Personal Futures Wiki - Example - Recently Updated Pages

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JohnMSmart — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:22:50 CST

A Personal Futures Wiki is an always-available online space that helps you build personal foresight. You can use it to organize relevant information about your personal past, present, and future. Selected output from your wiki is to be submitted in your Personal Futures Portfolio (Final Exam) in UAT's Foresight Development course. Your PF Wiki itself can be fully private. No one else needs to see it but you and anyone you choose to invite.

1. Please create your own Personal Futures Wiki like this one on wetpaint (or another web-based organizational space of your choice, like GoogleDocs, PBWiki, etc.). Choose a memorable URL (like yourname.wetpaint.com) and wiki name (you can easily change the name at any time, but not the URL unless you make a whole new wiki). Most people keep their wikis private, and sent out viewing or editing invitations to others as they wish. NOTE: Private wikis are great for private diaries, but I wouldn't store passwords or other highly sensitive info here. Even private wikis on wetpaint may not be fully secure.

2. Add the following pages (bold names below) to your wiki (click "Add a new page."). After you create each new page be sure to click back to "Home" before adding the next page or you will get cascading subpages. You might also want to cut and paste the Legend table below into the homepage of your wiki.

GTD Pages
Tasks+Waiting	Single-step "Next Actions" ("Tasks") you can do now, & "Waiting For Others" items.
Projects+Skills	Multi-step, long-term "Projects" you have going, and any "Skills" that make you unique.
Ideas+Questions	Someday/Maybe "Ideas" (personal, biz, etc.) and long-term "Questions" to research.
Personal Pages
Diary	A place to journal--and occasionally review--daily or memorable life experiences.
Money	Income, expenses, budget, investments, money goals and plans.
Habits	Health, exercise, practice, entertainment, any repeating "healthy habits."
Fam+Friends	Your important relationships, things your fam&friends like, don't like, and plans.
Values+Psych	Your values, ideals, personality, and psychological traits.
Social+Fun	Social groups, travel, other fun things you can do for "re-creation."
Career Pages
Career Goals	Career plans and possibilities, current life goals and objectives.
Education+Work	Degrees, classes, jobs, highlights, current ed/work schedule, future plans.
Networking	Group memberships, conferences, networks that connect you to professionals.
Mentors	Leaders, advisers, and helpers in your profession, and your contact history w/ them.
Co's+Internships	Co. profiles, site visits, contacts. Internship opportunities and schedules.

3. Cut and paste the assignments on each page of this wiki template into your own wiki. Please do these assignments in your own wiki, and submit them (after editing out any particular parts you may wish to keep personal) in your Personal Futures Portfolio (TCH110 Final), as directed on the course shell.

4. Feel free to make other mods (add your own new pages, reorganize pages, rename pages if you have better names, add crazy graphics) as desired to your wiki. Again, your personal wiki is fully private. Share it only with those others you wish, if any. I hope you find it a powerful tool for visualizing and improving your personal future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Co's+Internships

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:21:45 CST

Companies and Internships - PFP Assignments

1. What companies do you currently find inspiring? List at least three (3) companies you could see yourself working at, under the right circumstances. Make sure at least one (1) of these is a smaller company (under 150 employees). In addition to their website link, find a link to one good article or film online about the company, for each of these companies, preferably one that tells you something about the company's "culture." What kind of personalities do their top managers have? What kind of employees do they recruit? What do they value and reward? Describe both what the company does (some key products and services) and how they do it (company culture). (3 companies, 1 paragraph per company)
Write here...

2. Find at least one (1) formal student internship program, listed on a website, that you could see yourself doing either during one of your summers at UAT or on graduation. Describe the details of the internship here. Is it paid? If so how much? How long? What is the application deadline? What student experience, backgrounds and personal qualities are they seeking? Copy and paste their key language into your description below. Call or email them to get these details if they aren't listed on the website. (2 paragraphs)
Write here...

3. UAT currently doesn't have a formal list of what companies its alumni have gone to, by major. There is a general list of companies that have hired UAT students, which is available on UAT's external website however. Find this list, and select three companies you are particularly interested in either a) understanding better or b) possibly working at. What are these companies? Explain how you can go about figuring out who at UAT is now working at these companies, and how you will get their email. (1 paragraph)
Write here...

4. Write out a sample company inquiry email and paste it below. This email should be addressed either to

a) a UAT alumni who is working at one of your companies of interest, or
b) an interesting person who works at one of your companies of interest and whose bio (or a good personal article on them) is available online.

The objective of this email is threefold:

1) to briefly mention what you like/are impressed with about that company and about the person you are contacting
2) to very briefly introduce yourself (your background, skills, and interests)
3) to ask for information or advice (about internships, about some aspect of the company, about getting lunch, etc.)

Keep it short and sweet and post it here. Include the email address of the person you will send it to below. (2+ paragraphs)
Write here...

Extra Credit 1: Send this email, and post the response/discussion you get, if any below. (3 paragraphs)

Extra Credit 2: If you get a publicly listed email for a particularly desirable contact at a desirable company, post this info on our FD@UAT Wiki under Career Resources > Resources by UAT Major >> A. Company Leads for this Major. Don't list private email on our public wiki unless you get permission. Post the publicly listed email in a way that can't be easily scooped up by data-mining software (eg: john"at"company"dot"com).

Ready to start using this wiki page to record and reflect on your personal Company and Internship research and activities? Go ahead and keep writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have many happy, meaningful, and productive work experiences!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Mentors

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:21:20 CST

Mentors – PFP Assignments

1. Mentor Candidates.
Mentors are folks who are leaders or role models, people who you admire to some degree, with experience or skills that strongly interest you. An ideal mentor is someone who is much more experienced and connected than you, someone who could serve as an occasional advisor, or helper. Someone in their 50’s or older is much more likely to spend occasional time mentoring you than someone in their 30’s. Likewise, they will have accomplished more and be a more obvious role model. Try to pick mentors whose lives have been so positive, interesting, successful, or distinguished that you would be happy to have a life that is only a fraction as accomplished as theirs has been.

At least one of your mentors should be relatively unfamous and not-too-rich, so that you have a better chance of spending quality time with them. At least one of them should be the opposite: someone distinguished, famous, or successful, and thus probably hard to get access to. For the second type of mentor, you may have to call to talk to their secretaries several weeks in a row in order to get a chance to talk to them, or to have your mentor request looked at. When you call or email, pick the same day and time of the week, like a Monday afternoon, and keep trying until you get a definite answer. You may just be ignored at first.

