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Goals? Where we’re going, we don’t need goals.

Written on December 30, 2010 by Brent Ozar in Personal

Denis Gobo tagged me in his post about his 2010 goals, and challenged a few of us to gauge our success for 2010 too by revealing our yearly goals and how we did. I should have seen it coming, because he tagged me on this before.

I’m all over the Getting Things Done philosophy, which involves setting some 50,000 foot goals to keep your overall life on track – but my GTD 50,000 foot goals aren’t “goals” in the way we usually think of goals. They are:

Goal for 2011: Improve My Poker Face

Be very financially secure.
Be a fantastic partner for Erika.
Enjoy life while I can.
Be strong and healthy.
Be a good son and brother.
Be a good Catholic.

None of those can be crossed off, so to speak – I’m never done enjoying life or being very financially secure. These are big-picture guidelines, more of a compass direction than a map destination. Underneath each of those 50,000 foot goals, I’ve got a series of – wait for it – 40,000 foot goals, then 30k, and so on, getting more and more tactical.

I’m not so anal-retentive that all of my day-to-day tasks are mapped up all the way through the list. Because I know my 50k goals, it’s easy for me to know at a glance whether an incoming task maps up to the big picture, or whether it might not be something I should take on. Every couple of weeks, I go through my task list just to be safe (called a GTD review), and make sure nothing snuck in when I wasn’t really thinking straight. I re-prioritize things, decide to postpone things indefinitely, and so on.

My big picture (the 50k foot goals) are very static – they haven’t changed in years – but the lower you get in altitude, the more the landscape changes from month to month. Having a really solid grasp on the direction I want to go helps me be more flexible when new opportunities arise. If someone presents me with an opportunity or if I get a wacko idea, I do a quick gut check: does this match up to my 50k foot goals, and will it skew the amount of time I spend on each goal? For example, I often turn down new clients that need help RIGHT FREAKIN’ NOW because if I took it on, I would spend less time with Erika and I would enjoy life less.

Having said all that, let’s look at what I checked off under some of the big-picture goals this year.

My SQL MCM Rotation

Be Very Financially Secure

Life threw me a curveball when Quest asked if I’d like to pursue the Microsoft Certified Master of SQL Server program. This hadn’t been part of my life’s goals, but I said hell yes because it would make me more valuable. I busted my hump studying, so saying yes to this temporarily threw my goal system way out of whack. I sacrificed some of my other goals in order to make this happen.

After I passed, life threw me another curveball when Microsoft reworked the MCM. They decided to offer it to the public without the Microsoft-based training component, which meant that I could offer MCM training myself. I looked at this as a gold mine opportunity – if I moved fast, I could write MCM training materials and make a lot more money doing training. I had absolutely zero interest in leaving Quest initially, even after I got my MCM, but the MCM program changes meant I had to think fast. Leaving Quest was tough, and leaving the security of a full-time salary job was especially tough. If I hadn’t been working on this particular GTD goal for a few years, I wouldn’t have been able to give up the salary and health insurance.

Be a Fantastic Partner for Erika

I’ve committed to Erika that I’m only going to travel one week per month on average. I struggled to keep this in 2010, and I didn’t do as well as I’d have liked when I mixed consulting and conferences. In 2011, I’ve had to say no to some really attractive events like SQLRally because I just can’t be gone all the time, and I don’t make money at those events (or SQLSaturdays). If I have only one week away per month, and I have to decide between making money at a client or losing money at an event, I gotta take care of business. (See the first GTD goal.)

Erika’s wanted new furniture for a while, so we refurnished the whole house this year. The last bits and pieces, a pair of mirrored nightstands, arrive Friday 12/31.

I did other stuff but I’m not posting that here. Mostly involved a turkey baster, a clown suit, and a videocamera.

SQLCruise 2010 Leaving Miami

Enjoy Life While I Can

This one suffered a lot during my efforts to pass the MCM program and start consulting, but I managed to sneak a few boo-yahs in.

I never would have predicted that Tim Ford and I would have launched SQLCruise. It came out of nowhere – I was so sick and tired of Seattle in the winter (seriously, PASS, what the hell are you thinking?) and was desperate to go somewhere fun at the right time of year and talk SQL Server. This was one of my most fun weeks of the year.

I’ve always wanted to learn more about photography, and this year I finally broke down and bought an interchangeable-lens camera, a couple of books, and subscribed to photography magazines. I’m slowly upping my game here, and I really enjoy this as a hobby.

Be a Good Son and Brother

Watching Bears in Alaska

By chance, I found out Dad had always wanted to go to Alaska, so I surprised Dad & Caryl (my stepmom) with their first cruise – an Alaska one out of Seattle. We had a wonderful time, saw bears and eagles and whales, oh my.

I took Mom on her first cruise this year, a 5-day one out of Miami. She had a blast (just like I hoped she would), and in 2011 I’m taking her on another cruise for her birthday.

Again this year, I made a point of telling my parents in person how much I love them, and how thankful I am for how they raised me. I’ve learned that I need to do that every single year because I learn something new every year. This year, I found out my mom feels guilty for spanking me. No, Mom, that was not a bad thing, and yes, I deserved it, and it make me a better grown-up. (I’m a big believer in spanking, although it’s easy for me to say in public because I don’t have any kids. Your kids, though, they need a swift slap across the bottom. Especially you, the lady in Oysy the other night. For crying out loud, if you can’t control your damn kids, take them to Chuck E Cheese, not a sushi restaurant. You’re not doing any of us any favors, including your kids.)

I sucked as a brother this year. My sister and her husband are hilarious, and I gotta hang out more with them.

