It seems that right around this age, people typically start to lament a lack of spare time.  I think there's a number of reasons for this - one of which is certainly that as our life gets busy, we find ourselves with less time to slow down, turn our eyes inwards, and reflect on what is going on.  Probably the most common reason for this problem is that people gradually add more things to their plate over time, and before they know it, they no longer find themselves with spare time.

Filling your spare time with things that you want to do is an efficient use of your time, but often, we lose sight of exactly what we're spending our time on, how much time we have available, and end up wasting time simply trying to manage everything that we've picked up.

There's a couple of things that we, as individuals, can do to avoid this.  Today, I'm just going to write about some really simple ways to increase the amount of time that you have at your disposal.  None of these ideas will be ground-breaking, but maybe there's a few that you haven't considered before.

Be present in each moment

Okay, I cheated and kind of already mentioned this one.  Still, this is a really important part.  I picked this up when I first watched Marc Lesser giving a speech at Google called Accomplish More by Doing Less (you can watch that video here).  Marc is a quirky character that spent some time as a monk studying Zen habits in a monastery, before earning his MBA.  One of the key points he mentioned in his video was one of the fundamental concepts of Zen, which is to be present in each moment.

Being present in each moment isn't a complicated thing, but it isn't simple to accomplish.  It's simply a matter of taking yourself out of your headspace and being aware of how you are feeling.  Take a minute to reflect and ask yourself some of these questions:

• What am I doing? 
  
• How does it make me feel? 
  
• Why do I feel that way? 
  
• How might my actions currently be affecting other people?
  

The more often you take the time to account for how you are feeling and what you are doing, the more often you will become aware of the day as you are moving through it.  One of the easiest ways to burn through your time is to get caught up in something without coming up for air.  This doesn't always have to happen when you're having a stressful day at work - as the well-known maxim goes: Time flies when you're having fun.

Okay, I confess, this tip isn't really about creating more time, it's about appreciating the time that you do spend.

Improve your typing speed

Okay, this tip is specific to me, and people that spend a lot of their time in the same medium that I do (computers).  However, this specific case can be applied to yourself in a more general sense: Figure out ways to make the things you do frequently more efficient.

The aim is to find small things that add up over time.  I spend a lot of time writing e-mails, blog entries (these things aren't short!), chatting with people on MSN, and browsing the net.  Anything that I can do that will make these activities more efficient is going to gradually lead to more time for me.  Consider the following: The greater the amount of time that you spend doing X, the greater the benefit you will reap from a small improvement in your efficiency performing X.

Growing up, I learned quickly the benefit of memorizing the location of each key on the keyboard.  But I never moved past that.  I could type quickly using two fingers and a thumb from each hand, but I had to keep my gaze fixed squarely on the keyboard, and I made a hell of a racket when I was banging away.

After the first year in Computer Science at UVic, I realized how ridiculous it was for someone majoring in the studies of computers to be unable to type correctly.  I tracked down a copy of Mavis Beacon (a typing tutorial), and got to work.  At first, progress was slow and agonizing.  I would be chatting with friends on MSN, deliberately typing out each word, slowly, but correctly.  On an almost per-second basis, I would feel the urge to just hammer out the words the way that I knew how, but I maintained my discipline and stuck with it.

As a result, I can put together long essays, e-mails, win arguments on the internet, and chat with friends without my typing speed being an obstacle.  The content I create in those mediums has also improved - not directly because I am able to type faster and thus more, but because I can now forget about typing.  It is no longer an obstacle getting in the way of what I'm really setting out to do, which is to articulate thoughts.

Improving typing speed may seem like a small thing, but it's something from which I've reaped big rewards over time, simply due to the sheer quantity of time that I spend sitting in front of a computer (don't talk to me about carpal tunnel syndrome - I'm hoping it's just a fad that will blow over).

Write stuff down

Here's an easy one that leads to big rewards.

