Spam, Being Available and Passion.

I find often people post a comment on my blog instead of emailing me. Partly because this can be anonymous and partly because they do not know my email address (jime@synnex.com). Some of the anonymous comments are cutting. One price I pay for success is having so many unidentified people who are often less than tactful in telling me that I do not know how to run a business or what a bad person I am. I look for nuggets of truth in what they say and at the same time, I often find it inspirational as it clarifies my resolve and makes me stick to what is right. In an ironic way, criticism makes me more passionate.

The challenge with publishing my email address more is spam is a huge issue. The shear volume of spams is daunting but when I actually analyse the time to deal with them, it is low. So although the task looks big, it is small. I can deal with 10-20 spams per minute (depending on the speed of my connection). And of course I do have a spam filter but spammers spend their time figuring out how to get around it. What takes time is dealing with real email that I have to read and respond to.

I am up early today but will not be tired because I have passion to get things done. Although nothing is a sleep substitute, passion is the closest thing to it. A close second would be exercise which I will do in about an hour.

Passion and Energy

I am still at my leadership course. This is practising Stephen Covey's Seventh Law - sharpening the saw. For me, retreats and courses are rejuvenating.

Although I blog about Time Management, really it is about productivity. And the key to productivity is having energy which is created by passion. The best trick anyone can do to be more productive is to do something they are passionate about. This makes things flow easily and creates high energy.

I am passionate about what I do. I really love running SYNNEX Canada. We are big enough to have resources to do big things. We are entrepreneurial enough to be able to take advantage of the things we need to in order to thrive. We have good people. We have great customers and vendors.

Now this does not mean I love all aspects of what I do so I am spending some time figuring out those things that I am passionate about and those things which do not give me energy. Then I can focus on what gives me energy which is how I can have the greatest impact.

So my advice - find your passion.

Set a Deadline

I am on the road. Taking a Leadership course for the next week. I look forward to a week of learning and a break at the same time.

I always get more done with deadlines.

Right now, I am in an internet cafe and I only bought a limited amount of time so I am sure I will get everything done because I have the deadline.

I sometimes use that to move me forward on other larger projects. I set a deadline where there might not really be one. This is particularly useful in managing larger projects. Break them down into smaller parts and set deadlines for the smaller parts.

The warehouse move the Woodlawn in Guelph is one of those large projects that needs breaking down into smaller parts.

Decline of the Blog?

Earlier in April, I posted about abandoned blogs, and I chastised myself for not posting enough.

This really got me thinking about why people abandon blogs, and about the future of communications media. My daughter Laura once outlined the history of communications (she’s a book person) to me in terms of who’s writing and who’s reading:

One to Few
--Before the printing press, communication was essentially one-to-one. Though books would circulate, there was a small literate audience, and books were not mass-produced.

One to Many
--The advent of the printing press made books a form of one-to-many communication: an author could reach an audience of thousands in one print run. This was considered the normal form of communication with other technologies, including tv, newspapers, radio, and film. One person (or a select group) would create a message, which would then be transmitted to a wide audience.

Many to Many
--New technologies encourage many-to-many communication. Blogging is a forum where anyone can author. Wikis encourage vast participation. This could be considered a democratization of knowledge production, because many people can now produce, but there is also a backlash because some people are worried about the validity of the sources that they read.

Blogs
--Some blogs are of interest to a large segment of the population. Other blogs, like this one, have a more specialized audience. But even smaller blogs are out there where people write only for their friends (these are not linked to, and many blog writers do not expect anyone else to read their blogs except for friends). Though the Globe and Mail says that blogs are being abandoned at a staggering rate, Perseus claims that the majority of blogs are written by teenage girls and update twice a month to keep in touch with friends and family. This is not to say that many blogs are not being abandoned regularly, this is often the case, but I just wanted to put things in perspective. You must take it with a grain of salt that over a million blogs have been created, and after the initial post, there is no more updating. This is hardly considered an abandoned blog, because it’s not even quite a blog in the first place. These blogs—one-entry wonders and teenage lifetools—are quite different than the blogs I read each day and the blog sphere that I interact with. It seems to me that if these are being abandoned, we have to assume that it is simply growing pains, and not a sign that blogs will no longer be viable communication tools in the future.

And I am not abandoning my blog but am traveling for a week so might not post.

Adding Yoga to my Life.

We finally closed the Redmond purchase. Now integration can begin.

One of my passions is health. Partly this might be a fear of death or aging. Partly this is a productivity thing.

I have lots of health "shoulds" in my life. I do not eat red meat. I do not eat shellfish. I never eat chicken or turkey at home. I should just become a vegan. I try to limit my intake of sugar and sweets (although I tend to eat what is put in front of me). I still know I should eat healthier.

I am fairly good on cardio work outs. I run quite a bit. I cycle and use an elliptical occasionally. I lift weights less than I should. I do a circuit on weight machines weekly or more. By choice, I lead a fairly high stress, high pace life and working out is my best stress release.

Now I see that I should add yoga which I have done on an off a bit. This wire story was picked up many places including MSNBC.

NEW YORK - In breast cancer survivors, the Iyengar method of yoga not only promotes psychological well-being, but seems to offer immune system benefits as well, according to research reported Monday.

The research was reported at the American Physiological Society meeting in Washington, DC.
The Iyengar method, created by B. K. S. Iyengar, “is considered to be one of the more active forms of yoga,” lead researcher and presenter Pamela E. Schultz from Washington State University, Spokane, told Reuters Health.

Of course for me, I always seek to balance time with health although in the end, good health is so important to energy that spending a bit of time on it is critical to me for good time use. The real question is how much time is enough. I suspect there is diminishing returns. Doing 10 hours of cardio per week likely has similar results to doing only 3. Still, thinking of adding yoga or pilates to my schedule.

Handling the Dreaded Task

Productive morning so far. Still not quite on top of things but the weekend is young.

One advantage of being so "out there" about productivity and time management/goal setting etc. is that people send me things on the topic.

A friend emailed me "6 tips for handling the dreaded task" from the Happiness Blog. Thought you might enjoy. And re-using other people's good material is one goot time tip I use.

Re-inspiring Myself

I have not been feeling wise or even that productive lately so hence the lack of blog entries. Yes, I have excuses like travel and being busy. But I pride myself in being a no excuses persons so do not accept that.

So this weekend, I will dig into my arsenal of tricks to get more productive. The simplest thing I need to do is spend some time cleaning up clutter in my work area. And it is a good start to be up early today. I have already got a ton of stuff done.

I have been running a bit more than usual. The weather has been great (even though I often run on a treadmill so that should not matter much). I am planning on running the Ottawa Marathon at the end of May so need to get my mileage up. I am not sure it is smart to try to prove how to run a marathon on little training. I always want to be in good enough shape to run a half marathon without additional training but to run a full marathon, I need to add a long run to that. Last weekend, I ran 18 miles which is the longest I have run for a while. I do find the long runs tire me a bit.

I have not even read much lately. I did read an interesting but perhaps not as scientific book as it purports to be called "The China Study". It is a book on health that studies longevity and disease. It talks a lot about negative things like cancer. The gist of the message is be vegetarian - or more specifically - be vegan (no meat, fish, eggs or dairy products). I do not eat red meat but have not taken the leap to full vegan although I do eat vegan a few times per week or more.

I am looking forward to the weekend. Gives me time to get on top of things.

Off to run (but not for long - my first meeting means I need to leave shortly after 7).