From the Author

If you sat down to write an opera right now, that would be a daunting task. But if you dedicated five minutes a day to writing a few notes of an opera, the goal would be far less intimidating, and eventually you would complete it. That’s the beauty and power of “Five-Minute Tasks.” Five-Minute Tasks […]

It can be a harsh world, and sometimes the path forward is not an easy one. That’s one big reason we generally seek allies, and try to work well with others. Unfortunately, even the best alliances can break down, prove powerless, or become unavailable when we need them. In such times, there’s often no choice

I’ve written several times about the importance of working well with others. But this is the first time I’m focusing on how much you can, and should, expect to learn from the various people you meet. Since increasing your knowledge base is a critical element in expanding your level of productivity and success, I’m happy

There’s no question that skills, talents, and experiences are critically important to productivity and success. It’s equally true that resilience and determination are key ingredients separating top performers from the crowd. But there’s another part to the story: None of this matters very much if you lack personal, professional, and career direction. Simply put, direction

A lot of people offer advice about setting realistic goals, and I confess there’s a great deal of appeal to that strategy. After all, setting unrealistic goals self-evidently seems like an invitation to frustration and failure. But there’s another approach to goal-setting that has a unique kind of merit. It’s this: “If your goals don’t

In a crude and simple way, people can be divided into two groups: those who mostly believe their skills, talents, and abilities are largely maxed out, and those who believe they still have room for growth. This is important because having a fixed mindset severely limits your ability to learn new things and improve your

One of the important distinctions between people is their belief regarding who runs things, particularly things that are important to us. Some of us feel we have a great deal of control over what happens to us; others feel we have very little control. I’m not sure which attitude is more accurate. But I know

I’ve previously written about the power of positive thinking, here, and here. The simple idea behind it all is that a tendency toward upbeat thinking is more beneficial than wallowing in its downbeat opposite. More recently, however, I’ve begun to itemize some positive thoughts and attitudes that I believe can greatly nurture your productivity and

From our earliest days, most of us are taught to seek out success and avoid making errors. But that’s impossible. As Theodore Roosevelt once said, “There is no effort without error.” Since we can’t avoid making errors, it’s fortunate there’s a way to benefit from them. Simply put: you can and probably should learn to

In previous posts, I’ve written about the importance of working well with other people, and I’ve also touched on various topics relating to power. But this time, I’m going straight to the essence of power: it’s the ability to make things happen, and to get others to do what you want. Some of what follows