Summary

Looking up at this list, almost none of it was predictable on 1/1/2010. I’ve done annual goals in the past and been nothing but disappointed because life changed my plans along the way. Life kept throwing me curveballs, but because of my GTD 50k foot goals, I was able to knock some of ‘em out of the park.

I do have some things at the top of my to-do list at the moment that I’ll share, though:

Build more training material – I’m taking my game up a notch and writing sessions that really make me proud. This maps up to my financial security goal.
Get a maid – Paul & Kim have a personal assistant, and seeing her in action, I was sold. I talked Erika into letting us get a cleaning service in for starters. This maps up to me being a better partner, plus enjoying life.
Improve my accounting – I’ve been using a web-based accounting package, and I’m switching to Quickbooks. I hate accounting, but as an entrepreneur, you gotta do what you gotta do. Also maps up to my financial security goal.
Start podcasting – I’m working on a new way to share my interests with you in an easier, more enjoyable way, and that maps up to me enjoying life and financial security. Stay tuned!

To learn more about GTD, check out how I use 50,000 foot goals.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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My Bucket List

Written on October 26, 2010 by Brent Ozar in Personal

Bob Pusateri (Blog – @SQLBob) just posted his Bucket List – the list of things he wants to do before he kicks the bucket. Aaron Bertrand followed up with his. If you haven’t seen the movie The Bucket List starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, I’d highly recommend it. Immediately after seeing that movie, I started assembling my own bucket list, and I’ve been gradually crossing off items ever since.

Here’s the uncompleted items on my bucket list:

Take a road racing class – I’ve always been fascinated by race cars. Ironically, I drive really slowly on public roads, rarely getting a speeding ticket, but I still love going fast. I want to take a multi-day course by Skip Barber or Bob Bondurant.

Crossing the Chicago Mac Sailboat Race off my bucket list

Drive a Porsche 911 on a twisty road – I don’t really wanna own a 911 because the maintenance costs are crazy, I’d rarely use the performance, and downtown Chicago parking is expensive. Another parking spot would cost me $300-$400 per month. I’d like to just have a great driving experience with a 911, though, and only after taking the road racing class.

Visit Tokyo – I’ve traveled the world and seen almost every city I’ve ever wanted to see, but Tokyo still calls to me. I like the density, the strange cultural differences, and everything else I’ve learned about Tokyo.

Take everyone in our family on a cruise – not all at once, but individually. I’ve taken Mom, Dad, and Caryl (my stepmom) so far. Next up – my sister & crew (her husband, their son), then it’s over to Erika’s side of the family.

Have the #1 highest rated session at a conference – I’m not competitive. It’s not about being better than anybody else – it’s just about being as good as I can possibly be. I made the Best of the 2009 PASS Summit list with my high availability & disaster recovery session at #8, but something in me really wants to be el numero uno.

Retire while I’m young enough to enjoy it – after all, that’s what this is all about, right? I don’t want to work until I’m dead. I love what I do – and I mean, I really, really love it – but I could stay busy for the rest of my life doing things that aren’t on this list (but *are* on my GTD list). I’d like to learn more about architecture, engineering, wine, writing, snorkeling, photography, and boats. I don’t want to change the world, but I want to appreciate more of the wonderful, amazing things happening around me every day.

If you haven’t built a bucket list, go rent the movie, and start making your list. Work can wait. It’ll be there when you get back.

Brent Ozar

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GTD: Why Things Have Been Quiet Around Here

Written on August 13, 2010 by Brent Ozar in SQL Server, Writing and Presenting

A few months ago, I had The Idea. I wanted to conduct SQL Server training on a cruise ship. I emailed a few buddies and offered to start a company called SQLCruise with them, and out of three friends, only one could say yes. I don’t have anything against the two who said no. I knew exactly how they felt – one of them came to me a few months earlier, had a killer idea for a company, and I had to say no because I didn’t have the time myself. I said no to all kinds of things lately, including writing blog entries, because with the job change, I just didn’t have the time for the last several weeks.

But what does “having the time” really mean? We’re all overworked – how can anybody have the time for anything new?

I use a system that means at any given moment, I am completely comfortable that I am doing exactly the right thing for that moment. It also means that anything I’m NOT doing can be safely ignored. It just doesn’t matter, because it’s not #1 right now, and I can only do one thing right now.

The Other Good Book

David Allen’s task management philosophy is detailed in his book, Getting Things Done. It’s a deceivingly simple set of guidelines that, if followed, will let you feel completely at peace with your task choices. I hate bullshit self-improvement books. I don’t listen to hypnotism tapes. I don’t attend cheerleading seminars. But GTD – I just can’t imagine being successful without it in my life.

Right now, as I read this, I’m sitting on an airplane, blogging, and I know its exactly the right thing for me to do. I’m disconnected from the web, so I pulled up my Disconnected-Work task list and started chugging through tasks. I reviewed a client’s performance data, wrote a blog post about my experience running SQLCruise, and then started this here post about priorities and choices. When I land and get to a hotel with Internet access, I’ll switch contexts and hit my Connected-Work task list.

At around 5PM, when I’m not on the road, i leave my home office and my tasks behind. I walk Ernie (our dog), get the house ready for Erika’s return from work, and leave the workday problems behind. I’ll still check email from my ozone when we’re not doing anything, and I’ll respond to quick questions, but I won’t do work.

And I won’t care.

I won’t stress out about things I have coming tomorrow, won’t get worried about what a client’s server is doing, won’t work late trying to “get ahead” – because there’s no such thing. As a knowledge worker, I’m going to be behind for the rest of my life. The better I am at accomplishing stuff, the more work people will give me. At 5PM, I have to change contexts because I won’t ever be caught up in my home life either. There’s always more things I should be doing at home, or just flat out relaxing. I don’t want to feel guilty while I’m just hanging out with Erika, watching Project Runway or taking the dog to the park. There’s nothing wrong with these lazy habits.

