Category: Career

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Productivity Bulletin: 11/05/2014

Photo: Sean MacEntee, Flickr

  • Prepare for a presentation like it is the zombie apocalypse:

    It all boils down to the essentials and these essentials are the same when it comes to presenting. If you get these wrong, it’s your audience that become members of the undead, growling and snarling.

    http://www.masterpresenting.com/2014/10/29/stopping-zombie-presenting/

  • Having trouble tracking down someone’s email address, this website can help:
    http://www.voilanorbert.com/
  • Finding the right way to get angry…

    The aim of the discomfort caveat is to disarm the person, to keep them from becoming defensive. When someone hears that you are uncomfortable and that the conversation is difficult for you, it increases the likelihood that they will approach what you have to say with empathy. After using this opening, you can then delve deeper into what bothers you, what you think and feel in the aftermath of whatever happened (why anger emerged instead of other feelings).

    http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_right_way_to_get_angry?

  • Managing cumulative stress:

    In your day-to-day life, there are things that fill your bucket up. These are inputs like sleep, nutrition, meditation, stretching, laughter, and other forms of recovery.

    There are also forces that drain the water from your bucket. These are outputs like lifting weights or running, stress from work or school, relationship problems, or other forms of stress and anxiety.

    http://jamesclear.com/cumulative-stress

  • Dealing with a negative performance review:

    Do:
    Ask questions and get clarifications — it’s critical to understand the specific ways you can improve
    Take the initiative to make a detailed plan of action
    Remember to see the value in feedback — it can be a springboard for positive change
    Don’t:
    Get angry or argue with the feedback — you’ll only make things worse
    Turn only to sympathetic friends to vent — you also need honest mirrors to make sense of the review
    Consider the review the final word — how you react to the feedback is far more important

    http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/10/what-to-do-after-a-bad-performance-review/

  • Small Talk: Ask people about their challenges…

    A great question I love is challenges. “What kind of challenges did you have at work this week? What kind of challenges do you have living in this part of the country? What kinds of challenges do you have raising teenagers?” Everyone has got challenges. It gets people to share what their priorities in life are at that point in time.

    http://lifehacker.com/generate-better-small-talk-by-asking-about-challenges-1651767365

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Video: Influence and persuasion

At some point today you’ll probably need to persuade someone—your boss, a co-worker, a customer, your spouse, or even your kids. In our time-challenged modern world a crucial question emerges that this book helps you answer: What’s the smallest change you could make to your approach that will best increase your chances of success?

In THE SMALL BIG, three heavyweights from the world of persuasion science and practice – Steve Martin, Noah Goldstein and Robert Cialdini – describe how, in today’s information-overloaded world, often it’s not the strength of your argument or how much information you provide that will carry sway. More and more it is small changes to the way you present your proposal or argument that can make the biggest difference to your results.

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Productivity Bulletin: 10/30/2014

Photo: Sean MacEntee, Flickr

  1. Get more out of the books you read by creating an index:As she reads, she creates an index at the front of the book that lists its most interesting ideas.

    Every time she encounters a passage relevant to one of these ideas she adds the page to the relevant line in the index. If its a new idea, she creates a new line for it.As she reads more, the index grows.Here’s what’s great about this idea index method: When you pick up a book read long ago, you can quickly recall what it has to offer by glancing at the index. Then, if you want to grab some quotes about one of these ideas, the index tells you exactly where to look (no more reading every annotation!).

    http://lifehacker.com/get-more-out-of-the-books-you-read-with-an-idea-index-1650296391

  2. Using your breaks productively:
    http://lifehacker.com/how-do-you-use-your-breaks-productively-1648996284
  3. Free budget and productivity excel templates:
    http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/
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Productivity Bulletin: 10/22/2014

Photo: Sean MacEntee, Flickr

  1. Make the most of a mentor and to advance:
    Align yourself with someone who does what you want to do, define what success means to you,  make friends with your mentor’s critics (figure out what they aren’t good at and learn from that), don’t try to be identical to them (you are you).  
    http://lifehacker.com/how-to-make-the-most-of-a-mentor-and-get-ahead-in-your-1646087771
  2. 5 simple steps to prioritize your task list:

    Does this take me closer to my goal?
    Does this really matter to my boss?
    Does this make me money?
    Does this lighten my mental load?
    Does this have to be done today?

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3036684/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/5-tips-for-prioritizing-your-ever-growing-to-do-list

  3. Why privacy matters even if you aren’t doing anything wrong: