Ten point one

Great news...

a surprise major upgrade, free, for EZchecklist™ users.

with features that give you super-powers!

Version Ten was a huge advance.

You've come to expect innovation from DoubleM Systems.

We delight in delivering it.

It's more than that with us, really...

we are relentlessly driven to improve

as we have been doing for the last 3 and a half years

of daily using and improving the system.

 

When Drive finds Inspiration and good timing,

nothing can hold back the tides of productivity. 

Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.

Victor Hugo

That's the long way of saying that we are now at Version Ten point one. 

Ten.1 for short.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.V 

What could possibly improve an already amazing app?

Behold, forthwith, below, and Rejoice, for it is here.

Ten.1 gives you super-powers!

1. Streak counts!

     Once you're on a streak, you don't want to break it. EZchecklist™ counts the number of days you've been on a streak, by activity. Displays to the left of each activity. under that Great Ball of Fire!

2. Goals!

    Most people have no written goals. 

    

    People who do have written goals will succeed in achieving their goals with greater certitude, faster, and with less stress, than those without written goals.*

    Now that we have the sermon out of the way, let's get to how this new version works with Goals. First, there's a whole new sheet, called "Goals" of course. This is where you write your goals. Easy. Look how easy:

​

     A Goal is usually achieved after performing a series of Next Steps. Each Next Step can have a target date, and if a date is selected, the number of days remaining is also shown. This helps a lot with planning and prioritizing.

     You can have many Goals, and each Goal can have many Next Steps.

     The first 3 Goals shown at the top of this Goals sheet are automatically imported to a special Goals section of the main checklist. Additionally, the first 3 Next Steps for each Goal are imported.

     The idea is to look your Goals in the eye every day, and have on your checklist the 3 Next Steps to do. 

     Is it just me, or does that seem like a powerful plan?

     Of course you have to actually write your goals.

     Short term goals will deliver best results, less than 6 months, definitely not more than a year. You can write those goals here too, but the best results from Goal achieving is a focus on a short term.

    When it comes to Next Steps, select from the handy drop-down menu, or enter your own.

    Prioritize simply by moving the rows around. The top 3 get put on the Checklist.

    Add a couple of minutes to your "Plan the Day" activity to review your Goals, prioritize, add/delete Next Steps, and visualize each step playing out successfully. This is an activity with great power to energize your imagination, and commitment. 

    There are interesting possibilities for having Goals that can be put into position for Today Only, or for just this afternoon, or when I'm on vacation. Lots of potential with this new feature, but of course it can only serve you if you use it... and the more you use it the better it gets.

 

Goals? Or Systems? Read another perspective and see why EZchecklist™ is an excellent combination of Goals, Systems, Activities, Analytics, Accountability, and Graphics, with touches of Gamification!

3. Sleep Time! 

       

      Now calculating and charting your Number of Hours of Sleep each day.
Finally. Celebration time is here!

4. But wait, there's more!

     

     Of course there's more, but there will always be more. Have patience and all will be revealed quite soon. Meanwhile, check the User Guide, now updated with more graphics and info on the latest version. 

5. Mikie Likes It

   

     I have been using these features as well as other cosmetic improvements, for almost a week, debugging and improving. I like what it is, and what you can do with it. Thank you in advance for your feedback. 

 6. The Future

     Based on usage data and user feedback, it's time to move to native mode apps. The spreadsheet format has been a convenient prototyping framework, but it comes with limitations. So much more will be built into the system as it evolves into native apps.

7. Thank You!

  Thank you for the opportunity to be of service!  

Namasté,

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

This article is a blatant ripoff from the neuroscience-based blog "Barking Up The Wrong Tree" which has become my new favorite after spending considerable time reading a lot of their content. Check it out, enjoy, learn, thrive!

How To Make Your Life Better By Sending Five Simple Emails

How to make your life better? All you need is email.

I’ve covered a lot of research on how to make your life better but many people struggle with implementing changes because it seems like a major undertaking. It doesn’t have to be.

You can make strides in 5 fundamental areas by just sending 5 emails.