Relaxing keeps you fresh. Relaxing means you have spare capacity – and if you suddenly need to sprint to accomplish something important, you can work harder for a while to take advantage of opportunities.

When opportunities (or more often, assignments) come up, I make two decisions. I put them in a context (a to-do list organized by where I’ll do the task, like at work, at home, out shopping, at budget time, etc) and assign them a priority. My priorities are High, Medium, or none, and I only put something in High or Medium if I think I’ll accomplish it within the next 1-3 weeks. If I won’t finish it that fast, then I’m not going to bother picking an exact order. Instead, I go back into my task list every Friday to see which tasks need to be deleted or reassigned to someone else. Some tasks just never get done, and eventually get deleted when they’re no longer relevant.

While Tim and I were organizing SQLCruise, I had a task list with a SQLCruise context. I worked on those tasks between waking up and going to work, and then during my lunch hour. In a perfect world, I would have accomplished every task on the list before we set sail, but this isn’t a perfect world. (I got paid to take a cruise, so it’s close to a perfect world, though.). Here’s what my task list looked like after the cruise:

To Doos

Even today, there’s still plenty of work that would have improved the quality of the cruise for the attendees, the sponsors, or myself. I just couldn’t do it in time – and that’s okay. I’m at peace with that. (Thankfully, some of them even took care of themselves – the Hilton Garden Inn found my laundry and shipped it to me, and we got class photos on formal night.) The only way I could have pulled off every task was to let work intrude into my time with Erika & Ernie, to work less, or to sleep less. I already let my work intrude into Erika’s time during the lead-up to the cruise, and my relationship with Erika suffered. If I’d have worked any more, I probably would have lost her! As a knowledge worker, I have to be comfortable with letting tasks go undone – or losing touch with the people I love.

Getting Things Done in Key West

Contexts and priorities are important because they let you wall off portions of your life. When you get the opportunity to do something cool, you have to know where it ranks in relation to everything else you’ve already said yes to, including your family. I know that at 5:30PM, there is nothing more important than me greeting Erika at the door and giving her my undivided attention to find out how her day went.

Inside a context, when I say yes to something and prioritize it, I need to know that it’s the most important thing I can be doing at that moment in time. That’s where GTD’s bigger philosophies like 50,000 foot lists come into play. For more about how it works, check out David Allen’s book Getting Things Done.

That’s why some of my close friends said no to SQLCruise – they had already made big-picture choices and commitments to balance their work and life. I could never be upset with people who say no to things – I applaud that word no, and it’s the key to keeping yourself and your loved ones happy. I told my blog no for a while, and I’m looking forward to ramping back up.

Brent Ozar

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How I Use GTD 50,000 Foot Goals

Written on November 30, 2009 by Brent Ozar in Personal

David Allen’s productivity book, Getting Things Done, has made me a better person.

Getting Things Done

After using its methods for years, I’m even more convinced it can help anybody in IT. Today, I’m going to explain how I worked before GTD, and how I work with it now.

How I Handled Tasks Before GTD

Years ago, I tracked my to-do list in a text file. I broke the file up into two sections, Work and Home. My Work section looked something like this:

ASAP:
 - Make nightly sales import job faster
 - Help Sharepoint team install new SQL cluster

ASAP Done:
 + Fix the backups on SQLPROD1

Other:
 - Call Microsoft to schedule data warehouse health check
 - Test email notification setups on all servers
 - Find out why SQL users can't log in when any DC reboots
 - Move remaining applications off SQL 2000

Other Done:
 + Install maintenance scripts on new 3rd party vendor server
 + Retrofit IBM x346s with remote administration card
 + Inventory RSA IP addresses

Everything I did was tactical – it was all about putting out fires. I arranged tasks in order of priority, with the first tasks being the most urgent. When someone walked into my cube with a new task, I would open my text file and say, “Where does this new task fit in with my priorities?” We would agree upon a position, and I’d add their task to my list.

I used this same approach with all incoming tasks – whether email, phone calls, or in person. Sometimes I’d send my actual text file, and sometimes I’d just walk them through it verbally over the phone. Upon seeing my task list, more often than not their eyes would bug out and they’d shake their heads. “Sorry – I need it fast, but it looks like you’re pretty busy. I’ll go bother someone else,” they’d say. That worked really well for me!

As I completed tasks, I changed the minus sign to a plus and moved it to the top of the “Done” section. Every now and then, when my manager asked what I’d been up to lately, I could whip out my trusty text file and copy/paste the appropriate sections into an email.

While that helped keep unimportant new tasks out of my way, it didn’t stop me from spending my time firefighting. My tasks were determined by what other people wanted from me. There’s nothing wrong with pleasing your customers, but – well, actually, there is something wrong with it. It’s the cliched movie character who focuses on making everybody else happy, yet never stops to take care of themselves.

GTD and the Big Picture

Unlike productivity methods like Franklin Covey that revolve around your ability to shell out big bucks for paper day planners, GTD is system-agnostic. If you’d like to track your GTD tasks with a text file, and if it works for you, that’s totally fine. There’s a bunch of ways you can accomplish GTD.

GTD wants you to get from Point A to Point B. It doesn’t dwell on whether you drive a Maserati, take a bus, or hoof it. Instead, it just focuses you on Point B.

GTD separates the means from the end, because you’ve probably lost focus on the end already. GTD asks you to build a set of 50,000 foot goals for yourself – things that you ultimately want to accomplish before you die. Preferably, long then. The best way to illustrate it is to share my own 50k goals, which aren’t in any particular order because they’re all equally important:

Be very financially secure.
Be a fantastic partner for Erika.
Enjoy life while I can.
Be strong and healthy.
Be a good son and brother.
Be a good Catholic.

