When a colleague asked me how I did my planning, I showed her my ToDo list. She promptly dismissed this with “Oh just a ToDo List” and walked away. Perhaps I should have taken more time to inform her how I had arrived at this list.

Arriving at a Prioritised To Do list is the end of a process. It starts with identifying what your values are. Based on these values, you need to decide what long-term goals align with your values. Only after you have done this are you are ready for the daily planning routine. Your To Do list has to reflect your goals and your values. Without the effort to identify your values and goals, you will achieve a suboptimal result rather like trying to throw a spear without a shaft.

You need to set aside a time every day to create the ToDo list for the next day. Perhaps on the train or bus home after work with you noise canceling headphones on.

1. First, list everything you would like to achieve the next day regardless of importance.
2. Next place the following alphabet next to each task in the list:
   • A, must be completed
   • B, should be completed
   • C, optional to complete

3. Now go back to A and assign a number next to each A with 1 being the most important e.g. A1, A2, A3 etc., Do this for B and C as well

Arrows and Dots: On Day 2, start by executing the A list in order of priority, then the B one. At the end of the day, during your scheduled planning session:

1. Place an arrow next to incomplete tasks and move them to the next day (Day 3 in this case)
2. Place a dot next to tasks partially completed and move them to the next day.
3. Start the list again.

My sister first introduced me to the #Franklin Planner by giving me the leather folder and inserts for Christmas. Fortunately for me, I took the time to investigate further and came across “10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management” by Hyrum W. Smith as mentioned in a previous blog. Years later, when on a trip to the US, I told my sister how important her gift had been to me. She put a finger to her lips and said, “Ssh, it’s the Secret to Success.”

The paper planner first gave way to an electronic one on the #Palm IIIc, then on the #Blackberry and now, in its latest avatar, to the iPAD. Though the media has changed, the planning process I follow remains the same as it was all those years ago.

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My neighbour once remarked, over our common fence while we were both gardening, that many employees in the corporate world behaved like sociopaths. Now this neighbour is a Psychologist at a local hospital so he may know what he is talking about. My understanding from the internet is as follows: “A sociopath typically has a conscience, but it’s weak. He may know that taking your money is wrong, and he might feel some guilt or remorse, but that won’t stop his behaviour.”

If upon reflection you feel that you may be heading in this direction perhaps its time to find out what your values are and if you have any at allEarly in my career, I was fortunate to come across “10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management” by Hyrum W. Smith. This methodology is strongly influenced by Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding Fathers of the USA. In essence when you align your daily practices to your values you will experience inner peace. What are the highest priorities in your life? Which of those do you value the most? Every person’s answers are different because our core values are individual. There is no perfectly ordered list everyone can follow.

The first step is to either buy or borrow the aforementioned book. It is widely available and easy to read. It goes through a series of exercises to help you define your values and prioritise them. You will need to spend some time to do this but, believe me, the effort is well worth it.

I went through this defining exercise some years ago and have kept a copy of these values listed, described and prioritised with me always. When faced with a moral and ethical dilemma at work I have gone back to this list of values.  The choices I have made have been no less difficult but I had the comfort of knowing that they were in line with what I believe. In contrast when I have neglected these values, I have regretted my course of action.

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On Sunday mornings, one of the volunteers for Mama Lana’s (http://mamalanas.org.au) posts on Facebook asking for people to fill in the gaps during the week to cook, make sandwiches, desserts and salads, and serve the same for the next 6 days. Other volunteers respond with a comment to this post assigning themselves to particular tasks.

It works on some weeks and not on others. For example, last Saturday, we had pies for almost everyone but only one tray of salad for 26 homeless people. At other times there are too few volunteers to serve, etc. I don’t even know the challenges faced by the volunteers responsible for getting donations and keeping the whole thing going. This while doing their regular day jobs and looking after their families when they return home.

Being the busybody that I am, I started exploring to check if technology could solve some of logistics problems faced by Non Profit organisations.

Firstly, I noticed that Salesforce has a Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) )http://www.salesforce.org/nonprofit_product/nonprofit-editions-pricing/) which appears to be free for the first 10 users which has:

• Constituent Relationship Management
• Volunteer Management
• Donation Management
• Basic Grants Management
• Basic Batch Entry
• Mobile access
• Content library

Then I noticed Google for Non Profits (http://www.google.com/nonprofits/) has:

• G Suite for Non Profits
• Google Ad Grants
• Youtube for Non Profits

Finally I found Amazon has AWS for Nonprofit Organisation (https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/nonprofits/) which is infrastructure technology to:

• build websites
• host core business
• host employee-facing systems
• manage outreach and fundraising

By this time, I was totally confused, a bit like someone from North Korea being dumped in Walmart and I have a technology background. Are people really using these solutions or a combination thereof? So far, the Facebook page I mentioned in the beginning is the most sophisticated solution that I have seen actually used.

