“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” – Ryan Jenkins, American business writer. After spending so many years working with productive people, and helping others become more productive, I've learned that some of us aren't like the other of us. To some extent, all of us become distracted, at times, by new ideas suddenly appearing in the peripheries of our imaginations, often growing with prominence as they're examined and prove intriguing. I've advised against allowing the new shiny things to overcome your focus, dragging you down the path of unproductivity. But you can't just ignore those shiny things, because they're gifts of the subconscious and may represent solutions to challenges you're … [Read more...]

“Generation Z only knows a world that is hyper-connected, where by the tap of a smartphone, a pair of shoes can be delivered to their doorstep via Uber or a drone in less than an hour. To Generation Z, a phone will be broken if they cannot see the other person on the other end. It’s a brave new world that Generation Z is growing up in.” – Ryan Jenkins, American business writer. Time for the generational Changing of the Guard! The first batch of kids born in Y2K start college in large numbers this fall (including my oldest son). Their slightly older siblings are nearing graduation or have graduated (including my daughter)—and the first few have already entered the workforce. Commonly called Generation Z or the iGeneration, by all indications they'll prove themselves just as practical and … [Read more...]

“...After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain. Don't break the chain.” – Jerry Seinfeld, American comedian. There may be times when you feel like your work days just melt one into the other, to the point where the weekends almost come as a surprise to you. It may bother you to realize this, but then again, it may be a symptom of high productivity—as long as you're making steady daily progress. As it turns out, productive people in all walks of life deliberately chain their days together to improve their productivity. The idea started with a comedian. You may not think of comedians as hard workers, but … [Read more...]

“Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.” – Will Rogers, American humorist. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are morning people, and those who hate them (haha!). Regardless of which you are, one thing's for sure: we all need to maximize our mornings. Granted, not everyone walks into the office at peak energy, and that's fine. Despite all the advice out there telling you to do your hardest task first, if you’re not a morning person, you won’t be at your productive best. So how do you get the ball rolling? Try these four simple tips: Feed the machine. Eat a decent breakfast. Your blood sugar is at its … [Read more...]

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.” – Will Rogers, American humorist. For millennia, religious leaders and philosophers from Jesus to Buddha, Thoreau to Gandhi have sung the praises of living simply, with fewer worldly possessions. You can't take it with you, after all. There are even native cultures in places like Papua New Guinea and the American Northwest where how much you give away to others is far more important than how much you keep. Most Westerners, however, seem to operate on the philosophy "He who dies with the most toys wins." Much of our economy is based on buying new stuff on a regular basis, even when the old stuff still works fine. Why? Partly it's to show off what we can afford; partly … [Read more...]

“This thing all things devours:/ Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;/ Gnaws iron, bites steel; /Grinds hard stones to meal; /Slays king, ruins town, /And beats high mountain down.” – Gollum's riddle for Bilbo in The Hobbit, by British professor and writer J.R.R. Tolkien. If you haven't already figured it out, the answer to Gollum's riddle is Time, and no matter what we do, it seems there's never enough of it. We all get the same 168 hours per week. So why is it some people get very little done, while others are paragons of productivity? Simple: productive workers treat time as the finite resource it is, making effective use of every minute. They're not necessarily smarter than you or work longer hours. They've learned the lessons of efficiency: they work harder and smarter. Rather than … [Read more...]

“Too many cooks spoil the broth.” – English-language proverb dating back to the Middle Ages. While it's true that two heads are often better than one, too many heads is a recipe for poor productivity. Indeed, it is possible to over collaborate. But where's the sweet spot of just right? For some things, the number may be one. For other tasks, it may be ten. Decades of business research, however, puts the number somewhere between two and seven, with an average of 4.6. If your team lacks enough to do, it's most likely too big. What are some other indicators that your team is too large? Keep these factors in mind: What are you trying to accomplish? For some tasks, many hands make light work. If you're painting a building or harvesting a field, the more hands, the faster you … [Read more...]

“More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.” – Rudyard Kipling, British author The Japanese have a word for working too much: karoshi. It's applied to people who literally work themselves to death... or suicide because they can't keep up. Japan's intense work culture encourages overwork, to the point where families of victims can sue the government and the victim's company for compensation. In Western languages, there's no equivalent for karoshi, nor do we officially recognize it as a cause of death—but it happens. Instead, we say those workers died from exhaustion, failed to care of themselves, used too many stimulants, or suffered sudden strokes or heart attacks. But those are just results; they don't address the root cause of people working too … [Read more...]

“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.” – Maureen Dowd, American journalist. Call them dinosaur-brains or Neanderthals, there are people in every business who live to make us miserable. They aren't necessarily actively toxic, but some are so rude, bureaucratic, and/or annoying, your automatic response may be to disengage from them and your work. As well all know, disengagement kills productivity. Hopefully, you're not the Neanderthal in question. But hey, if you want to send personal and team productivity tumbling, here are four great ways to do it: Micromanage... or ignore. Helicopter managers who hover at your shoulder and control every aspect of your work are foolish, not just because they frustrate others and encourage … [Read more...]

“First things first, second things never.” – Shirley Conlan, British journalist and novelist. We all know the expression “first things first.” But what’s a high priority to one person might have low value to another, so it takes time to get everyone on a team on the same page with projects and deadlines. Effective prioritization requires teamwork, training, and trust for it to become automatic. Your team may not have arrived there yet, as it requires what the military calls "time in grade." Military tactics, lingo, philosophy, and process have filtered into modern business culture for good reason: business is almost a kind of warfare in these days of constant change, even though you may never find yourself on the front line. Organizing masses of people for dead-serious competition is … [Read more...]