The more ambitious GTD practitioners create a set of 40,000 foot goals that map up to the 50k ones, and then a set of 30k foot goals. For example, under my “Be very financially secure” goal, my 40k foot goals are:

Increase my income. These are tasks that, when performed, result in money in my bank account shortly thereafter. 30k goals under here might include taking on side consulting work, but during the day, being a good employee matters here. I have to make my managers and internal customers happy if I want to get a raise. If I was really anal, I could map out a set of 20k goals like keeping my manager updated, staying abreast of the company’s overall goals, and so forth, but I’m not quite that serious about GTD (yet).
Increase my marketability. These are tasks that might not pay off tomorrow, but they have a high likelihood of putting me in a good position down the road. Blogging falls into this category, as does helping other people.
Reduce my expenses. Budgeting, rereading Dave Ramsey’s books, avoiding gadget purchases, and improving my credit rating all come into play here.
Improve my financial position. Tasks here might include increasing my savings, being properly insured, and meeting with a financial advisor.

That’s just the financial one. It might seem common-sense, but here’s where it gets interesting.

When I get a new idea or an assigned task, I line it up to one (or more) of these goals. If something doesn’t line up with these goals, it doesn’t get into my task list. If something conflicts with these goals, it doesn’t get into my task list. The rejected tasks are either delegated to someone else or politely refused.

That’s the theory, anyway.

Periodically Revisiting Goals and Tasks

In practice, I get distracted by bright shiny things. Some sexy new technology comes out, or I think somebody’s got a brilliant idea, or I don’t want to let somebody down, and next thing you know it I’ve got a couple of bad tasks in my list. I don’t realize it right away because I’m so enchanted with the idea itself, and I’m perfectly content to let it sit in the list.

I confuse “I can” with “I should.”

David Allen instructs GTD practitioners to periodically revisit their 50k goals and their task list to make sure everything lines up. I do this once per quarter on a long plane flight, and sure enough, I come up with things that have weaseled into my task list despite my best intentions. For example, this quarter I built a Twitter bot account to randomly spout off random jokes every couple of hours just because it was an interesting technical exercise. I don’t pull my hair out and wail about the time I put into it, but it’s just an example of how I got sidetracked by something fun. All work and no play does make Brent a dull guy, but it’s not like I don’t have enough fun stuff planned in the pipeline.

I use a hybrid of systems to manage my GTD goals and tasks. I track my 50k and 40k goals in a text file, and I keep my day-to-day tactical to-dos in RememberTheMilk.com. RememberTheMilk’s Pro level ($25/year) has a slick iPhone app that syncs over the air, and it works when disconnected too, like on planes. I can review my tasks on the plane, make changes to them, and RTM automatically syncs them when I’m back on the ground.

To do my quarterly review, I pull up my 50k/40k text file and save it with a new name for the new quarter, like GTD2009Q4.txt. I review these big-picture goals and make very small tweaks where necessary. After a few quarters, I’m surprised that these still adapt and evolve over time as I learn more about myself and what I want from life. After updating my goals, I leave those up on the screen and get out the iPhone. I scan through my tasks in RememberTheMilk and make sure they each line up to one of my 50k/40k goals, and that they’re in the right priority order.

I only prioritize things that I think I’m going to accomplish in the next couple of weeks. Generally I find that I get enough incoming fires to keep me pretty busy, and I don’t need to prioritize more than a dozen or so tasks at a time. The rest just stay in a murky pool at the bottom – I’ll get to ‘em when I’ll get to ‘em.

The Result: Peaceful Focus and Productivity

When I step off the plane, I know where I’m going – and I don’t mean baggage claim. I know what I need to do, and I’m perfectly comfortable with the volume of tasks. I know I can only accomplish a limited amount of things in the time I have each day, and I believe I’ve made the best choices possible given my long-term priorities.

GTD helps me to do a better job of saying no. I’m acutely aware of the opportunity cost of taking on new tasks, and I know what’s most important to me. For example, I can’t take on more work if it means spending less time with the ones I love, or if it causes me to sacrifice my health. Because I’m freshly aware of my big-picture goals, it’s that much easier for me to explain to myself why I wouldn’t take on a particular task.

GTD helps me to do a better job of saying yes, too. When something is truly important and lines up with my priorities, I’m more able to push things around in order to accomplish it. When someone comes up with an emergency task, I can do a much better job of being the guy to fix it, because I know exactly what I have to push aside in order to do it. For example, I can more easily say, “I’ll help you fix this, but I need you to get Sam to handle these three tasks for me right now.” When managers see someone so on top of their priority lists and make great tradeoff decisions, they’re more likely to give you the backup you need. If you just say, “But boss, I don’t want to work late again!” they’re more likely to tell you to suck it up.

I don’t think I’m a better employee due to Getting Things Done, but overall, I’m a much better person.

I’m certainly not done with my 50k tasks – I have one hell of a lot of work to do. However, every time I do a quarterly review, I’m pleasantly happy with any progress I’ve made. After all, before GTD, I didn’t even SEE those 50k goals!

Brent Ozar

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Just Say No

Written on October 1, 2009 by Brent Ozar in Personal

In the 1980s, Nancy Reagan attempted to solve our nation’s drug problem by encouraging kids to “Just Say No” if they were offered drugs.

The Moment We Won the War on Drugs

According to my research performed while watching popular television shows like Burn Notice, CSI:Miami, Law & Order, and Spongebob Squarepants, it appears that people are still saying yes to drugs.

However, I’ve had more success managing my own personal task list with Nancy’s timeless catchphrase. A friend of mine was asking me how I found the time to do so many things, and I answered, “I just say no.” I started rattling off the things I’ve said no to – just this week alone – and I realized it’d make an interesting blog post.

In one week, I’ve said no to:

Other departments at Quest – in a company of over 3,000 employees, there’s always somebody who needs SQL Server help.
Mentoring more people – I get a huge feeling of satisfaction by helping people grow their careers, and I’d love to help everybody, but at some point I’ve gotta draw a line and work on my own career.
Writing book chapters – a friend’s writing a book, and I’d love to help by contributing material.
Consulting clients – every now and then, somebody asks me to help their company optimize their SQL Server infrastructure. I love helping, especially when I’m getting paid for it, but all work and no play makes Brent a dull guy.
Traveling to see family – in theory, I could fly to Mom or Grandma & Grandpa’s place, stay with them for a week, work on my laptop during the day, and spend quality time with them after work. In reality, it doesn’t work out well. I get too distracted, so I have to schedule this only when I’ve got a bare minimum of stuff going on.
Helping foreign language bloggers – we’ve had requests from foreign-language bloggers who want to syndicate at SQLServerPedia, but they need an English-speaking editor to clean up their stuff. Coordinating those efforts takes time.
Blogging for SQL University – Jorge Segarra’s SQL University series is a brilliant idea, and I’d love to contribute posts and info.
Writing PASS Quiz Bowl questions – I was asked to write virtualization questions for the Quiz Bowl event. I passed this off to the PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter members.
Speaking at events – I’m on the road for 5 of the next 8 weeks. In order to be a good partner for Erika, I have to be here at least half of the time. (At least!)
Getting Microsoft certifications – if I’m going to make a run for the MCM, I have to pass the prerequisite tests, and I have to study for those. I definitely wanna do it.
Side ventures – I’ve got a dozen ideas for things I want to build, like the Pheathr thing I’ve had half-baked for months now.
Podcasting – I’m supposed to be cranking out 2 podcasts a week at SQLServerPedia, and I’ve got no shortage of topic ideas. Just a shortage of time.

The longer your career plays out, the more people will ask you for help. You can either say yes and get frustrated because there’s not enough time, or learn to say no. The key to knowing when to say yes and when to say no is having a perfectly organized task list.

How I Organize My Tasks

I use RememberTheMilk.com because it’s web-based, plus accessible over my iPhone. I divide my tasks into groups, which show up as different tabs in RTM. (The task list goes on WAY longer than this screenshot, trust me.)

My Remember the Milk Task List

When I first started using RTM, I just had task groups for Work, Personal, and Blog, but I’ve since really expanded ‘em out:

Blog – topics I want to blog about. I could start draft entries in WordPress for these, but I’ve got several dozen entries in here, and I like to keep WordPress clean.
Book – writing & editing work for my books.
Budget – long-term things I want to buy.
Dream Home – not tasks, but RTM is so gosh-darned efficient that I use it to keep notes on things. I mentioned my Dream Home task list in my blog post about What I Want vs What I Can Afford.
Indie Label – tasks for my side consulting company clients.
PASS VVC – the PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter.
Personal – things I need to do for Erika, my family, or my friends.
Quest Development – I work in the marketing department, but when folks in other departments like dev ask me to do stuff, it goes into here.
Quest Marketing – my 8am-5pm task list.
Quest SSP Ideas – long-term things I’d like to add to SQLServerPedia.
Recurring – tasks that RTM automatically regenerates. For example, I owe my boss a status report every Monday morning, but I don’t want that to clutter up my to-do list, because I only do it on a specific day. Another example – get a haircut. I never go into my Recurring list to see what I need to do, because RTM just sends me reminders when these tasks are due.
Shopping – stuff I need to pick up when I’m out and around. Whenever I find myself out shopping, I double-check this list to see if there’s anything else I need to grab at that same store.
Training – things I’d like to learn. I try to dedicate a set amount of time per month to keeping my skills up-to-date.
Wines – like the Dream Home group, this isn’t really a to-do list. Although it kind of is – I must drink more of these tasty beverages. I’m horrible at remembering wine vintages that I liked, so whenever I’m at a restaurant I can add to or check this list.

I can grant other people (like my boss) access to specific groups, like Quest Development or Quest Marketing, without them seeing all of my personal tasks. That way, when we’re working together to prioritize my work, we can both see the same list of tasks.

I can’t say enough good things about RememberTheMilk.com and the Getting Things Done productivity philosophy. The book is subtitled “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”, and it really delivers what it says on the label.

Managing Incoming Work Requests

When someone asks me to do something, I ask what the deadline is. I use that deadline to decide right away whether I’ll be able to deliver the task on time, keeping in mind the other stuff that’s already in my RTM task list.

If the task doesn’t have a deadline, then I make it clear to the requester that they’re in the list, and they can contact me anytime to request an update on what’s ahead of them in priorities. However, the onus is on them – not me – to manage the task deadline. If the task suddenly becomes urgent, they don’t get a shortcut to the top of my task list just because the task suddenly has a new deadline. They still have to compete with everything else.

If the task has a deadline I can’t meet, then I say no. Nothing personal – I just point to the list of tasks I have to do. Since every single one of my to-dos is documented in RTM, I can instantly say, “I’d love to do ____, but unfortunately I’ve got ___, ____, and ___ on my plate already, and those will keep me busy past your deadline.” If the requester demands a higher priority – and it happens all the time – I export the list of higher-priority tasks from RTM, email it to them and my manager, and ask for them to work together to sort out the priorities. I truly don’t care what I work on first – I’ll be busy until the day I retire – so I just want to do what my manager needs first.

If the task has a deadline and I believe I can meet it, then I take ownership of the status updates. I agree to meet the deadline, and I give them regular updates on whether I’m meeting that goal.

