Welcome to my new blog. Please excuse the sparse formatting, I wanted to get this live while I'm still playing with the look at feel. Questions? Comments? send to ellen_cram at hotmail.com

Entry #1: Create a healthy environment As I sat down today to my to do list, I had was hit by an overwhelming wave of not wanting to do anything on it. Normally there's at least a few things I'm actually kind of looking forward to, whether it be reading, writing, or going through and getting little things done, but today the whole thing seemed horrible and daunting. So rather than trying to pound through anyway, I decided to get up and take the dog on a walk to go get coffee. The walk was beautiful, and I felt much better coming home, until I stepped in the door. I got Honeybee the day after Christmas. She's a lovely French Bulldog who is taking to my apartment, my daughter and me very well, except that she seems to have a fear of relieving herself outside. Maybe it is moving to the city (she's a country dog), or the new surroundings, but no matter how many times I take her out, she always waits to go inside, usually when I'm not in the room. This has caused me to pull up my rugs, close doors to extra rooms, etc. In addition, I've been trying to get work done this week, and taking the dog out has taken much more time than expected, so I've fallen behind and the house looked pretty bad. Ah, that was it. I find it very difficult to work in a messy, scattered environment, and that's clearly what I had. Trying to ignore it and do work instead had only made it so I couldn't concentrate on the simplest task. I looked back at yesterday's work and I had only gotten done about half of what I'd hoped then too. Aha! The house is now clean, I've caught up from yesterday, and got more done for today than excepted to. In fact, I got more done today when I spent hours cleaning than I did yesterday when I didn't. So much for putting off my house to give myself more time for work, from now on I'll invest in making my environment welcoming and comfortable before I start working, knowing that it will pay off in the end.	Links About Me Resume
Entry #2: Don't just do it, solve it Oh Honeybee, you cute little country dog. Used to hanging out with your country dog friends, using the doggie door to go outside to do your business, with only the sounds of birds and the wind in the trees. Welcome to the city kid. Here we have a door you can bark at, in which case I'll take you upstairs on a leash to a fenced areas with gravel for you to do your business on. Or we can go for a walk, with tons of cars and people and sounds around. What, that's not working for you? So, I have a dog who really, really wants to please. She goes with me upstairs, she squats, she looks at me, she has no idea what I want her to do. Then she waits until I'm not in view and goes on her bedding or in her crate (if we're driving). And wow, is that a lot of cleaning. After days of cleaning up and spraying the special "doesn't smell like a place to pee" spray on things a couple times a day, I realized it would be much faster to stop and solve the problem in a way that wouldn't require such constant work. So we're now training on a specific surface in the house, and have a little fake patch of grass on the way. Sure, it's not ideal, and it requires some set up, but it's far less work in the end. And bee, we'll learn to use the outside soon, once you're comfortable with your patch of grass (and have that silly collar off too) This reminded me that I've been really trying, when I feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over, to step back and solve it in a more permanent way. I have a wonderful housecleaner who comes twice a month as I find cleaning bathrooms and dusting to feel like being on a cleaning hamster wheel. And I got a table to extend my kitchen counter and create a division between cooking area and paper/computer area as I was constantly rearranging to have enough space. Sometimes a little bit of time and capitol can save you a ton of frustration, and that's worth a lot.
Entry #3: Categorizing My To Do List The big motivator for this blog is a talk I gave at Ignite 12 on how to deal with procrastination and get control of your time. As part of that I talked about how I use my inbox as my to do list and tracking area, using Outlook Categories to sort and prioritize work. A couple of people have pinged me asking for my categories, so here they are: Color Label Description Dark Red !!!Urgent Get this done before looking at anything else Light Red !!Do Today Needs to get done today Orange !!Read Important item to read Light Grey !Do While Connected Must be done while on corporate network Dark Blue !Do at Office Must be done at Office Maroon !Hi Priority In Progress High piority item, in progress, tracking Dark Orange !Pondering Important, but not sure what to do with it yet Light Orange !To Do Soon Need to get to this soon, but not today Yellow !Waiting on Response Waiting for someone else to respond, need to ping them if they don't Blue a[name of boss] Discuss with boss in next meeting Light Purple a[name of person who works for me] Discuss in next 1:1 meeting with person Light Blue a[name of person who works for me] Discuss in next 1:1 meeting with person Light Green Hold Nothing to do now, but don't lose Dark Grey Linked to Other Mail in Inbox Part of another work item, but keep accessible Green Low Priority Get to eventually Grey Owner Confirm Make sure the owner of the item completes it Mustard Tracking Docs Documents for large projects that contain lists of work items to track Purple Upcoming Meeting Needed for a meeting already on the schedule Dark Green zBack Burner Read Lower priority read, get to it when you have extra time Dark Green zcListen Low priority items to listen to, get to when you have extra time Charcoal zDo At Home Must be done at home Yellow Green zHome Personal Item Yellow Green zHome Waiting Personal Item, waiting for response