photo by mangpages 

The ability to have a strong handle on what needs to be done, when it needs to be done and who’s going to do it is often the difference between success and frustration.  I know lots of talented, fun and overall really nice people who are…for lack of a better word…unreliable.  They mean well, but their follow-through, their ability to consistently get things done just isn’t there.

The thing about Personal Effectiveness is that it’s personal.  What works for me likely won’t work for you, at least not without some tweaking and vice versa.  Most people have some kind of system / process or tools to stay on top of things – it could be an elaborate system like Getting Things Done or as simple as as a stack of post-it notes.

Whatever you use, there’s some element that involves keeping a list of things that need to be done – pen and paper are great for a to-do list (and can be invaluable for thinking out loud) but here are some other interesting online tools worth looking into.

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A couple of weeks ago Seth Godin blogged about The Talking Pad (and the following post was a variation called the modern talking pad).  The concept is when you’re talking with someone either 1 on 1 or in a small group, instead of using a powerpoint presentation, you should walk them through the discussion with a simple piece of paper that you can write on in front of them.

The alternative is to use a thick pen or marker and a legal pad.

Whenever you mention a number or make an assertion or promise, write it down. The act of writing is a verb, it’s the process of putting it on the page that underlines what you’ve said, that highlights the moment.

Seth’s point is that the talking pad can help you control the discussion and can add credibility, but I think there are a couple of other really strong reasons to use it.

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  photo by shoothead 

One of the fun things about the internet are all of the unusual (and sometimes clever) names that companies have developed for their products.  Some are fairly obvious (like YouTube or LinkedIn), some just sound interesting (like Squidoo or Gumshoo).  Somewhere in the middle is Delicious (originally Del.icio.us) a Social Bookmarking application that I’ve found to be a great tool.

Delicious solves several problems:

1. Bookmark a website and be able to find that bookmark from any computer.
2. Easily find your book marked site by using your own descriptive tags.
3. Find relevant and popular data submitted by millions of other users.

Delicious solves all of the above and more.  Save interesting sites to your Delicious account with tags that are meaningful to you.  Share those sites with co-workers or friends (and check out the sites they shared with you).  Need to find a site later – just log into your account from any computer and search by keyword or tag.  Doing research on something?  Do a search overall on Delicious and find the most recent pages, the most popular pages or just what people are saving the most of right now.

Delicious – You’ll wonder how you managed with out it.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach