Recently, a coaching client asked me for some recommendations for paper-based resources that would help him implement "Getting Things Done."
I coach executives and professionals who use a variety of systems and tools. No matter how elaborate your systems, I find it's always helpful to have at least a few physical tools: solid reminders of ideas and tasks can be extremely helpful. Plus, the physical act of writing can help your memory and creative thinking.
In light of this, I recommended that he consider the following for his personal GTD system, all of which I've found helpful:
- Notetaker Wallet: This lets me quickly and conveniently capture ideas anywhere. It's important to have this capability, whether you use the wallet or something else
Disclaimer: I don't benefit from the sales of these products: these links are provided solely as helpful resources for your consideration.
Disney recently outsourced an IT department with 250 positions to overseas workers—but first, they required the people who would lose their jobs to train their replacements. Amazing.
For now, I'll leave the ethical and economic discussions to someone else. What I want you to take away from this, Computer Science student, is this question: how are you equipping yourself to create value in the workplace?
Students, this is not meant to discourage you, but to make you aware of the changing landscape in the IT field. Highly motivated people like you, some studying twice as hard as you, many willing to work for much less than you, are looking forward to the opportunity to eat your lunch.
What are you going to do about it?
Any position that can be reduced to a commodity-level responsibility is likely to change dramatically by the time you graduate with your degree. Offshoring used to be limited to labor-intensive jobs, but now (thanks to technology) it's expanding to "thinking" jobs as well. These are the jobs you're preparing for.
So, how should you respond?
Learn to create value and solve problems. Be extraordinary. Whenever management makes the decision to keep or let go of personnel, they always consider the value that person brings to the organization. Since people with Computer Science degrees are plentiful, it's going to take more than just a diploma and a high GPA to succeed. It's all about working for your employer, customer, or client to create value that goes beyond your job description.
How will you prepare yourself to think critically, create value, and solve problems?
I was scanning the job board of a client that I serve and found this embedded in the description for an employment position:
I would expect this in a job listing for a juggler at a circus, not for a desk job. This is a position for a knowledge worker—someone who "thinks" for a living.
Thinking to create value requires concentration. Concentration requires focus. Both require minimizing distraction both from internal sources (e.g. multitasking) and external (interruptions, distractions). That's just how the mind works most effectively.
In my personal knowledge and information management (PKIM) seminars and workshops, I teach that focus is what you shut in and concentration is what you shut out. These are essentials skills and powerful tools for any worker.
So why would you set up a work environment that makes these things
more difficult?
I realize that the HR person who wrote (and misspelled) that description was probably only trying to cover themselves, but I see this all too often. It still makes me wonder: when will leadership and management get the fact that it takes concentration to create value?
