From the Author

As I’ve written previously, “the mindset to prepare for dire circumstances pays off in many ways, because adequate preparation allows you to acquire helpful resources, practice important skills, develop useful plans, and feel more comfortable responding to the upcoming situation.” A lot of people wrote in to ask me to expand on the “mindset to […]

Your journey through your work and your life is much like a roller-coaster ride, with surprising and vertiginous ups and downs that are often beyond your control. One thing you can control, however, is your reaction to them. That’s why it’s important you cultivate and strengthen your mental toughness, which is the personality characteristic that

There’s a tongue-in-cheek but possibly true idea called The Peter Principle, which argues that people who do good work get promoted to their level of incompetence, at which point they plateau out and stop getting promoted. This idea is supposed to explain why we find so much incompetence in so many organizations. Whether or not

One of my problems with the whole “Hollywood Syndrome” is the celebrities’ blatant promotion of the “follow your passion” concept. “Follow your passion” sounds inspiring, but it’s likely to lead you along a path that’s overcrowded with others following the same passion. Obviously, you can expect intense competition to make progress along this path, and

Most of my entries in this space are all about how to be more productive and successful in your work and your life. And I’m a strong proponent of the notion that productivity and success come more readily when nobody much cares who gets the credit. But there are times when it’s appropriate to make

It’s counterintuitive to many of us, but in many situations the most powerful and important advice is also the simplest. That’s true of my book, How to Organize Your Work and Your Life, which is built around the very simple idea of working as often as you can toward your most important goals. There are

It’s not a great title, but it’s a great topic. If you work 40 hours per week, and 50 weeks per year, it’s almost certain that you spend hundreds of hours in meetings – including one-on-ones, small groups, large groups, and possibly even those optimistically titled “all hands” gatherings that are less often actual “meetings”

As I’ve written before, you need more than “hard” – job specific – skills to raise your level of productivity and success. You also need “soft” skills, like the Emotional Control, Decision-Making, and Communication skills I wrote about here. People have asked me to expand on that original post, so I’ve thought about the matter

Working as you are toward greater productivity and success, it’s important that you make the most of all the resources available. What you may not realize, however, is that one of your primary resources is you. Accordingly, self-management is a critical skill to recognize, understand, practice, and eventually master. Here are a few tips to

As you may know, I’ve been thinking and writing a great deal about specific techniques and methods to be more productive and successful. And that’s all good. But it’s not enough. Most often, the largest contributor to productivity and success is sensible and effective strategy. As you know, strategy is much different from day-to-day tactics