bradfair.com - Time Savers

Windows Vista Speech Recognition

nospam@dontspamme.com (Brad Fair) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:35:35 -0600

Well it finally happened. My laptop was on the verge of crashing for half a year, and it finally met its fate. Luckily, my wife and I caught it before it happened, and purchased a Compaq computer from Wal-Mart for $470. It seems to be a steal so far. It came with Windows Vista Home Premium, and was relatively easy to set up.

I was excited about getting Vista, because I've heard so much about it speech recognition capabilities. I have been pleasantly surprised that its speech recognition is as enhanced as it is. It seems to be 85 to 90% accurate, and when it does make mistakes, they are relatively easy to correct.

The biggest difficulty that I have with Windows Vista speech recognition is that it does not recognize the way that I pronounce the word two. I suppose with more practice, it will start recognizing numbers as well as it does words.

One of the reasons that I was looking forward to Windows Vista's speech recognition: blogging. I dictated this entire post, and its accuracy astounds me still.

If you're the type of young entrepreneur that looks for faster ways of doing things, and you often find yourself in front of the computer, Windows Vista speech recognition may just be your friend.

Multi-Tasking: Good or Evil?

nospam@dontspamme.com (Brad Fair) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 05:50:00 -0500

I want to toss this out there and see what sticks for you. Multi-tasking is something that is expected of almost everyone these days. Being able to do more than one thing at once (walk, chew bubble gum) seems to be the only way to do anything. But is it really all its cracked up to be, or is it simply shooting yourself in the foot in a more productive-looking way?

Why Multi-Tasking is Good

Multi-tasking is good because making progress on more than one front at a time ensures your project(s) will be completed faster. You will get the added benefits of experiencing two or more different pieces of progress, learning multiple things at once, and seeing finished projects more frequently. Imagine the benefits you can gain if you're able to increase your profit by 10% because you've finished several 2% increases at almost the same time. You will also be able to take what you've learned from one project, and put it to good use in another immediately. For example, you might learn a shortcut to an equation you frequently use while working on Project 1, and that same shortcut presents a breakthrough on Project 2. When considering the positive results that multi-tasking brings, it's easy to say that multi-tasking is good.

Why Multi-Tasking is Evil

Multi-tasking is evil because it guarantees that your focus is never on one problem at a time. It pulls you in several different directions, and the experiences you get aren't as powerful because they are being saturated by other potentially conflicting experiences. For instance, two projects that you are working on can each have an emergency arise. The first emergency requires your physical presence in the next nearest city, while the second emergency requires your physical presence in the office for 24 hours straight. Unfortunately you are not able to internalize the causes of each of the emergencies because you must go from one to the other immediately. Multi-tasking also adds stress to your life by setting unrealistic expectations. In the previous example, you may stress about not being able to be in both places at once. You might also stress about not being able to foresee and both emergencies. To put it simply, multi-tasking is a burden to a productive workflow, and an inhibitor to a healthy life.

Having reviewed some pros and cons of multi-tasking, I believe that doing more than one thing at a time is a good way to get a bad result (unless it's literally chewing bubble gum and walking). If your goal is to meet a quantity of work, it may be the way to go. If you have any duty for quality, you may want to reconsider.

Business Process Improvement

nospam@dontspamme.com (Brad Fair) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:01:00 -0500

When I worked for Dell, I had an opportunity to learn about how they make improvements to their business processes, resulting in better customer satisfaction and profit. They called it Business Process Improvement (BPI for short); it is similar to Six Sigma, and really helps to find where problems are in your business, giving you the opportunity to resolve the issues before they become out of hand.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a process developed by Motorola with the goal of improving manufacturing processes to the point of only having 3 or 4 defective parts per million produced. Using multiple quality control methods and tools, those who practice Six Sigma can, in theory, analyze their processes and change what doesn't work well. I say "in theory" because Fortune magazine mentioned in 2006, "of 58 large companies that have announced Six Sigma programs, 91 percent have trailed the S&P 500 since." Don't let that deter you though - as an entrepreneur, you should be used to taking what works and integrating it into your own systems in some sort of "mixed martial arts" approach.

Business Process Improvement - Step One

In BPI, the first step is to pick a process that you intend to improve. At Dell, they stressed that to really be BPI, you couldn't have an idea of how to improve the process before starting your BPI. Bull! Just try not to let your idea for improvement get in your way of recognizing other ways to improve. After you have your process, you should detail every single step, from start to finish. An example might be:

Answer incoming phone call
Document prospect's request, name, number, etc.
Email the sales manager with this information
Distribute prospects to salesmen based off of workload
Determine feasibility of prospect's request.
1. If feasible, pass to project management for a quote
2. If not feasible, research alternate ways to accomplish same goal
  1. If found, call prospect back and propose looking into new approach
    1. If accepted, repeat step 5
    2. If declined, refer customer to company with better fit
  2. If not found, call prospect back and refer to company with better fit

You can see that documenting a process can get pretty detailed. Once you have the process documented, there are opportunities to see where time, money, or resources are wasted. For instance, the wait time between emailing the sales manager and having a salesman work on the request may be 1 day, with no good reason why. The goal is to only do the steps that add value to the customer/client.

