I wrote the book, ZeroInbox, a few years ago to help business clients with a fundamental bottleneck in their workflow, their inbox. I have trained executives, teams and workshop attendees on this methodology to increase speed, clarity and consistency in managing the relentless flow of email in business. I think a lot of people simply giveContinue reading “Do You Have Thousands of Emails in Your Inbox?”
Category Archives: Productivity
Help, I’m Never Getting to the Important Work
I understand. It can be really comforting to do what is urgent and stay in the groove of knocking out tasks. In a given day of work, there’s always the tasks that have to get done to keep pipelines moving, make customers happy and ensure our teams are motivated and productive. However, that nagging feeling,Continue reading “Help, I’m Never Getting to the Important Work”
Technology Darwinism
Automattic, the makers of this blogging platform, WordPress, bought Tumblr for less than 2% of it’s previous acquisition price of $1.1B. The hype has died with another platform. And technology darwinism, survival of the fittest, the tried and true, is brutally pervasive. Social can make you feel like something is happening. But, it’s hard toContinue reading “Technology Darwinism”
Don’t Hold the Hot Potato
We remember the game as kids. The hot potato moved around the group and your job was to touch it and pass it. You were part of the game of movement. You lose if you hold on too long. When you are dealing with information, you are holding the hot potato. The next person needsContinue reading “Don’t Hold the Hot Potato”
How to Be a Resource Maven
Today, we have too much information and technology, not too little. And information and tools are cheap and accessible. You can create value for others by curating information and sharing it specifically and personally. Sure, people share on social media, but it gets drowned out and is hard to consider in the scrolling sea ofContinue reading “How to Be a Resource Maven”
Be a Ruthless Pruner
We are always working on yesterday’s commitments. And when we have committed, it’s so easy to make those decisions sacred. Such reverence for our past commitments builds up continual clutter, drag and mediocrity in our work and lives. Without knowing it, we are managing many subpar projects, possessions and relationships at the cost of whatContinue reading “Be a Ruthless Pruner”
The Weekly Checklist
I like to keep two checklists that I execute to keep my business moving: Weekly Checklist – Actions that have to get done each week for operations Daily Checklist – What is foundational to my personal and business goals Business tends to run on a weekly cadence. The ritual of keeping a weekly checklist ensuresContinue reading “The Weekly Checklist”
Loving The Main Thing
“The main thing Is to keep the main thing the main thing.” ~ Stephen Covey Keeping on the rails is so hard when our brain loves to pull us to distractions. It’s not only the distractions, but we are barraged by other people’s demands and priorities continually. The main thing to do can easily getContinue reading “Loving The Main Thing”
Too Many Moving Parts
You may have to build a business with 100 employees. Maybe a 1,000. That’s the manpower tax to help get your product into the hands of your customer. Instagram had 13 employees serving 30 million users at a $500M valuation at one point. That’s leverage. Compare that to the 145,000 people Kodak employed in theContinue reading “Too Many Moving Parts”
Set Important Decisions to Opt-out
There is such a thing as decision fatigue. Your willpower and ability to make effective decisions changes over the course of a day from mental weariness. When it comes to trying to respond and keep up with the demands of knowledge work, it’s hard to stay sharp and it’s easy to push out things thatContinue reading “Set Important Decisions to Opt-out”
