Dancing on the Sand - By Bruce Jones
At 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, 1,000 or so advanced delegates at Rio+20 (formally, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development) laid down their pens and shut off their laptops. At noon, Brazil's worldly foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, gaveled through the Outcome Document from the chair. And by mid-afternoon, Rio was full of a sound to which that joyous city is unaccustomed: the collective moan of 40,000 environmentalists disappointed about the results. (Yes, you read that right: 40,000. Alongside 10,000 official government participants.) That the Rio outcome fell short of the highest expectations was not only predictable, it was predicted -- by everybody. There were some avoidable mistakes. In practice, though, the best-organized process in the world wasn't going to produce serious outcomes on environment issues, either in Rio or Mexico City. What's more, the outcomes from Rio aren't all bad. The U.N. is not alone in having had a tough week.
The Eisenhower Matrix - IONOS
The Eisenhower Principle helps you to improve your time management. By setting priorities in a clear and unambiguous way, the most important projects can be completed first. The model is particularly practical for people in management positions, as their time is usually particularly valuable and they can easily delegate less important tasks to their employees. This, in turn, has the advantage that employees are more involved in the company's work processes. However, the Eisenhower box also has some disadvantages. Another problem can be the uneven distribution of tasks.
3 Ways to Get Inspired (And Leave Your Slump Behind) | Dan Bolton
We all, from time to time, can fall into a slump. A low muddy bog of emotion. Sometimes it can feel as strong as an all consuming depression, anxiety or apathy. Other times it can simply be a lack of focus & a struggle to get things, anything, done. I know, because in the last few months, at different times, I’ve ticked all these boxes and more – Often wanting to DDT my inner man until he comes to his senses. In the midst of all of this, however, there is hope. The lie we can begin to believe is that we’re completely helpless to everything happening to us and basically curl up into the foetal position, figuratively or literally (Guilty), and wait for life to deal us better cards. We can simply be 1 inspiring idea, experience or person away from entering into a new day. Here are 3 to get you started. What we can often perceive as boredom and a lack of passion may really just be familiarity. Here are a few places to help you get started. TED: Ideas Worth Spreading iTunes University
"Labor’s Paradise Lost" by Robert Skidelsky
LONDON – As people in the developed world wonder how their countries will return to full employment after the Great Recession, it might benefit us to take a look at a visionary essay that John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1930, called “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.” Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, published in 1936, equipped governments with the intellectual tools to counter the unemployment caused by slumps. In this earlier essay, however, Keynes distinguished between unemployment caused by temporary economic breakdowns and what he called “technological unemployment” – that is, “unemployment due to the discovery of means of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor.” Keynes reckoned that we would hear much more about this kind of unemployment in the future. Machines were rapidly replacing human labor, holding out the prospect of vastly increased production at a fraction of the existing human effort.
How to Tame Your Email and Reach Inbox Zero
Your email inbox is out of control, even though it feels like all you do is answer emails. You’re not alone in feeling this way. According to a report from McKinsey, the average knowledge worker spends around 28% of the workweek reading and answering email. This is an absurd amount of time to spend on something that stresses you out while also creating little of value. So let’s fix it. Process Email at a Set Time Each Day How many times per day do you check email? While this is an admirable attitude, it will destroy your productivity. If you switch your attention to your email, it will take your brain some time to refocus on what you were originally doing (this is known as a “switching cost”). So instead of looking at your email several times a day, have one set time each day to process all of your emails. Note: This tactic only works if you disable email notifications. Looking for a better email client? Archive or Delete Messages When You’re Done with Them Clear Out the Junk Why? 2. 3. 4.
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"Rio’s Unsustainable Nonsense" by Jagdish Bhagwati
Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space NEW YORK – If George Orwell were alive today, he would be irritated, and then shocked, by the cynical way in which every lobby with an axe to grind and money to burn has hitched its wagon to the alluring phrase “sustainable development.” Thus, the International Labor Organization and trade-union lobbies have managed to insert “Decent Jobs” into the seven priority areas at the Rio conference. No one should pretend that we can magically offer decent jobs to the huge numbers of impoverished but aspiring workers in the informal sector. The flavor of the week in Rio is “sustainability indexing” for corporations, by way of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Corporations can, of course, be asked to conform to a “don’t” list – don’t dump mercury into rivers, don’t employ children for hazardous tasks, etc. Even when the Rio+20 agenda includes something more properly “environmental” – say, the supply of water – platitudes predominate.
Courses
We’ve partnered with Skillshare to create two original courses that can help you do just that. These courses will teach you: Why most productivity systems fail (and how to make sure yours doesn’t)How to use a to-do list to keep track of everything you have going onHow to set up your calendar so that you’re never late againWhy strong habits are the foundation of a better life If that’s not enough, both classes are free to take with a Skillshare membership. Don’t already have a Skillshare membership? Productivity Essentials: Create a System That Works With a proper productivity system, nothing ever slips through the cracks. Real Productivity: How to Build Habits That Last Building habits isn’t just about discipline; there are real-world steps you can take to set yourself up for success!
