Ha.. YES! Again and again!

Actually I write about it firstly, but i believe this is the most popular question around the world in all times. I write about it coz I have a great lack of motivation today, therefore the question I ask myself now is: why do I do this? why do I need this? what if I stop? what shall I do? what is the meaning of all that? (I mean my work).

Here is one approach that I found very efficient in understanding that. Actually I found it in the great book of Neale Donald Walsh - Converstion with God. The book is written in Q&A form, and I found that way of dialogue much more efficient in understanding the certain things. Please don’t consider me being mad, coz now I’m going to speak with myself

I’ve heard that the similar approach is used in psychology - thus by asking himself, the patient can understand his deep needs. Well.. It’s going to be the great experiment.. Let’s try..

Me: What is the meaning of the life?

Mind: What do YOU want from it? Life can be exactly what YOU want it to be! That’s the great miracle! For example, do you need a lot of money?

Me: I definitely don’t want a great amount of money..

Mind: Do you? Really? You’re repeating it all the time.. I think you’re cheating.

Me: Well.. Not exactly.. To tell the truth, I want to be free.. Financially free. I don’t want to be in need of anything.. Absolutely anything.

Mind: There are two ways to be financially free. Both are correct, but they are different. The first approach is to become a hermit. So that you simply won’t be in need of money. The second is to work hard to become a rich man. The question is what are you ready to sacrifice: the comfort or the time?

Me: I don’t want to be a hermit.

Mind: Why?

Me: I want comfort, it makes me think clearly and more efficiently. Moreover I think it will be easy to do great things if you have money. I don’t want to concentrate just on myself, I want to help people.

Mind: Wow.. You’re starting to open your new deep aspirations, don’t you?

Me: I guess.. I also think that being a hermit is just boring..

Mind: Ok.. So we have just understood that you do need money, and you need quite a lot of them, right?

Me: Well.. Yes I do. Few millions, billions, I guess..

Mind: Ok, ok.. Just don’t tell anybody that you don’t need any money - that will be unfair.

Me: You’re right. I understand, I do need money!

Mind: Do you want fame?

Me: I was on the point of saying “No”, but that could have been unfair. Yes I do need fame. The difference is what for i do need it.. I want to do something very important in this world - so that people say there was a great man who helped thousands of people by making so much great things. But I don’t want it just like glory, fame.. I really want to do important things in the world..

Mind: Wow! Again.. You’re surprising me more and more.. I didn’t know you have a global approach!

Me: Honestly, I’m surprising myself too..

Mind: You’ve asked about the meaning of life.. Your meaning of life is simple! Actually, your meaning of life is your mission in this world: You will find real happiness and peace in helping people around the world globally, by making certain things that are going to change your and peoples life..

Me: I am really inspired.. Thanks for opening my eyes.. and soul..

Mind: You’re welcome, but It was you who did it.. The question now is what you are doing today.. Does your current activity corresponds with your deep needs?

Me: Well.. I think somehow corresponds..

Mind: You have to build a plan in which you will provide different ways of achieving your main goal. You will do it later, but what you need to remember now is that always, in any circumstances, you need to remember your main goal.. it’s your mission..

Well.. I did it for the first time.. You may believe me or not, but I find this way of self analyzing extremely efficient.. The main idea behind it is to be honest, to be free out of any possible judgments and prejudices.. To be naked in mind at least in front of yourself. And then you will be very surprised to know more about yourself.

Here is one tip I want to share with you that helps me to make things done faster. The idea is to start doing the thing from the end, actually from it’s finishing point.

Let me explain. For example you have a report that must be done by you. Generally, the first thing you do is opening your Excel or Numbers and try to gather the information, and put it inside. Then you save your report and email it..

I did it the same way until I realized that there is more efficient way. In that situation, I would rather do this:

1. write an email to whom this report is intended - saying: here is the report and it contains that and that;
2. create the file and put it right into email;
3. gather the information needed and put it in that file.

Finally after finishing gathering and putting the information you are one click away from finishing job - just click “Send”.

P.S.
Sometimes it’s even not necessary to gather the information at the moment of writing the email - you just save a draft and return to it later.

Planning software, as any kind of software must meet the following requirements: it should effectively TAKE your data, effectively TRANSFORM it, and RETURN you the RESULT in the most effective way - so that you can make corresponding conclusions.

While speaking about planning software in particular, the first requirement starts when you type in task names, put durations, dependencies etc. and stops when you prioritize your tasks and put resources on them. Ideally, after doing that your part of the job must be finished.

Next step is up to the software to calculate the data and give you the result: tasks are put inline, no over allocations, no intersections, just flat time and project milestones till the last milestone, altogether inline.

To my opinion this is the one of the most important steps in the process of planning.. Because no matter how deep you are in the project, how many tasks you have in the plan, how smart you are in making the structure of the plan.. everything can be spoiled if the software cant manage those task automatically.

Forget about making that manually.. Just forget! It’s up to the computer to do the routine job! Your mission is to think strategically!

But.. How does the software do that? This is called Resource Leveling. Here what OmniPlan glossary says about it:

“Leveling the project”, or “leveling resources”, means automatically rearranging the project to make sure the resources are being used as efficiently as possible. This means not allowing a resource to be assigned at more than 100% of its available units at any time, and finding the best order for resources to work on tasks in order to complete them more quickly.

I shall describe how Resource Leveling is implemented in the three major planning software: MS Project, Merlin and OmniPlan (If one doesn’t know, the first software is for Windows only, the two last are just for Mac).