HAPPINESS

Every morning send a friend, family member or co-worker an email to say thanks for something.

Might sound silly but it’s actually excellent advice on how to make your life better.

There’s tons and tons and tons of research showing that over time, this alone – one silly email a day – can make you happier.

Via Harvard professor Shawn Achor’s The Happiness Advantage:

This is why I often ask managers to write an e-mail of praise or thanks to a friend, family member, or colleague each morning before they start their day’s work—not just because it contributes to their own happiness, but because it very literally cements a relationship.

(More on increasing happiness here.)

JOB

At the end of the week, send your boss an email and sum up what you’ve accomplished.

They probably have no idea what you’re doing with your time. They’re busy. They have their own problems.

For your boss, this let’s them know what you’ve been up to without having to ask and saves them from wondering and worrying. They’ll appreciate it and probably come to rely on it.

For you, it’s proactive and shows off your efforts, which Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer says is the key to success in any organization:

…you should make sure that your performance is visible to your boss and your accomplishments are visible. Your superiors in the organization have their own jobs, are managing their own careers, are busy human beings.  And you should not assume that they’re spending all their time thinking about you and worrying about you and your career.

More on improving your work life here.

GROWTH

Once a week email a potential mentor.

Doesn’t have to be related to your job. Who do you admire that you could learn from?

As I’ve blogged about before, mentors are key to success.

Via The Genius in All of Us: New Insights into Genetics, Talent, and IQ:

Any person lucky enough to have had one great teacher who inspired, advised, critiqued, and had endless faith in her student’s ability will tell you what a difference that person has made in her life. “Most students who become interested in an academic subject do so because they have met a teacher who was able to pique their interest,” write Csikszentmihályi, Rathunde, and Whalen. It is yet another great irony of the giftedness myth: in the final analysis, the true road to success lies not in a person’s molecular structure, but in his developing the most productive attitudes and identifying magnificent external resources.

This is one of those things everyone seems to know but nobody does anything about.

It’s the age of the internet, folks. If you have Google and half an ounce of resourcefulness it’s not that hard to find almost anyone’s email address. If they have a website, their email is probably listed on it.

What do you write? Try Adam’s method or Tim’s method or Ramit’s method.

(More on the power of mentors here.)

FRIENDSHIP

Email a good friend and make plans.

What does research say keeps friendships alive? Staying in touch every 2 weeks.

Got 14 friends? Then you need to be emailing somebody every day.

And what should you email them about? Make plans to get together.

Research shows the best use of electronic communication is to facilitate face-to-face interaction:

The results were unequivocal. “The greater the proportion of face-to-face interactions, the less lonely you are,” he says. “The greater the proportion of online interactions, the lonelier you are.” Surely, I suggest to Cacioppo, this means that Facebook and the like inevitably make people lonelier. He disagrees.Facebook is merely a tool, he says, and like any tool, its effectiveness will depend on its user. “If you use Facebook to increase face-to-face contact,” he says, “it increases social capital.” So if social media let you organize a game of football among your friends, that’s healthy. If you turn to social media instead of playing football, however, that’s unhealthy.

(More on improving friendships here.)

CAREER

Send an email to someone you know (but don’t know very well) and check in.

These “weak ties” are the primary source of future career opportunities.

From Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:

In fact, in landing a job, Granovetter discovered, weak-tie acquaintances were often more important than strong-tie friends because weak ties give us access to social networks where we don’t otherwise belong. Many of the people Granovetter studied had learned about new job opportunities through weak ties, rather than from close friends, which makes sense because we talk to our closest friends all the time, or work alongside them or read the same blogs. By the time they have heard about a new opportunity, we probably know about it, as well. On the other hand, our weak-tie acquaintances— the people we bump into every six months— are the ones who tell us about jobs we would otherwise never hear about.

“But I don’t know what to say.”  Do any little thing that benefits them, not you. Try Adam Rifkin’s 5 minute favor.

Or just send them a link they might find useful.

Still stuck? Okay, send them the link to the post you’re reading right now.

