Your network is the people you know and stay in contact with. The size and quality of your network has a huge impact on your opportunities in life. Obviously, keeping your network "healthy" is instrumental in growing it. What is a healthy network? A healthy network is one where the people who know you, think of your name when there is an opportunity that you might be interested in, a job you might like, or question you can answer, or a favor you can provide. Notice, it isn't just about taking--it is about people thinking of you both when they need something and when they can help you. In this post, we are going to look at five tips that will help make you a networking genius--someone … [Read more...] about 5 Tips for Networking Geniuses
Archives for 2010
Why You Aren’t Successful
If you feel you are wildly successful, then you probably don't need to read this. However, if you are only moderately successful, you probably spend a lot of time wondering what the people who are wildly successful are doing differently than you. There is one huge difference between successful and unsuccessful people. That difference is their ability to finish. Yes, luck, connections, family, training and a number of other factors influence success, but none of those things really matter if you can't finish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPTfO8U3kCs Things of Value Success is a matter of producing things of value. That doesn't mean everything you create and finish will be a … [Read more...] about Why You Aren’t Successful
Happiness Project Video
We reviewed the Happiness Project a month or so ago. Gretchen just wrapped up a television advertising campaign. You can watch the ad on YouTube. If you are interested in television advertising, be sure to read how she used Google to get her ad on national television. … [Read more...] about Happiness Project Video
Technology Worth Noticing
Here is a short collection of different pieces of technology I've dealt with lately that might be worth looking into if you ever have a need for the particular problems each one solves. Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Ubuntu's newest version of Linux is a nice step forward. Ubuntu is an operating system. You can install it in place of Microsoft Windows or OS X. After playing with it a few hours, I've been impressed with the new look and feel. It includes a number of free applications as part of the default installation very much on par with (if not better than) what you'd expect to get with a commercial operating system. For general computing where a good deal of your work is done on the Internet, … [Read more...] about Technology Worth Noticing
How to keep from Wasting Time on the Web
I saw this quote on a mailing list: For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have not net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time. -- Richard Stallman Basically, if he wants a page, he sends an email to a special address asking for it and the page is emailed back to him. That is definitely one way to keep from wasting time on the internet. A lot of times the internet doesn't help productivity because it wastes just as much time as it saves. Here are some tips for keeping focused. Block Ads - Ads are there to … [Read more...] about How to keep from Wasting Time on the Web
Prepare for Next Year’s Taxes
With tax season behind us, it is worth taking a few minutes to prepare for next year. As the deficit rises, it seems pretty difficult to imagine that our taxes won't be going up in one form or another. A little preparation can help make sure that you pay no more than your fair share. Tax folder Start a folder today for 2010 tax papers. Even if you don't put anything in it, having it ready helps make sure that you don't accidentally misplace something when it does come in. Many people spend more time looking for tax papers than they do actually preparing their taxes. This folder is also a great place to keep anything that will help you with your taxes. If you read about a tax credit … [Read more...] about Prepare for Next Year’s Taxes
Can Exercise Make You Fat?
Sounds like a stupid question doesn't it? We all know the answer. Exercising in and of itself will not make you fat. However, the side effects of exercising can encourage behavior that will make you gain weight. Unless you understand how you mentally react to exercising, it is easy to get in a situation where your rituals around exercise can make you put on the pounds instead of shedding them. Self-control Most people tend to treat self-control as a finite commodity. In other words, if they exercise self-control in one area, they will lessen the self-control they apply in another area. Some of this is a mentality of trying to reward yourself for good behavior. So if you exercise for … [Read more...] about Can Exercise Make You Fat?
