First, put in the large big rocks
Second, the smaller rocks and pebbles
Then the sand
And finally, fill up the rest of the bucket with water.

Take the really big important items and set aside time for those things first.
Then fill your time with other key tasks
The sand and water are the inevitable small everyday things that end up using up your day.

I have been trying to apply this to my time (since I often feel very busy–I rarely have time for lunch) to make sure that I am setting aside the time for the truly important things in my life (such as following my dreams, taking care of myself, and enjoying time with my friends and family), but also accomplishing the important tasks (especially some strategic work at my job); and not getting distracted with the hundreds of everyday things that come up (like running errands, handling urgent issues, paper work, phone calls, etc).

To do this I developed my own little system.  Each month or every couple of months (monthly works well for me right now since my life seems fairly unpredictable a year or two from now) I lay out the important things I really want to do–such as take a weekend trip, schedule a family dinner, read a certain book, or perhaps attend a special event and assign deadlines to each one.  And depending on the “task” I will even block off time or schedule them in advance.  This is how I place my big rocks in the bucket.  I track my rocks with an excel spreadsheet on my computer.

Then each week I lay out the key goals/tasks I want to accomplish this week.  Typically I include a couple of “stretch” tasks and sometimes I do manage to complete all of them.  These may be things like specific projects at work or at home, important meetings, or even things like workouts.  I then try to assign deadlines and set aside time to get these done.  These are my pebbles.  I track these with a to do list on my phone.

And the sand and water?  Well that is everything else that happens each day.  I tend to write little tasks or reminders on post-its (particularly at the office) and sometimes at home too.  Since these things tend to come up each day I don’t really have a long term track of these and for the most part these things don’t give me a big sense of accomplishment–but they sure do feel my bucket!

How do you stay organized and manage your time?  My system seems to work alright for me and it does help me feel more productive overall, but I would say that I don’t have a good track record or mechanism for tracking these things further out.  I think there is definitely room for improvement, what do you think?

I started reading through the comments about all “these things” people learned about customer service from the Rtiz Carlton and that got me thinking about what these things were (since customers are crucial to the success of any company).

Here are some of the tips I found:

• Creating an emotional bond with customers through the frequent use of their names
• Treat colleagues and coworkers with the same respect and courtesy you would extend to a hotel guest
• Empower employees to step out of their roles to do what it takes to “wow” guests.  This includes a large budget (I read as much as $2,000) given to each employee to be applied at their discretion (mentioned above).
• Each day/shift starts with a line-up where employees discuss and tell annecdotal stories that demonstrate one of the tenets of the hotel (these are called gold standard and you can find them here).  This improves communication among the staff and reinforces their philosophies and values.
• Give feedback.  Employees are encouraged and rewarded for speaking up and giving their opinions on process.  And supervisors are trained to listen and follow up.
• Publicly praise, privately criticize.  And when delivering criticism sandwich it between praise so the employee still feels motivated and will want to improve.
• Share “wow” stories.  By sharing their successes with their peers it reinforces this type of behavior and rewards the individual that has the achievement.
• There is never a second chance to make a first impression.  Employees don’t exhibit body piercings or crazy hair, and each looks pulled together and representative of the hotel’s brand.

And the Ritz Carlton has such amazing training for their employees, for a fee they will allow non-employees to participate in their leadership training–you can register here.

Overall it is pretty neat how they have created an organizational culture of great customer service though consistently reinforcing the traits and behavior that created it.  It is a good lesson in great customer service and I am sure most organizations can pick up a tip or two from the above list.

In the past I have always been a bit of a night owl (I hate waking up and can hardly be described as a morning person) but I have discovered that working out and getting into the office early allows me to organize my time better, gain of sense of accomplishment first thing in the morning, and start the day off in a better mood.

My typical morning goes like this: the alarm goes off, hit the snooze button.  The alarm goes off again, hit the snooze button and curl up under the blankets (sometimes this can repeat 5 times).  The alarm goes off, finally get up and floss and brush, realize what time it is, scramble to shower, do my hair and makeup, throw on some clothes (going with gut instinct tends to work best for me when picking out outfits) and then rush out the door grabbing a few things for the fridge to eat for the day.  I am scrambling and stressed and sometimes grouchy….not the best way to start the day certainly!

