by the whole, an example of punctuated evolution where a new functionality emerges that is relatively large, possible only because the smaller stories were completed.

Thus, rally stories within each Sprint around a theme. They’ll be easier to get done, and because they’re along the same vein, that’s a sense of –

You have a direction for the next two weeks? Holy cow! Congrats!

Gift of Time

Have you ever found yourself saying,

Drat – this thing is due in a week/day/hour. If I only had another week/day/hour.

Think about it: If you had just one more week/day/hour, oh man, it’d be heaven! You don’t have a lot of time left (whatever the reason, you’ve accepted your current circumstances and are moving forward), and you’re anxious, and having that extra time would seem like… a gift. Oh, if you only had that extra time…

OK, but let’s say you’re not at this late stage; you are in the middle of something with a deadline. Try this:

Give yourself an artificial deadline to give yourself the gift of time.

If it is due in two weeks, get it done in one. I feel this helps with those prone to procrastinating.

Just feel it, though… put yourself there… you bust out whatever you can in one week, and at the end of that week, you take a step back, look it over, and you know what? It just actually might be good enough! If not, oh look, you have another week at your disposal.

In ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ by Tim Ferriss, he talks about Parkinson’s Law, which goes, “a task will swell in perceived importance and complexity in relation to time allotted for its completion”, to which he recommends setting artificially short and clear deadlines.

The trick is now to motivate yourself to accept this new shorter deadline.

Worry to Action

I was reading ‘Mastering The Art of a Worry-Free Life‘, an article at the blog Dumb Little Man. You are stepped through how to deal with worry, ultimately resulting in an action plan. And here I am, thinking, “Huh… actually… Scrum kind of deals with that!”

By working on the stories of the current sprint, and focusing on getting those items to a state of done, you’re not thinking about other things. In a sense, you are staying in the moment (step 2 of 6 from the article).

Regarding an action plan – heck, Scrum steps you through setting up and managing a partially dynamic list that is prioritized.

So yeah, this dumb little man never thought of ScrumOfOne as a tool for dealing with worry.

Write Down Your Goals

Newbury Street had a friend in me on Saturday, ’cause man did I shop the hell out of it.

On a fact-finding mission for prices on snazzy shoes and blazers / sport coats (what’s the difference?), I’d briefly chat up the retail folk and then break their little hearts; I am not currently at a place where I can spend $400 to $600 on a jacket. I had always wanted to roll through the Back Bay with my homie named Visa, but you need almost a full day and the energy and… a reason. I had all three.

The reason came from writing goals down. This creates focus.

You may have lots of reasons to do things, but the ones you write down, and especially the ones you look at with some frequency, are the ones that get to the forefront of your unconscious. Napoleon Hill dedicates a whole chapter to the concept in ‘Think And Grow Rich’, where he says the subconscious mind first acts on dominating thoughts and feelings (like faith), so make your desires clear: reduce them to writing. He goes on to talk about the next step: flashes / hunches / inspirations. Rhonda Byrne’s ‘The Secret’ refers to these as inspired actions, where you are acting on instincts.

I could have (should have) dove into much delayed Spring cleaning, but instead I went with my gut and did something unusual, yet something in line with one of my goals: acquire a collection of jackets.

Mission accomplished. Thank you, Marshall’s. On Boylston Street.

Bow Ties and Shoelaces

Time for a new identity!

Or not.

Maybe you just came out of a relationship. (You cut your hair / sport a goatee / get your ear pierced.) Maybe you moved town. (You look for a new set of friends.) Maybe you’re digging deeper into or taking on a new hobby. (You try on a relevant persona.) Maybe I found my voice and direction in life. (I buy bow ties and shoelaces.)

It’s funny how it happens. I’ve heard it said, and I’m sure you’ve experienced it: there is an inner change that is reflected externally. What appeals to you evolves and you take on new things that make you say, “This isn’t something I would normally do! This isn’t me!” And yet, here I am, buying bow ties, an article of clothing I have not worn since performing at piano recitals as a kid. And yet, here I am, buying shoelaces, because, well, I’m suddenly inclined to wear bright colored laces with darker shoes. (If this becomes a thing, you read it here, first!) Both these inspired and fun style changes are happening right after finding my life vector.

Tell me I’m not the only one experiencing this.