Diversified Income
Nearly everyone knows that, when it comes to investing, you shouldn't put all of your eggs into one basket. Investing in many different types of investments helps lower the risk that a downturn in a particular area will wipe you out, financially. (See the story about a man who only invested in street cars.) Most people don't take what is common knowledge about investing and apply it to other areas. In particular, they don't apply it to their income. When you are in a position where all of your income is determined by a single employer, you are just like the guy who had all of his money in street cars. Many dual-income families have some level of diversification by having two adults … [Read more...] about Diversified Income
Reading More
Most people agree that reading is very beneficial and lament the fact that they don't have time to read more. Here are five simple tips to help you fit more reading into your busy schedule. Keep a book with you. Keeping a book with you gives you a productive way to fill in those little 10- to 20-minute pockets of time where you are waiting on someone or something. Not every book is good to read in short bursts, so choose something that works well with the time spans to which you plan to commit. Stop reading something if you don't like it. Just because you started a book doesn't mean you have to finish it--no matter how many awards it has won. I started reading The Sound and the Fury … [Read more...] about Reading More
Stop Squandering Time At Home
Most of us put a good deal of time into running our households. There are always floors to vacuum, bathrooms to clean, and garbage to take out. Other than hiring a maid, there is no way to do away with all these activities. However, a little planning ahead can drastically reduce how much time you spend on some of these activities. This is a list of simple time- and work-saving ideas for your home. Minimize soap scum It seems that soap gets everything clean except shower walls. In your bathroom, soap becomes the dirt you are trying to remove. However, some soaps stick more than others. I recently tried an experiment with different types of soap and noticed a very big difference in the … [Read more...] about Stop Squandering Time At Home
Money Thoughts
Here is a short collection of money tips and thoughts as we reach the April 15th tax deadline. Homebuyers credit The home buyers credit expires after April 30. First time home buyers can get a $8,000 refundable credit and there is a $6,500 credit available for current home owners to buy a different home. April 30th is the deadline to sign a binding contract, but you have until June 30th to completely close the deal. Claiming the home buyers credit will force you to file on paper and your return will be subject to much closer inspection. The IRS plans to audit some 200,000 returns of people who took the home buyers credit so be sure to do your best to provide all the necessary … [Read more...] about Money Thoughts
Power of Physical Mail
In a world where many of us send off over 100 emails each day, it is easy to overlook the power of a physical letter delivered by the mail man. With so much information coming by email, sending a physical letter can help make your message special and more memorable. Here are some thoughts for making the most of sending physical letters. Real stamps Don't go to all the trouble of making something personal and special and then ruin it with an ugly postage meter. Use real stamps. In many cases, you can match the purpose of your letter to a specific stamp design. Forever stamps will let you mail a First Class letter, even if the cost of sending letters goes up in the future. You buy … [Read more...] about Power of Physical Mail
17 Things you Should Stop Doing
This is a list of 17 things you shouldn't be doing any more because they waste time. Old habits die hard and it can be difficult to shift yourself from an old familiar way of doing something to a new, better way. Take a look at the list and see if there is anything you can change to help make you more productive. If you have any suggestions please add them in the comments. Manually Depositing a Paycheck -- That is what direct deposit is for. If you spend 15 minutes every two weeks dealing with depositing your paycheck that is 65 hours over the next 10 years. Put this time to better use. Writing Checks for Bills -- That is what the bill pay service from your bank is for. … [Read more...] about 17 Things you Should Stop Doing
A Talk With The FBI
I recently had a chance to talk with an FBI agent who works with computer evidence. Here are some of the things I took away from the conversation. A lot of his job is fairly easy because most criminals have no idea how a computer works. I asked if he ran into any type of encryption very often and he said it was very rare. There was only one case where someone was using encryption and he said it was completely luck that they were able to catch him because he hadn't chosen a very good password. Now I'm not telling you this so you can go out and start a life of crime. But the things that make Mr. FBI Agent's life easier also make the life of identity thieves a lot easier. So what do … [Read more...] about A Talk With The FBI
