Talk: half hour of power

This page is dedicated to talks I give – that is, as of now, one: The Killer Consultant Half Hour of Power.

Here are the slides of the presentation:

Notes, links and comments on the presentation:

The disclaimer is a quote from my favourite speech, the “Sunscreen Speech“.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

Part one – Evading Entropy

• GTD: Check out the official description by it’s creator, David Allen. You can find other good starting points to learn about GTD in the KC article, “GTD for consultants – do we need that?” (an intro)“, and dive into the GTD category here on this site.
• Inbox Zero: Created by Merlin Mann, one of the biggest GTD-buffs on the internet. On his website, 43folders.com, you can find all about Inbox Zero – including a great speech he has given on the topic.

Part two – Staying Sane

• Get rid of the Outlook “ping” and popup to avoid constant distractions by your incoming mail. Tips on how to do so, including a videocast,  can be found here.
• Workout in the hotel: There are many websites dealing with “Prison Workouts”. Even Mike Rowe does Burpees (one particularly challenging and effective exercise) – see the video here. Also see “Liberate yourself from the gym” for a more thorough article on doing sports while on the road.
• 5-4-3: It’s about not working on the weekend, and at best, realizing the 5 (days for the client)-4 (days on client site) – 3 (nights in the hotel) rythm. On that topic, try the article “how to NOT work on the weekend“
• Winding down: Check out “Weekend tip: how to get from consultant to normal human in three easy steps“

Part three – Hidden Happiness

• Avoiding Monday morning bitterness: Invest in some noise-cancelling headphones, either in-ear headphones that seal your ears or those that actively cancel noise electronically. Makes a huge difference. Also, Buy one of those inflatable pillows that go around you neck. The normal pillows you get in the airplane serve you nothing unless you have a window seat, and even then they are not optimal.
• Playing your cards right: A great start towards learning all there is to learn about airline, hotel and car rental award programs is flyertalk.com.
• Having a laugh: Essential for keeping up good spirits in a stressful job. This article on laughing contains some links for the fact that you are out of inspiration, including XKCD, the web comic I took the strip for the presentation from.

Trivia:
The fonts used in the presentation are free fonts from dafont.com, they are called “Capture it” and “Sketch Rockwell”. All photographies apart from my own picture are Creative-Commons licensed images from Flickr – links to the original image can be found in the lower right or upper right corner of each slide containing an image.