Making Time to Write

In April, I blogged about my belief that focus is the key ingredient in success. In June, I wrote about the importance of setting priorities and recognizing that every choice is a tradeoff.

Since January, when I embarked on my educational adventures — working toward obtaining my CMA accounting designation — I have had to put these lessons into practice every single day. It has taken every ounce of focus I am able to muster to complete five university courses over two terms.

I also wrote about the value of blogging right smack in the middle of my musings on focus. Alas, with such a full schedule, I have had to make difficult choices about how I spend my time. Not surprisingly, blogging keeps finding its way to the cutting room floor.

I certainly don’t regret my decision to make some things priorities, while relegating others to the backburner. But at times, I have found it surprisingly difficult to accept this reality. I was just getting into the groove, and have missed writing immensely!

I am now trying to figure out how (if?) I can squeeze a small amount of time out of my overflowing schedule to put at least some of my swirling thoughts into coherent words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Maybe it’s about finding a convenient way to record my ideas when I have a few minutes here and a few minutes there. Or maybe I need to do certain things more efficiently, to free up a few precious moments (e.g., reading other people’s blogs, which often provide much-needed non-accounting intellectual stimulation).

I’m sure I’m not alone. If you blog, I would love to know where writing falls on your priority list:

• Is it something you carve time out of your schedule for, no matter what?
• Is it a luxury you indulge in only when the stars are perfectly aligned?
• Or do you struggle, like me, to find time — constantly wishing you could write more, but rarely being able to eke out the time and the necessary mental space to get your thoughts down on “paper”?

Life Lessons Revealed in Unexpected Places: Economics 101

Every once in a while, a nugget of wisdom hits you like a good punch in the face.

Last term, I took Introduction to Microeconomics at the University of Waterloo. My “punch in the face” was the concept of tradeoffs. It happened during the very first class when, truth be told, far too much of my energy was concentrated on trying not to think about my conspicuousness as the only old guy among 249 first-year students.

It’s quite a simple notion: “A tradeoff is an exchange – giving up one thing to get something else.” *

The emphasis in the class, of course, was on financial tradeoffs. It’s rarely a highly calculated decision – but because you only have a certain amount of money available to spend, every time you choose (for example) to fork out $10.00 to see a movie at the cinema, you forgo the next best alternative. The next best alternative will be different for each person: For you, it might be renting two movies for $5.00 each or buying five coffees at Starbucks for $2.00 each.

What really made an impact on me, however, was the application of this principle to the way I choose to “spend” my time and energy. Lately, in spite of all my reading about time-management and focus, keeping this tradeoff concept in mind is what has enabled me to remain focused on my long-term goals.

You see, in January 2010, I embarked on a long and gruelling journey. While holding down a busy full-time job at the University of Waterloo and spending as much time as possible with my wife and three kids, I began the three-year process of obtaining my CMA accounting designation.

This would be an enormous undertaking at the best of times. But on top of it, we’ve had to deal with no less than seven significant crises since I began my courses – everything from Tracy’s grandmother being diagnosed with cancer in March to the week-long hospitalization of my daughter in April.

Because of all this craziness, I’ve been reminded every day that we only have a limited amount of time and energy available. Life is all about making choices – tough choices – and every decision we make involves a tradeoff of some kind.

When I’m sitting at my desk staring at my statistics textbook, my mind often wanders. I can’t help but think about all the other things I could be doing: spending time with my family; writing a blog; visiting my grandmother who fell and broke her arm last month; sleeping; etc.

I have to make a conscious effort to rein in my thoughts as they meander through everything that’s important to me in that moment – all possible uses of my time, and all good things in their own right. To my surprise, the idea that most often stops me in my tracks and allows me to refocus is this tradeoff concept.

I have already made a big investment of time and money in this new direction for my life. So even though the last thing I may actually feel like doing is wrapping my mind around the mysteries of probability and statistics, I am usually able to put the whole situation into perspective by simply recalling the reasons why I pursued this direction in the first place. By deciding to focus on my studies, I make a tradeoff: I give up spending time on something I would like to do today for the benefits of having my CMA designation in the future.

I know I’m not the only person who is busy. So I’m curious: What types of thought patterns or techniques enable you to stay focused on your goals, even when you’re tempted to do something else?

* Michael Parkin and Robin Bade, Microeconomics: Canada in the Global Environment, 7th ed., Pearson Education Canada, 2010: p. 8

Cross-posted to My Healthy Future.

On the Intrinsic Value of Blogging: Part 1

Everyone is talking about the importance of blogging these days.

If you run a business, you need to blog to build your corporate brand and cultivate engagement with your customers. You can no longer be content with just offering good products and first-rate customer service. No – now you must strive to “add additional value” by providing great content (e.g., tips, advice, comprehensive information about your products, etc.) that engages customers on a deeper level. Companies that do this well are able to move beyond mere financial transactions, effectively fostering customers’ affinity for their brands.