Email newsletter problem
It looks like our last email newsletter went out without showing the excerpt for each post and instead only showed an internal ad for our ambient sounds. This ad should have only been shown when viewing the full feed. This wasn't intentional and I apologize for the mess up. I'm working with Aweber to get this fixed. … [Read more...] about Email newsletter problem
Harvard Online Master’s Degree
There are few things that will give you a better boost in lifetime productivity than a good solid education--you are essentially upgrading your mind to understand, comprehend and process more. Modern technology is making education surprisingly easy to obtain and inexpensive. Years ago, you'd get a bachelor's degree, go work for a big company and eventually retire with a gold watch. That model doesn't really work anymore. If you want to maximize your potential, you need continual education. This can be be formal and informal, but in this article we are going to look at my experience getting a formal education that leads to a degree while working full time. In particular, we are going to … [Read more...] about Harvard Online Master’s Degree
Messy Desks
One of the greatest hindrances to productivity isn't particularly technical or complex in nature. It isn't something that's usually difficult to solve, but it takes time and effort. Messy desks are responsible for some of the most frustrating (and sometimes, humorous) incidents throughout a workday. That contract you can't find? The glasses that always seem to walk away? Clutter on a desk tends to conceal things when you most need them. However, there is a humorous side to this issue. Here are some funny stories a few people agreed to share with us. My ex-husband and I both officed out of the house. As a former marine officer, he always kept his desktop completely clear of papers. My … [Read more...] about Messy Desks
Home Office – Effective Design
I work from my home office. My commute is a 30-second walk down the hall, down the stairs and into the portion of our house dedicated to my business. As we've moved around, I've built 7 or 8 different home offices. My home offices have ranged from a small corner in a bedroom in downtown Durango, Mexico where the chair would collapse several times each day and we had to be wary of scorpions, to my current, spacious 1000 sq foot office with its own bathroom, fireplace and outside entrance. I've found a lot of things that work well and a lot of things that didn't work out so well. In this post, we are going to discuss some of the issues and planning that should go into setting up an effective … [Read more...] about Home Office – Effective Design
Your Intelligence – Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
We looked previously at some ways to appear smarter and look more intelligent. In this post I want to talk about ways to actually become smarter. A portion of your intelligence appears to be fixed. Research seems to indicate that there is little you can do to drastically increase your IQ. However, IQ is only one component of functional intelligence. Your knowledge, experience and training have a very profound effect on your ability to solve real-world problems. So even if you can't directly increase your IQ, you can increase your ability and speed to solve problems, which functionally accomplishes nearly the same thing. We are going to look at three areas as the foundation for … [Read more...] about Your Intelligence – Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
9 Tips for Effective Online Meetings
Recently we wrote a popular article on how to have effective meetings. Some people pointed out that online meetings require a special set of skills, and it can be difficult to follow the same advice that we gave for in-person meetings. With so many people working from home, it seemed like a good idea to address these types of meetings. Since I primarily work from home, a good percentage of my meetings are done using video conferencing and screen sharing. After doing this for several years, here are some of the top tips I'd offer for people who are starting to do online meetings. 1. Stay focused It is easy to get distracted or try to multi-task when you are in an online meeting. Don't … [Read more...] about 9 Tips for Effective Online Meetings
5 Tips To Become More Valuable At Work
Not all workers are equal. If your company gets ready to do round of layoffs, you want to be in the group of people who are seen as vital and valuable. In this article, we are going to look at a few ways to increase the value you bring to your job in ways that are likely to get noticed. 1. Show up 5 minutes early If your boss shows up at 9 am like clockwork, then getting to work at 8:59, yourself, is a very worthwhile 1-minute investment. Even if you have to arrive 5 minutes early, it is well worth it to be there before your boss if at all possible. Think about it this way: If your boss has to cut one employee and all other factors are equal, do you think he will cut the person who he … [Read more...] about 5 Tips To Become More Valuable At Work
Paperless Office – Reducing Paper Creation
