The following is an article I wrote earlier for another venue. Having just moved, and dealing with an increased amount of things to do and handle, I found it particularly pertinent for me. With the end of summer and starting into the school year, I hope it is for you, too! (Note – even though it is directed at managers, I feel it is relevant for all of us – we all could be more effective at asking others to do things.)

Faced with an increasing amount of emails, interruptions, deadlines, meetings, etc., managers are often overworked. Possibly the largest avenue managers have for accomplishing more is delegating – having others achieve the results and outcomes critical to success. (more…)

Many of us will be taking vacations this summer. And, for most of us in today’s business world, vacations can be a mixed blessing. Many of us find it hard to disconnect. In addition, the preparation to get ready to go and the aftermath when we get back can be overwhelming. This discomfort is widespread, with only 53% of working Americans saying they come back feeling rested and rejuvenated after vacation, and 30% saying they have trouble coping with work stress while they’re away, according to an Expedia.com survey reported in the Wall Street Journal. (more…)

A colleague forwarded to me a video on YouTube, “The Secret Powers of Time,” which is a talk by Philip Zimbardo accompanied by animation. There is much I found provocative in the talk, and there are two points that particularly struck me. (more…)

Putting it simply, what we accomplish, our performance, is a function of what we do and what we don’t do. I’ll say this holds true for us as individuals and for organizations.

Okay, you may be saying, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is that most of what we do is habitual, and habits, by definition, are unconscious patterns of behavior. For the most part we don’t even realize when we are operating in a habit – we’re on automatic. It’s not that habits are bad. It’s just that we are unaware of them when they are in play, particularly those habits that limit our effectiveness and performance. (more…)

At Mission Control we often speak about the benefit of being able to focus. It seems that when we are able to focus fully on one thing, we are more energized and at the same time peaceful, our creativity is more available, we feel more satisfied, and we accomplish more in a shorter timeframe. (more…)

In going through some magazines that were in my “Never Doing Now” pile, I read the issue of Fortune magazine in which they named Steve Jobs the CEO of the decade. In addition to wishing I was the one who came up with the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes, Pixar, etc., I considered something I hadn’t considered before regarding Steve Job’s success. (more…)

I suspect we’ve all had the experience of observing what someone is doing and asking ourselves, “Why are they doing that?” If you are a manager I would be almost certain you have had that experience more than once!

Faced with doing more with fewer resources, as many of us are, the normal “noise” in organizations we have been able to tolerate in the past can now seem more distracting and even debilitating. It can seem that the actions of others impede and even thwart the fulfillment of what is of greatest importance. (more…)

“Life cannot wait until the sciences have explained the universe. We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness; it is always urgent, ‘here and now,’ without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank.”
–Jose Ortega y Gasset

While there is much to what Jose Ortega y Gasset has said, the one aspect I particularly feel during this time of year and in this era is that “life is fired at us point blank.” Many of the people I speak with feel the same way. And, it seems that life is accelerating. I am not sure whether it is a function of getting older, the time of year, the economic climate or something else. (more…)