1. Buy a small notebook and pen, and keep them on you at all times
2. Whenever you have an idea, write it down

That's all you need to do to get more benefit from your time.  The more often you write ideas down, the more ideas you'll capture, and the more you will free up your mind from the burden of having to remember things.

The less time you have to spend remembering things in your head, the more time you will be able to spend thinking about how to solve problems you're currently dealing with, resolving issues that may arise somewhere down the line, planning out how you will spend the rest of your time, and just being present in the moment.

If it sounds too simple, or even trite, I can appreciate that.  If I hadn't iteratively moved towards this type of approach, I too would doubt its validity.  However, I can attest that simply lightening the load that is normally placed on our minds will do wonders for your ability to appreciate and make the most of your spare time.

The other thing that will come naturally out of writing things down is an enhanced sense of mindfulness.  When you force yourself to write down thoughts and ideas, and to make those ideas more concrete, you will naturally become much more aware of what it is that normally occupies your mind.  Maybe you start to realize that you have spent the last three of your breaks at work annoyed about how messy your office at home is.  Maybe you've been spending a lot of time thinking about how out of shape you are. 

Making the most out of your time doesn't mean have an abundance of time with which you do nothing.  It means spending your spare time in the way that will best lead to your happiness and sense of fulfillment.  Dealing with the things that are on your mind is how you accomplish this.  I guarantee that once you've cleaned that office up, you will no longer be wasting your time in a funk thinking about it.

Stop procrastinating

Again, this is trite right?  Procrastinating is a problem that many of us suffer through, but try as we might, cannot overcome.  While the subject of procrastination could really be an entire blog post unto itself, I can share quickly a few of the things that I use to avoid this beast.

One of the traps that I notice people run into with procrastination is that they don't really contemplate what it means to waste time avoiding doing the task that they know they need to accomplish.  Procrastination usually means the following:

1. You need to accomplish task A
2. Instead of accomplishing task A, you put it off, and instead do a mildly distracting task
3. You waste three hours of time, then spend the rest of your time frantically trying to accomplish task A

This approach isn't rewarding, and you typically end up wasting your spare time without even realizing it.  During step 2, you are focused on the fact that you haven't yet finished task A.  Because your mind is occupied with this fact, you are unlikely to pick up a task that requires any mental investment, and so most of your time will be wasted doing something frivolous. 

Frivolous activities and pursuits are good.  In fact, they're essential.  However, you should make a point of consciously making the decision that you want to spend your time this way.  When you procrastinate, you let the task that you are avoiding dictate how you spend your spare time, and that's an excellent way to minimize what you get out of it.

When you have a task at hand that you don't want to get done, Focus on the other things that you want to accomplish today.  Focus on what you will not be able to do later if you procrastinate now.  Procrastination is typically so easy for us to do because we focus on the task that we do not want to do, but this is never how procrastinating works.  That undesirable task is typically something that has to be done anyhow, so by procrastinating you are simply delaying the inevitable.  The items that are optional and fun to do but require some mental effort, however, are the tasks that we actually prevent ourselves from ever getting to when we procrastinate.

Another tip I was given was taking a more systematic approach, which some people find preferable.  When you sit down at the start of your day to begin working (or sit down in the morning on a weekend to begin working on chores and projects), write out a timetable detailing how you plan to spend your time. Include breaks you'll take, time you'll spend making dinner, doing the dishes, having fun watching TV, etc.  Once you've done this, get to work.  Make a note of any time that you veer off your schedule, either because you procrastinated, or a task went longer than expected, or any other reason.  At the end, review your schedule and see how you did.

One of the things I like about this approach is that it forces you to do some reflection.  How realistic are you when determining how you'll spend your time?  Is it really honest that you put down that you would only watch thirty minutes of television?  The other thing that this approach provides you with is another way of seeing what you sacrifice when you procrastinate.  When you have everything written out on a schedule in front of you, it's pretty easy to see immediately what you are giving up by delaying on a given task.