And then there’s the relatively new concept of the “personal brand.” Even if you’re just a regular individual hoping to succeed in today’s global economy, you need to blog in order to build your own unique brand. When potential employers conduct an online search to see what they can uncover about you, you want them to find meaningful content that you’ve created – and over which you have control – rather than just pictures of you partying.

There’s certainly no shortage of “how” and “why” books, blogs, and articles about this type of blogging. Of course, that’s more than likely because money is the primary motivation behind most of these experts’ admonitions:

• You should blog to build your corporate brand, which will help you keep your current customers and attract new ones.
• You should blog to develop your personal brand and build credibility, which will enhance your future job prospects.

I don’t disagree with these assertions at all. In fact, I believe blogging can be an extremely powerful platform for building personal and corporate brands. But I’m worried that people who read this type of advice – sensible though it all may be – only see part of the picture. I fear that these gurus don’t place nearly enough emphasis on the intrinsic value of blogging.

Some might be thinking, “Who is Ryan to write about the merits of blogging, when he has only been doing it for a couple months?”

Don’t worry, I’m under no illusion that I am an authority on the subject. But despite my relative infancy in the blogosphere, I have already derived enormous personal benefit from my rather insignificant efforts to date. And as I’ve begun to map out topics I would like to write about in the future, I can’t help but get excited about the endless possibilities and foresee many years of personal growth as I explore ideas – some old and some new.

I have come to an important conclusion: Even if my blog does little to build my personal brand; even if it doesn’t lead to more pennies in my pocket; indeed, even if no one ever reads what I write, I have no intention of giving up on it. At least, not any time soon.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to delve into why I believe blogging is inherently beneficial.

Why do you blog?

Risking My Life in a Roundabout

I consider myself an optimist and a generally good-natured person. I tend to look for the very best in every situation. I will try to keep my rants to a minimum on this site … but today, I feel compelled to express how I feel about roundabout use in Waterloo Region.

As I approach a roundabout, irritation and fear completely overwhelm me. I feel strongly that I am risking my life — and the lives of nearby pedestrians — every time I venture into one!

There are two (entirely unconnected) reasons why roundabouts positively frighten and annoy me:

1.  For some crazy reason, it was decided that pedestrians should have the right of way.

Erb & Ira Needles Roundabout, Showing "Yield to Pedestrians" Sign

I’m pretty sure the entire point of roundabouts — by their very design and definition — is to keep traffic moving. So why on earth would pedestrians have the right of way? Is it really safe to step out and cross where vehicles are madly entering and exiting?

When pedestrians exercise their right of way, and step out to cross (especially in places where cars are exiting the roundabout), they are taking their lives in their hands. In my opinion, it simply doesn’t make any sense for drivers who’ve entered the roundabout to yield to such folks. You can only see about 75 degrees (a few metres) ahead of you, thanks to the enormous decorative bushes and grasses in the centre of most. Drivers are in danger of running into the car in front of them if the lead driver slams on his or her brakes to avoid a crossing pedestrian. Traffic must keep moving for roundabouts to work!

When you’re driving 30 km/h, it’s all you can handle to keep track of the other vehicles, signal your turns, shift gears (if you drive a standard), and navigate the sharp turn of the traffic circle. You most certainly cannot also deal with the possibility that a couple distracted teenagers might step out in front of the car that is four cars ahead of you, setting off a chain reaction of abrupt stops that eventually ends up halting traffic from all four directions!

Pedestrians Stopping Traffic in the Erb & Ira Needles Roundabout

Instructions for pedestrians are rather obscure.

• I wouldn’t be surprised if no one (except perhaps the person who wrote the web page and myself) has ever fully read the instructions. And those who have may not have completely understood them. (I know I was a little confused.)
• The instructions do not distinguish between roundabouts where there are signs indicating that traffic must yield to pedestrians, and those that don’t.
• Although the city councillors in the photographs seem keen to demonstrate how easy it is to stick your arm out and signal your intentions to traffic, I’ve certainly never seen any pedestrians indicate their plans so clearly.

All in all, I really believe that pedestrians and drivers would both be better served by roundabouts designed first and foremost to do their job of keeping traffic moving.

2.  Most drivers do not have a clue how to use roundabouts properly.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely not against roundabouts! I have done quite a bit of driving in the United Kingdom and Ireland (I lived in Edinburgh for 11 months while completing my master’s degree). I totally understand the improved efficiency of traffic flow that a roundabout can facilitate.

But only when they are used properly.

There are instructions on the region’s website. But sadly, it baffles me how rarely I see someone use a roundabout properly! I’m not exaggerating when I say that, by my estimation, only about 20% of drivers navigate roundabouts flawlessly. For everyone’s safety, shouldn’t we be aiming a lot higher?