When people think of a paperless office, they usually focus on how to store documents in a digital form. This is important, but it misses the real point of going paperless. The real benefit comes from creating documents in way that they are digital for the entire lifetime. Once a document gets printed out, you've broken the paperless life cycle. This is why scanners are simply a stop-gap solution for paperless offices. If your paperless system is set up right, scanners should only be needed to handle documents from people who aren't yet paperless. So how do you create documents that can remain paperless for their entire life cycle? Here are some areas to think about: How will others … [Read more...] about Paperless Office – Reducing Paper Creation
Valuable Activities
When it comes to what you spend, your money on you should focus on things that appreciate instead of things that depreciate. For example, if you buy a house for a fair price, it will generally be worth more in 15 years than what you paid for it. If you purchase a sports car, it will generally be worth less. When it comes to how you spend your time, you have to think in the same way. Some activities are inherently more valuable than others. Activities that make you more valuable or create something that will produce an income for later make for a better use of your time than activities that produce no lasting benefit. A common trait I see in successful people is that what they do for … [Read more...] about Valuable Activities
Passwords – Different For Each Account
The founder of Facebook has been accused of using information from Facebook to break into email accounts at Harvard Crimson (Harvard's newspaper). While I don't know if it is true or not, the technique is plausible and is an excellent demonstration of why you shouldn't use the same password for every website and how important it is to create secure passwords. The story says that the Facebook founder was concerned about a story the Crimson planned on running. He located people on Facebook who said they worked at the Crimson. Since it sounds like Facebook stores passwords in a secure manner, he couldn't simply look them up from the database. Instead, he went through the server's logs to try … [Read more...] about Passwords – Different For Each Account
Reducing Email Overload
Email is one of those things that can be both a great time-saver and a huge waste of time. The idea of being able to send a message to someone across the country and get a reply back in hours or even minutes is amazing, even though we take it for granted. Unfortunately, email has become a victim of its own success, and it's easy to drown in the huge volume of electronic messages that come in each day. In this article, we are going to look at some ways to help reduce email overload by looking at strategies and methods for getting the most out of email without letting it run your life. Multiple Mailboxes Not all email is created equal. Some email you never want to see. Other emails … [Read more...] about Reducing Email Overload
How to do a Time Audit
There is often a great discrepancy between the way you spend your time and the way you think you spend your time. A time audit helps you look at exactly how your time is being used so you can better understand where your time is going. One form of a time audit is to simply keep a log of your time. This works to a certain extent, but it tends to better show how you want to spend your time instead of how your time is actually spent. For a time audit to be effective, it needs to reflect your actual work history. Here is a simple method for doing a time audit that will help show how your time is actually spent. Get some type of timer that can be set for a specific interval of time. You … [Read more...] about How to do a Time Audit
DocuSign Review
As environmental and financial pressures increase on today's businesses, managers and other administrative workers are constantly on the look-out for cost-cutting methods and ideas. One way to save both money and impact on the environment that has become popular in the last several years is paperless technology. Eliminating paper trails has other benefits, as well, besides those to the environment and finances. Organization is much more structured and convenient when it is done on a searchable hard drive rather than in a file cabinet. These reasons, among others, are some of the factors that have convinced some companies to rely less on physical paper and more on online tools and … [Read more...] about DocuSign Review
Productivity – What is it?
What is productivity? Productivity is simply the amount of output you get per unit of input. It is a way to compare the cost of something to its benefit. So if you have an input of 5 and output of 5, your productivity is lower than something with an input of 5 and an output of 10. Productivity is kind of like the miles per gallon on your car. It tells you how far you can go on a given amount of input (gasoline for your car). In this article, we are going to look at productivity from your boss' perspective and then talk about personal productivity. Employee Productivity In mathematical terms, productivity is output divided by effort. So if O = output, I = input then P = … [Read more...] about Productivity – What is it?
