Some extremely productive people avoid meetings, notably Seth Godin who says, “I don’t watch television and I don’t go to meetings. So I have 7 more hours every day than everybody else”. Crikey, he’s very keen isn’t he? What about the rest of us who don’t have much of a choice about whether or not… Read more
‘Music for working’ – which picture best matches your response to that idea? Is it this? Image by vectomart (Monalisa Dakshi) / Deposit Photos Or this? Image by ramonakaulitzki (Ramona Kaulitzki) / Deposit Photos When I’m not facilitating workshops or in client meetings, chances are I’m either working at home (bliss, yet sometimes domesticity gets… Read more
The irony wasn’t lost on me that Chris Lewis’s ‘Too Fast to Think – how to reclaim your creativity in a hyper-connected work culture’ had been sitting on my desk for several weeks before I got to read it. I think it’s worth the wait, with some simple, practical tips and ideas for how we… Read more
The questions that come up when I run Zoomly’s 90-minute workshop on ‘How to work well in a team’ are usually around how to deal with other team members. There’s often some frustration that the team doesn’t seem to be as productive as the different component human parts suggest it could be. Here are my… Read more
If you’re trying to get noticed at work for the right reasons, you need to build a reputation for being someone who gets stuff done. No dramas, no missed deadlines and no nasty surprises – yes, that sounds very basic but it’s surprising how many people just don’t seem to be able to get stuff… Read more
We’re still grappling with two major productivity drains: the deluge of emails and the swamp of meetings. For the former, see my ‘8 alternatives to email’ post‘, and ’10 tips for writing emails that get read’ When it comes to meetings, one of the bugbears I consistently hear from senior managers is that their teams don’t… Read more
These days, email is the dominant communication medium within and between organisations. Pity. Of course email has its uses – but I think we’re all guilty of defaulting to email far too often. Not only that, we can be guilty of not prioritising when and how we handle our emails – instead trying to deal… Read more
Project management is considered to have three fundamental dimensions: Time Cost Quality A useful exercise at the start of a project is to ask key stakeholders which aspect is most important to them. Not just on the internal team, but the wider group of stakeholders who will have an interest in the project. Try asking… Read more
Working with people in groups and 1:1, I often get involved with goal setting – and I take my own medicine, setting goals for myself too. It’s been both my experience and observation that we can set the bar way too high, so high that the goal can seem impossible in the time we have… Read more
Here’s a very handy book for anyone who wants to have more productive meetings and deliver more persuasive presentations. The deluge of email (about which I wrote last week) is a major productivity drain. The other major time bandit is wading through the swamp of meetings. Mark Edwards makes a living helping people compellingly show… Read more
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