Most people don’t know which way to signal as they approach a roundabout, while they’re in a roundabout, or as they prepare to exit a roundabout. In fact, my experience is that many drivers don’t signal at all, while many others signal the wrong way at the wrong time.

I am shocked by how many drivers have not figured out the rudimentary rule that you must yield to cars on your left. It’s scary how often I have had people pull out in front of me as they’re entering the roundabout. On two occasions, I have come within about six inches of hitting another vehicle because of this type of stupidity.

The region is planning to install more roundabouts. In principle, that excites me, because I do believe in their ability to keep traffic moving. But given how frightened I am to venture into them these days, I think the reality that so many local (not to mention visiting) drivers are not adequately educated in their proper use must be addressed.

I know the tools are out there for people, if they’ll take the time to read them. But you don’t know what you don’t know … and I think many drivers aren’t even aware that they don’t have a clue. (Probably because they’ve “learned” what to do by watching all the other drivers!)

I can really only think of one thing that might motivate people to learn how to use roundabouts properly: I would like to see a month-long blitz this summer, with the local police force closely monitoring roundabouts. They should issue tickets to anyone who doesn’t know which way to signal when they’re entering or exiting, and who doesn’t yield to traffic that is already travelling in the roundabout.

1.  Do you agree that this is a problem that needs to be addressed by local governments and authorities?

2.  Do you have any roundabout horror stories you would like to share?

Success Is All About Focus

It hit me yesterday that, perhaps more than anything else, success is all about focus.

I often find reading Steve Pavlina’s blog motivates me to strive for higher levels of success. To take productivity as an example, check out Steve’s 33 Rules to Boost Your Productivity. They’re quite useful in that format, broken down into 33 bite-sized suggestions. But essentially, I think all of them can be boiled down to the issue of focus.

I find that focus is generally quite easy for most people to achieve for a short period of time (if you’re enthusiastic about something, and if you have any gumption at all). However — and I imagine I’m not alone — I find it rather difficult to maintain a high level of focus on a goal over the long-term.

I tend to set lots of very ambitious goals for myself. Some of them don’t go anywhere right from the start, for various reasons:

• it wasn’t something I was passionate about in the first place, so I had little or no motivation to achieve it; or
• the goal simply wasn’t realistic, given the circumstances of my life.

But I’m not talking about these types of failed attempts. I’m talking about the goals that have become the impetus for significant positive progress.

In the last year, for example, I have made drastic changes to my eating habits, my commitment to exercise, and the time I wake up in the morning. However — even in these areas, in which I have experienced enormous benefits from achieving my goals — as surprising as it may seem, my level of commitment has slowly (and often indiscernibly) dwindled.

I don’t recall ever having taken the time to reflect on this reality, and so I have never identified why this happens. But yesterday, for the first time, I asked myself the question: Why, after reaping great benefits from reaching a goal, would you ever allow your dedication to it to peter out?

As I thought about this question, it occurred to me that there are lots of things conspiring against focus. Some are challenges to my ability to focus:

• As time passes, I let myself become side-tracked by various setbacks (e.g., sickness, stress, commitments), and then fail to “climb back on the horse” as it were.
• Sometimes I get distracted by other interests and new goals.

Some are symptoms of insufficient focus:

• Occasionally I become complacent because of the success I have achieved, assuming I will be able to maintain it with no effort.
• Often I simply forget to keep working at it!

These are the types of things that derail me.

I haven’t abandoned the three goals I mentioned above. In fact, I can honestly say I am still fully committed to them (despite some blips along the way). My frustration lies in my inability to sustain uninterrupted focus on goals that, without a doubt, are helping me become more successful.

With everything I hope to accomplish over the next few years, I need to reach a higher level of focus if I am going to be successful. I expect, therefore, that I’ll be doing a lot of thinking about focus. And I will certainly be working hard to develop strategies that will help me avoid the focus fizzle to which I’ve become accustomed.

As you strive for excellence in your life, how do you avoid the gradual erosion of commitment to your goals?

What strategies help you stay focused on your goals for long periods of time — even in the face of setbacks, distractions, and everything life throws at you?

Making Room for Innovation

By day, I work at the University of Waterloo. This afternoon I attended one of the keynote addresses that was part of the 2010 Staff Conference.

Jeremy Gutsche, Chief Trend Hunter at TrendHunter.com was speaking, and his talk was entitled, “Creating a Culture of Innovation and Customer Obsession.” (Incidentally, Jeremy’s company, which is located in Toronto, has hired 12 uWaterloo co-op students over the years.)

Here are a few of the most memorable moments for me:

1.  Your organization always needs to have a clear and compelling answer to the question: Specifically what are you trying to do?

2.  Times of crisis and chaos present incredible opportunites for organizations that have their eye on new trends and are on the look-out for consumer needs emerging out of the crisis.