If this has helped you with how to make your life better it can probably help them too.  ;)

(More on how to network effectively here.)

Join over 262,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.

Related posts:

How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert

New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy

New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful

Client Access Only

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CLIENT ACCESS ONLY

• User Guide - current production version, with known future features
• Software Change Log - real time history of tweaks 
• Bug Status - all known bugs, live and dead
• 
  
• Roadmap - future product plans
• Business Opportunities
• 
  
• DoubleM Checklist - current live version, MM copy.
• Lurk my Visuals
• Coach view - Client Summary - for coaches to track their clients results
• 
  
• Terms of Service (TOS) and End User License Agreement (EULA) 

Note: Your first visit to the above links may require registration and request for access.

CEO School: Streaking for Fun and Profit

The value of doing a thing one time pales in comparison to doing it consistently. Aristotle saw this clearly when he said:

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a Habit.

In the latest version of TheChecklist™(version Ten) we've added a feature that calculates the number of days in a row, without a miss, that the user has done the desired action. We call this a "streak". It has also been termed the Seinfeld Strategy, named after a favorite comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Call it a habit, if you want, but we like "streak" because it sounds more fun and action oriented. Habit sounds somewhat dull and onerous.

Streaks are highly motivational. Once you get a good streak going, you are more inclined to keep it going because it feels good and you don't want to start over at zero.

Stats from the Calm meditation app

I have some personal experience with this. Regular meditation had always been something I wanted in my life, but I just couldn't seem to get into the habit. After I put it on TheChecklist™and started doing a count of the number of days in a row, I became more consistent, but with occasional missed days, still not a habit. Once I got to 56 days in a row, but then, incredibly, I missed a day, and that really bummed me out because it would take me another 56 days to get even with my previous streak. But I hung in there, and now I've achieved a streak of 469 days without a miss, as of the morning I'm writing this. Every day I look at the increasing count, I'm reminded of my increasing achievement. So it works!                                                                                                                                                               I also wanted to be a person who takes a walk every day, for the health benefits. It was only after I started counting the streak days that it started motivating me to "get out of the building" and go for a walk, usually around sunset. Now I'm up to 247 days in a row, and feeling much stronger because of it. 

Achieving goals starts with the idea, then the intention, and the commitment. But action is the absolute requirement. The goal becomes much more probable when you have a system for achieving your goals. The DBLM system is TheChecklist™ and it is a remarkably effective method for taking action to achieve Success in Life and Business.

More:

Building Habits

Knowing vs. Doing

Elements of Success

The Daily Routines of Geniuses

The fire emoji at the top of this post is a modified version of the Snapchat streak emoji. A "Snapstreak" is the number of days in a row a user has communicated with another user. The idea is to improve and reward consistent behavior. 

CEO School: Board of Directors vs. Board of Advisors

Every business should have either a Board of Advisors or a Board of Directors. Period. There is no wiggle room in that statement, except for one thing: If you are running a lifestyle business, or if you're not really serious about succeeding in your business, then... save yourself some trouble and forget about it.

However, if you really want to succeed, and not waste your time, and want to take the shortest path, with the least stress, then get yourself a Board.  


What's the difference? A Board of Directors is a legal entity. The Board of Directors is there for the purpose of representing the interests of the shareholders. They hire and fire the CEO, they approve the business plan. If you are the CEO, you want a happy Board of Directors, or else you will not be CEO very long.  


A Board of Advisors is for a CEO who owns most, or all of the stock. Such a CEO is not going to be fired by his Board of Advisors, because they have no legal standing, and the CEO can do whatever he wants. His Board of Advisors is there simply for the guidance and contacts, etc.


The benefit of having a Board comes from having regularly scheduled meetings, usually once a month in young companies, but as little as once a quarter in mature, profitable, and stable companies. You want your Board to be actively involved in the challenges and plans of your company. That's why you want to meet, formally and regularly.


If you are doing a startup, and going to need some angel and/or VC capital, you have some special considerations. Check out this article for more on that.


