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#Leadership : Why you Should Never Work Longer than 90 Minutes at a Time…By Working in 90-Minute Intervals (or Less) you Could Maximize your Productivity. Here’s What you Need to Know.

November 16, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

There’s so much emphasis on increasing productivity these days. Some companies are even doing things like doing away with meetings altogether to try to increase it. Workers are being mindful of productivity, too. Given the pace and expectations of modern life, we’d all like to understand how to best maximize our time and energy. It turns out, there may be a simple solution.

By working in 90-minute intervals (or less) you could maximize your productivity. Here’s what you need to know.

1. Strategic renewal works

Sometimes it seems like rushing around from place to place, or from one task to the next, is the only option we have for getting everything done. Our days are packed, so trying to find a chance to slow down a little feels almost impossible. But, taking time to relax could actually save you time in the long run. According to a piece in The New York Times, “strategic renewal,” which includes everything from daytime naps or workouts to longer and more frequent vacations, has been shown to increase productivity in the long run. So, while it might seem like there isn’t enough time to take a break, it’s actually one of the keys to getting a lot done.

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2. The basic-rest-activity-cycle (BRAC) impacts our waking and sleeping lives

We’ve known for more than 50 years that we sleep in 90-minute cycles. (If you have a sleep tracker, likely as a feature of an activity band, you might have noticed this yourself.) We move from light sleep, to deep sleep (and restorative REM state) in roughly 90-minute waves. About a decade after we learned about this natural sleep cycle, researchers began to realize that we follow a similar pattern in our waking lives as well.

3. To maximize productivity, work in 90-minute intervals

In response to this information, and in an effort to better understand productivity, Florida State University Professor K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues studied “elite performers,” folks who excelled in their field, whether they were musicians, athletes, or chess players. Ericsson discovered that uninterrupted practice in intervals of 90 minutes or less, with breaks in between sessions, worked best for maximizing productivity. Also, he noted that these folks rarely worked more than four-and-a-half hours in a given day.

“To maximize gains from long-term practice,” Ericsson concluded, “individuals must avoid exhaustion and must limit practice to an amount from which they can completely recover on a daily or weekly basis.”

By focusing on limiting our fatigue to a level that we can completely recover from in a timely way, we can help to maximize our time and our productive efforts. Perhaps thinking of work or projects in terms of how they can be blocked into 90-minute chunks could be a good place to start. Who knows, maybe with practice we could even build to keeping our active workdays under that four-and-a-half-hour maximum Ericsson recommended, too.

Find out how your salary stacks up on PayScale.

Businessinsider.com | November 11, 2016 | Gina Belli, PayScale

#Leadership : This 100-Year-Old To-Do List Hack Still Works Like A Charm…The “Ivy Lee Method” is Stupidly Simple, and That’s Partly Why It’s so Effective.

August 25, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

By 1918, Charles M. Schwab was one of the richest men in the world. Schwab (oddly enough, no relation to Charles R. Schwab, founder of the Charles Schwab Corporation) was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the largest shipbuilder and the second-largest steel producer in the U.S. at the time. The famous inventor Thomas Edison once referred to Schwab as the “master hustler.” He was constantly seeking an edge over the competition.

Accounts differ as to the date, but according to historian Scott M. Cutlip, it was one day in 1918 that Schwab—in his quest to increase the efficiency of his team and discover better ways to get things done—arranged a meeting with a highly respected productivity consultant named Ivy Lee.

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Lee was a successful businessman in his own right and is widely remembered as a pioneer in the field of public relations. As the story goes, Schwab brought Lee into his office and said, “Show me a way to get more things done.”

“Give me 15 minutes with each of your executives,” Lee replied. “How much will it cost me?” Schwab asked. “Nothing,” Lee said. “Unless it works. After three months, you can send me a check for whatever you feel it’s worth to you.”

THE IVY LEE METHOD

During his 15 minutes with each executive, Lee explained his simple method for achieving peak productivity:

At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
Repeat this process every working day.

The strategy sounded simple, but Schwab and his executive team at Bethlehem Steel gave it a try. After three months, Schwab was so delighted with the progress his company had made that he called Lee into his office and wrote him a check for $25,000.

Complexity is often a weakness because it makes it harder to get back on track.

A $25,000 check written in 1918 is the equivalent of a $400,000 check in 2015.

The Ivy Lee Method of prioritizing your to-do list seems stupidly simple. How could something this simple be worth so much?

What makes it so effective?

ON MANAGING PRIORITIES WELL

Ivy Lee’s productivity method utilizes many of the concepts I have written about previously.

Here’s what makes it so effective:

Basically, if you commit to nothing, you’ll be distracted by everything.

It’s simple enough to actually work. The primary critique of methods like this one is that they are too basic. They don’t account for all of the complexities and nuances of life. What happens if an emergency pops up? What about using the latest technology to our fullest advantage? In my experience, complexity is often a weakness because it makes it harder to get back on track. Yes, emergencies and unexpected distractions will arise. Ignore them as much as possible, deal with them when you must, and get back to your prioritized to-do list as soon as possible. Use simple rules to guide complex behavior.

It forces you to make tough decisions. I don’t believe there is anything magical about Lee’s number of six important tasks per day. It could just as easily be five tasks per day. However, I do think there is something magical about imposing limits upon yourself. I find that the single best thing to do when you have too many ideas (or when you’re overwhelmed by everything you need to get done) is to prune your ideas and trim away everything that isn’t absolutely necessary. Constraints can make you better. Lee’s method is similar to Warren Buffet’s 25-5 Rule, which requires you to focus on just five critical tasks and ignore everything else. Basically,if you commit to nothing, you’ll be distracted by everything.

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It removes the friction of starting.The biggest hurdle to finishing most tasks is starting them. (Getting off the couch can be tough, but once you actually start running, it is much easier to finish your workout.) Lee’s method forces you to decide on your first task the night before you go to work. This strategy has been incredibly useful for me: As a writer, I can waste three or four hours debating what I should write about on a given day. If I decide the night before, however, I can wake up and start writing immediately. It’s simple, but it works. In the beginning, getting started is just as important as succeeding at all.

