Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead.

Process Improvement: This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent In 2010, Dave Brailsford faced a tough job. No British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France, but as the new General Manager and Performance Director for Team Sky (Great Britain’s professional cycling team), Brailsford was asked to change that. His approach was simple. Brailsford believed in a concept that he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains.” They started by optimizing the things you might expect: the nutrition of riders, their weekly training program, the ergonomics of the bike seat, and the weight of the tires. But Brailsford and his team didn’t stop there. Brailsford believed that if they could successfully execute this strategy, then Team Sky would be in a position to win the Tour de France in five years time. He was wrong. In 2012, Team Sky rider Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. In 2013, Team Sky repeated their feat by winning the Tour de France again, this time with rider Chris Froome. The Aggregation of Marginal Gains

Ten Lessons From a Maker by David Hieatt, Hiut Denim Co. | The Holborn David Hieatt is the Founder of Hiut Denim Co, a premium Denim label based in Cardigan, North Wales. Cardigan was home to the largest surviving jeans factory in Britain. Four hundred employees used to make 35,000 pairs of jeans a week over three decades of production. Then one day, due to an outsourcing of the manufacturing to Morocco, the factory inevitably closed. David is also the Co-Founder of the Do Lectures (dolectures.com) an annual (now biannual) event in the nearby countryside (and now California too) featuring talks, music and workshops with leading thinkers and doers: like a more friendly, down to earth version of TED, but in rural Wales. The Holborn got in touch with David to ask him about Hiut, and David wrote back to us with this excellent article for anyone who is a maker, is interested in making or just looking to read about a great business. Ten Lessons from a Maker I) No one knows you exist. You make a great product. You will have to make your reputation. One example.

Time Assets vs. Time Debts: A Different Way of Thinking About Productivity | James Clear Late in his career, Steve Jobs famously drove his car without a license plate. There were all sorts of theories about why Jobs decided to drive without tags. Some people said he didn’t want to be tracked. Others believed he was trying to make a game of avoiding parking tickets. According to Callas, Steve Jobs discovered a loophole in the California vehicle registration laws. Once he realized this, Jobs arranged a special leasing agreement with his Mercedes dealer so that every six months he would drop off his current car and receive a new Mercedes SL55 AMG to replace it. After hearing the story, many people responded by saying something like, “I guess that’s what you do when you have a lot of money.” Time Assets vs. Most productivity strategies focus on short-term efficiency: how to manage your to-do list effectively, how to get more done each morning, how to shorten your weekly meetings, and so on. TIME ASSETS are actions or choices you make today that will save you time in the future.

The Fine Art of Tough Love - Joanne Lipman What does it take to achieve excellence? I’ve spent much of my career chronicling top executives as a business journalist. But I’ve spent much of the last year on a very different pursuit, coauthoring a book about education, focusing on a tough but ultimately revered public-school music teacher. And here’s what I learned: When it comes to creating a culture of excellence, the CEO has an awful lot to learn from the schoolteacher. The teacher at the heart of the book Strings Attached is on the face of it an unlikely corporate role model. Yet ultimately he became beloved by students, many of whom went on to outsize professional success in fields from business to academics to law, and who decades later would gather to thank him. My coauthor and I both expected pushback against Mr. Indeed, Wall Street Journal readers responded in force to an essay I wrote about the book and Mr. Clearly, Mr. 1. Mr. It turns out he was on to something. 2. Not in Mr. 3. Mr. 4. Mr. 5.

How to do time blocking As we gear up to launch our Kickstarter for the Perfect Notebook, we have been talking a lot about productivity. The goal of our notebook is capture all your great ideas, and to make you more successful at the same time. We believe the cornerstone of success is doing work that matters, which can only be achieved with thoughtful planning. And that brings us to the topic of this blog post – time blocking. I first read about time blocking on Cal Newport’s blog where he discussed the importance of doing deep work (If you aren’t familiar with deep work, it is the opposite of work like email and things that make you feel productive but don’t actually accomplish much. You spend so much time working. (If you want to learn more about our notebook – sign up below so you don’t miss out when it launches!) Time blocking is really just a method for planning your day. Step 1. What are the most important things on your plate? What are the 5 most important things I want to do this year? Step 2. Step 3.

