Productivity in the Workplace
Early in my working career, I worked in sales in a cubicle environment. Everyday, I found myself struggling to increase my productivity. You see, I was in a department that was new and understood that, while our sales were difficult to come by, they were vital to the longevity of our newly developed department.
Since our department was somewhat of an experiment, there were only about eight of us in total. This meant that we sat next to one of the more established departments which was a high producer for the company. The interesting thing about this seating arrangement was that the established department was able to make twice as many sales with less effort than our department.
As I worked on increasing my productivity every day, I watched team members of the established department sit back and often
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Reader Survey
I need your help. I want to know how to make my site better. I want it to be more relevant to you, my reader.
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Getting Things Done as a Recovering Perfectionist
As a recovering perfectionist, my tendency is to want to master something before I share it and find myself in a place of vulnerability. For this reason, perfectionism is both one of my strengths and one of my weaknesses. It is a strength as I prefer to offer quality work. It is a weakness because I often work on things that never get finished as I fear they won’t be able to find perfection.
And then I heard someone say: “If you aren’t embarrassed
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Innovating Litterbox Smell Solutions
As a business owner, I love innovation because it provides a competitive advantage. As a consumer, I look toward innovation to solve problems. As a cat owner, well...
Growing up, we had always been a dog family. But my wife came from a cat family. So when my two and half year old daughter found a stray kitten, I became a cat person. And as a cat person, I quickly learned that I needed to look for letterbox smell solutions.
As a dog owner, I had always been accustom to having any animal dirty business conducted outdoors. Yes, cleaning up the fenced in yard was not a desirable job, but it was better than what I was now facing as a cat owner: cat dirty business is done inside. So my I knew we had to find a solution.
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Thank You
My readers are amazing. I am so thankful for each of you and all of the support you show me. You are the motivation for me to continue writing and blogging.
This last week, I put on two seminars in Illinois and was reminded of something: diligence matters more than preparation or even execution.
When I teach seminars, I get a survey from every attendee. Because of this, I often
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The Best Way to Increase Productivity in the Workplace
The best way to increase productivity in the workplace is to take away all irrelevant decisions. As humans, we only have so many decisions we can make in a day before we become overwhelmed and burned out. Even the smallest decisions take an output from our energy stores. So why not eliminate all small, non-critical decisions?
Mark Zuckerburg recently explained that he wears the same shirt most days because
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Why Do Prices End in 99? Not (just) what you think
Why do prices end in 99? It would seem logical to just round them up to the next dollar. Yet so many businesses forego rounding and price their products to end in 99. So why is this done? The answer is not what you think - at least, not only what you think.
The reason why prices end in 99 is often attributed to
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Hotel Innovation: Hacking the Do Not Disturb
The hotel industry is one that I would probably never want to be in. With the intense competition today, just one upset person on Yelp can deter potential guests. This means that if a hotel is doing something differently than other hotels, it can be perceived as being a problem. For this reason, it seems that most hotels operate in a very similar manner. Best practices and customer services are often safer than hotel innovation.
Great customer service and certain industry best practices are expected by guests, so these best practices often become the norm for most hotels: free wifi, a continental breakfast, flat screen TV’s, loyalty rewards, and consistent housekeeping. But every now and then a hotel is able to hack this model - they provide a hotel innovation that stands out. I recently spoke in Whitefish, Montana and stayed at the Grouse Mountain Lodge. To my surprise, they hacked a standard hotel best practice that really made my day.
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Health Insurance Innovation: Hacking the Deductible
Several years ago I worked for an employer who was struggling with rising health care costs. Just like every other business in the United States, they were looking for ways to manage the year after year price increases. The health insurance innovation they came up with was one that was based on the health of the employee - healthy employees would pay less and unhealthy employees would pay more.
But employees naturally disliked this program. It wasn’t that they thought everyone should pay the same for health insurance - they seemed to understand that unhealthy people cost the company more in premiums. They even thought this was a great health insurance innovation. Their problem with the program was with how the program was framed.
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Hacking the Dental Referral
My wife has found a dentist she loves. She doesn’t appreciate him because he makes her teeth whiter or takes away her pain when she has neglected her teeth. She loves her dentist because he has given her $150 in gift certificates.
When she first walked into Dr. Painter’s dental office, she was told about a dental referral program offered by the practice. For every person she referred to the dental office, she would receive a $25 gift card to the merchant of her choice. Having a family of 5, she quickly got her first $100 in gift certificates. Add in her parents, and she was up to $150 with very little work.
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Chopsticks Hack: Biggest Hack Since...
I love Thai food. Specifically, tofu curry is my food of choice. And I always prefer to eat it with chopsticks.
Chopsticks have been around for years. In fact, they were probably invented before the wheel. For this reason, I was surprised to find that the Thai restaurant I ate at today has done it; they have hacked the chopstick.
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3 Ways to Hack Your Business Today
Change is never easy. But change is essential to keeping up with the competition. Especially for small businesses who must compete against the economies of scale of large corporations. Change doesn't have to be a major production or significant undertaking with months of planning and the use of major resources - change can be accomplished through business hacking.
Business hacks are the micro-elements of innovation and strategy. When added together piece by piece, business hacks can provide for a large, substantial change. Just like a marathon is run one step at a time. The following are three ways to quickly hack your business today:
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