And, finally, here's a very good article in INC magazine about some details on setting up boards of advisors/directors.

More:
How do you pay an early stage board?

CEO School: 1-1 Meetings

Weekly team meetings are vital to share information, make decisions, and align your team for strategy execution – but the subtleties of each individual’s particular needs cannot be fully addressed in a team meeting. In working with thousands of fast growth companies over the last sixteen years, we (at Results.com) have noticed a key success discipline that great managers routinely practice. They schedule a regular weekly 1 on 1 meeting with each of their direct reports.

This 1 on 1 appointment is a brief meeting with a specific agenda. Random meetings (including casual conversations / coffees / brainstorming) that you may have with a team member during the week are all well and good, but they do not replace the consistently scheduled 1 on 1 meeting. That’s because the 1 on 1 meeting is where you are focused solely on that person and how you as a manager can best support them in the execution of their goals.

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But simple does not necessarily mean easy. Be honest. Do you have the discipline to conduct 1 on 1 meetings with your team members every week? Like many habits of success, this practice falls into the “important but not urgent” category. It takes real discipline to stick to a regular 1 on 1 meeting schedule, but the payoffs for both the manager and the team member are worth the effort. Try it for 12 weeks and see how much more you actually get done. Schedule it in both of your calendars and make it happen.

Let’s go over a proven agenda for running a successful 1 on 1 meeting:

1. Establish an agenda and time limit and stick to them. Keep the meeting brief and focused.

The 1 on 1 meeting should take no longer than 30 minutes. For example, if you have 7 direct reports, you should be able to meet with your whole team in one afternoon. Block out this time in your calendar and make sure you keep these appointments every week. Don’t blow them off. As a manager, your #1 task is to support your people. You succeed only when your team succeeds.

2. Both parties must come to the meeting prepared with the updated information you need to discuss the current reality.

Briefly discuss each project the individual is accountable for and get a status update. Is the staff member on schedule to have it completed by the due date? If not, why not? Briefly discuss each Key Performance Indicator the worker is accountable for and get a status update. The score doesn’t lie. Are the numbers where they need to be? If not, why not? This is not a blame session; rather it is a consultation to make sure both parties are fully aware of the current situation.

3. Ask the person what tangible action they will “complete” this week to move each goal forward (or address any issues that have been identified above).

Agree on the chosen action(s) and capture them in writing in your task management tool of choice. Be specific about each task that needs to be done and the due date for each task. Writing down each task clearly signals to the team member what is important to you, and it helps to focus their efforts on the right things each week.

4. Follow up to make sure each task gets checked off as done.

You get what you inspect. Holding people firmly accountable for honoring their commitments to you is crucial if you want to create a high performance culture. This is not micro-managing – you give the person the freedom and autonomy to go away and determine how best to achieve each task, but you definitely follow up each week to close the loop and make sure it got done.

5. Ask what support or resources they need from you to help them succeed?

As a manager, you need to put the right people together and clear the obstacles from their paths to enable the most important tasks to be completed. You also need to keep out of their way and not overwhelm them with too many demands or conflicting priorities. Shield them from distractions to create the time and space for the most important tasks to get done every week.

6. Ask if there are any other issues that they would like to raise?

How are they feeling? Are there any minor grievances that are bugging them? What’s going on in their life right now? Take a sincere interest in them and their life outside of work.

7. Share any issues or feelings you would like to raise.

Performance reviews are not an annual thing. Let your people know every week how they are performing both in terms of the data and what you have personally observed. Let them know that you are on their side. Demonstrate your commitment to helping them succeed.

8. Finish on a high note.

Find something they are doing well and acknowledge it. Praise is most effective if you commend the specific behaviors you want to see reinforced; for example, “I was impressed with the detailed research you did on this project and the long hours you put in to get the report done on time.”

Are you ready to try conducting weekly 1 on 1 meetings with each of your direct reports? I guarantee that if you make it happen, it will make you a better manager. It will enable both parties to understand each other better and stay focused on the important issues. And it will greatly improve your business execution success!