Do your homework first. Be sure that you can describe what it is about your mentor that really impresses you, and that you would like to emulate in your own small way. Ask if you can talk to them for 20 minutes by phone, or by email at least twice a year (June and January) to tell them where you are in your education, and always ask for their specific advice on internships, courses, projects, etc. Let them get to know you, without boring them with too much detail. Put these mentor contact appointments in your schedule and be ready to have them cancelled and rescheduled. Successful mentors are busy people. Every time you talk to or email them, be sure to bring two things: 1) a gift, usually something small like an article you think they might be interested in, and 2) a question, asking their advice on some specific decisions ahead in your life. If one of your mentors is nearby you may get lucky and be invited to lunch with them on one of these occasions.

As you get closer to graduation, with good planning on your part your mentor will have become aware of your interests and skills, and will have advised you on your summer internships, your school and extracurricular projects, and some of the skills you’ve learned in college. Perhaps most importantly, they may now be an a good position to help you with your job placement on graduation. If you pick a mentor in a company you’d love to work in, you may get a substantial edge in the hiring process, since you’ve been learning about that company for years in a row, and have a good relationship with one of their more distinguished employees.You can find more books and tips on mentoring by googling around, but the above advice is some of the most basic and important.

List the names of three mentor possibilities below, and two or more sentences for each name that describes who they are, where they live, their rough age (guess if you aren’t sure), what they do or have done, and why you think they might be a great mentor for you. (3 mentor possibilities, 2+ descriptive sentences for each potential mentor)
Write here...

Ready to start using this wiki page for recording your Mentor activities? Go ahead and keep writing them on this page once you've finished these assignments. May you find some excellent role models who help you greatly with your future plans!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Networking

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:20:30 CST

Networking – PFP Assignments

1. Join an Online Social Network
Join a full-featured, Web 2.0-based social network like Facebook or Plaxo Pulse, or a more primitive “first-generation” social network like Orkut or MySpace. If you aren’t sure which one you want to join, check out the big List of Social Networking Websites at Wikipedia. See if you can find one that reflects your specific interests, and which has a good privacy policy and gives the user a lot of control over the ways they can manage what they learn/watch about their friends lives (they way Facebook lets you manage your “mini-feeds about all your friends there), and the group collaboration tools they can use (Facebook’s are the best, at present). On Facebook, users can install about 5,000 (and counting) different types of applications on their FB home page, which they can use to keep track of, give feedback to, or play games with their online friends. Once you’ve set up your profile at your social network of choice, consider inviting some of your family and friends (from your Family+Friends page) to join you. Getting your friends and family into the digital online world will allow you to follow their lives much more easily than ever before. Let us know below which network you chose to join, and what you think of it so far (even if you’ve only spend 20 minutes in it, and are looking around for the first time). (Social Network name, plus 1 paragraph description evaluation “so far.”)
Write here...

2. Advice: Join a Business Social Network
Create a profile for yourself (a "digital business card") on a good business social network like LinkedIn or Xing. Look around there for someone you can friend who has advanced skills in one of your areas of professional interest. Send them a friend request, telling them why you want them in your network. If you keep coming back to these networks and doing searches for people who 1) live in your vicinity, and 2) have skills in areas you are interested, or 3) work at companies you are interested in, you can slowly but steadily grow your network of professional contacts, and by watching what they are doing, learn more about what kinds of things you can do in your industry as well.
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

Ready to start using this wiki page for to record and reflect on your personal Networking activities? Go ahead and keep writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, well-connected, and productive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Education+Work

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:19:56 CST

Education+Work – PFP Assignments

1. Your Full Resume (Minus Career Objective)
If you have a resume, cut and paste it below. If you don’t, start one now by listing the basics of your educational background, work background so far, and at least one personal reference. Every time you apply for a job, you want to take this detailed resume and make a custom (and shorter) one, tailored specifically for the job you are applying to. You start your resume with an Objective, which you customize for each job. Some of that language can come from your Career Goals page, assuming you get a career in the industry you are aiming for. (Cut and paste your existing resume below or if you have to, create a VERY brief resume for this assignment. You can make it more detailed later, but this wiki page is a good place to keep your “master” resume.)
Add your resume here...

2. Advice: Post Your Resume Online
LinkedIn is a great place for you to list your past work experiences, and to get others to write “recommendations” for your past work with them, which stay online with your LinkedIn profile. Twelve million business people and students list their profiles/resumes on LinkedIn, and recruiters from big companies constantly look there to find skilled workers. Conventional job sites, like Monster.com and Jobbing.com are other places you can make a profile and list your online resume. There are also career specific places where you can list your resume, like GameJobs.com. If you don’t have a particular company or companies you are set on working at, you should list your resume at a good number of these online sites, to get the kind of offer you are looking for.
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

3. Current Class Schedule and Education plans.
This page is also a good place to plan your education schedule and list any future education plans you are considering.
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

Ready to start using this wiki page for recording your Education+Work activities and plans? Go ahead and keep writing them on this page once you've finished these assignments. May you be a lifelong learner, and have a well-paid, and productive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Career Goals

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:19:30 CST

Career Goals and Life Objectives - PFP Assignments

1. List your current Career Goals and Life Objectives, or where you see yourself five years after graduation. What kind of work and play are you doing? Where? What are your skills and life aspirations at that time? (1 para)
Write here...

2. Take the free online Princeton Review Career Quiz (24 questions) http://www.princetonreview.com/cte/quiz/career_quiz1.asp
a. What is your "interest" color according to the test? Copy your interest color paragraph below. (descrip.)
Write here...

b. What is your "work style" color according to the test? Copy your work style paragraph below. (descrip.)
Write here...

c. Create an account at the Princeton Review website (user name & password) so you can see the list of careers that go with your answers. When the career list comes up on the screen, listen to your intuition (first strong feeling) and list your top 5-10 career interests from the list. (5-10 career names)
Write here...

d. Click through on at least one (more if you like) of these career links, and cut and paste the info paragraph ("A Day in the Life, Paying Your Dues, and Associated Careers") below. What appeals to you most about the one(s) you chose? What don't you like about them? (descrip + 1 para)
Write here...

3. Play Holland’s Career Interests “Game”
http://career.missouri.edu/students/explore/thecareerinterestsgame.php
a. Read the page (that's the "game," it seems) and ask yourself which of these six groups of people would be your top three social groups, in rank order. What are they? (descrip)
Write here...

b. Click through on each of the three groups you chose and look at the career examples listed for each. List at least one career name and as many as five from each of the three groups below. Rank them in rough interest order. (3-15 career names).
Write here...

