Last night I was reading an article by Isberg on Professional development, values and strategy – the means for building strong libraries for the future!
I was musing on the phrase
“What we were yesterday has made us what we are today. What we will do today will have an impact on what we become tomorrow.”
This I entirely agree with, but it triggered a couple of related thoughts.
Activity, Achievement and the difference
The first was a memory of a conversation I had long ago. Someone I knew at the time was telling me of a boss they had once had with somewhat forthright management technique. They used to phone up and require the person to tell them what they had achieved that day. Not what they had done, but specifically what they had achieved that progressed goals set. While the methodology employed was not ideal, I always thought the aim and focus of it was interesting. Don’t tell me what you’ve done today, tell me what you think you’ve actually achieved.
Tracking meaningful progress
The other thing the above quote triggered in my head was a thought about a notebook I’ve been keeping recently. It consists of a daily list of what I got done that I consider to be in any way good / positive / useful I’ve done during the day, however small or large. There’s usually about 15 / 25 items. It shows me how much actually gets done that’s good even on days that perhaps don’t feel they’ve got far. Then I asterisk anything that really feels like an actual achievement from within it for each day for whatever reason, the things that really stand out from the rest. That’s more likely to be 3 / 6 items. To balance things out I also quickly note at the bottom if there was anything particularly bad about the day, but only any main headline events that really impacted. Most days it’ll be blank here because it is just real headline stuff I put down, sometimes there’ll be a couple of things, but I try and keep it to about 3 at the most. It happened, that’s a fact, it impacted, but don’t dwell, and move on.
Process
I tend to write the list on the bus into work re the previous day or in the evening of the day itself. Before I’ve forgotten essentially. Importantly it’s a whole life approach, I don’t try to con myself that ‘x’ aspect of my life is within a sealed vacuum not affected or impacted by all the others. So some days there are more e.g. ‘work’ elements in the lists, others less, depends what I’ve been doing with the day as a whole and what bits have been most positive. With me various area’s of life merge anyway between professional and personal interest so to divide artificially wouldn’t really be helpful for me.
Review Phase
End of the week I look back at the weeks’ worth of entries and it tells me where the week went and how it went and where the concentrations were. I then jot down an overall short list of the key things from the week as a whole drawn from reviewing the asterisked items that stood out for me, the main accomplishments. There’ll probably be around 5 or 6 items on this. Because it is main highlights of the week. Doing this tells me where I am with things I really want to do and concentrate on. It tells me I achieved things and lets me check it’s the things I want to do that are being progressed regularly no matter what else I’m also doing. It lets me see my favourite trees from the wood of the week surrounding if you like…
Keeping On Track on Main Goals
I’ll tend to project code a couple of areas maximum that I’m mainly concentrating on just so they stand out. But it’ll relate to two projects at the most that I want to stand out for some reason e.g. because there’s a timeline with a deadline on it So just now with my Carnegie Shortlist reading there’s an additional C in a circle against elements that equate to that. Very basic. But it keeps me on track.
Seeing Omissions
If at the end of the week I read through it all and key things I know I want to do or need to do aren’t represented sufficiently (on the daily scribble, asterisked or the review list) then they kind of shout out their omission too. I know I have a problem. It’s quite easy to see mis-matches between what you intended and what actually happened. Realising that is the quickest way to rectifying it. There are certain things that I expect to see within the weekly list, if they’re not there I’ll think more about why they weren’t there, if I really want to rectify this, how to do so.
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