Yojimbo Review
With computers becoming even more central than ever in the information age, many people are looking for ways to "unclutter" their hard drives. Sometimes the default structure just isn't quite enough to organize things quickly and efficiently. For those that favor web applications, there have been quite a few pieces of organizational software written for both Mac and PC. However, Yojimbo is written specifically for Mac users (there is no PC version). Yojimbo offers a neat feature that lets the user store information quickly, without interrupting work flow. Once the software is installed, a tab appears on the left-hand side of the screen on the desktop. Some users may like this feature … [Read more...] about Yojimbo Review
Reputable Language
When you put yourself into a new social context, one of the things you learn is a new vocabulary. This is natural and normal. However, you must give care to develop vocabulary habits that will benefit and not hinder you in the future. I started college in 1994. After a few weeks on campus, I realized there were quite a few words and phrases that were in common usage that I was going to start using simply by being around them. While most of them were benign, there were several that I was a bit unsure whether I wanted to adopt or not. I'm not talking about obscenities. I'm talking about things like: Crap - Often used as an expletive, adjective or adverb. Sucks - Used to describe … [Read more...] about Reputable Language
5 Questions To Help Organize Your Desk
Look at your desk right now. Is it messy? If so, don't feel too bad. It isn't uncommon. This post is a series of questions to ask about the stuff that is currently on your desk. Asking these questions will help you find the cause of a messy desk and give you some ideas for stopping the disorganization at its root. This is vastly more beneficial than simply taking the time to clean your desk right now, because if you don't change your process and organization, you'll be back in the same position in a week or so. 1. Do you have reading materials on your desk? One common source of desktop disorganization is reading materials. Magazines, newspapers, etc. that come to you that you feel … [Read more...] about 5 Questions To Help Organize Your Desk
The Power of Knowing
A lot of time-management techniques suggest creating some sort of prioritized to-do list. Why? What is so special about having a pre-determined order assigned to the things you need to do? Obviously, picking your kids up from school is a bigger priority than washing your car, but for the things that are nearly equal, what does it matter? It turns out that there is a very good reason that so many people recommend this. Good time management has an arch enemy. It isn't interruptions or even procrastination. The big foe to good time management is indecision. Knowing exactly what you need to do next wards off indecision. Even if the order is somewhat arbitrary, there is value in having … [Read more...] about The Power of Knowing
It’s Hard to Learn From Your Own Mistakes
Failure gives you a chance to learn. When you make a mistake you can learn from that mistake and not make it again. Right? Well, yes, in theory. The problem with this approach is that failure triggers strong emotions and makes it very difficult to focus on the cause of the failure. For example, let's say that you were fired from a job. (Feel free to substitute your own big failure for this scenario.) When you think about being fired, your mind will focus on the emotional part of it--the being fired part, cleaning out your desk, walking out of the building, looking for a new job, etc. These are the things that are strongly branded in your brain because they contained the most emotion. … [Read more...] about It’s Hard to Learn From Your Own Mistakes
Privacy and Technology
There is a current court case that involves a school that provides laptops for its students. The students are allowed to take the laptops home. These laptops had video cameras, and the school would occasionally activate the webcam of a laptop to try to figure out where it was. They activated the camera of high school student Blake Robbins and took a picture. It seems that he had some candy visible in the picture and the school system decided it looked like drugs that he was taking or selling. After Robbins was disciplined for drug use/sales, he sued the school system basically saying that not only was he falsely accused, but that they should have never turned the camera on in the … [Read more...] about Privacy and Technology
Community Links
Many Productivity501 readers also have their own blogs. In this post we wanted to feature some of the top content from you---people who leave comments on this website. So read on to discover some great posts from the Productivity501 community. 30 Days Habit Change: Waking up at 5 AM-Freestyle Mind In this post, Oscar from Freestyle Mind writes about his plan to see if getting up at 5 AM will increase his productivity. DIY Common Sense Search Optimization-Monday Morning VA Search engine optimization can seem like a daunting task, but this article gives 4 rules for optimization that can prime your web page for optimal placement page rank. Are You a Human Decision Making … [Read more...] about Community Links
On the Job MBA
A Master of Business Administration degree is designed to give a broad set of skills needed in running a business. A good deal of what you would learn from an paid, formal MBA program can be gleaned from on-the-job experience if you are paying close analytical attention resulting in a free MBA level education. This article is going to explore some of the ways you can leverage your job experience to develop many of the skills you'd get going through an MBA program. In fact, if you apply yourself to this type of education, your free MBA skill set would put you well ahead of some state school MBA's I've had to work with. Business is not rocket science. A lot of what you need to know is … [Read more...] about On the Job MBA