This simple process lets me deliver on time – but it also means breaking a lot of hearts by saying no.

You can either break hearts at the beginning by saying no, or break hearts later by not making your deadlines. People will only forgive you for one of those two options.

Brent Ozar

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How to Telecommute: Getting Things Done

Written on May 13, 2009 by Brent Ozar in Computers

No matter what your job description says, you are being paid to get things done.

Getting Things Done

Being a successful salaried information worker is different than it was a few years ago. Constant connectivity, home offices and global workforces change everything.

You are never – NEVER – going to be “caught up.”

You are always going to have more work to do. No matter how many things you accomplish today, there will be more things that other people will want you to accomplish. If you ever get to the point where no one has any work for you to do, you’ll have things that you personally want to accomplish to further your career.

Telecommuting makes the situation even worse: if you’re doing it right, your home office is an inviting place where you love the work you’re doing. Who would want to stop to take a break, especially if the alternative is just sitting in the living room watching mindless TV? Telecommuting can turn into a neverending work day.

Making telecommuting work requires two things.

First: Doing the Right Thing at the Right Time

We’ve established that you’re always going to be behind. (Slacker.) Because the pressure’s never going to let up for the rest of your career, you need to be completely comfortable with your manager getting up in your grill, yelling, “What are you working on right now? How come you’re not working on ____?”

To answer that question, you have to have an easily accessible and totally bulletproof list of tasks, organized in order. When my boss, Christian, asks me this question (and he does, regularly) I can open up my task list on RememberTheMilk.com and tell him the top three things in my priority list. At that point, we can have an intelligent discussion based on the priorities of those tasks without me stuttering through things like, “Uh, I think somebody asked me for something, but I can’t remember what it was…”

The book Getting Things Done by David Allen explains how to build this task list, how to organize it, and why your email inbox is not a substitute for a task list. If that book feels a little too executive-ish for you, check out Time Management for Systems Administrators by Thomas Limoncelli. It’s got the same concepts, but tailored specifically for IT workers.

Wait: This Sounds Like Motivational Crap

Productivity books are a dime a dozen, and they’re worth even less than that. The difference with GTD is hidden in the subtitle: “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.” I’ve tried other productivity tools, and they’re too focused on productivity and not focused enough on the whole reason we want to get things done. I want to be productive so I can stop working and relax. I want to be coolly comfortable with what I’m doing, not racing through it like a headless chicken, and that’s what GTD helps you achieve.

For office workers, this task list zen is somewhat optional: you can survive as a DBA without it. For telecommuters, though, it’s mandatory. Otherwise, your manager will keep cracking the whip over and over because there’s always another urgent project coming down the pike, and they’re going to need you to work another few hours. When you’re in the office, they can visually see when you’re working too long and you’re getting burned out. When you’re working from home, they have no idea that you haven’t taken a shower in days, that you’re duct taping your eyelids open and that your family hasn’t seen you for a week.

Second: Know When Time Is Up

You know how your company says they’re one big happy family, and they love you like a brother/son/daughter/mistress, and that they’re always looking out for your best interests? I’ve got bad news: that’s a boilerplate letter that they copy/paste out of the Human Resources textbooks. What, did you really think they’d say, “We don’t give a rat’s behind about you or your family” – of course not.

I’m not saying they’re lying – they might actually care – but I’m suggesting that you shouldn’t rely on them to tell you when you’re working too hard or starting to burn out.

I’m also not saying that you should become a clock watcher, patiently waiting for the 5pm dinner bell to close down the laptop and pop open the beer. I’m suggesting that you keep track of roughly how many hours you spend:

Working on projects
Working on hobbies (when you’re an IT geek, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between these two)
Keeping your skills up to date
Doing the kinds of goof-off things you would have done in the office

Working on my Hobby in my Office

Be comfortable with your time mix, and don’t hesitate to tell your boss, “No.” Balance the need to be the best employee with your need to have a real life outside of work. When your manager wants to throw more work on your plate, you have to be able to bring the conversation back to your bulletproof task list and your weekly status recap, then say the magic words:

“Which of these tasks do you want me to delay in order to do this new one?”

This is not a fun question to ask, and it doesn’t get easier over time – I had to do it just this week. But it’s even less fun to face ugly questions from your spouse like, “Why haven’t we gone out to eat in a month? Why haven’t we seen a movie yet this year?” Managers (generally) understand this, too, and that’s why I usually mention Erika when I talk about my priorities, like this:

“This looks like a really cool project, and I’d love to do it. I can’t do it this weekend, though – Erika’s gonna shoot me though if I spend another weekend working, and I’m already trying to figure out when I’m going to prep for that MCITP test you want me to take in my spare time. Here’s my task list – which of these should I put off for a week or two?”

The only way you can do this with any credibility – without coming off like a whiner – is to have the task list and status recaps going out regularly.

This has a side benefit: when your boss is thinking about adding another employee, you can hand him your list of tasks and say, “Let’s highlight the ones that a second employee (like a junior DBA) would be able to take off my plate.” As somebody who’s justified additional staff many a time, I can tell you this is priceless. When you’re competing with other IT workers who also want more help, you look like a rock star when you can produce a list like this instantaneously, and it gives you more credibility. Managers will say, “This person is on top of their tasks, and they’ll be the most likely to take advantage of the additional staff help instead of the bumbling bozo who has to go hunting through his email wondering what he’s supposed to do next.”

This Works at Home, Too

I use this same GTD technique at home with Erika. I’ve got my personal task lists lined up with tons of things I want to do – planning vacations, fixing things around the house, which wines we want to try next, anything I want to do in my spare time. As a result, when I punch out on the telecommuter clock, I can take a deep breath, open my task list, and know that what I’m about to do is the most important thing right now.