It requires you to single-task. Modern society loves multitasking. The myth of multitasking is that being busy is synonymous with being better. The exact opposite is true. Having fewer priorities leads to better work. Study world-class experts in nearly any field—athletes, artists, scientists, teachers, CEOs—and you’ll discover one characteristic that runs through all of them: focus. The reason is simple. You can’t be great at one task if you’re constantly dividing your time 10 different ways. Mastery requires focus and consistency.

The bottom line? Do the most important thing first each day. It’s the only productivity trick you need.

James Clear writes about self-improvement tips based on proven scientific research at JamesClear.com, where this article first appeared. It is adapted with permission.

FastCompany.com | JAMES CLEAR | 08.22.16 5:00 AM

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#Leadership : 9 Bad Habits You Must Break To Be More Productive…Bad Habits Slow you Down, Decrease your Accuracy, Make you Less Creative & Stifle your Performance. Getting Control of your Bad Habits is Critical, & not Just for Productivity’s Sake.

July 10, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Nothing sabotages your productivity quite like bad habits. They are insidious, creeping up on you slowly until you don’t even notice the damage they’re causing.

Bad habits slow you down, decrease your accuracy, make you less creative and stifle your performance. Getting control of your bad habits is critical, and not just for productivity’s sake. A University of Minnesota study found that people who exercise a high degree of self-control tend to be much happier than those who don’t, both in the moment and in the long run.

“By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.” — Grenville Kleiser

Some bad habits cause more trouble than others, and the nine that follow are the worst offenders. Shedding these habits will increase your productivity and allow you to enjoy the positive mood that comes with increased self-control.

1. Impulsively surfing the internet. It takes you 15 consecutive minutes of focus before you can fully engage in a task. Once you do, you fall into a euphoric state of increased productivity called flow. Research shows that people in a flow state are five times more productive than they otherwise would be. When you click out of your work because you get an itch to check the news, Facebook, a sport’s score, or what have you, this pulls you out of flow. This means you have to go through another 15 minutes of continuous focus to reenter the flow state. Click in and out of your work enough times, and you can go through an entire day without experiencing flow.

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2. Perfectionism. Most writers spend countless hours brainstorming characters and plot, and they even write page after page that they know they’ll never include in the book. They do this because they know that ideas need time to develop. We tend to freeze up when it’s time to get started because we know that our ideas aren’t perfect and what we produce might not be any good. But how can you ever produce something great if you don’t get started and give your ideas time to evolve? Author Jodi Picoult summarized the importance of avoiding perfectionism perfectly: “You can edit a bad page, but you can’t edit a blank page.”

3. Meetings. Meetings gobble up your precious time like no other. Ultra-productive people avoid meetings as much as humanly possible. They know that a meeting will drag on forever if they let it, so when they must have a meeting they inform everyone at the onset that they’ll stick to the intended schedule. This sets a clear limit that motivates everyone to be more focused and efficient.

4. Responding to e-mails as they arrive. Productive people don’t allow their e-mail to be a constant interruption. In addition to checking their e-mail on a schedule, they take advantage of features that prioritize messages by sender. They set alerts for their most important vendors and their best customers, and they save the rest until they reach a stopping point in their work. Some people even set up an autoresponder that lets senders know when they’ll be checking their e-mail again.

5. Hitting the snooze button. When you sleep, your brain moves through an elaborate series of cycles, the last of which prepares you to be alert at your wake up time. This is why you’ll sometimes wake up right before your alarm clock goes off — your brain knows it’s time to wake up and it’s ready to do so. When you hit the snooze button and fall back asleep, you lose this alertness and wake up later, tired and groggy. Worst of all, this grogginess can take hours to wear off. So no matter how tired you think you are when your alarm clock goes off, force yourself out of bed if you want to have a productive morning.

6. Multitasking. Multitasking is a real productivity killer. Research conducted at Stanford University confirms that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. The researchers found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information cannot pay attention, recall information or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.

But what if some people have a special gift for multitasking? The Stanford researchers compared groups of people, based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers — those who multitasked a lot and felt that it boosted their performance — were actually worse at multitasking than those who liked to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another. Ouch!

7. Putting off tough tasks. We have a limited amount of mental energy, and as we exhaust this energy, our decision-making and productivity decline rapidly. This is called decision fatigue. When you put off tough tasks till late in the day because they’re intimidating, you save them for when you’re at your worst. To beat decision fatigue, you must tackle complex tasks in the morning when your mind is fresh.

8. Using your phone, tablet or computer in bed. This is a big one that most people don’t even realize harms their sleep and productivity. Short-wavelength blue light plays an important role in your mood, energy level and sleep quality. In the morning, sunlight contains high concentrations of this blue light. When your eyes are exposed to it directly, the blue light halts production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and makes you feel more alert. In the afternoon, the sun’s rays lose their blue light, which allows your body to produce melatonin and start making you sleepy.

By the evening, your brain doesn’t expect any blue light exposure and is very sensitive to it. Most of our favorite evening devices — laptops, tablets, televisions, and mobile phones — emit short-wavelength blue light, and in the case of your laptop, tablet and phone, they do so brightly and right in your face. This exposure impairs melatonin production and interferes with your ability to fall asleep as well as with the quality of your sleep once you do nod off. As we’ve all experienced, a poor night’s sleep has disastrous effects upon productivity. The best thing you can do is to avoid these devices after dinner (television is OK for most people as long as they sit far enough away from the set).

9. Eating too much sugar. Glucose functions as the “gas pedal” for energy in the brain. You need glucose to concentrate on challenging tasks. With too little glucose, you feel tired, unfocused and slow; too much glucose leaves you jittery and unable to concentrate. Research has shown that the sweet spot is about 25 grams of glucose. The tricky thing is that you can get these 25 grams of glucose any way you want, and you’ll feel the same — at least initially. The difference lies in how long the productivity lasts. Donuts, soda and other forms of refined sugar lead to an energy boost that lasts a mere 20 minutes, while oatmeal, brown rice and other foods containing complex carbohydrates release their energy slowly, which enables you to sustain your focus.

Bringing It All Together

Some of these habits may seem minor, but they add up. Most amount to a personal choice between immediate pleasures and lasting ones. After all, the worst habit is losing track of what really matters to you.

A version of this article appeared on TalentSmart.

Entrepreneur.com | July 8, 2016 | Travis Bradberry

#Leadership : 6 Easy Tricks That Will Make You Way More Productive…“Time is What we Want Most, but What we Use Worst.” –William Penn

March 15, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

When it comes to productivity, we all face the same challenge—there are only 24 hours in a day. Since even the best ideas are worthless until they’re executed, how efficiently you use your time is as important as anything else in business.

I’ve become fascinated by productivity secrets because some people seem to have twice the time, and there’s no better way to reach your goals than by finding ways to do more with the precious time you’ve been given.

It feels incredible when you leave the office after an ultra-productive day. It’s a workplace high that’s hard to beat. In my experience you don’t need to work longer or push yourself harder—you just need to work smarter.

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” –William Penn

I’ve learned to rely on productivity hacks that make me far more efficient. I try to squeeze every drop out of every hour without expending any extra effort.

And my favorite hack also happens to be the easiest one to implement. It’s so easy and useful you can begin using it now.

1. Never Touch Things Twice

That’s it. Never put anything in a holding pattern, because touching things twice is a huge time-waster. Don’t save an email or a phone call to deal with later. As soon as something gets your attention you should act on it, delegate it, or delete it.

2. Eat Frogs

To pull this off you’re going to have to eat some frogs. “Eating a frog” is doing the least appetizing, most dreaded item on your to-do list. If you let your frogs sit, you waste your day dreading them. If you eat them right away, then you’re freed up to tackle the stuff that excites and inspires you.

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3. Fight the Tyranny of the Urgent

You’ll also need to master the tyranny of the urgent. The tyranny of the urgent refers to the tendency of little things that have to be done right now to get in the way of what really matters. This creates a huge problem as urgent actions often have little impact. The key here is to delete or delegate. Otherwise, you can find yourself going days, or even weeks, without touching the important stuff. You’ll need to get good at spotting when putting out fires is getting in the way of your performance, and you’ll need to delete or delegate the things that hinder real forward momentum.

4. Say No

No is a powerful word that you’re going to have to wield. When it’s time to say no, avoid phrases such as I don’t think I can or I’m not certain. Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully and efficiently fulfill them. Research conducted at the University of California in San Francisco shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Learn to use no, and it will lift your mood, as well as your productivity.

5. Check E-mail On A Schedule

If you aren’t going to touch things twice, you can’t allow e-mail to be a constant interruption. You should check e-mail on a schedule, taking advantage of features that prioritize messages by sender. Set alerts for your most important vendors and best customers, and save the rest until the scheduled time. You could even set up an autoresponder that lets senders know when you’ll be checking your e-mail again.

6. Avoid Multitasking

To make my system work, you’re also going to have to avoid multitasking. It’s a real productivity killer. Research conducted at Stanford University confirms that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. The researchers found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information cannot pay attention, recall information or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time.

Multitasking reduces your efficiency and performance because your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully. Never touching things twice means only touching one thing at a time.

Bringing It All Together

We’re all searching for ways to be more efficient and productive. I hope my productivity hack helps you to find that extra edge.

What productivity hacks do you rely on? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

Forbes.com | March 15, 2016 | Travis Bradberry

#Leadership : #ProductivePeople -5 Ways #SuccessfulPeople Tackle Monday Morning…Great REad!

March 13, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

One of the most popular posts I’ve written on this blog is How Successful People Start Their Day. It seems like every Manager/Entrepreneur is interested in learning how to get ahead early. But starting every day isn’t the same as starting a Monday. Mondays are proven to be harder to face.

Many studies have shown that on Sunday afternoons, most people start to feel depressed. Maybe you’ve felt it. Work is coming. The weekend is over and it wasn’t all you imagined it would be. The pressure of another week of performance begins to hit early. There are hundreds of reasons why, but Sunday afternoon and evening is generally a downer.

No wonder Monday seems to be so, well… Monday.

Over the years, I’ve studied how people can ramp up for the work week. I’ve come to believe that there are not naturally “Monday” people, but that there are disciplines people follow that help them beat the Sunday blues and ramp up for the work week ahead.

Sleep, but don’t snooze.

Managers/Entrepreneurs are notorious for burning the candle at both ends, but the National Sleep Foundation says that you cannot catch up on lost sleep. There may be no more important night to get rest than Sunday night, and no better remedy for Sunday blues than a solid night’s sleep. The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, “Sleep is the best form of meditation.”

On the flip side, do NOT hit the snooze button. Dr. Rafael Pelayo of the Stanford Sleep Center says that by hitting the snooze button, you are telling your body “false alarm!” That results in a more groggy and slow wake up than if you just went ahead and got up when the alarm goes off. Monday is enough of a drag on its own. Hitting snooze only digs a deeper hole for you to climb out of.

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Get Physical.

Getting the body in its proper state often precedes the mind and emotions coming its way. If there’s any day this is most true, it is Monday.

An article by Ron Friedman of Harvard Business Review sites countless studies that show exercise not only motivates and improves work performance, but also pulls us out of a slump. One study found that when a group of people suffering from mild to moderate depression exercised (i.e. strength training, running or walking) for at least 20 to 60 minutes 3 times a week, they were significantly less depressed 5 weeks later. The benefits were immediate and were maintained for these participants as long as they consistently exercised.

I’ve taken this message to heart and have made it a practice to never take both Sunday and Monday off from working out. If I do skip Sunday, Monday morning workouts are a must.

Want to beat the Sunday blues? This Monday, get out the door and walk or run.