Income Diversification
Most people make money from their job working for someone else, and that is it. This is an extremely precarious situation, because if the job goes away, it takes away 100% of their income. The ideal situation is a number of different income sources that can all be ramped up, if necessary. In this post, we are going to look at several different sources of income. Job This is where most people make their money. They work for an employer that pays them for their time. An advantage of this type of income is that the employee doesn't have to know much about running other parts of the business. They can concentrate on their portion of their job. A janitor at Google doesn't have to … [Read more...] about Income Diversification
Who’s Got Your Back Review
I really enjoyed Never Eat Alone, so I was excited to get a review copy of Ferrazzi's new book, Who's Got Your Back. It is a good book and I'd recommend it. If you can only read one of Ferrazzi's books, I'd go for Never Eat Alone. However, I listened to an audio recording of Never Eat Alone and read a physical book of Who's Got Your Back, so I may have missed out on some of Who's Got Your Back by not hearing it read by Keith Ferrazzi, himself. Never Eat Alone talks about building a network of people that you can help and who can help you. One of the constant criticisms of anyone who is seriously working on networking with people is that these types of relationships seem superficial and … [Read more...] about Who’s Got Your Back Review
Parking Strategies
I'm amazed at how much time people are willing to spend driving around a parking lot looking for a space to park. I'm not talking about places where it is snowing and there are only limited slots in covered parking. I'm talking about the people who will drive around the lot for 15 minutes trying to avoid a 2 minute walk from the empty spaces just beyond the spots everyone is fighting for. In this post, I want to talk about optimal parking strategies, because people seem to waste so much time on the activity. But first a story: I knew someone who would occasionally go to the mall around Christmas. He would walk toward a car in the prime parking spot and invariably be followed by a … [Read more...] about Parking Strategies
Powerful Presentations
I recently gave a presentation at a business. After the presentation, I was waiting for my plane at the airport when I ran into the president of the company and his teenage daughter. We talked briefly about what their company was wanting to do. Then he said, "You have a very engaging presentation style." He then turned to his daughter and said, "You would have really enjoyed hearing Mark talk." Now that is a pretty significant compliment, in my opinion. It is often hard enough to get businesspeople to sit through a presentation. If the president actually thought a high school student would have enjoyed it, I must be doing something right. Here are some of the principles I try to … [Read more...] about Powerful Presentations
9 Tips for Effective Meetings
Meetings can be one of the biggest time drains for you as an individual and for a business. A meeting with 7 people all making $20 per hour costs a business $140 per hour. If it is a once-per-week meeting and there are 15 minutes wasted at each meeting, the total yearly waste comes to over $1,800. I don't know about you, but a one hour meeting with only 15 minutes wasted is actually a pretty good meeting, in my experience. Half of a meeting being wasted is more par for the course, and entire meetings that are unproductive is fairly common. Here are some ways you can facilitate more effective meetings and hopefully get more done in less time. 1. Make people show up on time If people … [Read more...] about 9 Tips for Effective Meetings
Business Leadership Article
Glen Stansberry wrote a nice article on 10 Examples of Tremendous Business Leadership on Open Forum. It is well worth a read if you are in any type of leadership position. … [Read more...] about Business Leadership Article
The Happiness Project Book
The Happiness Project : Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun chronicles Gretchen Rubin's year long project to see if she could increase the amount of happiness in her life. The book blends her personal narrative with facts from her research into a wonderfully fulfilling read. The book is truly brilliant and I highly recommend it. At the beginning of the book, Gretchen formulates her "Secrets of Adulthood" that she uses to help ground her project. Here are a few: People don't notice your mistakes as much as you think. It's important to be nice to everyone. If you're not failing, you're not … [Read more...] about The Happiness Project Book
Removing Distracting Sounds
A single interruption of only a few seconds can cost you 15 minutes of your day. When you get distracted from concentrating, it takes up to 15 minutes to get back to where you were before the distraction. Our ambient sounds help reduce the amount of noise distractions in your workplace. Don't forget, they are still on sale at a greatly reduced rate. … [Read more...] about Removing Distracting Sounds
10 Timesavers for Office Workers
If you work in a traditional office, you need specific strategies to help you make the most of your time. This post looks at a number of simple things you can do to save time at work. Most people can easily free up another 15 minutes per day, simply by following a few of these strategies. In the ideal world, your boss would let you cut out early with those 15 minutes you saved, but unfortunately, our society seems to be more focused on how much time you put in rather than value. Even if it doesn't translate into more time away from work, these tips can help you use your time more effectively so you can get more done and out-perform your peers as you advance your career. If you … [Read more...] about 10 Timesavers for Office Workers
Are You Interesting?
