I know it takes time to plan a little Architecture. Sure it’s easier to set it up as you go (I’ll remember my password- I use the same one every time- that always works til it doesn’t). You can always come back later to connect the dots. Right? You can add the foundation after you build the house. Can’t you? Well I guess you can but my question to you is which is easier? To lay the foundation before you begin or to come back, jack up the house and add it later. The former may appear to get you moving faster but the latter will cost you far more time and money later.

Do you find yourself opting for the short term gain of taking action when compared with the long term gain of planning which saves time and money? I’m not talking strategy. I’m not talking business plans. I’m talking some architecture. Some decisiveness. Now I agree with the refinement approach. I say get it out there. I’ve written about perfection versus imperfection. I’m all for shipping as Seth Godin might say, but not at the expense of thinking just a wee bit first laddy.

Example- you get moving so fast that you look up and notice you have:

• 2 domain registrars
• 3 hosting companies
• 2 webmail accounts, one Gmail account a and a Yahoo account
• 2 CRM’s
• 2 personal facebook accounts (whoops didn’t realize the fan page was for your business)
• Several websites on different platforms with broken links and no taxonomy whatsoever

What could have been different if you’d made some architectural decisions along the way? We’re going to host with Hostgator or Bluehost. We’re registering all our domains with Godaddy. We are going to host our email and calendar sharing with a corporate Google Apps account. We are going to set up Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn correctly the first time. We’re going to document our passwords along the way in a secure but retrievable place. We’re going to put together a quick sitemap before we launch the next micro site or blog. We are going to collaborate with Basecamp. I’m an affiliate of some of these but they aren’t links so I guess I’m cool.

Pause, Think, Decide ( A Committed One), Ship, Refine, Repeat

I have always been thrilled with the daily routines of the super productive. If I ever get the ear of a business owner, I always like to ask: so what is your daily routine? What works for you? How do you get so much done in a short period of time? I’m constantly amazed at individuals who have large family obligations, run thriving businesses, serve others in their church or community and still find some time for rest and hobbies.

I get some of my fix by reading biographies of the likes of Franklin and Churchill, R.G. Letourneau and Peter J Daniels. I read books on productivity too but I learn so much from biographies and autobiographies.

I have always thought it would be great to get to interview productive people here. I’m exploring ways to do just that. A compilation of daily routines if you will.

Brainstorming …

Anyone who’s kept up with me over the last few years realizes I love 37 signal’s products. I’ve used them all, but always wondered why they didn’t integrate. Instead of getting stuck on that concept, I’ve embraced their exclusion and containment. I’m glad I did. It seems complicated on the surface but deep down it’s simple. You can take a look at major CRM’s and see examples of integration. You’ll see a loaded down, bogged down productivity system. People in my experience will spend all their time learning and working the system instead of getting results.

So here’s how I see the transition between 37 signals products.

Backpack for me was the end all be all. I used it for everything.- sharing pages with customers, keeping lists and running projects. Lately, I’m back to using it as I believe it was intended. A place to organize your organization. I keep reference lists (not task lists), share reference pages with customers and compile data for events, trips or major ideas. I also use the calendar to organize one step actions that happen on a particular date. I keep budget (bill payment) info on the calendar as well. Of course I ical this into Google Calendar so I can access it on my iphone wherever I go. Plus I share Google Calendar with several others. I have started to use the Backpack journal feature at night to record the days happenings.

Basecamp for me is all about projects. If you use the GTD terminology a project would be anything you can’t do it 2 minutes or less or that doesn’t have one defined next action to complete it. This is still a tough balancing act. I have most mid to large projects set up independently in Basecamp. Basecamp is also where I manage my business, my wife’s business and collaborate with key people who contract with us. We manage monthly deliverables for retainer customers along with new customer projects in Basecamp.  I love Basecamp because of writeboards and milestones but template to do’s are the powerful stuff.

Ta-da lists are a new edition to the arsenal for me. I love them. Instead of keeping simple next actions (not associated with projects) in Backpack or Basecmap, Ta-da lists allows me to quickly put them into list format. That’s not the key though. Any program can do that. A text file can do that. The real power is the iphone ready site which parallels the web version. Check off something from your list on your iphone it mirrors up on my Macbook in the cloud. What do I keep here?

• Shopping lists
• Errands
• Weekly Review lists
• Daily Review lists
• Today’s tasks
• Daily supplements (you name it)

Highrise is my weakest area. That may be the case for many people. It’s a powerful platform but I think I stumble here because of the lack of sync tools in the cloud (which still boggles my mind). I do keep my contacts here and the new ability to add social media contact info has been a big addition. So much communication takes place in mobile environments or in email threads, that getting it into Highrise can be difficult. I would suggest you at least organize your contacts in Highrise and record key conversations or meeting notes. You need those kind of records and that kind of data stored somewhere. Once someone becomes a customer they usually migrate to Basecamp in my experience.

