Change is easy; deciding to is hard. That’s because we all know that we need to make changes to improve our lives. However, the inertia of the status quo is a very powerful force to overcome when the moment to effect those changes arrives. My personal and professional experience is that small change is, indeed, the most effective strategy for accomplishing all types of goals.
Three Small Steps to Greater Control of Your Day
No Snow Day For Me! The Benefits of Being Virtual
This is a guest post authored by Jessica Levin, professional speaker and principal in Seven Degrees Communication.
It snowed today. Again. Schools are closed. Offices are closed. Many, many people are losing productivity and many businesses are losing money. I, however, am toasty warm working from my office. Sure, I had a meeting canceled today, but I am still am able to get all of my other work done. Why? Because I work 100% virtually.
I didn’t set out to be virtual. It started when I worked in NYC and would occasionally work from home. It then turned into Fridays. When our office was closing and we needed to move buildings, it didn’t make sense for me to get another office. When I think back to that commute and how unproductive it was, working virtually was one of the best decisions I could have made.
A lot of companies don’t want employees working from home for various reasons. I think trust has a lot to do with it. I also understand that this structure doesn’t work for all job types and not everyone has the discipline to “go to work” while they are in their home.
Here is a little glimpse of how I operate. I hope it helps you to understand how easy it can be.
Three Reasons Why Executive Time Management is Like Losing Weight
Instead of doing the normal “set your goals” first-of-the-year post that you’d expect from a productivity guy, I wanted to do something different. The purpose of New Year’s resolutions is to take stock of our lives and, hopefully, find things we can improve. However, making a list of resolutions that invariably fail is not only pointless and unproductive, it’s failure – plain and simple. Why do we want to start the year off with a failure?
And then it hit me! The rate of failure of New Year’s resolutions is so high that their failure must have a pattern, a discernible weakness. That got me to thinking. Why do these resolutions (and similar commitments) fail so often? More importantly, how could that dynamic be changed to make keeping resolutions a successful experience?
Much thought and many discussions ensued to uncover the dynamics of resolution failure. The theory proposed below was developed based on these informal research sessions and the actual experiences of success I encountered. I’m sure there are thousands (millions?) of PhDs who could give us all a lesson on the hows and whys we have difficulty maintaining commitments. But, candidly, if they were so smart, they’d be able to do more than explain why we can’t fulfill certain types of commitments, they’d offer us an answer that can be translated into action resulting in success.
The New Frontier – 2010 In Review
With our holiday travel over, I find myself working on 2011 projects – finalizing my second book, revising my first book into its third edition, and working on my 2011 business plan. Today, though, I’m not feeling the rush to get to the future. Rather, I’m feeling the tug of the past, specifically the last year.
One of the best things about the week between Christmas and New Years is the retrospective programs that are aired on TV and published by print and web content publishers. There’s something visceral and substantive about reviewing what has happened in the last twelve months. Our day-to-day lives tend to be all-consuming, causing us to focus on the right-now and the immediate future. Retrospectives give us an opportunity to pause and consider what has been and how and why it mattered.
A personal favorite of mine is the review of those who have passed away since the ball last dropped. Remembering those people and all that they accomplished during their lives forces me to look at time in the broadest and most relevant of senses – the lifetime. Somehow that perspective is settling and reassuring to me.
With that introduction, then, let me say that for me and mine, 2010 was a year of some pretty dramatic changes and a number of pretty amazing events. Here are some that come to mind.
Paul H. Burton is a nationally recognized time management expert who helps people get more done and enjoy life more. He is the developer of QuietSpacing®, a customizable productivity system that helps busy people increase focus and results on the job. A popular keynote speaker, Paul also provides interactive training programs and customized coaching services. For more information, see the 
