My Learnings in 2007

  1. The biggest impact on my professional life had David Allen with Getting Things Done. In the past 2 months, I implemented this concept both in my personal and my professional life and am very happy with it. My mailboxes are constantly down to zero (although my @Action folder still has around 10 mails left) and all my “stuff” was processed into projects and references. I will continue to use and refine my individual version of this concept in 2008. There is still a lot of work to be done to be more efficient, but the foundation has definitely been laid in 2007.
  2. I learned plenty of “entrepreneurial” things in Founders At Work. It’s an excellent book full of interviews with great people that I can recommend to every entrepreneur. There are hundreds of lessons in this book that you can learn from, but probably the most important lesson was: You have to do it your own way :-). The other learning was: Inspiration is great for motivation! Sometimes when I felt a little depressed and overwhelmed I read an interview in this book and it helped me a lot :-).
  3. Learnings of (1) and (2): Books enrich your life in a great way. So don’t forget to have one or two books with you when you’re going to be on the train or a plane. I learn about most of the books that I read from blogs or magazines. I’m also looking forward to YOUR book recommendations — please leave a comment :-)
  4. I fell in love with microblogging. I’ve just made a backup of all my 260 twitter-messages and this filled 11 full pages in my word-file (it’s also a great summary of the places I’ve been and the things I’ve done in 2007). Also make sure to subscribe to my twitter RSS-feed or to the free SMS-notifications. I mainly use twitter when I’m traveling, so please call or SMS me when I’m in your neighborhood.
  5. Facebook surprised me. I’m not spending to much time on it since the business value is not very high yet, but it definitely has the potential to become my #1 social network. My #1 network is still XING, since my main interest right now is business.
  6. Web Services can have a big impact on the personal life. I never watched more DVDs than in 2007, mainly because Exsila made it so easy and cheap.
  7. I should have been more hospitable to some of my guests. Sometimes I was a little too self-involved. A big sorry & mea culpa!
  8. I learned a LOT about Silicon Valley from Robert and my first trip. I learned that I don’t like 7th street/market street in SF, I learned that Palo Alto and Stanford are WONDERFUL and that it’s everywhere the same story: You have to FIGHT for it — no matter what it is!
  9. I fell in love with Kiva and the idea of micro-investments.
  10. I can’t keep up with all my RSS feeds. Its impossible! I accepted it. I’m no full-time blogger and I made my peace with it. I also apologize that this blog isn’t as frequently updated as it used to be. Same story here: I’m no full-time blogger and I made my peace with it.
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Category: Happiness



by Remo Uherek