10 facteurs surprenants qui aident à décrocher un emploi ou vous en empêchent Vos dernières recherches seront affichées ici. Un entretien de sélection peut déterminer l’orientation du reste de votre carrière. Cela ne dépend pas toujours de vos compétences. Parfois c’est une loterie : vous pouvez à peine imaginer les facteurs qui entrent en compte. 1. L’heure du rendez-vous Visiblement mardi à 10h30, c’est ‘the’ moment pour un entretien de sélection. Fixer un entretien de candidature en fin de journée est désavantageux. Avant ou après le lunch ? 2. Si vous avez la malchance de devoir postuler un jour de pluie, vous risquez de mal scorer. Cela ressort d’une enquête réalisée par l’université de Toronto auprès de 3000 candidats dans le secteur médical. 3. Sur une journée de rendez-vous, les recruteurs ne donneront pas à tous un score haut ou bas. 4. Il ne s’agit pas uniquement de bien se préparer et d’identifier vos compétences. Ce n’est pas votre jour ? Vous pouvez vous rebooster dans l’ascenseur, aux toilettes, n’importe où dehors. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

How to Overcome Obstacles Using Toyota’s Five Whys Technique — Better Humans When learning how to break bad habits and form good ones that stick, it’s not uncommon to experience a dip in your motivation and quit – and often right on the edge of a breakthrough. These losses can be chalked up as failures on our part and affect our self-esteem, or worse: discourage us from trying again in the future. The reality is, our problems are seldom behavioural, but situational. It isn’t us that’s the cause of our challenges, but the system we’re using. In other words, it’s not that we’re demotivated; quite the contrary – it’s that we haven’t identified the real obstacles that stand in our way. The obstacles in question may seem obvious – “I didn’t go to bed before midnight because I was watching a movie” – but there’s often an underlying root cause and classifying it is paramount to building the right solution. The Five Whys The Five Whys is a technique adapted from the Toyota Production System. The basis of Toyota’s scientific approach [and] by repeating ‘why?’ 1. 2. Sources

Stanley Kubrick's Boxes Stanley Kubrick’s films were landmark events—majestic, memorable and richly researched. But, as the years went by, the time between films grew longer and longer, and less and less was seen of the director. What on earth was he doing? Two years after his death, Jon Ronson was invited to the Kubrick estate and let loose among the fabled archive. He was looking for a solution to the mystery, this is what he found—a thousand sealed boxes. What was in them? In 1996 I received what was—and probably remains—the most exciting telephone call I have ever had. I hand him a letter written by a fan and addressed to Arthur C Clarke. 20 Things Successful People 'Refuse' to Do | Mo Seetubtim This post originally appeared on BrandMentalist.com 1. They don't define success in a monetary term. Most successful people define success as happiness, having a peace of mind, or helping others. They see money as something that brings them comfort and opens doors of opportunities. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. When facing a problem, instead of focusing on the problem, you should focus on your action and what you do to make the situation better. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Successful people know that it is important to get enough sleep as well as to take time to relax and play in order to be able to perform at their best. 13. 14. When you are clear with what you want in life, coming up with plans and a roadmap to achieving that is easy. In short, by having a goal and a dream, you're half way there. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Mo is the owner of the famous inspirational blog - BrandMentalist.com.

