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Many people just let their career "happen" to them. People who really get ahead usually take a much more proactive approach and intentionally manage their career. In this post, we want to look at some things you can do to plan ahead. 1. Keep in contact What you know is important, but whom you know may determine what opportunities present themselves. The whole idea of applying for a job where no one knows you is pretty antiquated. Yes, I know people still get jobs that way, but as the world becomes more interconnected, it is becoming more and more important to "know someone who knows someone" where you want to get a job. How many people have you worked with in the past that you … [Read more...] about Tips to Manage Your Career

Being productive shouldn't be about just spending more time working. Productivity involves accomplishing more for each minute of work. Let's say you can do 100 units of work in 8 hours, so to get more done you work for 16 hours and accomplish 160 units of work. Have you become more productive? Not really. Imagine that you were being paid $100 per hour. So for 8 hours, you were paid $800 for 100 units of work or $8 per unit. At 16 hours, you were paid $1600 for 160 units of work or $10 per unit. Someone paying you on the outside would quickly notice that your productivity lessened because it cost them more money per unit of work accomplished. However, since most of us don't pay ourselves an … [Read more...] about Sleep More–Do More

I lived in Michigan for the first half of the 2000s and saw a lot of people who had lost their jobs in the auto industry. What was sad is that the layoffs weren't much of a surprise to people looking in from the outside, but they were often very surprising for the people who lost their jobs. The thing is, those people were probably in a better position to understand what was happening than anyone else. It is very easy to overlook what today tells you about tomorrow when you are right in the middle of things. This post is an attempt to look at how work is likely to change in the future. Regardless of how accurate my predictions prove to be, the real value from this post is probably going … [Read more...] about Future Work

1. Banking and Bills My bank recently added the ability to deposit checks by taking a picture of them in their Android application. This saves me time, makes sure that my checks don't get lost in the mail and simplifies the deposit process. 2. Reading I'm still a big fan of physical books, but having a few books on my phone means that I can do something useful when I have an unexpected delay waiting for someone. I also use it to read to my kids at night because I can turn off the room light and still read the screen. With the light off they go to sleep faster. Recently we read Around The World In 80 Days and Black Beauty. We are currently reading Journey To The Center Of The Earth. … [Read more...] about 5 Ways My Phone Makes Me More Productive

In my last post, I talked about two experiments that showed how the expectations of teachers can make kids get better grades and how the expectations of scientists can make rats do better on mazes. My point was that if you aren't paying attention to how people perceive you, chances are you will fall short of your full potential. In this post, I want to look at three things you can do to manage how others perceive you and how you can influence their expectations. 1. Under promise / Over deliver CEO Craig needs two projects done by two of his direct reports. He asks Tom when he can expect Project T to be finished. Tom says he will have it done by Friday of next week. He asks Vick for the … [Read more...] about Managing Expectations and Perceptions

Let me start this post by telling you about two experiments. The first experiment involved rats. Scientists were given two sets of rats. One set had been "genetically modified" to increase their intelligence. The scientists were asked to test the rats to determine how much smarter the "super rats" actually were. In the second experiment, elementary school teachers were given two lists of their students. One list had all the students that were "gifted." The other list had the name of all the students that were just average. In both of these experiments, the thing that was being tested was not rats nor the children, but the perception of the scientists/teachers. In both cases, the … [Read more...] about Two Important Experiments

Regardless of what you call it, everyone knows what it is like to work in the "zone." It is the place in which everything comes together easily. You are focused, and sometimes it is easy to spend several hours without realizing the time is passing. Being in the "zone" is what you experience when you see that it is 3pm, you've been working since 9am and didn't even realize you missed lunch. So how do you create that mental zone? We asked a number of highly productive people: What method do you use to keep yourself in your most productive mental zone? One of the interesting things that stood out from everyone's answers was that "the zone" means different things to different people. I … [Read more...] about Interview: Productive Mental Zone

I asked a number of productive people the question: How do you use planning to increase your productivity? One thing that stuck out to me after reading all the answers is that planning is really the act of making decisions together, in a batch, ahead of time. Instead of making a bunch of little decisions as to what you are going to do throughout the day, you make decisions at least about the important things all at once when you are viewing your day, week, etc. as a whole. This lets you decide what you want to accomplish while looking at the 50,000 foot level instead of having your perspective influenced by the small stresses of your daily work. At least that is what I took away … [Read more...] about Interview: Increasing Productivity

For this post I sent out a questionnaire to a number of people asking about their single best tip for avoiding distractions. Most everything suggested falls into two categories: Controlling your mind Controlling your environment Obviously, controlling your environment is just another way of controlling your mind. What I liked best about reading all these suggestions is the number of different ways people have for creating a distraction-free work experience. Read on. I'm sure you'll find a number of tips that will help you be more productive. Make it difficult to be distracted. Turn off notification sounds and indicators on email, social media, etc. If your corporate culture … [Read more...] about Interview: Avoiding Distractions

Most people are familiar with the basic idea behind bill payment systems, but if you've never used one, you may not be familiar with the ways it can save you time. Even if you've used the bill payment system from your bank for years, you might not be familiar with all the features that are available from other institutions. The goal of this post is to look at some features and capabilities of bill payment systems and how these things can help make you more productive. For people that aren't familiar with bill payment systems, here is how they work. When you need to pay someone, you log in to your bank or bill payment system website, tell it who you want to pay, and send the payment. If … [Read more...] about Bill Payment Features