It doesn’t have to be a P90X workout. Cosmopolitan Editor-In-Chief Joanna Coles makes a Monday walk with her dog a must and says it helps her start her week. Many of my best ideas have come on Monday morning walks with Moses, Vanderbloemen Search Group’s Chief Canine Officer.

Mondays can leave you low on energy and more unwilling to workout than normal. Here’s an old trick I’ve used on myself for years:

I lie to myself.

I’ll head out the door saying “I’m only running 10 minutes, then I’m quitting.” Turns out, I have never wanted to quit once I was out the door and moving for 10 minutes. And I almost always felt better afterward. By releasing some stress, and some endorphins, you will likely kick your body out of the funk Monday can bring.

Keep email in check until you get to the office.

Dave Karp, CEO and Founder of Tumblr, says that he will not respond to email until he gets to the office. I’ve found this to be especially effective for Mondays. The beginning of the week is the time when you set your mental state for the week. Stay focused on the big projects ahead and devote brain power there. The distractive power of email can take your brain away from big planning and into minutia that can wait. Honestly, when is the last time you had a Monday email that had to be dealt with right away?

Never quit (or make big decisions) on a Monday.

There’s an old saying, “Don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions.” That couldn’t be more true than on Mondays.

In our work helping churches find their key staff, Monday is the number one day for resumes to come to us unsolicited. People get bummed out on Sunday afternoon or evening, come into work Monday, and decide that they have had enough. After working with tens of thousands of candidates, we have come to believe that Monday is the number one day people quit their job.

But quitting on a day you’re down is a really bad idea. In fact, making any major decisions when depressed is almost always counterproductive and later regretted .

Making major decisions on the day when you’re down can have serious consequences. Most big decisions can wait until Tuesday, particularly if you start to shape your schedule around the idea.

When I was younger (read, when I knew everything) and leading churches, I thought it was a great idea to start Monday with marathon meetings filled with big agendas and decisions. I even scheduled our board and committee meetings for Monday nights. I was dead wrong. Turns out, not every day was designed for intense decisions.

Schedule work that has tangible results on Mondays.

Just like working out will help you out of the low points, so will working on projects where you can see immediate results.

Behavioral Psychologist Kelly Lambert has done a lot of research that shows handiwork can pull us out of depressed moments. When we knit a scarf, for instance, Lambert says, the brain’s executive-thinking centers get busy planning.

Spend your Mondays with a punch list of attainable goals.

Do tasks and projects that can be completed and have a box to check. Maybe it’s organizing your desk, planning a month of your calendar, writing notes of encouragement to staff, or knocking out some of those menial tasks you never seem to “have time for.” I have learned to keep a running “Monday punchlist” throughout the week so that I have some projects ready to go before I ever get to the office. If you’re anything like me, you will find that finishing a to-do list will do wonders for your soul.

I’m sure there are other tips out there for getting out of a low spot, and maybe some of you don’t suffer from post-Sunday Blues. But if you do, know that you’re not alone, and that they will pass.

I know when I was preaching, as much as I loved it, I often thought, “Sunday seems to come around every seven days!”

The good news is, Tuesday does, too.

Forbes.com | March 13, 2016 | William Vanderbloemen

#Leadership : Why We Seem To Be Talking More And Working Less — The Nature Of Work Has Changed….The Real Reason That we Communicate More is Because, Today, we Need to Collaborate More to Be Effective.

March 7, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Are communication technologies like Slack, Yammer and Skype actually helping us, or just getting in the way? Certainly, they have made it easier to communicate, share information and collaborate with colleagues, but what if all that extra communication is actually preventing us from getting important work done?

In a recent article in Harvard Business Review, Bain & Co. partner Michael Mankins estimates that while a typical executive in the 1970’s might have received 1,000 messages a year, that number has skyrocketed to more than 30,000 today and argues that we may “have reached the point of diminishing returns.”

I think just about everyone can see his point. Today, the amount of meetings, emails and IM’s we receive can seem overwhelming and it’s increasingly hard to find uninterrupted quiet time to focus and concentrate. However, the nature of work has changed. The real reason that we communicate more is because, today, we need to collaborate more to be effective.

Today, Machines Do A Lot Of The Work For Us

First, consider how different work was 20 years ago, when Microsoft had just released Windows 95 and few executives regularly used programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. We largely communicated by phone and memos typed up by secretaries. Data analysis was something you did with a pencil, paper and a desk calculator.

Now consider how Mankins performed the study he described in the article. He writes, “My colleagues at Bain and I have studied these effects using people analytics and data mining tools.” It’s safe to assume that all that data was collected and analyzed electronically and shared instantly with the press of a button.

It’s also safe to assume that he and his colleagues spent quite a bit of time discussing what the results of all that analysis meant. 20 years ago, they would have had to set up a meeting or a phone call when they were all free, but today, they can toss around ideas between meetings, in airport lounges or even while waiting for an elevator.

As Mankins himself wrote in an earlier article, “Today, an algorithm can assemble many more facts about the accounts than any human being could easily process.” The truth is that we’re increasingly collaborating with machines to get cognitive work done and so it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re taking more time to discuss that work with each other.

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Problems Are Becoming Much More Complex

Another thing to take into account is that the work we do today is far more complex. Would Mankins have even undertaken his study without the “people analytics and data mining tools” made available to him today? Possibly, but it would have been significantly more onerous.

It’s also important to note that the trend toward greater communication is not just visible in industry, but in academia as well, where we can assume that researchers have more options to work quietly and without interruption. Yet they are increasingly choosing to work in teams and those teams outperform solo performers.

The journal Nature recently noted that the average scientific paper today has four times as many authors as one did in 1950 and the work they are doing is far more interdisciplinary and done at greater distances than in the past. It’s hard to see how any of that could happen without the improved communication technologies we enjoy today.

Clearly, technology is enabling us to tackle problems we wouldn’t have dreamed of addressing a generation ago. To work on these challenges, we are increasingly collaborating in teams and our work has become more social and less cognitive.

The Value Of Sharing Information

In the past, communication was often just chit chat. Valuable information was locked away in file cabinets and, if we could find it, we would have to make a hard copy in order to share it with anyone else. Yet today, even teenager with a smartphone has more access to information than a highly trained specialist a generation ago.

For a typical executive, the effect has been even greater. The new technologies that make up the Internet of Things collect information automatically from a vast array of sensors embedded in just about anything you can think of. This data, in turn, is analyzed through the use of other technologies, like Hadoop and Spark, to help us make sense of it.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re discussing all of the information we now have access to. We can glean new insights, share them with others and they can reply with insights of their own. The result of this collaboration is often even more collaboration, as we pull people in with a greater diversity of experience and expertise to get their take.

That doesn’t seem like wasted time to me. The truth is that nature of work is changing. The office is no longer a place where we access information—today, we can do that anytime, anyplace—but rather a place where we access people. It’s where we can meet face to face, communicate non-verbally as well as verbally, build stronger working relationships and collaborate more effectively.

Collaboration Is The New Competitive Advantage

To be fair to Mr. Mankins, his greater point—and the subject of much of his other writing—is that we should put more thought into how we adopt and use our newfound communication assets. Surely, we all spend time attending meetings, getting pulled into conference calls, reading and responding to messages that could be used more productively. And that’s frustrating.

However—and this is a crucial point—we don’t know those interactions will be fruitless until we actually have them. Further, while it’s easy to remember the frustration of having our time wasted, it is not much harder to recall times when we have come across a random thread of information that we were able to capitalize on by sharing with colleagues.

It is also those chance encounters that often lead to bigger things, precisely because we are able to share them, get diverse viewpoints and mobilize the efforts of others. Increasingly, we live in a social economy with collaboration at its center. It is no longer just efficiency, but agility and interoperability that makes firms successful.

So, while I take Mankins’ point about the potential for new communication technologies to unproductively monopolize our time, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, the cacophony of the constant barrage of communication can seem distracting at times, but it can also open up new worlds of opportunity. That is, if we are paying attention.

Greg Satell is a US based business consultant and popular speaker. You can find his blog at Digital Tonto and follow him on twitter @DigitalTonto.

Forbes.com | March 6, 2016 | Greg Satell

#Leadership : How to Rewire Your Brain for Serious #Productivity …If your Meetings are Sputtering, Rewiring the Gray Matter May Help Get Employees Reconnected.

March 4, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

The co-founders of Aditazz, which uses software to design and construct hospitals and other specialized buildings, were beyond frustrated. Zigmund Rubel, an architect, wanted to design buildings in one direction, either from the outside in or from the inside out, depending on the project. Deepak Aatresh, the CEO and an electrical and computer science engineer, was interested in simultaneous outside-in, inside-out design aided by computation.

It was one of many seemingly irresolvable conflicts. “We knew we were well-intentioned, very smart, accomplished people, but it was hard to make forward progress,” Aatresh says.

This type of clash is familiar to neuroscience expert Ajit Singh, a partner at VC Artiman Ventures and member of the Aditazz board of directors; it has its roots in the brain. Innovation comes from combining disciplines, but people in different disciplines don’t think the same way. The idea that the right brain hemisphere controls creativity and the left logic has been debunked. But research shows that the left brain is more responsible for language, whereas the right takes care of spatial processing and attention. “People don’t select professions,” Singh explains. “Professions select people.”

These differences were interfering with decision making. Aatresh would schedule one-hour meetings for the startup team to make major decisions, but the conversation would go off-track. An hour would pass and little was accomplished. When he asked Singh how long decision making should take, the answer was: “I don’t know. Let’s let it go.” The solution was to create a lounge area with comfortable seating where people could sit as a group. Meetings began at 6 p.m., included wine and snacks, and had no planned end time. Some went as late as 1 a.m. But Aditazz’s best innovations came out of these sessions.

You may not want all-nighters, but Aditazz’s approach is broadly applicable. It works by creating a setting in which employees feel safe and open to collaboration. Making your people feel safe is key, because without that, “we go into protect behavior,” says Judith E. Glaser, author of Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. “The amygdala takes over. The prefrontal cortex gets shut down.” The amygdala is linked to fear responses and pleasure. The prefrontal cortex enables empathy, intuition, higher-level social skills, and three-dimensional thinking, Glaser says. “It allows a level of innovation that’s off the charts in a way people have trouble explaining.”

“The idea that the right brain controls creativity and the left logic has been debunked.”

Glaser begins meetings by asking those present to describe what success looks like. When someone hears that others share his or her goals, it stimulates the rostromedial prefrontal cortex, which governs social decisions. “It says, ‘Let’s be friends. I’m more like you than you think,'” she explains. Singh made Rubel and Aatresh start meetings by telling each other that they understand their thought processes are different. “It sounds like kindergarten,” Singh says. “But over time, I saw there was a lot moreempathy.”

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That empathy led Aatresh to change his behavior. “Engineers love to go to the whiteboard,” he says. “I realized that’s intimidating to the intuitive people, because they know you’re going to force their thinking into those boxes.”

Now he sometimes ditches the whiteboard and wanders the room. Invariably, the architects are doodling while the engineers take notes. “For years, I believed people who doodled in meetings were time wasters,” he says. “Now I see there’s a connection between drawing on a sheet of paper and drawing one’s thoughts out.”

Neuro Lessons

Here are three places to reprogram for better performance.

1. Beware the Nonconscious

“People communicate powerful cues by body language. We process these cues nonconsciously, in a fifth of a second,” says Dr. Evian Gordon, CEO ofMyBrainSolutions.com. When we feel threatened, our nonconscious mode can assert itself. If someone says, “But I’m concerned” and crosses her arms, she can nonconsciously give a cue meaning she is switching off.

2. Mind Over Matter

Prime yourself for success by elevating your mood before a speech or meeting–for instance, with 20 minutes of moderate exercise, suggests Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute in New York City, and author of Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done. When stressed, try picturing something calming, such as a flower or landscape.