(from Results.com)

More:
   How Regular One-on-One Meetings Saved Our Company Culture
   High Output Management by Andy Grove

Freshly baked startup wisdom

CBinsights is one of my favorite resources for what's happening, and going to happen, in the world of business, especially startups getting traction, VC funding, etc

The above quote is from a series of slides presented to a conference put on by CBinsights. The entire slide deck is very well done and highly recommended. Get it here.



Like data? There's a lot to like!

90% OF THE WORLD’S DATA HAS BEEN CREATED IN THE LAST TWO YEARS!

“The problem is not information overload. It’s filter failure.”   Clay Shirky

CEO School: Know Thyself

On the subject of Knowing vs. Doing, we typically Know what we should be Doing, but we seldom Do what we Know we should Do. One reason for this is that we seldom truly Know what we Do! 

(You might want to read that again.)

And this leads us to that other thing that we know so well: "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." Therefore, if you are going to manage what you Do, you must measure it.

Here's a comparison of what I have been Doing for the last 10 days and comparing it to what I have been Doing Year to Date.

One thing that stands out is that I've been doing a lot more Reading (yellow slice) and a lot less "Negative Pursuits" (red). In my world Negative pursuits means TV. It's negative because it's passive, a plug-in drug, whereas Reading is active and educational. Another thing that leaps out from these charts is that I have spent ZERO time in my hammock in the last 10 days and only 2.6% Year to Date (orange slice). This is inexcusable and I will correct this as soon as humanly possible...

These very revealing charts are an automatic by-product of the Daily Checklist which I recommend for my clients, many of whom find it to be truly life changing. Of course, the categories of activities are completely customizable for each person who uses the Daily Checklist; not everyone likes hammock time as much as I do!


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Update 3/7/18:

Less than a week after the above post was made, revealing just too much red, I decided to get serious, and while I still don't have any hammock time on the charts, I like the chart below a lot better. Negative time is almost eliminated, and Product Development shows some excellent improvement.

Could you benefit from Knowing what you Do?  Ask me how!

CEO School: Due Diligence Checklist

For better or worse, Business runs on paperwork. 

If you're looking for cash to build your business, the two most important pieces of paper are the VC's term sheet followed by that big fat check. 

What occurs between those two bits of paper is the Due Diligence process during which the VCs will inspect every other piece of paper your company should have in proper order. 

If your stuff is in order, the process goes quickly and you get your money faster; if not, you may not get it at all. So, before you start your fundraising process, give this list to your attorneys and make sure you have your stuff together...

Corporate Records and Charter Documents

1. All minutes of directors’ and stockholders’ meetings, and all written consents of directors and stockholders.
2. Certificate of Incorporation, Certificates of Designation, Rights, etc., and Bylaws.
3. Similar information for the Company and subsidiaries, if any.
4. A corporate entity organizational chart, if there are any parents or subsidiaries.

Business Plan and Financials

1. Current business plan and any financial projections.
2. Most recent financial statements.

Intellectual Property

1. A list of the Company’s trademarks, patents, copyrights and domain names (or any applications therefore) including documentation of filing or registration with the appropriate governmental entities.
2. If any of the foregoing were assigned to the Company, please so state and provide documentation of the assignment and recordation with the appropriate governmental entities.

Security Issuances and Agreements Concerning Securities

1. A list of the Company’s stockholders, including issuance dates and original issuance price.
2. A list of the Company’s option holders, including grant dates and exercise prices.
3. Copies of agreements relating to outstanding options, warrants, rights (including conversion or preemptive rights) or agreements for the purchase or acquisition of any of the Company’s securities, and agreements relating to the Company’s past stock issuances.
4. Any documents evidencing registration rights for the Company’s securities, or evidencing any agreements among the Company’s shareholders or between the Company and its shareholders.
5. A summary of the vesting schedules of any stock or options subject to vesting, including any vesting acceleration.
6. Agreements relating to voting of securities and restrictive share transfers.
7. Evidence of qualification or exemption under applicable federal (including Rule 701) and state blue sky laws for issuance or transfer of the Company’s securities.