*I’m an affiliate by the way. The banners are on the home page. No big deal just telling you.

Like anyone who gets busy; I thought I could drop the systems, work even harder and still manage to be productive. Wrong!

The last few months has given me another stern lesson in productivity. I’ve called this post back to the heart of GTD. I’ve been using David Allen’s GTD system for the last few weeks again and it feels so good to be productive again.

It feels great to be moving toward those 30,000 foot goals. It feels great to check off those next actions lists. It feels great to make project lists and to add things to my someday/maybe lists. It feels great to only consider doing tasks that can be done from certain places, certain situations or with the proper tools. It feels great to think what is the next action or is this actionable. Why do we quit doing the things that work?

So back to quick daily reviews, more thorough weekly reviews and the principles of GTD. Backpack is still my tool of choice along with the amazing free apps from Google.

I’d like to brainstorm and work with the new tasks feature in Gmail to see how that can change the GTD game. Any thoughts?

It’s time for a new direction. I’m posting this verbatim on my other sites as well.

For the last two years, I’ve planned and built, tweaked and refined, sold and invoiced, collected and accounted. I’ve marketed and branded and promoted. I’ve written and blogged and spoke and taught. I’ve coached and consulted. I’ve laughed, cried and learned a whole lot along the way.

I don’t regret starting Simplified Solutions, LLC two years ago. It has been the single best business learning experience I have ever had. I made so many mistakes. Too many to list here. I definitely failed forward at times. The best part was that this last two years was a training ground. A preparation if you will for the greatest business opportunity in my life thus far.

As my business has started to succeed the last several months, it’s been in large part due to a company called ithemes- and a open source platform called WordPress. I owe a lot to WordPress and to the team at ithemes. WordPress gave me, and more importantly small businesses, non profits and ministries; an affordable, effective, and attractive way to gain an online presence. Ithemes created some amazing themes powered by WordPress. That made the rest pretty easy for me.

A few months back my relationship with this amazing company grew a little closer. I always wondered how employable I was after being in sales most of my life and then running a small freelance business. Deep down though I knew I could follow a great leader and be a contributor on an amazing team. Well I’ve found both. The great leaders are Cory Miller and James Dalman. The great team is the team at ithemes and now WebDesign.com.

About a month ago, we started a serious dialogue about me joining a new venture that ithemes was launching. Time passed, many chats and conference calls lined out the details and I flew to Dallas this past weekend to meet the team and join this new venture – WebDesign.com

I am joining a thriving team at ithemes and have become their first sales consultant with WebDesign.com. To say I’m thrilled would be the understatement of the year.

We have a rockin team and we are ready to show the world an amazing model for web design and the customer service that comes with it.

You can follow all the details here at http://webdesign.com

You can also follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/webdesigncom

My new email address is bryce@webdesign.com and the cell phone is still the same.

I have already spoken to most current customers and this transition will be very seamless. I’m just joining the company that I promoted and sold before accept now I have a team of programmers, project managers, coders, designers, graphic designers, tech interns, owners and partners behind me. Way cool!

Simplified Solutions, LLC will still be an accounting entry in Quickbooks. Some things will trickle in and trickle out but I’m putting my 100% focus on making WebDesign.com the best in the world.

Since I’m in the middle of this process right now, I figured it was a good time for this post.

Aside from the bureaucracy that your event or cause or benefit or organization must go through, here are the steps I use to duplicate Golf Scrambles over and over.

Step #1 You can’t do it all yourself. Find a small team maybe two or three others who can help. It would be best if everyone brought different personalities or skills to the table. For instance in the scramble I assist with every year, we have one person who knows a lot about food/catering and likes to hustle for door prizes and hole sponsors. We have another person who can get a lot of teams together. He has a large Rolodex and a good relationship with a lot of that Rolodex. I act as the organizer, planner, and also do my share of hustling for teams, prizes and sponsors. I also MC the event the day of.

Step #2 Pick the right course and the best date. If you pick a course and pro that is easy to work with, your scramble will go much smoother. Make sure you spot check your date with big events and other large scrambles. You’ll never steer clear of everything, but the last thing you want is to schedule it the same day as another large organization or on a major holiday weekend. If you’re looking at a weekday versus a weekend, just remember that during the week you’ll draw more business teams and serious golfers. On the weekend you’ll capture more of the family and friends crowd.

Step #3 Focus on 3 main things- Teams, Door Prizes, Hole Sponsors. I have a cookie cutter system now after 5 years. I have flyers for prospecting and each year I can just change the info. We use our website to link up the forms and to collect online registrations. We used to just get a paper form turned in. Either way will do. We have forms to track teams, hole sponsors and lots of forms for instructions on the day of the scramble.

