When you work for a bad boss, it is easy to just try to "keep your head down" and do your job. If your boss is merely annoying, this isn't a bad strategy. Maybe he/she will get replaced someday and the risk of trying to find another job may not seem like it is worth it. However, I want to suggest that if your boss is really bad, he/she can do a lot more damage to you and to your career than just being an annoyance. Let me tell you a story. The names have been changed to protect the guilty and the innocent, but the facts are real. Acme Inc. employed about 150 people. One of the assistants there seemed very competent. We will call her Sally. Sally was an above average worker, … [Read more...] about The Dangerous Boss
Archives for 2010
EchoSign Review – Electronic Signatures Made Easy
This is a review of Echosign a popular product for handling online electronic signatures. In my years in college and in the work force, I haven't heard many people say that they enjoy paperwork. Sometimes it's time consuming, rather boring and potentially messy. EchoSign is a product designed to help eliminate physical paper trails. Keeping track of several different documents from the same transaction can be frustrating, especially if you want to work in a paperless environment. For those that prefer to keep the paper trail organized in computer files instead of physical files, EchoSign would be a great help. This Echosign review will attempt to familiarize readers with the basics of … [Read more...] about EchoSign Review – Electronic Signatures Made Easy
Random Stuff
Here is a bunch of random information I've discovered over the last few months. I figured it might be interesting for someone, so I thought I'd post it all together. If you see anything that you think would be interesting to see a full post about, please leave a comment and we'll try to write about it in more detail. Overdrive Digital Library Many state libraries have digital books, audio books and movies that can be checked out electronically from a company called Overdrive. Most of the time, all you need for access is a card from a local library or your state library. The checkout process works like it does for physical books. If the library has only purchased one copy, only one … [Read more...] about Random Stuff
High Goals and Expectations
Everyone has a different idea about success. Many times our expectations are determined by the way we were raised and our interaction with our peers. These expectations can cause us to set artificially low goals. I know a man whose goal is to get his GED so he can get a job and make payments on a car. I just met a girl who has a goal to finish a 9-month cosmetology program so she can work at SuperCuts in front of Wal-Mart. When looking at your goals, make sure you understand the expectations you carry that influence the magnitude of those goals. If no one in your family went to college, you will probably set your expectations for your education lower than someone whose parents … [Read more...] about High Goals and Expectations
Tuesday’s Tip: Dressed for Productivity
You've heard of "Dressed for Success." Well, what about "Dressed for Productivity?" I think that the way we dress can have a big impact on our performance. Where I went to college required that all the guys wear ties and all the gals wear dresses to class. There was quite a bit of debate among the students about whether this was really beneficial or not. Many students met the dress code to the letter, but were extremely sloppy in the way that the were dressed. Overall, it would probably be impossible to tell if having a dress code helped make anyone a better student (although it helped guarantee that all the guys knew how to tie a tie by the time they graduated.) Personally … [Read more...] about Tuesday’s Tip: Dressed for Productivity
The Most for Your Minute
(In this series of posts, we are examining ways to better manage our time.) The Order of Tasks There is a survival simulation where you are trapped in a cave. There is a single ladder going to the surface that can only hold one person at a time. There are two other individuals with you. One is younger than you and can climb faster. The other is older than you and can climb slower. Your job is to decide the order that people should leave the cave--oh I forgot to mention there is water rising and if you don't do it in the correct order, someone will drown. The trick is to send the older person last because they can still be on the ladder climbing as the water covers the area … [Read more...] about The Most for Your Minute
Getting More Out of Your Job
Most people focus on their paycheck as the reward for their work. While it is true that this is a significant portion of what you get in exchange for your time and effort, there are often other benefits. Many jobs offer benefits like: Health insurance Life insurance Retirement accounts Financial planning services Training opportunities Tuition reimbursement Contribution matching Mentoring programs Corporate discounts Wellness & Fitness programs Not every job offers every benefit mentioned above, but I'm consistently amazed at how many people have no idea what their company offers. The best way to find out what is available is to get a copy of your employee … [Read more...] about Getting More Out of Your Job
Easier to Buy Than to Use
It is much easier to buy exercise equipment than to use it to get into shape. I'm taking advantage of that right now by creating a home gym of used equipment for about 1/3rd the cost of new. Exercise equipment isn't the only thing that is easier to buy than to really use. It is very easy to become enamored with high-tech devices that promise to save hours of time when we are in the purchasing stage, but fail to execute when it comes to really implementing them. This isn't just a problem for individuals. I routinely see businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on software designed to make them more efficient, only to lose most of the advantages because they don't have the … [Read more...] about Easier to Buy Than to Use
