time management – Page 2 – The Healthy Non-Profit

How can apps help you and your non-profit get more things done?

May 21, 2012 DonorDreams Mondays with Marissa, Planning, technology

In many of my Mondays with Marissa posts, I tend to focus on how non-profits can use social media to spread the word about their mission to build a community of volunteers and donors. This week, I’m looking at how some handy applications can help you better organize your day so that you might have more time to build an awesome website or make the best Facebook page ever.

Evernote

I remember when Evernote first came out. It blew my mind. The basic idea behind Evernote is that it wants to be your external brain. It is a place to put notes, photos, lists, documents, anything. Anything you put in Evernote can be accessed from anywhere through a variety of applications for the desktop, web and smartphone. All of these notes can be organized into various notebooks that can be public, private or shared with co-workers.

What makes Evernote really remarkable is the fact that it can search text in photographs. So, for example, say you were in a special event planning meeting where your team used a whiteboard to capture ideas. Everything was laid out on the whiteboard, but there wasn’t enough time to capture all of those ideas into an email to be shared with everyone later. You could just take photo of the board and put it in one of Evernote’s collaborative notebooks. Later you could use the search function to look for the words “special event,” and if it was in the white board photo, it would show up in your search results.

Evernote is free to use, but for just $5/month or $45/year you can get more storage and more functionality. I could go on and on about the cool things you could do with Evernote, but you should just check out their website for more information.

Google Apps

Google has really tried hard to replace office standards such as Outlook, Word and Excel. I think they have done a pretty good job. With Google Docs, teams can work together on a document in real-time and not have to email large files back and forth. Google Calendar is a robust replacement for the calendar in Outlook. Additionally, if you use Gmail plug-ins, you can easily customize your email to your liking.

Google also has a tasks list built into both GMail and Google Calendar. I find this extremely helpful because I prefer to put my “To Do List” onto a calendar as opposed to just making separate lists. Once you create a task list, the window can stay minimized at the bottom of your window, which allows for convenient access at all times. If you put a due date on your task list, it will show up in a special tasks calendar next time you open Google Calendar. You can also set it up so that it emails you reminders.

Finally, GChat is something that I think many people overlook. As someone who works remotely, GChat is really convenient. It allows me to have conversations with people without having to be in the same room. Beyond the traditional text-based instant messaging conversations, GChat has a great video chat feature included. You can also make phone calls to landlines or mobile phones using GChat. Some of them might even be free!

Click here for a more comprehensive list of Google product. I suspect you will be surprised at all they are offering!

Remember the Milk

This last App is one of the oldest and fully featured to-do list applications out there. Remember the Milk makes list-making easy. You can create lists for all sorts of projects and sync them over all devices and programs. They even have an Outlook plug-in! Remember the Milk has options “up the wazoo” so if you use an organizational system like GTD you’ll find it easy to make your project lists here. What I like most about Remember the Milk is it’s simple design and usability.

Those are just a few of the numerous applications out there that help organize information, remind you to get things done, and find more time to spend on mission-related things for your non-profit organization.

Do you use any of these Apps or are there others that you prefer? Do you have a favorite? Please scroll down to the comment box and share your experiences!

One final note and commercial interruption . . . I wanted to mention that I wrote a guest article on about.com about where to get started with social media. I invite you to check it out and share it with others. Thanks!

Work-Life Balance for non-profit professionals? Ask a donor for help.

May 11, 2012 DonorDreams Donor-centered fundraising, leadership, organizational development

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking more closely at a recent post from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applying his organizational development messages to the non-profit community.

Today, we’re focusing on a post that John titled “At Peace“. In that post, he talks about two different pictures and uses those images to illustrate the point that there is a difference between “at peace” and “getting some peace”.

After reading this post, I couldn’t get my mind off of the idea of work-life balance. This topic of conversation comes up all the time when I’m talking to non-profit professionals. As I previously blogged about in a post titled “Kissing While Driving for Non-Profit Agencies,” non-profit organizations are typically under-resourced. As a result, almost all nof the on-profit professional who I know wear multiple hats, lack balance in their life, and appear to be on the brink of “going postal”.

At Peace? Definitely NOT!

Over the last 15 years, I’ve battled with the ideas that John eloquently lays out in his blog post. The following are just a few things that I’ve tried:

Attending time management trainings (e.g. FranklinCovey, David Allen’s Getting Things Done, etc)
Using various time management tools ranging from FranklinCovey to Microsoft Outlook. I’m now a Android smart phone junkie, who is utterly lost in life when my device isn’t within reach.
Going on vacation
Quiting my job and opening The Healthy Non-Profit LLC

In hindsight, John is so right . . . I was “getting some peace” in most of those instances. So, what can non-profit professionals do to be “At Peace“????

I like John’s suggestion that re-evaluating and adjusting our expectations about what “peace” really means. In his post, he talks about the picture of a violent waterfall, jagged mountains and an angry sky being a picture of “peace”. Maybe accepting this idea rather than fighting against it is more than half the battle.

I also like John’s challenge at the end of his post where he asks the following question:

“Perhaps, when leaders disrupt our peace when making organizational changes, they should orchestrate efforts to enable us to adapt and change?”

As I contemplate this question, I struggle with what those efforts might look like.