3. Make People Comfortable

New Jersey-based Pirch, a retailer of luxury appliances, uses neuroscience to create spaces where people feel safe and can enjoy themselves, says co-founder Jim Stuart: “We rationalize our choice of one store or another, but what really happens is that the nonconscious limbic brain hijacks your cerebral cortex. For the nonconscious brain, the priority is avoiding risk and seeking rewards.”

Inside the Mind of the Entrepreneur

Born entrepreneur? New research shows that some people are wired that way.

Greater Mental Flexibility

According to Heidi Hanna, author of The Sharp Solution: A Brain-Based Approach for Optimal Performance, entrepreneurs excel at switching tasks quickly: “It may be from taking on too much at once or that multitasking is more important for their success.”

Higher Perceived Stress

“Most successful entrepreneurs say they have high levels of stress but thrive on it,” Hanna says. In their next phase of research, her team will look at biological markers to see whether stress is harming entrepreneurs or not.

Positively Above Average

A positivity bias is the nonconscious presumption that you are safe, whereas someone with a negativity bias sees threats everywhere. On a negative-to-positive scale of 1 to 10, the average person scores a 5.5, but entrepreneurs hit an average of 6.5.

Accurate and Agile

Entrepreneurs have above-average motor coordination. At first Hanna thought this was insignificant, but then she realized it might be linked to a key trait. “As I talked to entrepreneurs about what makes them different, they said they make quick decisions. If one turns out wrong, they’re confident they’ll be able to make it right.”

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

FROM THE MARCH 2016 ISSUE OF INC. MAGAZINE

Your #Career : Here’s Why #Facebook is Bad for You & Your Career…You might Think you’ve Earned a Few Minutes on Facebook after Completing a Task or Getting Through a Meeting, but Taking Frequent Social Media Breaks Can Derail your Productivity.

March 3, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

It probably happens before you even realize it. One minute you’re in the middle of a work project and the next, you’re mindlessly scrolling through your Facebook timeline, Twitter news feed, or even your LinkedIn connections to see if there’s a colleague you haven’t yet connected with. In some cases, you don’t even remember opening a new tab and navigating to the social media site, and there’s not even a new notification waiting for you because this is the second time in an hour you’ve done this. Not only should this habit be slightly concerning on a personal level, but it also has the potential to be a huge detriment to your professional goals. You might think you’ve earned a few minutes on Facebook after completing a task or getting through a meeting, but taking frequent social media breaks can derail your productivity.

We’ve written before about the dangers of using social media too much, especially Facebook. Social media can distort your perceptions of your friends, affect your mood in ways you don’t even realize, and is even linked to an uptick in depressive tendencies. An article from Psych Central summarizes a number of studies that have expounded on this idea. Using social media too much can often have a negative effect on a person’s self-esteem, especially since people tend to only post the best aspects of their lives on social media. The excessive use of Facebook and other social media sites is also linked to an increase in anxiety and trouble sleeping. In other words, you tend to get uptight and on edge after staring at your news feed for too long, so it’s no wonder that it’s a bad idea to spend your work breaks on the sites.

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Social media’s ‘distracted norm’

Avoiding social media during the workday has made several lists about how to be more productive in the workplace, and it’s not just because they occasionally have negative effects. For some people, checking Facebook regularly won’t lead to negative feelings. But even if you’re immune to social media, checking social media throughout the day is still bound to be a professional pitfall.

There’s a new ‘distracted norm’ in almost every sphere of life now, including the workplace, writes Forbes contributor Frances Booth. The author has written extensively about digital distractions, particularly in the workplace, and has found that phones buzzing in pockets, the easy accessibility of email, and even the habit of surfing the Internet lead to decreased productivity at work, even if you’re doing your best to ignore those digital distractions while on the clock. In one article, Booth asks how long it typically takes for you to switch from a focused work task to a distraction — with email or Facebook the common culprits. Is it an hour? Thirty minutes? Or is it (more likely) quick bursts of 10 minutes or less?

The larger issue here, Booth argues, is that easy work tasks get accomplished within a few minutes. You can easily reply to one quick email, post on social media for work purposes, or something else that’s relatively simple. But more complex work issues either get pushed to the side, or take way longer than they should. “If a task is too difficult or too boring, instead of working through this and sticking with it, the easy answer is to turn to a distraction,” she writes.
Number of Active Social Media Users by Network | FindTheCompany//

The fear, in terms of work productivity, is that innovation and creativity requires deep thinking. This means you can’t be turning to a distraction every five minutes. You need to sit with a problem, think about it for yourself before turning to Google to answer it for you, and be willing to work through an issue for multiple hours at a time. A Facebook dependency won’t help you accomplish that. “Giving in to distraction produces half-formed thoughts, unoriginal thinking, and the same old arguments again and again,” Booth argues.

Facebook has more than 1.4 billion users worldwide, so it’s easy to make that site the bad guy in all of this. But it’s not the only platform that leads to distraction, and it makes up just a part of what behavior science expert James Clear refers to as “digital procrastination.” Clear, in an interview with Entrepreneur, says that digital procrastination is a productivity killer, but it also can negatively affect other decision-making long after the work day is finished.

Fighting social media = less willpower

The reason is because you likely know you shouldn’t be checking Facebook every half hour during the day, so you try to resist the pull of social media while at work. But you’re using up a lot of your willpower to do that, which means you’re vulnerable later in the day to try to resist other bad habits you’re trying to break, like smoking or eating that second piece of cake. “Willpower is like a muscle,” Clear explains. “Every time you use a little bit of it — to resist going to Facebook or BuzzFeed or whatever it is — you’re flexing that muscle. By the end of the day…your willpower fades.”

Entrepreneur suggests trying an app like Freedom, which blocks social media sites and other select websites during the work day (or whatever timeframe you set up for yourself) so that you have no choice but to stay on task. Freedom charges a fee to use its services, but others like Cold Turkey have free options. “It takes the decision making out of your hands,” Clear said.

