The Simple Dollar has posted an article titled, “15 Things You Can Do Right Now To Help Your Career”. My favorites from the list are:

Make a list of all of the things you did today/this week/this month to help your organization, and file them away.
I started this several months ago, with a private WordPress blog. I keep a record of my work accomplishments for the week, which I can later use to update my resume. I also keep track of my personal daily accomplishments, which I update at the end of each day. It’s a great way to look back at the day, and be reminded of success, as opposed to looking at the unfinished items still on your task list, which tends to have the reverse effect.

Design some classy business cards
I planned to do this for a long time, and ironically, I just sent the design to the printer last night for my cards.

Send a thank-you note
I’ve done this before after interviews, but it’s an interesting idea for around the office thanks. The article suggests that the handwritten thank-you note implies you put more time and thought into it, than the pre-printed or emailed note.

Now that my business cards are at the printer, I plan to do a note card that matches the style, that I can use as a thank you card.

Work on your writing skills
Keeping a personal journal, as mentioned above, can also help you work on your writing skills. Since I started my personal journal a few months ago, I’ve written over 90 posts. They aren’t necessarily as well thought out as they would be if they were for public consumption, but a few of them have already gone from my personal journal to being posted on one of my blogs.

Send a quick contact email
I like the idea suggested here. It’s difficult to know what to say when contacting someone like this, but the suggestion is to simply update the recipient on what you have been up to since the last contact, and ask what they have been up to.

Note: 37 signals has just launched a new application, called Highrise which is designed to help you manage your contacts.

Clean your work area
I did this at work recently. I spent some time and money to decorate my cube (I’ll post some pictures soon), including some matted pictures, plants, etc. It looks cleaner, and more like I care, and is much more comfortable to work in.

Make yourself more presentable
I like the suggestion to wash your face again in the afternoon, and brush your teeth after lunch, if not only for hygiene, but just as important for that fresh feeling, which might help you get through a long, tiring afternoon.

Also, along with this is to dress nicely too. Even if you don’t have to dress up for work, but prefer tshirts and jeans. Ensure your jeans are good quality, ironed, and your shoes are new looking, etc. You can dress down and still look like you care.

The full article, and the other eight suggestions, can be found at the Simple Dollar.

I love using Gmail and Google Calendar. The only problem I’ve had with Google Calendar, is that I forgot to check it, and then forget something I scheduled. Here is a greasemonkey script, and a tutorial for setting it up, that places your Google Calendar agenda on your GMail in the left hand side. Fantastic idea, and now makes it much more likely I’ll not forget my scheduled events, since I’ll see them all day long.

See the tutorial.

Note: I haven’t touched on it much on my site, but I will in the coming weeks. I’ve become a huge fan of Ruby on Rails and have been doing a lot of coding in it during my spare time. It has brought back the fun I used to have developing Internet software from years ago.

Ruby Inside has posted an interview with the developer of Trawlr, Ben Smith. Some of my favorite highlights are:

Almost all the readers I looked at kept each feed separate and behaved like email where you had to keep marking items or feeds as read to prevent a huge, overwhelming backlog.

The way I use RSS is to subscribe to a large number of feeds (over 300) and then simply ‘dip in’ and read when I have time.

When I first discovered the REST features in Rails (via DHH’s “World of Resources” presentation) I didn’t really get it. Once I started to understand that REST is all about modeling ‘things’ and their relationships by creating rich associations it started to make sense.

The additional benefit of using the same code to respond according to the requesting user agent is a major bonus. Within trawlr I mainly use the REST features to keep the code DRY for different response types; rss and opml being two current examples. In the future I hope to add a mobile version.

Read the entire article at Ruby Inside.

According to an article on MSNBC, a study was done which indicated that meetings are not a productive environment for creativity. I could have spared them the money and time for the study. Getting involvement from all your meeting attendees is difficult, because people think in many different ways and in many different environments. Some are confident enough to speak up in the midst of others, and some like to think out loud. But, others prefer to hear of a problem, and then have time to themselves to ponder possible solutions. As well, many people are problem solvers, while others are those who like to shoot holes in everything. While that is a necessary skill set on any team, it is inappropriate in a problem solving, brainstorming meeting, and it discourages the creative thinkers from speaking out.

To encourage input from everyone, I suggest the following. Call a meeting to identify the problem, and warn attendees before hand that no solutions will be discussed. The goal for the meeting is only to identify the problem and any parameters involved. Then dismiss everyone. A good manager, who pays attention to the skill sets on the team, is hopefully aware of the team members strengths. After some time is given for creative thinking, call two followup meetings. The first will be with your creative thinkers. State at the beginning that it is a time for creative thinking and brainstorming and that no decision will be made in the meeting. As well, state up front that time will not be spent to critique the ideas and solutions. This is an idea generating time only, and is for your creative, outside the box thinkers.

In the next meeting, you will have your more analytical members who analyze everything without mercy. Present each idea to them and let them tear into them. If they have their own suggestions listen to them, but do not be surprised if they do not have any suggestions, but only propose reasons why none of the current suggestions will work. Record their objections and send them in an email to your first creative group, but do not identify who objected to their ideas. Give them time to consider them, and then convene again to hear their follow up ideas.

Continue this cycle, until a solution is apparent and can be chosen. Keep the two groups separate. If you are aware that some of your team members do not like to speak up in larger meetings, meet with them individually or in small groups of two. This more private setting will allow the less confident to have their say. You may also tell everyone after the first meeting, that they can email you their suggestions as well, again providing a method for them to participate but not in front of the group.

Be sure to keep every meeting focused on the task at hand, and when communicating between each team do not identify the originators of the ideas or the critiques.

This process works well to involve all team members, and to allow each to use their strengths.

Do you have any other suggestions for making problem solving meetings more productive?

Read the article on MSNBC.