With Teams here are my tips.

• Don’t allow individuals to register as this creates a communication and logistics nightmare.
• Sell 4 somes and collect the money up front, this way the team captain becomes responsible for securing his players and not you. This is especially important because players will drop and things will come up. If you don’t get the money up front; rain, a bad hair day, lack of coffee or a good show on TV could cause a team to not show up.
• You can handicap of flight the event or just have each team for themselves (this is what I prefer but not every organization is the same and some will want to make it fair-life’s not fair though)

With Door Prizes here are my tips.

• Make sure everyone gets one.
• We like to give out gift certificates in $10 increments and restaurants are willing to give them, although golf balls, shirts and other like items work well.
• Make sure they are equitable, don’t have one guy get a foursome to a nice club worth $160 and the next guy gets a mesh hat or umbrella. Since this is not based on performance I think it makes sense to make this equitable.
• Offer a nice sign in exchange for a $50 to $100 donation (this depends on the price tag of your scramble- it’s just math so adjust the numbers based on your ticket price)
• Door prizes are the result of walking into restaurants or businesses giving them information, following up and following up some more. It won’t just happen- trust me.

With Hole Sponsors here are some tips.

• Try and engage businesses in your area. For our scramble we prospect in Middletown.
• Don’t try and pit all kinds of businesses against one another. Use that as a selling point. The first widget company we get will be the last widget company we approach.
• Offer signage (don’t skimp), a link on your website for a period of time and the ability to include sales literature in packets for each golfer. Be creative or encourage them to be.
• Patronize your sponsors- we really believe in and live this one out. That’s probably why we get little resistance from our sponsors each year.

As a side note to these tips, I recommend developing relationships with vendors and using them each year. Sure you can always find someone cheaper, but cheaper doesn’t mean better and it doesn’t mean smoother. I don’t shop our vendors unless they give us a reason too.

Step #4 Rehearse the flow of the event in your mind and in your notes. Visualize people showing up and registering. Visualize people playing and having fun and this will help you to remember the small details that sometimes slip through the cracks.

Hit a home run, and have fun with it by all means.

If you have small children, toddlers and below, then this post should be helpful in your attempt to babyproof your home.

Rather than write a lengthy article, I am going to opt for a list format.

• Get a top of the stairs gate. Evenflo seems to make a good one that we have used. By the way I assume no liability for your decision to purchase any of these items. It’s sad that our society has come to that point but that’s my disclaimer.
• Get a plastic type adjustable gate for the bottom of the stairs. Forgot about that part didn’t you. Yes once they start crawling they will try to head up the steps as well as down.
• Get a baby gate with an extension to block off any large cased openings. Again Evenflo is the one we have used.
• Use a dog gate, baby gate or plastic expandable gate to block regular size doorways.
• Buy lots of plug covers. When you take them out to plug something in make sure you put the plug covers in a place away from the children but close enough to remember to replace them. The plug covers themselves can present a whole new choking hazard. If you choose you can buy large boxes which enclose the entire outlet. We use both options in our home.
• Buy door knob covers. This will keep little hands from opening important doors like the door to the garage or basement. They learn to lock and unlock very early in life.
• Quick hide the cords. This means the lamps have to go too if you want to ever relax that is. If not leave them and you can clean up broken light bulbs weekly. Also try to position furniture so it will hide cords.
• Keep every liquid, tool, and hazardous material out of their reach. That goes without saying.
• Remember to switch babies from small cribs to larger ones and then to toddler beds. For toddlers we like to keep the beds closer to the ground in case they do roll out.
• Babies and Toddlers like phones, remote controls, cords, computers and basically everything they are not supposed to like.
• Watch sitting drinks or liquids next to electronic equipment. It’s bad enough to have accidents which involve bumps, bruises and cleaning carpets. When the iphone goes down with the spill, then it starts to cost you money.
• Find a way to block off your deck or patio using a large plastic play yard type gate. This has worked well for us on many occasions.
• I almost forgot about the cabinets. They make little plastic hinges that will restrict your bathroom or kitchen cabinets from opening all the way. These still work for our oldest two children at 4 and 2 1/2.

Again this is not very polished but since we have 3 small children we get these questions a lot and we have found our lives much most relaxing employing these little tricks.

I’m looking for ideas from fans. Instead of me always writing about what I want to, how about I write about topics near and dear to your hearts. Within reason of course.

Below is a quick form that can be submitted instantly. No strings attached and no identification needed. If you’d like to email me you’re always welcome to do that as well.

Chances are you’ve arrived here from the plug in my weekly newsletter. If you’ve just stumbled on this post from a Google search which happens many times per day then I’d love to hear from you as well.

