August 2020

From time to time, we all face complex problems that are both vexing and persistent. Neither the cause nor the solution is obvious to us, and we’re not willing to continue enduring the fallout from this problem. A situation like this calls for a systematic analysis that will pinpoint one or more root causes of […]

In this blog, and in my book, How to Organize Your Work and Your Life, I spend a lot of time discussing goals. I suggest you identify the goals you’re most interested in, I encourage you to work more consistently toward those goals, and I give advice on breaking down those goals into a series

The more successful you become and the more authority you acquire, the more likely it becomes that you’ll face situations requiring very quick thinking. These situations may include: Sudden events or problems that require immediate responses, Unexpected objections or demands from important people, or Surprise questions it’s your job to answer. At such moments, the

Incremental change is great. And in many situations, that’s the best you can manage. But there comes a time when, for many of us, incremental change is not nearly enough. At times like these, the best way forward involves a makeover. I suppose there are as many ways to do a makeover as there are

There’s a lot of advice online about setting goals. In fact, I’ve offered my own share of it. But while just setting some goals you care about naturally generates improvement in your level of productivity and success, goals work even better when you establish a balanced package of work and life targets reflecting a set

You wouldn’t attempt a do-it-yourself project without the proper tools, and you wouldn’t know if you had the proper tools unless you took an inventory of some kind – just to see what tools you have and what other tools you might need. It’s the same with your efforts to be more productive and successful,

Lately I’ve been thinking about the failures in NASA’s 30-year-long Space Shuttle program (1981-2011). There were many, but of course the two biggest were the fatalities associated with Challenger and Columbia. In both cases, the problems that ultimately brought down the shuttle orbiters (a leak in one of Challenger’s solid rocket boosters and a chink

When you need something from another person and you don’ t have the power to just commandeer it, you’ll benefit from applying some basic negotiation techniques. Negotiation is particularly important when you expect to be coming back to this same person for more, maybe multiple times. By negotiating fairly, you leave open the door to

As I have said before, unless you’re working in a cave somewhere, cut off from the internet and other means of communication, your productivity and success depend at least to some extent on the productivity and success of other people. But simply hoping for them to help you is usually a losing strategy. Instead, what