So, Microsoft Project’s resource leveling to my opinion is outstanding. Actually it’s absolutely automatic and it works just at the moment you make any modifications to the plan. Moreover it has range of advanced settings. But sometimes it’s not OK when it splits tasks, though it is not a big deal as the other software even don’t have the feature of splitting tasks (so MS Progect gets A for leveling).

Merlin at the first glance seems to have good leveling, but after playing with it for a while I’ve noticed very big lack of consistency as soon as it doesn’t affect on priority (to my opinion Merlin gets C for leveling).

OmniPlan has less options to setup, but it’s leveling works like the clock: you can absolutely trust it (OmniPlan gets B+ for leveling).

I’d like to provide few advices about planning techniques I use everyday in my job, hope this experience can help someone..

• Even in software projects Gantt Charts are necessary, because they provide visual representation of what you’re going to do in the project (another question is the software you use to work with them.. ).
• Set the scale of the project. Put only those tasks that really need to. Set the rule: provide only such amount of tasks you can manage.
• Milestones must be only those that are important.. Keep away of useless milestones.
• Make details only on those aspects you consider are important. Do not check unimportant details.
• Use group of people instead of man by man.. It will help to save a lot of time while tracking and changing the plan. For example if you have 5 people in QA department - put just QA department with the resource amount as 500%.
• Put only those people and resources that affect on the plan. Do not use any auxiliary resources. In fact you may even not count them at all as they are like the infrastructure that help others to do the basic job.

Well.. that’s all for now.. Hope will be more later..

Unfortunately, there is something in the nature of a human that leads us to be complex. Here are few examples..

During my studying process I meet different teachers and I do check and notice the way they teach and interact with students. Few are very good in teaching few are not so good, but that’s not so important comparing to the tendency of some of them to make things complex. I’m not saying about the complexity of the discipline itself (it surely can be complex as well) but about the ability of the teacher to bring the knowledge to the students (although that is also very important)..

I’m saying about the process of transmitting the information - anyway it shouldn’t be more complicated than information itself..

I don’t remember how it is called in psychology but it seems to me that by making things complex people try to look smarter..

P.S.
After analyzing this, I do think that I could have teach far more better (besides I already tried and did it well)..

I had a collapse of beliefs recently.

It was about the way people behave: I have always thought that every man is inclined to self development, and that everybody really wants to improve himself invariably (at least it came out of my personal principles). And to my great surprise not long time ago I have understood that was completely wrong. Well.. better late than never.

Out of this understanding comes the question: what to do if you have to deal with a person who really does not want to develop himself?

I’ve asked the same question to my classmate (she is an HR in a big company) and got a counter question: ‘But what do YOU want from that person?’

That confused me even more.. I’ve understood that I never thought about people in this manner: I always thought what I can GIVE to people, not what i WANT from them..

That all gave me a clear insight into the managers’ way of thinking..

As far as I understand. Any manager one way or another is a manipulator. And that’s all not because he is so evil. This is because he has no choice.

I’ve been thinking about the future for a while. The question was about the business: I was wondering what kind of business.. or rather what kind of activity will be popular in the world over few year decades.

And here what I’ve discovered. The leading business of the future will be more and more creative and less operational. That means there will be less and less parasitic phases while developing a product on the way from the author or creator to the customer.

My judgment comes from the Web2.0 services and social networking. For example today I can find any kind of music on Last.fm.. or find out any kind of movie in the Internet.. Get the latest video podcasts on YouTube etc..

First of all this gives the ability to overcome any advertisement bullshit and find exactly what You want instead of what they want.. The second, it gives the possibility to anyone be the real producer of any possible content, and let that content be transmitted to anyone immediately.

Of course I’m not saying anything new here.. But.. I’ve noticed the tendency and I feel that with the development of similar services the great changes are coming..

Let us welcome them!

I spend whole evening on trying to determine the causes that let people earn lots of money..

According to wikipedia list of billionaires if you want to be a billionaire, you should:

• born in the rich family
• study in elite private school
• graduate from Harvard (or at least get an MBA)
• be very good in math and finances

But what I see now is that it’s going to be very hard to be a billionaire for the person who doesn’t like math too much.. Well.. That’s slightly breaks my dreams of becoming Bill Gates #2..

Seriously..

Well now I think that maybe it’s better to go to politics?
Btw, what is the difference between being the CEO of a big corporation or being a president of a European country?

I haven’t written anything for few days now because of the important event in my life. The reason is I’ve got Apple MacBookPro and thus became a switcher.

I’ve been with Windows for a long time.. Since windows 3.11 :-). I remember clearly that day when my father bought me the first computer. There were sacred days when I perceived the world of computing.. Those funny icons, those nice and interesting applications.. It was 1995 as far as I remember..

And today is 2008 and I feel the same thrill by exploring the completely new world.. It’s been almost 2 weeks now and what I can say about Mac in a sentence?

It’s really easy to get used to the best (and since it’s hard to change it ever)..

I’ve opened for myself a list of services that make my computer life far more interesting..

SlimTimer: www.slimtimer.com - A time spreadsheet web service that helps to calculate time spent on different projects.

Bubbles: http://www.3d3r.com/bubbles/index.php - A Windows application that can show you in the tray any possible web page.. (for example Google Mail or Google Calendar)

Well, these are nice solutions to be called Web 2.0 services..