Develop a system for tracking your tasks

This last one should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone at all that ever reads this blog.  I'm a big fan of staying on top of your tasks.  If making the most of your time means accomplishing more things that you want to do, I think a good system that enables you to do that is essential.

Although the systems that I've described using for myself have grown in complexity over time, a system that works for you does not need to be, and can literally be as simple as the tip I already mentioned (write stuff down!).  By keeping track of the ideas that you have and storing them in a meaningful way, you'll be able to stay on top of more things that you genuinely want to do.

Before I started to make an effort to capture ideas that I had (note: it's no longer an effort, it's simply become a natural part of my daily process), I would spend the majority of my evenings playing video games.  Playing video games are rad, no doubt, but even when I didn't want to do this, I would still fire up the Xbox and zone out for a couple of hours.

These days, when I want to play video games, I do so purposefully.  All I mean by that is that I make a mental decision that that is how I want to spend my time.  You see, before, I would play video games out of boredom.  My thought process would be "I don't know what I want to do, so I'll just play video games".  They're easy, they provide interactive entertainment, etc.

In aiming to accomplish more, we should strive to avoid doing things out of boredom.  We certainly want (and deserve!) moments when we take a step back, have a deep breath, and maybe just veg out on the couch.  But that's different from simply sitting around bored.  Being bored is the worst way to spend your time, because it means you're simply letting it slip away.

An effective system will allow you to capture ideas and tasks that you have, and give you something to look to as a reminder when you're not sure what else to do.  Having a system that works for you will let you review the thoughts you've had recently and determine if there's anything else you want to do before you decide that you'd really rather plunk down in front of the TV and relax.

Accomplish

So that's really it.  Some of these tasks are simple, like improving your typing speed, and some may requiring overcoming some inertia to start putting in motion.  However, whichever angle you decide to start on, think about the next steps, and ignore the nagging voice in the back of your head that tells you all of the reasons that you can't do something.  Determine what you want, figure out the next step, and then act on it.

Get out there and accomplish!

Today I'm writing about one of the more intangible skills that I think are important in an effective project manager.  I call the skill humble confidence.

Yin and Yang

A lot of the people I've talked to find the concepts of confidence and humility to be at odds with each other.  Why would someone that is confident bother being humble? 

"Isn't humility really just about being someone that admits defeat and accepts that they cannot accomplish a bunch of things?"

Humility is an under-rated virtue, and part of the reason for that is this line of thinking above.  Being humble means having the ability to accept that there are things that you are not the best at.  Not only are there things that you're not the best at, there are things that you plain aren't good at, and there are things that you downright suck at.  It's easy to say that out loud without ever having it touch down beneath the surface.  The humble man can reflect, turn his sights within, come to the conclusion that he's not good at something, and be alright with that.

For those that watch The Office, David Brent and Michael Scott are perfect examples of characters completely lacking humility.  They've both got every reason in the world to actually be humble, but neither of them can admit or accept that they are poor at doing a single thing.

True confidence comes from the ability to accept and understand the fact that you are good at some things, and poor at others.  Being aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are will give you the ability to approach situations with full knowledge about how you can affect them positively, as well as how you may end up making mistakes if you tread in areas for which you are ill-suited to assist.

True confidence comes from having a solid dose of humility, which will allow you to look inwards with honesty, and determine the things that you can really do well.  False confidence is that which is possessed by Michael Scott and David Brent.  Some other warning signs of false confidence are an inability to admit when you are wrong, the inability to agree to disagree, loud opinions without substance to back them up (typically being loud is used to drown out anything that might lead to questioning the assumption that the speaker is correct), and never being able to accept blame.

The confidently humble project manager

Project Management is a position in which you need to okay with the fact that your claims and suggestions are going to be questioned frequently.  Why is that what the budget is currently at?  Why can't this project be completed by that date?  Are you sure that your recommendation will work?  (No, you're not, as it's almost impossible to be sure about anything when we're managing people and software).

