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Carpe Septimana
Last week we discussed building a daily planning ritual to make the most of every day. The other planning ritual I love is the weekly review. Why The strength of the daily planning ritual is that it becomes a reliable way to build habits. Knowing it will occur, you can count on certain things happening daily as…
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Carpe Diem
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle At the end of the day, do you feel energized by everything you accomplished? Or do you wonder where the time went? Aristotle believed a good life is one where you devote yourself to areté (translated as virtue, excellence, or fulfillment)…
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Gooooooooooooooooooooooals!
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.” – Yogi Berra. Did you set goals for 2022? Were they written down? How often did you review your progress and implement course corrections? How effectively did those goals guide your progress this year? The Importance of Goals Many of us have goals…
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Cut Me Some Slack
I’ve taught my Personal Productivity class a dozen times this year – it is my most popular training offering. The course’s primary focus is email management, which invariably leads to discussions about instant messaging platforms such as Slack. Today I’ll share some thoughts about how to use them effectively. I’ll refer to Slack for simplicity’s sake. However,…
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Overcoming Procrastination
Last week I shared one of my favorite techniques for overcoming overwhelm. If you tried the blank sheet of paper exercise, hopefully, you emerged with the realization that you have fewer truly critical tasks than you thought, and you have a short list of A priority tasks stack ranked in the order you should tackle them.…
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Overcoming Overwhelm
In my coaching, I hear “I’m feeling overwhelmed” a lot. In my past roles, I said “I’m feeling overwhelmed” a lot myself. Today I want to walk you through my go-to technique to overcome this overwhelmed feeling. Stressed vs. Overwhelmed This feeling of overwhelm can stem from any number of root causes, but here’s the…
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Please Shorten Your Meetings
This week’s post is deliberately short and sweet; I hope you embrace my suggestion and share it with all your fellow meeting participants. As you begin to return to the office, you may find your meeting schedule even more challenging than working from home. Your “commute” back to your desk, the break room, or your…
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Finding Focus
The final stop on the productivity train (for now) is on eliminating distractions and finding focus. Before we dig in, if you’ve worked with me in the past, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t talked about email management. I’m incredibly passionate about getting email under control. I’ve taught email management to hundreds of people over the years…
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Meeting Maximization
I congratulate everyone who has hopped aboard the productivity train with my recent blog posts. Last week we remodeled our calendars. I’m sure you’re left with more meetings than you’d like. So, this week I offer some perspectives on how to make the most of the meetings that remain. I’ll skip many of the obvious recommendations you’ve seen…
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Calendar Construction
Based on all the positive feedback, I’m going to continue with the productivity theme this week. Once you’ve solidified a daily planning ritual and a comprehensive weekly review, the next place many of my clients turn to is their calendar itself. Try this out. Take a moment and go look at your calendar for the week. Gaze at…