What is so special about you? Why would someone want to talk to you? More importantly (as Keith Ferrazzi points out in Never Eat Alone), why would someone want to talk about you? It is easy to get stuck in a rut of focusing on the things that make us successful in our work, but our skills are only one part of the equation. Our relationships with others are at least as important as our skills. Building relationships is much easier when you aren't a one-dimensional person. If all you do is work, you may be very good at your job, but you are drastically limiting your circle of friends. Worse still, you are limiting them to people who are very similar to yourself. Making the effort … [Read more...] about Are You Interesting?
The Difficult Things
When I'm working on something very, very difficult, I often find myself bumping up against an invisible wall. It is as if my mind just isn't clear enough to break through. For example, when trying to learn a new, complex mathematical concept, I seem to spend a lot of time teetering just on the verge of a full understanding with no real idea of what is holding me back. It is like looking through a fog. The feeling is similar to running at your top speed and trying to go just a little bit faster. Obviously, this is very frustrating. You can almost taste success, but it just isn't happening. When I find myself in this situation, I can sometimes get past it by focusing more. This … [Read more...] about The Difficult Things
A Culture of Obesity
I hadn't heard of Kevin Smith until reading in the news that he had been asked to deplane a Southwest flight because he was too big. Evidently, he directed and acted in some movies I haven't seen. For those of you who missed all the "excitement," here is what happened. Due to his ample girth, Mr. Smith buys two Southwest tickets when he flies. (Correction: Kevin says this is the first week he bought two tickets and he does it because he is shy. Southwest says he routinely buys two tickets. Doesn't matter for the point of this article, but I thought I'd be clear.) That way, it guarantees him an open adjacent seat. If the flight sells out, Southwest keeps the price of the empty seat … [Read more...] about A Culture of Obesity
Friendly Space
I've heard a lot of people say that people on the East coast are less friendly than the people they meet in the Midwest. One of my professors at Harvard who grew up in Kansas said that he didn't think Wal-Mart would do well in the Cambridge area because they wouldn't be able to find anyone who could cheerfully say "Welcome to Wal-Mart!" at the front door. So what might account for the difference in friendliness between people in rural Kansas and Harvard Square? I think there is a simple explanation, and it is the same reason people don't talk on elevators. When you get on the elevator with a bunch of people you don't know, it is rare for anyone to talk, even if they are people you … [Read more...] about Friendly Space
Links from Comments
In this post we wanted to highlight the websites from a few members of the Productivity501 community who have left comments recently. Thank you to everyone for reading and to comment leavers for taking part in the discussion. Enlightr We hear a lot of talk today about how the internet can bring about information overload to those who use it. Enlightr is a product that summarizes important information so that you don't have to wade through irrelevant information. MikeKey.com Michael Key writes about lifestyle design and entrepreneurship at this site. He offers bits of wisdom concerning finances, learning and other topics. The Paper Tiger The Paper Tiger is a product that is a hybrid … [Read more...] about Links from Comments