“Studies show that about 49 percent of our waking time, our minds have wandered away from the task at hand,” Bahl says. “Especially with digital communication, there’s a lot of texting, there’s a lot of multitasking going on, and people are losing the ability to focus when they really want to focus.”
This isn’t just harmless woolgathering. According to data from Basex, a Yorktown Heights, New York-based business research firm, the estimated annual cost to the U.S. economy in loss of productivity from multitasking is $997 billion and a minimum of 28 billion hours.
Survival strategies
Layoffs Hit Lincoln Financial Again
Michael Arcaro, a spokesperson with the external communications division of the company, said the cuts were an effort to “enhance the strategic design of our organization.”
via Layoffs Hit Lincoln Financial Again – Concord, NH Patch.
Enhancing strategic design.
That’s a new one to me.
Why Niche Creation is Where It’s At – The Hart Technique
When you embody a niche in the market, you have fewer competitors. Therefore you also have more opportunities. Opportunities have a way of snowballing. Work begets work. The more you work, the more you work.
via Why Niche Creation is Where It’s At | The Hart Technique.
Why Good People Can’t Find Jobs – Part 2
The sad truth is that it’s costly and risky to hire anyone to do anything, and “bankable projects” that might generate profit/require more labor are few and far between. The overhead costs for employees have skyrocketed. So even though the wages employees see on their paychecks have stagnated, the total compensation costs the employer pays have risen substantially.
via charles hugh smith-Dear Person Seeking a Job: Why I Can’t Hire You.
Go read this article. There are quite a few insightful observations.
Go Do – How Hard Can It Be?
Change This – Go Do: How Hard Can It Be?.
If you work hard and love what you do you will find success. Common sense tells us we all become pretty skilled at things we love to do. Conversely, you will never get good at things you hate to do.
Hard work alone is not a guarantee of success. The lack of hard work guarantees failure.
Failure leads to success. You must fail to learn how to succeed.
Do or not do. There is no try.
Yoda
How to Be Happier at Work – Start Something!
Start something. More specifically, start something outside of work.
Before you get mad at me take note of where this article comes from. Harvard Business Review Blog Network is the source of this article. This article reminds me of what I did several years ago. I started something.
When I started something I had no clue what it was I started. What I thought I started was not what I am doing today. In other words, my original plan failed but ultimately my little business succeeded.
Take a risk. Start something!
What are you avoiding doing that you know needs to be done?” We seem to have a talent for burying the truth, covering it up, distracting ourselves from it… When was the last time you took a risk in the direction of your dance?
Laurie Beth Jones
Is Your Staff Sleeping with Their Smartphones?
Teleworking Triples Over the Last Decade
In its report, “The Incredible Disappearing Office: Making Telework Work,” The Conference Board finds that the advancements in home networking over the last decade have been accompanied by teleworking gains among a number of these technology-reliant professions, including insurance underwriters 4.5 percent, up 275 percent since 2001-2003 and computer software developers 6.1 percent, up 127 percent.
via Teleworking Triples Over the Last Decade – Insurance Networking News.
You Are Not A Computer – HBR
The Internet, and all it has come to include, is the most powerful interruption technology ever invented. It slices and dices our focus, fractures and distracts it, gives us less and less of more and more. It prompts us to skim, scan, and skip rather than immerse ourselves in any one thing.
Technology has no business setting our agenda, but it has turned into our dominatrix. Masochistically — but all too willingly — we submit to it. Emailing, texting and tweeting, searching Google, checking Facebook, and surfing websites not only consumes our time and energy, it also diminishes our capacity to pay attention to anything for very long — or to resist the next digital temptation.
via You Are Not A Computer (Try As You May) – Tony Schwartz – Harvard Business Review.
Intelligence Is Overrated: What You Really Need To Succeed – Forbes
Research carried out by the Carnegie Institute of Technology shows that 85 percent of your financial success is due to skills in “human engineering,” your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. Shockingly, only 15 percent is due to technical knowledge. Additionally, Nobel Prize winning Israeli-American psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, found that people would rather do business with a person they like and trust rather than someone they don’t, even if the likeable person is offering a lower quality product or service at a higher price.
via Intelligence Is Overrated: What You Really Need To Succeed – Forbes.
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