This is a quick reminder to myself that it is incredibly important to take a few minutes to reflect and document on my work in a timely basis. I was just asked to reflect on an event back in November and while I remember the event, if I hadn’t made a brief post, I would have lost a lot of the benefits of going through the training. I am working in so many areas that it is easy to lose track of details and progress. I should be capturing reflections and action items after every event. I do a good job of that in my meetings, but cannot forget my training/development opportunities as well.
Tag: documentation
Replacement Plan in Smartsheet
Our leadership is looking at better documentation around Replacement Planning and while we have a lot of the data in existing Smartsheets, I need to work with others to better communicate that data.
Ultimately, we want to share who’s working on what project and who others can go to for “leadership” and “project” backups in the event that the principle is unavailable. In this time of COVID-19, we have determined that it may be necessary to document up to three backup tiers for each project.
Initially, the difference between a “leadership” and “project” backup needed to be defined. Someone identified to provide leadership backup would be expected to know how to get answers related to a specific project but they themselves may be unable to complete the work or task. The person identified as a project backup would be able to accomplish the work that would yield answers to those questions.
The next big hurdle was to determine how to combine information from at least three different Smartsheets and using the Dashboard feature, we will be able to combine that information. We’re starting off with one sheet as the master that will establish the basic style (column names and widths) for the data. A second sheet was edited by changing some of the existing column names and adding new ones. A third sheet is going to prove more difficult. We need to preserve the original column names and will not be able to add more columns to that existing sheet as we had done in the second sheet.
I have decided to create a secondary sheet that pulls in that information using index and match functions and then other formulae to remap that data into columns that we are using in the other two sheets.
Rockin’ with Rocketbook
I’ve just started using a Rocketbook Everlast Mini, Rocketbook Beacons, and the required iOS app. I’m not into product reviews, but wanted to make a post because I can already see how these products will definitely be part of my work productivity, especially the Beacons.
I chose the Mini mostly for personal use and used my own money to buy one. I didn’t want to spend a lot and thought the smaller form factor would be fine and perhaps suit my needs even better. So far, I’m happy.
Mini Pros
- ∞ use? seems durable, but there appears to be minor etching on the page surface, not sure that will make a difference
- encourages creativity: when the ink is your only consumable, I feel much more free to write down any little thought or sketch
- cleans easily with only water: it’s not really a pain to have to wipe down each page, it’s actually cathartic in a weird way
- back to analog! I’m always typing on a keyboard it seems and it’s nice to get back to pen on “paper”
- there are other pen types in the Frixion line of pens, not just limited to the “ball point pen” experience of the pen that came with the Mini
Mini Cons
- “odd” writing feel, no pencil-like experience
- ink drying is longer than expected: they claim you need up to 15 seconds, but I’ve noticed it can take up to over a minute depending upon how much ink you’re using – when I’m sketching, I’m using much more ink than when I’m writing
- no edge bleeds: it makes scanning more difficult
- weather sensitive? not sure, but it doesn’t take much moisture to smudge the ink; scan your work often if you don’t want to lose your work
The Rocketbook Beacons are an interesting idea. Basically, these four stickers allow you to capture or broadcast any whiteboard space. Of course your need a smartphone running their app, but the app seems to work very well and is easy to use. I used to use my whiteboard all the time to brainstorm ideas or processes, but capturing them was always an issue. I used to use an app called CamScan, but saw an article saying I should avoid that app. Anyhow, Beacons definitely inspire me to pick up the whiteboard markers again!
Rocketbook App
- Nice design
- Free Rocketbook pages which you can print out, a feature that puzzles me since the whole mission of Rocketbook is to reduce the amount of paper we use
- Flexible Destinations feature, but I don’t have access to store things in my various O365 Teams, I have to upload it to my OneDrive folder and then move it to a team location
- Share with anyone is possible, but you have to make an extra click to access the “Share” option
- Auto-rotation often does not rotate pages correctly – I thought it just used the QR code to determine orientation, but that is not the case; you can use the app to rotate the pages, but the QR code remains on the scan
- No way to combine separate files into a single file without the use of 3rd party software