Sounds like a workaholic, right? Just the opposite. When I look at my task list and know exactly what I need to do next, then I find that I feel completely at peace with kicking back, opening a bottle of wine and enjoying a book or TV with Erika. I know exactly what the opportunity cost is of avoiding my next to-do item, and I know whether or not it’s really urgent. I know when I can relax, and when I need to get cracking.

Telecommuting Series Wrapup

I hope you’ve enjoyed my series on how to get a telecommuting job and be successful at it. There’s a lot I didn’t cover, like:

How to set up a good home office
How to balance social networking with real working
How to tell from afar when your company or your team is in trouble

Telecommuting is harder than it looks. Done right, it’s a rewarding work/life balance. Done wrong, you’re going to get fired because they think you’re lazy. Choose wisely.

Brent Ozar

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GTD for my coworkers

Written on October 6, 2008 by Brent Ozar in Personal

Dear Coworker,

Hi. I work differently than other people you may have worked with. I wanna take a minute to bring you up to speed on how I do it, and what this might mean for you.

I use the Getting Things Done philosophy from David Allen, and here’s how I work.

When You Email or Call Me…

When I get an email, phone call or meeting from you, I figure out what specific actions you want me to perform. When it’s clear what I need to do, there are only 3 possibilities:

I’m going to do it in the next hour
I’m going to put it in RememberTheMilk.com as a to-do for sometime in the future
I’m going to bring in someone else who should do it instead of me

One of those three things will happen every time, and then I’m going to delete your email/voicemail/meeting request. My goal is to eliminate the clutter, and keep everything I need to do in a single place (RememberTheMilk.com). Email and voicemail inboxes make for really crappy to-do list management systems. Don’t freak out if you look over my shoulder and you see an empty email in-box – it’s not that I have nothing to do, and it’s not that people don’t want things from me. I’m an in-box ninja.

I’m 100% transparent, so if you want access to my to-do list on RememberTheMilk.com, just let me know and I’ll hook you up. At any time, you can look on my RTM to-do list to see what I’m currently working on, and where your request ranks in the list.

If You Want Me To Do It Faster…

If you disagree with my priorities, let’s talk, and I promise I’ll never take offense. I’m here to serve you because you’re my customer. I will never leave you disagreeing with my priorities: we will come to an agreement, and if we can’t, we’ll get my manager involved because I might be getting the priorities wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time!

I truly don’t care what I do first. I’m going to be busy for the rest of my life because when you’re good at what you do, people find out and they give you more stuff to do. I’m cool with that. At the same time, I need you to be cool with it too: I can’t work 60 hours a week to accomplish everything on my to-do list, because I can never possibly be done, no matter how hard I work.

If you believe that I need to work through the weekend to accomplish your goal, then we’ll get together and have a conversation with my manager. I’m totally okay with working the occasional weekend in order to knock out an ugly emergency, but when it happens, I want to make sure my manager’s aware so that he can start budgeting for another person to help me out. Plus, sometimes my manager knows about another resource that has time to do that particular task.

Before You Schedule A Meeting With Me…

If you want to schedule a meeting with me, stop for a second to consider if the meeting is about assigning an action. If it is, just drop me an email with the action that you need me to perform. My job is to service my customers. If you’re my manager, or if you’re “above” me in the company in any way, then it’s my job to do what you’re asking me to do, or find the right person to do it. I’m not a “yes” man by any means, but you don’t have to sell me on something you want me to do. Point me where you want me to go, and I’m on it. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

On the other hand, if you’re not my manager, and you’re scheduling a meeting with me to get me to do something, don’t be offended if I ask you to cut to the chase and just give me the action item instead. You’re still my customer, but keep in mind that my managers have my plate chock full. If you want something from me, I’m going to need to push something else out of the way, and a meeting isn’t going to “sell” me on pushing other things out of my to-do list in order to fulfill your request. Instead, just send me the request, and I’ll do one of the three things: just do it, put it in my to-do list for the future, or point you to the right person to fulfill that request.

GTD is about being at one with your to-do list. I’m really comfortable with it, but I find that it helps when my coworkers understand the basics of it too. I’ll never try to get you to convert to GTD, but if you know how I work, you’ll understand why I quickly divert some tasks to other people or why I’m so reticent to join meetings with no apparent deliverable.

The payoff is that I’ll be one of the most productive, responsive and timely people you’ll ever work with.

Brent Ozar

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New Kevin Kline video blog on efficiency & effectiveness

Written on August 12, 2008 by Brent Ozar in SQL Server

Kevin Kline posted a new video blog entry on efficiency & effectiveness. One of the things he talks about is limiting the number of things on your plate.

This is so important for DBAs because people are always running into our corner offices (okay, cubicles) and begging (okay, demanding) that we drop everything and focus on their problem. Everything’s always urgent, and everybody’s always important.

Kevin mentions a tactic I’ve used for years, and I’ve even already used a few times at Quest! Simply agree with the person – no matter how ludicrous their request – and say, “Absolutely, I’ll work on that right now. I need your help, though: I’ve got these other two things that I was supposed to finish ASAP. Which one of these things should I drop to focus on yours?”

Don’t say it in a cocky way, don’t be a jerk, and be serious. It’s possible that this new customer is making demands because the CEO is coming around the corner behind them (I’ve had that happen) and their request really is urgent. As a DBA, you work for everybody in the company, and we need everybody’s help to prioritize our work.

When the customer sees what you’re working on, they may stumble and realize that theirs isn’t urgent. Offer them two options: either help them find somebody else to do the work, or put it in your queue at a lower priority. If they choose the first option, your work is done, but if they choose the second option, you can’t let the ball drop.