Material Agreements

1. The Company’s standard terms of service / terms of use for its customers.
2. Any agreements, understanding, instruments, contracts or proposed transactions to which the Company is a party or by which it is bound which involve obligations of, or payments to, the Company in excess of $25,000.
3. Any personal property leases.
4. Any agreements concerning the purchase, lease, or sublease of real property.
5. Any documents evidencing indebtedness for money borrowed or any other liabilities incurred by the Company.
6. Any documents evidencing any mortgages, liens, loans and encumbrances with respect to the Company’s property or assets.
7. Any documents evidencing any loans or advances made by the Company.
8. Any licenses or agreements of any kind with respect to the Company’s or others’ patent, copyright, trade secret or other proprietary rights, proprietary information or technology, including employee confidentiality and proprietary information agreements.
9. Any insurance policies held by the Company or of which the Company is a beneficiary and a summary of such policies, if available.
10. Any judgment, order, writ or decree by which the Company is bound or to which it is a party.
11. Any standard forms of agreements used by the Company.
12. Any joint venture and partnership agreements.
13. Any management, service and marketing agreements.
14. Any confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements.
15. Any agreements requiring consents or approvals in connection with the financing.
16. Any consulting contracts.
17. Any other agreements material to the business of the Company, or outside the ordinary course of business.
18. A list of officers and directors. If any officers are not currently devoting 100 percent of their business time to the Company, please note them on this list.

Information Regarding Disputes and Potential Litigation

1. Any correspondence or documents relating to any pending or threatened action, suit or proceeding or investigation, including, without limitation, (i) those involving the Company’s employees in connection with their prior or present employment or use of technology and (ii) those being conducted by or before any governmental entity or regulatory agency.
2. Any correspondence or documents relating to allegations of the Company’s infringement of the proprietary rights of others.
3. Any correspondence or documents relating to any labor agreements or actions, union representation, or strike or other labor dispute.

Information Regarding Employees and Employee Benefits

1. A list of the Company’s employees and consultants, including title, base salary, target bonus (if applicable), commission plan (if applicable), classification (including, if an employee, whether the employee is exempt or non-exempt) and state of residence.
2. The Company’s standard form of offer letter.
3. Any agreements, understandings or proposed transactions between the Company and any of its officers, directors, affiliates, or any affiliate thereof, including without limitation, employment agreements and offer letters with severance benefits or vesting acceleration provisions.
4. Any plans, agreements or arrangements that provide benefits contingent upon a change in control.
5. Any severance or deferred compensation plans (including any salary deferral agreements, whether written or oral, with employees or consultants).
6. Any employee benefit plans, including, without limitation, stock option plans, 401(k) plans, pension plans and insurance plans.
7. Any forms of agreements used in connection with any stock option plans (such as a form of option agreement, notice of exercise and restricted stock purchase agreement).
8. If the Company sponsors a 401(k) plan, any determination or opinion letter and Form 5500 filings for the last 3 years.
9. All documents or other information relating to any loans made by the Company to its employees, directors or consultants.
10. The Company’s employee handbook.
11. If the Company has any foreign employees, separately list (by country) all benefits provided to foreign employees.

Equity Grants
If you have any pending or promised equity grants you haven’t already taken care of before you start your Series A process, do that ASAP. More people than not believe that once you have a term sheet, you can no longer use your current 409A valuation for option/stock grants because a material event has occurred that implies a newer (and hopefully higher) valuation for the company’s common stock. Team members that were hired earlier who haven’t been granted their equity yet will then have to receive their equity at a higher strike price, which reduces their upside. Some hires will realize this and you may then have to increase their compensation (in equity, cash or both) to make up the difference to avoid a morale issue. Since you cannot control the exact timing of when you receive a term sheet, the prudent thing to do is to make sure there isn’t a significant backlog of equity grants while you are in the middle of your fundraise process.

This checklist was put together by the General Counsel of Y Combinator.

Other resources:
   Fundraising Red Flags
   Good overview of the seed fundraising process.