4. Visit the Kinder Institute of Life Planning website (http://www.kinderinstitute.com/). Life planning advisors are even more specialized than financial planning advisors, because they help you think about how to use your money to further your life goals. That means they have to find out how you personally define success, and there are more ways to do that today than ever before. Below are some life choices, dimensions, or goals (areas of "success") that can be, at least to some degree, related to money.

Now imagine yourself in mid-life (45 years old). For each of the areas below, give us anywhere from 1 sentence (minimum) to a few paragraphs describing how you live (a possible or probable lifestyle in this area) when you are 45. (1 sentence+ for each)

a. Family (relatives, spouse, kids, kid's associated expenses (college funds), etc.)
Write here...

b. Creativity (projects, hobbies, art, etc.)
Write here...

c. Recreation (travel, entertainment, etc.)
Write here...

d. Spirit (actions and donations you make towards your core beliefs and values)
Write here...

e. Service (ways you can directly help others outside your family)
Write here...

f. Place (where you want to live, what kind of living environment)
Write here...

g. Things (other objects you want, car, etc.)
Write here...

5. Midlife Salary and Retirement Savings Guessstimate
Now do an educated guess: what kind of annual salary should you have around mid-life (45 yrs old)? How much money do you think you should have in your savings at mid-life, for use in your later years?
[Reference: The average U.S. 50 year old has only $40,000 in savings/net worth, ten times less than the $400,000the US government recommends as the absolute minimum you should have saved to supplement your social security when you retire, which is typically at 65 or 70.]
Note: Copy these numbers over to Question 3 on the Money page as well.
(2 numbers, annual mid-life salary and mid-life savings)
Write here...

6. Write your Obituary/"Last Roast"
Assuming you die (biologically speaking at least) in your 91st year of life, write your obituary as it appears in the local community weblog (or on the homepage of your Digital Twin?), or if you prefer, a straight or humorous summary of your life (a “roast”) that is read by a close friend at your 90th birthday party. Write it in the third person, like "He/she achieved xyz when he turned 50, then for his next trick did such and such, etc...".

What year is it when you are 91? What is the world like then? What changes have you seen? What have you made of your life in your time in the sun? How much did you sieze the day and how much did you let slip by you? What kind of friends come to your funeral (or 90th birthday party)? Which of your personal traits, goals, and plans today have endured, and which have changed. What was predictable? What was surprising? What things were harder or took longer than you originally thought? What "lucky breaks" did you get? Each of us is the star of our own life story. Give us one possibility for yours. (3+ paragraphs)
Write here...

Ready to start using this wiki page to record and reflect on your personal Career Goals? Go ahead and keep writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, peaceful and productive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Social+Fun

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:18:51 CST

Social and Fun – PFP Assignments

1. Recreation List
It’s great to have a place where you list things you have done or want to try that are both social and fun, things you can do for “re-creation”… of yourself. Have you ever hiked in Yellowstone, Zion, or Yosemite? Gone cross country skiing? Run a LAN party? Played in a tournament at a D&D convention? Danced all night at a rave? Gone to Burning Man? Partied at GDC? Gone to an LoTR, Star Wars, or other film fest? What have you done so far with friends (one to many), or what do you want to try, that is both social and fun? Keep a list of these special things here, and make sure you get them in your schedule on a regular basis. Use them as rewards for your accomplishments. A well lived life is as much about celebration and recreation as it is about learning, building skills and working hard. Enjoy! (list 1 “Re-Creation” item).
Write here...

Ready to start using this wiki page to record and reflect on your Social and Fun activities? Go ahead and start writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, meaningful, and friend-filled future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Values+Psych

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:18:27 CST

Values, Personality, and Psychology - PFP Assignments

1. Write a very brief outline of your Values. What qualities in people, ways of living, ideas, priorities, things do you care most about? Another way of uncovering your values is to talk about what you see in other people's actions that you DON'T like. Some of your core values may be the exact opposite of that. (1 para)
Write here...

2. List your StrengthsFinder profile. What are your top five words, in what order? What do they mean (very briefly). What do you agree or disagree with about this profile? (description + 1 para)
Write here...

3. List your DiSC profile. What does it mean to you (very briefly)? What do you agree or disagree with about this profile? (description + 1 para)
Write here...

4. Take the Humanmetrics “Jung Typology” (Myers-Briggs) Online Test
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm
A. What is your four-letter Myers-Briggs Type (in Pink Capital Letters?) What is your qualitative analysis (slightly, moderately, or distinctively expressed ) for each of the four types? Cut and paste below. (descrip.)
Write here...

B. Click through to the verbal description paragraph for your M-B Type by Kiersey. It starts, “The Portrait of the ….” Cut and paste this below. Read it carefully. What parts feel like they might be right and what parts wrong? (description + 1 para)
Write here...

C. Click the “Jung Career Indicator” and see the kind of careers Humanmetrics recommends for your type. List any that interest you on your Career Goals page.
No writing for this item here.

5. Take IHHP's Emotional Intelligence Test
http://www.ihhp.com/quiz.php
Be honest in answering the questions. Cut and paste the paragraph description you get below. Read it carefully. What parts feel like they might be right and what parts wrong?
(NOTE: You don’t have to share these results on your Personal Futures Portfolio. If you do, you can also make your PFP confidential if you choose). (description + 1 para)
Write here...

Ready to start using this wiki page to record and reflect on your personal Values, Personality, and Psychology? Go ahead and start writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a self-aware, meaningful, and producitive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Fam+Friends

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:17:33 CST

Family and Friends - PFP Assignments

1. Family and Friend Circles.
List the names (and optional contact info, if you have a private wiki) of two categories of important people in your social universe, such as:
A) Family (your family by relation)
B) Friends (your best and more distant friends)

OR two alternative titles, such as:
A) My Tribe/Clan/Gang/Family (best friends and close family)
B) ExtendedFamily (more distant friends and family, but not acquaintances)
Try to come up with at least10 names for Category A and 20 names for Category B. If you are in any social groups (Facebook, etc.) take a look at those to find some of these names. List the names in alpha order, by first or last name as you prefer. (2 lists)
Add your F&F lists here...