The Most for Your Minute
I still believe that the most productive people are the ones who only do a few things, but do those things very, very well. However, that isn't a luxury most of us have--especially early on in our careers. In this series of posts, we are going to look at ways to better manage our time and get the best return on investment. Time is an Investment Speaking of your return on investment--just thinking of time as an investment can help you become more productive. Changing your mindset about time and seeing it as a currency that you can spend as you choose helps put you in a frame of reference to value time appropriately. When you spend your time, you can spend it in areas where there is a … [Read more...] about The Most for Your Minute
Concentrating with Ambient Sounds
Do you ever have a hard time concentrating because of noisy distractions? Wouldn't it be ideal if you could break out the walls in your office and place your desk 25 or 30 feet away from that noisy employee, grinding printer, or chirping phone? Most of the time, you can't do anything about your physical space and your proximity to noisy distractions. But you can give yourself some sonic space. Just think, if you could take the sound of your co-workers' chitchatting 5 feet away and make it sound like they are 30 feet away. Wouldn't that accomplish pretty much the same thing as physically moving your desk away from them? Do you wish your co-workers had volume controls? You can't turn … [Read more...] about Concentrating with Ambient Sounds
Odds of Success
It has been years since I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, but one of the things I remember the most was the way Robert Kiyosaki said he approached starting his business. He knew that four out of five businesses fail, so he figured he should plan on starting 5 businesses in order to get one that succeeded. This is valuable thinking. When you approach your success goals with the idea that you will need to learn from some failures along the way, you can be much more realistic about what you are trying to achieve. It is also much easier to handle failure when you see it as part of your path to success. Failure should be a springboard to help you do better on the next try. But if you start out … [Read more...] about Odds of Success
Tips for Exercise
The trick to exercising is to make it a part of your lifestyle instead of just something you attempt to do a few times each week. This post is going to look at several things you can do to integrate exercise into your life. Do you have anything you do to help keep yourself active? Please share in the comments. Put your exercise equipment in front of the TV. Move out the sofa and chair and move in the exercise bike. Your goal is to make it as easy as possible to exercise. This works particularly well if you are working your way through a set of cliffhanger-type TV shows on DVD. You still have to put effort into exercising. Just sitting on a piece of exercise equipment won't help … [Read more...] about Tips for Exercise
25 Hour Day
Brett Kelly has a post on four ways to create a 25 hour day. And they don't involve doing any weird things with lights or living in a cave. … [Read more...] about 25 Hour Day
Offline Reading
As more and more content becomes available on the internet it is easy to shift our reading online. There are some benefits to this. It is easy to get timely information on breaking events quickly. The downside is that you can spend a good deal of time reading things with little value or worse. Your educational reading can degrade into a few hours of mindless surfing the web. Sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, and Reddit supply a constant stream of interesting content that often is little more than a waste of time. I'm not saying that you can't get anything valuable off of the web. However, if most of your reading is done online the chances of it turning into a waste of time are high … [Read more...] about Offline Reading
Borders
My wife and I moved to Mexico for a few months in 2006. I've been struck by how different people perceive the US Southern border. To some it is a definite line, something you don't cross without much fear and trembling. Other people see the border as a soft separation. It is the crossing point to another culture, but something that you can easily cross and return. Generally, the people who see the border as a barrier are the ones who don't really understand much about Mexico and haven't made many trips out of the United States. People with more knowledge and experience in international travel don't see the border as a barrier. As I noticed this great divide in how people perceive … [Read more...] about Borders
Digital Signatures
Over the past few days, the most popular post on this site has been our explanation of how Digital Signatures & Encryption works. Understanding this is key for our society to get past the point of using dead dinosaurs (gasoline) to ship around dead trees (paper). Please take a few minutes to read it and pass it on. The more people that understand it, the easier it will be to move to more paperless and more efficient work processes. … [Read more...] about Digital Signatures
Workstations
If a bus station is where a bus stops and a train station is where a train stops, what happens at a workstation? … [Read more...] about Workstations
Chandler Review
