background preloader

Time Management

Facebook Twitter

Books

GTD. 5 trends driving the future of work. As the year draws to a close, you may be assessing your career plans against the backdrop of holiday hoopla and the uncertain employment climate. To get a leg up, grab an eggnog and read on to learn about trends that could change how you'll be making a living in the years to come: Trend 1: Independent consulting to see hockey-stick growth curve According to a new study from MBO Partners, a company offering services to independent consultants, by 2013, the number of independent workers in America is expected to grow from 16 million to more than 20 million. By 2020, that figure could climb to include more than half of U.S. workers, leading to a new independent majority comprised of freelancers, consultants and other independent workers.

Blame the economic turmoil or a change in values, but more people are demanding greater self-reliance, control and satisfaction in their professional lives. Other key findings from the study: Trend 2: Order books, movies and now ... workers online Related: 55-Hour Week? Research shows that consistently working more than 40 hours a week is simply unproductive. For many in the entrepreneurship game, long hours are a badge of honor. Starting a business is tough, so all those late nights show how determined, hard working and serious about making your business work you are, right? Wrong. According to a handful of studies, consistently clocking over 40 hours a week just makes you unproductive (and very, very tired).

That's bad news for most workers, who typically put in at least 55 hours a week, recently wrote Sara Robinson at Salon. Robinson does acknowledge that working overtime isn't always a bad idea. The clear takeaway here is to stop staying at the office so late, but getting yourself to actually go home on time may be more difficult psychologically than you imagine. As author Laura Vanderkam has pointed out, for many of us, there's actually a pretty strong correlation between how busy we are and how important we feel. More from Inc.com: 7 Things Highly Productive People Do. More by Doing Less - Tony Schwartz. By Tony Schwartz | 7:40 AM December 13, 2011 Two people of equal skill work in the same office. For the sake of comparison, let’s say both arrive at work at 9 am each day, and leave at 7 pm.

Bill works essentially without stopping, juggling tasks at his desk and running between meetings all day long. He even eats lunch at his desk. Sound familiar? Nick, by contrast, works intensely for approximately 90 minutes at a stretch, and then takes a 15 minute break before resuming work. Bill spends 10 hours on the job. By 1 pm, Bill is feeling some fatigue. It’s called the law of diminishing returns. Nick puts in the same 10 hours. Nick takes off a total of two hours during his 10 at work, so he only puts in 8 hours. Because Nick is more focused and alert than Bill, he also makes fewer mistakes, and when he returns home at night, he has more energy left for his family. It’s not just the number of hours we sit at a desk in that determines the value we generate.

Mark Forster. Tac Anderson. One of the more popular things I’ve posted online is my Hacked GTD Moleskine system. I first posted my system over four years ago, back in 2009 and have frequently updated it. I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately so I figured it’s time to update it again. Here’s a list of the products I typically use. I’ve been using some sort of a planner system since I was in junior high, 30 years ago (no I’m not super anal or super organized; quite the opposite). The problem I have with traditional organizers and day planners was that they weren’t flexible enough for me. This post is intended to tell you how and why I use this system but still make it flexible enough so you can customize it to your own individual needs.

My Day Map Every single day I have a day map that tells me what are the three things I HAVE to get done today, what are the three things I have to work on (i.e. make progress but won’t complete) and what three things did I get done that I didn’t plan on (i.e. fire drills). Successful Delegation - Team management training from MindTools. Using the Power of Other People's Help © iStockphoto/AlexRaths Even "Super You" needs help and support.

There is no shame in asking for assistance. Push aside the pride and show respect for the talent others can bring to the table.And, remember that there is no such thing as a single-handed success: when you include and acknowledge all those in your corner, you propel yourself, your teammates and your supporters to greater heights.– Author Unknown Do you feel stressed and overloaded? Or that your career seems stalled? If you work on your own, there's only a limited amount that you can do, however hard you work. However, if you're good at your job, people will want much more than this from you. On the positive side, however, you're being given a tremendous opportunity if you can find a way around this limitation. One of the most common ways of overcoming this limitation is to learn how to delegate your work to other people.

Why People Don't Delegate When to Delegate Tip: Keeping Control. Delegation is probably one of the most leadership effective tools. Do you delegate or just collect other people's problems? | Tips from the Trenches. How to Do More of What You Love and Less of What You Don’t. Do you have a long-term delegation strategy? This is the secret to moving more into “the zone” and getting out of those activities you don’t enjoy or don’t do well. Photo Courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/Yuri_Arcurs Recently, I recorded two podcasts on the subject of delegation.

The first dealt with the principles of delegation. The second suggested how you might delegate even if you don’t have a staff. In these podcasts I suggested the primary reason to delegate is that non-delegation doesn’t scale. It is not sustainable. But there is an even more important reason to delegate: To enable you to focus on what you do best in order to maximize your impact. I touched on this at the end of the first podcast, but I want to elaborate here. Here’s the way I think about it. When I am operating in my strengths zone, I am happy and productive. Conversely, when I don’t do this, I am stressed and unproductive. Identify your strengths. The one real limitation you and I face in leadership is our time. Hire freelancers and find freelance jobs instantly | Elance. Virtual Receptionist for Small Business - eReceptionist. Study Hacks. On Sam Harris and Stephen Fry’s Meditation Debate February 19th, 2019 · 44 comments A few weeks ago, on his podcast, Sam Harris interviewed the actor and comedian Stephen Fry.

Early in the episode, the conversation took a long detour into the topic of mindfulness meditation. Harris, of course, is a longtime proponent of this practice. What sparked the diversion in the first place is when, early in the conversation, Fry expressed skepticism about meditation. Typically when we find ourselves in a chronic state of ill health it’s because we’ve moved away from something natural that our bodies have evolved to expect.Paleolithic man didn’t need gyms and diets because he naturally exercised and didn’t have access to an overabundance of bad food.Mindfulness mediation, by contrast, doesn’t seem to be replicating something natural that we’ve lost, but is instead itself a relatively contrived and complicated activity.

Harris’s response was to compare meditation to reading. Read more » Myth Confirmed.