2. Enlarging Your Social Groups.
Look at your two relationship circles above. Are they each an appropriate size for your interests and goals in life? The anthropologist Robin Dunbar estimates we can maintain strong social relationships, where we know who each person is and how they relate socially to others, with as many as 150 people (Dunbar's number) at a time. How close are you to "maximizing" your relationship potential? Would it be helpful to you to have more friends in either circle? Go back and add at least two (2) potential Category A and (4) potential Category B friends or family to your circles. Put these individuals names in italics. Potential Category A could be folks like cousins, aunts, uncles, in-laws, etc. that may be far away or otherwise distanced from you. Or they could be people you've been thinking could become a good friend, but you haven't put the effort into getting to know them. Do you want to contact any of these folks? If so, write this down on your Tasks page.
Add your potential names in italics to your F&F lists above...

3. Strengthening Your Social Groups - Communication.
Go back to your list above and classify them in two ways: a) Close Contact and b) Occasional Contact Family&Friends. Close Contact Family&Friends are folks you currently see or contact (in person, phone, email, IM, etc.) 10 or more times a year. Put a > (greater than sign) after the names of all the folks you presently contact more than 10 times a year (be honest), and a < (less than sign) after the names of all those you contact less than 10 times a year. Now ask yourself: Are any of these folks in the wrong category (A versus B)? Do you want to move them, so their category better reflects your actual communication patterns with them? If not, do you want to contact some of them more frequently in the future? Some of them less? If so, write this down on your Tasks page.
Annotate the names in your F&F lists above...

4. Personal Characteristics of Your Family and Friends.
a. Shared and Conflicting Values. Look again at your values statement on your Values+Psych page (finish it on that page if necessary before returning here). Now look at your lists above. Typically, all your family and friends will share most of your core values to a reasonable degree, but a few will share them to the point of inspiring you (they may even live them better than you presently do, in your estimation), and another few will not share many at all (to the point of causing unproductive conflict, because you each see some basic things about the world very differently). Put a + (plus sign) after the name of any family member or friend who really inspires you with their values, and a ~ (approximate symbol) after their name of any whose values may led to unproductive conflict for you. For each of these two special categories of friends (+ and ~) write a few words after their name that describe why they are positively inspirational (or approximate) friends for you, at present. If you don't have any friends in either of these categories, think about how you can widen your circle of friends until you have a few in each category.
Annotate the names in your F&F lists above...

b. Strengths. Thinking about all of your friends in terms of StrengthsFinder, write a few words (at least one or two words for each person) after each of their names that describe something about either their values or their strengths that you admire (like "optimistic", or "kind," or "a great competitor" or "always learning"). Discovering people's values and strengths is an ongoing process. People display their values and strengths even more by theirbehaviors than by what they say. Watch both carefully and you can understandwho they presently are, as well as who they wish, or think they are, which is often a very different thing.
Annotate the names in your F&F lists above...

c. Shared and Diverse Skills. Look again at your goals on your Career Goals page (finish writing them there if necessary before returning here). Do you have an appropriate number of friends who share your most-valued skills relative to your goals, so you can help each other improve? Which friends share your skills? Note them with an (S) in your list above, and a word or two describing the skills you share (coding, hacking, design, networking, etc.). Now ask a different question: Among your friend circle, how broad is the set of useful skills that are relevant to achieving your current goals? Which friends have totally different but still goal-relevant skills from you? Note them with a (D) in your list above, and a word or two describing these skills. If you cultivate friends that have unique skills that are also important to your goals, you will have many more opportunities to do projects and startups with your friends. If you don't, your only option will be to go to work for others who are not your friends. No matter which of these two courses (working with friends or strangers) you chose at any point in your life (and both can work quite well), it is very good, whenever you can manage it, to always have both options available to you. People with alternatives can always negotiate their terms "from a position of strength."
Annotate the names in your F&F lists above...

d. Critical Thinking. Do you have friends who respectfully help you examine and improve your beliefs, and think critically? Note them with a (C) for critical thinking in your list above. Socrates said "An unexamined life is not worth living." Miguel Aznar said "An unexamined (blindly held) principle or belief is not worth having." Cultivating friends who gently help you examine your beliefs and decisions will improve the quality of your life, as long as their criticisms don't tear you down or their egos don't try to control you.
Annotate the names in your F&F lists above...

e. "Problem" or "Project" Family and Friends. Problem/Project friends may share your core values but they also have regular communication, personality, or behavior clashes with you. That means it is often a "project" (a pain) on your part to hang out with them. These folks may enjoy communicating with you (i.e., you give them something by communicating with them) but, relative to you, you find them controlling, apathetic, depressed, manic, too optimistic, too pessimistic, too critical (of themselves or others), rude, too loud, too quiet, etc. We may wish to just avoid all such individuals, but it greatly helps us learn patience and empathy, and allows us to do good for others, to have a few such individuals in our friend circle. Of course, you don't want too many or you won't be able to maintain your own equilibrium. You also need to find the right balance of time that you spend with such friends. Again, too much time isn't good for either of you, but too little time and you miss the opportunity help someone who may really need and value your friendship. If you have a private wiki, label any project friends or family with a (P) after their name. Write a few words next to their name about why it's hard to communicate with them, but also why it's worthwhile, and how often you plan to stay in touch with them.
Annotate the names in your F&F lists above...

6. Foresight Story.
Pick one of your family or friends above and tell us a very brief story about someone who is either particularly foresighted in their personal or professional life (a model of future thinking), or someone who did some particular thing which seemed to you especially foresighted, showed good planning, etc. Can you learn anything from this story for your own life? (1 paragraph)
Write here...

7. Lack-of-Foresight Story.
Again, pick one of your family or friends and tell a brief story about something they did (or presently do) in their personal or professional life which didn't (doesn't) seem particularly foresighted. Can you learn anything from this story for your own life? (1 paragraph)
Write here...

8. Your Relationships - Future.
What kind of long-term relationships do you want to develop in your life? What are the first descriptive words (adjectives, verbs, nouns) that come to mind? Do you want a “significant other?” Marriage? Kids? None of the above? If you already have any of these, how you want to improve your relationships with family and friends going forward? If you want and are still waiting for a “significant other,” what values, talents, and personality characteristics do you think will best “complement” you in a partner? If you don't have some of those values, talents, and personality characteristics in your present partner, how can you get them? Through your friends? By building them in yourself? By paying someone to provide them in a professional capacity? By asking your partner if they are willing to help you get them? (2 paragraphs)
Write here...