While we’re on the topic of work breaks, though, keep in mind that research does show that more frequent breaks for smaller amounts of time does help productivity throughout your work day. One study found that productive people often work for 52 consecutive minutes, and then take a break for about 17. Those might be arbitrary numbers, but give it a try to see if a similar breakdown works for you. Just opt for a quick walk or a chat with a coworker instead of logging into Facebook to see whose birthday it is.

CheatSheet.com | March 3, 2016 | Nikelle Murphy

#Leadership : 15 Surprising Things Productive People Do Differently…Interview of over 200 Ultra-Productive People & Simply asked an Open-Question: “What is your Number One Secret to Productivity?”

January 21, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

I recently interviewed over 200 ultra-productive people including 7 billionaires, 13 Olympians, 20 straight-A students and over 200 successful entrepreneurs. I asked a simple, open-ended question, “What is your number one secret to productivity?” After analyzing all of their responses, I coded their answers into 15 unique ideas.

SECRET #1: They focus on minutes, not hours.

Average performers default to hours and half-hour blocks on their calendar. Highly successful people know there are 1,440 minutes in every day and there is nothing more valuable than time. Money can be lost and made again, but time spent can never be reclaimed. As legendary Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller told me, “To this day, I keep a schedule that is almost minute by minute.” You must master your minutes to master your life.

SECRET #2: They focus only on one thing.

Ultra productive people know their Most Important Task (MIT) and work on it for one to two hours each morning, without interruptions. Tom Ziglar, CEO ofZiglar Inc., shared, “Invest the first part of your day working on your number one priority that will help build your business.” What task will have the biggest impact on reaching your goal? What accomplishment will get you promoted at work?

SECRET #3: They don’t use to-do lists.

Throw away your to-do list; instead schedule everything on your calendar. It turns out only 41% of items on to-do lists are ever actually done. And all those undone items lead to stress and insomnia because of the Zeigarnik effect. Highly productive people put everything on their calendar and then work and live from that calendar. “Use a calendar and schedule your entire day into 15-minute blocks. It sounds like a pain, but this will set you up in the 95th percentile…”, advises the co-founder of The Art of Charm, Jordan Harbinger.

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SECRET #4: They beat procrastination with time travel.

Your future self can’t be trusted. That’s because we are “time inconsistent”. We buy veggies today because we think we’ll eat healthy salads all week; then we throw out green rotting mush in the future. I bought P90x because I think I’m going to start exercising vigorously and yet the box sits unopened one year later. What can you do now to make sure your future self does the right thing? Anticipate how you will self-sabotage in the future, and come up with a solution to defeat your future self.

SECRET #5: They make it home for dinner.

I first learned this from Intel’s Andy Grove, “There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.” Highly successful people know what they value in life. Yes, work, but also what else they value. There is no right answer, but for many, values include: family time, exercise, giving back. They consciously allocate their 1440 minutes a day to each area they value (i.e., they put it on their calendar) and then they stick to the schedule.

SECRET #6: They use a notebook.

Richard Branson has said on more than one occasion that he wouldn’t have been able to build Virgin without a simple notebook, which he takes with him wherever he goes. In one interview, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis said, “Always carry a notebook. Write everything down…That is a million dollar lesson they don’t teach you in business school!” Ultra-productive people free their mind by writing everything down.

SECRET #7: They process email only a few times a day.

Ultra-productive people don’t “check” email throughout the day. They don’t respond to each vibration or ding to see who has intruded their inbox. Instead, like everything else, they schedule time to process their email quickly and efficiently. For some that’s only once a day, for me, it’s morning, noon and night.

SECRET #8: They avoid meetings at all costs.

When I asked Mark Cuban to give me his best productivity advice, he quickly responded, “Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check.” Meetings are notorious time killers. They start late, have the wrong people in them, meander in their topics and run long. You should get out of meetings whenever you can, hold fewer of them yourself, and if you do run a meeting, keep it short.

SECRET #9: They say “no” to almost everything.

Billionaire Warren Buffet once said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” And James Altucher colorfully gave me this tip, “If something is not a “hell, YEAH! Then it’s a “no!”

Remember, you only have 1440 minutes in every day. Don’t give them away easily.

SECRET #10: They follow the 80/20 rule.

Known as the Pareto Principle, in most cases 80% of outcomes come from only 20% of activities. Ultra-productive people know which activities drive the greatest results, and focus on those and ignore the rest.

SECRET #11: They delegate almost everything.

Ultra-productive people don’t ask, “How can I do this task?” Instead they ask, “How can this task get done?” They take the “I” out of it as much as possible. Ultra-productive people don’t have control issues and they are not micro-managers. In many cases good enough is, well, good enough.

SECRET #12: They theme days of the week.

Highly successful people often theme days of the week to focus on major areas. For decades I’ve used “Mondays for Meetings” and make sure I’m doing one-on-one check-ins with each direct report. My Friday afternoons are themed around financials and general administrative items that I want to clean up before the new week starts. I’ve previously written about Jack Dorsey’s work themes, which enable him to run two companies at once. Batch your work to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness.

SECRET #13: They touch things only once.

How many times have you opened a piece of regular mail—a bill perhaps—and then put it down only to deal with it again later? How often do you read an email, and then close it and leave it in your inbox to deal with later? Highly successful people try to “touch it once.” If it takes less than five or ten minutes—whatever it is—they’ll deal with it right then and there. It reduces stress since it won’t be in the back of their mind, and is more efficient since they won’t have to re-read or evaluate the item again in the future.

SECRET #14: They practice a consistent morning routine.

My single greatest surprise while interviewing over 200 highly successful people was how many of them wanted to share their morning ritual with me. Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning, told me, “While most people focus on ‘doing’ more to achieve more, The Miracle Morning is about focusing on ‘becoming’ more so that you can start doing less, to achieve more.” While I heard about a wide variety of habits, most people I interviewed nurtured their body in the morning with water, a healthy breakfast and light exercise. They nurtured their mind with meditation or prayer, inspirational reading, and journaling.