Throughout the past few years, open source applications have been rapidly increasing in popularity. Venerable products such as Firefox, Thunderbird and Linux are widely used by the public, and Firefox, especially, has become a success. A group of developers called OSAF (Open Source Applications Foundation) has created a personal information management product called Chandler. Chandler is based on some of the principles of GTD, much like OmniFocus. However, Chandler also shares some characteristics with Evernote, such as the fact that both products have a web version and desktop version that sync with each other, providing automatic back-up. Chandler is free, runs on Mac, Windows and … [Read more...] about Chandler Review
Evernote Review
If you want to know how to use Evernote better, check out the ebook Evernote Essentials (aff). It covers a number of different use cases and shows you how to use Evernote to stay organized and get more done. It also covers a number of features that you are unlikely to discover on your own. Evernote gives whole new meaning to the word "synchronized." This software uses technology to help users organize various types of information from several different sources into one, central, web-based location. The product also allows users to clip web pages and archive them for later reference, store screen shots, photos and text notes, all within a customizable storage system. Evernote will also … [Read more...] about Evernote Review
5 Things That Save Me Time
Amazon Prime We live in rural Fort Scott, Kansas and while I like to try to shop local, there is a lot of stuff we need that simply isn't available nearby. Amazon Prime gives me free two day shipping on most of their items. This means I can place an order on Monday afternoon and have it Wednesday. For an extra $3.99 per item I can get it the next day. I've used this to buy everything from books to fruit juicers to network cables. Working from Home Working from home means I don't have to waste any time getting in a car and going somewhere every day. My office is down the hall and down the stairs. Its not that uncommon to find people who are putting 6 hours (or more) into just sitting … [Read more...] about 5 Things That Save Me Time
The Productive Scholar
When most people think of going to college, they imagine a huge time drain and hours of studying. While the hours of studying is certainly a truth that can't be avoided, there are some major benefits to attending college as far as learning to manage time wisely. In my classes this past semester, I encountered many non-traditional students with families, second jobs, their own businesses and many, many other pursuits. Each of these students also had a full class load. Though the norm for traditional students entering college is to be able to slack off a bit, being able to watch the older students (and some younger ones) juggle a schedule I didn't think possible was a real learning … [Read more...] about The Productive Scholar
New Year’s Resolutions
New year's resolutions have a bad name. They have become somewhat synonymous with "making promises you don't intend to keep" and "setting unrealistic expectations. Resolutions can be a very helpful tool, but you have to approach them in a smart way. 1. Resolutions should be daily or weekly tasks. Setting a resolution of "getting in shape" is setting yourself up for disappointment. A resolution of "go to the gym at least twice per week" is better. A resolution of "do 15 pushups each day" is another good one. Focus your resolution on the specific actions you will take--not on what you hope to achieve. 2. Set small, specific tasks as resolutions Resolutions need to be something … [Read more...] about New Year’s Resolutions
Other’s Perceptions – Are You a Threat?
Often others' perceptions of our actions are often more important that our intentions. One of the questions to ask yourself is: "Does this person see me or my actions as a threat?" Years ago, I was a young manager at a large, non-profit organization. About two years into my job, I started noticing an unusual amount of resistance from one of the vice presidents. It got to the point where it seemed as if any decision I made would result in his expending a great amount of effort to get it overturned. It got to the point where it almost seemed silly. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Eventually, I spoke with a much wiser retiree who was familiar with the organizational … [Read more...] about Other’s Perceptions – Are You a Threat?
Links of Interest from LifeRemix
Eight Tactics for Dealing with Professional Burnout-The Simple Dollar This article gives helpful advice about dealing with the feelings that often come with working at the same vocation for many years. Some of the author's tips include learning new things, forging new friendships and sharing the knowledge that you have gained over the years. How to Make the Most of Your 401K-Wisebread Most of those in the work force have 401K's or have heard of them. However, the in's and out's of accounts and investments are often overlooked and/or misunderstood. This article from Wisebread provides beneficial information to those that are interested in getting the maximum benefit from their … [Read more...] about Links of Interest from LifeRemix
Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Review
Email has evolved so much over the past few years that the services that were once predominant are no longer used as much, and some may be considered even obsolete. In the fast-paced world of technology, one of the things that has seemingly gone by the wayside is desktop email. With Gmail and Hotmail garnering many clients, most people choose to use an web-based email client, instead. However, one surprisingly pleasant desktop email client has been recently updated with several unique features. Mozilla Thunderbird is an open source desktop email client (for Windows, Mac and Linux) that is based on the same basic principles as Firefox. While Firefox is the browser I prefer to use, I had … [Read more...] about Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Review