From the Author

We’ve been talking about productivity and success from many angles and with focus on many different elements. This time, let’s take a step back and look at the big picture: what kind of person tends to be the most productive and successful? What do they know that others don’t? What do they do that others […]

Just like everyone else, at least once or twice in your life you’ll go through it: the lingering feeling of fatigue, the unexpected fear that your career path is stagnant, and the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that everything you’re attempting to accomplish has little or no value. Bouts of suffering from

Whether you’re digging ditches or building rockets to space, there’s always room to upgrade your professionalism. When you do, you’ll gain more respect, wield more influence among your peers, and earn more opportunities to increase your productivity and success. The road to increased professionalism in your chosen field of endeavor is neither short nor easy,

While many people think the pursuit of perfection is something wonderful, and heartily to be desired, in actuality the notion of perfection carries with it negative complications that can lead to significant reductions in both productivity and success. Two Faces of Perfectionism The problems with perfectionism generally result from confusing the desire to improve with

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

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

Productivity and success depend on many more factors than your solo smarts, drive, and persistence. One that’s often overlooked is the practical fit between you and the position in which you work: the better this fit, generally the better your results. To gauge this fit, we can look at four simple factors that describe your

As I’ve mentioned many times, your ability to work well with people is almost always vital to your productivity and success. And one of the most important of these “people skills” is interpersonal communication. Communicating well with other people allows you to develop and maintain a more collaborative, understanding, and supportive set of relationships. Ultimately,

It’s been a long row to hoe, what with some personal issues and the Covid-19 epidemic complicating what would ordinarily have been a difficult and complex revision of my book: “How to Organize Your Work and Your Life.” For example, I was flabbergasted to see how many pages in the earlier editions had been devoted