Productivity Tip | Work Smarter or Take a Nap? Hmmm ….
A Weekly Personal Productivity series to help you get more done!Every Thursday, I'm sharing a new Personal Productivity Tip to help you get more done. Each Productivity Tip is a…
Leadership Lessons | Do you have the magic elixir of True Grit?
What Does It Take to be a Great Leader?
Nothing in life travels in a neat formation accompanied by bugles and cavalry. A lot of it shows up filthy and unkempt, prominent in the mess we’ve made around our foxhole. These lessons are typically the offspring of hubris, naivete and ignorance … or from overlooking the land mines hidden beneath our feet.
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[pullquote]“Being in the lead and winning is not the same thing.” ~ Rory McIlroy[/pullquote]
What a dramatic Masters finish tells us about succeeding
No, really, I had no intention of writing about the Masters golf tournament — again. You might want to start by looking at Madness or a Masters in Business … but, this 75th anniversary “tune-a-mint” that ended a few weeks ago offered more lessons than a kindergarten classroom.
What is True Grit? Do you think you have it?
Most of us think of Rooster Cogburn, either in the persona of John Wayne or Jeff Bridges, when True Grit is mentioned.
But, what is true grit? Never say die? It’s never too late? All those, and more, applied to the crushing legion wrangling for the green jacket on that fateful Sunday. Eight players shared the lead over a few hours on Sunday. As in life, the contrasts were remarkable.
Rory McIlroy, who held the lead over 63 holes of the tournament, entered Sunday with a four stroke lead and watched it quickly evaporate as his game imploded — he shot 80 on the final day — as contenders climbed over him from every side. Eight players as far behind as seven strokes down tied for the lead at some point on that bucolic Sunday afternoon.
Life is perplexing blend of success and failure (more…)
Personal Productivity | Don’t overlook the “Elapsed Time Effect”
A Weekly Personal Productivity series to help you get more done!
Every Thursday, I’m sharing a new Personal Productivity Tip to help you get more done. Each Productivity Tip is a remarkably simple tool or concept that can be quickly implemented to make a real difference in your personal productivity. When you apply many of them together, they’ll make a big difference in improving productivity, achieving accountability and staying focused on the things that matter the most in your life.
You may want to check out some of the posts in this Productivity series, including the the value of checklists; the importance of getting rid of the crappy stuff; the nightmare of the cluttered mind; and that feeling of being buried all the time. You can also leverage your resources and apply the lessons of the ARCI chart and the S.M.A.R.T. goals to boost the accountability of your entire organization.
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Which stuff are you working on first?
Don’t we all know there are many tasks or projects that require us to wait for something else to get done first … or for someone else to get something done before we can continue?
We know that “waiting for” stuff is a critical piece of our personal productivity program because it’s the linchpin of the critical “follow up” that we must always be doing.
So, that part is pretty obvious.
But, have you ever prioritized your tasks to make sure that you’re taking account of the “elapsed time” that something requires?
Here’s the simple hierarchy I try to use. See if it makes sense to you.
1. The 2 Minute Rule
If you can get it done in 2 minutes, do it, get it over with, move on. I think we all know this one.
2. The “Elapsed Time” Effect
Here’s a simple example of how this works. (more…)
Leadership Lessons | Are Incentives the Cornerstone of Life?
Does your incentive program REALLY drive performance?
You probably know someone, don’t you, who is a star performer who believes that her achievements go unrewarded?
If so, you probably also know an underachiever who gets more than he deserves.I
s there any greater disincentive to the high performer than knowing that under-performance seems to be equally rewarded?
Should there be a moratorium on bonuses?
I’ve talked about the value of incentives before, but it keeps coming to mind as I talk to senior executives who don’t seem to have spent any time at all considering whether their incentive plans are working as intended … or whether they need to be revised.
In some ways, it reminds me of the comment that Bloomberg attributed to Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, during the $20 billion bonus scandals during the 2008-2009 financial meltdown.
According to Bloomberg, this was his comment … (more…)
Productivity Tip | Who doesn’t love a home-cooked meal?
A Weekly Personal Productivity series to help you get more done!
Every Thursday, I’m sharing a new Personal Productivity Tip to help you get more done. Each Productivity Tip is a remarkably simple tool or concept that can be quickly implemented to make a real difference in your personal productivity. When you apply many of them together, they’ll make a big difference in improving productivity, achieving accountability and staying focused on the things that matter the most in your life.
You may want to check out some of the posts in this Productivity series, including the the value of checklists; the importance of getting rid of the crappy stuff; the nightmare of the cluttered mind; and that feeling of being buried all the time. You can also leverage your resources and apply the lessons of the ARCI chart and the S.M.A.R.T. goals to boost the accountability of your entire organization. One more thing. When in doubt, write it down.
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It’s hard to beat a home-cooked meal!
Is there something more delectable than sitting down to a home-cooked meal … fresh, hot with flavors wafting through the air?
Some of you may be chefs who prefer to cook it yourself, but I suspect that the vast majority of us savor a meal where our only job is to sit down to enjoy it.
Maybe we’ve exerted a little energy to open the Cabernet to go with it, but not much more.
That’s the same feeling we need to create when we sit down to contemplate our Action Dashboard to begin the day.
Ready to Savor (it’s all actionable). Fresh (it’s all up-to-date). Hot (it’s ready to eat as soon as you sit down).
The Weekly Review is where all chopping, cutting, food prep gets done
Even if you don’t love to cook, you’ll still need to help with the food prep that takes place in the Weekly Review. That’s where all the chopping, cutting, shaving … preparation gets done so the meal can be enjoyed. To create a powerful personal productivity system, (more…)
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