If your day doesn’t start with a list of things you want to get done, there’s little chance you’ll get them done. What if you spent thirty minutes to define what you want to get done and then spent an hour getting them done? In ninety minutes you’ll have made a significant dent in the most important work. It doesn’t ...

I want to dedicate a column to the next generation. For me, this means addressing Uncle Leo and Ellery, my youngest son and grandson respectively. May they have the space to explore in the vast treasures of childhood and lose a sense of time while playing. There seems to be an unconscious conspiracy against the people having free time to ...

Air travel gives us lots of options to catch up, but it’s also an option to look back. I just had lunch with a colleague who shared with me that he was traveling 95% of the time. I didn’t bother asking if that was based on calendar days, workdays, or hours. At 95% does it really matter? He said he ...

This past weekend, after finally completing the book I’ve been working on for more than 2 years (The Moral of the Story), I was looking forward to relaxing a bit with the family. However, it didn’t take long before thoughts of all the things still on my plate for the weeks ahead began causing anxiety. In addition to the typical ...

In the sandbox, creativity reigns, stress dissolves, and innovation is suddenly possible.

Most times you’ll see this posed as a question “What matters most?” as people grapple with finding the meaning of life. That is not the case here… Instead I would like to share with you my simple management philosophy that will help you be more successful in today’s sometimes overwhelming, chaotic world of too many competing demands on your time.

I've begun to wonder if the concept of innovation in large corporation is an exercise in pointless navel gazing. And no, this isn't another bashing of brainstorming, or a recent conversion based on my experiences with faulty innovation logic. No, the challenge to innovation is based on the recent development of a core strength: focus, efficiency, time management.

How long will it take? The short answer – same as last time. How long do we want it to take? That’s a different question altogether.

A very good friend of mine works for a large, global company with multiple locations around the world, many of which are run as “hot desks”. He is in a position of responsibility, and often finds himself travelling to a different destination on the other side of the world at short notice. It’s the kind of business where looking for ways to innovate is very important..

Everybody who works in business is busy. There are deadlines, crises, urgent requests from on high, and email inboxes stuffed to bursting. How many times do you reply “very busy” when asked how things are going? Scheduling meetings is a diary nightmare; it’s easier to seek perfect alignment of the planets than to get eight senior people in the same room within the next month. The personal workload and efficiency challenge is particularly acute these days.