Dopp Juice Archive

When I got off the train for work yesterday, I was already on the verge of tears with anger. I had spent the ride rolling work frustrations around in my head, and it had only made things worse. I couldn’t pinpoint the problems, and my entire job just felt impossible.

But I’ve learned a few things as a trial-by-fire project manager, and one is that my attitude affects my team’s ability to work. So I made the call: it’s better to show up late than to show up angry. I went to Target instead of the office, and called them to say I had errands to run.

At Target, I picked out a new notebook and a good pen. My plan was to go from there to a cafe and write until my situation looked less like an amorphous blob of insurmountable problems and more like a plan to get through it. On my way to the checkout line, though, I passed something bright that caught my eye.

They were only four-for-a-dollar.

I just couldn’t resist…

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I’m an independent contractor at my current job, which means I get to set my own hours. No one holds me to a schedule, and no one is concerned if I stroll in at noon some days (or don’t stroll in at all). More often than not, though, I show up to work at the exact same time every morning. I do this regardless of how I’m feeling — whether I want to or not. This means I’m more likely to be productive, and less likely to fall into that “later and later every day” temptation funk. The rest of my team may be less consistent, but they’ve learned to trust my schedule, and have naturally started to align theirs around it.

So what’s my magical secret? I meet my neighbor for coffee at the same time every day, and she has to be at work by 9am. It’s a standing date; if I want to cancel, I have to do extra work to let her know I won’t be there, lest she wait around for me and be late to work. I know that if I’m only answering to myself, I can control the expectations and make adjustments for my own comfort levels. But if I arrange my life so that I’m answering to someone else, at least on a simple but consistent level, I’m held accountable enough to be reliable. And then everything else can fall into place around that.

Lifehacker had an article recently about Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret: To accomplish something consistently every day (for him it’s writing), put up a big calendar on your wall and draw a red X over each day that you accomplish the task. Soon a chain will development, and you will enjoy adding to it. Your motivation becomes simple: don’t break the chain.

It’s the same concept as the morning coffee (although, i think mine is better). We need a backup motivation for those days when “this matters” just isn’t enough of a reason to get us out of bed. It’s the same reason as why ambitious New Year’s Resolutions tend to fail. We are too sensitive to our own needs to be our own strict disciplinarians.

I’m sure there are more tricks for self-imposed consistent action out there. I’d love to hear what’s working for you.

Dear Lazyweb,

I’m looking for an unbiased 3rd-party comparison review of the FastTrack, OmniPlan, and Merlin2.

I know someone has examined them all, figured out what their strengths and weaknesses are, and come to conclusions about their comparative effectiveness for various project management scenarios.

I am just hoping that someone has a voice on the web.

I will give you a cookie if you find the voice for me.

Thanks,
Sarah

p.s. It will be a tasty cookie.