Too many times in the past I’ve let my environment spiral out of control.

Too many times in the past I’ve failed to create and guard a good environment once it’s established.

I noticed these concepts this week after making a few quick adjustments to our home. We made the home office more of an office and the upstairs extra bedroom a full fledged study.

The office has every thing one needs to conduct business. I can keep records, concentrate on work, print, file and do everything else I need to do in running a business. However, it didn’t help me rise early and devote a few hours to working on me each morning. I like to get up and do a little writing, studying, motivational reading, bible study and prayer each morning.  The home office is in the basement with dim lighting and no natural light since there is only one small window. It works great if I’m making a call, working on a customer’s project, doing my accounting or preparing a proposal.

Of course some of these are all things I can do from a coffee shop with wireless. The basement home office didn’t work so well as a study. I never wanted to walk two flights of stairs in the morning. I wake like a bear who’s been in hibernation. I would find myself going to a different room daily or sleeping later than I wished. The problem? I had not created a good environment so I could trick myself into going there long enough to form a habit.

Since we had an extra room (however you could do this in separate corners of a one room-which is what I’d rather have anyway) we turned it into a study. It’s quite simple. There is a desk with nothing in it or on it except a lamp. There are two book shelves. The first holds books that I’ve read or use for reference. The second shelf holds books I’m reading or studying currently. There is good lighting and some natural light from the vaulted window. There are some inspirational pictures and awards on the wall and a simple little white board to record my thoughts early in the morning or late at night. That’s when I have some of the best ideas. Oh yeah and there’s a comfortable office chair.

Now I’m motivated to rise early again. I can walk right down the hall with no distractions. I can kick off the day the way I like.

• Is everything in your environment serving it’s purpose?
• Is everything in your home or office being utilized efficiently?
• If not then get rid of it or put it into practical use.
• Create a good environment- I think it’s easier and more effective than making yourself do something you’re not inclined to do.
  

Tim Ferris often writes and talks about Parkinson’s law. Basically it says that a task or project will contract or expand to the amount of time you allocate for it. I believed it was true based on some simple examples in my own life and through reading about others who had more complex examples.

Well the principle is true and let me tell you why. Not that I had any real doubt before, but doing something and saying something are worlds apart.

The example: tax preparation.

My CPA sends a letter that basically says hey your stuff is due March 23rd. Problem-I am leaving for a short mini vacation with the family. A long overdue one. I don’t really have a choice because even if we file an extension the books need updated and the docs organized so an attempt to estimate payments can be made. Bummer- I thought I could sign a form and procrastinate this mammoth project until I came home. In the past few months I had estimated that this project, which I’ll explain below, would take two weeks solid. My wife never totally believed me and turns out she was both right and wrong.

Now let me paint the picture. I started my business in the fall of 2007. I didn’t have much in the way of banking statements or financials in 2007. It was mainly start-up stuff. In 2008, I had a credit card and a business checking account and all the transactions which go with them. I used Quickbooks but not properly. I knew I was balanced through my online banking and register, but I failed to enter all credit card receipts and reconcile them. The same went for bank statements. My CPA told me that it had to be done. Wow-18 months of credit card receipts and bank transactions to reconcile! Then gathering personal tax records (that part was easier as we have a system for organizing them throughout the year), and putting it all together for delivery.

I started at 7PM while watching my favorite basketball team lose in the NIT. Not exactly motivating stuff. I knew that at 9AM we were leaving for Gatlinburg, TN. I had others thing to do as well like packing. This was much easier because we live a simple and organized life, but still it amazed me that it was possible. I starting sorting all the receipts based on credit card or business checking account. I then clipped them together based on the month. All 18 of them. I went back and entered any missing transactions from bank statements, alternating the credit card statements as well. I did this all night and into the morning. I reconciled each statement as I went. I kept 2007 separate from 2008 and from 2009 for filing and tax purposes. To my amazement everything balanced. I backed everything up to a flash drive and looked at the clock-6AM.

I spent the next two hours organizing personal schedule C, D and normal deductions like charitable, medical, etc. I packed and attended to other tasks. I pulled all this together in a package and we delivered it to the CPA firm on the way. A sorry goes out to my in-laws as we did add about an hour to the commute.

So does Parkinson’s Law work? Remember when I said my wife was both right and wrong, well she was. If I had tackled this over a few weeks it would have taken a few weeks or longer. Giving myself no other options but to finish it between 7PM and 9AM, I finished it and I feel like it was a better output as well.

No, I did not drive on the trip and got some good sleep the next few nights. I’ll take that trade-off. No I’m not recommending you batch your accounting annually either- maybe monthly.

Don’t really believe whether a principle works- stop talking about it and try it!