Mark Blevis

I’ve managed and worked on many projects in my career, some with budgets well into the millions of dollars. With each project, I’ve learned new skills and adopted new tools and tricks for communication, decision making, scheduling and assessment. Never before have I worked on a project on which the health or life of an individual was dependent. Never before has communication, decision making, scheduling and assessment been so critical and the information surrounding the project been so important (and so new to me).

I refer to helping Andrea become a breast cancer survivor as a project for several reasons. First, I recognize there’s a process to follow to achieve success, that we will achieve success in a finite amount of time (a year or less) and there will be a celebratory bash when we wrap-up. Second, I’ve taken on the role of primary support for Andrea which means I’ve taken responsibility for scheduling appointments, acting as the central contact for all communications and coordinating our support network. Finally, it’s a way to draw on my professional skills, learn new skills and exploit the situation as an opportunity to relate what I’m doing for the benefit of the world at large.

Besides Andrea and our two daughters, there are many people or groups that I need to interact with:

• family
• friends
• support network
• clients (of my business)
• family physician
• surgeon
• radiation oncologist
• medical oncologist
• social worker
• insurance adjudicator
• energy workers
• naturopath
• researcher
• lawyer

That’s a lot of very important relationships involving a lot of phone calls, correspondence, appointments and information exchange.

Let me tell you about the three mission critical tools I’m using and you should consider.

1) Livescribe Pulse Smartpen

I’ve been a committed user of my Livescribe pen since I bought it last December (thank you Whitney Hoffman for the introduction). I believe it represents the best money I’ve ever spent on any technology, ever, and feel that it heralds the beginning of paper-based computing. I’m particularly attached to this technology right now because it allows me to simultaneously capture both physical and digital copies of my notes (multiple copies in multiple modes is important so I can be sure I have a copy, somewhere). I’ve also recorded a few conversations when I was most concerned about retaining critical and new information.

The Livescribe pen is my workhorse and trusted ally through this process because I can use it anywhere, particularly situations where it would be physically and socially awkward to open my laptop or tap away on my iPhone.

Note that the Livescribe is compatible with both Mac and PC systems.

2) Aurex Business Ring Binder/Portfolio

It’s one of those things I bought and used in a haphazard way many years ago and, when I was done with it, threw it in a cupboard because I couldn’t bring myself to throw away something that was in great condition and may one day be useful.

Ta da!

I like this portfolio more than the binder many people recommended I use because it has a zipper — I’m able to close it and know that I won’t lose any papers.

I’ve divided the binder into 10 sections: Reports, Notes, Community Care Organizations, Receipts/Statements, Medications/Instructions, Research, Directions/print-outs/miscellaneous, Insurance, Resources, Loose notes/prescriptions/receipts (which is a folder I can throw loose papers into). All of these sections hold the pieces of paper that are very important to us.

There are two types of paper in this binder: the pieces that I’ve just collected and need to be scanned for electronic backup, and the pieces that I’ve already scanned for electronic backup. Having hardcopy/electronic duplicates is just as important as being organized and mobile.

My only mistake with this portfolio is that I used a fancy gold marker to label the exterior. The ink didn’t really adhere to the portfolio and it made a huge mess of gold that got on my hands and other things when I handled it. It’s mostly dry and messy now.

Note that binders and portfolios are compatible with all environments.

3) Daylite Productivity Suite

This is the newest piece of technology in my toolkit and one that I both love and get frustrated by (partly because I’m still learning it and partly because there are a lot of things that could work better or important features it needs).

Daylite allows me to organize all of my electronic correspondence, notes, appointments, projects and tasks so I can manage and monitor everything more carefully. A particularly important feature is linking which allows me to create relationships between people and activities, making it easier to find and follow progress. It’s particularly handy because I’m able to also use it for work and family activities, meaning I don’t need to run additional tools. Daylite also syncs with Address Book and iCal (this is one of the areas that needs improvement) and there’s an iPhone app which allows me to use the power of Daylite when I’m on the go.

Daylite isn’t cheap and I’m not looking forward to having to pay so much for the Productivity Suite and the iPhone app when my trial period runs out. Having said that, I can honestly say that Daylite isn’t a cute piece of software, it’s a mission critical management tool that knocks the socks off Outlook and any project management software I’ve ever used.

Daylite Productivity Suite is only available for Mac computers.

Wow!

Okay… this post is getting long and I need to get ready for the day. I’ll try to make time this week to share more detail on how I use these tools.