TIME TRAVEL FORWARD | Advice for Future Todd

“If you could go back in time, what would you tell your 20-year-old self?” is a fun self-reflection question. At the heart of the question is what do you know now, that you wish you knew then?

While backwards time travel isn’t currently available, forwards time travel is. I can communicate with Todd 20 years in the future. The 43 folder Tickler system was a tool I valued early in my career for talking to future Todd. It helped me remember key information I needed anytime from tomorrow up to a year away. Then the Franklin Covey planner showed me a similar “note to future self” system.

I even used that methodology at home. One year after spending more time than I needed to string and restringing Christmas lights down the banister, I created a just-in-time Christmas light job aid. I wrote myself a note with a hand-drawn diagram and placed it in the storage box with the lights. When I opened the box the next year, I had instructions from last year that saved me a ton of time.

Giving blood last week, I learned a few tips that I want to share with future Todd that will make his next donation appointment faster. The Community Blood Center was the busiest I’d seen it. Everyone working was hustling, but I had been there 45 minutes and I still didn’t have a needle in my arm.

The double red blood cell process usually takes 45-60 minutes, and I was getting close to my hard stop. When I checked with my phlebotomist, he said not a problem. I’ll get you out of here on time.

Him: Have you donated on this machine before?

Me: I don’t think so, I’m usually on one of the machines over there.

Him: This one is a little different. Down there it does many pulls and returns. This one does 3 bigger pulls and returns, so you might feel more of a difference.

Me: Does that make this machine faster than the other? Him: Yes. In this machine, I input your height, weight, and hemoglobin, and it calculates how much to pull each time.

After 27 minutes, it’s time for the needle to come out.

Me: So how do I make sure I get one of these machines next time.

Him: It’s called the ALYX.

Me: I’m not sure how I can remember that.

Him: You could ask for the blue machine, or the faster machine.

Me: The other thing I noticed was it was fairly busy when I came. When are the slowest times?

Him: Day of the week is tough to predict. But time of day makes a big difference. The plasma appointments are every 2.5 hours. We open at 8, so 8, 10:30, 1, and 3:30 we often get a huge influx of 8 plasma donors.

Me: Thanks!

Excellent! I now know 2 insider tips that will speed up my next donation:

1. Ask for the ALYX
2. Schedule at an off time to the plasma times

I’m eligible to donate again after 112 days. How can I share these insights with future Todd to schedule my next donation more effectively.

My first thought is to send myself an email using the reminders feature in a service I use called sanebox.com. I can send an email to any date or time in the future and sanebox sends me the email at that time. It’s a great way to talk to future Todd.

But I decided to try something more direct. I went to the Community Blood Center website and scheduled my next appointment (for 9 am). When I added the appointment on my calendar, I added a note to ask for the ALYX. Of course, I already need to reschedule that appointment.

I’m looking for more ways to keep in contact with future Todd. He’s much nicer than past Todd who I rarely hear from.

Insufficiently Early

The dialogue In Wes Anderson’s movies is crisp, clever and often contains imaginative insight. In The French Dispatch, Roebuck Wright arrived for a dinner party “insufficiently early.” He showed up at Police Headquarters early, but because the building was so large and confusing, he was late for his meal in The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner.

The word combination of insufficiently with early prompted two new thoughts with me. The first is it ever necessary to be more than sufficiently early - say extra early?

A case for being extra early was made in an illustration from the old Franklin Covey training. The facilitator would ask, “If I promised you a $1M tax free, and all you had to do was be at a specific location by 2 pm next Tuesday, would you be there on time? How early would you leave? How would you ensure you were there on time?”

It was a hypothetical exercise to construct the mindset to take ownership for being early. It drove home the point, you could be on time if it was important enough to you. The problem with this exercise is that implies you should be extra early for everything. To ensure you were there on time, you’d arrive hours ahead and patiently wait for $1M. I’m not sure that’s the best use of our time.

The second thought prompted by the two word phrase is the agency it implies. Roebuck Wright didn’t blame his tardiness on external circumstances. It wasn’t the building’s confusing layout that caused him to be late, it was because he didn’t plan for that and was insufficiently early enough to overcome that obstacle. He owned it.

Being exactly on time is a narrow needle to thread. The real choice in life is are you going to be early or late and by how much.

SPECTRUM OF ARRIVING ON TIME

• Extra Early - Leave early enough to overcome MAJOR obstacles that appear on your journey.

• Sufficiently Early - Leave early enough to overcome MINOR obstacles

• Insufficiently Early - Leave to arrive on time, but with no room for obstacles. Everything must go right to arrive on time.

• Late - No chance to arrive on time.

I prefer to be early. I find it stressful to be late, and I don’t like to make others wait on me. On the other side of the spectrum, I know people who appear to be proud of always being late. It seems that they like to broadcast that they are so important that every minute of their schedule is filled with extremely essential activities.

Overcoming the Struggles of Brainstorming during Virtual Meetings

Brainstorming sessions in person require a lot of your participants. You want everyone to feel comfortable, be clear and concise, restraint from judging, and freely participate.

The dynamics of video conference add some challenges to this session. I don't have a lot of experience with virtual brainstorming yet, but here are a couple ideas I have for two common problems.

PROBLEM #1: People talking at the same time. Because of lag and lack of visual cues, there seems like two or more people try to talk at the same time more often on calls than IRL meetings. And then there's the polite dance of both saying, "No, you go first" at the same time.

PROBLEM #2: Lack of participation. Also a problem IRL, but it's easier to hide and be silent on a call.

Three practices that could help:

1. Determine a sequence for when people will participate. In a virtual improv class I took, we did one exercise where we told a story with each person only sharing one sentence at a time. It was a warm up "Yes, And" exercise where you had to add to the story. The instructor called out an order to us, and had each student simply remember who came before them. This also sets a clear expectation that everyone will participate. Each person shares an idea and then moves on to the next person. If it comes to you, and you don't have an idea to share, you simply say "pass."
2. Break into smaller groups. I saw this work perfectly on a Zoom call for a non-profit running organization. The facilitator split us into smaller "rooms." It was much easier to brainstorm with 4 of us in a small group than 20 of us in a larger group. There was also the expectation that we came back to the large group with ideas.
3. Write on a virtual white board. The old IRL Post-it note idea collection works pretty well. Use a Google Doc, Slack or Mircosoft Teams Notes to have everyone write their ideas first. Then go through and share them.

I'm looking forward to testing and practicing these techniques and explore others to make virtual brainstorming sessions more productive.