So, I have a suggestion for all of you who find yourself struggling with the same question:

Open your donor database.
Run a report showing your agency’s top 50 lifetime donors.
Scan the list in search of a donor who owns their own business, has gone through some change initiatives in the last few years, and appears to be busy and yet peaceful.
Pick-up the phone and call that donor.
Invite them out to share a cup of coffee.
Tell them about John’s blog post topic.
Ask them to share their secrets to success with regards to being “at peace”.
Ask them what efforts they orchestrated at work to help their employees adapt and change and in effect putting their workplace “at peace”.

Not only will you most likely get some great advice, but this conversation will have a “stewardship effect” for that donor. It will deepen a relationship with someone who is already important to your organization.

I like this suggestion mostly because it reminds me of the fact that donors are not just ATMs that produce cash every time we ask for it. Donors are friends and part of our non-profit family. We can put this principle in action by asking them to donate their knowledge and experiences in addition to their financial contributions. In doing so, the relationship gets stronger and grows.

Do you struggle with work-life balance issues at your non-profit organization? What have you personally done to try to achieve balance? What has your agency done to help facilitate this idea of being “at peace”? Have you ever engaged donors in questions like this? How did it work out for you?

Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Kissing While Driving for non-profit agencies

March 9, 2012 DonorDreams leadership, organizational development

Today we’re focusing on a post that John titled “Kissing While Driving“. In this post, he uses an Albert Einstein quote to investigate the perils of “multitasking” in the workplace by employees. He puts forward that employees who are running back and forth between various projects are likely only doing an “adequate” job at best for their employer because as Benjamin Franklin once said, “Haste makes waste”. More importantly John concludes:

this likely impacts employee engagement and loyalty,
can be dangerous for the company whose reputation is based on quality, and
is less than satisfying for employees who take pride in their work.

Reading John’s post brought me back to my “frontline” days of non-profit work. I honestly think this blog post is even more applicable to non-profit agencies because of how they behave in “resource deprived” environments. When I was the executive director of my local Boys & Girls Club, I used to laugh when people asked me: “What is your job?”

I used to describe my work as a daily “sprint” through a series of very diverse and challenging situations.

7:00 am — network with donors at Rotary Club
8:30 am — meet with development director about an upcoming special event fundraiser
9:30 am — prepare meeting materials for upcoming Finance Committee meeting
10:00 am — meet with program staff about a recent hiccup that was brought to my attention by a parent or collaborative partner
11:00 am — double-check the bank deposit against the donor database report and check log; go to bank and make the deposit
11:30 am — Troubleshoot a tech problem that an employee was experiencing (and was preventing them from doing their job)
Noon — Go to lunch with a donor or board member
1:30 pm — Hop on a conference call for the state alliance
2:30 pm — Last minute prep for the board development committee meeting
3:00 pm — Attend the board development committee meeting
5:00 pm — Walk through the clubhouse facility to see programs in action and catch staff doing “good things” as well as connect with the mission
5:30 pm — Respond to email and catch up on stuff that washed into my office throughout the day (possibly screening some cover letters and resumes for a job vacancy)
6:00 pm — Pull together some paperwork and process grant receivables
7:00 pm — Prep for the next day, do a little planning, or take advantage of the silence in the office and write a few sections for a grant application or upcoming newsletter
8:00 or 9:00 pm — Go home for some sleep so you can do it all over again tomorrow.

While every day wasn’t always like this, most days were this way. It is the cross that a non-profit executive director must bear when they operate in a resource deprived environment. It is exhausting, and it produces a situation where many mistakes are made. It is a minor miracle anything got done and that any progress was made. In the end, it was one of the top three reasons I chose to leave the frontline and go to work for the national organization.

Hmmmmm . . . yes, I’d say it was a lot like “kissing while driving”. I wasn’t very satisfied. I wasn’t as engaged in the things that were most important to the agency. I made mistakes and felt horrible about making them. I ultimately left for what I thought were greener pastures.

In hindsight, I wonder what I could’ve done differently:

invested in a volunteer program to expand human resources
engaged board members and donors in seeing and help solving these challenges (rather than celebrating the insanity)
adjusted the agency’s strategic plan to focus less on growth and more on deepening the impact

Of these three ideas, the one I think might bring the highest return on investment is the second bullet point that speaks to engaging board members and donors. As I look around at all of my non-profit friends, I see too many of them placating their boards by always saying “YES” rather than walking them through “cause-and-effect” scenarios pertaining to board room decisions (e.g. budget, staffing structure, new programming, etc). I also see many of them telling donors whatever they think they want to hear just to get another signed pledge card.

I have a hard time believing that if board members and donors saw what your day REALLY looked like that they wouldn’t want to jump in and help solve those challenges. Right? And with multiple people focused on solving these challenges, I suspect the odds go up dramatically that either the car gets stopped so the kissing can continue OR the kissing stops so that some work can get done.

In the end, it is your leadership that will solve this problem. Perhaps, it is a new Teachable Point of View that you adopt as the leader. Or maybe it is your embrace of tools like GRPI or RASI. Regardless, it most likely starts and ends with you. So, what are you going to do about it?

Are your days as crazy as the one I described above? What tools do you use to tame that beast? Have you ever engaged board members or donors in this discussion? If so, what were the results? Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts. Remember to also check out other blog posts on organizational development by John Greco at his blog johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly.

Here’s to your health!