Anybody using or heard of ThinkTQ? [Archive]

TesTeq

01-20-2004, 09:29 AM

TQ = Time Quotient - as I understand it is some kind of personal performance measurement.

The process at a glance...

MEASUREMENT: First, we test your Time Quotient... a 100 point assessment that gives us the facts upon which we can give you a comprehensive evaluation of your performance effectiveness.

EVALUATION: Next, we create a custom-published, 172 page evaluation of your specific strengths and limitations -- so you can easily see what you're doing right, doing wrong, and what you need to do different to produce better results.

IMPROVEMENT: Finally, we help you perform better by eliminating performance negatives... transforming them into powerful positives.
Through a simple process known as "teaching through testing", we give you the ideas, information and instruction you need to immediately turn performance weaknesses into powerful strengths -- daily.

Regards,
TesTeq

Anonymous

01-20-2004, 09:43 AM

Yes I read some more of the site --funny how their and ( a lot of other places ; ) "time management" materials are starting to sound more and more like GTD wannabees .

The performance evaluation stuff looks interesting though.
Maybe certain parts of it would be compatible with GTD .

I think using both GTD and their "organization methods" would be overkill -and I"d be very suprised if it's any more effective than using GTD.

ext555

01-20-2004, 12:47 PM

OOPS ! I was guest that posted above -forgot to sign in .

anywhooo for anyone that's really interested in knowing more --I just ordered their "free" planning seminar on cd (6.95 postage)

I'm curious to see how it compares to the natural planning model (which I use for almost every project ) which is easy to do since it's the way we naturally think .

I'll find out if there's anything useful in the material or if I'm one of the suckers that P.T. Barnum was referring to :lol:

I"ll post a quick review after I get the cd.

this whole system seems to be about "managing" the different color bars on your performance graph.

ext555

01-21-2004, 04:44 AM

Also found this on their site . -- Hmmmmm, this sounds vaguely famaliar :wink:

Your Time Quotient (TQ) is a measurement of the actions you take to produce the Results you get over Time. TQ measures how smart you ACT, not how smart you ARE. :roll:

Goodness me , what in the world sparked all this sudden crop of new "systems" that claim to help GTD Ha Ha .

Something else that seems strange --I did a quick google search on the guy who's CEO of the company E. R. Haas and the only hits are from the think TQ web site??? so wonder what makes him an expert.

I wish I would have seen this before ordering the free "planning" seminar--now I'm pretty sure it's going to be a me-too version of the Natural Planning Model.

Oh Well, maybe I'll get a good idea out of it .

Paul

Anonymous

01-23-2004, 03:54 AM

I checked out on the thinkTQ site yesterday and, I have to admit, I found it intriguing.

I have read bucket loads of “self help” books and websites. After a long time I figured out that many of them just throw a mish-mash of random tips that do not gel together into any sort of meaningful system. I still don’t know how to apply many of the “techniques” that they tell me I must execute.

For example, does anyone REALLY know how to prioritise? Yes, it’s easy to plunge into an important project, but what about all the little things left undone? What about the great saying, “the devil is in the detail?” Any good quality article on prioritising should show us how to deal with the things that, apparently, are on our to do list, but which we are never supposed to do.

High quality sites and systems, like GTD, propose a very specific methodology, and do not pretend to handle all of life’s big questions.

To get back to my main point, I found the test questionnaire on the thinkTQ to be very good in that it divided up the process of taking action into 10 sub-components, which is helping me to zero in on my own weaknesses in getting to action. (Beats the hell out of “Take massive action!”). In doing so, it drew together ten discreet activities, which I have never before seen presented correctly together.

Far too many sites, as I already said, have just taken some of these sub-components at random, out of context, and pushed them forward as cure-alls for procrastination. But to draw on the thinkTQ list, how can we set goals and be organised if our energy levels are on the floor? What’s the point of being organised if we do not clearly understand how to set goals?

I think there is a lot of thought gone into the thinkTQ site. Furthermore, as I said above, I think it has clearly defined the area it intends to deal with. More importantly, I do NOT think it is borrowing form GTD. I think it addresses a point that comes up form time to time in GTD, which is, “now that I have my weekly review done, my projects listed, and my NA’s identified, how do I get the whole thing rolling?”

The thinkTQ website addresses our ability to begin to take action. (GTD shows us how to manage multiple workflows).

DFE

(P.S. I am not connected with the site, and I have not made any payment for its services).

ext555

01-23-2004, 05:41 AM

I would have to agree with you --I went back and took the quick TQ quiz and was suprised at how accurate it was with me--so I went back again to take the whole test 100 questions --WOW ! did they read my mail. Described my strengths and weaknesses very well.

I'l change my previous thought, :o I don't think this is a GTD wannabee --I think they're competing more with Franklin Covey and Tony Robbins --I must admit I always found phrases like "take massive action " a bit too "infomercial " for me.

