1: How long do you have someone’s attention at the beginning of a meeting?

About 10 minutes. 

That’s it, Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.

“You naturally have someone’s attention for about 10 minutes before that person loses focus on your message,” says John Medina, author of the brilliant book Brain Rules and the director of the Brain Center … continue reading

1: Imagine a beautiful summer morning on Lake Erie.

“The sun’s out, but there’s just enough breeze to keep you comfortable. It’s not too hot and not too cold,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their powerful book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.

Erik is lying in a hammock right by the beach. He’s reading a good book. On the table next to him is a cold … continue reading

Author Oliver Burkeman and his family recently moved from Brooklyn to the North York Moors in northern England.

“Which means that very often in the early mornings, carrying a flask of hot coffee, I get to stroll along a lane with spectacular views across a valley to the heather-topped ridge beyond,” he writes in Meditations for Mortals.

“In winter, the pink light of sunrise pours itself slowly over fields … continue reading

1: We’re all likely familiar with the “marshmallow experiments.”

“Social psychologist Walter Mischel and his colleagues presented children with a single marshmallow and offered them a choice: They could eat it, or wait alone in the room with it for ten minutes, in which case they’d get one more,”  Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts… continue reading

1: “Suppose it’s 4.10 pm, on a day when it’s not my turn for school pickup,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.

“I’m focusing hard in my office at home,” Oliver notes, “when my son bursts in, to tell me excitedly of his preparations for the school play.”

Here is one of those moments of wonderful … continue reading

1: Hurry.  Hurry. Hurry. 

That’s the reality of the life we know. 

“If there’s anything we pick up from reading the four Gospels,” however, John Mark Comer writes in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, “it’s that Jesus was rarely in a hurry.”

“Can you imagine a stressed-out Jesus?” he asks.  “Snapping at Mary Magdalene after a long day, ‘I can’t believe you dropped the hummus.’  Sighing, and saying to … continue reading

1: “On a regular basis I catch myself saying, ‘I wish there were ten more hours in a day,'”  John Mark Comer writes in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

Time is a problem. A limitation. A challenge.

“It doesn’t matter if we’re the CEO of a multinational corporation or a retired school bus driver, John Mark notes, “if we’re single or raising a family of seven, if we live … continue reading

1: Psychologists and mental health professionals call it “hurry sickness.”

They label it a disease.  And it’s an epidemic in our modern world, John Mark Comer writes in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

Hurry sickness is defined as “A behavior pattern characterized by continual rushing and anxiousness.”

And: “A malaise in which a person feels chronically short of time, and so tends to perform every task faster and to … continue reading

1: One of Google Productivity Expert Laura Mae Martin‘s most popular trainings centers around what she calls “The List Funnel.”

We “can think of to-do lists like a funnel,” Laura writes in her book Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing.  “Start with the highest level of everything we could possibly do, or want to do, and narrow it down into what we actually will do … continue reading

1: How do we maximize our productivity?

That’s the question Laura Mae Martin is tasked with at Google.  Her job title?  Google productivity expert.

At the core of Laura teaching is the idea of the List Funnel, “something I’ve taught successfully at Google for years,” she writes in her book Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing.

We “can think of to-do lists like a funnel,” Laura … continue reading