RssA1: Up Market

vineri, 30 martie 2012

Up Market

Up Market


What To Do When Your Cat Erases Your To-Do List

Posted: 30 Mar 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Dear Kirsten,

A Fantastical living with lots of animals, here, and I’ve got a rather interesting conundrum. One of my cats, Chairman Meow, has always had a habit of chewing on loose papers, so I’ve shifted to keeping my to-do list on a whiteboard near my desk. It’s next to a filing cabinet, which my assistant maintains, and up until a few weeks ago it was working really well.

Then items started disappearing from the list. I wasn’t erasing them, and neither was my assistant, but I was at a loss until I came in to find Chairman perched on the cabinet and erasing the list with his paw!

Clearly the answer was to move the board, which I’ve done, but how do I deal with the larger problem of animal-based disruptions?

Signed,
The Zookeeper

Dear Zookeeper,

Have you considered renting this cat out as a circus animal? It seems he would be an enormous hit, and it would get him out of the house for long periods of time.

Since you have lots of animals, I would seriously look into finding an office space that isn’t located in your home. Your more well-behaved friends can come with you into the office, and your to-do erasing cat can stay at home, leaving you free to produce in peace.

If an alternate space isn’t an option, consider banning disruptive animals from your work space or investing in some strategically placed shock pads to keep roving kitties away from places where they can disrupt mission critical pieces of your productivity framework. One pad placed on top of the filing cabinet, for example, would have kept your to-do list paw free and legible.

Good luck with your zoo!

Kirsten

Got a productivity conundrum? E-mail Kirsten and get your answer!

How to Ace Any Job Interview

Posted: 30 Mar 2012 03:00 AM PDT

This lens is for anyone who would like to improve their confidence and skills in preparing for and performing well in job interviews.

18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

Posted: 29 Mar 2012 02:00 PM PDT

Book Recommendation: 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman

Every once in a while I read a book that changes my life. 18 Minutes is such a book. This book describes a simple system (and by simple, I mean extremely easy) that has increased my productivity by leaps and bounds. How is this possible? Well, by using the 18 Minute method I have learned to focus.

Everyone knows that if we can focus we will get more done. But at the end of each day we find that we forgot to focus and the projects that we truly care about were neglected once again. My lack of focus used to frustrate me, but I could not figure out how to remember to focus. That is why 18 Minutes is brilliant. This book does more than tell you to focus. It gives you a plan so that you actually focus throughout the day and work on what is important to you. How does it work?

The title 18 Minutes refers to the amount of time you spend on the program each day. Five minutes is spent at the beginning of the day deciding what you want to focus on. Five minutes is spent at the end of the day reviewing what you accomplished and what needs to be done next. The remaining 8 minutes are broken into 8 one minute moments. Set your watch to beep at the top of each hour you work. When it beeps take one minute to assess what you are working on. Is this what you want to be working on right now? Is it the correct project or is it busywork? By checking on yourself one minute each hour you bring your focus back to your projects. Even if you were not focusing you have only lost an hour instead of a whole day. Simple and brilliant.

The other part of his book that I liked was his project chart. He creates a chart that shows his big projects and what work needs to be done on each of them. He then transfers the steps he wants to complete for the day to his to-do list. I have started doing this because it is handy to have a master list, but I would get overwhelmed it I had to look at it all day long.

I highly recommend the book 18 Minutes. Hopefully it will improve your work life like it has improved mine.

For more information on the 18 Minute method, check out the website: www.peterbregman.com

Photo Credit: BookMoving.com

Jonah Lehrer’s Latest Book, Imagine, Teaches Us All How to Be More Creative

Posted: 29 Mar 2012 10:00 AM PDT

At age 30, author Jonah Lehrer already has a long list of credentials to his name. Besides acting as contributing editor at Wired, Scientific American Mind, and National Public Radio's Radiolab, he has authored three books. His latest, Imagine: How Creativity Works, looks at what gives people the ability to create.

In Imagine, Lehrer defines creativity broadly. He considers everything from the invention of masking tape to Broadway musicals, advertising campaigns to Shakespearean tragedies.

"One of the mistakes we’ve made in talking about creativity is we’ve assumed it’s a single verb, that when people are creative they're just doing one particular kind of thinking. But looking at creativity from the perspective of the brain, we can see that creativity is actually a bundle of distinct mental processes," Lehrer said in an interview with NPR.

People's work, he suggests, is dependent on the times they live in, on the problems that require solving at that particular juncture. A writer with a neuroscience background, Lehrer has used his particular creative process—one inspired by figuring out how biological processes drive human thoughts and behaviors—to bridge the gap between humanities and science.

Yet, all people working to solve problems hit a wall at some time or another. Lehrer also analyzes this aspect of the process in Imagine and broke it down for NPR listeners:

"You’re working on a creative problem, and then all of a sudden that feeling of progress disappears….What you should do then, when you hit the wall, is get away from your desk. Step away from the office. Take a long walk. Daydream. Find some way to relax," Lehrer said.

Doing so will encourage alpha waves—a signal in the brain correlated with states of relaxation. When people are more relaxed, research has shown, "they're much more likely to have those big ‘A ha!’ moments, those moments of insight where these seemingly impossible problems get solved," Lehrer said. "So when you hit the wall, the best thing you can do is probably take a very long, warm shower. The answer will only arrive once you stop looking for it.”

You could also pick up a copy of Lehrer's new book. Over 304 pages, learn how else specific things in the world around us affect our creative processes, from the color blue to centralized bathrooms in an office building.

Photo Credit: JonahLehrer.com

Niciun comentariu:

Trimiteți un comentariu