I will of course use GTD to manage my actions and projects but this is showing me some areas where I definitely need improvement.

now I'm very curious to see what the "making plans " seminar is like.

Anonymous

01-24-2004, 09:47 AM

I actually went ahead and ordered the whole thing for $149. There is a coupon code that knocks $40 off the price that came with the free sample. I went ahead and ordered the printed book for $23.95 which isn't bad. I'm making my way through it. Definitely some thought went into the material and production.

David

Anonymous

02-09-2004, 05:43 AM

Thank you for this great tip, David! I ordered the kit last week and am doing the goal-setting workshop. This is a wonderful program.

gratefully,

Ellyn

Anonymous

02-10-2004, 02:42 AM

I have to admit I am impressed by their mapping of the process from “thought” to “done”.

I did their one hundred step questionnaire, and it has sharply focussed my quest for self improvement.

Before, I tried to read virtually everything. I was readily impressed by succinctly written pieces, especially quotations. Somehow, the better they were written, the more they seemed to be (or the more I wished them to be) relevant to my life.

Now however, I have a performance profile that tells me very important things about myself. It tells me I can dream big dreams, I can clearly see what I want to do, and I can even communicate very well.

But I fail miserably in planning. Consequently, my days rapidly become a horrendous muddle. Ironically, I never lose sight of my big goals, and I could describe them to anyone in vivid detail at a moment’s notice. But, nothing gets done.

I walk around in a type of holistic paralysis all day, wanting at every moment to do all the things I want to do.

I never realised before that my missing link was planning, but their questionnaire highlighted that for me.

Their system is not an alternative or a competitor to GTD. It would be useful to anyone, in that it holds up a mirror to our execution style. (With your profile in hand, you can concentrate on whatever weak-points it shows, and then go and get whatever system, training or tools you like).

GTD will continue to excellently manage my workflow. I could not imagine living without its vertical and horizontal powers. What I need to do now is take great care in how I manage the minutes of my day. I’m probably weak at intuitive decision making.

I feel I am largely unsuited to my career, but it is far too late in life to try to change. Therefore, I need my work-day to be like a hand built engine: everything locked in its place, and ready to start at the turn of a key. This might seem rigid, but I cannot get emotionally or passionately involved with this work.

I have already started this level of fine planning, and while it does take a lot of time, nevertheless the execution is as easy as picking up a pencil. (This is taking DA’s message about thinking-up-front to the extreme, but it is a great tool for when you really don’t want to work and think at the same time).

Joe

TQGuy

02-10-2004, 06:26 AM

I came across this very interesting thread by accident, while reviewing the site logs for ThinkTQ.com.

What's intriguing to me is the way the thread went from "just another copy of GTD" to "this is a complementary system in it's own right." Which, of course, we believe it is. :wink:

If I had to characterize the two, I'd say that GTD is highly tactical, with its focus more on the execution side of the scale. TQ, OTOH, attempts to broaden the spectrum, ranging from the strategic to the tactical, with its focus on awareness and commitment.

For example, an individual can be highly efficient at managing his time and resources, but is he really productive if he doesn't know what he wants from life, and is efficiently speeding in the wrong direction? On the flip side, someone can know exactly what she wants from life, or her career, but if her execution sucks (technical term), then is she likely to get it?

Perhaps more importantly, how does one KNOW what their weak points are? Objectivity, especially regarding oneself, is often a difficult thing for us human types.

And as we say often in the book, and on the site, if you don't know what's broke, it's kind of hard to start fixing it.

At any rate, I just thought I'd pop in, say Hi, introduce myself, and see if anyone has any questions or comments regarding the concepts behind TQ, the system, or the test?

If not, then thanks for letting me share, and have a great day...

Siva

02-10-2004, 06:26 AM

I took the free 100 questions assessment (takes just 15-20 minutes) and it is definitely good at highlighting one's strengths and weaknesses. In my case it clearly showed which of my (many) problems is the bigger problem :-) and what I need to improve first. It is a very good barometer (time will tell) for evaluating one's self-improvement strategy. I think that portion is very valuable (and free).

Siva

Anonymous

02-23-2004, 09:49 AM

What I've found is that I tend naturally to study and focus on what have turned out to be my strengths (energy, mission, and organizing) while wondering why my weaknesses (goal setting, planning, prioritizing, synergizing, optimizing and DOING) have so much trouble catching up! I wonder if this is a typical human syndrome?

