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Showing posts from July, 2014

What are Best Practices?

"It's the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority" - Benjamin Franklin or to be more succinct "Think for your self and question authority." - Timothy Leary What is a 'Best Practice'? A best practice is not a standard, nor is it a policy. It's a specific activity, performed performed under specific circumstances which will presumably result in a favorable outcome. A best practice is well documented, it's well researched and it's is well documented. Best practice documentation is not only on the execution of the practice itself, but also on the researched alternatives with rational as to why these practices were not considered the 'best'. A best practice is not a notion, theory, or whim. It is not a half-baked idea of something that SHOULD be. A best practice is definitely NOT a shield to prevent others from exploring other means of accomplishing the same task. The previous two paragraphs are very dire

Identity your timesinks

The completion of tasks and project is dependent upon the ability to focus. Unfortunately, a well defined sense of focus is not something that seems to come naturally to me, so I've looked at several strategies at controlling the activities which would distract me from tasks that I really want/need to accomplish.  I'm clearly not the only one that has this problem. There are whole sections of Barnes & Noble on this topic and even more online resources on how to "Get Things Done" or "Do It Later" which should  allow me to focus on the task at hand. This is great, for those with focus, but since I'm easily distractible, these strategies seem like step 2; I need step 1; which brings me to the meat of the discussion. What are my distractions? There are lots, I'm not ashamed.  Work Email Personal Email Clash of Clans Reddit/Facebook/ESPN (hint: look at your browser history to find your time sinks) I just took an unexpected 3 minute bre