SECRET #15: Energy is everything.

You can’t make more minutes in the day, but you can increase your energy which will increase your attention, focus, decision making, and overall productivity. Highly successful people don’t skip meals, sleep or breaks in the pursuit of more, more, more. Instead, they view food as fuel, sleep as recovery, and pulse and pause with “work sprints”.

Tying It All Together

You might not be an entrepreneur, Olympian, or millionaire—or even want to be—but their secrets just might help you to get more done in less time, and help you to stop feeling so overworked and overwhelmed.

–

Kevin Kruse is the author of the bestselling book 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management and the free online “How Millionaires Schedule Their Day: A 1-Page Planning Tool.”

Forbes.com | January 20, 2016 | Kevin Kruse

#Strategy : These 7 Foods Are Killing Your #Productivity … What you #Eat can Severely Hinder your Levels of Productivity – or Significantly Increase it.

December 3, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

There are numerous foods, drinks, and combinations thereof that can easily give you an edge at work, providing a cognitive boost and a shot of energy to get you through the day.

It’s pretty simple really; just think about how certain foods make you feel. When you eat something at McDonald’s or Wendy’s you’re likely to feel sluggish and bloated afterward. Compare that to how you feel after eating, say, a salmon caesar salad.

For a good portion of people, it’s night and day. The only difference is, some people choose to forgo the short-term payoff and satisfaction that fast foods or sugars give us for the long-term benefits of healthy selections. That is, a salad may not be nearly as delicious or satisfying as a cheeseburger, but it will still get rid of those feelings of hunger. And you’ll feel better in an hour or so than you would after going for the quarter-pounder with cheese.

Take a quick glance around your workplace, and you’re likely to see people sipping on sodas, sugar-laden coffees, bowls of candy, etc. All of these things help us get through the day, but don’t do anyone any favors in terms of providing our bodies what they need to function. Simple decisions about what you put into your mouth can make a huge difference in this way, and give you an edge in terms of output.

If you want to really give yourself a leg-up in the office, eat wisely, and add in some exercise. On top of that, establish a solid sleep schedule. You’ll be like Superman.

But in terms of foods that you should absolutely avoid if you have a lot to do, or simply don’t want to feel sluggish and tired, we’ve compiled a short list for you.

1. Soda

You really don’t need anyone to tell you that you shouldn’t drink soda. It’s pretty awful for you in every way – seeing as it’s really nothing more than bubbles, water, food coloring, and sugar/corn syrup. There’s essentially no nutrients, no value, and nothing to gain. But it’s damn delicious. You can’t deny that.

Instead of sucking down sodas, or even coffee or tea plastered with cream and sugar, stick to water. You’re going to give yourself a sugar crash, which is going to seriously inhibit your ability to get things done. It’s also leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year.

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2. Candy

Candy is, in a way, like soda in solid form. There’s a lot of calories, a lot of sugar, and almost no nutritional value, unless you count some salt and minerals. But like soda, eating a candy bar gives you a sugar rush, which your body responds to by releasing certain chemicals to your muscles and brain. At the end of the process, you’ll end up feeling a little gross. Like a mini-hangover. It’s a crash.

Do yourself a favor, and just eat some baby carrots, or go for a protein shake if you’re experiencing a sugar craving.

3. Fried foods

If you’ve ever declared a blitzkrieg on a basket of fries, mozzarella sticks, or any other fried delicacy, you’ve probably felt pretty disgusting afterward. And that’s why it’s key to avoid these types of snacks throughout the work day, as delicious and satisfying as they are. They’re calorie-rich, and yet don’t provide much in the way of nutritional value. Plus, if you eat too much of it, you’re almost guaranteed to clog up your arteries and slip further and further into a sedentary lifestyle.

4. Cheese

On its own, cheese isn’t too bad. It has some proteins and calcium, which are a staple of a healthy diet. So, don’t be discouraged from having a string cheese, or a couple small pieces with lunch.

The issue is that cheese can cause digestion issues with some people. That can lead to gas, diarrhea, or a rumbling stomach, meaning that instead of working, you’re scouring the kitchen for Pepto Bismol. Plus, some cheeses are pretty smelly – obnoxiously so. Make wise decisions around cheese, and make sure you’re not going overboard.

5. Frozen foods

Not all frozen food is inherently bad. You can cook up some frozen fish, for example, (as long as it’s not at work!) and come out pretty well in terms of health. But it’s the overly processed stuff you want to avoid. Frozen corn dogs? Frozen fries? Skip them. They’re not good for you, offer little nutrition, and aren’t very good to begin with.

Yes, pizza rolls are hard to overlook, but you’ll be better off sticking to fresh foods, rather than something that’s been stuck in the back of a freezer for months.

6. Fast food

You’ve seen your coworkers hit up Wendy’s, scarf, and then slip into food comas for the remainder of the day. You don’t want to fall victim yourself, so avoid fast food. Yes, it’s cheap, delicious, and easily accessible, but you’ll do yourself a big favor by steering clear.

Fast food meals typically consist of a number of other elements we’ve already covered: fried foods, frozen foods (fries and hamburger patties are often frozen for delivery, for example), and sodas. It can be hard to say no, so pack yourself a lunch before you leave to avoid the siren call of the Golden Arches.

7. Nothing at all – skipping meals

Want to really kill your productivity and creativity? Skip meals. Don’t eat breakfast, or skip lunch – you’ll be feeling pretty lousy, guaranteed. Your body needs nutrition and sustenance. It needs vitamins, minerals, and calories for energy throughout the day. If you don’t eat breakfast, for example, you’ll be setting yourself up for failure.

In fact, skipping breakfast costs economies a lot of money every year in lost productivity. So make sure you’re getting something to eat in the morning. And no, not a Pop Tart.

Follow Sam on Facebook and Twitter @SliceOfGinger

Cheatsheet.com | December 3, 2015 | Sam Becker