Ellyn
(I guess this means I really don't need any more organizing books!)

neuroist

02-28-2004, 12:05 PM

After reading all of the posts on this topic I went to the TQ website. So far I have found it very useful, but I am still hesitating on buying the whole package. Does anyone have any further info on the system? I know a few people have ordered it, and just wondered if they could give me some more info.
Thanks!
V

Anonymous

02-28-2004, 05:21 PM

For the money, you get a "personalized book" which explains all of the prism colors and analyzes your individual scores. You also get a set of audio cds which cover all the areas and a CD Rom with printable Adobe workbooks. You can download handsome planner pages which keep pounding the messages, and also you receive a daily e-mail essay with links. Of course, there are other sources for all these categories of information, and I don't know what advantages you would have in pursuing this avenue part way (the inexpensive route) because I went all the way down the road!

I hope this helps you decide.
best wishes,
Ellyn

Anonymous

02-28-2004, 05:44 PM

Anonymous

03-01-2004, 07:31 AM

Hi

I took the free 100 question test too.

I found it good in that it highlighted my weaker areas. Like Ellyn above, up to now, I had been focussing on and reading about the things I was better at.

But having identified my weaknesses, I feel the site has nothing more to offer me. I already know how to do the things I was neglecting – my problem was that I was not doing them. In fact, I probably have some books at home that cover these areas, and I’m sure I will find that I only skimmed over the chapters that didn’t make pleasant reading.

In a nutshell: I need to get out of a rut.

The test questions present a cohesive and comprehensive view of the traditional overview of how to bring things from start to finish. The site says that the founders read and summarised all of the best books on the market. I guess their objective was to knit all of the thinking in the various areas together.

But like I said, I have no inclination to purchase the full book, or even send for one of the free CD’s.

My worry with the full book is: is it based on the initial questionnaire we fill out? If so, it may prove to be useless in a couple of months after we have started to score higher in the various questions.

John

Anonymous

03-01-2004, 02:36 PM

Well I'd like to change this. Once you are registered, there is plenty of information and downloads. Interesting ...

Careful - the positive posters may be associated to ThinkQT.com. Another thing - many sites that ask for money today at least offer unregistered visitors enough free articles or other downloads to give you some idea of what they're about. I didn't notice much free there. Maybe I missed it though.

Anonymous

03-03-2004, 09:54 AM

Anonymous

03-03-2004, 10:36 AM

I took the test, and signed up (free trial) to get their daily digests. So far, about a week, it's been very bland and useless. Before paying these guys any money, I recommend you do the same. If you find their daily email digests useless as I do, then you can pretty safely assume that the materials they want you to buy would be equally useless (and vice versa).

Anonymous

03-04-2004, 06:29 PM

I purchased the book, then got bogged down at work with projects so haven't had much time to put into it.

I would hope the "positive posters" here are honest and would let us know if they are affiliated with ThinkTQ like Michael did. BTW, Michael, thanks for dropping in.

I am not affiliated with ThinkTQ. I have the book and find it to be fairly well written and demonstrating a clear thinking process that takes you from the beginning pages to the end.

Once you've identified a color (area) to work on there is an additional workbook to print out and work through for 30 days.

Is anything in here brand new and earth shattering? No, but that is not the intent of the author. The intent is to pull together the best of what is out there and put it into a coherent system.

Does it replace GTD? Nope. The two can work hand in hand.

Just my 2 cents.

Dwest.

Anonymous

03-05-2004, 06:16 PM

Here I am again. I took the free 100 question test. ThinkTQ read me like a book. It showed me what my very real reality is, and that I have been fooling myself in thinking my life is moving forward. I recognized the absolute truth about me - I am going absolutely NOWHERE with my life - not taking action on any of the things I truly want to do with my life. I was totally blown away by the clarity I was shown of the absolute truth of my existence on this planet as of March 5, 2004 by ThinkTQ.

__________________________________________________ __________

Well I'd like to change this. Once you are registered, there is plenty of information and downloads. Interesting ...

Careful - the positive posters may be associated to ThinkQT.com. Another thing - many sites that ask for money today at least offer unregistered visitors enough free articles or other downloads to give you some idea of what they're about. I didn't notice much free there. Maybe I missed it though.

Anonymous

03-08-2004, 02:43 PM

Well I'm back. After taking a good look at myself, I've been motivated into getting off of my backside and MOVING. Though it's only been a couple of days, I took action on two projects yesterday that I've been procrastinating on for weeks. I came home from work today and will be taking more action on one of the projects I worked on yesterday. I must say, I did feel good when I could actually check off several items on my project next actions list as completed ! One of my main problems is that I spend WAY too much time planning and seeking more knowledge when I have more than enough knowledge and articles and books and downloads on everything I want to get serious about. I'm thinking that as I begin my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly planning, I'm going to divide my time as follows: 1/4 of it in self-development because I do like reading and learning, 1/4 of the time in actual planning and metrics, and 1/2 of the time in actual physical movement - next actions - 15/15/30. If I find it's too complicated to manage my time that way, I may devote certain days of the week to each of the above. Well, gotta get busy. Here's to the future !