Business Process Improvement - Step Two

After you have documented your process and analyzed it for waste, brainstorm different ways of eliminating the wasteful steps. After you have a list (and remember, no idea is too stupid to not brainstorm), determine what effect each method will have on the process. Consider its effect on resources used, time used, and cost. Using the above example, I might decide to implement a system which gives the receptionist basic information about which salesperson has the bandwidth to accept the next prospect. That might eliminate the 1 day of waiting because of the sales manager. It might also cost $10,000, which in my case could be worth it. You'll know whether your idea is or not.

Business Process Improvement - Step Three

You should have had at least one idea about improving your process, several more if it was an extremely wasteful one. Your goal now is to implement the process. Spread the word! If your company's culture supports it, you might even explain why you're changing the process. Keep an eye on the process and determine if there were any unforeseen changes. Is the process working? If so, take note of the savings: time saved, customer satisfaction, new sales, or pure profit. If your company has more than one branch or similar processes in other areas of the business, share your results with the people who can help make the same changes in those areas.

The best part about BPI is that it's something you can do right now, immediately. You can grab a process that's been bugging you, dissect it, and come up with a much better solution. If you want a little bit of practice, go buy a box of Legos and try and build something. Then after you have it built, analyze the process you took building it, and make it better!

How to Stop Subvocalizing

nospam@dontspamme.com (Brad Fair) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:45:00 -0500

If you read my post "Does Read Speeding Work," you've already seen that the key to stop subvocalizing is to not give yourself the time to. How do you do that? Simple: read faster! Let's say that the fastest you can talk in your head is 300-350 words per minute. You should have a tough time subvocalizing at 500wpm if you can't speak that fast. Let me equate this process to making you comfortable with driving at 120mph by starting you off at 300mph. Learning to take in 500 words per minute or faster will have a learning curve, but here's how it's done.

Take a book that you have available, and turn it upside down. Yes, upside down! Open it up to the beginning (well, the end) and set it flat on a table. Put your hand gently on the place where you would start reading (the words are, of course, upside down). Using your hand as a guide, move it across the lines of the page at a rapid rate, following the tips of your fingers as it goes. Do this for several minutes, and don't worry if your fingers don't glide across EVERY single line. The goal here is to let your eyes move across the page, picking up each word/line/paragraph. Try for speed and consistency. It should be fairly easy since we won't get caught up in the story line of an upside down book!

After doing this exercise, turn the book right side up. Try and read the book at a rate that seems natural to you. You will probably find that you're trying to read faster than you can subvocalize. This process can get frustrating, because you've conditioned yourself to always want to subvocalize when reading. All I can say is "keep at it," because it will work for you. As you begin picking up on words, phrases, and sentences, you should try the exercise again. Turn your book upside down and have at it.

You may notice that you're starting to read more than one word at once, and possibly more than one line at once. If so, good job! You're on the right track. I encourage you to look into speed reading courses and find one that is a good fit for you so that you can continue your growth in this area. This skill has saved me quite a bit of time, and kept me on top of the game in several ways.

Does Read Speeding Work?

nospam@dontspamme.com (Brad Fair) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Every young entrepreneur knows that in the information age, there is simply too much material that needs read, and not enough time to do it in. That's why I learned how to speed read. Most people that I've talked to about speed reading are under the impression that speed reading is the same as scanning. Even Woody Allen said:

"I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. "

For those that think speed reading jumbles things up and makes ledgible text look like the title of this article (did you notice the Spoonerism?), you should try this exercise:

Grab a couple index cards.
Have a friend write a few simple questions (that you'll know the answers to), one on each card.
Have him flash the question in front of you for half a second, and then take the card away.
See if you can answer the question.

Chances are, you can! This simple exercise is truly the foundation of the speed reading that I have learned. It removes the one crutch keeping you from reading at outstanding rates: Subvocalization. Since you were able to see the question, read it without subvocalizing, and then answer it, you have proven to yourself that you don't lose comprehension speed reading!

