Work Less and Do More

I’m seeking to understand the challenges of dealing with e-mail. It’s not as simple as it seems. Of the people who find e-mail a challenge, different people have different issues. For some, it’s keeping their inbox empty; they get stressed out from a large, unanswered inbox. For others, it’s treating e-mail as interruption (”I know [...]

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“Work hard and you’ll be successful.” “You just need to put in a little hard work.” “Whew! I worked so hard today.”
We say things like this all the time without thinking about it. Recently, my bedframe broke and I needed the mattress moved. Despite my newly developed manly-man muscles (thank you, Trainer Tyler), decades of [...]

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Ok, big epiphany today.
I was complaining. Then I noticed that somethings, I complain about. Others, I don’t. What’s the difference?
For me, complaints seem to be statements of where in my life doesn’t seem under my control. Even when complaining about myself (”Darn these love handles”), I only complain about the things I have trouble with [...]

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Here’s a video by Barry Schwartz, the author of “The Paradox of Choice.” Having more choices seems to be a recipe for doing less and being less happy (exactly the opposite of what we all want). I want to work this material into the book somehow, but am not quite sure how to do it.

Where [...]

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I’ve been exploring ideas around self-promoting at work, being recognized, and motivation as it relates to recognition and achievement.
What is the relationship for you between achievement and recognition? How do you know you’ve achieved something? What forms of recognition do you want for your achievements (from self? others?)? Is there a relationship? If you achieve [...]

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Well, isn’t that just the cat’s pajamas. There’s a new study out that shows that happiness may be linked to absolute levels of income, after all. Of course, as the article states, it’s linked to other things as well, like time spent with friends. This may change part of my thesis for the book. …. [...]

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I’d value your thoughts. I just wrote a fairly rambling post about my frustration at how we ignore data in favor of superstition, and that could lead to stuff like, oh, the collapse of modern society.

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One of my projects of the last year has been turning recordings of speeches and workshops I’ve given into products. I’ve got about 10 I want to produce.
I made the huge mistake of trying to work on several at once. My sound engineer returned to school halfway through. Now, I can’t even locate all the [...]

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In my business blog today, I got a little, er, hot about tax season. In my footnote, I flamed on about the 2004 elections, noting:
One thing I’m sure of: none of you stopped to analyze the quality of your 2004 decision-making and explicitly change the criteria you used to make your bad decision. It may [...]

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There’s a motivational question people ask: What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? It’s a good question for getting over the hurdle of fear of failure.
For me, it can kick me into action. Once I’m in action, though, my immediate instinct is to do what makes the most sense to reach [...]

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