Teaching Business Communication and Workplace Issues

Ironically, procrastination is a problem that we all seem to put off dealing with.

Many people will keep putting off their obligations for as long as they can, even if they are fully aware that their lives would be so much easier, if only they were able to do everything they want to do on time. . .

You have a fire inside you, a frictional energy, read these thoughts, think about them and let them propel you into action.

Most people suck at improving themselves. Even when they’re trying their hardest to become a better person, they wind up running on the dreaded personal development hamster wheel – hours of effort, zero results.

It’s not because they’re stupid. It’s not because they’re lazy. It’s definitely not because it’s not possible. It’s because they’re making the mistakes that most people make when they’re trying to change their life for the better. That’s why there’s so many people reading self-help blogs, self-help books, and taking self-help classes and yet so few people making a meaningful and lasting difference.

So here’s a list of the eight most common (and most damaging) mistakes that people make in personal development.

Are you guilty of any of these?...

We live in a busy world. Whether you’re looking around online or off, there’s “stuff” going on all around us. Some of us are trying to keep up and some of us aren’t. Either way, both parties are inevitably going to miss out on some of this “stuff” I’m alluding to. And that’s because we all need to look at not only why we’re missing out, but how we can avoid missing out on as much as we do. This is when levels of personal productivity come into play.

So, how do you “level up” your personal productivity? Well, here are 10 things that you need to do to be supremely productive.

Do you have trouble staying focused?

Whether you work for yourself or for an employer, spending hours surfing the net and updating your Facebook profile won’t get you any closer to your goals ... yet you find it hard to keep on-task.

Even when you do try to concentrate, you might get to 5pm and feel like you’ve not accomplished anything.

Here’s how to stay focused and get more done – every day.

Minimize Interruptions
If you live alone and work from home, interruptions are unlikely to be a big problem. If you work in a busy office and your job involves a lot of reactive tasks, like answering phone calls or emails from clients, you might be getting interrupted every few minutes...

Want to get the stuff done that really matters? Boost your productivity and lessen distractions by scheduling them in time blocks.

The demands on our time are greater now than ever before. With information coming at us faster than we can digest it, responsibilities handed to us faster than we can handle them and communication moving at breakneck speed, finding ways to fit as much as possible into your day is a daunting task to say the least. But there is a way to get more done of what you want and need with less distraction, and it’s a strategy that you likely employ for some things already.

You have to schedule stuff. Not just the appointment-specific stuff, but all of the stuff that matters. You can do that by scheduling time blocks.

The one great equalizer that all of humanity has is time. No one has twenty-five hours in their day; we all have twenty-four. How we choose to use those hours is what separates us. By scheduling the stuff that matters (from the urgent to the crucial), you’ll be spending those hours far more wisely. In addition, you’ll be living your days proactively rather than reactively...

There will never be another Steve Jobs. His parting gift to the world are 10 lessons we can all use in life and leadership. Steve Jobs lessons in digital leadership.

Digital Leadership

It is a sad day for the world when a visionary like Steve Jobs is no longer walking among us. It truly reminds all of us how short and precious life is. Just like there will never be another Socrates, Wayne Gretzky, Winston Churchill, or Ghandi, there will never be another Steve Jobs. While we can never become Steve Jobs, nor should we strive to be (follow your heart). What we can do is understand what is the greatness of Steve Jobs and, where applicable, apply these principals to help us develop as leaders...

This is lesson #48 from my book Little Things Matter, 100 Ways to Improve Your Life Today.

If you are like most people you probably spend more time worrying than you should. Worrying about job security, project deadlines, health, shrinking budgets, rising taxes, the housing market, world poverty, our children’s safety, even the weather. Some things we can control, others we clearly cannot. The key to maintaining a positive attitude in life is to know the difference.

I heard years ago that 92 percent of the things people worry about are beyond their control.

If you are troubled about something you can control, like whether you are going to lose your job, then step up your game. Come in early, stay late, offer to work on a weekend, or volunteer to take on additional responsibilities; do anything you can think of to increase your value. If you end up losing your job, you can bet you’ll get a better reference...

We all do it to some degree or another; put off for tomorrow what we know should be done today. Postpone the inevitable pain for the current moment of pleasure. But we know that even if we can manage to put it out of our minds for the present, it will eventually come around and bite us on the butt and disturb our external calm demeanor.

Below are some of the symptoms of a Procrastinator and the remedies to try.

1. Lack of Vision
Not having a clear vision for the future is one of the biggest reasons people procrastinate. If you can’t see the benefits of completing certain tasks why would you bother starting them?
Remedy: Have a clear picture of all that needs to be achieved and the reasons why, you are much more likely to be motivated to get going and get things done...

Last week I was at the grocery store when my three-year old toddler asked, “Daddy, I want that chocolate ice cream.” I suppose it was more a demand than a question. When I refused to put the chocolate ice cream in our cart, he quickly turned up his volume by about 100 decibels, and made his demand again. The last thing I wanted was to create a scene at the grocery store, so I gave in and placed the ice cream in the cart. He was very persuasive.

If you’re not a toddler, then screaming at the top of your lungs would probably not be very effective. But whether you want to admit it, we persuade people on a daily basis. In fact, we have to persuade people quite often to get what we want. I want you to read this article, so I started out with a relatable anecdote about persuasion to get you hooked. Did it persuade you to continue reading? If you want to upgrade your own persuasion skills, keep reading!...

There’s no point in getting more efficient at doing things that don’t need to be done. -Jan Jasper

Before you start making a schedule, organizing a task list, setting deadlines, gathering materials, delegating, prioritizing, and so on, stop and do this first.

- Write down your top five goals for your business in the next five years, say, or just in the next year. Make it long-term enough to pull your perspective out of the current crisis or negative cash flow or whatever it is that is screaming “URGENT” at you.
- Now, with those five goals in front of you, list backwards the actions you need to take. In other words, start with the ultimate goal and work your way back from there to where you are now...

This article debunks four common procrastination myths we often tell ourselves in order to avoid doing the hard work that needs to be done.

There are less than one hundred days left in 2011.
If you have a backlog of projects that you meant to work on this year, but which you haven’t gotten around to, it’s very likely that procrastination is the culprit.

Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., creator of the popular web site procrastination.ca, is one of the world’s foremost experts on procrastination. Dr. Pychyl defines procrastination as “the needless, often irrational, voluntary delay of an intended task”. That is, you intend to work on a task but you go off and start working on something else which you know is not as important, and which doesn’t need to get done right away...