Managing with Rosa Say and her Hawaiian Aloha approach

In the past, I've been working more or less systematically with getting hold on my files, my emails, my links - all that external knowledge that my memory does not hold willingly. I've been looking into the self management ideas that are so trendy nowadays, suffering myself from serious disorganization in my everyday work. Well, these bad habits of not getting things done do not include those time scheduled appointments that I don't miss; after all, the traditional one year paper-and-spiral calendar has been part of my habit since I was in the pre-teens. And I know where I store my library books and I'm timely getting them back where they belong, almost always. I know where I can find my own books, too - and I have bookmarked important pages. I even keep my printed material in binders, but from there it begins to get harder to retrieve - the systematic is not consistent, and perhaps I even forgot that I've printed out those papers anyway. What has made our lives both funnier and more complex to manage and keep hold on, are of course the digital content.

Well, and all this brings me to some popular best seller management advisors, such as Stephen Covey's 7 habits and David Allen's GTD, or getting things done. In the entrepreneurship class project that I'm following once a week this year, our brilliant and engaged teachers are approaching these principles from many different views - personal life management, project planning, accountability issues, mentoring, business and career coaching, networking and more. And they all have their personal preferences and ways of sharing the good news. I guess that's just me who need to find out my own way and even intuitively resist against too many quick fixes with smart oneliners and neat diagrams. On the other hand, I can feel how all of this is fertilizing my ways of getting things done - first things first - using a compass instead of a time planner, etc.


But who's this Say?

Some weeks ago, I was reading a book discussion at the Virtual Chautaugua and was struck by someone apparently talking to me directly in her blog, in a voice that resonates with my mind! Her name is short and poetic, Rosa Say. She's from Hawaii, and her book is called Managing with Aloha. And, her well written and thought provoking weblog is commented by a lively community. This makes me want to have a more systematic weblog myself! I've been playing with blogs for some years, how to use blogs in education and for professional development, but not really making any effort to keep my blogs focused, topic oriented and straight forward enough to become of real value in a community context. This is going to be another future goal...