Eric Mack On-Line

We've got Free Willy playing on the big screen.

On the first 5 minutes of the VHS tape there is a music video by Michael Jackson and a commercial for the "Save the Whales Foundation."



Let me get this straight:

In the commercial, the Save the Whales foundation  is sponsored by BumbleBee Tuna?

Sounds fishy to me.

In the fast pace of today's business world, we are pressed to do more with less, to track more things and, well, get things done. Unfortunately, it's easy to get overwhelmed, miss something, and have things fall through the cracks. When that happens, you lose control and perspective and this can have a draining impact on your personal productivity, causing unpleasant ripples in your personal and professional life.

The solution is to hold the world back once a week so that you can do a thorough review of everything that you have (or should have) attention on. David Allen calls this, the Weekly Review. By completing a thorough review, you will feel a greater sense of control and perspective throughout the week and when you do it consistently it will transform the way you get things done.

The Weekly Review Process. It is the critical success factor for people that want to get things done.

This Thursday, May 28th, GTD Coach and fellow eProductivity user Kelly Forrister is leading the first Worldwide GTD Weekly Review. Kelly will be using Twitter to coach a global audience through the Weekly Review process.

Continue Reading "Worldwide GTD Weekly Review this coming week" »

We recently attended the Awana year-end celebration. Part of the activities include recognition of each child's accomplishments.

Emily (11) earned her Timothy Award through the Awana Bible club program.  She has been a part of Awana since she was 3.  To earn this award, Emily spent the last four years memorizing 438 Bible verses!  Emily also participated in Awana Bible Quizzing this year, and her team earned a second place ribbon.

Kelly (9) earned the Awana Bible club Excellence Award. Like her sister, she has participated in the Awana program since age 3.  Kelly spent the last two years memorizing 190 Bible verses.  She also represented our church at the Awana Games tournament, earning a third place ribbon, and at the Awana Bible Quizzing event, where she took home a first place medal.

Next year, Amy & Wendy will earn their Citation awards for their accomplishments, including memorization and reference of almost 800 verses.

The Awana program has spent the last 60 years helping churches and parents raise children and youth to know, love, and serve Christ.  It does this by teaching them to hide God's Word in their heart (Psalm 119:11) - by memorizing the Scriptures and by study, Q&A, and games.  Each week more than 1 million children and youth, and 250,000 volunteers participate in Awana in over 17,000 U.S. churches, and in over 100 countries.

I am thankful for the Awana program which helps parents teach their children to hid God's Word in their hearts. The Bible teaches us that God's Word does not return void. No doubt, this knowledge will serve them well throughout their lifetime.

I spend far too much time in my office. Fortunately, I only have to step outside to enjoy the beauty of God's creation. Yesterday, I took the girls fishing at the lake down the street. Within minutes, Kelly had caught her first fish, an 11" Bass.  A wonderful day and a delight to see the smile on my daughter's face when she proudly displayed her catch!



We did see 24" Catfish swimming around, but it was not the least bit interested in our measly worm. Perhaps another day...

This evening in one of my Knowledge Management (KM) meetings, we were asked to introduce ourselves and share what most excites us about Knowledge Management. Here's what I shared:

I am an eProductivity specialist - I show people how to use information, communication, and action tools to get things done. I've spent most of my career working on helping people apply tools and methodologies to become more productive, efficient and effective at what they do.

I believe the next great opportunity in individual and team performance and innovation is in the area of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM): how we use what we know and what others know to get things done.  

I believe that PKM skills can help people bring about the greatest transformation in individual and organizational productivity and innovation. It is this aspect/opportunity of KM that excites me the most.

Continue Reading "What most excites me about Knowledge Management" »

Over on the GTD Times blog, Patrick asks how to manage GTD system across multiple machines. Peter Simoons says that eProductivity is the answer.

That's not quite true.

While Peter is a big fan of eProductivity and I appreciate the unsolicited promotion, the real credit goes to Lotus Notes and its ability to replicate information across Windows/Mac/Linux computers seamlessly.

I've just posted a comment that explains how David Allen uses Lotus Notes to create a single trusted system across all of his computers and mobile devices.

Read: Managing GTD systems on two machines and  David's Lotusphere greeting

Update: Apparently my comment son GTD Times have not been approved yet, so here's what I posted:

Patrick,

As David Allen’s technologist for 15 years, I can share that David uses Lotus Notes, from IBM, to solve this challenge and it works very well. with Lotus Notes, he can maintain his projects and actions in a single trusted system that replicates across ALL of his computers, including his Mac, PC, and mobile devices (e.g. Treo).

If David wants to work on his PC, he can pick up his ThinkPad and everything will be there. If he wants to play with his shiny new Mac Air, he can pick that up and all of his information will be there. And, if he’s on the run, he takes his Treo with him and his stuff is there.

In short, he simply picks up whichever tool he prefers and gets things done.

Lotus Notes makes it seamless.

In addition to Lotus Notes, David also uses and recommends eProductivity (http://www.eProductivity.com), an optional tool that makes GTD in Lotus Notes easy. You can start with basic Lotus Notes and follow the GTD Implementation guide to create a very nice system.

Eric Mack
eProductivity Specialist
http://www.eProductivity.com

Not that this ever happens in our home but the neat thing about homeschool discipline is that you can tell your child that if she continues to disrupt the class she will have to leave the room and will miss home school for the rest of the day.

No one wants to miss out on homeschool.

Works like a charm.

Sander Zwart is blogging about his experience implementing GTD in Lotus Notes.

It's exciting to read emails and blogs from people around the world that are finding ways to increase their personal productivity and effectiveness using IBM Lotus Notes.

In case you don't read Dutch, here's the English translation.

A simply awesome event. I can hardly wait for the next one.

GTD Summit web site