This has brought about Project Wake Up Earlier.  The plan isn’t just to get up earlier, but also to work out, have a enough time to get ready, and roll into the office relaxed, organized and ready for a great day.  To do this I have determined I really need to get up by 5am (I figure this is okay because if I ever got into finance and stocks I would have to wake up this early anyway unless I relocated to another timezone).

To achieve this I am doing the following things:

• Get up when my alarm goes off. I started setting my alarm and committing that no matter how tired I was that I would get up when it went off. This way I can train my body to wake up at the same time each day.  Also, hitting the snooze button isn’t really useful in anyway–you don’t get much additional rest and you lose time–so no more snoozing!
• Work out in the morning. I hate taking more than one shower per day.  My hair takes forever to blow dry and I have dry skin and multiple showers make me itchy.  And since I can’t seem to go one night without rolling my hair into knots–necessitating a morning shower and blow out.  I also seem to sweat like a pig when I work out, so skipping a shower wouldn’t be smart.  Making sure I get my workout in reducing the amount of time per day I spend cleansing and primping, plus it gives me a sense of accomplishment, AND I am much more likely to actually work out without being interrupted.
• Go to bed early. This is likely to be the most difficult for me.  I like staying up and when I get home I always feel like there are so many things to do.  So I am going to work on making good lists and trying to organize and manage my time better after work.
• Lay out workout clothes, and work clothes the night before. The workout clothes are the easiest, since I don’t have a lot and I care a lot less about how I look (after all when your face is red, your hair is sweaty and your a panting like a dog in heat, your top and shorts don’t make a big difference in your overall look).  For work clothes this will be harder, as I always change my mind in the morning and generally like to try on 2-3 ensembles as you just never know what you feel like that day, but I am going to try to at least select one pivot piece the night before.
• Pack my lunches the night before. This may also help with the whole diet thing and will certainly save me time in the morning….Oh and I should buy something cute to take my lunch in.  I used to use an ice chest but it was too big, now I use one of those “green” bags you are supposed to take groceries in–not exactly stylish…..I digress…

So that is my current action plan.  What are your tips for getting up early? Anyone tried it and didn’t think it helped much?

old merchandise that didn’t sell, they put the fall stuff on the racks at a discount, and then in 2 weeks when the sale is over, that fall merchandise goes right back up in price (oh and some of the bigger Nordstrom even care some items that are only there for two weeks and then anything not sold goes back to the vendor–these are called black lined items).

Anyway, I always get up early for this sale and get a little excited.  First, because I love fall and winter clothing (hello sweaters!), but also because this is a great time to buy things like classic jewelry, sunglasses, and accessories (last year I bought a whole slew of scarves!).

(BTW, here is a tip sunglasses typically aren’t restocked, so if you are in the market for a good pair get there early)

Anyway, I am planning to buy this Nadri necklace I have been lusting after since last year’s sale (I have a hard time spending more than $50 on a piece of jewelry (it is $118.90 0n sale) that isn’t “fine” jewelry, but I have been coveting this particular piece for so long I am finally going to give in).

As for what else I may get, well I am thinking about browsing around for a new winter coat, perhaps some new tops, and maybe some workout gear (I am considering training for a marathon or at least a half-marathon).

Happy shopping!

Well anyway, I recently identified some areas where I need to improve, and since they are interesting and this blog is my little “journey” I wanted to share them with you.

1. Abstraction. I struggle sometimes taking all this stuff that I know and then distilling it into a few key abstractions.  One of the things to help with this is to start with the end in mind.  By thinking about the question you are trying to answer, the criteria for success, or what you are hoping to accomplish you can help figure out what is the path or questions to you need to answer to get to that conclusion.

2. Think before speaking.  Yes, I know — “open mouth insert foot”.  I am not one to hold back what I think.  Normally this isn’t such a big deal, but I think at times it has caused some real problems.  I am trying to get better at this, but not saying anything unless I have carefully thought through my words (event if that means an uncomfortable silence).

