What's Everyone's Profession Part II What's Everyone's Biggest Challenge?

[troy]

Holy crap. Look at you guys. I've been investigated.

My name is Troy. I work as restaurant manager. This normally takes up about 50-60 hours per week and I'm a geek in a sense when it comes to operating web sites. My connection to Clockmanager.com is that I'm the webmaster of that site.

Time management and personal productivity has been a topic that interested me for some time. Just going through and reading information on it has given me insight to create my own time management portal.

Hopefully, I've answered some questions for you all.

 

[MisterMorgan]

My biggest challenge has been "@ not computer". I spend a lot of time at home on the computer and most of the things I have to do at work are either on the computer or managed by information I get from the computer. But I don't have a good system for what to do when I'm out and about - @agenda was pretty much useless. This was not made easier by the fact that we are completely locked down at work so no PDA would work for me--I wouldn't be able to update it with my work info unless I did it by hand.

Recently I got the Franklin Covey 3 x 5 wallet from Office Depot from the most awesome girlfriend of all. It's working okay and it's been *great* for the sudden "Mark, come with me!" from the boss.

Second has to be the fact that e-mail is useless in my company because everyone feels buried in it. (We honestly don't get that much and I find I can process a week's worth in about thirty minutes.)

 

[TesTeq]

"Click now" signature.

Holy crap. Look at you guys. I've been investigated.

The reason why you've been investigated is your spam-like colorful "click now" signature that does not match up with your restaurant manager job and interesting points presented in your posts.

 

[troy]

Ok,

Well for the record I'm not a member of this forum to saturate this forum with spam. I enjoy being here and talking with folks about GTD.

I actively particpate in thread topics and started one of the most popular threads on the front page.

If I need to scale down my signature then let me know...

I'm a restaurant manager and a web developer.

 

[Treetops]

Ok,

Well for the record I'm not a member of this forum to saturate this forum with spam. I enjoy being here and talking with folks about GTD.

I actively particpate in thread topics and started one of the most popular threads on the front page.

If I need to scale down my signature then let me know...

Troy,

Fair enough...my vote is for the click-thru website reference in the signature to be removed to the contact info in your profile.

 

[troy]

Free-will. Gotta love free-will. I'm not forcing anyone to click on it, but I will scale it down.

 

[TesTeq]

It's free-will but is it appropriate?

Free-will. Gotta love free-will. I'm not forcing anyone to click on it, but I will scale it down.

What would you do if one of your restaurant guests would come with a big colorful banner "I love McDonald's" and sit the whole day showing this banner to all the other guests. Would you like it? It's free-will but is it appropriate?

 

[troy]

What would you do if one of your restaurant guests would come with a big colorful banner "I love McDonald's" and sit the whole day showing this banner to all the other guests. Would you like it? It's free-will but is it appropriate?

Change your settings to not show signatures in this forum if your that offended.

I think you should think more practical. My signature is more like a person wearing a Mcdonald's t-shirt to my restaurant and sitting there and eating. I'm not blinking the signature at anyone nor am I using flash animation.

This isn't using my time effectively by having this disagreement about something so silly as my forum signature. If you have a problem with my post or question how "appropriate" they are then simply report it to a moderator. Thank you for your input. Thank you for your time. Have a nice day.

 

[Treetops]

Change your settings to not show signatures in this forum if your that offended.

But TesTeq may quite reasonably want to view other members signatures
(the ones that aren't an advertisement vehicle)

This isn't using my time effectively by having this disagreement about something so silly as my forum signature. If you have a problem with my post or question how "appropriate" they are then simply report it to a moderator.

But you asked for opinion:

If I need to scale down my signature then let me know...

Also

Thank you for your input. Thank you for your time. Have a nice day.

Are you as sarcastic to the guests who eat at your restaurant?

 

[ceehjay]

Hi, Troy!

Troy, I am interested in time management, too. Obviously, or I wouldn't be reading this forum. I visit other forums and web sites related to this subject, so I am not in the least offended by your sig -- and I did visit your site. That is also one of my biggest challenges -- spending too much time reading forums, blogs, etc.

Carolyn

 

[mike]

In an attempt to get back on topic....My biggest GTD challenge right now is that I am so far ahead of my job, I'm afraid I may need to look for different employment, I'm getting bored in a job that was fairly challenging pre GTD. Of course the practical side of me says there are worse things than having a job that is too easy, now I have time for more someday/maybe items!

Mike

 

[Vramin]

I vote everybody lay off Troy

He didn't have to tell you he was a restaurant manager in the first place. I would like to see him have a bigger signature. As long as he is contributing to the discussion, who cares? And I doubt if he cares what people wear in his restaurant as long as they have shoes and shirts.

I think I'm also siding with ceehjay. My biggest challenge right now is reading and posting in too many forums in order to avoid defining my bigger projects.

 

[moises]

He didn't have to tell you he was a restaurant manager in the first place.

This is true. Troy could have started the very long thread titled "What's Everyone's Profession" without stating his own profession.

But one wonders why anyone would state their own profession when the thread starter did not state his.

It would appear to me, until I have further information, that this is a case of bad faith.

As far as I can tell, Troy is not trying to sell anything on his website. So I wonder why he did not come right out and state that he is a restaurant manager who runs some websites, at least one of which is about time management. Given the raison d'etre of this forum, and given the subject of his post, not stating his involvement in a time management website strikes me as quite odd.

If someone comes on this forum and wants to contribute, that's fine. If someone wants to know how to find the best label printer, that's fine too. But if someone comes on the board to ask each of us to explain what we do with our time, and then we discover that the person who is asking this of us has not been forthright in telling us how he spends his time, then I believe that I am justified in experiencing feelings of betrayal and distrust. But these feelings of betrayal and distrust are overshadowed by feelings of bewilderment. I really do not understand why Troy, who appears to be eager to edify the world through his postings and website, would act in a way that appears so suspicious.

Troy, why did you not state your involvement in clockmanager.com when you asked all of us what our professions were? Why did you choose to publicize your involvement in clockmanager.com by changing your signature?

 

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

Ignores the arguments, keeps focused on point and doesn't click on link

President of an overseas subsidiary of a software company, but my time is primarily involved in sales, marketing and technical support to our customers.

My main GTD challenge is..., well I have several.

1. Keeping track of all my committments (some of my waiting fors (e.g. quotes) can be out there for several months, even 1-2 years) and following them through. GTD has helped enormously here.

2. Less GTD related to some degree, but having a lot of discretionary time, I sometimes struggle to be as focused as I feel I could be. I used to use Tony Robbin's RPM system before GTD and I have a sort of hybrid of the two now. But I think I need to adopt more of the ideas in RPM to keep that bit more focused on the bigger projects/objectives than GTD typically helps me achieve. Also, I am looking into getting the now habit to make sure I am not procrastinating on anything.

Paul

 

[Treetops]

Sub-thread about Troys motives now moved

In fairness to the members who want to post on-topic in this thread, I've taken the liberty of cutting & pasting the part about Troys motives to the main board,

http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?p=38230#post38230

 

[taxgeek]

Ok, back on topic.

My biggest challenge is forcing myself to work from my lists. I have a big desk with lots of stuff on it, and I tend to work from the physical objects that become action reminders, rather than referring to my lists.

I also hate returning phone calls. They're never quick, easy and satisfying, it always takes about an hour and results in more followup for me to do afterwards (which further delays the other work I already had to do.) My voicemail greeting already says "Please send me an email instead at xyz@email.com", but half the people leave messages anyway. Bleh.

I also hate doing weekly reviews. I guess even after reading all the threads on here, I haven't gotten the emotional "aaah" feeling that others are getting from them, so I have no motivation to do them. It works pretty well to keep all my lists current on a real time basis, but I wish I could get in the habit of a weekly review that is useful to me and not too time consuming and (gasp!) fun.

Anybody else?

 

[flexiblefine]

Putting things away

My biggest challenge is forcing myself to work from my lists. I have a big desk with lots of stuff on it, and I tend to work from the physical objects that become action reminders, rather than referring to my lists.

Have you had any luck in putting things away? I have a similar situation, and I try to keep my lists in front of me instead of anything else.

Is there an easy way for you to keep your active projects out of sight, but still handy?

 

[jaythebull]

I am an IT Manager by day. Daddy/Husband/Car Mechanic/Gardener/Plumber/ ... ah you get the idea by night.

My biggest problem right now is the sheer amount of stuff I have on my plate. If I spent all day immediately doing all the little 2 minute things - that's all I would do. I also have an issue with getting my projects broken in to nice bite sized pieces to nibble on. Then you add to it the list of home projects and to do - and by George it gets quite un-manageable.

 

[jkgrossi]

Hmmm... I have to say that my biggest problem is that I'm not really interested in my work!

So, I have everything captured on my lists... but severely lack the motivation to act on any of them!

I don't really think that it's a matter of procrastination, because I don't really procrastinate when it comes to doing the things that I enjoy doing.

Also, I'll ditto taxgeek on the weekly review. Yes, I see the value... and yes, I realize that it's the lynch pin for the entire system. However, I just can't seem to carve out the time to do them faithfully.

Oh, profession - Accountant in Corp. (non-public).

 

[taxgeek]

Ditto jkgrossi

Hmmm... I have to say that my biggest problem is that I'm not really interested in my work!

Ditto! Gawd it's hard to keep plowing foward on a career path that's . . . well, . . . not that interesting!

I guess they're going to tell us we have an appointment with 50,000 feet now. Sigh.