Meetings are essential for the success of any business. They allow people to collaborate and share information, keep updated on company news and make decisions together. Then why do most employees absolutely hate to attend meetings? And what should management change in order to have truly effective meetings?
Decision fatigue is something everyone experiments in their life, especially during periods of high emotional or intellectual distress. In order to cut out its energy loses, your brain reaches a point where it simply refuses to make decisions. It’s that moment when you start answering most questions with “I don’t care”. That doesn’t really mean that you don’t care, but it is actually a way of saying “I refuse or I simply can’t make a decision about that right now”. The more decisions you need to make, the more likely you are to become tired of deciding. Eventually, you either give up or make hasty decisions.
Working with remote teams is a challenge even for the most savvy team leader. Having people from around the world working together can be both a blessing and a challenge. On one hand, you have access to a global workforce, which allows you to enroll the most suitable candidates. But on the other hand, there are lots of obstacles to overcome. In this article we are going to discuss about virtual meetings, one of the hurdles of working remotely, and offer some advice to help you get past it.
Many companies nowadays emphasize the importance of talent. They are driving on the idea that a few top employees are responsible for most of the overall success. However, most recent productivity studies have shown that even those shining superstars need the help of a strong team in order to succeed. Therefore, the importance of teamwork is emphasized more and more, with companies spending millions on team building strategies.
In every aspect of life, long-term relationships are more rewarding for all parts involved than short-term alliances. Of course, the latter can make useful strategies at key moments and for achieving immediate goals. However, if you are running a marathon and not just trying to win a race, you definitely want reliable partners you can actually count on along the way. Therefore, if you are looking to building your company up in the future, you should see long-term collaboration as a priority.
For a second, I challenge you to leave aside everything you’ve learned or heard about productivity so far. Every advice that prompts you to wake up before sunrise and read your goals out loud every night. The purpose of this article is not to invalidate the oldest tricks in the book. However, we cannot ignore the fact that many recipes are either hard to follow, or simply won’t work for a lot of people. The good news is there are ways to boost productivity 🙂
We live in a culture that expects us to be as efficient and productive as possible. Since there are only so many hours in a day, and way too many things to accomplish, the most common solution used by professionals all over the world is cutting back on sleep. Indeed, giving up one third of our time to inactivity seems counterproductive. However, not doing that is what makes millions of people lose or weaken their ability to stay productive and eventually turns into sleep deprivation. This article is dedicated to exploring this correlation between sleep and productivity.
Prioritizing your work life might not seem very easy, when everything you have to do feels important. Taking things as they come, without having a strategy, usually throws you into chaos, where you running a race against time day after day. Eventually, this continuous fight is likely to lead to burnout and dramatically affect your life.
Here are 7 “safety measures” that will hopefully help you fight the chaos and reclaim your productivity.
1. State your core values
Write down the most important things in your life – those that you wouldn’t give up for anything, no matter what.
A simple way to do that is by designing a chart of the most important areas of your life:
personal time
family time
career
school
Next, you should write down your top three priorities for each area.
Once you do that, make sure to invest 80% of your time and most of your efforts into accomplishing the items on your chart. The rest of the time should be allocated to completing other tasks that need to be done.
2. Organize your schedule to reflect your values
Simple and intuitive, your schedule should be focused around your non-negotiable core values.
The amount of time you assign to each of your tasks reflects your true priorities. Very often people dedicate more time to less important tasks, losing sight of what truly matters. Avoid taking on menial tasks and learn to delegate those assignments that don’t necessarily require your expertise.
3. Schedule each day efficiently
One of the easiest strategies for efficient scheduling is the 1-3-5 method. This means that your daily schedule will feature one very important task; three tasks of medium importance; and five little things.
Filling your calendar chaotically usually leads to unbalanced situations when you have accomplished tens of small things, leaving to the end of the week the most important tasks. That will make you frustrated and unhappy, putting you in situations when you have to give up on some areas of your life for the sake of the others. Usually, you end up sacrificing personal life in favor of your work. Yet, achieving a healthy work-life balance is the only way to live a happy and fulfilled life.
4. Identify urgent tasks
I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent. – Eisenhower
Eisenhower inspired productivity experts to create what is called The Eisenhower Matrix for prioritizing tasks. The matrix uses the urgency and importance values to make your work life easier, as shown below.
Both at work and in everyday y life, each generation has something unique to offer. However, the culture gap between generations can make things uncomfortable at times, leaving people feeling less welcome. So how do we create a work culture that brings people together instead of tearing them apart? This is the core of my article, so I encourage you to read forward and find out.