There are a series of videos here, to view. I highly recommend.
Inspiration
Savasana = Nap
I practice Bikram Yoga which is done in 104 degree temperatures and between 40 and 60% humidity. 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises. Roughly the first 45 minutes are warm up to what Bikram calls ‘The real yoga!’
During the second half of class we do postures and in between we have savasana, which literally means: corpse pose. I’m told we have 20 second savasanas in order for our blood to circulate once throughout our bodies. Seems plausible.
It’s like a tiny nap…..and naps are the real reason for this post. I LOVE naps. Naps are highly under rated in the United States. When I moved to China, in 1990 [and first visited in 1987] daily between 11 and 2 the entire country took a rest time. European nations know this ritual as well and it is based on sound logic. Our bodies do better with some rest.
And after going full on, usually from 4:45 am….by mid-day I am ready for a savasana. I usually can pump out more productive activity after just 20 minutes of rest. On the weekends I attempt to push that time out to 45 or 60 minutes of nap time.
Try it yourself and let me know how it works for you. I’m willing to bet you’ll be more productive, rested and happier….and you’ll be more inspired.
Rework the Project Charter and Run Projects
Just when we thought we got the Project Charter figured out, the book Rework, by Jason Fried & David Heinemeir Hansson, debunks ‘Planning as Guessing’. In fact, they go on to say, “Unless you’re a fortune-teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy. There are just too many factors that are out of your hands: market conditions, competitors, customers, the economy, etc. Writing a plan makes you feel in control of things you can’t actually control.”
They advocate, “…you have to be able to improvise. You have to be able to pick up opportunities that come along. Sometimes you need to say, ‘We’re going in a new direction because that’s what makes sense today’.”
Before you stress they do add this: “Now this isn’t to say you shouldn’t think about the future or contemplate how you might attack upcoming obstacles. That’s a worthwhile exercise. Just don’t feel you need to write id down or obsess about it. If you write a bit plan, you’ll most likely never look at it anyway. Plans more than a few pages long just wind up as fossils in your file cabinet.”
Seems to me, some planning-or having some sort of ‘general guide’ is a good thing….just as good as knowing when to make adjustments.
And Seth Godin doesn’t even want us to call ourselves Project Managers, he prefers the title: Project Runner.
Content in Context
Just like a carpenter, web designers need to know when to use the right tools. A big part of designing is problem solving. No, I should re-phrase that, a big part of living is problem solving and we need more of these skills in life.
So, in a recent query I received, Brenton wanted to develop a blogging site comparable to this site.
WordPress will make your websites and you might want to look into making css code out of your PSD [PhotoShop Documents]. Check it out.
Design Sucker!
Project Management Roles & Cool Titles
As I have mentioned, I am currently in an Online Project Management course, whereas we are working in groups on solving a project management issue [ours is partially real and some what fabricated-which is fine with our professor].One task last week was to choose our Project Management Roles. I am the Idea Developer for our group.
If you want to read some really interesting role titles, check out Automattic This is the startup group who are best known for a little project called WordPress. It is worth a quick scroll to read some of these titles.
My favorites:
- Happiness Engineer[they actually have about 6 of these],
- Digital Entomologist,
- Systems Wrangler,
- Outernationalist [his name is Ze Fontainhas],
- PollDaddy Jr,
- Design Wacko,
- Schmooze Engineer,
- Lightbulb Engineer,
- and wouldn’t you love to hear your child announce they were going to grow up to be a
- Bug Exorcist or Master of Suggestion?
Makes you want to re-think your title doesn’t it?