Effective project managers need to be able handle having their advice, assumptions, and recommendations questioned.  In fact, they need to be able to do this themselves beforehand, because that way they can be confident in what they're saying.

Not only is it important to be able to handle being questioned, it is important to be able to listen to the questions with humility.  Project managers that don't possess adequate humility will dismiss legitimate questions to their proposals out of hand, missing the opportunity to refine their approach, attitudes, and suggestions, and alienating their clients.  Project managers without adequate confidence will find themselves getting caught on every question that a client has to ask, lending too much weight to the slightest indication of uncertainty, succumbing to the trap of analysis paralysis.

The man who knows nothing

Being able to accept the fact that you are not an expert on everythingprovides you with a valuable ability: to rely on the experts that compose your team.  A project manager that believes themselves to be an expert on everything automatically raises a couple of questions:

• Why do we have a technical architect and a business analyst if the Project Manager is capable of all this?
• Why are these other people being pulled into meetings with the project manager if they are not needed?
• Is the fact that the project manager doesn't let the rest of the members of his team volunteer information an indication that they are incompetent?

None of these implications are attractive or co-operative.  One of the most important things I've learned over time managing projects is that it's okay for me to tell a client that I don't have the answer to their question, but that my Senior Developer does, and that I can check in with them and get that answer. Better yet, if they're there with me, I can turn the question directly over to them.

There's an important distinction here between a good and a bad project manager.  A good project manager will rely on his team for their opinions and advice. A bad project manager will rely on his team for scapegoating and passing off blame for poor results.  Don't let yourself fall into the second category.  Those in the know are aware that poor results from a team are generally the result of poor management by the PM.

The project manager that understands the values of humility and confidence is able to accept that they are not the expert on everything, and listen to a question without taking it personally.  Is this a valid question?  Have I actually accounted for this?  Listen, consider what is being asked, discuss with your team as appropriate, and respond.

By allowing yourself the benefit of being an imperfect human being, you will find that you are much more open to opportunities to learn and to improve the project that you are working on.

Since starting to teach classes, opportunities to come up with new ideas and techniques to teach in class are something I have been trying to keep on top of.  Well, actually, it's not really an option; I simply have to find those opportunities, because otherwise the classes will get boring and dull (and I don't want that).

First up, the notes:

(You can click on each of the notes to see a full-size version of it)

The first thing worth talking about is the way I've laid out the notes.  Each note is numbered at the bottom, so that I can keep track of the sequence with which I thought up these notes.  This might seem like a waste of time to put together, but doing it when it's fresh in my mind will save me time.  It'll definitely longer to try and figure out which page comes first after the fact.

Important ideas that I want to make a point of going over again later get a box drawn around them.  When I've finished writing about a specific idea, I draw a line across the page to make sure I have a clean break - visually and mentally.

So far, none of this stuff is groundbreaking, but that's okay, this is my chance to talk about my process, not an opportunity for me to split the metaphorical atom of taking notes.

One interesting thing to note is that peppered throughout these notes are the words "Use Case"

As I went through the process of writing out these notes, two main thoughts crossed my mind.

1. Surely someone has done this before me and thought up notation to support this
   
2. Why isn't there software to do this?

Coming up with my own notation will work, but if someone has already spent time doing it and has created a system that works, I would like to hop on board that and start evolving from that jumping off point, rather than rebuilding the wheel.

More importantly though, why hasn't any software been created to support this need?  There are plenty of dance choreographers out there, and it just seems like having software that supported them is a no-brainer.

When going through and taking notes, this was something that stuck in the back of my mind.  A use case is something that we capture when gathering requirements for a piece of software.  More specifically, it indicates a specific way in which a piece of software would be used.  Typically use cases are as simple as writing out:

As a user, I would like to be able to login to the system.