3.  Communicate through multiple mediums.  Not everyone can learn things verbally, and not everyone has time to read what you write.  Having things in email (or some other written format), and discussing them (such as in a meeting) provides the best framework for getting a message across to the parties involved.  Sometimes I only do one of these and as a result not everything I am trying to communicate comes though.

Those are some new areas of focus for me.  Luckily I get to practice most of these every week, so these combined with better self discipline are where I am going to channel my improvement efforts over the next few months. Make sure you are taking the time to improve yourself and pick areas where you can get better.

Well I have decided that I am going to relaunch my little website to be kind of my “personal portal” and an online business card so to speak.  I am going to keep the blog but I am going to try (perhaps) and make a bit more focused.  I am super excited about this prospect and can’t wait to see it come to life.  (BTW, no idea on time line since I have to do this in my off hours–which tend to be sparse–but I am hoping to make some great progress with the holiday weekend etc.)

With the development of my new site, I started spending some time thinking about my personal brand and what it meant online.  These days every online presence you have is no longer just personal, and everything you do/say/share is a reflection of you–and I believe I can use this to my advantage (hey, I have always found myself interesting).

There is an article on mashable that has some good tips and proliferating your brand (setup a linked in profile, a twitter account, have an consistent online presence, etc).  I liked the tip of a video resume (how cool right? But of course I am partial to most things video) and of course developing your personal sense of style (this is something that I think is so important for first impressions, etc).  Part of my launch will be to rebrand my twitter page to be consistent with my website.  They also say that everyone should have personal business cards–I love paper products, so I am planning on printing my new identity on some cards too.  So, in addition to my site, I had a whole list of things I wanted to accomplish, great!

Here came the hard part though–what is my brand?  This article gives some info on taking a step back and thinking through the things that make you well–you.  I thought this was a good place to start–defining what I am about.  While I will spare you from my whole exercise I started writing (and ranking) a list of attributes or things that described me (or the part of my life I am trying to represent).  Here are some of the things that made the cut:

• Technical, intelligent, nerdy, management
• Professional, sophisticated, experienced
• Stylish, fashionable, chic
• Forward thinking, innovative, entrepreneurial

My mission statement is to really establish myself as a female leader in technology, and eventually in business.  Being really experienced in technical management and engineering leadership, I want to spring board and further my reputation in these areas.  And over the last several years I have developed my working knowledge of large scale distributed web systems (and constructing/operating them on a shoestring budget), which should only become more important with the rise of cloud computing.  And while all these things are great, I also think that part of what makes me “me” is the fact that I love fashion, shopping and clothes.  I have a great sense of style and like to think that I do everything with a bit of panache specific to me.

I decided to keep my title “Kate Mats”  I thought about going back to “Kate Roth” or expanding to my new full name “Kate Matsudaira”, but decided that Kate Mats had a nice to ring to it (plus I already have the domain name).  From my adjectives above I did a *whole* bunch of word-smithing and came up with the tagline/slogan (wait for it!) — “Bringing style and technology together”.

Anyway, I am still working on these things, but am super excited about all that is possible and coming up  :)

Oh and if you have an opinion, please let me know!  I love getting feedback.

It seems lately I have been keeping myself occupied and haven’t had any chance to post anything recently.  So let’s see what have I been up to recently?