Ready to start using this wiki page to record and reflect on Friends and Family? Go ahead and keep writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, peaceful and productive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Habits

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:17:04 CST

Habits - PFP Assignments

1. Healthy Habits - General
List below at least five habits that you believe contribute to making you a happier, healthier, more productive, or better person because you follow them. A habit is something you do “frequently” (some number of times every week), and something that you miss and that impacts you negatively (at least a little) if you don’t do it regularly. These can be anything from getting a certain number of hours of regular sleep, regular time with certain friends, a good diet (avoiding certain foods), a certain level of exercise, having a quiet study place, following a certain moral principle, whatever you have recognized a something that presently constitutes a healthy personal habit (1 list, 5+ items).
Write here...

2. Regularly or Occasionally Unhealthy Habits – General
List below at least five habits that in your judgment have been major or minor addictions for you at some point in the last ten years of your life. An addiction is a habit that negatively impacts your life on occasion. Addictions are not things that are healthy if you do them in moderation (like drinking small amounts of red wine, which probably extends your life) but things you sometimes or frequently “do to excess,” like getting seriously drunk and losing your weekends recovering, or spending large amounts of your money or your time on something with little personal value, usually because you can’t stop yourself. Of the major or minor ones you are willing to list, can you identify at least one that hasn’t been a problem in the last two years? How did you get beyond this addiction? Did you swap it for another one? Were you instead able to swap it for a healthier one (like chewing nic gum instead of smoking cigs)? Explain. (1 list, 5+ items, and 1+ paragraphs)
Write here...

3. Expert Performance – Background Reading
Skim each of the following:
Peak Performance: Why Records Fall, Daniel Goleman, New York Times, 11 Oct 1994 (3 pages)
A Star is Made, Dubner and Levitt, New York Times, 7 May 2006 (3 pages)
Are You an Expert?, Michael Mauboussin, Legg Mason CM, 8 Oct 2005 (11 pages)
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

4. Expertise Candidates – Current Thoughts
List one to three general subject areas (like game programming) AND one to three specific skillsets (like C sharp or Maya mastery) in which you have seriously considered developing true expertise. List no more than three subject areas and skillsets. (two lists, 1-3 items per list)
Write here...

5. Healthy Habits – Expertise
According to K. Anders Ericsson, Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, 2006, deliberate and often solitary practice, more than any other single factor, is the gateway to true expertise. Not inherited or childhood-acquired talent, not IQ, not one’s peer group. Almost all experts begin their journey as ordinary people who learn how to “live” for long periods inside their chosen domain of expertise, spending enough hours in the appropriate skill-building activities that they gain the ability to outperform the vast majority of others with experience in that same field. Experts with socially useful skills can set their own salaries and working conditions, and take their pick of jobs and working environments. If you have become really good at what you do, are not egotistical and hard to work with, know how to market yourself, and have picked a field of expertise that has average-to-high value to society, you can write your own ticket in life.

To become a true expert in animation, game design, network engineering, network security, programming, technology management, video production, or any other technical field available at UAT mainly means putting in the hours, days, weeks, months, and years to become excellent in your specialization. Developing true expertise typically takes a minimum of ten years, or ten to twenty thousand hours of practice, in your discipline. Finding a way to devote this serious amount of time is the main obstacle to excellence, and it is a hurdle that fewer people can climb in our modern affluent, casual, media-saturated, distraction-rich culture. Most people are constantly being pulled by their peers (who may be jealous of and feel threatened by formidable expertise), their environment (which wants to turn you into a passive consumer, and where the average person’s job description may change every three years in some companies and industries) and sometimes even their families to become a “general purpose human,” someone with average—and typically low—skills in a number of areas but nothing truly exceptional in any single area.

Making the personal decision to develop truly superior and socially-useful expertise involves a number of reinforcing disciplines of mind and habit. Below are a few of the challenges you’ll face on your personal road to gaining expertise.

You must develop sufficient foresight to discover a skillset that will be very likely to be directly valuable to your career for at least a decade after you have become an expert in the skill. It will take you about ten years to become a true expert, so we are talking about skills that should have at least twenty years of direct personal relevance, and much longer historical relevance if you use your expertise as a steppingstone to managerial or other capacities. In making your choice it helps to trust the judgment of other successful people as well as to trust your own judgment.
You must get to know yourself well enough to discover what it is that you truly love. It is far easier to do the long, deliberate practice you’ll need if you have chosen something that has high personal value and reward.
You must be able to find and value true mentorship of masters in your chosen discipline, so you can be inspired to rise well above being an average performer.
You must be sufficiently self- and future- rather than environment-motivated to devote long hours to building your chosen skills over many other competing skills, and to maintain that priority in a complex, distracting world.
You must know your current personality strengths well enough to be able to design practice regimens around those strengths, and to protect your practice against your weaknesses, which may include all the things that conspire to make your practice less frequent, intense, or effective.
You must be able to tune your practice regimen as needed, while resisting the common trap of becoming a dilettante—someone who dabbles in many “interesting” skills but has no true expertise in any of them.
You must be able to find and value the company of peers who have the same kind of serious dedication to their skillsets as you have to your own, or your practice very likely to be derailed by the non-expert approach to life of the average peer. Many people talk about becoming an expert. This is virtually meaningless, as the average person does not bind themselves by the words they say. A few people dream about it regularly. That’s a lot more meaningful, and is a gateway to action. The fewest take the small but steady steps every day to make their dream a reality.
You must pick, or get help picking, increasingly difficult skillbuilding exercises and projects that allow you long periods of “flow” as you practice in your discipline. Projects that sustain flow will challenge you in some ways but let you to perform in a rapid, meditative state in other ways. They have “just the right” level of newness and familiarity to keep you engaged for long periods of time.

Thinking of each of these challenges, write three or more paragraphs on how you can find and develop true expertise, something that will involve practice for at least ten years, in some area, and specifically, what healthy habits you can develop that will allow you to “level up” all the way to mastery in your chosen field. (3+ paragraphs)
Write here...

