The sages tell us that all our power is in the present. Any time we spend regretting, blaming, or trying to figure out stuff in the past will more likely distract us than help us. Don’t worry about repeating mistakes. We’ve already learned what we could. Set it aside. The future’s calling. In your […]
Things done under pressure often backfire. That person we urgently needed to hire, the deal we really needed to make, and the strategy we didn’t have time to test are classic examples of the pressure-filled decisions that go on to cause much more trouble than they were meant to prevent. In your corner, Mike […]
Which is easier? Trying to keep track in your head of the ever-increasing pile of stuff to do or learning to write it all down and reviewing it once a day? Ya, no. It’s not the former. In your corner, Mike
Sometimes all we need is a teeny win. Committing to taking a step in the right direction–even a step that is not in the wrong direction–does the trick. We will either launch ourselves where we want to go or gain enough momentum to take another teeny step. What’s your one wee step, now? In your […]
We can run our processes, push our products, and tell people what we think they should be doing. Or, we can connect our dreams to our team’s dreams and get out of the way. The latter looks harder and longer but it’s not. In your corner, Mike
In all the busyness, it’s easy to lose track of what we have agreed to do for each other, that is of our takeaways. Here is a 5-step process that works well. Recap. End each live, text, or email conversation or meeting with a review of who is going to do what by when. Confirm. […]
Our worries about how something will get done are merely us focusing on what’s wrong. This, we’ve seen, is a great way to prevent progress. It feels bad and has us struggle through sub-optimal next steps. Next time you catch yourself with worrying about how, stop. Focus for a bit on what end result you […]
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. –Albert Einstein Our companies thrive when we have the simplest possible systems, processes, and policies. Anything too simple would be incomplete and cause confusion and waste. Anything too cumbersome will slow us down. How, then, would we put Einstein’s advice into practice? It’s simple, […]
There’s a fundamental flaw that makes all time (or task) management awful. When we think about time management, we make the unwitting assumption that we “hafta” do, dump, delegate, or do later all the tasks that come our way. “I hafta answer that email. I gotta give Margie that feedback. I need to lose 5 […]
Fighting what we don’t want (at home, work, or in the world-at-large) only pushes people to fight back. Our energy gets drained and our effectiveness is muted. It’s so easy to fall into this trap. But let’s not. Let’s instead redirect the energy we would have spent fighting to building what we do want. People […]