3.  “Complacency will be the architecture of your downfall. … There is no point innovating if you think you already know all the answers!” Organizations often try to get better by optimizing their current products and processes slightly, rather than being open to completely re-thinking what they do.

4.  In any industry, innovation starts by observing your customers and interacting with them. You need to understand and become irresistable to your target audience.

5.  For your messages to make a huge impact in this information-saturated world, they must be simple, direct, and supercharged.

Jeremy’s talk was very entertaining and thought-provoking on many fronts. But what struck me the most was what he said about making space to be innovative.

uWaterloo is, of course, the perfect place to have this discussion, since (in Canada, at least) we’re generally recognized as having cornered the market on innovation.

There is no doubt that uWaterloo has had quite a number of high-profile world-changing innovations in its short history. But within my team in the Office of Development, the topic of innovation has come up a lot lately, and we’ve been asking ourselves some tough questions.

When we look at our programs and how we do business from day to day, can we honestly say we’re innovative?

My team agreed that there is no shortage of creative ideas. Most of the people I work with are smart, motivated, and committed to uWaterloo’s success. We come away from most of our brainstorming sessions with page upon oversized page of great ideas.

But my colleagues also agreed that we are not nearly as good at nurturing these ideas and seeing them all the way through to the end — from analyzing their merit, to coming up with a plan, to implementing them, to measuring their success, to learning from our mistakes.

So if we admit we’re not as innovative as we’d like to be, what are we to do?

Jeremy shared some interesting things about how an organization can be successful in this area. For one, it needs to be “institutionally tolerable to explore new pastures.” I think uWaterloo gets an ‘A’ for effort here — we are encouraged to think outside the box and have a high degree of freedom to imagine innovative ways of doing things.

But Jeremy also pointed out that new ideas don’t flourish well when constrained by rigid control processes, and where there isn’t a willingness to fail.

This raises some interesting questions for an enormous institution like uWaterloo, and I put them out there for discussion:

1.  Is it possible for a big organization, which requires an extensive bureaucracy to function, to be nimble enough to nurture and sustain true innovation?

2.  Is uWaterloo’s culture one where failure is accepted as an important part of innovating?

3.  What would it take for uWaterloo to become truly, undeniably, and consistently innovative — all the way from our day-to-day microprocesses to our institutional aspirations?

An Unexpected Collision of Mindless Prose and Poetry

Today I wrote an email, just like any of the other 50+ emails I write every day at work.

Except it wasn’t just like every other email!

When I went back to re-read it just before clicking “Send” (which I am wont to do), I realized it was, in fact, a masterpiece. It was a thing of beauty, with a lilt and cadence I fear too few of my emails possess.

I feel compelled to share it with the world:

Today's Poetic Email

If you have had a similar experience — where the mundane has been unexpectedly infused with the ineffable (like Average Adam’s perfect question mark, for example) — please share.

Setting My Thoughts Free

I spent a great deal of time over the past weekend thinking about whether or not blogging is for me. I have decided that it is.

Even though my wife has accused me at times of being overly methodical and meticulous – we’re still in discussions about whether or not these are actually faults  ;) – before I completely throw myself into this, I need to articulate why I’m doing this and what I hope to accomplish.

1.  I think most clearly when I take the time to put my thoughts into writing.

2.  The more writing I am doing at a given point in my life, the better able I am to verbalize my thoughts in face-to-face interactions.

Compelling though these two motives may be, it was a third that, in the end, actually pushed me over the edge, giving me the final impetus to go for it:

3.  Throughout my life, I have been told that I have some great ideas that really should be shared with the world. The message has been consistent and ubiquitous, coming from a wide range of people – many of whom have known me well, and many of whom have hardly known me at all.

I’m not always convinced of the value of what I have to offer. (I am more than a little embarrassed by the fact that I’ve only just recently figured out what I want to do when I grow up … not really something for a 34-year-old to brag about!) But nonetheless, I want to start listening to those who’ve encouraged me to put my brain to good use for the betterment of the world.

It is time to set my thoughts free.

While I’m not comfortable pronouncing on the meaning of life vis-à-vis purpose and destiny (more on that in future blogs, I suspect), I can’t shake the sense that, if I can do some small thing that will make the world an even slightly better place, then I should do so.

So, what is this blog about, and where will all this self-expression lead? I have a couple ideas for focused blogs on specific topics, which I hope to undertake in the near future, and which will likely require their own homes. But I consider Ryan’s Ruminations my space for exploring the whole range of what goes on in my head, and sharing my personal journey.

As such, I am giving myself permission to write about anything and everything here. I believe I have some interesting thoughts on everything from my pet peeves and books I’m reading to relationships, religion, and life in general – and I’m excited to begin writing about them.

I hope that my thoughts and experiences resonate with at least a few others.