• Took a trip to NYC.  We spent about 7 days there and even though I had to work during the weekdays it felt like a mini-vacation.  It was very reinvigorating, despite tiring.  I love the city.  Mostly there was a lot of touristing around and seeing the sights.  I got to see the Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, Central Park, and explored all the little neighborhoods.  We also saw Guys and Dolls on Boradway (it is one of my favorite plays). It was soooo much fun.  And despite all of the wonderful meals we ate I managed to lose weight.  I think it was probably from all of the walking!  Anyway, I will likely be going back there again next week for work.  
• Working out!  I have been back on the bandwagon with my work outs recently.  I have been watching some TV Shows on demand (The Duel, The Hills, and several others) and I bought season 2 of Lipstick Jungle, so having a full programming schedule has kept my motivation up.  Oh and I am seeing results!  That has also been helping.  Although I think the main reason for the results is that I have been improving my willpower and doing pretty well on my diets.  And weight loss 20% exercise and 80% diet, and I have been having some success on both fronts.
• Reading.  My new commute taking the bus has given me lots of time to read.  I am on book 4 for the Stephanie Plum series.  I read this epic thriller called Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet–it is definitely more of a man book (mainly because of the graphic violence) but it was a good story and I read all 1000 pages in less than a week.  I also read Water For Elephants, which was one of the best books I have read in a really long time.  And my queue of books has been growing–Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is next.
• Cultivating my inner domestic goddess.  We planted a little garden (tomatoes, strawberries, snap peas, basil, a pepper plant) and I have been picking roses almost daily from our rose bushes so we have fresh flowers in the house (although my florist arranging needs some work).  I also have embraced spring cleaning and completely reworked my whole closet–including ironing and making a big pile for the tailor (which hopefully will get taken care of this week).  And (yes there is more!) I have been spending more time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning.  I have been coming up with new recipes and trying to eat at home more frequently.
• Working!  Of course!  After all, I do work for a startup and I love what I do, but it certainly keeps me occupied.

I totally want to get a new camera so I can start putting some pictures on my blog–but being a budget prohibits that kind of spending so right now you will just have to settle for my stories.  

Anyway, I am going to try to get back in the swing of updating more frequently, in particular I plan to post some of the recipes and things I am trying and how they turn out.  I am also going to post some book reviews, and maybe some shopping links as they come about (I am hankering to tackle some redecorating projects in the house!).

Hope everyone is having a great spring

You see I have lots of opinions–thoughts that would probably be fascinating to read–but even though this is my blog I feel like posting those thoughts would have such bad unintended consequences that I don’t dare do it.

For example (and these are random examples pulled off the internet, not necessarily things I would write about), you can’t write what you really think about your significant other, because if they read it they will likely be upset.  You can’t post about how much you dislike your job, or your coworkers, or your clients because if they read it they will be really upset.  And you can’t post about your friends because they too will be upset if they don’t like your opinions.  All of this spells recipes for disaster.  I think this is true of most personal blogs though.

I think I need an anonymous blog where I can post all my *true* feelings about things.  I think that blog would be *really* interesting to read.

It was about 8pm and the pharmacy was set to close at 9pm, which I guess meant rush hour–all the people racing in to fill their medications before the end of the night.  Despite there “stand back for privacy” line, I could hear every conversation from my little vantage point to the left of the counter.  As I sat there for about 20 more minutes (largely waiting for the line than to pick up my order since it was filled pretty quickly) I was amazed by what I witnessed.

I counted 12 different patrons.  The smallest number of medications for any patron was 3.  The largest number was 9.  On average it seemed like people were picking up 5 medicines.  No one wanted “counseling” from the pharmacist as almost all the patrons were picking up medicine that they took before.  This got me thinking a lot about my medication and medication in general. How medicated is America?  How about the world?  Most of the older people I know closely take a whole cocktail of pills daily.  Is that characteristic of other people?  I wish I had more time to do research on this topic as it is fascinating how many pills people take on a regular basis.

There are plenty of studies on how taking too much medicine is bad for our health (makes diseases resistant, etc) but what about all of the other medications?  How can that be good for people’s well being if they are all on a bunch of pills all the time?  And how frequent is it–how many people are taking 1, 2, 3, or more medications?  From my night of observation at the pharmacy it sure seems like something someone should be thinking about.

I don’t own anything in red except for two pairs of shoes.  This means it is time for me to start looking for a hot red date dress   Some of us girls could always use a little more help.

On a side note, I wonder how this would impact business or the work environment.  They say that more attractive people tend to be more successful–so if you have an important business meeting would wearing red make a difference?  Perhaps, although it may not be a “good” thing.  Of course this begs the question “Is being feminine and sexy an advantage or disadvantage in the work place?”  That is a question I wish I knew the answer to…..

Interesting food for thought.

Source.