Ready to start using this wiki page to record and think about your personal Habits? Go ahead and keep writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, peaceful and productive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Money

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:16:21 CST

Money - PFP Assignments

1. What is your investment risk profile? Take this quick five-question quiz (from Nationwide.com, an investment manager):

1. How would you describe your investment experience?
A. Below Average (1 point)
B. Average (3 points)
C. Above Average (7 points)

2. Earning a high total return that allows my invested capital to grow faster than the inflation rate is one of my most important investment objectives.
A. Strongly Disagree (1 point)
B. Disagree (3 points)
C. Neutral (4 points)
D. Agree (5 points)
E. Strongly Agree (7 points)

3. I am willing to accept a potential short-term loss in return for a potentially higher long-term return.
A. Strongly Disagree (1 point)
B. Disagree (3 points)
C. Neutral ( 4 points)
D. Agree (5 points)
E. Strongly Agree (7 points)

4. What is your primary investment goal?
A. Avoid loss of initial investment value; current income is very important (1 point)
B. Stable return on investment while preserving most of my invested capital (3 points)
C. Obtain modest growth (5 points)
D. Maximize growth by obtaining highest total return on investment; current income is not a factor (7 points)

5. Which statement describes most accurately your tolerance for investment risk?
A. I am not willing ot accept any loss in portfolio value in order to achieve my investment goals (1 point)
B. I can accept some declines in value in order to achieve my investment goals (4 points)
C. I am willing to accept substantial declines in portfolio value in order to achieve my investment goals (7 points)

Mark your response to each question above (by bolding the answer you chose). Then add up your points from all five questions. Using this Scoring Key (Conservative = 5-15 points; Moderate = 16-24 points; Aggressive = 25-35 points), which word (conservative, moderate, or aggressive) best describes your current investment risk tolerance? A good investment advisor will help you manage your investments (401k's, IRA's, etc.) very differently based on your investment experience and risk tolerance. (total quiz points and risk tolerance word)
Write here...

2. There are three common investor types:
A. Value Investors buy stock incompanies that maximize long-term stock price growth, or steady income or dividends. They are primarily concerned with growing their investments, not using their investments to "change the world" by accelerating either social responsibility or innovation.
B. Social Responsibility Investors buy stock in companies whose average economic return is usually at least a little bit lower than value companies because they also deliver significant environmental and social benefits along with economic value.
C. Risk Investors buy stock incompanies whose average economic return is usually at least a little bit lower than value companies because they also deliver significantly greater innovation, experimentation, and risk, including a chance for bigger financial gains (or losses) in the short-term.

Investor risk tolerance (whether you are conservative, moderate, or aggressive) is not the same thing as investor type (what you want your investments to do for you and the world), but these two are related. Value investors are usually conservative, although they often also do some fraction (like 10-20%) of risky investments (that they are betting will turn out to be good value). Likewise, risk investors are all by definition aggressive (betting on lower probability, higher payouts), although they usually also do some fraction (like 10-20%) of investments in ways they think are conservative (low risk). Social responsibility investors are usually more conservative than aggressive, but there are exceptions (people who try to "change the world" by funding many risky, socially beneficial startup companies). You can find investment advisors who are experts in each of these three types of investing, and funds dedicated to these different approaches as well.

If you had anywhere from $2,000 to $200,000 to put into an investment fund for your personal future over the next ten years, and you could put this money in any of three funds (a Value fund, a Social Responsibility fund, and a Risk fund) as well make individual investments of your choice, what percentage of your money would you presently seek to place into each of these three categories? Give at least a sentence "explaining" your choice to anyone who wants to understand your decision better. (1-3 percentages and 1+ sentences)
Write here...

3. From the "Career Goals" wiki page, copy your response to Question 5 below:
Now do an educated guess: what kind of annual salary should you have around mid-life (45 yrs old)? How much money do you think you should have in your savings at mid-life, for use in your later years?
[Reference: The average U.S. 50 year old has only $40,000 in savings/net worth, ten times less than the $400,000 recommended as a bare minimum to supplement to your social security when you retire, which is typically at 65 or 70.]
(2 numbers, annual mid-life salary and mid-life savings)
Write here...

4. Your Ideal Monthly Savings for Retirement (To fund 85% of your pre-retirement annual income)
Do the quick, five question, Fidelity Investments online myPlan Snapshot to calculate your savings goal at retirement. Notice you can move the orange slider bars to quickly get the numbers (age, monthly income, annual savings) to where they belong. Now assume you have just graduated from UAT (so use your age at that point). For income, put what you expect to make when you graduate (be realistic). Now plug in your expected monthly savings for investment, and your investment style (conservative, balanced, growth, or agressive) from the risk tolerance questions above. How much money does the last screen say is "Your Goal" for investment savings at retirement? This number is probably quite a bit larger than the minimum of $400,000 that the government recommends as a minimum to supplement your social security in retirement.
Write your Fidelity-recommended savings goal at retirement here...

5. Minimium versus Ideal Retirement Savings
Remember that $400,000is the absolute minimum retirement savings the government recommends. Assuming you don't touch this $400,000 "principal" when you retire, you'll be able to receive a pretax income of about $24,000 a year (6% interest) from this $400,000. If you are unhealthy at that time, almost all of this will probably go to pay your supplemental health insurance (assuming you can get insurance, which you may not if you are very unhealthy). If you are healthy at that time, about half of this will go to your supplemental health insurance, leaving you very little to live on. Thus you can see why $400,000 saved is a MINIMUM recommended savings. If you had $800,000 instead, you'd get annual pretax "salary" of $48,000. That's enough to pay rent, health insurance, and other incidentals. If you had $1.2 million instead, that would give you an annual pretax investment income of $72,000. Now you're finally living a reasonable quality of life in retirement, with enough money to cover housing costs, health insurance, and extra for travel, hobbies, etc. That's why good planners should aim for at least $1.2 million in their savings account when they retire.

Next, consider changing your retirement age, the first orange slider bar on the last page ("Time"). If you choose to eat and live healthy, you'll be mentally alert and physically energetic at least ten years longer than the typical American. That means, if you have a job you love doing, you are likely to work at least five years longer than the current average. As social security benefits continue to erode, the retirement age may even be raised a few years at some point in your career. Change your retirement age to 70 on the slider, assuming you are presently living a relatively healthy life. Notice how this makes your investment savings improve. If you aren't living healthy at present, leave it at 65.

Next, play with the second orange slider bar on the last page ("Money").How much do you need to save per month in order to reach your retirement goal above, assuming the market performs poorly (Scenario A)? Assuming the market performs on average (Scenario B)?
Write your monthly savings goals (high and low) here...

6. Your Minimum Monthly Savings for Retirement
Go back to the beginning of Fidelity Investments myPlan Snapshot (just hit "refresh" in your browser) and start over, putting in your age on graduation, but this time put $25,000 as your income (the lowest one they allow). This will give you a retirement goal of $1,463,000, which is a bit higher than the $1.2 million we recommend as your comfortable minimum goal. Play with the Time and Money sliders, and find out the minimum money you should be saving every month in order to have over $1.2 million on retirement, assuming the market performs as it has in the past (Scenario B, the best case). For students who don't already have a retirement savings account, that should be something like $200/month.
Write your minimum monthly savings goal here...

