Priorities

Priorities

Success minded people at the beginning of their day have some idea of what they want to accomplish.  Those who have been at their craft for many years may be able to keep a list in the mind.  Many of us begin the day with a written list.  For some reason the ritual of making the list imprints it upon the day and the focus is sharper than otherwise.

Stephen Covey

Covey wrote the classic work on effectiveness with his Opus, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”  The book has no peers.  I will summarize the habits below, from memory:

• Be Proactive - No excuses, you are fully responsible for your life
• Begin with the End in Mind - Create the vision before executing
• First Things First - Important things are never subordinated to unimportant things
• Seek first to Understand then to be Understood - This sequence is important for Influence
• Think Win-Win - Think long term when making deals.
• Synergize - If you can get the group into a creative zone, with ideas flowing, you understand this.
• Sharpen the Saw - take care of you Body, Mind, Heart, and Spirit or you will pay the price of neglect.

Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss in his book, “The 4 Hour Workweek,” explains the 80-20 rule of a priority list.  What are the 2 things I need to do today that will give me the greatest output in accomplishing my goals?  No more than 2!  In time, you may get to the higher level of effectiveness where  you only put one item on the list - this is when you know you really have yourself together!  For us mortals, no more than 2 items on the list.  

Priority Means Focus

When I began my career, I followed a training program that a Covey spinoff suggested, using a Franklin Planner.  You would list all the things you had to do for the week, and then put them on schedule for each day of the week.  Then, for each day, you would label each item on the checklist A, B and C.  A items had to be done today. B items may slip until tomorrow, but no further.  C items could be done anytime that week, or could slip to the next week.  

What is the problem here?  There is no focus.  There is a list of crap on paper.  We need to delegate and outsource everything to a point where we have no more than 2 things on our list every day as Priority.  

When you have a list of crap that you “have to do,” most people are overwhelmed and often give up and go back to the “seat of the pants” life of the moment.  This is not good.  You have to write down what you need to accomplish, and you have to do it in a way that you are not overwhelmed.  So, one or two priorities!  There is nothing wrong with a list in the background that you look at every week or so.  But, you cannot be looking at the long list every day, because you will lose focus on the Priority Item - Number one and number two.  

Maturity

Someone famous once said that the essence of maturity is making choices.  When you choose one option, you destroy the alternative.  When you spend one hour eating lunch in New York, you destroy the option of eating lunch in Miami.  Time cannot be gotten back.  

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Freddy Martini  

Mac versus Windows

Mac versus Windows

Broad Trends in Computers

For the past 10-15 years, computers have settled into categories and there is not much experimentation going on as there was in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.  After Internet became a fact of life for the masses, things became standardized and experiments are all done except at the irrelevant margins.  Nowadays, it seems like the desktop, workstation and laptop are also going away for the masses as handheld computers, i.e., smartphones, take over the market.  Dell laptops are dinosaurs, but clueless companies still hand them out.  Applications are all standardized: spreadsheets, word processors, PDF, JPEG, video, audio, etc have all been sorted out.  

Appliances and Reliability

A computer is now an appliance like a microwave oven.  Everyone knows what is expected, and it should do as expected all the time unless it needs the rare repair.  You may be laughing now if you have ever switched from lower tiered products to Apple.  And, you should laugh.  Now, think about this.

Do you ever expect your microwave oven to freeze up in the middle of warming your coffee?  Does it require a reboot when you have 30 seconds left on the timer for warming coffee?

What would you do if your refrigerator just quit working and required you to unplug it and then replug it to work again?

In either of these cases, you would have a defective product, and would be justified in asking for your money back.

Computers and Reliability

Why do we accept the low quality behavior of Windows based machines like a Dell?  You may be in the middle of a million dollar deal, and your computer can display some ridiculous pop-up with the message “An error has occurred,” and your computer will freeze.  You are left hanging.  You will have to reboot, and this will take another ten minutes.  Wasted time is the worst offense for Top Players.  When you are in the Big Leagues, you cannot waste time.

Apple Experience

I hesitated for many years getting an Apple product.  I come from software and engineering where we have lots of fun programming and tweaking, and there is some value in being “computer savvy” in many places.  But, what does this all mean, being “computer savvy”?  It means that the appliance is defective.  If you need technical help to do something, the appliance was not designed correctly.  It is a basic rule in Product Design: the design should reveal its function.  A handle tells you where your hand belongs - no need to read a manual or spend hours screwing around figuring things out.  A new product that requires more than a few minutes to figure out has a defective design.

When I switched to a Mac, the experience was amazing.  It worked like a Microwave oven - it never crashed.  Everything that happened was expected and intuitive.  Nobody should have to read an owner’s manual for a vacuum cleaner.  We have valuable time and do not want to waste time because a product designer was not doing his job correctly.  When I open my Mac, it is immediately ready - I do not have to wait even one second.

Everyone knows that Apple products cost a little more.  However, when you calculate the time lost on working with Windows systems with failures, reboots, bugs, latency, booting up, etc, in the long run, the Windows system will cost perhaps ten times more, if not fifty times more.  Effectiveness-minded people put a premium on time.  And wasted time is the most hideous loss one can have.  I mean, when was the last time you had to update the “Configuration File,” or lost a Word file due to the computer automatically rebooting due to an “Important Software Update.” When was the last time your computer just stopped working, you rebooted, and it worked again, and you have no freaking clue what just happened?

After being around since the middle of the 20th century, and after the integration of Internet to computers, and a few years after that of market sorting of standard applications, there is no excuse at this time for computers to not be an Appliance, and not a fun toy for hackers.

The Solution

When purchasing a product, you must always calculate the long term cost.  There is the price tag.  Then, there is the cost in terms of time from failures, repair, frustration, reputation, etc.  Will you purchase a chair or table from Wal-Mart?  Probably not, if you are looking for long term value.  

At this point in time, using both types of machines, I must say that Windows is for people who do not mind wasting time, while the Apple products are for people who want to get on with living life, and see computers as an appliance, and not something to be fiddled with.

Look for things that have some beauty.  Apple products are designed to be beautiful.  Windows is drab and blue.  Life is about excitement.  Being bored is the root of all evil.  Purchase things that get your heart beating faster, and lift your spirit.

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Freddy Martini