Here I am again. I took the free 100 question test. ThinkTQ read me like a book. It showed me what my very real reality is, and that I have been fooling myself in thinking my life is moving forward. I recognized the absolute truth about me - I am going absolutely NOWHERE with my life - not taking action on any of the things I truly want to do with my life. I was totally blown away by the clarity I was shown of the absolute truth of my existence on this planet as of March 5, 2004 by ThinkTQ.

__________________________________________________ __________

Well I'd like to change this. Once you are registered, there is plenty of information and downloads. Interesting ...

Careful - the positive posters may be associated to ThinkQT.com. Another thing - many sites that ask for money today at least offer unregistered visitors enough free articles or other downloads to give you some idea of what they're about. I didn't notice much free there. Maybe I missed it though.

Anonymous

03-08-2004, 07:09 PM

For those who have purchased the product, how immediately useful is it? Apparently, after you take the test you can purchase a customized 172 page book that reflects how you did on the test. Anybody get the book yet?

I am not as concerned about spending money as I am about wasting time.

Thanks in Advance!

I took the test and there was really nothing there. I wouldn't waste my time if I were you. Hard to explain--when you read GTD, what comes across is "this is real." When you read the ThinkTQ site, what comes across is "these guys are trying to sell me something." Those are my thoughts, anyway.

Anonymous

03-09-2004, 05:24 AM

What's "real" is what helps you and that could be a little bit of Allen, Robbins, Covey, whatever. If it helps you to move and take action - it's real.

For those who have purchased the product, how immediately useful is it? Apparently, after you take the test you can purchase a customized 172 page book that reflects how you did on the test. Anybody get the book yet?

I am not as concerned about spending money as I am about wasting time.

Thanks in Advance!

I took the test and there was really nothing there. I wouldn't waste my time if I were you. Hard to explain--when you read GTD, what comes across is "this is real." When you read the ThinkTQ site, what comes across is "these guys are trying to sell me something." Those are my thoughts, anyway.

dhmlco

03-18-2004, 12:29 PM

They have some sort of introductory deal going on their web site where you can order one of their audio CD workshops free if you just pay the shipping and handling charges.

Well, I did, and it turns out there's a coupon in the package that's good for $40 off the entire system. So you can spend $7 and save $33.

If you want to buy down the costs it may be a good way to go.

I just started listening to the CD, so I don't have any firm opinions yet, but it's pretty good so far...

TQGuy

06-12-2004, 09:54 AM

Careful - the positive posters may be associated to ThinkQT.com. Another thing - many sites that ask for money today at least offer unregistered visitors enough free articles or other downloads to give you some idea of what they're about. I didn't notice much free there. Maybe I missed it though.

To the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one from ThinkTQ who's visited this site. I also acknowledged my affiliation up front, not posting anonymously from a guest account.

If you want the book and complete analysis, then you have to pay for it true... just as you paid (I assume) for GTD.

But there's a free section about TQ, the Daily TQ lessons are free, and the commentaries and articles on success are free.

Today's TQ, the Quick Test, and the TQ test are also "free" if you register.

Anonymous

06-14-2004, 12:38 AM

Having listened to some of the special offer CDs, and done the questionnaire (as I posted above) I can say that Think TQ falls into the “top down” category of systems. It is well put together and very comprehensive. The “top down” approach has been around for a long time, I know Lakein was one of the early proponents.

What is fresh about Think TQ is that it s basically a motivational system rather than just a system. All of the steps, especially on the spoken CDs are presented in such a way as to inspire action.

All in all, well worth a look in. I haven’t bought the main program.

DFE

ext555

06-14-2004, 12:39 PM

I did purchase the main system and I agree with your thoughts of it being a "top down " system . It is definitely well thought out and the daily lessons from the web site and email are a great reinforcement .

I don't think TQ would be very easy to use without first having learned GTD.

I couldn't imagine focusing at higher levels if the runway still had junk piled all over it :wink:

gbeecher

04-28-2005, 11:41 AM

I know this is in response to an incredibly old post, but for what it's worth, I've been using the Think TQ system for about 5 months now, and even though I've read quite a few self-improvement books, and at least one book on Time Management, I found that to break the bad habits of procrastination, poor organization, lack of concise goals, etc., I need a good dose of reality (see what my intentional mediocrity was costing me), and regular reminders to help me stay on track.

Each workshop (there are 10 in all) covers a different, yet related area (like energy, attitude, mission, goals, synergy, action, etc.) for 30 days at a time. The questions you are asked every day are very hard hitting, make you think, don't leave you much wriggle room if you're serious about reaching your full potential.

I would highly recommend you at least requesting one of their free workshops. But don't just listen to it once and put on the shelf. Put it to work, you'll be glad you did!

Gregg