7. Advice: Credit Cards.
Americans are addicted to high-interest debt. The average American household has 16 credit cards: eight bank cards and eight retail cards, and $9,205 of credit card debt. The average American pays $1300 a year on credit card interest alone. Card fees, interest rates, and lending practices get more predatory every year. In 2005, the top ten credit card companies spent over 2 billion in advertising, and they target college students, the bankrupt, and other ideal customers, willing to pay the minimum payment for long periods of time. The nation has a debt addiction too: our national debt is about $9 trillion and increases by more than a billion dollars a day. Watch Maxed Out, James Scurlock, 2005, to get a sense of this. Then cut up all but two of your bank cards and use them responsibly, never carrying balances on them for more than a month, unless its a true emergency.
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

8. Advice: Keep all Your Monthly Receipts and Make a Monthly Expense Record.
It is a great exercise in self-understanding to keep all your monthly receipts from everything you purchase in your wallet. Put them in there at the cash register right when you pay, with the oldest going at the back of the pile so they stay in date order. It doesn't take too long to learn the habit. Next, enter your expenses at the end of the month in an Excel spreadsheet or in Quicken. Make categories for them that are meaningful to you, like supermarket food, dining out, entertainment, health, transportation, rent, etc. What were your top five expense categories? Once you've done this for three months in a row, you have enough information to start creating a personal budget, projecting out what you think you will spend, and how much you can put in savings. You won't always stick to your budget, but it will greatly help you understand your current spending behavior, and perhaps only then will you be able to start modifying it as you wish, so you can spend less in some categories, spend more wisely, and save more.
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

9. Advice: Read One Good Book Per Year on Simplifying, Saving Money, or Investing
If you read one good book a year, over twenty or thirty years, on investing or saving money, you will find that you become much more aware of and able to control your spending, saving, and investing habits. Almost every media message you will be subjected to over the rest of your lives will be carefully designed to get you to spend your money, on various things. Spending a week or two reading a good book on simplifying, saving money or on investing will be a critical balance to all that spending programming. It will remind you that you can choose your own path, and that much of your personal power will come from spending less than you earn, over a long period of time. We recommend starting with The Seven Stages of Money Maturity, George Kinder, 2000. Which stage presently describes you the best? How can you move from the "Innocence/Childishness" stage, where we all start, into the higher stages?
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

Ready to start using this wiki page to record and organize your personal Money issues? Go ahead and start writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have maturity, self-control, and prosperity your personal financial future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Diary

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:15:46 CST

Diary - PFP Assignments

1. Learn About Appreciative Inquiry.
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a futuring technique that asks you to specifically describe and appreciate some of the things that have gone (or are going) very well so far in your life, in your relationships, in your education, in your job, etc. By recalling and writing about these "high points" of your life experience so far, and thinking about the conditions that allowed them happen, you can:

a. learn more from your past

b. better appreciate your present

c. develop practical visions and plans for your future

Appreciative Inquiry can be done in groups, to improve organizations, and it can be done by one person, to improve their own life. Quickly skim these Appreciative Inquiry definitions (3 pages) to get a sense of what AI involves. You don't just report the positive in AI, you can also ask questions about how to heighten your potential for future success (e.g., "How can I get more of this kind of result?") and envision answers to those questions. You can also discuss negative things in AI, but such discussion must be focused on the positive ways you have been able to manage, minimize, or overcome those negatives so far, at least a little bit. AI dialog is, in essence, about appreciating all the positives that have occurred in your life, and imagining ways to achieve even more of those positives in the future.
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

2. Apply Appreciative Inquiry to Your First Diary Entry.
Make your first diary entry below. Start the first line with today's date, like "November 26, 2007." Then take at least four (4) paragraphs to tell us what you really appreciate so far about your life. What you think is working well, and what are some of the high points emotionally, intellectually, experientially, etc., either since you came to UAT or over the last few years. By briefly and yet accurately writing about these, you'll be able to review them later and get more insight into your strengths and motivations, and the many ways you positively impact others. AI also works great as a group process, so if you want you can ask family, friends, and coworkers to recollect "high points" of how you have affected them in a positive way. If you get any of that kind of feedback, please include it in your four paragraphs below. (4 paragraphs)
Write here...

3. General Tips for Making Diary Entries On This Page
You can make entries in this diary as frequently as you would like. Some people record mainly the high points of their life in their online diaries, but if you take time to share some of your "low points" and difficulties as well, your diary will become a very powerful tool for both self-discovery and self-creation. Even if you only make a very brief entry once a month or after major experiences (the minimum recommendation), going back and reviewing your diary after you've been using it for a year or two will give you many new insights into the meaning of your life, and ways to improve it.

Most people keep their personal diaries private but share excerpts of them publicly on occasion, by printouts, email, blogs, etc. Keeping a regular diary is called "journalling," and those who keep them are called "journalists" (of the personal rather than public kind) or diarists. If you want more tips on keeping a personal diary (very brief or very detailed, as you prefer) as a tool for self-improvement, Journal to the Self, Kathleen Adams, 1990, is a great futures book with many tips on the process, and is highly recommended. Happy journaling!
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

4. Advice: Consider Setting Upa Personal Photo Diary in 2008
Flickr, Picasa, and other online social photoblogging or mobile blogging (moblogging) sites or software platforms are great ways for you to start creating a "documented life," recording the highlights of your experiences for yourself or your friends. Like a physical diary, looking back and reviewing some of your peak experiences in your photodiary can be very helpful to self-discovery, self-creation, and goalsetting. If you make any of your moblogging albums public, this is also a great way to share your life with your extended family and friends, and vice versa. For a good example of a leading Silicon Valley techie's photoblogging community, see Steve Jurvetson's Flickr Pics.

The most convenient way to do this is with a cameraphone that has at least 3 megapixels, and which will automatically download your pictures to your photoblogging site. You can tag, caption and share these photos and videos later, if at all. Unfortunately only a few phones meet this requirement today, and they are typically expensive ($400 and up). Furthermore, a number of high-end phones will be adding GPS capacity next year, which will make moblogging even more interesting (being able to share pics and videos as events are happening, sortable by location). Google's YouTube plans to add video mobloggingfeatures in 2008, which will allow any YouTube user to upload brief videos for other YouTube users. This should be very popular for sharing videos for family members, etc.
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

Ready to start using this wiki page for your personal Diary/Journal? Go ahead and start writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, peaceful and productive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Ideas+Questions

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:14:43 CST

Ideas and Questions – PFP Assignments

1. Someday/Maybe Ideas
Please list below at least one idea (personal, business, etc.) you’ve been considering for the long term. Tasks or Projects that you end up not doing for longer than a year should be moved to your Someday/Maybe list. At least once a year you should look at your Someday/Maybe list, create subcategories, reorganize it, and bring some items back into Tasks or Projects. (1 Someday/Maybe Idea)
Write here...

