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June 7, 2005

Personal Mantras

43folders has an interesting new article on personal mantras. Mine are "fail gracefully", "let's do it now", and "don't cross the rules of consulting"

The rules of consulting (as told by my father to me)
1) Always remember the name of the company you are visiting
2) Always go to the bathroom (when the opportunity presents itself, take it. You don't know the next time you'll be able to.)
3) Keep moving forward. (left with the choice of dealing with a rain delayed flight for a few hours or getting a transfer through another city closer to your destination, always take the transfer, or get a train, or a bus or whatever, and you might just outrun that storm)
4) Always eat. (when something nutritious and delicious presents itself, eat it. That banana might spoil that steak dinner, but you might avoid spending a few hours on a plane hungry and stuck)
5) Always check one example in a spreadsheet with another person and a calculator. If you can't get the numbers to match by hard, don't show the client (or the boss or whoever)
6) Always call home, they miss you
7) Dress the right way for travel. Never check bags, no metal in your shoes, keys in your bag (goes through the machine anyway), and a thin wallet to prevent back problems on long flights and meetings,
Lesser known rules
8) Don't use TV, radio, or print advertisements if you know the name and addresses of all your potential clients, use direct mail
9) Good news and praise by email, bad news and criticism by phone
10) Manage downtime well. Every job has downtime and if you use yours to learn, research and publish with yours, you'll prosper

43folders is a personal productivity website devoted to, among other things, The Getting Things Done system.

Posted by OneEyedMan at June 7, 2005 12:17 PM

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