I think what is needed here is a low-cost (free if possible) solution that can be used my people who are not technology savvy and requires a limited budget to implement and maintain.

Any ideas?

I remember hiring a new financial controller in the 90s in Bangalore for MACH. After joining he came to me in some distress. He informed me that he had crunched the numbers and there was no way we could make money by “selling air” to people. We were in the mobile telecommunications industry at a time when the average monthly bill was in the thousands of dollars. This was more than the annual income of many Indians. Now fast forward to 2017. In India, there are more than a billion mobile subscribers and the average monthly bill is less than $3.

I confess to having doubts when the Financial Controller showed me the numbers. We started exploring and implementing outsourced shared services for the group. An alternate source of revenue should the main business fail. But it did not and in some years we had growth rates of 60%. We were riding on a vision for a new world based on being able to communicate anywhere anytime.

I remember some of these visionaries informing us that even children would someday have mobile phones. They were met with that polite laughter reserved for eccentrics from the audience. Yet they were right on the mark and for someone who went along for the ride of my life, I am grateful.

Now for the hard part. Who are the real visionaries? Those dreamers whose dreams are going to come true. They ones who can see the patterns in human behaviour and technology and project them on to a future. There are plenty of people informing us that they are on to the next best thing and an equal number who claim to be able to pick the real winners but I have my doubts about most of them. Some people have made piles of cash betting on the right ones while others have lost equally large amounts.

My experience has been that visionaries have a certain personality type. They are usually the ones who like to test or break the rules. They rarely start their working life for the big corporations. They like fluid environments which they can shape. They don’t have conventional ways of thinking. They have a high tolerance for risk. They tell it like it is and don’t care if you laugh at them.

What do you think?

We all have many roles in life including employee, manager, husband, brother friend, etc. Each role brings out different aspects of our character. Social media has allowed us to segregate these roles and develop them in ways that were not available to past generations of human beings. Of course, some of us develop them in ways that are frowned upon by polite society and may even be illegal and criminal in nature. Others have used the platforms to reach new heights of artistic and intellectual development.

Many of us tend to emphasise different aspects of our characters in different social media platforms. I use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter almost every day. My LinkedIn profile is used for professional purposes, my Facebook one for interactions with friends and family, and Twitter to speak frankly. There is very little crossover between the people I am connected to in each platform. I have noticed that many people have a similar demarcation and become quite agitated if the lines are crossed. Posting political stuff on Linkedin is “stepping over the limit” and promoting a business on Facebook is considered gauche. I don’t know what the limitations on Twitter are but Trump seems to take us to new horizons with every passing day.

The dilemma for those of us that either write blogs or post on any platform is that little button titled “share” on most social media platforms. What happens when a post designed for Facebook and targeting your friends ends up on LinkedIn with the click of a button. Outrage from some and even worse consequences for others have been the result. Most of us don’t realise we have put the proverbial “foot in the mouth” until the comments start coming in. Then we are forced to explain, defend and finally retreat.

Far better then, to take a deep breath after we write, reflect on what the impact will be on our diverse group of connections, and post on the correct platform. Sometimes we may not post at all. This is the new version of the “count to 10 rule.”

Now if I can only follow my own advise

Most cloud rollouts are intensive affairs, time bound and straining to keep within budgets. Cloud implementors usually deploy an experienced team and a well oiled methodology to keep within these constraints. This sometimes ends with a training session for the end users. The team then moves on to another project with a different client. For you this means that the people you worked closely with are no longer available just when you need them.

Unless you have some in-house expertise to support users as they start using the new solution and associated tools, frustration will lead to an erosion of the initial euphoria and uses will avoid “wasting time” using the new solution. Once this happens it is difficult to gain momentum again.

So my advise is that you include post-implementation support plans before you start the rollout. This may seem obvious but most, I would say almost all, clients do not do so.

The good news is that cloud implementors have packages suited to the this specific technology environment. Typically these include:

• Access to Certified Developers and Administrators
• Phone / Email Support
• Time defined response for all issues
• A Dedicated Contact

Check out our support packages on http://www.cloudriverdale.com.au/salesforce-support-services/