The better you are, the more work people will give you, and the longer your queue gets. I use the GTD philosophy to manage this, and I use RememberTheMilk.com to handle the execution. Whenever anyone gives me something to do, it goes straight into RememberTheMilk with a priority. I will literally turn the screen around and show the customer my list of to-doos, and say, “Alright, where does yours fit in here?”

Again, don’t be a jerk when you say that. I really don’t care what I do first. I’m a good employee, and I’m going to be busy until the day I retire. I don’t choose tasks based on what I think is cool – I choose tasks based on what my customers want.

When they see the avalanche of to-doos, they’ll slow down with the urgency, and they’ll help make a better decision on what the real priority is. And even if they don’t, just agree at the time, put it into your task list, and then review your task list with your manager every week. If there’s a disagreement in priorities between your manager and the customer, don’t worry, because it’s not your problem. Simply arrange an email, meeting or call between the two, let them hammer it out, and let them come to an agreement. You will be AMAZED at how many managers love to play the bad cop to protect their employee priorities. (Not all of ‘em, but you would be surprised.) Plus, sometimes managers need to do this because they want to justify more staff, and by showing the customers there’s too much work, they can get more help in building a budget. You do want help, right?

Finally, once something is in your to-do list for a customer, you have to follow up. Every week, I review everything in my to-do list, and if somebody’s actively waiting on something, I’ll drop them an email to explain what’s ahead of them in the queue. Your goal is to email them before they email you, because then you’ll look proactive. It only takes a few minutes to go through your list and send a copy/paste email to each person, and CC your manager on each email.

Sound like a lot of work? Once you get into the hang of it, it’s not bad, and it makes your job – and your entire career – a lot easier. If it sounds interesting, check out GTD:

Brent Ozar

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RememberTheMilk.com + Jott.com = GTD on the go

Written on November 9, 2007 by Brent Ozar in Computers

I’ve been a longtime user of these two services, and now they’ve got complete integration.

www.Jott.com gives me a dial-in phone number. When I call that number from my cell phone, I can leave myself messages. Jott transcribes those messages and emails them to me as text. The email includes a link to the original audio recording in case they goofed up the transcription, which they rarely do, even though I have to yell messages into my iPhone over wind noise in the Jeep.

www.RememberTheMilk.com manages my tasks by giving me a simple, fast web-based to-do list accessible from anywhere. They’ve even got an iPhone-friendly user interface.

Here’s where the Jott/RTM integration comes in: now, I can call Jott and send messages directly to my RememberTheMilk inbox. Hooah! If I get any more productive, I’m going to be two people.

Brent Ozar

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Remember The Milk Review

Written on February 2, 2006 by Brent Ozar in Computers

Remember The Milk

Remember The Milk is the killer to-do list app, period. It’s a free web site to help you manage your to-do list. There’s tons of similar task management web apps out there, and here’s why this one is different:

I can set up multiple lists like work, personal, vacation planning, grocery list, etc. It sounds simple, but a lot of task management systems (like Outlook’s task list) don’t make it easy to slot your tasks into different lists. When I’m at work, I only want to look at my work tasks – not the list of chores I need to do at home.

I can share lists or individual tasks with other people. Erika can browse my home to-do list and add tasks. My coworkers can browse my work to-do list. But best, my coworkers can’t browse my home to-do list. These settings can be made at the list level or at the individual task level – so if I set up a task to get Erika a birthday present, I can hide that specific task from her, so she doesn’t see my list of ideas.

My coworkers can access my to-dos with all kinds of software. RememberTheMilk offers Atom RSS feeds and iCal feeds, so these guys don’t have to use RememberTheMilk directly in order to keep tabs with what’s going on with my database servers. They can just add a news feed to their existing RSS newsreaders, or use an Outlook plugin to get the iCal feed.

I can assign tags (aka labels) to my tasks. For example, I might have several tasks that require spending money, and I can tag all of them with the label “budget”. When I want to see all of the upcoming things requiring my not-so-hard-earned moolah, I can quickly search for the “budget” tag and see all matching tasks, regardless of which list they’re in.

I can set up smart lists of tasks. With the above example, I can set up a Smart List with all tasks with the budget tag, and it’s like my own custom report.

I can email myself tasks from my cell phone. I always come up with good (okay, mostly bad) ideas when I’m standing in lines, walking the dog, or going through the grocery store. I can whip out my cell phone, send a text message to my RememberTheMilk email address, and presto, it instantly adds the task to my to-do list. I can even set the priorities, deadlines, reminders, and more all inside the email if I want to get fancy.

I can get reminders anywhere, anytime, when it works for me. Remember The Milk will send reminders via email, instant messaging, and SMS. I can set what time of the day I want my daily reminders, and how many hours in advance I want reminders for tasks with specific due times.

RememberTheMilk is a great example of how software developers should keep an eye on good features in new web applications and software programs, and then figure out how to implement those features in their own applications. No matter what industry a programmer works in, there’s always great features coming out in other seemingly unrelated pieces of software.

The authors of RememberTheMilk drew inspiration from all kinds of other programs: tagging from Delicious, smart lists from iTunes, usability & fast response from Gmail, social bookmarking from – well, that’s from Delicious too, actually. But my point is that a good developer should always try to stay in touch with the cutting edge of software features.

Tagging, social sharing, smart lists, pervasive access – all of these will be a commonly expected feature in software packages by the end of the decade. Everybody’s software will have to have it sooner or later. Software developers that get this stuff out sooner will have a competitive advantage and gain market share. Software developers that don’t, and add it years later as an afterthought, will lose market share in the meantime. The recent release of IE7 will prove this one out, because Firefox and Flock will continue to gain market share as a result of their slick features like tagging and social integration.

Brent Ozar

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