We Should Rethink Our Obsession with a Good Ending
The first time I read Little Women, I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I remember wishing that it would not end. As I turned the pages and the remainder got smaller and smaller, I started to feel a sense of loss simply because the wonderful story would be over.
You Put Yourself Where You Are
Whether it’s creating a new future or maintaining a status quo, we get what we work toward. My motto for life and business is, “Nothing Happens by Itself.” So, if I don’t like some aspect of my life, I need to accept that I did whatever it took to create my current reality.
Quitting Has A Bad Name
The process of trimming – quitting something important – is rarely easy. It can be almost heart breaking.
Lessons from the “Great Resignation”
Few changes are permanent. People take jobs and leave jobs. Sometimes they go back to a job. Sometimes they change careers, or move across country. Everything keeps evolving. Tune into it and think about where you want to fit. Every day, be a little bit more of what you wish to become.
Inertia – Good and Bad
We all know what intertia is. Whether or not your mind immediately brings up an image of Sir Isaac Newton, you have certainly heard of Newton’s first law of motion: “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless […]
Advice to Employees – and What It Means to Managers
As I go through my days and weeks, I talk to a lot of people. Most, I admit, are self-employed or the owners and managers of small companies. But, of course, I also talk to a lot of “normal” people who have jobs and work for someone else. They work for those owners and managers […]
Know What You Know
There’s a “classic” model for looking at knowledge that’s known as the “Conscious Competence” model. It describes the evolution of knowledge about any subject. There are four stages: Unconscious Incompetence. Here, you don’t know what you don’t know. You might not even know that the subject of knowledge is a “thing” that other people know. […]
Are You Addicted to False Productivity?
I love to read. Sometimes, that means online (on a computer), or on a device such as my Kindle. But mostly, I love to read actual paper-based books and magazines. This is due in part to my age. I grew up reading books. More specifically, I grew up reading books with a pencil in my […]
How to Minimize Interruptions
The last few posts have been about minimizing interruptions. Interruptions are literally the single greatest productivity killer in your business or personal life! If interruptions are coming from an outsider, including clients, it is easy to set up rules to deal with this. But insiders (your employees and family) are a different story. You can’t […]
The Interruption Diet
In the last post, I talked about avoiding interruptions. Here’s a great exercise for making interruptions visible to you. Create an “Interruption Diet” like this: Interruption Time Start / Stop Importance Notes Example:Phone Call 8:45 am – 8:50 am Not! Sales call. Grrr. Create a whole sheet like this for each day of the week. […]