Just that exercise answers the question "Does speed reading really work?" It does! It is also valid for higher rates of reading, and more difficult subjects than fun trivia. I've used it to pass history exams with only 15 minutes of study (right before the exam, actually). Sadly, stopping the subvocalization process is a little more difficult than just doing this exercise. With enough dedication, however, you can make significant progress in a short amount of time. Here shortly, I'll be posting an article about how to stop subvocalizing. Check back, and put it to the test to see how long it takes you to get through your Inc. Magazine this month!

How to Wake Up Early

nospam@dontspamme.com (Brad Fair) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:30:00 -0500

"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." - Benjamin Franklin

We've all heard it, and several of us have noticed the link between all of these things. It's not that waking up early turns your bath water into vitamins and your clothes into gold, but waking up early gives you the opportunity to be much more productive each day. It is said that Sam Walton woke up early in the morning to travel to other retail outlets in search of good deals. When he found one (and he often did), he would be able to get the merchandise back to his store before the day's rush. As easy as Ben's quote is to say, it certainly seemed difficult to wake up early - at least for me.

Then, I Googled one day for How to Become an Early Riser, and found an excellent post in Steve Pavlina's blog about the subject. He informed me that to get up early in the morning, you have to follow three simple guidelines:

Set your alarm for a specific time to wake up EVERY DAY.

For example, I set the alarm for 5:30 AM. This gives me time for a long shower, breakfast, and a good hour and a half to work on my projects before getting ready for work.

Condition yourself to automatically get out of bed once your alarm goes off.

OK, so this is a bit more difficult. I literally practiced getting out of bed when my alarm went off. I'd set it for 5 minutes from now, and lay down and get comfy. When it started blaring, I'd turn it off and go stand in the shower (not turn it on, for the practice sessions). It may sound silly, but it really works!

Go to bed when you're tired.

This is an easy one. Find a good measure of how tired you have to be in order to fall asleep within a few minutes of hitting the pillow. Go to bed at that point.

Those three things, when put together, really help you wake up early! If you mess up and sleep in, you'll stay up a little later, which means that the next day you'll just be a little more tired. Your body knows how much sleep it needs, so if it needs to adjust, it will. If you really want to wake up early, I suggest starting by conditioning yourself to have an automatic response to your alarm. Then, give the process a try for 30 days and see if it works for you!

Finding More Time

nospam@dontspamme.com (Brad Fair) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:17:06 -0500

If you're like most people (the odds are in my favor in guessing that), you realize that there's too much stuff to do, and not enough time to do it in. This is especially true of young entrepreneurs because you're being pulled in every direction all the time. It's suprising how much time is wasted each day because people don't realize that there are faster ways to do common (and necessary) tasks to increase the time you have to accomplish your goals. Here are three things that I've made a conscious effort to improve that resulted in more usable hours during the day:

Becoming an Early Riser
I was curious about how those early morning folks did it, so I Googled it and found a great article on the subject. It took a little practice automating my awakening (so that I couldn't talk myself out of it), but the results were excellent. I sleep between 5 and 8 hours, averaging 6.5 each day. Assuming that most young entrepreneurs feel sleep deprived at 8 hours, let's say I'm gaining 1.5 hours a day simply by being an early riser! That's a gain of almost 3.5 times the normal work-month in my year!
Learning to Read Effectively
"Does it really work," you might ask. Yes! My freshman year of college, I found a little flyer on my desk as I walked into class. On it, it promised that I could read up to 3 times faster by taking this course. I thought about the benefits and decided to attend the 1 hour "seminar" advertised on the flyer. The presenter explained that she could teach me how to read much faster, and study more efficiently, by attending her course. She then showed proof that it worked by running me through a few exercises. Just in that hour, my reading bumped up by 100 words per minute. After taking the course (at a minimal cost compared to its savings), I was at around 1000 words per minute with no loss in comprehension. Don't let any non-speed readers tell you that it doesn't work if they haven't tried it! I know I have saved several hours a year using this skill, and I've been able to obtain more information than I could have beforehand.
Getting Things Done
Since I never really cared to be the most organized person in the world, there were a lot of things I was supposed to do that slipped through the cracks when they shouldn't have. Mostly, homework. I finally got tired of it and wanted to figure out a way to keep on top of all of the things that I had to do. I'd read about Getting Things Done in a few different places, and thought I'd give it a shot. I bought the audiobook from iTunes, and listened while I was out and about. Unlike many systems that only work when you do everything to the letter, Getting Things Done gives you several productivity enhancing ideas. In my opinion, the two most helpful are defining a next action, and reminding yourself of pending actions. If you are even the least bit unorganized, consider buying the book, or renting it from your local library. You'll stop wasting your time recovering from dropped balls, unnecessary planing, and trying to remember what's on your plate.

There are a few more things that I do to find more time, and between them all, I feel like I am much more productive than I could have ever been otherwise. I will write more about each of the three ideas above in the future.