Time Management

Building up your concentration muscle

April 6, 2011
Staying focused on one task could be the single biggest challenge in the digital era. Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project and author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, believes these six simple steps are the first steps to gaining control of your attention—and your life:

Even you need a break sometimes

February 24, 2011

Willie Walsh, chief of British Airways, revealed that he hadn’t had a vacation in more than five years. Walsh is known for his toughness, but it’s an open question whether anyone can continue to think straight or maintain a sense of perspective without a break from work in so long.

4 ways to beat procrastination

February 1, 2011

As people grapple with the urge to put things off, economists and psychologists have turned the study of procrastination into a significant field. And what have they discovered? That each of us is divided. If that’s true, simply trying harder to beat procrastination isn’t going to work. Here’s what will:

3 ways to accomplish more in your life

October 25, 2010

If you feel as though you’re doing more but getting less done, it may be because you’re still multitasking. Leadership expert Stever Robbins may have put his finger on why: You like to multitask. “Just don’t expect to accomplish very much doing it,” he says. Robbins has developed a system that can help you maintain concentration and do more in less time.

Is optimization your crutch?

August 13, 2010

If you can measure it, you can improve it. You can optimize. But how much of your energy are you spending on optimization vs. creation? Seth Godin, a thought leader in marketing and the changing business environment, says, “I worry that a never-ending cycle of optimization can become a crutch, a place to hide when you really should be confronting the endless unknown, not the banal stair step of incremental optimization.”

Reclaim your calendar … and your life

July 9, 2010

Stever Robbins, famous for advice on maximizing your creativity and whipping your e-mail into submission, now is integrating time management and innovation into a coherent system for getting things done. From his new guide to working less and accomplishing more:

Leadership Tips: Vol. 710

June 14, 2010
Think meditation is “too soft” for hard-core leaders? Think again. The U.S. Navy teaches “holistic leadership” … Make wise use of limited new-hire funds by screening interviewees with this question: “What’s the toughest feedback you’ve ever received and how did you learn from it?” … Brainstorming sessions may not be the best way to generate the best ideas …

Raise your game the right way

February 12, 2010

In this second year of high anxiety, here are three ideas you can use as a leader to gain some altitude so you won’t be bumping along the bottom: 1. Do the numbers. 2. Take a walk on the workers’ side. 3. Consult your moral compass.

Leadership Tips: Vol. 110

December 11, 2009

Hit upon more winning ideas by capturing more ideas in the first place. New communication and online mechanisms can help. Example: Starbucks gathers and codifies ideas with www.mystarbucksidea.com, and uses decision-market approaches to evaluate them. Meanwhile, innovative companies such as Apple or Google make generating ideas an informal part of everyone’s job and motivate employees largely with nonmonetary recognition.