My notes are less formalized than even that, but you can see the places in which I've noticed a particular use case that a piece of software like this would need to support.  On the first page, one of the use cases I thought of is that to effectively capture choreography, you need to capture not just the main body position, but also to add notation and indicate which way various body parts are oriented (fingertips pointing up, for example).

Naming Stances

As I took notes, I noticed immediately that there was value in naming each new tutting stance that I came up with.  The stance may already be named by someone else, but having a name that I can use to quickly refer to a stance I'd written down previously saves me a lot of time.  Throughout the notes you can see that I've peppered names for various stances (and left one of them unnamed because I couldn't think of an intuitive name for it).

More Use Cases

Some more use cases that struck me as being potentially relevant:

1. Give users the ability to indicate the transitions to and from a given stance (eg, you can transition from this the box stance into the wall stance)
2. Give users the ability to indicate the lines that the dancer's body creates (and extend those outwards).  Better yet, automatically determine what the lines are, and possibly display the mid-line that exists between those.

Lines and body-geometry are an important part of good aesthetics when dancing, and providing a choreographer with an immediate representation of what lines are being created would be a nice touch.

Some other ideas

Some other ideas that I would like to see integrated into a choreography software would be allowing the user to quickly put together their own set of "body positions", and then slide those positions in and out of a sequence of moves.  Eg, I create one position to show my left arm being in the air, and one position to show my right arm in the air.  I can then create a sequence of moves that goes from the one position to the other, simply by dragging and dropping those positions into place.

As you can tell, this is far from an exact science, and mainly an idea in progress.  Still, it would be really nice to see something like this put together, if only because then I wouldn't need to resort to scrawling notes on paper and making a mess of things.

Still, in the meantime, my workflow continues along the following lines:

1. Write out dance notes whenever practicing
2. Get home, scan dance notes in
3. Add dance notes to Evernote, so that I can access them from anywhere

As I continue to use this method, I'll continue to evolve my notation so that I can improve its efficiency.

Since my last post, the dance instructor for the class I was taking has quit, I've taken over teaching the kids class and the class I was taking (at the request of Brooke), and Brooke asked me if I wanted to continue teaching after receiving positive feedback (and presumably enjoying the class herself, as she is also taking it).

All of that is extremely exciting to me, and I will absolutely be writing about it in short order.  However, there is something more important that I want to write about right now, and that is the upcoming election in BC.

Although Bay and I voted tonight, the bulk of the voting will occur one week from today.  As usual, there are a large number of campaign promises being made, and most of those are promises that we, as the voting constituency, will be unlikely to see realized.  Additionally, there are the usual set of parties: NDP, Liberals (the front runners in BC), Green, and Conservatives.  As usual, the way we ended up voting was not so much an indication of who we wanted to see win, as much as it was strategic.  Who is most likely to win, is that a good thing, and do we want to vote against them specifically in an attempt to prevent them from being voted in.

The more important item on the ballot this time around, in my opinion, is a very rare opportunity to change the way in which our vote matters.  This is the STV voting referendum, and is one of two ballots that you will be handed when you go to the voting polls.

I feel that the STV referendum has really been given a poor amount of media coverage, considering what a big deal it is, and what a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we are being given, as voters in a democracy, to make a significant difference.  Before we go further, I feel it necessary to point out that I recognize the irony in calling this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when we were given the chance in 2003 2005 (Thanks Jeremy!).  Nevertheless, it is certainly a rare opportunity, and I doubt we will see this chance again if it passes us by.

I'm hoping to explain what the STV is and how it works, as well as how it compares to our current voting system, titled "First past the post" (abbreviated from here on as FPtP).  Before we go further, I want to mention that UVic has put on an absolutely essential webcast covering many of the pros and cons of the two voting systems by a panel of political science experts, and these people do a much better job explaining things than I can.  However, this webcast is an hour and forty minutes, and many of us simply don't have the time for that.  I am attempting to summarize my own perception from this webcast in this blog.  The webcast can be viewed in its entirety here: http://www.uvic.ca/resources/stv.php

Okay, so let's talk voting.