2. Long-Term Questions
Please list below at least one question on some long-term topic that you are curious about, but haven’t had the time to research. This is a place to put “big” questions you don’t need to have answers to right away, but are still interested in researching or thinking more about in the future. Questions that you need to research soon should go under Tasks, or with their associated multi-step Projects. Tip: There are many places on the internet (Yahoo! Answers, Answers.com) where you can post questions and get professional or crowdsourced help. Consider doing this for some of your more difficult questions. (1 long-term Question)
Write here...

Ready to start using this wiki page to record, arrange, and reflect on your personal Ideas and Questions in in coming years? Go ahead and keep writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, inquisitive, imaginative, and productive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Projects+Skills

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:14:18 CST

Projects and Skills – PFP Assignments

1. Current and Planned Projects
Please list below at least one project (personal, business, etc.) that you are currently working on or plan to work on within the next 12 months. Projects that have been listed here for longer than a year but are still untouched should be moved to your Someday/Maybe list, to keep this Projects list easy to manage. (list 1 current or planned Project, with 1 paragraph of description)
Write here...

2. Current and Planned Skills
Please list below at least one personal or professional skill you want to build up and keep strong through your current or planned Project work and experience. See Healthy Habits – Expertise for more on the value of focused, dedicated, long-term practice for skill-building and expertise. (list 1 project-related Skill, with 1+ sentences of description)
Write here...

Ready to start using this wiki page to record and reflect on your personal Projects and Skills? Go ahead and keep writing at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, masterful and productive future!

All material on this wiki is open source, creative commons licensed. Feel free to use any portion of this with appropriate attribution to "University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum."

Tasks+Waiting

JohnMSmart — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:13:55 CST

Tasks - PFP Assignment

1. Check out the GTD Flowchart 1 posted on the course shell in Doc Sharing and also given to you as a printed handout by the instructor in class. This flowchart outlines the task management system from Getting Things Done, David Allen, 2002, our course textbook on personal organization. You can find more GTD tips and freebies at Allen’s website as well. If you want to try GTD, you might want to put Flowchart 1 on your wall, or on or above your computer, and look at it every time you organize your inbox (at least once a day, for most people), until you know it by heart.

You can use GTD in your life with our first three wiki pages:

Tasks+Waiting
Projects+Skills
Ideas+Questions

Plus:

An Online Calendar (Google Calendar is excellent and easy to set up)

Note: We have renamed GTD's Next Actions page to "Tasks." These are all the single-step things that you can put on a list as Next Actions/Tasks you might want to do, soon. "Single-step" means you can easily list them or describe them with a short sentence, even though they may take a long time (a day or more) to do. We have also included GTD's Waiting For page on this page. Waiting is the place where you list things that are "Waiting For Others" to respond to or to do their part on, before you can do more on your end. Because most of us don't have many "Waiting For" items that we have to track, unless we are managing people who work for us, you can keep this (usually short) list at the top of your Tasks+Waiting page. Projects+Skills is GTD's Projects page, the place where you list all your "multi-step" projects, the ones that are so complicated they need whole paragraphs or even their own separate subpages to manage. Ideas+Questions is GTD's Someday/Maybe page, the place where you put Tasks or Projects that you might do some day, including things that started out in Tasks or Projects but which you never seem to get around to doing (probably because they aren't as important as you originally thought). You can consider adding a Reference page, a place where you store reference information that you might use in the future, but most of us store our reference material in file folders, on our bookshelves, or in our email or hard disk folders. Still, if you want a page on the wiki for Reference material, go ahead and create one and put it below Ideas+Questions. That will give you four GTD pages.

Does Flowchart 1 make sense to you? Does GTD look like a system you might use to organize your daily flow of "things to do"? If you used it, do you think it might help you “declutter your mind” and make you happier and more productive, as David Allen claims? Write one paragraph on your impression of this system so far, having looked over this flowchart and having read at least a little of the GTD book (eg. the preface and Chapter 1) for this class. (1 paragraph)
Write here…

2. Take a look at the GTD Flowchart 2 (Advanced Workflow Diagram, in blue and yellow) available on the course shell in Doc Sharing and given to you as a handout. This is a more advanced version of Workflow 1. It gives even more detail on how to Collect, Process, Organize, Review, and Do all your life’s activities. Notice that at the bottom, it also gives twelve very useful strategies for how to eliminate the stress you feel when you are disorganized or overworked. If you want to try GTD, put this flowchart on your wall as well.

Write a paragraph on your impression of Flowchart 2. Does it confuse you to look at, or does it seem pretty logical? Does it leave anything out that you can think of? Does it have too much or too little detail? Does it inspire you to want to try the GTD system, or turn you off? (1 paragraph)
Write here…

3. Advice: Simplest, Fastest GTD System of All.
If you want to use GTD on a computer (laptop, home computer, smart phone) instead of in your PF wiki, here's how you can use it. “Reference” becomes whatever filing system you already use on your computer, such as the Notes section in your Address books on your email program, the folders on your hard drive, etc. Install Google Desktop (a very fast and free search program), and all your computer files become searchable Reference material.

One good advantage of using GTD on a computer (I use it on my laptop) is that the pages save and open very fast, especially if you are using a fast word processing program (Word Pad, for example, is much faster opening and closing than Microsoft Word). Another advantage is that you can set the margins for your Next Actions page as wide as you want. I set mine to 15 inches. That way each Task/Next Action that you have to describe can fit on ONE LINE, in readable 12 point type. If you need to rearrange / reprioritize your Tasks during or at the end of your day, and cross out Tasks you’ve done, it’s very easy and fast to cut, move, and paste your Tasks because they are each on a single line. That makes your Tasks/Next Actions page so simple and fast that you can use it very easily and frequently throughout the day.
No writing required for this item, just read and consider it.

Ready to start using this wiki page for your personal Tasks/Next Actions in your busy day? Go ahead and start writing them at the top of this page once you've finished these assignments. May you have a happy, peaceful and productive future!

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