Posts Tagged ‘working’

Personal Productivity in the 21st Century

What does it mean to be productive? The "gurus" have given us a few ideas -- it means to "get things done", to be "highly effective", to know who it was, exactly, who moved your cheese. What things, effective at what, and who is bringing cheese to work anyway are questions that these books don't -- and can't -- answer. There's something profoundly old-fashioned about much of our productivity literature… Continue reading

March 5 2008 | By Dustin | Tagged: gtd, habits, knowledgework, Productivity, working | 41 comments»

Holding It All Together On the Go

This week marks the beginning of the Fall semester for me, and as usual, I have a crazy schedule. I thought I might share some of the things I do to manage the frenzy that the life of an adjunct can be, in the hopes that it might give you some ideas about how to deal with the craziness of your own schedule. First, some background. I'm an adjunct… Continue reading

August 31 2007 | By Dustin | Tagged: adjunct, computer, mobility, office, Productivity, routine, schedule, working | 18 comments»

5 Web Worker Mistakes

The Web Worker Daily have compiled their Top 5 Web Worker Mistakes. Meaning, these are the most common reasons people who use the internet for business muck it up. It's written for coders, but speaks to all of us. If you’re a web worker (as opposed to a web dilettante), you need to treat your work as an actual business, with a business structure, a separate bank account, contracts, invoicing… Continue reading

May 28 2007 | By Craig | Tagged: internet, job, web, working | 2 comments»

How To Convince Your Boss To Let You Work From Home

In this day and age, with communication being to easy through mobile technologies, it makes sense to work out of the office. If you are able to do your job from home, why can't you? What is the benefit of traveling upwards of an hour each day, through stressful traffic, to enter the distraction-full environment that most offices are? Tim Ferriss has written a book called The 4-Hour Work Week and… Continue reading

April 23 2007 | By Craig | Tagged: holiday, home, homeoffice, workfromhome, working | 5 comments»

Focusing on What Matters (and Ignoring What Does Not)

As I look back at this week's postings on Slow Leadership, I notice that most of them were concerned with helping people stop wasting their time and energy on fruitless endeavors. Take the first post, entitled: To Succeed, First Forget About Leadership Technique. In it, I argued that belief that success—in just about any business or leadership —comes from one simple source (applying the correct "leadership technique), is both… Continue reading

October 30 2006 | By Guest | Tagged: civilized-work, decision-making, firstthingsfirst, freedom, Hamburger-Management, lifebalance, Lifehack, Management, overwork, prioritization, problem, problemsolving, technique, timemanagement, work-life, work/life-balance, working, worklife | 2 comments»

Creating Hardworking Idiots

The German World War II general Erich von Manstein is said to have categorized his officers into four types. The first type, he said, is lazy and stupid. His advice was to leave them alone because they don't do any harm. The second type is hard-working and clever. He said that they make great officers because they ensure everything runs smoothly. The third group is composed of hardworking idiots. Von… Continue reading

October 2 2006 | By Guest | Tagged: business, business-ethics, business-fundamentalism, civilized-work, effectiveness, leadership, Management, micro-management, priorities, prioritization, slow-leadership, strategy, work, work-life, working, worklife | 23 comments»

Speed, Accidents, and Anxiety

You're driving along the freeway. The traffic is heavy and the weather is bad; there's water on the road and occasional patches of ice. You're already late for an appointment and you're worrying that your boss is going to find out and get mad at you, so you're driving way too fast for the conditions. Everyone else seems to be in a hurry too. Your hands are gripping the wheel… Continue reading

September 4 2006 | By Guest | Tagged: anxiety, business-fundamentalism, discontentment, fear, insanity, leadership, lifebalance, Lifestyle, living, Management, motivation, organization, overwork, slow-leadership, speed, strategy, stress, work-life, work/life-balance, workflow, working, worklife, worrying | 3 comments»

Opening Your Mind

There's a common saying that human beings were given two ears (and two eyes), but only one mouth to show that they should listen (and look) at least twice as much as they speak. I think that for managers and leaders that ratio is far too low. Looking and listening should happen maybe ten or more times for every time you open your mouth to make some pronouncement or decision… Continue reading

August 21 2006 | By Guest | Tagged: achievement, attention, attitude, habit, information, knowledge, leadership, listening, looking, Management, office-politics, organization, people, performance, questions, slow-leadership, success, work, work-life, working, worklife | 2 comments»

Thinking About Trust

Trust in other people is one of the foundations for creating a civilized working environment. Many managers are overworked primarily because of a lack of trust. They take on too much themselves, because they don't trust their subordinates to do the work properly. They cannot allocate enough time to their own work, because they don't believe people will put in the required time without constant supervision. They attend pointless meetings… Continue reading

July 31 2006 | By Guest | Tagged: attitude, behavior, boss, burnout, business, businesslife, civilized-work, control, corporate-culture, delegation, discontentment, fear, happiness, leadership, lifebalance, Management, manager, micro-management, office-politics, organization, respect, team, teamwork, timemanagement, trust, work, work-life, work/life-balance, working, worklife | 3 comments»

Productivity Hack: Write Mini Process Flows

Creativity is one thing, but capturing it into a form that's useful (to your needs) is another. I've got an idea that I plan to implement for myself: mini process flows. Now, your jobs that you'll need done are different than mine. I'll just show you mine as examples, okay? Process Flow Basics Here are the basics of getting something done by way of a process flow: Input - Work Performed… Continue reading

July 27 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: gtd, nextaction, process, Productivity, workflow, working | 27 comments»