First Past the Post

The current voting system that we used is titled "First past the post" because the main implication is that the votes for a given riding only matter until we have determined the first candidate that has a majority of votes.  Once that has been determined, we can ignore the rest of the votes, as it is impossible for any other candidate to win.

One of the upshots of this system is that if we have a number of roughly equally likely candidates to win (so assume they are all roughly going to get 33% of the votes), the first one that gets 33% of the votes, plus 1 more, wins.  As soon as it has been determined that a given candidate has won enough votes, the rest of the votes no longer matter, and this candidate wins the riding.

The consequence of this system is that the candidate that won may have only acquired 33% plus 1 vote, but they will go into parliament representing 100% of the votes, and with the clout to match that.

This system can result in some unusual results, especially where popular vote is concerned. For example, as quoted from this source:

"Federally, we have four centre-left parties if you include the Bloc,
and one party on the right. The result? In the last federal election
the Conservative Party formed a minority government with 143 seats of
308 seats, while winning just 36.27 per cent of the popular vote. By
way of comparison the Liberal Party earned 30.23 per cent of the vote,
but just 77 seats. The Bloc Quebecois got 49 seats with 10.5 per cent,
the NDP won 29 seats with 17.5 per cent, and the Green Party won no
seats with 4.5 per cent."

Now, you would think that a party that represents 4.5% of the population of Canada (that's just shy of one out of every twenty of us) would have a voice in our parliament and see some representation.  However, because every one of the votes cast for Green party candidates were in ridings where more dominant parties one, none of these votes counted.

Because of these kind of results, the FPtP system typically tends towards a two-party system, and towards a majority government (since you only end up with two major parties running, and so a majority is inevitable).  Another reason that we are more likely to see two-party systems is that the FPtP system "punishes" parties that have a certain number of differences, but also a number of items on their platform that they have in common.  I will illustrate why this is the case with an example:

In BC, we have two parties with platforms that are reasonably similar: NDP and Green.  The Green party's platform is mostly related to sustainable living and lifestyles, and social programs that help move us in this direction.  The NDP's platform is heavily favoured towards increasing social programs, though not necessarily limited to those that would increase sustainable living (for example, supporting the teacher's union as a beneficial social program is a stance the NDP would take, but not necessarily the Green party).

Now, in many ridings, there are some people that will favour many of the Green party's initiatives and approach, but will vote for the NDP, because they really want to support the teachers of BC.  Along the same lines, there are people that will appreciate many of the programs that the NDP supports, but will vote with the Green party, simply because they feel that sustainability should be our first and foremost concern.

In this example, let's say that 30% of the people voted for Green, and another 30% voted for NDP.  The remaining 40% voted for the only other party running, the Liberals (I'm not attacking the Liberals here, they're just the natural opposition).  The irony here is that the majority of the people that have voted favour many of the social programs that are items on the platforms of both NDP and the Green party, but due to the fact that there are differences in these parties, the votes are split between the two.  Of final consequence, the Liberals take the riding and win 100% of the votes for the purpose of their seat in the house of commons, even though only 40% of the people in the riding actually wanted them to win.

As you can see from the above example, in the FPtP system, it doesn't pay to run as a party that has similar ideals to another party - you're much better off representing a completely different set of ideals.

The trouble with this approach is that you gradually lead towards a two-party system, similar to what you see in the States, where you have the Republicans, and the Democrats.  Both parties are very similar to one another, with minor differences being what define them (quite amusingly so, actually, if you listen to them scream about how vile the other one is).  As a consequence of tending towards two-party systems, the FPtP voting system typically leads to candidates with less diversity (as it is important to run a candidate that will appeal to the greatest number of voters).

In some cases, this leads to a situation where people end up voting strategically.  A strategic vote would work as follows: