As part of the Chico Economic Stewardship forum last February, one topic that
emerged as a major inhibitor of economic prosperity locally was the lack of air
services in and out of Chico. With no disrespect to the airport personnel or the
carrier, our flight to San Francisco is frequently delayed due to weather. This
recurring delay prevents the flight from being a viable and dependable traveling
option, and complicates doing business in Chico.
One of my favorite CSU Chico professors ( Peter Straus ) is hosting a Startup Weekend IN CHICO next week. Yes, I’ll be there, but you should be there too. All Programmers / Finance People / Marketers / Engineers / Designers -
All with a burning passion to start their own companies or be involved in a startup are welcome and should attend.
Here is the bump they asked me to pitch:
“Jumpstart Chico will be an amazing opportunity for all inspired and entrepreneurial-minded students and members of the community. This event, inspired by Startup Weekend – see startupweeked.org for details – which lasts for 36 hours, will start with ideas being presented by participants on Friday evening, April 20th.
I’m constantly trying to make my day more efficient.
Email is a double edged sword – efficient to communicate with, but much like the telephone, if you spend too much time in email and not working on higher level tasks, you end up being less efficient.
As I’ve posted before I’m a huge fan of GTD but no matter what we all find ourselves looking at our email more often than we should.
Google and Outlook seem to have solved the majority of the SPAM problem, as I get very little spam in my inbox these days, but I get a dirty variation, lets call it SPAM LIGHT?
So it finally had to happen. My wife fell in love with a Louis Vuitton purse on a shopping trip. Melissa is traditionally hard on things, and with three kids, she’s very considerate of not paying too much for an individual item since things wear out fast around the Friedland household. Low and behold, we were getting close to Xmas day , and absent another really “thoughtful” creative idea, I figured I’d get her splurge and buy the $X,XXX status symbol.
I have no problem spending money on fancy things, a wise man once told me you can’t separate cost from quality.
Most of us set some bullshit new years resolution, most of the time around losing weight or making more money.
Whatever your future vision of yourself is you’re trying to accomplish is, without some modicum of accountability you are impairing your chances of success.
What I like to do is to write myself a letter to be opened next year around what I want the “Future Chris” to look like. The process forces me to organize my thoughts around health, family, business, interpersonal relationships, money, et cetera.
This exercise “frames” up the next 12 months for me. I’d recommend you do the same.
After I sold my company in 2007 I was solicited by a guy named Mark Helow to join a CEO peer group called 10xceo.
Coming off of what was a very lucrative sale, I felt as if I was the smartest guy in the world, what could I gain from a CEO peer group?
In fact, I saw it as charity work. I would be donating my valuable time and insights to a bunch of chumps who needed my help. After a multi-call interview process Mark said he thought I would “qualify” to be part of a group. Qualify? Did this guy not have any idea who he was talking to?
Do you remember how awesome it was to flip through the Sears catalog in the months leading up to Christmas, fantasizing over all of the great toys locked in the pages? Writing a list to the big fat red guy, including the page number, product number, and price? Neither do I, but apparently it’s what old people used to do. Along came the internet, and with it the ability to shop virtually – as long as we’re sitting in front of a bulky computer, connected to the web. With CoffeeTable, you can order new luggage from eBags, a new ottoman from Crate and Barrel, or get your lovely a complete yoga outfit from Title Nine – and the only thing you need is your iPad.
Organization
It’s key to me. I have a real estate portfolio, 3 kids and a wife. I am the president of a 300 employee company, and have a series of other investment/business interests – all working in harmony. My value add? I bring organization and structure to everything.
Not because I have a photographic memory..
In fact my business partner at CoffeeTable is a few decades my senior and often helps get me back on track after having a senior moment.
The reason I am so efficient and successful at managing multiple spinning plates is a very tight organizational system.
On the flight home from my recent vacation in Hawaii, (side note – never put up with poor service) I had a bit of time to play with a few of my toys, and that got me thinking about what the future of the web is going to be like. Where is it going, which platform will dominate, and how I can make money on it?
So, gentle readers, I’ve pulled out my crystal ball to make a few predictions of how people are going to be interacting with computers in the future:
I was recently chatting with a very successful venture capitalist friend of mine talking about doing more in a day. I took the opportunity to share with him a system I learned about through my good friend Robert Strazzarino — David Allen’s system called the GTD system “Getting Things Done” or also known as the 43 Folders system.
If you are interested in getting more efficient and organized, and do not currently have a formal system, I strongly recommend GTD.
Step 1. Read the book. Then read it again.
Step 2. Find a technology solution to actually implement the 43 folders system.