As you know, I’m intensely interested in productivity and success, and in finding ways to boost them both. So I was intrigued to come across an interesting perspective that can help that quest. It involves dividing up activities, efforts, and plans into four categories: What you’re good at. What you may soon become good at. …
“You didn’t do that very well, did you?” “You made the wrong choice.” “That was stupid.” We’ve all heard critical comments like these directed at us; they’re part of living. But there’s a major difference between hearing those kinds of comments coming from others, and hearing them coming from inside ourselves: from our Inner Critic. …
As I’ve written many times before, pretty much the only constant these days is change. And when change happens, nearly always the appropriate response is to update something in order to make it mesh well with the new situation and better handle the new requirements and opportunities. The previous sentence has been an awkward way …
As I’ve written recently, I spent many years tracking the time on spent on each of my daily, weekly, and monthly projects. That served me well, as it gave me the data I needed to eliminate time-wasters so I could focus in depth and at length on my most important tasks, projects, and goals. But …
I’ve written often about the need for and benefit of working well with others. This time around, I’d like to revisit this topic from a different perspective: empathy. It’s defined as the ability to understand or identify with another person’s situation or feelings. You can empathize just by talking with the other person, and it’s …
I’ve written several times before about failure, including its inevitability: “Have you ever known anyone who never experienced failure?” I wrote. “Of course not. We all live. We all breathe. And we all fail – at least sometimes. That seems to be a law of nature.” At the time, I also wrote: “Since you can’t …
We’ve all heard of mentoring and the value it can bring to a person’s level of productivity and success, as well as to their short-, medium-, and long-term career trajectory. But in my experience, there are too many people who don’t get full value from the traditional form of one-on-one counseling, sharing, and support that …
If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time and energy conversing with other people. Often, you initiate the conversation because there’s something you want to tell them or ask them or simply want them to see. The problem is, many of the people with whom you converse aren’t sure how emotionally “hot” is …
It takes both, you know, to succeed. Too much action without thinking or planning and you’ll be “shooting from the hip,” acting impulsively, keeping busy doing something when maybe waiting for a better time or even doing nothing would lead to a better outcome. Too much thinking and planning without appropriate execution and action will …
Back in the day, when I first began paying attention to maximizing my productivity, I was meticulous about tracking my time, right down to the minute. At the end of each week (each day, each moment, if I wanted to), I knew precisely how much time I had spent on each of the tasks, projects, …
