Posts Categorized: Productivity
Intensity with Direction
A layman’s definition for the term velocity might be speed with direction. What is the velocity of your life? Which way are you going and how fast? Consider a car. If it is going in the right direction, but only traveling at 1 mile an hour, it has a low velocity. If the same auto has […]
Read MoreStress and Performance
Many people claim they work best under pressure. This is likely both true and false…depending on several conditions. Stress can lead to improved performance; however, this relationship only applies to certain levels of stress. The Yerkes-Dodson Law, discovered over 100 years by Psychologists Robert Yerkes and J. Dodson, informs us that there is an optimum […]
Read MoreBe Prompt
If you want to be very productive, you must make sure you are on-time for all appointments. Business Woody Allen once remarked that “90% of life is just showing up”. I’d like to modify this truism to state to “…showing up on-time”. Imagine that you are just five minutes late to an important meeting with […]
Read MoreConstraints and Catalysts
Question: Why do traffic jams occur, even when no accident has taken place? It turns out such slow-downs are simple manifestations of physical rules, meaning that the slowest car becomes the speed constraint on the cars directly following it. This is because of all the cars behind the slowest one can only travel at the […]
Read MoreWrite Your Epitaph
Joseph J. Luciani is a clinical psychologist and author who has stated that he would like his epitaph to say ‘I’d Rather Be Reading This’. That is his statement to demonstrate how much he enjoys his own life, even with the minor trials, troubles, and tribulations that everyone encounters. Question: How do you want to […]
Read MoreDo You Kaizen?
There are two basic kinds of changes: 1) Explosive Innovation 2) Small Incremental Alterations Often, it is believed that explosive innovation is necessary to improve a system, a process, an organization. Innovation is wonderful, especially when the current way is failing; however, if a current methodology is not ‘broken’, then small incremental alterations are often […]
Read MoreThe 80/20 of the 80/20 Rule
Although the Italian sociologist and economist, Vilfredo Pareto, provided the foundation for the 80/20 rule (often called the Pareto principle) when analyzing income distributions in the 19th century, it was Joseph Moses Juran who applied the idea to quality management theory. It is a very valuable idea; however, one must be careful not to oversimplify […]
Read MoreThree Magic Words are…
…Write It Down! 1) Do you want increase your productivity? Write It Down. Think on paper and consider your top concerns, assumptions, questions, goals, projects, and tasks. 2) Do you want to increase your creativity? Write It Down. Record your observations, conversations, ideas, insights, answers, solutions, crazy thoughts, and wild memes. Simple advice? Yes. Easy? No! Think of all […]
Read MoreAvoiding Groupthink
Rub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a tub; And who do you think they be? The butcher, the baker, The candlestick-maker; Turn ’em out, knaves all three! It is common for individuals to seek out people of the same race, gender, educational level, and SES; however, gathering like-minded people is an awful strategy for finding the best […]
Read MoreTake Care of the Minutes
“I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.” – Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773) Rarely do entire days slip by unnoticed. Instead, time is lost in small increments, such as 5 minutes here, 15 minutes there. For example, time is often wasted while […]
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