My alarm was set for 4:30 am yesterday.
Trust me, it was tough to get up early.
My entire family is on vacation and is sleeping in.
Most people in general get up later on Sundays.
But, after listening to James Clear and Atomic Habits, I was again reminded of the importance of daily rituals, daily disciplines, and consistency.
Read MoreTheir presence triggered mixed emotions
Recently, at Sabbath prayer services, a group of young men were in attendance
Turns out that they attended a NYC yeshiva that I had interviewed at when I was in process of leaving Atlanta eight years ago
That job search, like a few others, had come up empty, and again I was feeling low
When I was growing up, there was one advertisement that would consistently grab your attention. In it, U.S. Army personnel were up super early, engaged in all sorts of high-energy training and action tasks. The tagline was, “we do more by 9 AM than most people do all day.”
While I never joined the Armed Forces, intuitively my little brain knew that they were on to something.
That’s because if you want to get more done, you need to start your day early.
Read MoreI grew up in a home that was poor
Not materially poor (we were “middle class,” but on the lower end,) as much as mentally poor
While we never went hungry, we also never had the luxuries many others enjoyed
But that wasn’t what made us “poor”
When people transition their attention away from an unfinished task to attend to a distraction, they lose time, and their subsequent task performance suffers. For example, if you interrupt writing an email to reply to a text message, you will need to refocus when you turn your attention back to finishing your email. That little bit of time of adjusting your focus compounds throughout the day. As we fragment our attention, fatigue and stress increases, which negatively affects performance.
So, not surprisingly, the first component of this “do it” step is to remove distractors.
Read MoreWallace is a straight-shooter, so I knew that there would be instant value in our conversation. While he acknowledges the catastrophic economic impact of COVID-19, he maintains that we were already due for a market correction and reality check. The US economy had experienced 129 consecutive months of growth, and we had foolishly come to take growth for granted.
Now that we have entered this correction, Wallace says, to survive and thrive moving forward, people must ask themselves, “How good are you at delivering what you said you would do?” More and more, people will want to see concrete value for their dollars. Those that can deliver it will rise to the top.
Read MoreThink of the first time you encountered teacher burnout. Where you were. What was going on at the time. The feelings. The experiences. The surroundings.
I'll tell you what it was for me. I was a new teacher in an Orthodox Jewish independent high school. I was fresh. I was idealistic. And I was going to change the world.
Each morning, my colleagues and I would convene in the teacher's lounge. On occasion, we would play a game.
Typically speaking, one doesn’t think of teacher lounges and games; there were no chess or Scrabble boards to be found. The game that we played had no name. I have named it in arrears the “make the calendar disappear” game.
Read MoreLeaders want to delegate so they can clear their desks and get more done.
But many make the mistake of punting away the work, or abdicating, and not offering those that are helping them the tools they need to succeed.
Learn how to empower and support your people to help ensure the success of your next delegation project.
Read MoreToday is a fast day on the Jewish calendar.
While in a sense that’s probably a good thing (I’m probably not the only one who overate on Rosh Hashana,) it presents a challenge for those who seek to get things done after two days out of the office.
On days like this, it’s easy to make excuses.
“I can’t get much done,” we say, “when I can’t eat.”
Of course, we don’t need fast days to find excuses for a lack of productivity or performance.
“I won’t get much done if I spend all day in traffic.”
“The weather is really crumby and is affecting my mood.”
“Jane is out again. There’s no way that I can make up the slack.”
“Without their advertising budget, we simply can’t match their market reach.”
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