What Is Your Valuable Skill? Are You A Master At It?
In all human endeavors, there are four levels of accomplishment: 1. Incompetence Regardless of how smart or gifted you are, to learn a new skill you must go through a period of not knowing — of taking the baby steps and stumbling. This is the very necessary stage of incompetence.…
Banish Your Workday Distractions
“We’re all muddlers. The thing is to see when one’s got to stop muddling.” – Iris Murdoch (A Word Child, 1975) We’ve talked about why you need to (a) do mostly, if not only, important tasks and (b) focus on doing them well. We’ve examined the foolishness of multitasking and…
Sorting Your Inbox Into Priority Files: Why It Doesn’t Work
MA, a new ETR reader, responded to my advice re organizing daily tasks according to Steve Covey’s four-quadrant principle. (The idea, in a nutshell, is that you should organize your life so that you give priority to Important but Not Urgent goals since they will make the biggest difference in…
Multitasking: One of the Most Odious Words Coined in the Last Decade
Let’s spend a few moments today talking about something you should NOT be doing and its opposite — which is the core habit of all successful enterprises. Of all the hot air that inflated the New Economy bubble (new myths about how businesses grow, what they should be about, the…
Using Task Lists To Change Your Life
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” – Daniel H. Burnham A client and I met this morning. She said she was frustrated — that she had begun using a daily task list, as I had suggested, but wasn’t getting some important things done. “‘To-do’…
Promise #10 For The New Year: To Be A Better Person
I’m truly impressed. It’s Friday, and you’ve been with me for 10 straight workdays. You have read and reread your resolutions countless times. Most importantly, you’ve had a chance to think about them in new and I hope deeper ways – and to add to them. You are in the…
Slacking Off At Work? Here’s Someone Who Thinks You Should
“If you want work well done, select a busy man: the other kind has no time.” – Elbert Hubbard (The Note Book, 1927) Tom Demarco, a high-tech consultant and author of “Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency,” believes that productivity is overrated. He says that…
Cheating Yourself In Your Spare Time
“When a finger points at the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.” – Chinese proverb Theres a young man I know — someone Im mentoring — who has great potential but no obvious advantages. He doesnt have a good education, has no money to speak of, and has only…
How to Live and Work During a Time of Crisis
Yesterday, SH sent me the following note through the ETR Speak Out message board: “No offense, but I would prefer that you continue to give us your daily message rather than just a quote. “Your statement about gathering thoughts and spending time with family and friends sounds nice but the…
How To Get Unstuck When A Big Job Stymies You
I hope you have considered what we talked about Monday the enormous impact price has in any market, in any business situation even in any personal situation. And I hope you figured out your life goals yesterday. Today we are going to talk about something just as important a…
Wealth Building Lesson #1: Get To Work One Hour Earlier
“Once you are really challenged, you find something in yourself. Man doesn’t know what he is capable of until he is asked.” – Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General This week, we are talking about building wealth — your wealth. We both know there are more important things in life…
How To Work From Anywhere In The World, Part I
Yesterday, we talked about the possibility of working — at least for part of the year — in a place you’d normally go only for vacation. I said I believed that if you played it right, you could have your cake and eat it too — live in a paradise…