Productivity Minute Video: Organize Your Children’s Items

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), shares tips on keeping your children's items organized. (C) 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved. www.TheProductivityPro.com … [Read more...]

Business Productivity: For Executives – Efficiency

"Accountability breeds response-ability." -- Stephen R. Covey Once you reach the uppermost layers of management, Accountability becomes Efficiency—and as a C-Suite manager, one of your first tasks should be to implement Efficiency wherever necessary. If you've made it to the C-Suite, you didn't get there by accident. You were elevated to the position because of your demonstrated SuperCompetence in all aspects of your work life. It's a truism that you can't be SuperCompetent without having a highly-developed sense of Accountability; and as one of your company's leaders, you're a cornerstone upon which the entire organization rests. This means that you have to set the Efficiency example for your team to follow. The buck stops with you because it has to; after all, where else can it go, … [Read more...]

Business Productivity: For Executives – Focus

"The older I get, the more I see a straight path where I want to go. If you’re going to hunt elephants, don’t get off the trail for a rabbit." -- T. Boone Pickens, American financier At the lofty C-Suite level, the SuperCompetent Key of Attention transforms into Focus. Suddenly, your capacity to concentrate on your work and only your work becomes paramount—much more critical that it was before, if only because your actions impact the company more completely than they ever have. A distracted, overwhelmed CEO or VP can be much more damaging than a middle manager who can't keep his or her head in the game. Worse, the higher you go, the more distractions you have to deal with. When you're just Josephine Schmoe down in Cubical Land, it's hard enough to filter out electronic distractions, … [Read more...]

Business Productivity: For Executives – Availability and Scheduling

"There cannot be a crisis today; my schedule is already full." -- Henry Kissinger, American politician. "The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." Stephen R. Covey, time management and productivity guru. "A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time." -- Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prizing winning author. One of the core keys of SuperCompetence is Availability: your willingness and ability to protect your time, so that you can accomplish your desired activities. At the C-Suite level, this translates as Scheduling—and Scheduling is about more than just accomplishing the things that you want to accomplish. CEOs, CFOs, Presidents, … [Read more...]

Business Productivity: For Executives – Prioritization

"Prioritization is about doing something. It's not about an excuse for inaction." -- Bjorn Lomborg, Danish author and business professor "We can do anything, but we can’t do everything… at least, not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything." -- Dan Millman, American author "First things first, second things never." -- Shirley Conran, British editor and writer In my most recent book, SuperCompetent (John Wiley and Sons, 2010), I identified and described six keys that anyone can use in the workplace to maximize their performance: Activity, Availability, Attention, Accessibility, Accountability, and Attitude. Recently, I've been considering how all six affect C-Suite executives—that is, upper-level … [Read more...]

Business Productivity: The Top Eight Time-Wasters You Must Avoid at Work!

"If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality." -- Benjamin Franklin Ben Franklin had it right. Of all the resources available to us, time is certainly the most precious. Unlike office supplies or even money, it's impossible to get more; there's no box marked "Time" in the supply closet where you can grab a spare minute or two. Once time is spent, it's gone, and there's no getting it back And yet, we invariably waste it. Look: you can't afford to waste time at work. A firm grasp of time management is absolutely crucial if you want to succeed…although the truth is, when you manage time, you're really managing yourself. You need to buckle down and control you. With that in mind, let's take a look at the eight biggest self-inflicted … [Read more...]

Work Life Balance: How to Spend More Time with Your Family

How to Spend More Time with Your Family (Even When You're Fantastically Busy) “It's all about quality of life, and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.” -- Philip Green, British billionaire. Why are you working so hard? If you're like most of us, family is one of the biggest reasons: you want to provide a good life for the people you love. Which makes it all very ironic, since working long hours keeps you away from your family…the very people you're working so hard to provide for. It's a vicious circle. Remember that old song "Cat's in the Cradle," where the busy father missed out on his son growing up because he was too busy working…only to have the tables turned when he retired? It's not just a song. Things like that happen every day in the real world. The … [Read more...]

Productivity Minute Video: You Can’t Be Productive While Falling Asleep

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) discusses the importance of adequate rest and how it relates to productivity. (C) 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved. … [Read more...]

Meeting Nightmare Contest from Doodle

I've talked before about Doodle, the great online scheduling tool. They are having a fun contest through November 12 "Meeting Nightmare Contest: Tell us about your worst scheduling experience and you could win a Samsung Galaxy and other nice prizes, and I get to be a judge! Get your submission in for your chance for great prizes. … [Read more...]

Office Productivity: Can Ambient Sound Make You More Productive?

“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.” -- Henry Beston, writer and naturalist "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." Brian Eno, musician "You are one-third as productive in open-plan offices as in quiet rooms. If you have to work in space like that, carry headphones with you with a soothing ambient sound like birdsong, put them on, and your productivity goes back up to triple what it would be." -- Julian Treasure, Chair of The Sound Agency We all know how difficult it can be to concentrate when it's noisy. But that begs a question: what exactly qualifies as … [Read more...]