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I’ve been using 30 day improvement sprints as a way to sharpen my skills.  I originally started 30 Day Improvement Sprints a couple years back loosely based on Scrum 30 Day Sprints.  I pick a focus to work on and I commit to improving it for a 30 day timebox.  Committing to 30 days of improvement in a focused area, is easier to swallow than changing for life.  However, improving an area for 30 days, is actually life changing.
With 30 days, persistence and time are on …

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What are 3 great results for today?  That’s the question I ask to bootstrap my day.  As simple as it sounds, I find it’s the most effective way to cut through the fog each day.  There’s a lot of things I can do and there’s lots of activities I’ll be doing, but what are 3 great outcomes for today.  That’s it.
Example Here’s an example of my 3 outcomes for one of my days right before I left for vacation::

Ship Beta 2 of my new book …

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Here’s my short-list of techniques I use for improving efficiency on a given task:

Increase the frequency.  If I’m not efficient at something and I need to be, I start doing it more.  A lot more.  Frequency helps me get over resistance.  I also get more chances to learn little things each time that help me improve.  
Reduce friction.  This is important and goes in hand with increasing the frequency.  When I do something more, I can quickly find the friction points.  For example, I was finding that …

One of the interesting people I got to meet this year is Ken Blanchard.  He

spoke at Microsoft earlier this year.  He’s all about empowering people, growing people, and helping everybody get an A.  This post is my notes from the session.

Catch People Doing Something Right, Accentuate the Positive I’m putting this right up front because Ken said if there was only one thing he could be remembered for, he would want it to be:
“Catch People Doing Something Right, Accentuate the Positive.”

Random Highlights Here’s a sampling of some of the …

One of the interesting people I got to meet this year is Dr. Stephen Covey.  He presented at Microsoft earlier this year.  It’s one thing to know the information; it’s another to experience the delivery live.  This post is a bit longer than usual, but hey, hey Covey has lots of insights.  Here are some of my highlights from the session.

The Lighthouse Story Covey opened with a story of Captain Horatio Hornblower.  As the story goes, one night at sea, Horatio awakens to find that a ship is in …