Today, the most interesting part of the day was a session called "Open Space", where some people wrote topics they were interested in discussing on a flipchart, and then everyone ticked the topic they were interested in discussing, so that we could divide up into different interest groups.  It was like one of those crowd-sourced conferences.

I'd been dying to know the size of everyone else's organisations - how long they'd been doing it, their budgets, and whether they have any paid staff.  So we went around the group and shared just that.

Robogals is so close to who I am, it was like I was shedding another layer of skin to the group and letting them see who I was.

What struck me the most about this exercise is that amount of amazing things this group has been able to achieve on the leanest of budgets.

Some of the amazing projects include:

• Hoja Blanca, an international magazine that allows for a more meritocratic system for journalists to get published.
• World Faith, an international non-profit with 21 chapters in 9 countries that aims to create understanding between different faiths by facilitating volunteers of different faiths working together.
• Mentortogether, an incredibly thorough and well-researched Trust in India that matches poor urban children with corporate mentors, who serve as their mentors.
• Ecosan Club, which promote simple, low-cost solutions to health, sanitation, and soil fertility problems in the rural community in Mindanao, Philippines.
• Techamos una Mano, a project based in Mexico that works with high school students and teaches them about sustainable housing by having the students build houses (yes, houses!) out of recyclable materials.  Post-edit: It recently (in late November 2011) won the National Award for Youth in Mexico, presented by the President of Mexico!

These are just a sample of amazing projects that the under-30 year old, 2011 cohort of YAN Fellows spend tens of hours of week on, for no pay, because they are passionate about the cause.

So next time you think, "I don't have the money or resources to implement my idea", look to the YAN Fellows for inspiration.  There's a whole database of them here.  With a lot of heart, and a lot of hard work, you can achieve anything.

A month ago, I came up with a list of the things I wanted to consider during my YouthActionNet Fellowship retreat.  In the 24 hours that it took me to fly and transit to Mexico, I've already come up with a solution for all 10 points.

My rationale behind it is that if I'm going to be spending a week talking to 20-odd people about all these issues, the best way I can prepare is to come with an already executable plan mapped out to build upon... or to completely tear down and rework.

Just by coming up with a "best plan" means that I already needed to think through a number of scenarios and justify to myself why some of them won't work, whereas others may stick; which puts me in a very strong position to answer heaps of questions about all those points, as well as quickly recognise what I don't know about those areas.

My plan I've created is the "best plan" I could have created with all the knowledge that I knew at the time...  Which means that there could still exist a "better plan" that can be created through the addition of knowledge that I currently don't know.

I think it's important to come up with a "best plan" by yourself before asking others for suggestions to help you create a "better plan", as it shows your commitment to the project, shows that you've done some research, and shows that you've thought things through.

On 17 May this year, over two months after I'd submitted my application, I received an exciting email in my inbox.  "Congratulations!  You have been selected as one of 20 YouthActionNet Fellows out of 600 applicants!"

I was stoked!  The YouthActionNet (YAN) Fellowship exists to strengthen, support, and celebrate the role of young people in leading positive change in their communities.  In order to achieve that aim, it includes a weeklong retreat of skill-building, networking and resources and advocacy-training, at a selected location (this year, it's in Mexico City!) followed by a yearlong mentorship.  It's run by the International Youth Foundation and is backed by companies such as Nokia and Starbucks.  In total, my fellowship is worth over $20,000!  There are over 400 young social entrepreneurs from more than 60 countries who have been YouthActionNet Fellows in its 10 year history.

Since then, there's been heaps of emails to organise things.

A month ago, we were sent a homework assignment to complete before next week.  The first task was to construct the work I do into a story, including a 4-page guideline of how to do that.

That activity was surprisingly really useful.  I used a variation of it for a speech I gave shortly afterwards, to great reviews, and I've used the structure for interviews since then as well, including this one:  Brains Matter .  I've probably given a variation of that speech 5 times publicly in the past month, so I found that activity really useful and I'm glad I got that task done early!

The second task was to consider what I wanted to learn from my fellow participants during the week, and what I could offer.  This is the list I came up with.  (I like lists).

Can teach at YAN:

1. Setting up an advisory board
2. Managing a team across the world
3. Growing an organization globally
4. Growing an organization exponentially
5. Time management
6. Bootstrapping
7. Setting great goals
8. Really achieving your goals
9. How to make people do what you want them to do
10. How to have efficient meetings

Want to discover new ideas for the following at YAN:

1. Sustainability - creating a structure whereby the organization can live without me and I can exit gracefully
2. Raising money
3. Structure for having staff next year
4. Way in which we can engage all the female engineering students in the world in the organization
5. How to make people really engage with and advocate the organization
6. Ideas for acknowledging people so they keep volunteering
7. Ideas as to how to create a community?
8. How to recruit superstars teams in other locations (recruiting a whole team at once for another location over the phone/Skype)
9. How to find an executive director/successor?
10. How to have a greater mainstream impact

I am flying to Mexico tomorrow for the retreat, and I can't wait to meet all the other participants from all over the world and am so excited to be joining such a large and inspiring organisation.

Just in the past 2.5 weeks, I've seen my productivity shoot through the roof, I have more energy and I feel great about myself (who wouldn't?)

No, this isn't a new fab drug or wonder-pill.  It was just a simple matter of changing the way I see a tiny thing in my life.

So let's reassess where I was 3 weeks ago:

• 3 speeches to write, and submit/ deliver within the fortnight
• 5 assignments and 3 mid-semester tests due within 3 weeks
• I had to finalise trip details to the USA in November
• Plan ahead to get things done before I go to Mexico in a fortnight
• Lots of stuff to send to prepare for my awards
• An abstract to write that was overdue
• Stressed about negotiations taking place

And things were so not going to get done.

I use the HitList, I write a daily plan, but I procrastinated so much it was debilitating.

What usually happens is I pile on all these things to do, don't manage to get them done then delegate them off to someone else at the eleventh hour.  Except I couldn't do that this time, because these were all personal things that had to be done by me.

One night, while I was examining honestly what I do with a friend, I realised that amongst everything else, I also spend a lot of my time time watching television and YouTube videos because I thought that it made me more creative.  I thought, "really creative people made these tv shows and these music videos.  If I watch them,  I can store up good creative ideas for the future".  But while I was saying this aloud, I realised that I study mechatronics engineering and computer science.  If I really wanted to improve my creativity and thinking skills, I could just study my lecture notes or do tutorial exercises.  Because while everyone has access to those tv shows and music videos, not everyone has the opportunity to expand their minds through studying engineering.  And with that, I knew that I would be able to follow my plan, not procrastinate, and get everything done.

Since then, I have:

• Found a casual engineering job for 5 - 10 hours a week
• Submitted everything I needed to, including all my assessments in on time!
• Finalised two negotiations
• Recruited a new Robogals Global team member, participated in two photo-shoots, met up with heaps of old friends and contacts, conducted a few media interviews, etc.

And all I can say is, it feels awesome to finally know myself as someone who can make a plan and make everything on it happen!

So what's in the way to you being productive?  What do you need to get honest with yourself about?

My business partner Mark Parncutt was quoted in this article in StartUp Smart about the state of entrepreneurship in Australian universities.  Happy reading!

http://www.startupsmart.com.au/growth/young-entrepreneurs/2011-06-07/the-state-of-student-start-ups.html