"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...]
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...]
“The Secret” from a Productivity Standpoint
"To succeed in life you need things like talent, diligence, persistence, skills, hard work and maybe a little luck. You can achieve great things—but in order to do so you have to do a lot more than just think about them." -- Paul Sloane, author of The Innovative Leader. Unless you've been living in a cave since 2006, you've certainly heard of The Secret. This popular philosophy, as outlined in a self-help book of the same name, purports to relate the true secret of success in all aspects of life. According to author Rhonda Byrne, it’s all about optimistic thinking and a faith in abundance; that is, a belief that the Universe will provide for you through a Law of Attraction, assuming you keep believing in whatever it is you really want. The Secret has been widely interpreted, by … [Read more...]
Business Productivity: Micromanagement
Know what'll kill employee engagement deader than a doorknob? Micromanaging. Even if you start out with an office full of bright, innovative people, looking over their shoulders and correcting them every step of the way will eventually grind them down. Before long, you'll have a collection of disengaged grumblers who either can't wait to get out from under your thumb, or who just hunker down and don’t do anything, in hopes that it'll soon be over. That's because when you micromanage someone, you're practically shouting in their ear: "You're incompetent! I can't trust you to do the tiniest thing right!" Now, how would that make you feel? If you're a micromanager, you may not realize it; you may just think you're detail-oriented and want to be sure that your employee does everything … [Read more...]
Productivity Management: The Crafty Chameleon
"Quantifying the gap between exemplary and average employees demonstrates the tremendous potential for organizations to increase the performance of their workforces." —Tom Gilbert, author of Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance In the last four blog entries, I've explained my new Productivity Management Matrix in considerable detail. This metric compares levels of employee engagement and performance against one another, organizing workers into four broad categories: Campers, Cheerleaders, Defectors, and Productives. But as within any categorization system, not everyone fits neatly. For example, what if someone is just plain average on both fronts? What if both their performance and engagement levels, taken together, fall right smack in the middle of all four quadrants—on the … [Read more...]
Time Management: Productivity Minute Video: Match Your Tasks to Your Energy Level
Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), discusses matching your tasks to your energy level throughout the day. Know your own rhythms and plan your work around them. (c) 2010 Laura Stack - All Rights Reserved www.TheProductivityPro.com … [Read more...]
Productivity Management: The Prodigious Productive
"When employees and employers, even coworkers, have a commitment to one another, everyone benefits." — Donald Trump "You can lead an employee to water, but if you find one who knows a better path to the water, shut up and get a bucket." —business writer Dale Dauten. Last but far from least, let's take a look at the ultimate employee category in my Productivity Management Matrix: the Productives. These are the extraordinary people who manage to combine high engagement with high performance in a synergistic way that makes them the superstars of just about any organization. How to Spot a Productive Productives are the employees you wish everyone could be. The combine a firm sense of engagement with high performance, making life easier for everyone else on the team—which usually makes … [Read more...]
Productivity Management: The Dour Defector
"I consider it the highest compliment when my employees go out and start their own companies in competition with me. I always send them a plant to wish them well. Of course, it's a cactus.” —Norm Brodsky, entrepreneur and author. "The actively disengaged employees are the "cave dwellers." They're "Consistently Against Virtually Everything." They're not just unhappy at work; they're busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, actively disengaged workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish." -- Curt Coffman, author of First Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently If you've been reading my blog recently, you're no doubt familiar with my Productivity Management Matrix , a method by which I categorize employees based on two factors: performance … [Read more...]