8 Startling Truths About Multitasking And Productivity One of the more popular posts on this blog described how to save time writing blog posts. Perhaps I ought to have taken that to heart. Over the three days it took me to write this blog post, I found myself writing it: While watching TV.While babysitting three little kids.While periodically checking Twitter.With two side-by-side computer monitors, one running a news feed. That would explain why it took me three days to write one post. What destroys your blog? Content marketers are a busy lot, especially if they are going it alone. Except that a pie sliced into lots of tiny pieces is a mushy mess. Content marketers are true multitaskers. 1. Let’s start with the big one: your brain. Ever write your blog posts while watching TV? And not only can our brains not make it happen, but they get damaged when we try to force them. Constant interruption (which is what multitasking is) brings on higher levels of stress. So no. 2. According to Dr. Singular focus is how you get things done. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

10 Ways to Cut to the Chase and Get Stuff Done 10 Ways to Cut to the Chase and Get Stuff Done You grow quiet when someone with more power is in the room. You blab when you’re perceived as the big cheese. How many times have you wished the boss would just shut up? Leaders can’t wait for you to shut up, either. Overall, there’s too much talk and not enough “do” in organizations. Anyone who leaves a meeting without something to do, shouldn’t have been there in the first place, even if it’s just to monitor and fuel the success of others. Use email to inform – talk to decide. Successful leaders cut to the chase. 5 questions before you open your mouth: What am I trying to accomplish? 3 reasons to talk: To understand.Make something better.Move the agenda forward. The purpose of talk is making decisions not more talking. Talk to make decisions or don’t talk. 10 questions that cut to the chase: What would you like to happen? Bonus: Before you say anything else, what are you prepared to do about this? Hold people accountable for their words. But you ask:

The Goldilocks principle: Ensuring your capacity to meet demand is just right The often-used businesses term “right-sizing” has in recent years become common in higher education. Though sometimes used as a euphemism for “downsizing,” it more rightly refers to an effort to optimize enrollment, human resources, programs and facilities—in other words, fixed costs. There are a host of factors that should go into the analysis when an institution is attempting to match demand with its capacity to meet that demand. Internal factors The list that follows begins with several internal factors to consider—most of which the institution has some ability to control. Capacity We can define enrollment capacity as the maximum enrollment attainable without having to add significant fixed costs (variable costs—such as adjunct faculty—can ebb and flow with enrollment). Curriculum/program mix An institution must determine if its program offerings match the demand. Ideally, you want to measure demand against the number of schools in your region that are offering similar programs.

These 3 Types Of Lists Will Help You Be More Productive When it comes to being organized and productive, the to-do list is the ultimate tool. That’s why there are so many task management apps and project management systems that are focused around task lists. But at some point, you have to stop listing and start doing. By using these three lists, you’ll have all the list-making power you need without a complicated system that takes up too much time. Why Make Lists At All? Research into human psychology has given us a lot of interesting ideas about why we make lists and how we think about productivity in general. An oft-quoted passage from the book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength reads: [I]t turns out that the Zeigarnik effect is not, as we assumed for decades, a reminder that continues unabated until the task gets done . . . Having a clear mind goes a long way towards being able to concentrate on a single task — this is the principle behind one of the most popular productivity systems around, Getting Things Done.

The S.T.A.R. Method: A More Effective, Less Stressful Way to Process Email Do you struggle with having a manageable email Inbox? Are you worried that you’re missing something important because you can’t keep up with the volume of email traffic you’re getting? Don’t worry, you’re not alone – and there’s an easier way to get have less stress and overwhelm without being anal-retentive that doesn’t require you to learn to be anal-retentive about clearing your Inbox. I’ve written a lot about effective email habits, and I’ve recommended using the R.A.F.T. (Read-Act-File-Trash) method to process your Inbox. Here’s a quick breakdown: S stands for SCAN. Scan your Inbox for senders and subjects. T stands for TRASH – as in “trash everything that’s not relevant, useful, or something you want or need You may see 60% of the messages in your Inbox disappear at this one step alone. A stands for ARCHIVE, as in “archive relevant reference information R stands for RESPOND, as in “respond to what’s left While R.A.F.T. is great for helping you get your Inbox empty, it was much slower.