Posts Categorized: Productivity

St. Patrick: Productivity Mastermind

You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind. – Irish Proverb March 17 is celebrated by millions as St. Patrick’s Day, including many secular individuals of Irish descent. Nevertheless, before enjoying a pint of Guinness this evening, I thought I’d share a few historical notes about this very interesting goal-setter. Although […]

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Goals Give Direction

“Nothing happens unless first a dream.” – Carl Sandburg Happy New Year. This is a great time to refine your goals. Over the years I’ve talked to a number of people who do not believe in goal setting. They argue that they do not forget to eat or go to bed without having goals to […]

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Six Timeframes for Goals

Just having one set of goals for each individual year is not enough. You should have goals over diverse time spans to achieve successful short-term and long-term planning. Here are the six time frames that I suggest: Quarterly Goals Annual Goals 3-Year Goals 5-Year Goals 10-Year Goals 20-Year Goals Although you might have special targets […]

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Audio University

For years, many motivational speakers have encouraged their audiences to join ‘Automobile University’ to grow mentally during long commutes in their car. Over the years, inventions like the cassette Walkman, CD players, MP3 players, and today’s smart phones have opened up new avenues with the same end-goal. Personal Audio Players are wonderful devices. I brought […]

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How to Read Magazines

Cull the Herd Over the years, I’ve subscribed to a wide variety of periodicals, including the literary periodical The Atlantic, the scientific journal Nature, and the luxury lifestyle magazine DuPont Registry Autos. One day in 2002, I realized I had 11 different magazines coming to my house, on a weekly or monthly schedule. I could not […]

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Schedule Time Cushions

During my very first management job in my 20s, I often allowed my schedule to become jam-packed, with no breaks. The end-result was that I often let my daily calendar look like a multi-layer cake with 8 or 9 hours of meetings without break. Sounds productive, right? It appear that I did not waste any […]

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How to Improve Your Life in Three Steps

An argument can be made that a good life is one that maximizes the number of meaningful moments; yet, our life span is finite. This cannot be achieved by simply adding more. Just as a glass of water has a certain capacity, the same is true with your schedule. The only way to fill a […]

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Life Management Myth

Myth: Life Management is about Getting Everything Done in Less Time. Life management is not about a frenzied existence. A human life is finite and ‘everything’ cannot fit within it. Selection is of critical importance for Life Management. At one time in my life, I believed the secret to ‘time’ management in this hectic world was simply ‘do more, […]

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Age or Effectiveness?

Today’s entry is about ‘old wine in new bottles’ in a manner of speaking. Myth: None of the Productivity Techniques from the 20th Century Work any Longer. Any body of knowledge is progressive; new ideas build on older concepts. In this respect, Life Management is no different than the fields of Biology or Economics. However, the widely […]

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Focus on Systems, not Technology

Life Management should be system focused, not technology focused. Let me explain. I had a friend in high school who could never accept his limitations. In fact, anytime we played a game, and he failed to score, he’d make the claim that ‘he was the perfect athlete, just his equipment was bad.’ Of course, no […]

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