Day Two of Habit Patrol

What I didn't do: sit down and create a chart and determine what the cue and reward will be for each of the habits I spontaneously started yesterday.

What I did do:

• Grabbed a lunch - this is going to become harder next week when school starts for Wade. May need to change the habit to: make lunch the night before. What's my reward for this? Getting to eat a tangerine and some dates for breakfast at my desk.
• Kegels - I think the cue for this was just the car radio being on. Not sure if that is a strong enough cue. It worked today. Reward? Ummm, going to get my coffee when I get to work? Might have to change that to getting a latte ...
• Planning the day's work structure - did not do in car. Sitting at my desk this one is looking like: do the stuff I didn't finish yesterday. I think the planning habit is not what needs work - the follow through is the issue. Reward: learning about my own work habits.
• No sugar in my coffee - I think this habit is working. The cue is pouring the coffee. The reward is consuming less calories. Yeah, I know, it's not supposed to be a reward like that, it's supposed to be something more tangible and immediate. Anybody have any ideas for rewards?

By the way, although the book The Power of Habit is getting a lot of the press on covering these issues, my interest in effective ways to create good habits has to do with a chance re-encounter with B. J. Fogg, who I originally heard about when I worked at Interval Research many, many moons ago. He ran an experiment called Tiny Habits back in December, 2011 that I participated in. He's a pretty smart guy.

New Year, New Habits

I didn't really make any resolutions. On Friendfeed, where my online posse hangs out, I tested out some vague hopes: "Be present. Be more social with potential/close friends. Make hard decisions and do stuff."

But today, after rising, I found myself trying on many new habits:

• I grabbed some leftovers and fruit for lunch so I would save money and eat healthy
• I did kegels on the way to work (yeah, TMI, sorry)
• On my way to work I thought about how I would structure my day: Facebook and Twitter for work accounts, a pressing HR matter, finish off something I had promised to do *before* Christmas, then tackle AdWord reporting plan, spend one hour cleaning out old project files
• At work, I did not put any sugar in my coffee
• I sat down to write this post

Small things, all, but things I plan to continue. I've been reading the recent research on "the science of habit change" that boils down to: start small, have a cue, reward yourself. So, I'll need to ponder how those three things apply to each habit above. I hadn't even thought of rewards yet, just very pleased that some sort of motivation is driving me.

Where I'll Be at NTC

Where I'll Be
At NTC
-- I like that rhyme!
At any time
You can look
You can see
Where I'll Be
At NTC

Super excited to be flying into a snowstorm to meet up with my favorite tribe ever, the nptechies!

First stop: #NTCBEER on Wednesday night at Brit's Pub, although I probably won't be there until about 8 pm.

April 11. This will be the first year I am going to do the Day of Service, on Thursday morning. Definitely looking forward to that -- I'll be helping out at The Bakken Museum. It does mean I'll have to miss a session being led by Debra Askanase, Maddie Grant, Vanessa Rhinesmith, Megan Keane, and Jess Main (phew! allstar cast!) on Social Media Boundaries: Personal Meets Personnel Policy, so I'm planning on checking the tweets (#13NTCpers) and looking up the session materials afterwards.

Thursday lunch: no particular plans. Text me if you want to sit w/me at lunch. 831-234-5828.

Thursday afternoon I'm torn between two sessions: Social Media Police: The Nonprofit Edition (#13NTCpopo) with Maddie Grant, Allyson Kapin, Melanie Mathos, and John Haydon or Mindful Engagement at Work and in Life (#13NTClife) with Aaron Pava. Which one do you think I should attend? I'm leaning towards the latter, because I'm too much of an information junkie and easily ... squirrel!!!

I'll stop by the Science Fair for a bit, but my main goal Thursday evening is to attend Ignite (Ballroom EFG, Third Level). I think this year is going to be a fantastic one - can't wait to hear Steve Heye sing his, and Chris Tuttle will be doing his first one - good luck, Chris! I know how hard they are, having done two at  prior NTCs (2009 and 2010), and am glad to just be in the audience this year.

April 12. Friday at 10:30 I'm facilitating a Birds of a Feather discussion, along with Michael DeLong and Danielle Siembieda, about Online Community Platforms and, in particular, Forum functionality. I'm embarrassed to even mention the title of it. It would have been OK if I had meant it ironically ... let's just say I did.

Friday lunch: no particular plans. Text me if you want to sit w/me at lunch. 831-234-5828.

Friday at 1:30 I may try to squeeze into Beth's session on Visual Strategies for Focus In Age of Distraction or I may continue the wackiness by checking out Steve Heye's Standup Hour. The dude is funny, this I know. My advice is to surrender to the Steve.

Friday evening I will be at the Nonprofit Engagement Party courtesy of Idealist, a super-supporter of nptech that I consider one of "the big three" along with NTEN and TechSoup.

April 13. Saturday at 10:30 there are so many sessions I want to attend! I'll be at either The Unanticipated Benefits of Content Curation (#13NTCcur8), Bite-Sized Tactics to Make Sense of Your Metrics #13NTCbite), or Rebooting Your Digital Community Building (#13NTCctalt).

Saturday Lunch will be at the wacky table with a bunch of wacky friends. You know who you are.

Saturday afternoon at 1:30 I might check out Data Is from Mars, Nonprofits Are from Venus (#13NTCVenus).

At 3:00 I hope to connect with some of our #commbuild community members (meta, yeah!) at Community Organizers Connect (#13NTCcomorg).

Other Where I Will Be Posts:
Beth Kanter
Peter Campbell
Steve Heye

I am on a plane running out of power so I'll publish this now and hope to connect with  you soon!

Google Plus - Hot or Cold?

So, I've already waxed a bit hot and cold about Google Plus.

The cold part is because, we've had so many of the same features in Friendfeed for so long that they don't seem special to me. Realtime? Friendfeed launched that years ago.

A little hot and a little cold: incredibly awesome conversations ensue when the digerati get access to a new exclusive service. This happens with every new service - Twitter, Quora, Friendfeed - I'm sure I've missed many others but it is absolutely the case that it is easier to have fabulous conversations when there is a small amount of extremely intelligent people on a nice platform.

Hot: Hangouts!

Everything is Miscellaneous

So much of being a librarian involves the instinct of wanting to group things together to facilitate future retrieval. In the early days of librarianship, cataloging was limited by the realities of physical space. In cyberspace, "Everything is Miscellaneous."

(and thus, my re-entry into blogging begins).